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Winter 2010 volume xxxiv, number 1 The Wilson Quarterly Published by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars FEATURES www.wilsonquarterly.com

50 COVER STORY 28 Man of the World 48 THE ARAB TOMORROW By James McGrath Morris | Joseph Pulitzer is By David B. Ottaway remembered for his sensationalist journalism as well as the high-minded prizes still awarded in Decades of drift have brought the Arab his name. The distance between the two isn’t as world to the edge of disaster. Entrenched far as it seems. regimes stifle reform, while oil, Islam, and social discontent mix in explosive combina- 34 Not a Tourist tions. Change is coming. The question is, By Thomas Swick | In today’s hyperconnected who will lead it? world, it seems there’s nothing new under the sun. That’s a matter of perspective, as the most gifted 16 Saint Cesar of Delano travel writers know. By Richard Rodriguez| United Farm Workers 40 Cracks in the Jihad union leader Cesar Chavez knew how to suffer By Thomas Rid | The global jihad is fragmenting, better than he knew how to succeed. and that’s not good news for the West. 21 Planet Pakistan By Robert M. Hathaway | Pakistan is a terror- ist stronghold, yet Pakistanis see the United ON THE COVER: Cairo at sunset, photograph by Marwan Naamani/AFP. States as the dark power in their national life. The views expressed herein are not necessarily those of the Woodrow Americans can help them see the light. Wilson International Center for Scholars.

2 Wilson Quarterly ■ Winter 2010 DEPARTMENTS

14 EDITOR’S COMMENT 74 HISTORY 97 Nothing to Envy: The Father of Political History, Ordinary Lives in North Korea. from The New Criterion By Barbara Demick 15 LETTERS Lincoln’s Rabble-Rousers, from Reviewed by Andrei Lankov The Journal of American History 98 Five to Rule Them All: 8 AT THE CENTER The UN Security Council and the 76 RELIGION & PHILOSOPHY Making of the Modern World. The Parishioner Is Always Right, By David L. Bosco from 12 FINDINGS American Political Science Review Reviewed by Rahul Chandran 100 Searching for Whitopia: 78 SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY An Improbable Journey to the No Method for Madness, from Heart of White America. Psychological Science in the By Rich Benjamin Public Interest Reviewed by Darryl Lorenzo Great Expectations, from Wellington IN ESSENCE The Scientist our survey of notable 101 1688: articles from other Nuclear Power Goes Global, from journals and magazines Daedalus The First Modern Revolution. By Steve Pincus

65 POLITICS & GOVERNMENT 81 ARTS & LETTERS Reviewed by Martin Walker Transparency Traps, from Writing on the Brain, from n+1 102 The Permissive Society: The New Republic Boogie On! from Southern Cultures America, 1941–1965. The Politics of Complexity, from The Art from Artifice, from East By Alan Petigny American Journal of Political Science European Politics and Societies Reviewed by Michael Anderson

66 ECONOMICS, LABOR & BUSINESS 84 OTHER NATIONS 104 Abigail Adams. The Wrong Fix for Foreclosures, Land of the Rising Fun, from By Woody Holton from Research Review The Journal of Asian Studies Reviewed by Frank Shuffelton Ditch the Dollar, from O Nunavut! from Journal of 105 Memoir: Foreign Affairs Canadian Studies A History. Mobile Monitoring, from By Ben Yagoda 68 FOREIGN POLICY & DEFENSE Political Communication Clipping the President’s Wings, Reviewed by Eric Liebetrau from The Yale Law Journal 106 Cowboys Full: E-Warfare, from National Journal The Story of Poker. By James McManus 67 CURRENT BOOKS 70 SOCIETY The Next Hundred Million: Reviewed by Aaron Mesh Good Vibrations, from Public 87 America in 2050. Opinion Quarterly 108 Green Metropolis: By Joel Kotkin Why Living Smaller, Living Closer, Don’t Cry for Eyak, from Reviewed by Tom Vanderbilt and Driving Less Are the Keys to World Affairs Journal Sustainability. The Fourth Part 90 By David Owen Crime’s Great Convergence, from of the World: The Annals of the American The Race to the Ends of the Earth, Reviewed by Catherine Tumber and the Epic Story of the Map That Academy of Political and 109 Muslims in America: Gave America Its Name. Social Science A Short History. By Toby Lester By Edward E. Curtis IV 72 PRESS & MEDIA Reviewed by Felipe Fernández- Reviewed by Peter Skerry Can a Free Press Hurt? from Armesto International Studies Quarterly 94 Yours Ever: Signal Effects, from American People and Their Letters. Economic Journal: By Thomas Mallon 112 PORTRAIT Applied Economics Reviewed by Louis Bayard The ’60s Turn 50

Winter 2010 ■ Wilson Quarterly 3 The WILSON QUARTERLY EDITOR’S COMMENT

An Uncertain World

In this issue we feature a trio of articles too loosely related to be grouped EDITOR Steven Lagerfeld into one of our usual clusters yet too closely connected to escape a collec- MANAGING EDITOR James H. Carman LITERARY EDITOR Sarah L. Courteau tive identity. If I had to put a name to them, I would call them “a constel- ASSOCIATE EDITOR Rebecca J. Rosen lation of woe,” for they deal with some of the world’s great sources of anx- EDITORS AT LARGE Ann Hulbert, James Morris, iety and turmoil: terrorism, Pakistan, and the Arab world. Jay Tolson All three articles coincidentally come from authors here at the COPY EDITOR Vincent Ercolano RESEARCHER Ann L. Thomas Woodrow Wilson Center. Thomas Rid analyzes new developments in CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Daniel Akst, Stephen the vanguard of the global jihad, delivering the good news that growing Bates, Martha Bayles, Max Byrd, Linda Colley, Denis Donoghue, Max Holland, Walter Reich, Alan Ryan, splits are dividing the world’s Islamic extremists, and the bad news that Amy E. Schwartz, Edward Tenner, Charles Townshend, Alan Wolfe, Bertram Wyatt-Brown those schisms are strengthening the movement in important ways. Rad- BOARD OF EDITORIAL ADVISERS ical Islam is also a focus of Robert M. Hathaway’s article on Pakistan. As K. Anthony Appiah, Cynthia Arnson, Amy Chua, Tyler Cowen, Harry Harding, Robert Hathaway, we often strive to do in the WQ, Hathaway shows how the world appears Elizabeth Johns, Jackson Lears, Robert Litwak, Wilfred M. McClay, Blair Ruble, Peter Skerry, through the eyes of another, and what we see in the Pakistani vision is an Martin Sletzinger, S. Frederick Starr, Martin Walker, Samuel Wells alarming failure to register the dangers of the many Al Qaeda and FOUNDING EDITOR Peter Braestrup (1929–1997)

Taliban fighters who find sanctuary on the country’s soil. The opposite BUSINESS DIRECTOR Suzanne Napper problem can be seen in David B. Ottaway’s unnerving portrait of the CIRCULATION Laura Vail, ProCirc, Miami, Fla. Arab world, where leaders transfixed by the threat of radical Islamists The Wilson Quarterly (ISSN-0363-3276) is published in January (Winter), April (Spring), July (Summer), and and other foes have done their best to choke off change of any kind. October (Autumn) by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars at One Woodrow Wilson Plaza, 1300 Yet in highlighting the Arabs’ failed leadership, Ottaway affirms the Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. hopeful proposition of all three articles, that nations, like individuals, are 20004–3027. Complete article index available online at www.wilsonquarterly.com. Subscriptions: one year, $24; the pawns of neither heaven nor ineluctable earthly forces. With good two years, $43. Air mail outside U.S.: one year, $39; two years, $73. Single issues and selected back issues leaders and good choices, error can be overcome. mailed upon request: $9; outside U.S. and posses- sions, $12. Periodical postage paid at Washington, What’s true of the world of practical politics is also true of the D.C., and additional mailing offices. All unsolicited world of ideas, and I can’t let this moment pass without paying trib- manuscripts should be accompanied by a self- addressed stamped envelope. ute in print to the man who gave me my start in letters, an intellec- MEMBERS: Send changes of address and all subscrip- tion correspondence with The Wilson Quarterly tual leader who provided a model for what serious journalism mailing label to: should be. When he died in September at 89, Irving Kristol was The Wilson Quarterly P.O. Box 16898 widely remembered as “the godfather of neoconservatism,” a title he North Hollywood, CA 91615 accepted with humor while surely savoring the irony that it was SUBSCRIBER HOT LINE: 1-800-829-5108 bestowed upon him for a life’s work, as coeditor of The Public Inter- POSTMASTER: Send all address changes to est and in many other undertakings, in defense of the liberal idea. The Wilson Quarterly, P.O. Box 16898, North Hollywood, CA 91615. Decency, reasoned debate, intellectual rigor, and an impassioned Microfilm copies are available from Bell & Howell Infor- mation and Learning, 300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI commitment to truth are among the things he stood for, and which 48106. U.S. newsstand distribution through CMG, inspire the magazine you hold in your hands. Princeton, N.J. For more information contact Tom Prior, Marketing Manager (609) 524-1704 or [email protected]. ADVERTISING: Brett Goldfine, Leonard Media Group. Tel.: (215) 675-9133, Ext. 226 Fax: (215) 675-9376 —Steven Lagerfeld E-mail: [email protected].

4 Wilson Quarterly ■ Winter 2010 LETTERS

THE BOOK’S OUTLOOK that silent reading became common. copy in a leather binding, signed by the I am sympathetic to Christine Throughout history, the act of reading poet; or a video or audio of the poet her- Rosen’s argument in “In the Beginning has changed just as much as the texts self reading the text. It will be revolu- Was the Word” [Autumn ’09]. Ours is themselves. tionary to have these choices available increasingly a culture better suited to Alex Wright appropriately describes from one source, and the interesting “4ming txts” than pushing through War the book as a “fluid entity,” and he cau- question at hand is, which is the real and Peace. I am uncomfortable, how- tions against eulogizing the medium text—the original, authoritative version? ever, with Rosen’s eagerness to ascribe prematurely [“The Battle of the Books”]. For the time being, many of us are consumerism, social narcissism, and a Books still have an important place in likely to consume some combination of general lack of focus to the practice of our culture and continue to be printed these formats. But there is little question screen reading. Reading electronic texts, at impressive rates. Surveys indicate that in my mind that the future of the book whether a novel on a Kindle or a schol- the average child between two and five will, in part, mean a return to a more arly article on a library computer, should years of age watches more than four oral, visual, and performance culture. not be viewed in such monolithic terms. hours of television per day; we might My guess is the digital book will soon Rosen describes reading on a screen pause for a moment, consider the prob- be here to stay, but a truly user-friendly as a “secondhand experience” that can- lems of attention span and con- e-version of the codex has yet to be not compare to the empathy created by sumerism, and wish that children were invented. We have a lot of work to do to reading a book. I would argue the con- spending those hours reading Kindles. equal the storage and retrieval capabil- trary. Digital media, such as firsthand Nicole Howard ities of the traditional book. accounts of the protests in Iran (articles, Author, The Book: The Life Story Timothy Barrett blog posts, and tweets), offer a greater of a Technology (2005) University of Iowa Center for the Book potential for intimacy and empathy than Associate Professor of History Iowa City, Iowa a book on the subject published years California State University, East Bay hence. The form in which an experi- Hayward, Calif. As much as we fret about the ence is related—be it a papyrus scroll, decline of books and celebrate the rise vellum codex, or e-book—is ultimately I foresee the publishing house of the Internet, we rarely link these less important than the content. of the future offering, for instance, a developments to another big trend of While preliminary studies indicate poet’s latest work in multiple formats the last 30 years: the crisis in our edu- that reading words on a screen is func- simultaneously, each at a different price: cation system. The arduous task of ren- tionally different from reading them on an e-text version with links to all current ovating our schools and enlivening our a piece of paper, we should not rush to reviews or related scholarly and popular universities receives scant attention judgment. One might wonder what comment; a hard-copy text, produced compared with the exciting possibili- neurobiologists would have said to the and delivered to one’s home as a single ties opened up by high-tech media. Most fourth-century bishop Ambrose, whose print-on-demand traditional book (with pundits prefer to speculate about the unusual practice of silent reading cheap and pricey paper and binding- effects of technology on “the culture” stunned Augustine when he first wit- quality options to choose among); a and “the mind” without paying much nessed it. It wasn’t until the 10th century limited-edition fine press hand-printed attention to the institutions that form minds and shape culture. LETTERS may be mailed to The Wilson Quarterly, 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W., Washington, D.C. Alex Wright’s essay comes as a wel- 20004–3027, or sent via facsimile, to (202) 691-4036, or e-mail, to [email protected]. The writer’s telephone number and postal address should be included. For reasons of space, letters are usually edited for come reminder that today’s media over- publication. Some letters are received in response to the editors’ requests for comment. load has ample precedent. While pulp

Winter 2010 ■ Wilson Quarterly 5 LETTERS

novels, penny dreadfuls, and pornog- seem poised to replace books any more views on multitasking [“Three Tweets raphy flew off the shelves in the 19th than they’re replacing pencils. for the Web”]. century, it was not these products that Dennis Baron He writes that the word multi- ultimately rewired readers’ brains. This Professor of English and Linguistics tasking “makes it sound as if we’re all was the century that also gave us kinder- Department of English over the place. There is a deep coher- garten, compulsory mass schooling, and University of Illinois ence to how each of us pulls out a the research university. Discipline was Urbana, Ill. steady stream of information from dis- the real ethos of Victorian society; it parate sources to feed our long-term gave students the means to learn their Today’s discussion about the interests.” But multitasking, a concept ABCs, graduate to Greek and Latin, and transformative effect of technology that comes from computer science, (for the best of them, at least) make con- continues a process that is eons old. means the ability of a system to con- tributions to various fields of higher Cave paintings, scrolls, the codex, the currently deal with multiple, possibly learning. teletype, the telephone, radio, and independent tasks. So yes, it does Books and ideas, whatever their television all preceded the computer allow you to be all over the place. More physical form or mode of delivery, are and the Internet in determining how important, Cowen’s huge claim that only as powerful as the minds that have we access data. there is a “deep coherence” to how been trained to receive them. As a book publisher and informa- people multitask is contrary to what Ian F. McNeely tion entrepreneur, I have come to believe many of us in postsecondary educa- Coauthor, Reinventing Knowledge: that the essence of our latter-day re- tion see every day in our students. From Alexandria to the Internet (2008) invention is choice. In 2005, the Mac- He concedes that Web readers, Associate Professor of History Arthur and Carnegie foundations estab- particularly younger ones, “may lack University of Oregon lished a project we call Caravan, which the intellectual framework needed to Eugene, Ore. has enabled leading university and non- integrate all the incoming bits into a profit presses to master multiplatform meaningful whole.” Yes, they do, and Critics of digital text insist that book publishing. We have neither sub- all the more so because of multitask- we read differently online, scanning, scribers nor advertising, so unlike news- ing. The ability to focus for long peri- skimming, jumping hyperactively from papers and magazines, we won’t lose ods of time on difficult subject matter link to link, in contrast to the deliberate, those revenue sources. Technology is is extremely valuable, a skill that all reflective practice that paper demands. our ally in improving access and bring- levels of education try to inculcate in But plenty of offline texts are also ing down costs. students. Multitasking harms that designed to be read in fits and starts. Our Information and entertainment are effort by encouraging the opposite. desultory reading of newspapers, ency- indispensable commodities in the Alex Simonelis clopedias, phone books, catalogs, cook- organization of civilization. We are Montreal, Quebec books, and reports is a function of those clearly at a major juncture in the ways genres, not the media in which they these goods are made available. What- appear. The common practice of mov- ever the outcome in the short term, RAILING AWAY ing back and forth within any text books in various forms will endure—in Mark Reutter’s discussion of regardless of the technology encoding your hand, on the screen, in your ear. high-speed trains [“Bullet Trains for the words suggests that reading from Peter Osnos America?” Autumn ’09] is enlightening beginning to middle to end is but one Founder, PublicAffairs Books, and Executive and especially relevant at a time when kind of reading. Director, The Caravan Project the United States is contemplating an Many readers still prefer the printed New York, N.Y. investment of billions of dollars. page, not because paper promotes med- The potential for building Euro- itation but because, at least for now, While I would give even four pean-like lines linking our major met- books are more convenient than screens tweets for the Web, I wouldn’t do the ropolitan areas, however, is handi- and strain the eyes less. Computers don’t same for Tyler Cowen’s wrong-headed capped by the American federal system.

6 Wilson Quarterly ■ Winter 2010 LETTERS

Unlike most other developed countries, the United States throughout its his- www.hedgehogreview.com tory has had trouble investing with national interests in mind because of The world is changing. the important role state and local offi- The transformations taking place in our world today cials play in making decisions on infra- are rapid, far-reaching, and challenging. Scholars and structure. cultural critics are intensively studying these changes The major exception to this rule was and their implications, but how can this help you the Interstate Highway System. The understand the world you live in? Bureau of Public Roads provided the general layout of the system in 1955, and Congress, in passing the Federal The Hedgehog Review bridges the gap. Aid Highway Act the next year, guar- With essays, interviews, reviews, commentaries, and the occasional poem, The Hedgehog Review offers anteed states the financing to build the the most insightful writing on the most important roads. This advanced planning and sim- questions of our day in writing meant to be read. ple funding structure made possible the integrated, well-designed network Americans enjoy today. Unfortunately, there has been no Subscribe for $25. similar effort to define specific routes [email protected] for a national high-speed rail network. 434-243-8935 And although they allocated $8 billion to the project in the stimulus bill, neither the White House nor Congress has developed a standard, efficient approach to ensuring longer-term financing. States are left flailing, unsure whether to promote projects that better serve their own interests or those of the country as a whole. This disordered process could produce major blunders—disconnected TransCoop Program: Funding for Scholars in the routes, underused stations, and even Humanities, Social Sciences, Economics and Law half-built corridors. The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation will grant up to half of the Yonah Freemark funding for a new collaborative project, such as a joint study, critical Founder, The Transport Politic edition or seed money for an international conference, up to a Durham, N.C. maximum of EUR 55,000 over three years. Application for the TransCoop Program is open to scholars at Historically, the private sector research institutions in Germany, the United States, and Canada who are working in the humanities, social sciences, law and has played an important role in infra- economics. structure financing. In the 18th century, Applications must be submitted jointly by at least one German and private joint-stock companies and non- one U.S. or Canadian scholar. Ph.D. required. U.S. and/or profit organizations financed road, river, Canadian funds must cover the balance of the cost of the project. and canal improvements by issuing Annual deadlines: April 30 and October 31. Details and applications are available at: bonds and levying tolls. In the mid-19th century, private companies built rail- www.humboldt-foundation.de roads throughout [ Continued on page 9 ]

Winter 2010 ■ Wilson Quarterly 7 AT THE CENTER

THE BIN LADEN TAPES

It’s a world away from flagg miller’s known only to a handful of followers. Collectively, though, quiet office overlooking the Woodrow Wilson Plaza to a they represent an impressive catalog of a number of ransacked house in Kandahar, Afghanistan, yet Miller strains of Islamic thought, especially those from the late spends his days trying to piece together clues about that 1980s, when bin Laden was exhorting Muslims to join house’s former occupant, Osama bin Laden. The house, him in the fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan. struck by U.S. missiles after the 9/11 attacks when intel- One thing Miller hopes to discover, by comparing the ligence reports fingered it as Al Qaeda’s headquarters in rhetoric on the audiocassettes with bin Laden’s pro- southern Afghanistan, served as a meeting ground for nouncements since 9/11, is how a Muslim listener might militants and potential recruits from 1996 through late become radicalized when exposed to unorthodox ideas. 2001. A subsequent search there turned up, among other “Bin Laden is a complex jihadi,” Miller observes. “He’s an artifacts, an abandoned cache of some 1,500 audiocas- eclectic thinker, and doesn’t have formal religious train- settes and videotapes. Bin Laden can be heard on at least ing or expertise in Islamic law. On some of these tapes, for 20 of the cassettes, but also included are recordings of instance, one can hear listeners disputing his ideas, forc- more than 200 religious scholars, intellectuals, and mil- ing him to abandon reasoned arguments for more creative itants from around the Muslim world. The immense associations with Islam’s heroes both past and present.” audio library allows a rare glimpse into the intellectual But Miller believes that bin Laden’s very unorthodoxy development of the world’s most notorious terrorist. gives him authority among certain segments of the Mus- How Miller—an associate professor of religious stud- lim world. He can claim, for instance, that the imams who ies and a linguistic anthropologist at the University of Cal- criticize him are puppets of their countries’ regimes, and ifornia, Davis, who is spending this year as a Woodrow that he is the one who offers a vision of true reform. He Wilson Center fellow—came to be in possession of the col- bolsters such claims with lofty rhetoric borrowed from the lection is a tale in itself. Acquired by CNN after the fall of tapes, with appeals to Arab roots and tribalism, and with the Taliban in the winter of 2001–02, the tapes were allusions so ancient they predate the founding of Islam. vetted by the FBI, which determined that they contained One example Miller cites is a tape released in 1994 in no clues to the whereabouts of bin Laden. Several years which bin Laden praises pre-Islamic Arab tribes in Mecca later, the collection wound up in the hands of the Williams for foiling the advances of a massive army under College Afghan Media Project. That’s when Miller got Ethiopian viceroy Abraha in the sixth century. Those involved, after he was invited to translate and study the tribes drove Abraha out of Mecca, bin Laden tells his lis- tapes. (The collection has since been transferred to Yale, teners, and weakened his grip on Yemen (the homeland where it is being digitized and is due to be released pub- of bin Laden’s father), thus removing his protection from licly in the next few years.) While studying Arabic in Christians on the Arabian Peninsula. Syria and Yemen during the early 1990s, Miller became That bin Laden would use such a complex allusion in fascinated by the use of audiocassettes in the Arab world response to the buildup of U.S. troops on the Arabian and has since published a book and a number of articles Peninsula might surprise a Western audience. But Miller on the subject. “Audiocassettes are user friendly, they’re suggests that his speaking style, which can seem highly var- cheap, and they don’t require a lot of resources to pro- ied and rambling to untrained ears, and which may well duce,” he says. “They’re also very hard for the governments have been developed and enhanced by the tapes found at to censor, because they can be passed hand to hand.” the Kandahar house, are laced with enticements that The voices on the bin Laden tapes range from well- appeal to potential recruits. “If we want to defeat bin known figures such as Abdallah Azzam, one of Al Qaeda’s Laden’s vision of the world,” Miller says, “we have to grap- founders, to obscure local preachers, who might be ple with the ideas that resonate with his audience.”

8 Wilson Quarterly ■ Winter 2010 LETTERS

[ Continued from page 7 ] the world. Govern- Obama’s high-speed rail plan consists of Lee H. Hamilton, Director ments issued rights of way, regulated six unconnected networks whose infre- BOARD OF TRUSTEES fares, and provided subsidies—land quent trains will reach only 33 states Joseph B. Gildenhorn, Chair Sander R. Gerber, Vice Chair grants, dividend guarantees, or interest and about 100 major metropolitan EX OFFICIO MEMBERS: James H. Billington, guarantees—but the level of public areas, and won’t serve smaller towns. Librarian of Congress, Hillary R. Clinton, Secretary of State, G. Wayne Clough, financing remained small. Third, the Interstate Highway Sys- Secretary, Smithsonian Institution, Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education, David President Barack Obama has tem moves the average American 4,000 Ferriero, Acting Archivist of the United pointed to “bold actions and big ideas” miles per year. The most optimistic esti- States, James Leach, Chair, National Endowment for the Humanities, Kathleen of the past as models for the country to mates project that the average American Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services. Designated Appointee of the follow in developing high-speed rail. will ride Obama’s high-speed trains less President from Within the Federal Certainly, building an extensive, publicly than 60 miles annually. Government: Vacant

PRIVATE CITIZEN MEMBERS: Charles E. Cobb, funded high-speed rail network would The rail fan’s fantasy of a national Jr., Robin B. Cook, Charles L. Glazer, Carlos M. be bold. But allowing private companies network of bullet trains would cost tax- Gutierrez, Susan Hutchison, Barry S. Jackson, Ignacio E. Sanchez to propose and pay for high-speed rail payers around $1 trillion to build and projects would be a step at least equally billions more to operate each year. Yet it THE WILSON COUNCIL bold. would serve mainly downtown office Sam Donaldson, President Elias F. Aburdene, Weston Adams, Cyrus A. Dan Bogart workers—bankers, lawyers, and gov- Ansary, David Apatoff, David Bass, Lawrence E. Assistant Professor Bathgate, Theresa E. Behrendt, Stuart A. Bern- ernment officials—who need no tax- stein, James D. Bindenagel, Rudy Boschwitz, Department of Economics payer subsidy. The environmental ben- Melva Bucksbaum, Amelia Caiola-Ross, Joseph A. Cari, Carol A. Cartwright, Mark Chandler, University of California, Irvine efits of such a project would be virtually Holly F. Clubok, Melvin Cohen, William T. Cole- Irvine, Calif. nil, as by 2025 the average car on the man, Elizabeth Dubin, Charles Dubroff, Ruth Dugan, Thelma Duggin, Mark Epstein, Melvyn road will be both cleaner and more fuel- J. Estrin, A. Huda Farouki, Joseph H. Flom, Bar- Although Mark Reutter claims bara Hackman Franklin, Norman Freidkin, efficient than any passenger train. Morton Funger, Donald E. Garcia, Bruce Gelb, that President Obama’s high-speed rail American tourists may enjoy Euro- Alma Gildenhorn, Michael Glosserman, Raymond A. Guenter, Edward L. Hardin, Mari- plan “follows the precedent” of Presi- pean and Japanese high-speed trains. lyn A. Harris, Laurence Hirsch, Osagie Imasogie, Pamela Johnson, Maha Kaddoura, Nuhad dent Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Interstate But by any objective standard, they are Karaki, Christopher J. Kennan, Joan Highway System, there are huge differ- a failure in those countries as well, cost- Kirkpatrick, Willem Kooyker, Markos Kounalakis, Richard L. Kramer, Muslim ences between these programs. ing taxpayers hundreds of billions of Lakhani, Daniel L. Lamaute, Raymond Learsy, First, gas taxes and other user fees dollars and serving only a small elite. Harold O. Levy, Genevieve Lynch, Frederic V. Malek, Daniel M. Martin, Anne McCarthy, paid 100 percent of the cost of interstate High-speed rail makes no sense in the Thomas F. McLarty, Donald F. McLellan, Vanda McMurtry, John Kenneth Menges, Linda B. highways. By comparison, virtually all of United States. Mercuro, Tobia G. Mercuro, Jamie Merisotis, the capital costs and much of the oper- Randal O’Toole Kathryn Mosbacher-Wheeler, Stuart H. New- berger, Jeanne L. Phillips, Renate Rennie, Edwin ating costs of high-speed trains will be Senior Fellow Robbins, Wayne Rogers, Nina Rosenwald, Cato Institute Steven E. Schmidt, William Seanor, George P. born by taxpayers who will rarely if ever Shultz, Raja Sidawi, John Sitilides, David Slack, ride the trains. Camp Sherman, Ore. William A. Slaughter, Eliot Sorel, Thomas F. Stephenson, Peggy Styer, Juan Suarez, Norma Second, interstate highways con- Kline Tiefel, Michael Waldorf, Christine nect all 48 contiguous states, more than Europe and Japan are indeed Warnke, Pete Wilson, Deborah Wince-Smith, Herbert S. Winokur, Richard S. Ziman, Nancy 300 major metropolitan areas, and showcases for the potential of high- M. Zirkin thousands of smaller towns. In contrast, speed rail. However, these systems are

The Wilson Center is the nation’s living memo- the culmination of investments over rial to Woodrow Wilson, president of the United many decades. As Ohio Department of States from 1913 to 1921. It is located at One Woodrow Wilson Plaza, 1300 Pennsylvania Transportation director Jolene Moli- Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20004–3027. The Official and Exclusive Created by law in 1968, the Center is Washing- toris testified on Capitol Hill in April, ton’s only independent, wide-ranging institute for Airline Sponsor of the “Successful high-speed passenger rail advanced study where vital cultural issues and Woodrow Wilson Awards and their deep historical background are explored projects have their foundation in a through research and dialogue. Visit the Center at the Woodrow Wilson Center http://www.wilsoncenter.org. robust, incremental development of rail

Winter 2010 ■ Wilson Quarterly 9 LETTERS

infrastructure and improvements start- concludes by quoting Rainer Eppel- he identifies: geographic inequality and ing from conventional service.” mann that no foreign leader won free- self-segregation. Frequency, accessibility, and trip dom for Eastern Europe’s masses. But a After World War II, American com- times are more important to the trav- foreign leader might well have crushed munities grew more similar. Incomes eler than top speed. With top speeds of the movement, no matter its num- converged. By 1970, people with college just 79 mph (90 mph in a few places on bers. We all know the story of Tianan- degrees were remarkably evenly dis- one line), but also with more frequent men Square. Communists were well tributed among American cities. Com- service, new stations and trains, and capable of resorting to force to retain munities over time voted more alike, at feeder buses, California’s three state- power. Curry notes that East Germany’s least in presidential elections. supported corridors now have more dissidents were prepared for similar Beginning in the 1970s, however, than five million annual riders, 19 per- hostilities. But to understand why a Chi- people with college degrees began to cent of Amtrak’s national ridership. nese solution did not occur in Leipzig or cluster in particular cities. Average Today’s Amtrak Chicago-St. Louis run East Berlin, we need to look to Moscow, incomes from county to county grew takes six hours, mainly due to bottle- where Mikhail Gorbachev had neither increasingly unequal. Rich people necks and single-track segments. For the inclination nor, frankly, the stomach migrated in one direction, while the under $6 million, trip time could be cut for such repression. Indeed, Romanian poor moved in another. Life expectancy by two hours, making the ride an hour and East German leaders had earlier in from county to county diverged, and faster than driving. Providing this qual- the summer implored him to employ regional accents strengthened. ity of service nationwide could set the force to put down protests in Hun- Places came to differ by way of life stage for future “supertrains” by help- gary. He refused, putting states on notice as Americans self-segregated into like- ing revive American train-riding cul- that Soviet troops—and there were minded communities. By the 1990s, ture and enhancing economic devel- upward of a million of them stationed in people in America’s high-tech cities opment along the improved lines. Eastern Europe—would not aid in any were more likely to “try anything once” Ross B. Capon government crackdown. compared with those who lived in fac- President and CEO The truth is that change occurred in tory towns, who were more likely to National Association of Railroad Passengers 1989 from the bottom up and also engage in community activities. Coun- Washington, D.C. simultaneously from the top down. We ties tipped either Republican or Demo- need not compare courage, nor indeed cratic in presidential elections after seek to divvy up praise (or blame) for 1976—and then kept tipping, as local THE FALL OF THE WALL change too precisely. The year was a partisan majorities grew. The nation The central question remaining victory of conviction expressed by mil- had a series of exceedingly close presi- about the events in Europe in 1989 is lions, and of prudence exhibited by dential elections from 1976 to 2008, whether change came from above or those who held the levers of power. but in most communities the results below. Jeffrey A. Engel were increasingly lopsided. One finishes Andrew Curry’s elo- Editor, The Fall of the Berlin Wall: The result of Barone’s “Seventies quent article believing the latter, and The Revolutionary Legacy of 1989 (2009) shift” is today’s United States, where with good reason [“Before the Fall,” Scowcroft Institute for International Affairs there are greater distinctions from Autumn ’09]. Those protesting the College Station, Texas place to place, but fewer differences oppressive East German regime num- within the communities where we live. bered first little more than a dozen; then The country has both more diversity they were hundreds, then thousands, A TURNING POINT and more conformity. What’s been lost, and finally hundreds of thous- Michael Barone is right however, is any sense of the whole. ands. Their peaceful protest disarmed [“The Seventies Shift,” Autumn ’09]. Bill Bishop the regime’s very legitimacy. The 1970s were a “hinge point” in Coauthor, The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of But we should not conclude that American politics. There are, however, Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart (2008) people power alone mattered. Curry two underlying themes to the changes Austin, Texas

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Churchill on Technology nology, Churchill proved a bit shaky Bin Laden boasted about 9/11, Tweets from the past on the implications for society. “The derided President Bush for having congregation of men in cities would ignored warnings about terrorism, Winston Churchill was a prolific become superfluous. . . . The cities and said that “your security is not historian, but he also gazed into and the countryside would become in the hands of Kerry, nor Bush, the future. In 1932 he published a indistinguishable. Every home nor Al Qaeda—no, your security is collection of essays called would have its garden and its glade.” in your own hands.” A widely Thoughts and Adventures, now For that, we’re still waiting. reported Newsweek poll found back in print from ISI Books. In Of course, Churchill didn’t fore- that Bush’s margin over Kerry see Twitter. Pros- grew from two percentage points pect magazine to six in the wake of the video. recently asked Kerry later said the video had cost Britons what his- him the White House. torical figures Not necessarily, John A. Tures they’d like to fol- writes in Homeland Security low via the online Affairs (September 2009). To service, which start with, the Newsweek poll took limits messages a three-day snapshot of public to 140 characters. opinion; the bin Laden video was Churchill proved released late on the third day. most popular, Further, many polls conducted notwithstanding after the appearance of the video Winston Churchill, media master . . . and visionary his “talent for found, Newsweek notwith- speeches consid- standing, that the race was “Fifty Years Hence,” he forecast a erably longer than 140 characters.” tightening—suggesting that “if revolution in communications. Jesus came in second, followed by the videotape did anything, it Video chats—what he called “tele- Charles Darwin, Martin Luther hurt Bush and helped Kerry.” phones and television”—would King Jr., and Leonardo da Vinci. Moreover, a CNN exit poll found enable someone “to connect up that Kerry received a slight with any room similarly installed, Not So Terrifying majority of the vote among and hear and take part in the con- people who said they were “very versation as well as if he put his The 2004 bin Laden video worried” about a terrorist attack. head in through the window. . . . It Days before the 2004 election Tures also cites polling data would rarely be necessary to call in between President George W. indicating that, contrary to person on any but the most Bush and Senator John Kerry, conventional wisdom, the terror- intimate friends.” Osama bin Laden issued a video ist attacks on Madrid’s commuter Savvy as he was about the tech- message to the American people. trains on March 11, 2004, didn’t

12 Wilson Quarterly ■ Winter 2010 FINDINGS change the outcome of the Span- Bathroom Twofer dom every winter, lured by ish elections three days later. Watered down human-provided birdseed. The “The only effect that Al Qaeda rest of these warblers head to seems to produce with pre- In the movie Psycho, which came Spain. The split migration has election activities,” he concludes, out 50 years ago, Janet Leigh’s been going on since the 1960s, “is the media’s fascination with character resolves to return the and the researchers report that the terrorists’ supposed ability to $40,000 she has stolen from her the two groups have evolved dif- ‘control foreign elections.’ ” employer. But she has spent $700 ferently. The UK blackcaps have on a car. She sits at a table and, rounder wings, reflecting the Hidden Code David Thomson writes in The shorter distance they travel. And Moment of Psycho (Basic), “does a their beaks are longer and nar- Liberian logjam sum that hardly speaks well of her rower, well suited to bird feeders. Reform’s all well and good—as education: $40,000 minus $700.” By contrast, the Spain-goers’ long as it’s bought and paid for. In Then she steps into the bathroom, broader beaks are better for fruit 2006, Liberian president Ellen drops the paper in the toilet, and trees. The ultimate result, the Johnson Sirleaf appointed former flushes it. researchers say, may be two justice minister Philip Banks to “Apparently, in all of American distinct species. head a commission to codify the film,” Thomson writes, “there had nation’s law, much of which was never been a scene that showed a Babysitters United scattered about in loose-leaf pam- toilet being flushed before.” Hitch- phlets. The U.S. Department of cock may have relished the Sofa solidarity Justice sent $400,000 to support challenge of getting the toilet scene On a quest for equal rights, many the project, and Banks set to (as well as the shower scene) past American babysitters informally work, reports Foreign Policy on censors. Thomson observes, “It unionized in the late 1940s. Some its Web site. But when the money really is quite exhilarating to see demanded extra pay for working ran out and the Justice Depart- what tender creatures we were in late at night, according to Baby- ment declined to send more, 1960.” sitter: An American History (New Banks copyrighted the assembled York University Press), by Miriam laws in his own name. As a result, Birds Formerly Forman-Brunell. Sitters in West no one can publish them without Branch, Michigan, demanded an of a Feather his approval. extra 15 cents for washing dishes. Banks tells Foreign Policy, Going in different directions In Leonia, New Jersey, babysitters “These are resources that you’ve Is your bird feeder spurring evolu- demanded “adequate heat.” had to expend in putting all of tionary change? Maybe so, accord- But unionization couldn’t this together, and the question is, ing to Gregor Rolshausen and solve all problems. “Little should you be compensated? I three coauthors, writing in children are bothersome hold the view that you should.” Current Biology (Decem- beings that have to be He and his allies are negotiating ber 29, 2009). waited on hand and to transfer the copyright to the Around 10 percent of foot, who are generally government for a six-figure sum. Central European around when not For now, says Foreign Policy, blackcaps fly from wanted, and who are, all “lawyers, courtrooms, and even southern Ger- in all, a nuisance,” one the government are operating many to the girl later wrote of her blindly; it’s impossible to be cer- United King- inaugural experience as tain if they are following a legal Is the UK blackcap a babysitter. Her name code they don’t have.” evolving at the feeder? was Sylvia Plath.

Winter 2010 ■ Wilson Quarterly 13 FINDINGS

Slave States, sap the public’s confidence in had his own pronunciation prob- Free Press Confederate leaders. A Ten- lems, Caleb Crain reports in The nessee member of the Con- New York Times Magazine (Nov- Dixieland takes federate congress declared ember 1, 2009). It seems the its stand the general a menace to poet dropped his While Abraham Lincoln suppressed the “great pillars” of freedom, more than 300 newspapers during and both houses of the congress the Civil War, Jefferson Davis took passed legislation to rein in the pride in not suppressing any. On the powers of the military. contrary, media historian Debra Jefferson Davis suspended the Reddin van Tuyll writes in an unpub- writ of habeas corpus (as did Lin- lished paper, Confederate leaders coln) and imprisoned some critics, often stepped in and protected jour- according to van Tuyll, but he nalists from would-be censors in the never went after the press. Press military. freedom was a foundation of the When a general tried to censor U.S. Constitution, and, Davis The Richmond Dispatch in 1862 for asserted, the Confederacy “alone publishing troop locations, Confeder- has remained true to the original ate secretary of war Judah P. Benja- principles of the United States.” To Louis—not Louie—Armstrong in 1944 min intervened. Keeping secrets, he a friend, he reportedly said, “It is a said, was a job for the military, not dangerous thing to interfere with R’s: He rhymed thorns with fawns for the press. the liberty of the press, for what and parsons with fastens. Although The same year, a major general would it avail us if we gain our Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine threatened to jail any journalist independence and lose our took issue with such “Cockney who disclosed anything that might liberty?” rhymes” in 1818, scholar Lynda Mugglestone terms R-dropping the Pops and the Poet “then-current educated usage.” Crain observes that Keats had a keen ap- Mispronunciations preciation of dialect, and adds that He may be Louie to his he was “probably too gifted a linguist fans, but that wasn’t Louis to have been saddled long with an Armstrong’s preferred accent that embarrassed him.” pronunciation, according to Terry Teachout’s Pops America’s Literary Left (Houghton Mifflin Har- court). Armstrong in French fantasy 1944 wrote that “All The trouble with America’s leading White Folks call me writers, John Gerassi said to his Louie.” Explains Teach- friend Jean-Paul Sartre in the early out, “Many blacks did so, 1970s, was that they were “liberal but too, including several of not leftists.” Not so, Sartre replied, his sidemen and at least according to Gerassi’s Talking With one of his four wives, Sartre: Conversations and Debates though he pronounced (Yale University Press). Abraham Lincoln was vilified in some quarters for abandoning his first name ‘LEW-is.’ ” Sartre said he had read Kurt Von- the principles of the Founding Fathers during the Civil War. John Keats may have negut’s Slaughterhouse-Five (1969)

14 Wilson Quarterly ■ Winter 2010 FINDINGS

and E. L. Doctorow’s Book of Daniel write it himself, according to minutes.” Mandel put them to (1971). “Those authors are with us, Mitchell Zuckoff’s Robert music. Gerassi, whatever they or their critics Altman: The Oral Biography “They paid me 500 bucks and say. Perhaps they haven’t experienced (Knopf), but couldn’t do it. “I gave me 50 percent of the song,” decision making by a collective, a true collective where they are totally equal to all. But they’re there. . . . America has not suffered an invasion, a foreign occupation, a bloody dictatorship. So it’s hard for its intellectuals to expect and want total structural change. They’re all stuck on reforms. That’s normal. But when the revolution comes, they’ll be on its side.” “What is Sartre saying here?” Doc- torow responds by e-mail to the WQ. “If an invasion, a foreign occupation, or a bloody dictatorship came to my country, I would resist. I would fight to restore our democracy. I would be with the resistance. Resistance is not revolution. Is it possible that the great Sartre, a sometime member of the French Resistance in World War II, would, in a cloud of tobacco smoke, conflate the two? Or is the revolution he imagines supposed to arise indige- nously from the Republic we have now—complete with idealized ‘collec- tive decision making’? Didn’t Babel, Mandelstam, Akhmatova, Pasternak, experience decision making by a col- Director Robert Altman on the M*A*S*H set with Elliott Gould and Donald Sutherland. lective? Do I have that wrong? Tell me I am to conform my writing to the can’t get anything nearly as says Altman fils. Then the TV series dictates of a collective and I am out stupid as I need,” Altman (who M*A*S*H came out, with “Suicide Is the door. Vonnegut, I am fairly sure, died in 2006) told composer Painless” as its theme. “I got anoth- would walk out with me.” Johnny Mandel. “But all is not er check for, like, 26 bucks. And lost. I have this kid who is a total then the second check was like M*A*S*H Cash idiot. He’ll run through this thing $130.... And the next check was like a dose of salts.” like $26,000. . . . I think I ended up Painless profits “I was writing a lot of poetry at making close to $2 million. And For a scene in his 1970 film the time,” Michael Altman, then 14, [Robert Altman] had gotten paid M*A*S*H, director Robert Altman remembers. His father told him to $75,000 to direct the movie and no wanted a song about suicide, but try writing a song called “Suicide Is points.” His father was “livid about it had to be “the stupidest song Painless.” After some false starts, that for years.” that was ever written.” He tried to the son wrote the lyrics “in about 10 —Stephen Bates

Winter 2010 ■ Wilson Quarterly 15 THE WILSON QUARTERLY

Saint Cesar of Delano

As the leader of the farm workers’ movement, Cesar Chavez became an iconic figure of the 1960s. But his union was largely a failure. It was as a martyr who embodied the psychic contrast between Mexico and America that he commanded our attention.

BY RICHARD RODRIGUEZ

The funeral for Cesar Chavez took place in an I was present at a number of events involving Cesar Chavez. I open field near Delano, a small agricultural town at the was a teenager at the edge of the crowd in 1966, when southern end of California’s Central Valley. I remember an Chavez led UFW marchers to the steps of the capitol in amiable Mexican disorder, a crowd listening and not lis- Sacramento to generate support for a strike against grape tening to speeches and prayers delivered from a raised growers. A few years later, I went to hear him speak at Stan- platform beneath a canvas tent. I do not remember a ford University. I can recall everything about the occasion crowd numbering 30,000 or 50,000, as some estimates except why I was there. I remember a golden light of late have it—but then I do not remember. Perhaps a cool, afternoon; I remember the Reverend Robert McAfee Brown perhaps a warm spring sun. Men in white shirts carried introducing Cesar Chavez. Something about Chavez embar- forward a pine box. The ease of their movement sug- rassed me. It was as though someone from my family had gested the lightness of their burden. turned up at Stanford to lecture undergraduates on the When Cesar Chavez died in his sleep in 1993, not yet a hardness of a Mexican’s life. I stood at the back of the room. I very old man at 66, he died—as he had so often portrayed did not join in the standing ovation. I would not give him any- himself in life—as a loser. The United Farm Workers (UFW) thing. And yet, of course, there was something compelling union he had cofounded was in decline; the union had about his homeliness. 5,000 members, equivalent to the population of one very In her thoroughly researched and thoroughly unsenti- small Central Valley town. The labor in California’s agricul- mental book The Union of Their Dreams: Power, Hope, and tural fields was largely taken up by Mexican migrant Struggle in Cesar Chavez’s Farm Worker Movement, jour- workers—the very workers Chavez had been unable to rec- nalist Miriam Pawel chronicles the lives of a collection of oncile to his American union, whom he had branded “scabs” people—farm workers, idealistic college students, young and wanted reported to immigration authorities. East Coast lawyers, a Presbyterian minister, and others—who I went to the funeral because I was writing a piece on gave years of their lives at subsistence pay to work for the Chavez for The Los Angeles Times. It now occurs to me that UFW. By the end of her book, every person Pawel profiles has left the union—has been fired or has quit in disgust or frus- Richard Rodriguez, an editor with New America Media in San Fran- cisco, is the author of Brown: The Last Discovery of America (2002) and tration. Nevertheless, it is not beside the point to notice that Days of Obligation: An Argument With My Mexican Father (1992), and Cesar Chavez inspired such a disparate, devoted company. other books. Currently he is writing a book about the Desert God and the Abrahamic religions. We easily forget that the era we call “the Sixties” was not

16 Wilson Quarterly ■ Winter 2010 Seated beside U.S.Senator Robert F.Kennedyand fed byPresbyterian minister Chris Hartmire,Cesar Chavezbreaks his 1968 fast in a symbolic tableau. only a time of vast civic disaffection; it was also a time of reli- burnt old men—under the banner of Our Lady of Guadalupe. gious idealism. At the forefront of what amounted to the reli- By the time he had become the most famous Mexican gious revival of America in those years were the black Protes- American anyone could name—his face on the cover of tant ministers of the civil rights movement, ministers who Time—the majority of Mexican Americans lived in cities, far insisted upon a moral dimension to the rituals of everyday from the tragic fields of California’s Central Valley that John American life—eating at a lunch counter, riding a bus, going Steinbeck had made famous a generation before. Mexican to school. Americans were more likely to work in construction or in Cesar Chavez similarly cast his campaign for better wages service-sector jobs than in the fields. and living conditions for farm workers as a religious move- Cesar Chavez was born in Yuma, Arizona, in 1927. Dur- ment. He became for many Americans, especially Mexican ing the hardscrabble years of his youth, he dropped out of Americans (my parents among them), a figure of spiritual school to work in the fields of Arizona and California. As a authority. I remember a small brown man with an Indian young man he accumulated an autodidact’s library. He read aspect leading labor protests that were also medieval religious books on economics, philosophy, history. (Years later, Chavez processions of women, children, nuns, college students, was apt to quote Winston Churchill at UFW staff meetings.)

Winter 2010 ■ Wilson Quarterly 17 Cesar Chavez

He studied the black civil rights movement, particularly the his resistance to injustice by refusing to eat. What else can a writings of Martin Luther King Jr. He studied most intently poor man do? Though Chavez had little success encourag- the lives and precepts of St. Francis of Assisi and Mohandas ing UFW volunteers to follow his example of fasting, he Gandhi. was able to convince millions of Americans (as many as 20 It is heartening to learn about private acts of goodness in million, by some estimates) not to buy grapes or lettuce. Farmers in the Central Valley were bewildered to find themselves roped into a CESAR CHAVEZ SEEMED to understand, religious parable. Indeed, Valley growers, many of the way Charlie Chaplin understood, how to them Catholics, were dis- tressed when their children make an embarrassment of himself. came home from parochial schools and reported that Chavez was used as a moral notorious lives. It is discouraging to learn of the moral fail- exemplum in religion class. ures of famously good people. The former console. But to At a time in the history of American entrepreneurialism learn that the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. was a wom- when Avis saw the advantage of advertising itself as “Num- anizer is to be confronted with the knowledge that flesh is a ber Two” and Volkswagen sold itself as the “bug,” Chavez complicated medium for grace. To learn that there were made the smallness of his union, its haphazardness, a kind flaws in the character of Cesar Chavez is again to test the of boast. In 1968, during his most publicized fast to support meaning of a good life. During his lifetime, Chavez was con- the strike of grape pickers, Chavez issued this statement (he sidered by many to be a saint. Pawel is writing outside the was too weak to read aloud): “Those who oppose our cause hagiography, but while reading her book, I found myself won- are rich and powerful and they have many allies in high dering about the nature of sanctity. Saints? Holiness? I apol- places. We are poor. Our allies are few.” ogize for introducing radiant nouns. Chavez ended his 1968 fast in a tableau that was rich with symbol and irony. Physically diminished (in photographs his body seems unable to sustain an erect, he first portrait in The Union of Their Dreams is of seated position), he was handed bread (sacramental Eliseo Medina. At the advent of the UFW, Eliseo was ministration after his trial in the desert) by Chris Hart- T a shy teenager, educated only through the eighth mire, the Presbyterian minister who gave so much of his grade. Though he was not confident in English, Medina life to serving Chavez and his union. The Protestant loved to read El Malcriado, the feisty bilingual weekly pub- activist was feeding the Catholic ascetic. Alongside lished by the UFW. He remembered that his life changed the Chavez sat Robert F. Kennedy, then a U.S. senator from Thursday night he went to hear Chavez in the social hall of New York. The poor and the meek also have allies in high Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Delano. He was “disap- places. pointed by the leader’s unimpressive appearance.” But by the Here began a conflict between deprivation and success end of the evening, he had determined to join the union. that would bedevil Chavez through three decades. In a way, No Chavez speech I have read or heard approaches the this was a struggle between the Mexican Cesar Chavez and rhetorical brilliance of the Protestant ministers of the black the American Cesar Chavez. For it was Mexico that taught civil rights movement. Chavez was, however, brilliantly the- Chavez to value a life of suffering. It was America that taught atrical. He seemed to understand, the way Charlie Chaplin him to fight the causes of suffering. understood, how to make an embarrassment of himself—his The speech Chavez had written during his hunger strike mulishness, his silence, his witness. His presence at the edge of 1968, wherein he compared the UFW to David fighting of a field was a blight of beatitude. Goliath, announced the Mexican theme: “I am convinced Chavez studied the power of abstinence. He internalized that the truest act of courage, the strongest act of manliness

18 Wilson Quarterly ■ Winter 2010 Cesar Chavez is to sacrifice ourselves for others in a totally non-violent strug- Indians could come to her and tell her of their suffering. Our gle for justice. To be a man is to suffer for others. God help Lady of Guadalupe was a part of every UFW demonstration. us to be men.” (Nearly three decades later, in the program for Though he grew up during the American Depression, Chavez’s funeral, the wording of his psalm was revised— Chavez breathed American optimism and American “humanity” substituted for “manliness”: To be human is to activism. In the early 1950s, while still a farm worker, he met suffer for others. God help me to be human.) Fred Ross of the Community Service Organization, a group Nothing else Chavez would write during his life had inspired by the principles of the radical organizer Saul Alin- such haunting power for me as this public prayer for a life of sky. Chavez later became an official in the CSO, and eventu- suffering; no utterance would sound so Mexican. Other cul- ally its president. He persuaded notoriously apathetic Mex- tures in the world assume the reality of suffering as something ican Americans to register to vote by encouraging them to to be overcome. Mexico assumes the inevitability of suffer- believe they could change their lives in America. ing. That knowledge informs the folk music of Mexico, the If you would understand the tension between Mexico and bitter humor of its proverbs, the architecture of its stoicism. the United States that is playing out along our mutual bor- To be a man is to suffer for others. The code of machismo der, you must understand the psychic tension between Mex- (which in American English translates too crudely to sexual ican stoicism—if that is a rich enough word for it—and bravado) in Mexico derives from a medieval chivalry whereby American optimism. On the one side, Mexican peasants a man uses his strength to protect those less powerful. God are tantalized by the American possibility of change. On the help us to be men. other side, the tyranny of American optimism has driven Mexicans believe that in 1531 the Virgin Mary appeared Americans to neurosis and depression—when the dream is in brown skin, in royal Aztec raiment, to a converted Indian elusive or less meaningful than the myth promised. This con- peasant named Juan Diego. The Virgin asked that a church stitutes the great irony of the Mexican-American border: be erected on the site of her four apparitions so that Mexican American sadness has transformed the drug lords of Mex-

Cesar Chavez leads farm workers and supporters on a 340-mile march from his hometown of Delano to the steps of the California state capitol in Sacramento in 1966.The union leader called the journey the Peregrinacion (Pilgrimage), imbuing it with religious overtones.

Winter 2010 ■ Wilson Quarterly 19 Cesar Chavez ico into billionaires, even as the peasants of Mexico scram- argue that the Game was an inversion of an ancient ble through the darkness to find the American dream. monastic discipline meant to teach humility. Someone By the late 1960s, as the first UFW contracts were less sympathetic might conclude that Chavez was turn- being signed, Chavez began to brood. Had he spent his ing into a petty tyrant. I think both estimations are true. poor life only to create a middle class? Lionel Stein- From his reading, Chavez would have known that St. berg, the first grape grower to sign with the UFW, was Francis of Assisi desired to imitate the life of Jesus. The fol- drawn by Chavez’s charisma but chagrined at the union’s lowers of Francis desired to imitate the life of Francis. disordered operations. “Is it a social movement or a Within 10 years of undertaking his mendicant life, Francis trade union?” Steinberg wondered. He urged Chavez to had more than 1,000 followers. Francis realized he could not use experienced negotiators from the AFL-CIO. administer a growing religious order by personal example. Chavez paid himself a subsistence annual wage of He relinquished the administration of the Franciscans to $5,000. “You can’t change anything if you want to hold men who had some talent for organization. Cesar Chavez onto a good job, a good way of life, and avoid suffering.” never gave up his position as head of the UFW. The world-famous labor leader would regularly complain In 1977 Chavez traveled to Manila as a guest of Pres- to his poorly paid staff about the phone bills they ran up ident Ferdinand Marcos. He ended up praising the old and about what he saw as the misuse of a fleet of second- dictator. There were darker problems within the UFW. hand UFW cars. He held the union hostage to the purity It was rumored that some within the inner circle were of his intent. Eliseo Medina, who had become one of the responsible for a car crash that left Cleofas Guzman, an union’s most effective organizers, could barely support his apostate union member, with permanent brain damage. young family and, without even the prospect of estab- Chavez spent his last years protesting the use of pes- lishing a savings account, asked Chavez about setting up ticides in the fields. In April of 1993, he died. a trust fund for his infant son. Chavez promised to get back to him but never did. Shortly after, discouraged by the mis- management of the union, Medina resigned. n death, Cesar Chavez became a Mexican saint and an In 1975, Chavez helped to pass legislation prohibiting American hero. The year after his death, Chavez was the use of the short-handled hoe—its two-foot-long haft Iawarded the National Medal of Freedom by President forced farm workers to stoop all day. That achievement Bill Clinton. In 2002, the U.S. Postal Service unveiled a 37- would outlast the decline of his union. By the early 1970s, cent stamp bearing the image of Cesar Chavez. Politicians California vegetable growers had begun signing sweet- throughout the West and the Southwest attached Chavez’s heart contracts with the rival Teamsters Union. The UFW name to parks and schools and streets and civic buildings of became mired in scraps with unfriendly politicians in every sort. Sacramento. Chavez’s attention wandered. He imagined In 1997 American painter Robert Lentz, a Franciscan a “Poor Peoples Union” that would reach out to senior cit- brother, painted an icon of “Cesar Chavez of California.” izens and people on welfare. He contacted church officials Chavez is depicted with a golden halo. He holds in his hand within the Vatican about the possibility of establishing a a scrolled broadsheet of the U.S. Constitution. He wears a religious society devoted to service to the poor. He grew pink sweatshirt bearing the UFW insignia. interested in the Hutterite communities of North Amer- That same year, executives at the advertising agency ica and the Israeli kibbutzim as possible models. TBWA/Chiat/Day came up with a campaign for Apple com- Chavez visited Synanon, the drug rehabilitation com- puters that featured images of some famous dead—John mune headed by Charles Dederich, shortly before some Lennon, Albert Einstein, Frank Sinatra—alongside a of its members were implicated in a series of sexual grammar-crunching motto: THINK DIFFERENT. scandals and criminal assaults. Chavez borrowed from I remember sitting in bad traffic on the San Diego Free- Synanon a version of a disciplinary practice called “the way and looking up to see a photograph of Cesar Chavez on Game,” whereby UFW staff members were obliged to a billboard. His eyes were downcast. He balanced a rake and stand in the middle of a circle of peers and submit to a shovel over his right shoulder. In the upper-left-hand fierce criticism. Someone sympathetic to Chavez might corner was the corporate logo of a bitten apple. ■

20 Wilson Quarterly ■ Winter 2010 THE WILSON QUARTERLY

Planet Pakistan

In Pakistan, people see Al Qaeda as an imagined threat, and shadowy U.S. agents as the secret power behind major events. How can the United States forge a better partnership with this country that has become the epicenter of global terrorism?

BY ROBERT M. HATHAWAY

An American visitor in Pakistan can’t help Congress. The $7.5 billion Kerry-Lugar bill tripled thinking at times that he has arrived in a parallel uni- American support for Pakistan over a five-year period verse. Asked about the presence of Al Qaeda on their and reversed the overwhelmingly promilitary slant of country’s soil, Pakistanis deny that there is any evidence previous U.S. aid. Instead of going almost entirely to of it. They lionize A. Q. Khan, who created the country’s the armed forces, American dollars will flow to nuclear weapons program and sold essential nuclear schools and clinics, economic development, and technology and knowledge to Iran, North Korea, and efforts to promote the rule of law and democratic Libya, and they are incensed by American worries about governance. Pakistan’s friends in Washington were the security of their country’s nuclear assets. Suicide jubilant. Yet most Pakistanis I spoke with insisted bombings and political assassinations are near-daily that because the aid came with conditions—the U.S. occurrences, yet many Pakistanis are astonishingly com- secretary of state must certify that Pakistan is work- placent about the murderous groups behind them. They ing to end government support for extremist and rail instead against the government that is powerless to terrorist groups, for example—it was an affront and prevent these attacks and an America that would like a threat to their country’s sovereignty. One legislator nothing better than to see an end to them. complained that what Pakistan was being asked to Last October, when I visited, Pakistanis were fum- accept was less an aid package than a treaty of ing over the U.S. aid package recently approved by surrender. Denial is a national habit in Pakistan. With a long Robert M. Hathaway is the director of the Woodrow Wilson Center’s history of failed governance and political leaders who Asia Program. His most recent book is Powering Pakistan: Meeting Pakistan’s Energy Needs in the 21st Century (2009). put their personal interests first, Pakistanis point

Winter 2010 ■ Wilson Quarterly 21 Pakistan their fingers at the United States, their arch-enemy urban elite that enjoys its Scotch, and, of course, India, or the all-purpose malefactor often described those 21st-century nuclear weapons. in the local news media as the “hidden hand”—any- one but themselves to explain their nation’s past fail- ings and precarious present. akistan’s troubles are alarmingly plentiful and If they were characters in a television sitcom, Pak- plain to see. Its economic growth rate is the istan and the United States would be a perfectly mis- Plowest in South Asia, while its inflation rate is matched pair in a series guaranteed a long run. But among the highest in the world. Its education system in the real world of international affairs, this is a dif- is in shambles, its judicial system inefficient and fre- ficult relationship that the United States must repair. quently corrupt, its political institutions ineffectual. Pakistan is too important for us to sit idly by while it Pakistan comes in near the bottom on most human deteriorates. Its 175 million people make it the sixth development indexes. According to the United most populous country in the world; and other than Nations, it ranks below 133 other countries in adult Indonesia, no country is home to more Muslims. literacy. Power shortages are endemic, aggravating already high levels of unemployment and in- creasingly stoking dem- EVEN IN THE SWANKIEST neighbor- onstrations and other signs of political instabil- hoods of Islamabad, power blackouts are so ity. Even in the swankiest neighborhoods of Kar- frequent as to merit no comment. achi, the country’s com- mercial and financial hub, or the capital city of With roughly 650,000 active-duty personnel, its mil- Islamabad, blackouts are so frequent as to merit no itary is almost as large as the combined forces of comment—a good host always keeps plenty of candles Britain, France, and Germany. And Pakistan is one of at the ready. the world’s nine nuclear-armed states, with perhaps Instability has become a way of life for Pakistan. 50 to 100 weapons. Islamabad’s authority does not even extend over the It is a conservative, patriarchal society, yet it has entire country. Baluchistan, the largest of the country’s twice been led by a female prime minister, Benazir four provinces, is home to a low-level but long-running Bhutto. Women play highly visible roles not only in separatist insurgency. Armed gangs, some affiliated with politics but in the news media and in professional life; political parties, periodically bring the great city of on three separate occasions, Pakistan’s ambassador in Karachi to the edge of anarchy. The tribal areas along the Washington has been a woman, a fact that under- border with Afghanistan have never been fully incorpo- scores the contradictory character of the country and rated into the Pakistani body politic, but have enjoyed a the relatively modern outlook of its educated classes. semi-autonomous status and are best known for their Ruled by the army for more than half its history, Pak- fierce resistance, sometimes by force of arms, to Islam- istan nonetheless boasts an obstreperous civil society abad’s control. and a free, often unruly press. It is a feudal society More urgently, a variety of loosely linked Islamist where tribal and clan ties loom large, and powerful groups known in the West as the Pakistan Taliban, landowners control thousands of votes on election many with ties to Al Qaeda, have in recent years day. Men, women, and children still carry huge piles unleashed attacks on markets, schools, restaurants, of firewood on their shoulders along city streets, as if hotels, mosques, and other public places throughout the past 500 years had never occurred. Yet the coun- the country. On the day I arrived in mid-October, a try also boasts an active stock exchange, a cultured suicide bombing in the rugged northern district of

22 Wilson Quarterly ■ Winter 2010 Pakistan

As the father of the Pakistani bomb, A.Q. Khan is a folk hero at home. Elsewhere he is known as the man who sold nuclear secrets to rogue states.

Swat killed more than 40 people. The previous week- A day earlier, 50 people had died in a car bombing in end, extremists had carried out a bold attack on the Peshawar. Overall, terrorism took the lives of more army’s general headquarters, in the city of than 300 Pakistani civilians in October. Rawalpindi, killing a Pakistani general and 22 others. Many of the groups that now besiege the country

Winter 2010 ■ Wilson Quarterly 23 Pakistan

Turkmenistan attacks in the first six Kashi months of 2009, or more Dushanbe Tajikistan Uzbekistan Shache than six a day. The final Ashgabat Yecheng count for the second half of China the year will almost surely Mazar-E Sharif be higher. Northern North-West Areas Pakistan has become the Frontier

Kabul Indus epicenter of global terrorism, Herat Srinagar Peshawar Mardan Indus Kashmir earning a reputation as the Islamabad Rawalpindi most dangerous place on Fed. Admin. Jammu Tribal Areas earth. Pakistanis bridle at the Afghanistan Gujranwala label, yet U.S. intelligence Lahore Kandahar Faisalabad Jhang Sadar believes that the remnants of Kasur Iran Punjab Okara Al Qaeda’s leadership are Quetta Dera Ghazi Khan Multan hiding either in Quetta, the Bahawalpur New capital of Baluchistan, or in Baluchistan Indus Delhi Rahimyar Khan Pakistan the mountainous tribal areas Sukkur India straddling the Pakistan- Afghanistan border. A pass- Sind

Nawabshah port recently found in the

Hyderabad tribal areas has been linked

Karachi to two of the hijackers

Arabian Sea involved in the 9/11 attacks. Muscat A visitor to Islamabad Oman Narmada cannot avoid daily reminders of the extremist threat. Police were nurtured over several decades by Pakistan’s mil- checkpoints interrupt the flow of traffic every few itary and intelligence services. That support, which in blocks. Heavily armed soldiers bivouac in tents along retrospect appears ill judged if not suicidal, was the the city’s broad boulevards. Coils of concertina wire sit product of the country’s obsession with India, its atop a wall surrounding the U.S. embassy, giving it the existential enemy since Pakistan was born out of the look of a beleaguered outpost in enemy territory— violent partition of the Subcontinent in 1947. India hardly an advertisement for American soft power. and Pakistan have fought four wars since then. The Hotels are ringed with security barriers. A new blast thinking in Islamabad was that these groups would wall prevents easy access to the Marriott hotel, the tie down Indian forces along the border, especially site of an attack two years ago that killed at least 53 around the disputed region of Kashmir, helping to people and injured more than 260. I find that these compensate for Pakistan’s conventional military infe- days I think much more about personal security than riority while enabling Islamabad to deny any respon- during my earlier visits. When my driver’s wrong turn sibility for their guerrilla activities. Only recently took us down a dead-end street in October, I instinc- have the government and army begun to rethink this tively thought of kidnapping and scanned the policy. Meanwhile, Pakistan has bled. With the excep- streetscape for an escape route. tion of Iraq and Afghanistan, which are active war And yet, one suspects that many of the security zones, Pakistan has suffered more from terrorism in measures I saw are just for show. As my car approached recent years than any other nation in the world. checkpoints, police would peer inside, see my Western According to the U.S. National Counterterrorism features, and wave us through. But they did the same Center, it experienced more than 1,100 terrorist thing with nearly every car, making one wonder what

24 Wilson Quarterly ■ Winter 2010 Pakistan they were looking for, or what the purpose of these traf- nologies out of the United States, in direct violation of fic stops actually was. Still in denial? U.S. law. Solemn Pakistani pledges to forgo nuclear weapons were flagrant lies. If Pakistanis believe the United States has been an unfaithful friend, Americans he United States looms large in the minds of have every reason to complain that Pakistani govern- most Pakistanis. Nothing in Pakistan, one hears ments since the 1950s have repeatedly and consistently T repeatedly, happens except at the instigation of deceived the United States. But these inconvenient facts one of the three A’s: Allah, the army, or America. When do not fit within the Pakistani narrative. All too seldom I visited last fall, the newspapers and especially the sen- does one find a willingness even among educated Pak- sationalist television talk shows were obsessed with istanis to accept responsibility for anything that might rumors that heavily armed U.S. diplomats were prowl- have gone wrong in their country’s 60-year history. ing the streets of Islamabad. The notorious (especially in In Washington, meanwhile, the notion that the Muslim countries) U.S. security company Blackwater, United States cleverly orchestrates events in Pakistan which has tried to “rebrand” itself as Xe Ser- vices, was said to be scour- ing the country for Pak- NOTHING IN PAKISTAN, one hears istan’s nuclear arsenal in preparation for a U.S. repeatedly, happens without Allah, the commando attack. In Is- lamabad, the U.S. Embas- army, or America. sy’s plan to expand in order to accommodate the influx of workers that will come with increased U.S. aid strikes most American Pakistan-watchers as nonsensi- was cited by commentators as fresh evidence of an cal. From their vantage point, the United States has American plot to take over the country. painfully little influence in Pakistan. It was powerless to Alas, none of this is new. For more than 50 years, the persuade, coerce, bribe, or otherwise prevent Islam- U.S.–Pakistani relationship has been for both sides one abad from going down the nuclear path in the 1980s, or of repeated disappointment. Pakistanis embrace a nar- from crossing the final threshold and testing a nuclear rative of American betrayal. Exhibit A is the U.S. with- weapon in 1998. American hopes that Pakistan would drawal from the region following the defeat of the Soviet evolve into a stable democracy and a modern, progres- Union in Afghanistan in the late 1980s, and the 1990 ter- sive society have been repeatedly disappointed. U.S. mination of most American assistance to Pakistan, efforts to encourage Pakistan to abandon its obsession required by U.S. law because of Pakistan’s increasingly with India in favor of tackling its many domestic chal- obvious efforts to develop nuclear weapons. The United lenges have failed abysmally. Great power has not always States treated Pakistan as a pawn in its Cold War strug- conveyed great leverage. gle against the Soviets, runs the oft-repeated complaint, A recent case in point: Washington’s desire in the then disposed of it “like a used Kleenex.” aftermath of the 9/11 attacks to find in Pakistan a stal- Missing from this historical recollection is wart ally in the war against terrorism has repeatedly run any recognition that Pakistan used its Cold War part- aground on the reality that Pakistan defines terrorism nership with the Americans for its own purposes— very differently from the United States. Convinced that notably, its rivalry with India. American arms meant to America will eventually tire of fighting in Afghanistan shore up Pakistani defenses against possible Soviet and once again withdraw from the region, the Pakistani aggression were employed instead against India, a U.S. military and intelligence services regard many of the friend. American political and diplomatic support was groups Washington deems “terrorists” as a necessary repaid by Pakistani efforts to smuggle sensitive tech- hedge in the inevitable renewed competition with India

Winter 2010 ■ Wilson Quarterly 25 Pakistan

carry immense benefits for the United States—and not inci- dentally, for Pakistanis. If, on the other hand, Pakistan col- lapses into anarchy, it will pose a far greater threat as a terrorist haven than Afghanistan did on September 10, 2001. And this does not even take into account the nightmare scenario of Pak- istan’s nuclear assets falling into the wrong hands. Despite the profound dif- ferences separating the two countries, a mutually benefi- cial partnership is not incon- ceivable. Pakistanis are not a people who disdain America’s values. Until very recently Americans were welcome in Pakistan, and felt at ease trav- The message was clear in this protest march in Lahore last October.The demonstration’s Islamist organ- eling into the far corners of the izers demanded that Pakistan reject the $7.5 billion aid package recently approved in Washington. country. Pakistani families send their children to study at for influence in Afghanistan. U.S. universities; many have relatives living in the Most Pakistanis disapprove of America’s war in United States. An American green card, entitling the Afghanistan and believe that terrorism in their coun- owner to work in the United States, is a prized pos- try is a direct outgrowth of U.S. military operations session. The practice of Islam in Pakistan has histor- across the border. They angrily denounce America’s ically been tolerant, reflecting the influence of the use of drone aircraft to target Taliban and Al Qaeda faith’s mystical Sufi branch among the country’s wor- leaders in Pakistan’s tribal areas. Many Pakistanis shipers. Only since the 1980s has Islam in Pakistan suspect that Washington’s antiterrorism agenda evolved into something less comfortable for merely masks a plot to seize Pakistan’s prized nuclear Americans—the result of inroads by Saudi-financed assets. Such dramatic differences of perspective do dogmatic Wahabbism; the cultivation of extremist not make for a comfortable alliance. Indeed, during groups to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan; the poli- her visit to Pakistan at the end of October, Secretary cies of the pious Zia ul-Haq, Pakistan’s military ruler of State Hillary Rodham Clinton publicly asked how in the 1980s; and a general failure on the part of it was possible that no one in Pakistan’s military and successive Pakistani governments (and outside aid intelligence services knew where Osama bin Laden donors) to provide young Pakistanis with political and and his top lieutenants were hiding. Many Pakistanis economic opportunities. professed to be offended by the question. No doubt, the new strength of Pakistani Wahhab- Notwithstanding the unhappy past and confound- bism has pushed the country in a conservative direc- ing present, the United States has an enormous strate- tion. But the excesses of the extremists, while cowing gic interest in seeing Pakistan succeed. If the world’s many Pakistanis, have also had a contrary effect, second-largest Muslim-majority country can become encouraging many to rethink who their friends really a force for tolerance, pluralism, and modernity, this will are. Polls, news media comment, and other evidence

26 Wilson Quarterly ■ Winter 2010 Pakistan portray a decided shift in sentiment away from those bring the United States and Pakistan together rather who perpetrate violence in the name of godliness, and than divide them. toward support of the use of force to eradicate them. But antiterrorism by itself is not a sufficient founda- The army, which for decades has cultivated many of tion for a long-term partnership. A positive agenda is the groups responsible for the violence in Pakistan, now needed, one that recognizes shared bonds and mutual appears to have concluded that domestic extremism interests, not merely common enemies. The Kerry- represents an even greater threat to the country than Lugar aid bill, by putting the United States firmly behind India does. Last spring, the military abandoned its the proposition that Washington supports civilian-based earlier strategy of negoti- ating so-called peace accords with these groups and launched a major DENIAL, SCAPEGOATING, and a willful offensive to drive the mil- itants from the Swat Val- refusal to embrace reality are luxuries ley. In October, during my visit, it mounted another Pakistan can no longer afford. large operation, this time in mountainous South Waziristan, along the border with Afghanistan. The democracy, economic development, the rule of law, and region is home to some of the most violent extremists, access to decent education and adequate health care in notably the Mehsud tribe, said to be responsible for Pakistan, is an important step in that direction. many of the most egregious suicide bombings in Pak- An additional ingredient is needed, however, if the istan in recent years. The fighting has been intense, but United States and Pakistan are to build a real partner- the army has continued to push forward. The shocking ship: truthfulness. During Secretary Clinton’s October attack on its general headquarters in Rawalpindi seems visit to Pakistan, she was on the receiving end of a seem- to have personalized the Islamist threat for the military ingly endless barrage of complaints about the United high command. States and its policies. And she pushed back. She admit- To be sure, Pakistan’s governing institutions remain ted past U.S. mistakes—acknowledging, for instance, pathetically weak, a deficiency that must temper any that America had not always been a stalwart friend—but optimism prompted by the army’s newfound vigor in she also insisted that building a long-term relationship pursuit of extremists. Few Pakistanis have confidence requires two equally committed parties. Denial, scape- in the civilian-led government headed by President goating, and a willful refusal to embrace reality, she Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of Benazir Bhutto. seemed to be saying, are luxuries Pakistan can no longer Zardari swept to victory at the polls in February 2008 afford. in the aftermath of her assassination, but since then he Clinton’s candor was refreshing. More than that, it has squandered his mandate and almost certainly was essential: It is past time for Pakistanis and Ameri- could not win an election today. As if allegations of cans to have an honest conversation. For instance, Clin- ineptitude and corruption, on top of a poor relationship ton bluntly told Pakistani business leaders they must pay with the army, were not enough, he is seen by most more taxes. Some might find it odd for a secretary of state Pakistanis as America’s man—a sizable irony consid- to be dispensing advice of this sort (particularly in view ering that few in Washington have any great confidence of America’s own fiscal failures). But Clinton’s impolitic in his abilities. remark underscored an abiding reality: The United For the time being, however, the government and the States cannot save Pakistan; only Pakistanis can do that. army are in accord on the need to move forcefully against Unless they accept responsibility for their own future, the extremists. This, at any rate, is a start. It raises the Pakistan will have no future. That is not a prospect any- possibility that the fight against terrorism might at last body should contemplate with equanimity. ■

Winter 2010 ■ Wilson Quarterly 27 THE WILSON QUARTERLY

Man of the World

Today, as newspapers are shuttered and reporters panhandle for work, it’s worth remembering Joseph Pulitzer, whose taste for sensationalism and sense of public service midwifed American journalism into the modern era.

BY JAMES MCGRATH MORRIS

In May 1883, after attending a funeral in recalled later, “completely disarranged everything, and Vermont, New York World reporter James B. Townsend had passed away leaving confusion.” Striving to avoid col- returned to Park Row, the stretch of buildings across from lisions with messenger boys exiting with urgent deliv- New York City Hall that served as America’s Fleet Street. eries, Townsend made his way to the city room and There, the Herald, the Tribune, and the Sun, along with found his colleagues running around excitedly. He asked less known papers such as the Times and the World, plied the general manager about the cause of all the their trade within earshot of one another. With the excep- commotion. tion of the Sun—a vanguard of the penny press that cov- “You will know soon enough, young man,” the fellow ered urban tales and partisan politics—the papers pro- replied. “The new boss will see you in five minutes.” He duced a dignified and subdued tally of the latest goings-on then glanced up at Townsend and added. “After us the in American politics, foreign capitals, finance, and polite deluge—prepare to meet thy fate.” society that was consumed by those with the economic The new owner was Joseph Pulitzer, a 36-year-old wherewithal to spend as much as a nickel. Jewish Hungarian immigrant who had come to New When Townsend had left, a few days earlier, the York City from St. Louis, where in the short span of five World was on its last legs, and appeared unlikely to be years he had transformed a bankrupt evening newspa- rescued by its owner, the financier Jay Gould. Townsend, per into a moneymaking, politician-breaking, must- one of the few reporters still with the paper, was startled read sheet. Pulitzer was part of a new order of by what he found upon reaching the World’s offices. “It journalism—lively, independent, and crusading—that seemed as if a cyclone had entered the building,” he was growing in cities outside New York, like a stage play previewing out of town, working out the kinks while James McGrath Morris is the author of Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, awaiting its chance to open on Broadway. Print, and Power, forthcoming in February. He edits the monthly newslet- ter Biographer’s Craft. Townsend was summoned to Pulitzer’s office.

28 Wilson Quarterly ■ Winter 2010 like to remain on the staff. “Good, I like you,” replied Pulitzer. “Get to work.” During the following days, edi- tors and reporters arriving in the early morning found Pulitzer already in his office, often toiling in his shirtsleeves. When the door was open and he was dictating an editorial, recalled one man, “his speech was so interlarded with sul- phurous and searing phrases that the whole staff shuddered. He was the first man I ever heard who split a word to insert an oath. He did it often. His favorite was ‘indegod- dampendent.’ ” As the staff settled in for the day’s work, they couldn’t escape Pulitzer. No detail was so small that he considered it beneath his attention. He was once overheard disputing the number of cattle an editor estimated had arrived in New York from the West the pre- vious day. At first, Pulitzer sought solely to inculcate in his staff the principles by which he believed a paper should be written and edited. This effort, however modest it may seem, is how the World began on its path to becoming the most Joseph Pulitzer, shown in a 1901 drawing, revolutionized newspapers 100 years ago with splashy head- widely read newspaper in Ameri- lines and lurid stories.But the man who helped to color journalism yellowwas after more than greenbacks. can history. (To match the reach, in comparative terms, of the million- Dressed in a frock coat and gray trousers, Pulitzer stared copy circulation of Pulitzer’s World, today’s New York at him through his glasses. “So, this is Mr. T.,” he said. Times would have to increase its paid readership by “Well, sir, you’ve heard that I am the new chief of this 300 percent.) In an era when the printed word ruled newspaper. I have already introduced new methods— supreme and 1,028 daily newspapers across the country new ways I propose to galvanize this force: Are you will- vied for readers, content was the means of competition. ing to aid me?” The medium was not the message; the message was. Almost as if the breath had been sucked from him by The paper abandoned its old front-page headlines. Pulitzer’s vigor, Townsend stammered that he would Bench Show of Dogs: Prizes Awarded on

Winter 2010 ■ Wilson Quarterly 29 Pulitzer the Second Day of the Meeting in Madison over, about the destitute and widowed Mar- Square Garden, which appeared on May 10 in the garet Graham. Dockworkers had seen her last editions before Pulitzer assumed control, was suc- walking on the edge of a pier in the East River ceeded on May 12 by Screaming for Mercy: How with an infant in her arms and a small child the Craven Cornetti Mounted the Scaf- clutching her skirt. “All at once the famished fold. Two weeks later, the World’s readers were greeted mother clasped the feeble little girl round her with the words Baptized in Blood, atop a story waist and, tottering to the brink of the wharf, that, with the aid of a diagram, detailed how 11 people hurled both her starving young into the river were crushed to death in a human stampede when panic as it whirled by. She stood for a moment on the broke out in a crowd enjoying a Sunday stroll on the edge of the stream. The children were too newly opened Brooklyn Bridge. Pulitzer’s dramatic head- weak and spent to struggle or to cry. Their lit- lines made the World stand out from its competitors like tle helpless heads dotted the brown tide for an a racehorse among draft horses. instant, then they sank out of sight.” Graham If the headline was the lure, the copy was the hook. followed her children into the river, but she Pulitzer could craft—or teach his editors to craft—all was saved by the onlookers and taken to jail to the catchy headlines he wanted, but it was up to the face murder charges. reporters to win over readers. He admonished his staff Pulitzer pushed his writers to think like to write in a buoyant, colloquial style consisting of Charles Dickens, who wove fiction from sad simple nouns, bright verbs, and short, punchy sen- tales of Victorian London, to create compelling tences. The “Pulitzer formula,” if there was one, was a entertainment from the drama of the modern story written so simply that anyone could read it, and city. In the Lower East Side’s notorious bars, so colorfully that no one would forget it. “The question, called “black and tans” for the blend of stout and ‘Did you see that in the World?’ ” Pulitzer instructed his lager they served, or at dinner in cramped ten- staff, “should be asked every day, and something should ements, men and women did not discuss soci- be designed to cause this.” ety news, cultural events, or happenings in the The World’s stories were animated not just by the investment houses. Rather, the talk was about facts the reporters dug up but also by the voices of the the toddler who fell to his death from a rooftop, city they recorded. Pulitzer drove his staff to aggres- the brutal beating police officers meted out to an sively seek out interviews, a relatively new technique in unfortunate waif, or the rising fares of streetcar journalism. Leading figures of the day, accustomed to trips to the upper reaches of Fifth Avenue and a high wall of privacy, were affronted by what Pulitzer the mansions where so many working people proudly called “the insolence and impertinence of the toiled as servants. reporters for the World.” The World drew in these readers, many of Not only did he have the temerity to dispatch his whom were immigrants struggling to master men to pester politicians, manufacturers, bankers, and their first words of English. Writing about the society figures for answers to endless questions, he events that mattered in their lives in a way they also instructed them to return with specific observa- could understand, Pulitzer’s World gave these tions. Vagueness was a sin. A tall man stood six feet two New Yorkers a feeling of belonging and a sense of value. inches. A beautiful woman had auburn hair, hazel The moneyed class learned to pick up the World with eyes, and demure lips that occasionally turned upward trepidation. Each day brought a fresh assault on in a coy smile. privilege. Pulitzer had an uncanny ability to recognize news In one stroke, Pulitzer simultaneously elevated the in what others ignored. He sent out reporters to mine common man and took his spare change. He found the urban dramas his competitors consigned to their readers where other newspaper publishers saw a threat. back pages. Typical, for instance, was the tale that ran Immigrants were pouring into New York at an unprece- on the World’s front page, soon after Pulitzer took dented rate. By the end of the decade, 80 percent of the

30 Wilson Quarterly ■ Winter 2010 Pulitzer

To be close to NewYork City Hall,newspapers clustered on Park Row in the late 1800s.Here,a crowd reads news bulletins about the Spanish-American War. city’s population was foreign born or of foreign parent- army, Pulitzer gained his first perch as a reporter for a age. Only the World seemed to consider the stories of this German-language daily newspaper in St. Louis by the human tide deserving of news coverage. time he was 20. Teaching himself English, he entered the hurly-burly world of immigrant politics under the wing of Carl Schurz, the prominent 19th-century German- ulitzer’s own story would have been front-page American politician who served in the U.S. Senate and material had he permitted it. Having arrived in as secretary of the interior. Pulitzer served briefly as an Pthe United States in 1864 as a penniless teenager elected state legislator and was a key member of the who had been recruited as a mercenary for the Union reform-minded Liberal Republican Party, a short-lived

Winter 2010 ■ Wilson Quarterly 31 Pulitzer wing of the Republican Party that launched a failed formed in the public interest.” insurgency against President Ulysses S. Grant. After- History tends to forget this lofty aspect of Pulitzer, ward, Pulitzer became a lifelong Democrat. because in pursuit of readers the World found itself locked In his time, politics and journalism were two sides of in a no-holds-barred competition with The New York the same coin. Out-of-work politicians became news- Journal, owned by William Randolph Hearst, an upstart paper editors, and successful editors became elected imitator who had discovered that clamoring for war with politicians. In 1878, Pulitzer purchased The St. Louis Dis- Spain in 1898 boosted readership. The fight between the patch at a courthouse-steps bankruptcy auction, merged two sucked the newspapers into a spiraling descent of sen- it with The Evening Post, and pioneered through exper- sationalism, outright fabrications, and profligate spend- imentation the techniques that would make him a suc- ing that threatened to bankrupt both their credibility and cess in New York. their businesses. Within a few years of arriving on Park Row, he had In the end, the two publishers survived this short but transformed the World into the unquestionable ruling intense circulation war. But their rivalry became almost as paper of the nation. Its power made it the 19th-century famous as the Spanish-American War itself. Pulitzer was indissolubly linked with Hearst as a purveyor of yel- low journalism. In fact, PULITZER USED HIS PAPER to many later surmised that Pulitzer’s endowment of promote a progressive—almost radical— Columbia University’s jour- nalism school and the political agenda. establishment, at his death, of national prizes for jour- nalists were thinly veiled equivalent of CBS, The New York Times, and The Wash- attempts to cleanse his legacy. While the actions may ington Post combined. (Every day, six acres of spruce have raised his historical standing, Pulitzer’s motives to trees were felled to keep up with the World’s demand for improve the professionalism of journalism were heartfelt. paper, and almost every day enough lead was melted into Aside from accumulating considerable political power, type to set an entire Bible into print.) Pulitzer midwifed the birth of the modern mass media. He But Pulitzer’s motive for chasing readers was not was the first media lord to recognize the vast social changes simply pecuniary. He regarded journalism as a source of triggered by the Industrial Revolution, and to capitalize on political power, the kind he had sought when he ran for them by harnessing the converging elements of mass office. He unabashedly used the paper as a handmaiden entertainment and technological advances in printing of reform, to raise social consciousness and promote a and communication. In filling his newspapers with stories progressive—almost radical—political agenda, ranging of human interest and sensation harvested from urban life, from a tax on luxuries and large incomes to a crackdown he radically changed the focus of the news by reporting on on corrupt officials. matters relating directly to his readers. Like many brilliant In his conception, this was the most important role ideas, it is a notion that strikes one as common sense of a newspaper. Reporting the news enabled him to today but was radical in his time. build a readership that would turn to the editorial page Pulitzer offered this wonder for a penny or two, a for his own sage counsel on affairs of state and politics. price almost anyone could afford. He made news into a “The World should be more powerful than the president,” commodity, as Ted Turner did a century later when he Pulitzer once said. “He is fettered by partisanship and built CNN to cater to—and stimulate—viewers’ insa- politicians and has only a four-year term. The paper tiable appetite for news (the same appetite that now goes on year after year and is absolutely free to tell the drives readers to the Web). truth and perform every service that should be per- Although he was at times an innovator in journalism,

32 Wilson Quarterly ■ Winter 2010 Pulitzer invention was not Pulitzer’s strength. Rather, he possessed Managers shipped back reams of financial data, editorial remarkable foresight and had an uncanny ability to rec- reports, and espionage-style accounts of one another’s ognize value where others didn’t. He was willing to take work. Although he had set foot in the skyscraper head- risks based on his insights when others remained timid. quarters he built in 1890 on Park Row only three times, For example, when evening papers were the weak sis- whenever anyone talked about the newspaper it was ters of morning editions, Pulitzer risked his last remain- always “Pulitzer’s World.” ing savings on the Post-Dispatch. He was convinced that evening papers had a great future—and he was right. The advent of the telegraph and faster printing presses made hat would the founder of modern American it possible to publish an afternoon newspaper with news journalism do today if he ran a newspaper, a as fresh as that day, making morning papers look as if they W product with fewer and fewer readers and of were publishing yesterday’s news, which in fact they were. diminishing interest to advertisers? For one, he would sell Urbanites, particularly factory workers and professionals its presses. The migration to the Web would be an unmis- heading home from work, had a voracious appetite for takable trend to a man with Pulitzer’s predictive sense. But news and were primed to buy an evening paper. Gaslight, he would probably be—as are today’s media lords— and subsequently electric light, also made reading the without a cure for the economic cancer eating away at the newspaper an important evening pastime. In a few years, news media. In his day, the only way businesses could evening newspapers outnumbered morning ones. reach consumers was in print. The newspaper with the Pulitzer was halted before he had a chance to build a most readers held the key to the kingdom of profits national chain of newspapers, as his younger rival Hearst because it offered the most efficient way for advertisers to would eventually do. In 1887, at age 40, he began to lose make this connection. In those circumstances, it was easy his eyesight; his deteriorating vision drove him into a for Pulitzer to tell his readers, when he reduced the price personal purgatory of real and imagined illnesses, insom- of his paper to a penny, “We prefer power to profits.” nia, and fanatical intolerance of all sound. The demons But following that dictate today has put the members that beset him never rested until his death, after years of of the Graham, Ochs, and Sulzberger newspaper families ill health, in 1911. in an intractable quandary. They are giving away their During his last two decades, he roamed the globe, liv- work on the Internet in order to retain their influence in ing off the paper’s profits and his vast accumulated wealth. an era in which they no longer offer the most viable venue At any moment, he might be found consulting doctors in for advertising. Pulitzer’s descendants saw the writing on Germany, taking the waters in the south of France, rest- the wall in 2005 and sold all their remaining media hold- ing on the Riviera, walking in a private garden in London, ings, including his original St. Louis newspaper, while riding on Jekyll Island, hiding in his “Tower of Silence” (as these assets could still fetch billions of dollars. he called a specially constructed turret at his Maine vaca- For Pulitzer, journalism was a sacred pillar of democ- tion home), or cruising aboard the Liberty, a luxurious pri- racy. Though he entered newspaper publishing with the vate yacht rivaled in size and extravagance only by J. P. goal of obtaining political power to further his reformist Morgan’s Corsair. At sea, the ship’s twin steam engines aims, over time he recognized that the craft in which he drove propellers set at different pitches and running at had met with such success had a higher calling. For that varying speeds in order to minimize vibrations carried reason, when he outlined his plans for the Pulitzer Prizes through the hull. So engineered, the Liberty became, in at the end of his life, he included public service among the effect, a seagoing counterpart to the Tower of Silence. original journalism award categories. “Our republic and Throughout his long exile, Pulitzer never relaxed his its press will rise or fall together,” he said, in words that grip on the World. A stream of telegrams, all written in a today are inscribed on the walls of Columbia’s journalism code of his own invention, flowed from ports and distant school. “An able, disinterested, public-spirited press, with destinations to New York, directing every part of the trained intelligence to know the right and courage to do paper’s operation, down to the typeface to be used in it, can preserve that public virtue without which popular advertisements and the vacation schedules of editors. government is a sham and a mockery.” ■

Winter 2010 ■ Wilson Quarterly 33 THE WILSON QUARTERLY

Not a Tourist

In the age of Google and YouTube, there’s no such thing as terra incognita. But it’s still possible to travel to unknown places— with a little imagination.

BY THOMAS SWICK

Row 24, seats A, B, and C. as a charmed figure, never stymied in front of a customs The young woman by the window turns to the man officer or a computer screen. The travel writer, when he in the middle and smiles. He smoothes her hair and tells reflects, sees himself as aimless, clueless, but neverthe- her she is going to love his city. Not even off the ground, less underappreciated. and they have already created a private lair in the still- He picks a destination, or is assigned one, and often upright theater of coach. it’s a place he’s never been. Before departure he reads The man in the aisle seat immediately experiences travel books, histories, relevant novels—even learns a few feelings of exclusion, envy, and inadequacy. Travel, most words of the language—but he remains hopelessly people believe, is best when shared—an attitude that behind the humbling crowds of specialists, anthropolo- makes the solitary traveler one of life’s losers. gists, diplomats, fieldworkers, exchange students, busi- Just in time, the man reminds himself that he is not ness travelers, expatriates, flight crews, and repeat vaca- a loser. He is a travel writer. He will not be engaged in the tioners who have preceded him. superficial pursuits of tourists but in the difficult task of So he scrunches into seat 24C, furiously skimming trying to make sense of an alien culture. He looks over the guidebook he didn’t quite get to during his pre-trip somewhat pityingly at the couple, who are now dis- preparations. A long flight is an opportunity to cram, a cussing an evening trip to the casino. seat-belted all-nighter. There will be a test in the Once the plane is airborne, he glances across the morning. aisle at the woman sitting with an open laptop. He over- After the landing, the lovebirds and the do-gooder hears her tell her neighbor that she is a public health and all the other passengers disappear in a rush to expert going to fight malaria. She would present an restart their lives, and the strangeness of the travel affront to a businessman’s sense of importance. The writer’s surroundings distracts him from the fact that he travel writer leans back with a grimace, caught in the doesn’t have one. At least not here, not yet. eternal no-man’s land between pleasure and purpose. Why didn’t he bring his wife, or a friend? Some writ- The travel writer, when thought of at all, is regarded ers don’t want their assignment looking like a lark. Those who embellish their accounts understandably Thomas Swick is the author of a travel memoir, Unquiet Days: At Home prefer not to have witnesses. Also, going with a like- in Poland (1991), and a collection of travel stories, A Way to See the World: From Texas to Transylvania With a Maverick Traveler (2003). minded companion makes you susceptible to feelings of

34 Wilson Quarterly ■ Winter 2010 A travel writer’s solitary work can look a lot like play—though it is anything but carefree. cultural superiority. But the real reason to travel alone is outsiders—standing on the periphery, taking in the to be free from distractions, to be uninterruptedly action—the travel writer is an outsider times two. He absorbed in the place. repeatedly ignores the oldest saw of the trade: Write Those first few hours are always the most vivid, as what you know. He is an observer who frequently doesn’t everything stands out in its immense originality: build- know what he’s observing. A few years ago in Bangkok, ings, people, cars, mannequins. In a few days these I walked out of my hotel every morning past men and props will pass in a near-familiar blur, but now—right women hunched over bowls whose contents remained now—the world crackles with high-definition details. a mystery to me. And I asked myself: How can I know And in fact there is no test; the day you arrive is more like what these people are thinking when I don’t even know an orientation film. Tomorrow you begin your work. what they’re eating? I am talking here of narrative travel writers, not the Audacity didn’t strike me as a job requirement when compilers of information for guidebooks. They tend to I chose this career. I was fresh out of college with a hit the ground running, pressed as they are for time desire to be a writer and a conviction that, after a lifetime and money. It is tiring, thankless work, though—if of school, I had nothing to write about. So I went to Thomas Kohnstamm’s Do Travel Writers Go to Hell? France to learn French, and two years later I moved to (2008) is to be believed—you can skimp on the research Poland to marry a woman I had met on my way home and become a kind of note-taking rock star. Sex, drugs, from France. Teaching English in Warsaw, I acquired and flora ’n’ fauna. another language and enough experiences (this was the The traveler in pursuit of atmosphere and essence has early 1980s, the days of Solidarity and martial law) to a more elusive task. If all writers are by nature write my first book. Living in a foreign country not only

Winter 2010 ■ Wilson Quarterly 35 Not a Tourist gives you a deep understanding of another culture, it with the new. Shunning the tour groups, we traipse introduces you to new ways of being and seeing that are through neighborhoods and sit in bars and inadver- of inestimable value on later journeys. tently make ourselves even more out of place. We are Yet nonstop observation— even of things you under- engaged in work that looks a lot like play—even to us. But stand—is not enough for the travel writer. After a few it lacks play’s essential carefree quality. A story has to days a feeling of futility, not to mention loneliness, sets result. And it weighs on us, this knowledge, along with in. Business travelers have their meetings, aid workers the idea of our impertinent existence. their clinics, tourists their museums. Foreign corre- But we press on, watching people with purpose spondents are in search of news. Travel writers have no go through their day, remembering friends back home who said they’ve always dreamed of visiting the place where we now EVELYN WAUGH CLAIMED that he schlep. And without any prompting, we think of preferred “all but the very worst travel Bruce Chatwin—not his 1977 masterpiece In Patag- books to all but the very best novels.” onia, but his posthumous 1989 collection What Am I Doing Here. itineraries or obligations (mummies bore us, nobody’s It is one of the most perfect titles in the history of expecting us), and we have no leads, since frequently we travel writing, but it could only have graced the cover of don’t know what our story is. In the absence of a special a modern travel book. The first travel writers enter- event, or a specific assignment, we have to find our story, tained no such uncertainty about their mission. They fol- and often it is whatever happens to us. lowed in the footsteps of the explorers, or were explor- ers themselves. Their objective was clear: to describe to the folks back home an unknown world. o we wander, mosey, poke around. This is another In the 19th century, travel writing became more per- reason we go alone: We don’t have to explain to sonal. Alexander Kinglake, in Eothen (1844), described S anyone what it is we think we’re doing. A lot of not only how the Middle East looked, but also how it felt. travel writing is creative hanging out. And, inevitably, it To enliven The Bible in Spain (1843), George Borrow looks pretty pointless. But we’re hoping for an incident hung out with Gypsies, theirs being one of the handful or a character or even a calamity that can become our of languages he spoke. These writers were joined by subject. The worst trips, it is famously said, make the best others, including novelists—Charles Dickens, Anthony stories, a philosophy that fuels the trend in adventure Trollope, Mark Twain—who brought the imaginative travel. Risk—its heated buildup and colorful conse- and intuitive skills of their trade. quences—is an irresistible subject. The problem with The 20th century gave us “specialists”: Freya Stark in much of the writing that results is that it’s heavy on per- the Arab world, Norman Douglas in Italy, Gerald Bre- sonal rather than worldly insight, portraying not the nan in Spain, Patrick Leigh Fermor and Lawrence Dur- place but the author’s mettle. A beautiful exception is Joe rell in Greece. Durrell, best known for the rich sensual- Kane’s Running the Amazon (1989), which shifts ity of the novels that make up The Alexandria Quartet between gripping accounts of kayaking the length of (1957–60), grew up on Corfu and lived on a number of the world’s largest river and evocative depictions of the other islands. As a novelist who also wrote travel books, lands passed through. he continued in the tradition of D. H. Lawrence, Aldous Unlike the adventurers, who have a quest, the rest of Huxley, George Orwell, and Graham Greene. Evelyn us struggle with definition. We are not tourists, though Waugh is remembered as a novelist, but he also wrote we share their transport, their hotels, their intoxication Labels (1930) and Remote People (1931), and claimed

36 Wilson Quarterly ■ Winter 2010 Not a Tourist that he preferred “all but the very worst travel books to all but the very best novels.” Travel writing was one of World War II’s casualties, and really didn’t engage the general population again until the mid- 1970s, when Paul Theroux pub- lished The Great Railway Bazaar. Joy-riding on trains through Europe and Asia, the young Amer- ican novelist boldly ignored the sights and harrumphed about the people. And he made the travel book fashionable again (until it was swept aside by the memoir). Curiously, the genre’s renais- sance coincided with the appear- ance of its obituary. In 1980, the cultural critic Paul Fussell pub- lished Abroad, a superb study of Months after the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, Scottish journalist Rory Stewart walked British travel and travel writing across the country accompanied by a retired fighting dog to write The Places in Between. between the wars that concludes with the pronouncement that the postwar age of tourism those of their predecessors—though Thubron continues killed real travel and, by extension, the writing that was to travel rough—but the scaled-down suffering is offset its offspring. It didn’t finish off either, any more than tel- by the greater creative challenge. evised baseball brought an end to a day at the ballpark. A somewhat related development has been the emer- There is still the authentic experience, but, like being a gence of the political travel book. Writers such as Robert spectator at a game, travel is now altered by its well- Kaplan, who has written about the Balkans and other recorded popularity. incendiary places, and Rory Stewart, who walked across In an age of mass tourism (and YouTube), the travel Afghanistan in The Places in Between (2004), resemble writer’s job has changed. It is not enough anymore sim- to some extent the doughty adventurers of the past as ply to describe a landscape—we must root out its mean- they go off to lands of conflict and return with a mix of ings. British writer Jonathan Raban, playing the immi- history, description, reportage, and analysis. grant in Hunting Mister Heartbreak, goes shopping in Sitting at the opposite end of the spectrum—like the 1980s Manhattan and is struck by the tone of bombas- pretty cheerleader voted most popular in the class—is the tic abundance. “Macy’s was scared stiff of our boredom,” escapist travel book. Peter Mayle sipping pastis in the he writes, nailing the frenetic nature of not only an south of France in A Year in Provence (1990) and Frances American department store but American capitalism. Mayes rhapsodizing about her Italian garden in Under Writers such as Raban, Colin Thubron, Jan Morris, and the Tuscan Sun (1996) prove Fussell half right, as they Pico Iyer possess, in addition to the requisite eye for are the age of tourism’s frothy answer to Gerald Brenan’s detail, an agile and well-stocked mind for synthesis, amateur anthropology in South From Granada (1957) and their findings are riveting (and often surprising), and Norman Douglas’s raffish erudition in Siren Land even to people intimately familiar with their subjects. (1911). People read Mayle and Mayes not to learn about The physical hardships these writers endure in the the world but to dream of their own idyllic retirements. course of their journeys often pale in comparison to More recently, the most popular travel narrative has

Winter 2010 ■ Wilson Quarterly 37 Not a Tourist been Eat, Pray, Love (2006), by Elizabeth Gilbert, the Coimbra, I went to the university English depart- Freya Stark of the Oprah generation in that she circles ment and accosted the first person I saw. This turned the globe in search of self-realization. out to be Bibi, a woman from Rotterdam who was These books have done a great deal to romanticize spending a semester teaching Dutch. At a nearby the profession. (Tell people you are paid to travel and café she told me about her friend in Lisbon, a poet write about it, and you will be greeted with exclamations named Casimiro whom I should call when I returned of envy.) They help explain why Raban flatly disassoci- there. ates himself from the tribe—so emphatically that he Casimiro invited me to dinner, after which we now writes novels—and why Theroux once claimed that went to a bar for fado music. On my solitary strolls I he does his travel writing with his “left hand.” “Travel had passed numerous restaurants advertising “folk- lorique evenings”; this wasn’t one of them. It was a smoky dive, full of what MOST TOURISTS ARE passive observers, looked like stevedores sit- ting at long tables before and are less engaged by their travels than a gaunt guitarist perched on a stool. Occasionally a they are on a typical Monday at home. lone brute would stand up and belt out a song of outstanding melancholy. writer” may be the one title everyone wants except the Casimiro translated. “It smells of Lisbon,” he said people who have it. after one almost upbeat number. “It smells of flowers We suffer a recurring crisis of confidence. We and the sea.” wonder not just what we’re doing here (wherever That night I learned how to travel as a travel writer: “here” is) but how we can ever discover its essence. You approximate, as best you can, in the short time How can we possibly describe all these faces, all these allotted you, the life of a local. doorways and shop windows? The scale of every place And this is achieved through personal encounters. It overwhelms: hundreds of streets we can never walk is something the adventure writers often miss. Everyone down, thousands of people—many of them, surely, can climb Kilimanjaro, or at least attempt to. They will perfect embodiments of their city’s spirit—we will all, for sure, have their individual responses to the expe- never meet. A dozen just passed, lost forever. Who, rience, but they all go up the same mountain. Whereas after all, are we to pronounce on this place, and who, the person you meet in your travels is yours alone (pro- outside of our families, cares to hear our pronounce- vided you avoid the cliché of writing about your guide or ments? Why bother describing in words what can be your taxi driver or your hotel receptionist). seen in a video? In addition to uniqueness, residents give you a Miraculously, these doubts vanish when observa- sense of the present (as opposed to museums and mon- tion gives way to participation. uments, which are all about the past). It’s extremely dif- My first trip “on assignment” was to Spain and ficult, and usually presumptuous, to write about a Portugal. It was October 1989, two months after I had place without meeting and talking to the people who taken a job as travel editor of the Sun-Sentinel in live there. This was Steinbeck’s mistake in Travels Fort Lauderdale. (I had never thought of living in With Charley, the book about his 1960 road trip Florida, but I had long dreamed of traveling for a liv- around the United States with his pet poodle. Even a ing.) For two weeks I walked the streets—Madrid, dog can hold you back. Barcelona, Seville, Lisbon—ate in the restaurants, People also provide, occasionally, an emotional took in the sights. I was always alone and painfully dimension. In Reading Chekhov: A Critical Journey aware that something was missing. Desperate in (2002), Janet Malcolm goes to Russia and comes to

38 Wilson Quarterly ■ Winter 2010 Not a Tourist the realization that travel is an inherently “low-key most part, cyberspace’s version of the vacation slides emotional experience.” This runs counter to the pop- people used to inflict on friends. ular perception of the activity, which elicits—not just For some time now, the travel writer has been viewed in advertisements but, sadly, in many travel articles— as a kind of subspecies. Few modern travel books, with words such as “adventure,” “excitement,” “romance.” the exception of Chatwin’s, have been heralded as liter- But, Malcolm argues, most tourists aren’t doing any- ature. Travel writing courses are rarely included in cre- thing exciting or romantic; they are passive ative writing programs (an omission that may work to observers—visiting cathedrals, looking at paintings— the genre’s advantage). Magazines and newspaper sec- and are less engaged than they are on a typical Mon- tions devoted to travel are mostly unreadable, having day at home. moved over the years from gushing boosterism to drab Even when I’m in search of a story, many of my trips consumerism. are uneventful. But it does sometimes happen that I And yet, good travel writing continues to be written find good people, learn new things, participate in the and published. Each autumn The Best American Travel life of a place. And there are times—like unexpected Writing appears like a national health report confirm- gifts—when the people become friends, the informa- ing the surprising robustness of the genre. A few of the tion becomes insight, the participation becomes stories in this annual anthology are found hidden engagement; I develop an emotional attachment to the between resort ads in the travel glossies, but most are place. And then I think: It’s not the worst trips that plucked from the less sumptuous pages of general-inter- make the best stories, it’s the best trips. est magazines and literary quarterlies. The best writers in the field bring to it an indefati- gable curiosity, a fierce intelligence that enables them ow 37, seats J, K, and L. The teenager slumped to interpret, and a generous heart that allows them to against the window is snoring loudly, and the connect. Without resorting to invention, they make R man in the middle weighs 300 pounds. Nev- ample use of their imaginations. They do what many ertheless, the woman in the aisle seat leans back and of their compatriots find impossible: They speak smiles. She is a travel writer, and for the first time in a another language (or two). They have a solid ground- long while she has nothing to do. The place she obsessed ing in history, culture, religion, politics, economics, about for months has disappeared beneath the clouds. architecture, food, plants. You would think this wide All the anxiety she felt on the flight over is now replaced range of knowledge would earn travel writers respect by exhausted elation (especially if her notebook is full). (if not a loyal following), but in an era of specialization She luxuriates in the lull between legwork and it tends to do the opposite, painting them as irrelevant composition. generalists. The feeling of contentment doesn’t last long. At her The travel book itself has a similar grab-bag quality. computer the old doubt returns, though this time it’s not It incorporates the characters and plot line of a novel, the stirred by the confusion of the new. The chaos of travel descriptive power of poetry, the substance of a history has given way to the order of home. She is, as one never lesson, the discursiveness of an essay, and the—often is on the road, in control. Her late-night stumble into a inadvertent—self-revelation of a memoir. It revels in slum is rendered calmly, with carefully weighed words. the particular while occasionally illuminating the uni- Yet even when those words are flowing, uncertainty versal. It colors and shapes and fills in gaps. Because it creeps in. What am I doing here? becomes, in its domes- results from displacement, it is frequently funny. It takes tic form, Why am I writing this? readers for a spin (and shows them, usually, how lucky It sometimes seems that as more people go out into they are). It humanizes the alien. More often than not, the world, there is less interest in reading about the it celebrates the unsung. It uncovers truths that are world. How else to explain the decline of the travel book stranger than fiction. It gives eyewitness proof of life’s in the age of globalization? True, there has been a con- infinite possibilities. current rise in travel blogs, but these seem to be, for the This is why you write it. ■

Winter 2010 ■ Wilson Quarterly 39 THE WILSON QUARTERLY

Cracks in the Jihad

Al Qaeda and the Taliban are at odds, and even Internet jihadis are taking fewer cues from Osama bin Laden. Yet it is only growing more difficult to defeat the global jihad.

BY THOMAS RID

“Get ready for all Muslims to join the holy war against you,” the jihadi leader Abd el-Kader warned his Western enemies. The year was 1839, and nine years into France’s occupation of Algeria the resistance had grown self-confident. Only weeks earlier, Arab fighters had wiped out a convoy of 30 French soldiers en route from Boufarik to Oued-el-Alèg. Insurgent attacks on the slow-moving French columns were steadily increas- ing, and the army’s fortified blockhouses in the Atlas Mountains were under frequent assault. Paris pinned its hopes on an energetic general who had already served a successful tour in Algeria, Thomas- Robert Bugeaud. In January 1840, shortly before leav- ing to take command in Algiers, he addressed the French Chamber of Deputies: “In Europe, gentlemen, we don’t

Thomas Rid is a visiting scholar at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem and coauthor of War 2.0 (2009). He was a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center in 2009.

40 Wilson Quarterly ■ Winter 2010 U.S.Army officers survey the landscape of southern Afghanistan’s Zabul Province, where “valleyism” trumps the call of global jihad but deadly conflict still prevails.

Winter 2010 ■ Wilson Quarterly 41 Jihad just make war against armies; we make war against to slip into three distinct ideological and organizational interests.” The key to victory in European wars, he niches. The U.S. surge in Afghanistan, whether suc- explained, was to penetrate the enemy country’s interior. cessful or not, is likely to affect this development only Seize the centers of population, commerce, and indus- marginally. try, “and soon the interests are forced to capitulate.” Not The first niche is occupied by local Islamist insur- so at the foot of the Atlas, he conceded. Instead, he gencies, fueled by grievances against “apostate” regimes would focus the army’s effort on the tribal population. that are authoritarian, corrupt, or backed by “infidel” out- side powers (or any combi- nation of the three). Fill- ing the second niche is FORMER FIREBRAND IMAMS have terrorism-cum–organized crime, most visible in started questioning the theological Afghanistan and Indone- sia but also seen in Europe, justifications of holy war. fueled by narcotics, extor- tion, and other ordinary illicit activities. In the final Later that year, a well-known military thinker from niche are people who barely qualify as a group: young Prussia traveled to Algeria to observe Bugeaud’s new second- and third-generation Muslims in the diaspora approach. Major General Carl von Decker, who had who are engaged in a more amateurish but persistent taught under the famed Carl von Clausewitz at the War holy war, fueled by their own complex personal discon- Academy in Berlin, was more forthright than his French tents. Al Qaeda’s challenge is to encompass the jihadis counterpart. The fight against fanatical tribal warriors, who drift to the criminal and eccentric fringe while he foresaw, “will throw all European theory of war into keeping alive its appeal to the Muslim mainstream and the trash heap.” a rhetoric of high aspiration and promise. One hundred and seventy years later, jihad is again a major threat—and Decker’s dire analysis more relevant than ever. War, in Clausewitz’s eminent theory, was a he most visible divide separates the local and clash of collective wills, “a continuation of politics by other global jihadis. Historically, Islamist groups means.” When states went to war, the adversary was a T tended to bud locally, and assumed a global political entity with the ability to act as one body, able to outlook only later, if they did so at all. All the groups end hostilities by declaring victory or admitting defeat. that have been affiliated with Al Qaeda either predate Even Abd el-Kader eventually capitulated. But jihad in the the birth of the global jihad in the early 1990s or 21st century, especially during the past few years, has fun- grew later out of local causes and concerns, only sub- damentally changed its anatomy: Al Qaeda is no longer a sequently attaching the bin Laden logo. Al Qaeda in collective political actor. It is no longer an adversary that the Islamic Maghreb, for example, started out in can articulate a will, capitulate, and be defeated. But the 1998 as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, jihad’s new weakness is also its new strength: Because of an offshoot of another militant group that had roots its transformation, Islamist militancy is politically in Algeria’s vicious civil war during the early 1990s. impaired yet fitter to survive its present crisis. Pakistan’s Lashkar-e-Taiba, the force allegedly behind In the years since late 2001, when U.S. and coalition the 2008 attacks in Mumbai, India, that killed more forces toppled the Taliban regime and all but destroyed than 170 people, was formed in the 1990s to fight for Al Qaeda’s core organization in Afghanistan, the bin a united Kashmir under Pakistani rule. In Somalia, Laden brand has been bleeding popularity across the Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and other countries, the Al Muslim world. The global jihad, as a result, has been torn Qaeda brand has been attractive to groups born out by mounting internal tensions. Today, the holy war is set of local concerns.

42 Wilson Quarterly ■ Winter 2010 Jihad

By joining Al Qaeda and stepping up violence, sary of 9/11, al-Awda asked, “My brother Osama, local insurgents have long risked placing themselves how much blood has been spilt? How many innocent on the target lists of governments and law enforce- people, children, elderly, and women have been ment organizations. More recently, however, they killed...in the name of Al Qaeda?” have run what may be an even more consequential Other ideologues have followed, including Sajjid risk, that of removing themselves from the social Imam al-Shareef, one of Al Qaeda’s founding leaders, mainstream and losing popular support. This is what who used the nom de guerre Dr. Fadl. “Every drop of happened to Al Qaeda in Iraq during the Sunni blood that was shed or is being shed in Afghanistan Awakening, which began in 2005 in violence-ridden and Iraq is the responsibility of bin Laden and al-Anbar Province and its principal city, Ramadi. Al Zawahiri and their followers,” he wrote in the Lon- Qaeda had declared Ramadi the future capital of its don-based newspaper Asharq Al Awsat. Iraqi “caliphate,” and by late 2005 it had the entire In Afghanistan, coalition soldiers see the global- city under its control. But even conservative Sunni local split replicated as a fissure between what they elders became alienated by the group’s brutality and call “big T” Taliban and “small t” Taliban. The “big T” violence. One prominent local leader, Sheikh Sattar ideologues fight for more global spiritual or political Abdul Abu Risha, lost several brothers and his father reasons; the “little t” opportunists fight for power, for in assassinations. Others were agitated by the loss of money, or just to survive, to hedge their bets. A fam- prestige and power to the insurgents in their tradi- ily might have one son fighting for the Taliban and tional homelands. In early 2006, Sattar and his another in the Afghan National Army; no matter sheikhs decided to cooperate with American forces, which side prevails, they will have one son in the and by the end of the year they had helped recruit right place. U.S. Marines in Helmand Province nearly 4,000 men to local police units. “They brought say that 80 to 85 percent of all those they fight are us nothing but destruction and we finally said, “small t” Taliban. The U.S. counterinsurgency cam- enough is enough,” Sattar explained. paign aims to co-opt and reintegrate many of these The awakening (sahwa in Arabic) was not limited rebels by creating secure population centers and new to al-Anbar. One after another, former firebrand economic opportunities, spreading cleared areas like imams, in so-called revisions, have started question- “inkblots.” But the Taliban have long been keen to ing the theological justifications of holy war. The spread their own inkblots, with a similar rationale: trend may have begun with Gamaa al-Islamiya, attracting more and more “accidental” guerrillas, in Egypt’s most brutal terrorist group, which was the famous phrase of counterinsurgency specialist responsible for the assassination of Egyptian presi- David Kilcullen, not just hardliners. dent Anwar el-Sadat in 1981 and the slaughter of 58 Yet even Afghanistan’s “big T” Taliban, the ideo- foreign tourists in Luxor in 1997. As the Iraq war logues, cannot simply be equated with Al Qaeda. Last intensified during the summer of 2003, several of fall, Abu Walid, once an Al Qaeda accomplice and now Gamaa al-Islamiya’s leaders advised young men not a Taliban propagandist, ridiculed bin Laden in the to participate in Al Qaeda operations and accused the Taliban’s official monthly magazine al-Sumud, for, organization of “splitting Muslim ranks” by provok- among other things, his do-it-yourself approach to ing hostile reactions against Islam “and wrongly Islamic jurisprudence. A number of veterans had crit- interpreting the meaning of jihad in a violent way.” icized bin Laden in the past, among them such tower- Another notable revision came in September ing figures as Abu Mus’ab al-Suri, one of the key archi- 2007, when Salman al-Awda, an influential Saudi tects of the global jihad. But Abu Walid’s criticism was cleric who had previously declared that fighting more biting. Bin Laden’s organization lacks strategic Americans in Iraq was a religious duty, spoke out vision and relies on “shiny slogans,” he told Leah Far- against Al Qaeda. He accused bin Laden in an open rall, an Australian counterterrorism specialist, in a letter of “making terror a synonym for Islam.” Speak- much-noted dialogue she reported on her blog. Con- ing on a popular Saudi TV show on the sixth anniver- sequently the Taliban would no longer welcome the ter-

Winter 2010 ■ Wilson Quarterly 43 Jihad rorists in Afghanistan, he said, because “the majority promise of good neighborliness and future cooperation of the population is against Al Qaeda.” with Afghanistan’s neighbors, including China, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan—all of whom face their own jihadi insur- gencies and are on Al Qaeda’s target list. t the root of the disagreement between the two The Taliban’s new tactics are throwing an “ideological groups is the question of a local, or even national, bridge” not only to nearby countries but to parts of the cur- A popular base. Last September, Mullah Omar, the rent Kabul elite, most notably politically mobilized univer- Taliban’s founding figure and spiritual overlord, issued a sity students, notes Thomas Ruttig of the Afghanistan Ana- message in several languages. He called the Taliban a “robust lysts Network. Even the newly moderate Taliban, it should be clear, remains wedded to inhumane and medieval moral principles. Yet Omar’s THE TALIBAN IS MODERATING its pragmatism immediately affects the question of who tone and throwing an “ideological bridge” and what is a desirable target of attacks. to parts of the Kabul elite. Perhaps the greatest ten- sion between the local and global levels of the jihad Islamic and nationalist movement” that had “assumed the grows out of a divide over appropriate targets and tactics. shape of a popular movement.” Probably realizing that Classical Islamic legal doctrine sees armed jihad as a defen- pragmatism and a certain amount of moderation offer the sive struggle against persecution, oppression, and incursions best chance of a return to power, Omar vowed “to maintain into Muslim lands. In an attempt to mobilize Muslims good and positive relations with all neighbors based on around the world to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan, Abdal- mutual respect.” lah Azzam, an influential radical cleric who was assassinated Al Qaeda’s reaction was swift and harsh. Turning the in 1989, helped expand the doctrine of jihad into a transna- jihad into a “national cause,” in the purists’ view, was sell- tional struggle by declaring the Afghan jihad an individual ing it out. Prominent radicals, in a remarkable move, com- duty for all Muslims. Azzam also advocated takfir, a prac- pared the Taliban’s turnabout to the efforts by Hezbollah tice of designating fellow Muslims as infidels (kaffir) by in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza to distance themselves remote excommunication in order to justify their slaughter. from Al Qaeda. Hamas in particular, perhaps because it is, Al Qaeda ideologues upped the aggressive potential of such like Al Qaeda, a Sunni organization, has been the subject arguments and expanded the defensive jihad into a global of “relentless” criticism in Al Qaeda circles, says Thomas struggle, effectively blurring the line between the “near” Hegghammer of the Institute for Advanced Study in enemy—the Arab regimes deemed illegitimate “apostates” Princeton, New Jersey. When a self-proclaimed Al Qaeda by the purists—and the “far” enemy, these regimes’ Western faction appeared in Gaza, Hamas executed one of its lead- supporters. ing imams and many of his armed followers. Jihadi ideo- In the remote areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan that logues were aghast. The globalists shuddered at the thought produce many of today’s radicals, however, local and tribal that local interests could compromise their pan-Islamic affiliations are powerful. One U.S. political adviser who ambitions. “Nationalism,” declared Ayman al-Zawahiri, worked in Afghanistan’s Zabul Province, a hotbed of the Al Qaeda’s number two, “must be rejected by the umma insurgency, describes prevailing local sentiment as “valley- [Muslim community], because it is a model which makes ism” rather than nationalism. It is a force that drives the jihad subject to the market of political compromises and tribes to oppose anybody who threatens their traditional distracts the umma from the liberation of Islamic lands and power base, foreign or not—a problem not just for the Tal- the establishment of the Caliphate.” iban and Al Qaeda but for any Afghan government. Al- A few weeks later, Mullah Omar pointedly reiterated his Zawahiri complained of this in a letter after the invasion of

44 Wilson Quarterly ■ Winter 2010 Jihad

Cuneyt Ciftci, a German-born jihadi of Turkish descent, staged a suicide bombing in Afghanistan in March 2008, killing two U.S. soldiers and two Afghans. Many of the global jihad’s latest recruits are Western-born but rootless, drawn to the identity-building certainties of radical Islam.

Afghanistan: “Even the students (talib) themselves had ing to a report by EUROPOL, the European Union’s police stronger affiliations to their tribes and villages . . . than to the agency, “gives meaning to the feeling of exclusion” preva- Islamic emirate.” The provincial valleyists, to the distress of lent among the second- and third-generation descendants Al Qaeda’s more cosmopolitan agitators, are selfishly eye- of Muslim immigrants. For these alienated youth, the idea ing their own interests, with little appetite for international of becoming “citizens” of the virtual worldwide Islamic aggression and globe-spanning terrorist operations. community may be more attractive than it is for first-gen- eration immigrants, who tend to retain strong roots in their native countries. he contrast with the character of jihad in the Mus- The identity problems of these young people seem to lim diaspora could not be starker. For radical have affected the character of the jihad itself. Like the dis- T Islamists in Europe, the local jihad doesn’t exist. oriented Muslim youth of the diaspora, the global jihad has And they understand that toppling governments in, say, loose residential roots and numb political fingertips. One London or Amsterdam is a fantasy. These radicals are less sign of this disconnection from the local is that Al Qaeda’s interest driven than identity driven. Many young European rank and file does not include many men who could oth- Muslims are out of touch with their ancestral countries, yet erwise join a jihad at home: There seem to be few Pales- not fully at home in France or Sweden or Denmark. For tinians, Chechens, Iraqis, or Afghans among the traveling some, the resulting identity crisis creates a hunger for clear jihadis, who tend to come from countries where jihad has spiritual guidelines. The ideology of global jihad, accord- failed, such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Libya, and Syria.

Winter 2010 ■ Wilson Quarterly 45 Jihad

Al Qaeda’s identity crisis is also illustrated by how it past decades, from emotional pulse beats and scattered treats radicalized converts, often people without religious reactions into a phenomenon which is guided and utilized, schooling and consolidated personalities. Olivier Roy, one and whereby the project of jihad is advanced so that it of France’s leading specialists on radical Islamism, has becomes the Islamic Nation’s battle, and not a struggle of pointed out that convert groups assume responsibilities an elite.” The global jihad was to function like an “operative “beyond all comparison with any other Islamic organiza- system,” without vulnerable, old-fashioned organizational tion.” Roy has put the proportion of converts in Al Qaeda hierarchies. That method is intuitively attractive for a Face- book generation of well- connected young sympa- thizers, but the theory AL QAEDA’S LATEST RECRUITS look contains an internal contra- diction. Self-recruited and more like a self-appointed elite than “homegrown” terrorists present a wicked problem representatives of the Muslim “masses.” for Al Qaeda. As a bizarre type of self-appointed elite, they undermine the move- at between 10 and 25 percent, an indicator that the move- ment’s ambition to represent the Muslim “masses.” ment has become “de-culturalized.” The problem is embodied in the online jihad. For Al These contrary trends, in turn, create chinks in Al Qaeda, Web forums operated by unaffiliated Islamists Qaeda’s recruitment system. The most extreme Salafists, have been the most important distribution platform for deprived of identity and cultural orientation, have an jihadi materials. But after the arrest of a top-tier online appetite for utopia, for extreme views that appeal to the mar- activist in London two years ago, the connection between gin of society, be it in Holland or Helmand. Recruitment in the forums and Al Qaeda’s official media center, al-Sahab, the diaspora, as a result, follows a distinctive pattern, not par- began to loosen. Al Qaeda has lost more and more control tisan and political but offbeat and outré. The grievances and of the online jihad. And, just like others online, jihadi Web motivations of European extremists and the rare American administrators face increasingly tough competition for militants tend to be idiosyncratic, the product of unstable visibility. Within the forums the tone has become harsher. individual personalities and a history of personal discrim- Brynjar Lia, a specialist on Salafism at the Norwegian ination. Many take the initiative to join the movement Defense Research Establishment, says that “interjihadi themselves, and because they are not recruited by a mem- quarrels seem to have become more common and less ber of the existing organization, their ties to it may remain ‘brotherly’ in tone in recent years.” loose. In 2008 alone, 190 individuals were sentenced for Some far-flung jihadi groups are enjoying newfound Islamist terrorist activities in Europe, most of them in independence of another kind, as a result of criminal ven- Britain, France, and Spain. “A majority of the arrested indi- tures they have established to fund their efforts. This too viduals belonged to small autonomous cells rather than to is intensifying the centrifugal forces within the global known terrorist organizations,” EUROPOL reports. movement. Some groups are tipping into a more purely As a result of the change in its membership, the global criminal mode. Al Qaeda movement is encountering strong centrifugal A cause is what distinguishes an insurgency from forces. The rank and file and the center are losing touch organized crime, as David Galula, an influential French with each other. The vision of Abu Mus’ab al-Suri, who laid author on counterinsurgency, noted decades ago. Orga- much of the ideological foundation for Al Qaeda’s global nized crime does not have to be incompatible with jihad. jihad, blends a Marxist-inspired focus on popular mass sup- It may even be justified in religious terms: Baz Mohammed, port with 21st-century ideas of networked, individual an Afghan heroin kingpin and the first criminal ever extra- action. Al-Suri’s aim was to devise a method “for trans- dited from Afghanistan, bragged to his co-conspirators forming excellent individual initiatives, performed over the that selling heroin in the United States was jihad because

46 Wilson Quarterly ■ Winter 2010 Jihad it killed Americans while taking their money. most vital functions appears to be to resolve the contra- A budding insurgency has only a limited window of dictions of jihad in the 21st century: being a pious Mus- opportunity to grow into a serious political force. If the lim, yet attacking women and children; upholding the cause withers and loses its popular gloss, what remains as authority of the Qur’an, yet prospering from crime; a rump may be nothing but a criminal organization, attract- depending on Western welfare states, yet plotting against ing a following with criminal energy rather than religious them; having no personal ties to any Islamic group, yet zeal, thus further damaging jihad’s status in the eyes of the believing oneself to be part of one. broader public. For some groups, this already appears to be Al Qaeda’s altered design has a number of immediate happening. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb funds itself consequences. The global jihad is losing what David Galula through the drug trade, smuggling, extortion, and kid- called a strong cause, and with it its political character. This nappings in southern Algeria and northern Mali. Indone- change is making it increasingly difficult to distinguish sia’s Abu Sayyaf Group and the Philippines’ Jamiyah jihad from organized crime on the one side and rudderless Islamiyah engage in a variety of criminal activities, includ- fanaticism on the other. This calls into question the notion ing credit card fraud. The terrorist cell behind the 2004 that war is still, as Clausewitz said, “a continuation of poli- Madrid bombings earned most of its money from criminal tics by other means,” and therefore whether it can be dis- activities; when Spanish police raided the home of one of continued politically. Second, coerced by adversaries and the plotters, they seized close to $2 million in drugs and enabled by the Internet, the global jihadi movement has dis- cash, including more than 125,000 Ecstasy tablets, accord- mantled and disrupted its own ability to act as one coher- ing to U.S. News and World Report. The Madrid bombings ent entity. No leader is in a position to articulate the move- had cost the terrorists just $50,000. ment’s will, let alone enforce it. It is doubtful, to quote The goal of leading Islamists has always been to turn Clausewitz again, whether war can still be “an act of force their battle into “the Islamic Nation’s battle,” as al-Suri to compel the enemy to do our will.” And because jihad has wrote. Far from reaching this goal, the jihad is veering no single center of gravity, it has no single critical vulnera- the other way. Eight years after 9/11, support for Islamic bility. No matter what the outcome of U.S.-led operations in extremism in the Muslim world is at its lowest point. Afghanistan and other places, a general risk of terrorist Support for Al Qaeda has slipped most dramatically in attacks will persist for the foreseeable future. Indonesia, Pakistan, and Jordan. In 2003, more than 50 percent of those surveyed in these countries agreed that bin Laden would “do the right thing regarding world n combating terrorism, therefore, quantity matters affairs,” the Pew Global Attitudes Project found. By 2009 as much as quality. But some numbers matter more the overall level of support had dropped by half, to about Ithan others. How many additional American and 25 percent. In Pakistan, traditionally a stronghold of European troops are sent to Afghanistan matters less extremism, only nine percent of Muslims have a favor- than the number of terrorist plots that don’t happen. able view of Al Qaeda, down from 25 percent in 2008. Success will be found subtly in statistics, in data curves Even an American failure to stabilize Afghanistan and that slope down or level off, not in one particular action, its terror-ridden neighborhood would be unlikely to one capitulation, or even one leader’s death. It will be ease Al Qaeda’s crisis of legitimacy. marked not by military campaigns and other events but But it would be naive to conclude that the cracks in by decisions not taken and attacks not launched. Al Qaeda’s ideological shell mean that the movement’s Because participation in the holy war in both its local end is near. Far from it. Islamist ideology may be losing and global forms is an individual decision, these broad appeal, and the recent global crop of extremists choices have to be the unit of analysis, and influenc- may be disunited and drifting apart. Yet in the fanatics’ ing them must be the goal of policy and strategy. As own view, the ideology remains a crucial cohesive force in crime prevention, measuring success—how many that binds together an extraordinarily diverse extremist potential terrorists did not join an armed group or elite. Salafism, despite its crisis, continues to be attrac- commit a terrorist act—is nearly impossible. Success tive to those at the social margins. One of the ideology’s against Islamic militancy may wear a veil. ■

Winter 2010 ■ Wilson Quarterly 47 THE WILSON QUARTERLY

The Arab Tomorrow

The Arab world today is ruled by contradiction. Turmoil and stagnation prevail, as colossal wealth and hyper- modern cities collide with mass illiteracy and rage-filled imams. In this new diversity may lie disaster, or the makings of a better Arab future.

BY DAVID B. OTTAWAY

October 6, 1981, was meant to be a day of ing to exchange salutes with yet another con- celebration in Egypt. It marked the anniversary of tingent of Egyptian troops. He made himself Egypt’s grandest moment of victory in three Arab- a perfect target for four Islamist assassins Israeli conflicts, when the country’s underdog army who jumped from the truck, stormed the thrust across the Suez Canal in the opening days of podium, and riddled his body with bullets. the 1973 Yom Kippur War and sent Israeli troops As the killers continued for what seemed reeling in retreat. On a cool, cloudless morning, the an eternity to spray the stand with their Cairo stadium was packed with Egyptian families deadly fire, I considered for an instant that had come to see the military strut its hardware. whether to hit the ground and risk being On the reviewing stand, President Anwar el-Sadat, trampled to death by panicked spectators or remain the war’s architect, watched with satisfaction as men afoot and risk taking a stray bullet. Instinct told me and machines paraded before him. I was nearby, a to stay on my feet, and my sense of journalistic duty newly arrived foreign correspondent. impelled me to go find out whether Sadat was alive or Suddenly, one of the army trucks halted directly in dead. front of the reviewing stand just as six Mirage jets I wove my way through the fleeing crowd and roared overhead in an acrobatic performance, paint- managed to reach the podium. It was pandemonium. ing the sky with long trails of red, yellow, purple, Wild-eyed Egyptian security men were running every and green smoke. Sadat stood up, apparently prepar- which way, trying to apprehend the assassins and attend to the scores of foreign and local dignitaries David B. Ottaway, a senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center, worked for The Washington Post from 1971 to 2006, including four years present, seven of whom lay dead or dying. The utter in Cairo as the Post’s chief Middle East correspondent. His most recent chaos allowed me to get close enough to witness book is The King’s Messenger: Prince Bandar bin Sultan and America’s Tangled Relationship With Saudi Arabia (2008). another unforgettable scene: Vice President Hosni

48 Wilson Quarterly ■ Winter 2010 Mubarak emerging from beneath a pile of chairs The beautiful vista from Old Cairo to the distant skyline of the modern city security men had thrown helter-skelter over him for promises a great deal but delivers much less. Many Egyptians have been disappointed by the stagnant modernity of the past few decades. protection. He was brushing dirt off his peaked mil- itary cap, which had been pierced by a bullet. Mubarak, lucky to be alive, pulled himself together center of culture and learning that supplied physi- admirably that day to take over leadership of the cians, imams, and technical experts to other Arab shaken Nile River nation. But Egypt and the rest of nations. Under Sadat and his predecessor, the pan- the Arab world would never be the same. For cen- Arab hero Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918–70), Egypt had turies, Egypt had prided itself on being the center of reasserted its primacy as the Arabs broke free of colo- that world. Seat of a 5,000-year-old civilization that nial rule after World War II and entered an era of at times had thought of itself as umm idduniya, soaring hopes. Sadat had even begun some pioneer- “mother of the world, ” it was the most populous and ing reforms—allowing opposition political parties, economically and militarily powerful Arab state, a implementing market-oriented economic changes—

Winter 2010 ■ Wilson Quarterly 49 The Arab Tomorrow that might have rippled through the Arab world had can rise to lead this fragmented world will be a cen- he lived. Though many reviled him for signing a tral issue in the years ahead. Another is whether Arab peace treaty with Israel in 1979, Egypt remained the unity is any longer a desirable goal. most dynamic force in Arab affairs. Mubarak’s accession would bring an abrupt end to Egypt’s preeminence. Cautious and unimaginative, rabs have long shared an unusually strong the former air force commander has never in his 29- sense of common identity and destiny. The year reign come close to filling the shoes of his pred- A Arab states, unlike those of Western Europe, ecessors. Afflicted by health problems, he will turn 82 Africa, Asia, or Latin America, are bound together by in May and is not expected to reign much longer. a common language and shared religion. They have Cairo is awash with speculation about who will a border-transcending culture rooted in 1,400 years of Islam, with its mem- ory of the powerful caliphates based in Dam- CAIRO IS AWASH with speculation about ascus and Baghdad. With the exception of Saudi who will replace the aging Hosni Mubarak. Arabia, which escaped the European yoke, they also share a history of fer- replace him. Its discontented intelligentsia is debat- vent anticolonial struggle against France and Britain ing intensely whether Egypt any longer has the that began with the crumbling of the Ottoman wherewithal, or vision, to shape Arab policies toward Empire during World War I. The Ottomans had ruled an immovable Israel, a belligerent Iran, fractious the Arabs for nearly 500 years, deftly dividing them Palestinians, or an imposing America, much less while governing with a relatively light hand. The grapple with the Islamist challenge to secular Arab Revolt (1916–18) against the Ottoman Turks, led governments. by the emir of Mecca, Sharif Hussein ibn Ali, and During the Mubarak years, other voices and cen- abetted by Britain’s legendary Lawrence of Arabia, ters have arisen, particularly on the western shores of ignited the dream of a reunified Arab nation. the Persian Gulf. There, monarchies once thought But the victors of World War I had different ideas. quaint relics of Arab history—including Qatar, Oman, The League of Nations put the vanquished Ottoman and the United Arab Emirates—have taken on new Empire’s provinces in present-day Iraq, Syria, life. The accumulation of massive oil wealth in the Lebanon, and Palestine under French and British hands of kings and emirs amid soaring demand and mandates, giving fresh impetus to the Arab awaken- prices over the past few decades has given birth to a ing. During World War II the European rulers cyni- far more diverse and multipolar Arab world. It has cally encouraged hopes for independence, intent on made possible innovations in domestic and foreign preventing the Arabs from siding with Hitler’s Ger- policy and supplied vast sums for the building of many. With the war’s end in sight, Egypt and Saudi glittering, hypermodern “global cities” that lure West- Arabia, then the region’s only independent countries, ern and Asian money, business, and tourists away joined with four other Arab lands to raise the banner from Cairo. of the League of Arab States, a new association ded- As the Mubarak era nears its end, Egyptians are icated to ending European rule. not alone in wondering whether a new and more The Arabs’ sense of common cause was jolted to a dynamic leader will restore the nation to its central new level of intensity in 1947, when the United role and take the lead in giving the Arabs a stronger Nations approved the establishment of a Jewish state and more united voice in global affairs. Whether any in Palestine. The ensuing war over its creation led to Egyptian leader, or for that matter any Arab leader, what Arabs call the naqba, or disaster, meaning the

50 Wilson Quarterly ■ Winter 2010 The Arab Tomorrow loss of Arab lands to the Israelis and the flight of in catapulting Egypt to the head of the Non-Aligned hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to neighboring Movement, whose members sought to maintain their Arab states. The struggle against Israel replaced the independence from the two Cold War blocs, and anticolonial effort as the Arabs’ defining mission, deftly extracted billions of dollars in arms from the keeping them bonded together like no other peoples. Soviet Union and $800 million in wheat and other Starting with the first Arab-Israeli war, in 1948, their foodstuffs from the United States. failure to obtain a state for the Palestinians has also Nasser’s star dimmed considerably, however, after kept alive a sense of shared guilt and injustice at the his army’s crushing defeat by Israel in the 1967 Six- hands of the West. Day War, a disaster that led him to dramatically offer There were moments of great hope for Arab unity, illusory as it proved to be. Riding to power in an army coup in 1952, Nasser quickly became the undisputed Saut el- Arab, or Voice of the Arabs, his views broad- cast far and wide through a powerful Cairo-based radio station of the same name. With his rabble- rousing speeches, Nasser offered a vision of an Arab world transformed from a colonial jigsaw puzzle of artificially defined states into one big umma, a single Muslim community At the 1981 military parade in which he would fall to assassins’ bullets, Egyptian president Anwar el-Sadat stretching from Moroc- (right) reviews the passing troops with Vice President Hosni Mubarak at his side. co on the Atlantic to Oman at the mouth of the Persian Gulf. his resignation to the Egyptian people. The war ended Nasser preached pan-Arabism and Arab national- with Israel in possession of Egypt’s vast Sinai Desert ism to rally the masses against the two Cold War as well as Syria’s Golan Heights and Jordan’s West superpowers and Israel. Initially, his record was Bank and East Jerusalem. Weeping Cairenes impressive. He electrified the Arab world in 1956 by nonetheless poured into the streets to insist that boldly nationalizing the Suez Canal, then in the hands Nasser remain their leader. But the grand old Voice of a British-run company. And, with indispensable of the Arabs never recovered his prestige before a backing from President Dwight D. Eisenhower, he heart attack killed him in 1970. faced down France, Britain, and Israel when they Sadat emerged from Nasser’s shadow offering a invaded to take back the canal. Nasser also took the different style of leadership, one equally bold and first step toward formal Arab unity by convincing imaginative though far more contested by other Arab Syria two years later to join Egypt in a “United Arab capitals. He scuttled Nasser’s socialism by launching Republic” (though the union was short-lived). And the infitah, an “open-door” policy aimed at liberaliz- with consummate diplomatic cunning, he succeeded ing the economy, and he forged a new political order

Winter 2010 ■ Wilson Quarterly 51 The Arab Tomorrow

The Arab World

Syria Tunisia Lebanon Iran Afghanistan Morocco Pal. Iraq Israel Jordan Algeria Kuwait Pakistan Libya Egypt Bahrain Qatar Saudi Arabia UAE Oman Mauritania

Yemen Sudan

Djibouti

Somalia

Members of the Arab League are shaded; Comoros Islands not shown.

Women’s rights Political rights Population GDP per capita Oil reserves Illiteracy (Most free=25 (Most free=1 (millions) (dollars) (BBL) rate Least free=5) Least free=7) Algeria 33.9 3,996 12.2 24.6 6 Bahrain 0.8 21,421 0.12456 11.2 13.1 5 Comoros 0.6 714 0 24.9 3 Djibouti 0.8 997 0 N/A 5 Egypt 80.1 1,729 3.7 33.6 6 Iraq 29.5 N/A 115 25.9 6 Jordan 5.9 2,769 0.001 8.9 5 Kuwait 2.9 42,102 104 5.5 12.9 4 Lebanon 4.2 5,944 0 10.4 5 Libya 6.2 9,475 43.66 13.2 7 Mauritania 3.1 847 0.1 44.2 6 Morocco 31.2 2,434 0.00075 44.4 5 Oman 2.7 14,031 5.5 15.6 11.4 6 Palestine 4.0 1,160 N/A 6.2 N/A Qatar 1.1 64,193 15.21 6.9 11.6 6 Saudi Arabia 24.7 15,800 266.71 15 7.2 7 Somalia 8.7 N/A 0 N/A 7 Sudan 40.4 1,199 5 39.1 7 Syria 20.5 1,898 2.5 16.9 7 Tunisia 10.1 3,425 0.425 22.3 7 UAE 4.4 38,436 97.8 10 11.9 6 Yemen 22.3 1,006 3 41.1 5

SOURCES: United Nations Development Program (population, GDP, and illiteracy); U.S. Energy Information Administration (oil reserves); Freedom House (political and women’s rights). UNDP data are from 2007; all other data from 2009.

52 Wilson Quarterly ■ Winter 2010 The Arab Tomorrow by ending single-party rule and allowing new parties and Libya), have made precious little headway toward to form. He survived an Israeli counterattack in the unity. 1973 Yom Kippur War that nearly wiped out his army, Instead, the Arab world has been plagued by civil and then decided on his own to make peace with wars (Sudan, Lebanon, and Somalia), militant Israel, regaining the Sinai for Egypt. After his icon- Islamist insurgencies (Algeria, Iraq, and Somalia), oclastic trip to Jerusalem in 1977, Sadat pushed and sectarian strife between Sunni and Shiite Mus- through a bilateral peace agreement with Israel that lims (Iraq, Lebanon, and Bahrain), as well as an took effect two years later, provoking the Arab League intramural struggle for the hearts and minds of Sunni (as the League of Arab States was now known) to Arabs pitting extremists against mainstream ele- oust Egypt, effectively ending its leadership of the ments over the very meaning of Islam (Saudi Arabia, Arab world. But Sadat stood firm. As events would prove, even his assassination at the hands THE DREAM OF ARAB unity has given of Islamist militants who were vehemently way to civil wars, Islamist insurgencies, and opposed to peace with Israel could not reverse Sunni-Shia strife. his feat. Sadat had single- handedly changed the course of Middle East history. Egypt, and Algeria). Terrorism, embodied by Al Since Sadat’s demise, the Arab world has struggled Qaeda, has become a scourge, survival a 24/7 to find its ideological bearings. The old secular left- preoccupation. ist ideologies of Arab nationalism, Arab socialism, Central to the region’s turmoil is the widening and pan-Arabism are rarely mentioned anymore. rift between Sunnis, who account for nearly 90 per- Their last two standard-bearers, Hafez al-Assad of cent of the Arab population, and Shia, who form tiny Syria and Saddam Hussein of Iraq, proved unequal to minorities in most Arab countries but constitute a the task of leading the Arab world and were discred- majority in Iraq and Bahrain and probably a near ited, along with the “isms” they represented. Assad, majority in Lebanon. The Sunni-Shia conflict is who ruled for 29 years, was able to extend his influ- almost as old as Islam, rooted in unforgotten bloody ence no farther than neighboring Lebanon. Hussein battles over who was the rightful heir of the Prophet came to power in 1979 and was an international Muhammad. It was given new life by the Iranian pariah after 1990, when he invaded Kuwait, a brother revolution of 1979, which produced a Shiite theocracy Arab country. determined to expand the political and religious influence of this non-Arab power deep into the Sunni-dominated Arab world. More recently, Iran’s ime has made a mockery of Arab aspirations efforts to develop a nuclear capacity, perhaps includ- to unity as well. The 21 countries of the Arab ing nuclear weapons, has further heightened ten- T League (plus the Palestinians), embracing sions. Leaders of the Arab countries—most of whom 350 million people, have come to live in a state of end- are Sunni, with the notable exception of Iraq’s prime less squabbling and continuing fragmentation. Even minister, Nuri al-Malaki, a Shia—are acutely aware smaller wannabe regional blocs, such as the six Arab that Iran is both Shiite and Persian. monarchies of the Gulf Cooperation Council (Saudi The challenge from Iran helped stoke Sunni fun- Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab damentalism and put Islam front and center in the Emirates, and Oman) and the four Mediterranean political discourse and daily lives of Arabs. And 1979, countries of the Maghreb (Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, the year that saw the birth of theocracy in Iran, also

Winter 2010 ■ Wilson Quarterly 53 The Arab Tomorrow brought the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the any reform impulses they may have had and leaving rise of an anti-Soviet jihad that intensified and spread them concerned almost exclusively with their own the new religious fervor across the Arab world. Thou- day-to-day survival. To these leaders, most ideas for sands of Arab would-be holy warriors signed up for change or reform now look like foolish high-risk the anticommunist cause in Afghanistan, then gambits, all the more so since some of the prime pro- returned home to revolt against corrupt and repres- moters of change have been Western outsiders. The sive rule in their own countries. Islamic political par- resulting stasis has contributed to a remarkable lack of turnover in leadership. In his 29-year reign, THE THREAT POSED by political Islam Mubarak has employed an increasingly unpopu- has swept away the last reform impulses of lar state of emergency to crush his opponents and most Arab rulers. extinguish hopes for mul- tiparty democracy in Egypt. Muammar al- Qaddafi, until recently an ties preaching a return to the letter of the Qur’an international outcast because of Libya’s terrorist and sharia law have now surpassed secular parties as activities, celebrated the 40th year of his reign last the most dynamic forces in Arab political life. September. Sudanese president Omer Hassan Ahmed Mosques have become cauldrons of political activism. Al Bashir, wanted on war crimes charges by the Inter- Preachers such as Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the fiery Egypt- national Criminal Court, came to power 20 years ian Sunni cleric who broadcasts from Qatar, and ago. In Oman, Qaboos bin Said deposed his father in Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s supreme Shiite 1970 and has remained sultan ever since. Ali Abdul- authority, exercise far more sway than any politician. lah Saleh has been the leader of Yemen for 31 years, In Egypt, the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood and Zine el-Abidinia Ben Ali has led Tunisia for 22. has taken over as the main opposition political party, The staying power of these autocrats pales next to the and other like-minded Islamist groups now occupy a longevity of the royal houses of the Persian Gulf. The rul- central role in the politics of many Arab states. ing families of Qatar, Kuwait, and Bahrain have reigned for centuries, including a long spell under “protectorates” imposed by the British. The Saudi royal family, in a land he U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 also that escaped colonial domination, has ruled on and off played a major role in keeping Islamic mili- for more than 250 years. But the record for Arab T tancy alive and well and sharpening Sunni- longevity lies in a land far beyond the gulf, in Morocco, Shiite animosities. The overthrow of Saddam Hussein where Mohammed VI reigns as the 18th king in a meant an end to Sunni rule in Iraq as the Bush dynasty that came to power in 1666. administration, in the name of democracy, ushered Secular Arab leaders have been working hard to the Shia into power for the first time in the country’s establish their own family dynasties. As he had arranged, contemporary history. By the thousands, Iraqi Sun- Hafez al-Assad of Syria was succeeded upon his death in nis joined an insurgency against the new govern- 2000 by his 35-year-old son, Bashar, a British-trained ment, while others found their way to Al Qaeda, ophthalmologist who had previously shown little inter- which deliberately sought to incite a Sunni-Shiite est in politics. Both Mubarak and Qaddafi have been confrontation by bombing Shiite neighborhoods and grooming their sons to take over from them, as has holy sites. President Saleh in Yemen. The tidal wave of political Islam has rocked the Surveying the Arab world in the troubled after- Arab world’s mostly autocratic rulers, sweeping away math of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, President

54 Wilson Quarterly ■ Winter 2010 The Arab Tomorrow

Martyr’s Dayin Beirut last November brought a showof force byHezbollah,the Iranian-backed militant organization in Lebanon.The group has become a polarizing force in the Arab world, opposed by rulers who fear Iran’s growing influence in the region but supported by a number of others.

George W. Bush saw the dead hand of autocracy as a elections, loosened press censorship, and allowed a key cause of the Arab world’s stagnation, and he even bit more space for dissident voices on the Internet. conceded that the United States had helped keep And they quickly learned how to diffuse, divide, and Mubarak and other Arab autocrats in power. Bush checkmate even this feeble opposition. proposed a radical cure. His “forward strategy of Mubarak simultaneously rigged election laws to freedom” would bring democracy to the Arabs. “As make himself president for life and allowed the birth long as the Middle East remains a place where free- of a semifree opposition press. Algerian president dom does not flourish,” he declared in 2003, “it will Abdelaziz Bouteflika permitted many political par- remain a place of stagnation, resentment, and vio- ties and 76 independent national daily newspapers lence ready for export.” No longer would the United to flourish even as he altered the constitution to States accept the Arab status quo. Bush called specif- perpetuate his rule. Qatar’s al-Thani ruling family ically on America’s chief Arab allies, Egypt and Saudi dropped plans for an elected parliament but Arabia, to “show the way toward democracy in the launched the al-Jazeera satellite television channel, Middle East.” which has revolutionized Arab news coverage with Mubarak and Abdullah (still crown prince at the its critical reports, lively debates, and airing of the time) denounced the American diktat, insisting that radical views of Islamists as well as secular each country must determine its own path to reform. oppositionists. Yet Arab leaders did respond to Bush’s call, and they Arab leaders skillfully used elections to illustrate proved master manipulators of democracy. They held the dangers democracy might end up posing to U.S.

Winter 2010 ■ Wilson Quarterly 55 The Arab Tomorrow interests—exactly contrary to what President Bush didate to succeed Mubarak should his son Gamal had predicted. Saudi Arabia held municipal elec- falter. tions in early 2005, and Egypt elected a new parlia- ment late that same year. The results: The most con- servative, anti-Western Wahhabi candidates swept he argument that a “freedom deficit” lies at the the Saudi contests, and the fundamentalist Muslim core of the Arab world’s woes was not invented Brotherhood became the main opposition group in Tby President Bush. It was earlier advanced by the Egyptian parliament. Finally, after the militantly a group of independent Arab scholars who in 2002 anti-Israeli Hamas won a large majority in the 2006 began producing a regular series, the Arab Human elections for a new Palestinian parliament, Bush qui- Development Reports, for the United Nations. “The etly shelved his “freedom agenda.” So far, President wave of democracy that transformed governance in Barack Obama has carefully avoided making democ- most of Latin America and East Asia in the 1980s and racy promotion a signature cause of his administra- Eastern Europe and much of Central Asia in the late tion. Indeed, he has been vigorously chastised by 1980s and early 1990s has barely reached the Arab human rights advocates, Republican and Democrat states,” they wrote. alike, for abandoning the U.S. mission to spread The group has systematically probed the causes of the democracy in the Arab world. Arab failure to keep up with the rest of the world in areas The experience of the past few years has left a ranging from education to the advancement of women. bad taste in the mouths of many of democracy’s most Sixty-five million Arab adults, mainly women, remain fervent Arab supporters. After Bouteflika won a third illiterate; less than 1 percent of Arab adults use the five-year term in 2009, Algerian news commentator Internet, and only 1.2 percent have computers. No Arab Mahmoud Belhimer opined that the electoral process university has any standing in world rankings. Arab there and elsewhere in the Arab world served “merely regimes’ miserable failure to meet the challenges of to perpetuate the permanent monopoly of the ruling globalization has led to high rates of unemployment elite on power, thus denying the vast majority of soci- and poverty. In 2002, one in every five Arabs was living ety the right to participation in public affairs.” on less than $2 a day. The report blamed the Arab To further cement their monopoly, Arab leaders world’s stagnating economies, particularly in non–oil- have seized upon the threat of Al Qaeda terrorism to producing countries, on many leaders’ fixation with “dis- promote their civilian and military intelligence credited statist, inward-looking development models.” services—the mukhabarat—to the forefront of polit- In 2008, the average unemployment rate still stood ical life. The heads of these agencies have become so at a disturbing 15 percent in North Africa and 12 percent powerful that they often play the role of kingmaker, in the rest of the Arab world, according to the Interna- or simply become candidates for the top job them- tional Labor Organization. Among the young it was selves. After fighting an Islamist insurgency through- higher—17 percent in Egypt and 25 percent in Algeria. out the 1990s, the intelligence service in Algeria is In these and other Arab states, high food prices, poor now the mainstay of the regime and the decisive fac- housing, and a lack of jobs constantly threaten to ignite tor in choosing presidents. In Saudi Arabia, the social explosions and give Islamist groups a popular domestic civilian security chief, Minister of the Inte- cause to ride. rior Nayef bin Abdulaziz, has emerged as a possible In Egypt, the specter of bread riots haunts the successor to King Abdullah after leading a successful political elite decades after Sadat’s attempt to cut crackdown on Al Qaeda terrorists. Mubarak has subsidies in 1977 sparked nationwide street protests made his ubiquitous mukhabarat, with its two mil- and forced him to call out the army. Eight hundred lion agents and its jails filled with Islamist and sec- people died in the ensuing clashes, and Islamic mil- ular dissidents, the backbone of his regime as well. itants took advantage of the disorder to sack dozens The head of the Egyptian General Intelligence Ser- of alcohol-serving nightclubs along the tourist route vices, Omar Suleiman, has become the leading can- to Cairo’s pyramids. Sadat quickly reversed himself.

56 Wilson Quarterly ■ Winter 2010 The Arab Tomorrow

Selling for the equivalent of a penny, the flat, gle against France (1954–62), Algerians are more round baladi bread is the staple of poor Egyptians likely than most Arabs to believe in revolts and and literally keeps the social peace. In March 2008, demonstrations as means of changing the status quo. when there was a sudden shortage of bread, an anx- Riots in Algiers over bad living conditions nearly ious Mubarak called upon the army to use its own brought down the military government in 1988 after flour supplies to bake baladis. But Egyptians forced the outburst grew into a national protest movement to stand in endless lines clashed with police, and that Islamic militants were able to take over. The both the Muslim Brotherhood and secular opposition military then fought a bloody, dirty war against dis- parties took to the streets to show their solidarity affected Islamists throughout the 1990s. It has and denounce the government. remained ever since in fear of another Islamist upris- ing. Last January, security forces rushed to halt a march by tens of thousands of Islamists from the lgeria harbors an even greater potential for suburbs into downtown Algiers. The crowds had social unrest and Islamic agitation. Because taken to the streets to show their solidarity with the A of their long and successful liberation strug- radical Palestinian faction, Hamas, then battling

In Algeria, bad housing conditions sparked several days of protests in the capital city of Algiers last October, and police clashed violently with dem- onstrators. For Arab rulers, the possibility that even minor public disruptions will snowball into regime-ending cataclysms is a constant worry.

Winter 2010 ■ Wilson Quarterly 57 The Arab Tomorrow

Israeli forces that had invaded its stronghold in the clear his intent to have KAUST serve as a “beacon of Gaza Strip. tolerance” for all Saudi society. This nervousness about the Arab Street prevails in Saudi Arabia is the one new Arab powerhouse to virtually every capital in the Arab world—except, have emerged as a player on the international scene. surprisingly, among the Persian Gulf monarchies, Its status as the world’s central oil bank—it has the regimes one might expect to be the most worried. But largest reserves (267 billion barrels) and production capacity (12.5 million barrels a day)—and hold- er of massive dollar re- NERVOUSNESS ABOUT the Arab Street serves ($395 billion in mid-2009) puts it in a prevails in virtually every Arab capital. unique position among the Arab states. The king- dom is the only Arab the monarchies are blessed with small populations country in the Group of 20, the organization of the and enormous wealth. Their special circumstances world’s major economic powers. In that role, to the call into doubt whether they can serve as a model for displeasure of some other oil-producing nations, it the rest of the Arab world. But this is what they are has so far remained a firm supporter of the dollar’s aspiring to do, starting with a renovation of their role as the world’s reserve currency. backward education systems. The gulf states have begun pouring billions of dollars into new universities and inviting American n many ways, the Saudi king stands out as a and other Western universities to set up local notable exception to the criticism that old age branches. There are new American-run or -supported Iand longevity in power have ossified Arab lead- institutions in Kuwait (two), Qatar (three), Oman ership. Now 86, Abdullah has proven unexpectedly (three), Bahrain (one), and the United Arab Emi- energetic and innovative. As crown prince in 2003, he rates (nine). In Qatar, the government has set aside launched a formal “National Dialogue” that forced land in the capital, Doha, to build an entire “Educa- leaders of the feuding Sunni, Shiite, and smaller tion City” to attract foreign universities. Muslim sects to discuss their differences. He then Last September, the first 400 students, including convoked Saudis from all walks of life to discuss hot- 20 Saudi women, arrived at Saudi Arabia’s King button social and religious issues. After taking the Abdullah University of Science and Technology throne in 2005, Abdullah fired some of the most (KAUST), a state-of-the-art coeducational graduate reactionary clerics running the religious establish- research institute endowed with $10 billion from the ment, sidelined others in the government, and pro- king’s personal coffers. Located along the Red Sea moted reformers to replace them. He has also cracked shore 50 miles north of Jidda, KAUST represents a down on the excesses of the Taliban-like Wahhabi bold gamble by Abdullah to promote social change religious police, and launched a nationwide cam- over the heated objections of his own backward- paign to reeducate Wahhabi clerics away from looking Wahhabi clerical establishment. Taboos of extremism. Saudi society have been thrown out the window: Conscious that his country’s reputation was dam- Women not only take classes together with men, they aged by the fact that 15 of the 19 hijackers of 9/11 were are allowed to drive on the campus and do not have Saudi citizens, Abdullah has reached out to the West. to veil their faces. One senior cleric roundly In 2008, he addressed a Saudi-promoted “culture of denounced such practices as “a great sin and a great peace” conference at the UN General Assembly, the evil.” Abdullah responded by firing him from the first time in half a century a Saudi king had appeared kingdom’s highest religious council, after making before the world body.

58 Wilson Quarterly ■ Winter 2010 The Arab Tomorrow

The Islamists’ Dilemma

When Algerian president Abde- long Islamist insurgency and civil war lenge MSP leader Bouguerra Soltani laziz Bouteflika won a third five-year that cost 150,000 lives and left Islamic from within. Both groups believe the term last April with a reported 90 radicalism in bad repute. (Diehard party is losing its popularity and vital- percent of the vote, Algerians reacted extremists still fight on in the moun- ity by being part of the government. with sullen disdain. It was just the tains 60 miles east of Algiers, where Soltani himself resigned from Boute- latest in a string of crooked elections attacks on police and army patrols were flika’s cabinet, though two other MSP in Algeria and other countries that reported almost every day during my ministers stayed. have tarnished democracy’s reputa- visit in June.) But the Islamization of I spoke to Soltani at his party’s tion in much of the Arab world. Now the country continued apace. Today, headquarters, where he vehemently many Islamist parties in several Arab many women wear the veil; the once defended the strategy of participation. countries are reconsidering their com- dominant French-language media His main objective, he said, remained mitment to electoral politics. have increasingly given way to Arabic the same—to convince the military that I arrived in Algiers shortly after the competitors. “it is possible to work with Islamists” election to find the country’s Islamist Still, I found a deep malaise and entrust them with important min- parties in turmoil. Many of their natu- among many Islamists. In the mid- istries. But even MSP vice president ral supporters had boycotted the elec- 1990s, the Algerian military invited Abderrazak Maki disagreed. He said tion, and their leaders were under them to participate in elections as part the party should quit the government, intense pressure to quit the electoral of a strategy to neutralize them, and it concentrate on rebuilding its popular process. One group, adherents to Saudi worked. In 1995, a faction that today support, and press its agenda for a Arabia’s fundamentalist Wahhabism, calls itself the Movement of the Soci- stricter adherence to Islamic norms had decided to do just that and with- ety for Peace scored a second-place from the outside. draw into their own isolated com- finish in the presidential election, and The discontent has spread to other munes. Criticism of electoral politics several MSP leaders were invited to countries where Islamist parties have was also being heard among Islamists in become ministers in the new govern- been willing to give multiparty democ- Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, and Egypt. ment. Fifteen years later, the MSP is racy a chance. In Egypt, the Muslim I was struck by how much Algeria’s still part of the coalition that supports Brotherhood, which became the main political landscape had changed since Bouteflika, but it has very little to opposition group in the 2005 parlia- I lived there in the first few years after show for its loyalty, and its ties to the mentary elections, is now debating it won independence from France in autocratic president have hurt its rep- whether to participate in elections later 1962. Back then, Algeria was a hotbed utation. Its popularity has plum- this year. One option for disillusioned of European communists and Trot- meted. Because the MSP ran as part Islamists is simply to drop out of the skyites bent on launching a socialist of a multiparty bloc, it is impossible to public realm, as Algeria’s Wahhabis revolution. After a military coup in know how many votes it won in April, did. Some may choose to join the jihad 1965, the country slowly morphed into but one indicator of the religious par- against the growing U.S. military pres- a breeding ground for Muslim mili- ties’ overall strength is the tally of the ence in Afghanistan. But another tants just as determined to establish an sole independent Islamist party in the option is to revert to underground Islamic republic. race: just 176,000 votes. resistance, a prospect that does not That came very close to happening The latest election has roiled even augur well for the Arab experiment after Islamists won parliamentary elec- the MSP. One MSP faction split off to with authoritarian democracy. tions in 1991, but the military again form a new party pledged to greater stepped in. The result was a decade- militancy. Another decided to chal- —David B. Ottaway

Winter 2010 ■ Wilson Quarterly 59 The Arab Tomorrow

More remarkably, Abdullah engineered the bold- ernment accused the Iranians of fomenting rebel- est Arab initiative to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli lion among members of a local Shiite sect. deadlock since Sadat flew to Jerusalem. In retro- But the anti-Iranian campaign served more to spect, it seems something of a miracle that he suc- divide than to unite the Arab world. Last January, ceeded in getting the entire 22-member Arab League after Israeli troops invaded the Gaza Strip in a bid to to adopt his initiative at its Beirut summit in 2002. destroy Hamas, Qatar defied Saudi Arabia’s king The plan offered peace, security guarantees, and nor- Abdullah and President Mubarak by calling for an malization of relations with Israel in return for an emergency Arab summit to show support for the rad- Israeli withdrawal from Arab territories occupied in ical Iranian-backed group. Fourteen of the Arab the 1967 war. Not so long ago, Arab leaders would League’s members sent representatives, while Saudi have objected to even an implicit recognition of Israel. Arabia and Egypt, the league’s wealthiest and most Unfortunately, Abdullah’s initiative elicited no populous members, respectively, could only join oth- response from either Tel Aviv or Washington. ers in a boycott. The powerhouse of the Arabian Peninsula cannot SAUDI ARABIA, THE powerhouse of the impose its will even on its tiny neighbors in the Gulf Arabian peninsula, cannot impose its will Cooperation Council. The GCC brought together six even on its tiny neighbors. monarchies—kingdoms, emirates, and a sultanate— in 1981 to deal with the challenge from Iran’s mili- For all his efforts, Abdullah has not been able to tant Shiite clerics, who were bent on exporting their rally the Arab Street or, apart from the Beirut sum- revolution across the Persian Gulf. It established a col- mit, other Arab leaders. Saudi financial largesse has lective defense force in 1986 under Saudi command, lost its purchasing power in other Arab capitals, and but the so-called Peninsula Shield never amounted to Saudi diplomacy now has limits even in the kingdom’s more than a nucleus of at most 9,000 soldiers. Pentagon backyard on the Arabian Peninsula. The spread of efforts over the years to encourage GCC members to inte- massive oil wealth since the sharp increase in global grate their air, land, and sea defenses have had limited oil prices began in the late 1990s has made it possi- results. ble for even the tiny emirates to defy the mighty Why this failure of collective self-defense even Saudi kingdom. among a subgroup of similar Arab countries con- The limits of Saudi influence became painfully fronted by a common threat? One constant of GCC apparent when the Saudis, alarmed by the rise of a politics is fear of Saudi hegemony. The United Arab Shia-led government in Baghdad after the fall of Sad- Emirates and Qatar both have had territorial feuds dam Hussein, joined with Egypt and Jordan in an with the Saudis, and there have been numerous eco- effort to rally other Sunni Arab leaders against the nomic squabbles. When Bahrain infuriated the spread of Iranian influence. By then, Tehran had Saudis by signing a bilateral free-trade agreement already made inroads into Lebanon by supporting the with the United States in 2004, for example, the Shiite faction, Hezbollah, and into Palestinian poli- kingdom retaliated by temporarily cutting off tics by backing Hamas. Jordan’s King Abdullah Bahrain’s portion of the output from an oil field they warned of an emerging “Shiite crescent” stretching share. from Iran to Lebanon and the Palestinian territo- Nowhere are GCC members’ differences more on ries. In Egypt, authorities uncovered a network of display than in their attitudes toward Iran. For Saudi secret Hezbollah cells, and last year in Yemen the gov- Arabia, the Shiite theocracy looms as the main chal-

60 Wilson Quarterly ■ Winter 2010 The Arab Tomorrow

At the Arab League’s 2002 summit, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia won surprising assent to an Arab-Israeli peace plan, but he couldn’t sell it elsewhere. lenger to its religious and political influence in the in brokering an accord that gave Hezbollah a decisive Sunni Arab world. The prospect of a nuclear-armed voice in forming a new government, succeeding in Iran has alarmed the Saudis because of their fears Beirut. that Tehran would be able to bully its Arab neighbors. Oman has also gone out of its way to remain on The kingdom has been the most disposed of all the good terms with Tehran, partly because the two coun- GCC members to support tougher economic sanc- tries face each other across the Strait of Hormuz, the tions, possibly even U.S. military action, to stop Iran’s passageway for all oil tankers leaving the Persian drive to join the world’s nuclear club. Gulf. So has the United Arab Emirates, a constellation Qatar, on the other hand, has maintained an open- of seven semiautonomous city-states. The largest door policy and even at times aligned itself with emirate, Dubai, is the main transshipment point for Tehran against Riyadh—influenced in part by the Iranian exports and imports, still often ferried across fact that it jointly exploits a huge offshore gas field the gulf in old-fashioned wooden dhows. This flour- with Iran. To great Saudi displeasure, the Qataris ishing trade continues unabated despite UN eco- invited Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad nomic sanctions on Iran, not to mention Iran’s con- to attend the 2007 GCC annual summit, a first for any tinuing military occupation of three islands claimed Iranian leader. Qatar has also sided with Iran’s mili- by the emirates. tant friends in the Arab world, namely Hezbollah How has it been possible for these statelets to forge and Hamas; it even took over floundering Saudi such independent foreign policies? The answer lies in efforts to mediate among Lebanese factions in 2008 their massive oil and gas wealth. For example, Qatar,

Winter 2010 ■ Wilson Quarterly 61 The Arab Tomorrow

The Arab future? At Ski Dubai, with its enclosed 400-meter ski slope, the materialistic zeal of the prosperous gulf states assumes crystalline form. with an indigenous population of less than 200,000, Fabulous wealth has made it possible for the gulf boasts the world’s third-largest natural gas reserves, ministates to do more than just dream impossible after Russia and Iran, and is the world’s largest exporter dreams. The rulers of Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Qatar of liquefied natural gas. It had a gross domestic product have invested hundreds of billions of dollars in glitzy new of $106 billion in 2008. Egypt, with its 80 million peo- “global cities” that aspire to become centers for play, ple, had a GDP of only $158 billion. Even counting business, and finance appealing to Arabs and non-Arabs Qatar’s foreign resident population of slightly more than alike. They host UN conferences and celebrity-studded one million, its per capita income of $93,204 was twice events that trumpet their high hopes. The Doha Tribeca that of the United States in 2008, ranking second Film Festival in Qatar boasts Robert DeNiro among its worldwide. marquee names. Abu Dhabi’s plans include both a The case of the United Arab Emirates is just as strik- “Louvre Abu Dhabi” and a Guggenheim museum ing. With an indigenous population of 1.3 million (out designed by world-renowned architect Frank Gehry. of a total population of 4.3 million), it had a GDP of $270 There is an air of unreality about these would-be billion in 2008, more than half that of Saudi Arabia, global cities. Doha’s skyline is dotted with cranes, and its which has 20 times as many nationals. Its sovereign downtown is an unending series of construction sites and investment fund—the Abu Dhabi Investment twisting highway detours. Pakistanis, Indians, Sri Authority—was the world’s largest in 2008, with assets Lankans, Nepalese, Filipinos, and Egyptians have come of $627 billion. Kuwait, Bahrain, and Oman had simi- by the hundreds of thousands to build a new shining city larly outsized economies. on the sands around a barren bay. The quaint old quar-

62 Wilson Quarterly ■ Winter 2010 The Arab Tomorrow ters at the city’s heart are surrounded by towering hotels were embarrassed last year by Mubarak’s effort to pro- and conference centers. Native Qataris seem a vanish- mote culture minister Farouk Hosny, widely seen as ing species. A visitor could easily pass a week in Doha Cairo’s Savonarola, as UNESCO’s new director-general. rarely meeting a Qatari or hearing Arabic spoken. Hosny blamed the failure of his candidacy on a Jewish Even before Dubai essentially defaulted on $60 billion in debt last CAIRO HAS LOST even its role as the November, the world financial crisis of 2008–09 soap opera capital of the Arab world. had brought a halt, or at least a pause, to the great Dubai dream of a new global city. Scores of projects were put on hold and tens conspiracy “cooked up in New York.” As if this were not of thousands of foreign workers sent home. Oman, enough, Egyptians suffered another blow to their self too, was hard hit. But the other gulf statelets simply esteem last November when Algeria eliminated their dug deeper into their foreign reserves to ride out the soccer team from World Cup contention. In the ensuing downturn, while Saudi Arabia, with $400 billion in its dustup, both countries recalled their ambassadors. pocket, hardly skipped a beat. The decline of Egypt has been an especially bitter pill for the country’s best and brightest to swallow. The lit- erate are divided over whether the blame lies chiefly with f tiny Qatar can defy giant Saudi Arabia, what is the the peace treaty with Israel, which deprived Egypt of a likelihood that the Arab world will ever produce military option and thus weakened its diplomacy with Ianother charismatic zaim of the stature of Nasser Tel Aviv, or with Mubarak. The Egyptian president him- or Sadat, or that Egypt will re-emerge as its political self seems to have supplied the answer, allowing King dynamo? The chances appear exceedingly slim. Egypt Abdullah to eclipse him with his 2002 peace initiative may still have some of the key ingredients for and failing in his effort to mediate among feuding Pales- leadership—the mightiest army, the biggest population, tinian factions. and the most central geographic location. But it remains Mubarak’s son and possible successor Gamal has resource poor and heavily dependent on unreliable rev- deftly promoted his image at home and abroad as a enues from abroad—multibillion-dollar grants from the reform-minded modernizer, but it seems unlikely that United States, European and Arab tourism, and remit- any leader will be able to restore Egypt to its role as umm tances from the two million Egyptians who work in idduniya. Some reformers’ hearts fluttered in Decem- other countries. ber when Mohamed ElBaradei, who won a Nobel Prize Not only has the center of Arab wealth moved to the as head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, gulf; so, too, has the source of new initiatives and think- declared his interest in running for Egypt’s presidency ing. Visiting Cairo last April, a New York Times reporter in 2011, but he attached conditions the government is found its chattering classes demoralized and despairing. unlikely to satisfy. A leading television writer, Osama Anwar Okasha, Washington regularly bemoans the lack of an “Arab lamented that Egypt had become “a third-class country.” partner” in the peace process, and presses Egypt in par- It is “not influential in anything,” he grumbled. Cairo has ticular to do more. Abdullah’s success in pulling Arab lost even its role as the soap opera capital of the Arab rulers together behind a plan illustrates that strong world, its state-sponsored offerings trounced in the rat- leadership can serve to forge a single Arab voice on even ings during the critical Ramadan month of fasting by the most divisive issues. But the single, clear voice of livelier confections such as Turkey’s Noor, which fol- 2002 did little to help achieve a breakthrough in the lows the heart-rending story of a young couple forced Israeli-Palestinian deadlock; nor has Arab unanimity in into a traditional family-arranged marriage. Egyptians backing a multitude of anti-Israel resolutions at the

Winter 2010 ■ Wilson Quarterly 63 The Arab Tomorrow

United Nations accomplished anything. And the Arab Islam has not swept them away. Predicting the outcome League’s unanimous support for Sudanese leader Omar of the continuing struggle between Arab autocrats, royal al-Bashir, faced with war crime charges by the Interna- and secular, and their Islamist opponents seems equally tional Criminal Court, has not enhanced the Arab voice perilous today. The Arab future is not limited to a choice in world affairs. between autocracy and theocracy. As both Turkey and It is no longer clear, either, what the Arab world Indonesia powerfully illustrate, there is nothing inher- stands to gain by an Egypt strutting back to center stage. ently contradictory between Islam and authentic mul- There is no enticing “Egyptian model” for develop- tiparty democracy. These countries, too, were once ruled ment—political or economic. New thinking, visions, by autocrats, and they both have had to figure out the role and initiatives have come largely from the Persian Gulf of Islam in politics. states and their freewheeling, competitive rulers, while Whoever comes to rule Egypt after Mubarak will Egypt still seems encumbered by its Pharaonic nature walk upon an Arab landscape that has undergone from embarking on radical change. On the whole, the change that is probably irreversible. Not only is the Arab Arab world has gained in vitality in Egypt’s decline. world multipolar in wealth and influence; its eastern and That world now stares at two sharply contrasting western flanks are slowly being pulled in opposite direc- models of its future: the highly materialistic emirate tions by different global markets. Centrifugal economic state obsessed with visions of Western-style moder- forces are becoming more powerful than centripetal nity, and the strict Islamic one fixed on resurrecting political ones. For the oil- and gas-exporting gulf states, the Qur’an’s dictates espoused by fundamentalists the thriving economies of China, India, and other Asian and Al Qaeda. The struggle between these two mod- nations have become a powerful magnet; for the els for the hearts and minds of Arabs is intense, par- Maghreb countries, the European Union plays that role. ticularly among a questioning, restless youth. The Saudi Arabia aspires to become the prime supplier of for- lure of the new, shiny emirate cities remains power- eign oil to gas-guzzling China; Algeria is doubling the ful, but there is a soulless quality about these places capacity to transport its Sahara gas by underwater that raises questions about their lasting appeal. On pipelines to energy-starved Italy and Spain. the other hand, Muslim terrorism unleashed against By and large, the economic prospects for most Arab other Muslims has done nothing to enhance the call countries appear reasonably hopeful. A majority have oil for an Islamic state. or gas, and even non–oil-producing countries such as Jordan and Morocco, and minor producers such as Tunisia, have fair to good prospects. Many were on the here are signs, perhaps false, that the appeal of move economically before the latest world financial cri- militant Islam is waning. Support for Islamic sis, and they have not come to a halt because of it. Even T parties has dropped in recent elections in Jordan, war-devastated Iraq has struck deals with foreign firms Kuwait, Morocco, and Algeria. But this may only reflect to nearly triple its current production of 2.5 million bar- the growing disillusionment with government-rigged rels a day in the next six years. elections, as falling voter turnout strongly suggests. In fact, By contrast, Arab political prospects are deeply trou- there is a fierce debate under way within the Muslim bling. Monarchs, once thought headed for history’s dust- Brotherhood in Egypt and like-minded Islamist groups bin, are doing surprisingly well at the moment. Both elsewhere over whether they should continue to partici- royal and secular autocrats are holding their Islamist pate in the electoral process. (See box, p. 59.) challengers at bay thanks to highly manipulative or Analysts of the Arab world are all too aware that repressive security services. However, this prevailing prediction is a fool’s game. As a journalist covering the model of Arab autocracy, dependent on the mukhabarat region, I have reported more times than I can count the and a fabricated popular vote, does not seem a recipe for confident predictions after the shah fell in 1979 that lasting political stability. Indeed, the Arab political caul- the Arab monarchies were next. Today, those same dron contains all the ingredients for explosions in the regimes are not only alive and well but thriving. Militant years ahead. ■

64 Wilson Quarterly ■ Winter 2010 IN ESSENCE reviews of articles from periodicals and specialized journals here and abroad

65 Politics & Government // 66 Economics, Labor & Business // 68 Foreign Policy & Defense // 70 Society // 72 Press & Media // 74 History // 76 Religion & Philosophy // 78 Science & Technology // 81 Arts & Letters // 84 Other Nations

POLITICS & GOVERNMENT tion technology that would make it “trivially easy” to access the records. With little work, interest groups would be able to draw direct lines Transparency Traps from congresspersons’ campaign finances to their votes. The trouble is, without any sensitivity to the full Lessig writes, “it is impossible to THE SOURCE: “Against Transparency” by Lawrence Lessig, in The New Republic, complexity of the idea of perfect know whether any particular contri- Oct. 21, 2009. openness—will inspire not reform, bution . . . brought about a particular but disgust.” vote, or was inspired by a particular The basic premise of the Take the issue of campaign con- vote. . . . If there are benign as well as call for more transparency in gov- tributions. For 30 years it has been malign contributions, it is impossible ernment is quite simple: Greater possible to find the name of every- to know for any particular contribu- openness will ultimately lead to one who gives significant amounts tions which of the two it is.” Trans- better governance. Just think how it to federal election campaigns, but it parency raises the specter of corrup- would be if citizens could know wasn’t always easy. You had to get tion, but fails to prove its existence. exactly whom their representatives yourself to a government file cabi- Elevated levels of suspicion encour- met with every day, or could easily net, often located far from any- aged by this “tyranny of transparency” track the dollars funding reelection where convenient. If you made it corrode the public’s trust in Congress, campaigns. Advocates also clamor that far, you’d find that the files whose approval rating is already hov- for more transparency in banking, were a few months behind. Even ering around a measly 20 percent. medicine, and the news media. As today, Senate staffers collect cam- What’s to be done? Without Justice Louis D. Brandeis famously paign contribution data in sophisti- transparency, it’s impossible to said, “Sunlight is . . . the best of dis- cated computer programs, only to discern the corrupting effects of infectants.” print out their lists, forcing Federal money on a legislator’s decisions, but Not so fast, writes Harvard Law Election Commission personnel to with transparency it’s too easy to see professor Lawrence Lessig. Trans- manually reenter the information impropriety everywhere. Lessig says parency has emerged as “an un- into their own databases. The that the solution is to do away with questionable bipartisan value,” but resulting lag allows senators to the source of the insinuations “we are not thinking critically accept campaign contributions altogether: the system of privately enough about where and when right before an election knowing funded elections. “Sunlight may well transparency works, and where and they will remain under wraps until be a great disinfectant,” he observes. when it may lead to confusion, or to after the votes have been cast. “But as anyone who has ever waded worse. . . . The inevitable success of Transparency advocates hope to through a swamp knows, it has other this movement—if pursued alone, change this by employing informa- effects as well.”

Winter 2010 ■ Wilson Quarterly 65 IN ESSENCE

POLITICS & GOVERNMENT of Duke University write that in dis- people’s views requires a lot more tricts where the political landscape is polling than in a simple district (a The Politics of especially hard to understand, process that can be quite expensive). potential challengers rarely materi- The 2000 election bore out the Complexity alize, and when they do, they are authors’ argument. In districts with more likely to lose. greater political complexity, a serious THE SOURCE: “District Complexity as an Advantage in Congressional Elections” by The trio gauged the complexity of challenger was far less likely to Michael J. Ensley, Michael W. Tofias, and congressional districts by examining emerge, and those who did fared Scott de Marchi, in The American Journal of Political Science, Oct. 2009. opinion-poll data on residents’ views much worse come Election Day. In on economic issues such as taxation the ever artless language of political Ideologically driven and on cultural questions—what to scientists, “If we compare a district gerrymandering over the past several do about abortion, guns, and school with a complexity score two standard decades has produced an increasing prayer. Districts where the two areas deviations below the mean to a number of relatively homogenous of belief were highly correlated have district with a score two standard congressional districts represented by “simple” political landscapes; a candi- deviations above the mean, there is a legislators with little to fear from most date in such a district can make accu- 2.5 percent difference in the incum- challengers. rate predictions about how consti- bent’s expected share of the vote.” But anyone who thinks more tuents feel about gun control based Simply put, the more complex a dis- diverse districts are rough-and- on how they feel about taxes. In dis- trict, the better the incumbent fared. tumble rings of fierce political com- tricts where people have, say, uni- Ensley and colleagues explain, “By petition has another thing coming. formly conservative economic views definition, an incumbent has done a Political scientists Michael J. Ensley but heterogenous social values, good job of finding a successful plat- of Kent State University, Michael W. potential challengers face a problem. form at least once.” Best of luck to the Tofias of the University of Wiscon- In these “complicated” districts, put- go-getters who want to throw their sin, Milwaukee, and Scott de Marchi ting together an accurate picture of hats in the ring.

ECONOMICS, LABOR & BUSINESS nation’s borrowers were either delin- quent or in foreclosure. But loan modifications just aren’t happening at the rate one would expect. Why not? The Wrong Fix for A new study by Christopher L. Foote and Paul S. Willen of the Fed- Foreclosures eral Reserve Bank of Boston, Kristo- pher S. Gerardi of the Federal save money they would have lost in Reserve Bank of Atlanta, and THE SOURCE: “Reducing Foreclosures” by Christopher L. Foote, Kristopher S. Gerardi, foreclosure. Sheila Bair, chairwoman Lorenz Goette of the University of Lorenz Goette, and Paul S. Willen, in of the Federal Deposit Insurance Geneva shows that rewriting the Research Review, Jan.–June 2009. Corporation, has estimated that this terms of mortgages nearing foreclo- One solution to the recent strategy could prevent 1.5 million sure would be bad business for surge of foreclosures has gained a lot foreclosures. Since each foreclosure is banks. The reason is two-fold: of currency: Rewrite the lousy mort- estimated to cost the lender an aver- Banks would be overly inclusive and gages that are the source of this mess. age of $120,000, total savings could rewrite mortgages that wouldn’t It’s a win-win plan: Borrowers would be as much as $180 billion. At the have gone into foreclosure; and of keep their homes, and banks would end of September, 14 percent of the those they would rewrite, many

66 Wilson Quarterly ■ Winter 2010 IN ESSENCE

ECONOMICS, LABOR & BUSINESS Ditch the Dollar

THE SOURCE: “The Dollar and the Deficits” by C. Fred Bergsten, in Foreign Affairs, Nov.–Dec. 2009.

When Chinese officials began talking openly last year about the possibility of unseating the dollar as the world’s reserve currency, they got the brushoff from Washington. But C. Fred Bergsten, director of the Peter G. Peterson Institute for Inter- Boarded up and vacant homes are an all too common sight in Gary, Indiana, where foreclo- national Economics, argues that sures outpaced sales through the end of 2009. that was a mistake. After nearly a century, the dollar’s role as the would go into foreclosure anyway. percent increase in the ratio of debt world’s dominant currency is no Foote and his colleagues found to income that a borrower takes on longer in America’s national that foreclosures are not being at the start of a loan increases the interest. driven chiefly by exorbitant interest risk of a 90-day delinquency by only It may make Americans feel rates or other qualities of the mort- seven to 11 percent. In contrast, just good that everybody needs green- gages themselves. They point in- a one-percentage-point increase in backs to do business in the global stead to what they call the “double- the unemployment rate raises the economy, but the costs to the trigger”: the interaction of an probability by 10 to 20 percent. United States have grown very “income shock”—a job loss—and Worst of all, a 10-percentage-point high. China and other nations falling home prices. “Consider a fall in house prices raises it by more game the system by keeping the borrower who has lost his job. No than half. value of their currencies artifi- permanent modification can make Some economists have contend- cially low relative to the dollar, the house affordable if the borrower ed that banks have been slow to allowing them to sell their goods has no income.” Moreover, “when modify loans because it’s very com- more cheaply in the United States the value of the house that collater- plicated to do so with mortgages while hamstringing U.S. exports. alizes the loan is falling,” the servicer that have been sold and repackaged Then they pour the vast dollar who delays foreclosure risks an even in securitized bundles. But Foote holdings they’ve amassed into the larger loss in the future. and his colleagues found that secu- United States, providing easy To test their theory, the authors ritized and non-securitized loans money that fosters government tweaked data covering more than have been modified at about the deficits, high-risk mortgages, and half of the U.S. mortgage market. same rate. debt-fueled consumer spending— What happens if mortgage debt The authors argue that it’s a mis- key elements in the recent boom rises as a percentage of people’s take for Washington to focus on mak- and bust. incomes? What if more borrowers ing it easier to modify loans. Rather, it In 2006, the U.S. current are unemployed? For each variable should create a bridge for people who account deficit (which includes they altered, they could see the have recently lost their jobs to help interest and other money flows in effect on payment delinquency. them get through the rough patch addition to trade in goods and What they found is that even a 10 without losing their homes. services) topped $800 billion, a

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record six percent of gross would allow the Federal Reserve domestic product (GDP). But to keep interest rates (and the that’s small potatoes compared Job one for the United value of the dollar) relatively low. with what’s in store if nothing States must be to But Washington must also work changes. While the recession has reduce the staggering to “prevent and counter deliber- brought the current account federal budget deficit. ate currency undervaluations by deficit down, Bergsten’s institute other major countries” that harm predicts it will reach 15 percent of U.S. competitiveness. China is GDP by 2030. America’s net for- believes that the fundamental the chief offender—despite a eign debt will rise from $3.5 tril- problem is U.S. government recent climb, the yuan remains lion today to $50 trillion. The deficits. The dollar glut is an undervalued by 20 to 40 per- interest alone will come to $2.5 enabling condition. As Washing- cent—but there is a long list of trillion annually. That means that ton borrows more money to others, including Germany, the United States will be shipping finance the deficits, interest rates Japan, and Switzerland. Multilat- seven percent of its GDP overseas rise, attracting foreign investors eral “name and shame” efforts every year—if economic disaster and pushing up the value of the directed at currency manip- doesn’t strike first. dollar. The trade deficit grows. ulators and the enforcement of Bergsten does not advocate a And the writing on the wall sug- certain provisions of the World total abdication of the dollar. gests a dark future: This year’s Trade Organization are two pos- Rather, he thinks it should share $1.5 trillion federal budget short- sible antidotes. But the stakes are its role with the euro, the Chinese fall was more than triple the pre- high enough that Bergsten thinks yuan, and other currencies, as vious record, but trillion-dollar the United States should be pre- well as the new Special Drawing deficits stretch into the foresee- pared to take unilateral action, Rights system of the Inter- able future. perhaps by imposing import sur- national Monetary Fund, which is Job one for the United States charges on products from coun- based on a basket of currencies. must be to reduce those budget tries that continue to game the At bottom, though, Bergsten deficits, Bergsten writes. That system.

FOREIGN POLICY & DEFENSE the president to make certain kinds of international agreements without further congressional input. Although many of the ini- Clipping the tial provisions were carefully con- strained, today’s are vague and President’s Wings open-ended, giving the president unilateral and expansive author-

THE SOURCE: “Presidential Power Over roughly 80 percent of the United ity over almost every area of International Law: Restoring the Balance” States’ international commit- international law, from fisheries by Oona A. Hathaway, in The Yale Law ments are made by the president to atomic energy. In the past Journal, Nov. 2009. acting alone, writes Oona A. decade, the State Department has It may be Congress’s job to Hathaway, a professor of interna- reported an annual average of write the laws in America, but tional law at Yale Law School. 200 to 300 agreements made by when it comes to international In the years after World War the president under the authority affairs, the legislators have all but II, Congress began passing of these statutes. One such agree- relinquished their role. Today, statutes that delegated power to ment, made in 2007, dealt with

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the safety of drugs and medical hensive reform in how the United offensive cyber-strategy is piling up. devices imported from China. In States makes international law. Harris reveals that in May 2007 that same time span, Congress Congress could continue delegat- President George W. Bush author- has ratified just 20 treaties ing authority to the president to ized an attack on the cell phones annually. make international agreements, and computers of insurgents in But presidential power grab it she suggests, but those delega- Iraq. Unnamed former officials wasn’t. Rather, it was Congress tions should be narrow and credit such operations with helping that, “because of a combination of include sunset provisions. The to “turn the tide of the war.” Some institutional myopia and political president should have to submit suggest they were even more instru- incentives,” more or less unwit- more agreements to Congress for mental than the thousands of addi- tingly gave away its power bit by review before they go into effect, tional troops President Bush sent to bit. Handing over international a requirement that would encour- Iraq as part of the surge in 2007. lawmaking to the president age him to seek the legislative With the creation of high-level meant more time to work on the branch’s input throughout the posts to coordinate U.S. cyber- domestic issues that decide elec- process. And legislators should strategy and the emergence of a tions. The courts, Hathaway adopt an expedited process for younger generation of leaders, the writes, “have done nothing to cor- approving agreements. Through new way of war is getting more rect the imbalance.” such changes, Congress would be attention from the defense estab- Some have argued that the brought back into the process. lishment. But the United States resulting arrangement is prefer- Hathaway stresses that making faces major challenges in keeping able—that Congress is ill suited to international law should not be pace with Russia and China. An making international policy. An the prerogative of the president. independent study published in effective international negotiator July found the nation’s cyberwar must have the authority to sign FOREIGN POLICY & DEFENSE staff fragmented and inadequate; an agreement that will not be the study blamed low salaries and second-guessed and amended by E-Warfare a hiring process that can stretch Congress, they contend. Hatha- on for months. way is unconvinced. Not only is it THE SOURCE: “The Cyberwar Plan” by Secretary of Defense Robert Shane Harris, in National Journal, Nov. “inconsistent with basic demo- 14, 2009. Gates has said that the military is cratic principles” for the executive “desperately short” of cyber- to have unmitigated power in The military of the United warriors. The Defense Depart- conducting international affairs, States reigns supreme on land, in ment graduates about 80 stu- but it “can lead to less favorable the air, and at sea. But who will dents each year from schools agreements” that don’t have nec- rule cyberspace remains an open devoted to teaching cyberwarfare essary support from Americans question. and hopes to quadruple that who will be affected. And a nego- Shane Harris, a correspondent number in the next two years. But tiator who has to answer to Con- for National Journal, reports that the government must compete gress often has a stronger posi- cyberwarfare—attacks on a nation’s with the private sector for top tal- tion, she argues. With the power grid, air traffic control ent. For example, defense legislative branch lurking in the system, banks, Web servers, or contractor Raytheon Company background, the president can phones—is now an integral part of recently posted a “Cyber Warriors refuse to give ground on certain U.S. military strategy. The govern- Wanted” advertisement on its provisions, on the pretense that ment has made its efforts to keep Web site and announced 250 such a deal will never garner American computers secure well open spots. approval. known, but now evidence that the The United States appears to Hathaway proposes compre- United States has engaged in an have proceeded cautiously, in part

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out of awareness that the weapons risk of being captured by an cause it owns much of it. Russia of cyberwarfare are very different adversary, refined, and should be reluctant to launch a from conventional ones, produc- redeployed. Mike McConnell, a cyberattack on the United States ing systemic effects that can be former director of national intelli- because, unlike Estonia or Geor- hard to anticipate. Planners con- gence, has said that a coordinated gia [which Russia is believed to sidering an attack on the Iraqi cyberattack “could create damage have cyber-attacked in 2007 and banking system before the 2003 as potentially great as a nuclear 2008, respectively], the United U.S.-led invasion backed off when weapon over time.” States could fashion a response they realized that the Iraqi Old-fashioned Cold War–style involving massive conventional networks were tied to ones in deterrence theory plays a big role force. . . . If nations begin attack- France that would also be in the new thinking. Harris writes, ing one another’s power grids and affected. Moreover, the computer “Presumably, China has no inter- banks, they will quickly exchange coding used in any assault is at est in crippling Wall Street, be- bombs and bullets.”

SOCIETY more trusting. In a carefully crafted experiment, she tested the effects of good and bad online shopping experiences on people Good Vibrations who had never bought anything on the Web before. Those whose experience positively) tend to packages arrived promptly and THE SOURCE: “Effects of Internet Commerce on Social Trust” by Diana C. boost a generalized sense of faith without hassle answered posi- Mutz, in Public Opinion Quarterly, in other people, particularly tively to survey questions about Fall 2009. strangers. strangers’ honesty and helpful- Earlier studies have estab- ness, and human nature’s essen- Hardly a day goes by with- lished that people who are more tial goodness. Those who received out some headline declaring a trusting are more likely to partici- broken goods and then poor cus- new ill the Internet is visiting pate in e-commerce in the first tomer service experienced a sharp upon society. One oft-heard place. And Mutz finds that when drop in warm and fuzzy feelings lament: Local shopkeepers are they do so and have a positive toward their fellow man. losing business to online retailers, experience, they become even In general, people are not very and as a result, small interactions trusting of online merchants to that once strengthened the social begin with. One study found that fabric of a neighborhood or town more than 60 percent of are no more. Is the Internet respondents believed that eroding the connections that Web businesses were keep society together? likely to try to Not at all, writes Diana C. cheat them, Mutz, a political scientist at the while only 21 per- University of Pennsylvania. cent said the same Face-to-face interactions may of local shops. be on the wane, but positive e- What’s more, many commerce experiences (and 80 more people percent of those who have pur- believed that online chased online characterize their businesses could

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get away with scamming American groups would their customers. Mutz bristle at the idea that suspects that it is this EXCERPT they are no longer mean- initial sense of apprehen- ingfully ‘Indian’ simply sion followed by the because they no longer pleasant surprise of an Twain’s World speak their ancestral honest transaction that tongue,” McWhorter builds trust. When e- Perhaps you will believe with me that civilizations points out. commerce becomes a are not realities, but only dreams; dreams of the mind, There is undeniably more routine form of not of the heart, and therefore fictitious, and perishable; an aesthetic loss when a shopping (much as cata- that they have never affected the heart and therefore language dies, but it is logs are today), no one have made no valuable progress; that the heart remains meaningful to relatively will be surprised when today what it always was, as intimacy with any existing few people. Technology an order arrives on time savage tribe will show. Indeed the average human brain allows us to record and and as advertised, and is not a shade higher today than it was in Egyptian times preserve the clicks, whis- the positive effects on 10,000 years ago. tles, and trills of obscure general trust will languages that delight diminish. —MARK TWAIN, in a letter to Carl Thalbitzer, who linguists (and frustrate Of course, businesses had asked Twain to write about “the advantages and draw- students). Ultimately, act honestly because it’s backs of civilization,”in Harper’s (Dec. 2009) language death is “a in their self-interest to symptom of people com- do so, not out of ing together,” with all the altruism. Mutz writes, “By engag- language, one of thousands that good things that entails: economic ing in economic transactions with are expected to meet the same fate opportunity, shared space, and the those we do not know and proba- in the next 100 years. exchange of ideas. Indigenous lan- bly will never meet, we enhance Get over it, says Columbia Uni- guages survive only in isolation, our faith in the general goodness versity linguist John McWhorter. “complete with the maltreatment of others.... Thus good business The passing of these languages is of women and lack of access to practices have important ramifi- not as meaningful as some think, modern medicine and technology.” cations for the long-term well- and strenuous efforts to keep them When given the opportunity, these being of societies.” alive are unlikely to succeed. languages’ users often voluntarily A small but vocal number of abandon their own ways in pursuit SOCIETY people have romantic notions of a better life. about the unique “cultural world- A hundred years from now the Don’t Cry for Eyak view” an individual language rep- world could have as few as 600 liv- resents. But language differences ing languages, with English serving THE SOURCE: “The Cosmopolitan Tongue: have more to do with geography as the “global tongue.” As someone The Universality of English” by John McWhor- ter, in World Affairs Journal, Fall 2009. than culture. The fact that the who has learned more than a few Latin augustus became agosto in languages himself, McWhorter says In 2008, the last native Spain and août in France is merely the world could do much worse speaker of Eyak died in southern one of the many “chance linguistic than English. Unlike, say, Czech, Alaska. Her death, and that of her driftings” with no cultural signif- English has no sounds that a non- mother tongue, was the subject of icance that separate languages. native can’t closely approximate; international news media And elements of a culture often nor does it require three genders, as attention. Observers mourned the remain intact long after the death Russian does, or the memorization loss of another indigenous of an indigenous language. “Native of immense numbers of characters,

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as other languages do. To read a the period between 1992 and 2005. 2005 than those that were safest 20 simple story in a Chinese newspa- Property crime decreased by 38 per- years earlier. But again, the trends did per, a reader needs a working cent and violent crime by nearly half. not affect all groups equally: The inci- knowledge of 2,000 characters— In 2005, one-quarter of cities were dence of crime fell more sharply yet another reason why a Chinese safer than their surrounding suburbs among minorities than whites, imperium is not a pretty thought. had been in 1992. narrowing the gap between them. But the benefits were not univer- The sole exception to this SOCIETY sal. Northeastern cities with large general convergence was found in minority and immigrant populations an expanding gap between foreign- Crime’s Great and high rates of poverty experienced ers and native-born residents. In the greatest drop. These cities tended 1992, they had nearly the same Convergence to have higher crime rates to begin level of “crime exposure.” By 2000, with. In contrast, the 70 cities where immigrants experienced noticeably THE SOURCE: “Crime and U.S. Cities: Recent Patterns and Implications” by Ingrid crime decreased the least—or even, in less crime than the average U.S.- Gould Ellen and Katherine O’Regan, in The a few cases, increased—were on aver- born city resident. In fact, at the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Nov. 2009. age three-quarters white, had far start of the millennium, the fewer immigrants, and were mostly in jurisdiction of residence of the aver- From the early 1990s to the South, West, and Midwest. Over- age American Hispanic city dweller 2005, crime rates in America plunged all, the trends indicate a regional was safer than that of the average by a third. But the overall national convergence. white city dweller. trend obscures other important Another convergence emerged The authors venture no explana- developments, including the much when Ellen and O’Regan trained tions for the trends they describe. bigger strides that have been made in their sights on the dynamics within Among those commonly advanced reducing the victimization of minority cities. Each population group (white, are changes in the number of young groups. black, Hispanic, immigrant, poor, and men in the population, improved In a study of 278 cities, New York not poor) experienced far less crime policing methods, and the ebb and University public policy professors in 2005 than it had in 1992. Sectors flow of illicit drugs such as crack and Ingrid Gould Ellen and Katherine of the population that saw the most methamphetamine and the criminal O’Regan describe drastic changes in crime in 1992 were exposed to less in activities that accompany them.

PRESS & MEDIA rights abuses. Jenifer Whitten-Woodring, a political scientist at the University of Southern California, argues that Can a Free Press Hurt? a free press can only reduce human rights violations such as conventional wisdom pops up in political imprisonment, murder, THE SOURCE: “Watchdog or Lapdog? Media Freedom, Regime Type, and Govern- the demands of human rights disappearance, and torture if citi- ment Respect for Human Rights” by Jenifer groups and the ideals of Ameri- zens have a means of holding their Whitten-Woodring, in International Studies Quarterly, Sept. 2009. can foreign policy: Where a free leaders accountable. Where lead- press flourishes, democracy will ers rule with impunity, critical Alexis de Tocqueville ob- surely follow. One small problem: media coverage has the opposite served that a free press is “the In countries with autocratic effect—regimes crack down on chief democratic instrument of regimes, a free press may actually journalists and political activists. freedom.” Today, this bit of incite an increase in human Whitten-Woodring’s case rests on

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a complex statistical analysis of study by Benjamin A. Olken, an increased by 14 minutes a day and evidence from 93 countries economist at MIT, shows just attendance at meetings fell by 11 between 1981 and 1995, and is how true that is, measuring how percent. illustrated by the experiences of much people’s community partici- Over a three-month period, Uganda and Mexico during those pation decreases for every chan- the extra time in front of the tube years. nel they receive. correlated with participation in In Mexico in the 1990s, the Indonesia boasts a strong tra- four percent fewer social news media became “increasingly dition of community involvement. activities. independent and critical of the A typical village has a broad The decline in participation government,” exposing massacres range of civic activities, including was more pronounced among of peasants and other atrocities religious study groups, women’s organizations dedicated to committed by the incumbent organizations, savings and credit improving local infrastructure, regime. Did reform follow? Quite partnerships, and neighborhood school committees, neighborhood the opposite. According to the associations. In Olken’s study of associations, and savings and Committee to Protect Journalists, 600 villages in east and central credit partnerships. Religious as the Mexican press became more Java—one of the most densely groups, which made up about one- dogged in its reporting, journalism populated places on earth—the fifth of the groups but drew about became a more dangerous occupa- average community had nearly 40 percent of the attendance of all tion. Over time, however, persist- groups combined, didn’t see their ent coverage of government scan- numbers drop quite as steeply as In Indonesia, when a dals helped strip the regime of its the secular groups. Richer respon- legitimacy, and in 2000 the Insti- new TV station became dents with more TV channels tutional Revolutionary Party lost available, villagers’ reduced their participation in the presidency after more than 70 community participa- social groups more than other years of single-party rule. But in tion was reduced by demographics. Uganda, a feisty press continues 11 percent. Interestingly, the decline in the without success. Reporters there quantity of civic participation was run roughshod over President 180 different groups. But that not matched by a decline in the Yoweri Moseveni’s attempts to number dropped precipitously in quality of the civics. Some of the tamp down their reports of areas with better television and meetings Olken examined were massive human rights violations, radio reception. With just one related to a massive road-building but he remains at the helm, as he more TV station available than project financed by the World has since 1986. average, the number of commun- Bank. Although attendance was ity organizations dropped by lower in areas with greater TV PRESS & MEDIA about 12. reception, just as many people There are 11 major stations were likely to speak, and they dis- Signal Effects broadcasting throughout Indone- cussed the same number of prob- sia (up from just one, the govern- lems. Of course, Olken points out, THE SOURCE: “Do Television and Radio Destroy Social Capital? Evidence From ment-owned TVRI, in 1993), but these small meetings about local Indonesian Villages” by Benjamin A. Olken, the average household in Olken’s roads didn’t receive much media in American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, Oct. 2009. study received only five. The attention. But for higher levels of Indonesians in his survey spent government, increased TV recep- It is a common charge that 123 minutes watching TV and 60 tion means more time in the pub- excessive television viewing minutes listening to the radio lic eye—which might have a drives down rates of civic and each day. When a sixth channel greater impact than additional social involvement. A recent was available, household viewing meeting attendees.

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HISTORY ponnesian War (431–404 bc), which pitted democratic Athens, the unmatched naval power and ruler of a far-flung Aegean island The Father of empire, against oligarchic Sparta, whose legendary prowess Political History in land battles had been amply confirmed during the Persian facts about the past, Donald invasion earlier in the century. THE SOURCE: “The Student of Political Behavior” by Donald Kagan, in The New Kagan writes, he employs “a Thucydides, born into one of the Criterion, Sept. 2009. meandering style full of discur- noblest Athenian families be- sive side trips” and readily tween 460 and 455 bc, was in his Who deserves to be called accepts “the causal role of the twenties when the struggle the “Father of History”? Herod- gods in human affairs.” Thucy- began, and, although members of otus, who chronicled the defense dides, says Kagan, a historian at his family were bitter rivals of the of Greece by Athens and Sparta Yale and author of a four-volume Athenian leader Pericles, he against the invading Persians in history of the Peloponnesian War greatly admired him. 480 and 479 bc, is traditionally and the forthcoming Thucydides: When a plague struck Athens, accorded the title, but Thucy- The Reinvention of History, “sub- it claimed Pericles as one of its dides, the fifth-century bc author stituted rational, even scientific, victims, in 429 bc. Thucydides of the History of the Pelopon- thought for myth as a means of himself barely survived a bout nesian War, likely deserves it understanding and explaining with the disease, recording its more. Although Herodotus may the world and the universe.” effects with the same meticulous have been the first to use on-site Thucydides was uniquely care he later employed to de- investigations to uncover new positioned to explicate the Pelo- scribe the disastrous invasion of

Arguably the most influential document in American EXCERPT city planning history, the Plan states that the inefficient, unsightly, and unhealthy American cityscape can and must be redeemed. Championing All Roads Lead the rational application of enlightened expertise, it is an exemplary expression of Progressive Era thinking. to Chicago At the same time, it is a magisterial treatise on the If New York was the country’s largest metropolis, proper relationship between people and the cities they Chicago epitomized the spectacular velocity of build and inhabit. urbanization. An obscure frontier outpost in the early The Plan’s creators had no intention of settling 1830s, [by 1890] it was America’s second city, with a merely for order and convenience. They sought to population of 1,099,850. By 1909, the count was two remake the city so brilliantly that it would equal or million, and some predicted it would soon be the even surpass the glory of ancient Athens and Rome. largest city in the world. . . . In 1909, the Commercial Club—an elite private organization consisting of —CARL SMITH, professor at Northwestern exceptionally successful businessmen devoted to civic University and the author of The Plan of Chicago (2006), improvement—published the Plan of Chicago. in Humanities (Sept.–Oct. 2009)

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Sicily by the Athenians. Without the scene for these events. Pericles, and weakened by the The Wide Awakes emerged out loss of a third of its population, Thucydides, says of a hard-fought political contest Athens abandoned the strategy of historian Donald Kagan, for the governorship of Connecti- attrition that Pericles had “substituted rational, cut, considered “a presidential employed to drain Sparta’s election in miniature.” In March even scientific, thought resolve and force it into peace 1860, several young textile clerks for myth as a means of negotiations. Thucydides was and rifle makers organized a placed in charge of a fleet understanding and group to escort Republican dispatched to guard Thrace, but explaining the world speakers through the dangerous he was blamed for the loss of a and the universe.” streets of Democratic Hartford. Thracian city and sent into exile. They wore black capes covered He later wrote that his disgrace with shiny enamel to protect their allowed him “to know what was clothes from oil dripping from the being done on both sides ...and Even though Thucydides torches they carried. Soon the this leisure permitted me to get a never finished his History—it organization’s headquarters better understanding of the leaves off in 411 bc, and does not teemed with young Republican course of events.” recount Athens’s ultimate surren- men. When the Republican Just as Sophists during that der in 404 bc—its lessons, equal- gubernatorial candidate squeaked time tried to understand the role ly applicable to the Cold War and out a victory by a few hundred of man in society and followers of the conflicts of the present day, votes, many chalked up the win to Hippocrates studied man’s physi- “continue to be inescapably cru- the fervor whipped up by the cal being, so Thucydides tried to cial and central in the under- Wide Awakes. uncover “the society of man standing and conduct of human Within months, Wide Awake living in the polis,” Kagan says. affairs.” groups sprang up across the Modern social historians, partic- country. They let go of their origi- ularly Fernand Braudel, have dis- HISTORY nal purpose as escorts and missed “the elements of politics, focused primarily on nonviolent diplomacy, and war as mere Lincoln’s Rabble- parades in support of Republican événements, transient and trivial candidates. Leaders drew up cir- in comparison with ...geog- Rousers culars detailing the Wide Awakes’ raphy, demography, and social THE SOURCE: “ ‘Young Men for War’: The history, constitution, and and economic developments,” but Wide Awakes and Lincoln’s 1860 Presidential structure, and sent samples of Thucydides championed “the role Campaign” by Jon Grinspan, in The Journal their uniform to the local units. of American History, Sept. 2009. of the individual in history and Tailors experienced shortages of his ability to change its course.” Any student of American the enameled cloth used to make Thucydides believed Pericles’ loss history knows that soon after the signature capes. doomed Athens, and though the Abraham Lincoln was elected For the most part, Wide Athenians were able to fight on president, hostilities broke out Awake clubs filled their ranks for another quarter-century, they and the nation plunged into civil with white men in their teens, were finally undone by the inter- war. Jon Grinspan, a doctoral twenties, and thirties. They were vention of the Persians, who candidate at the University of partisans, not abolitionists. At the incited some of Athens’s island Virginia, writes that historians time, their numbers were pur- colonies to rebel; the treachery of have not paid enough attention to ported to be as high as half a mil- the Athenian general Alcibiades; the role played by a movement lion nationwide, but Grinspan and their own internal conflicts. called the Wide Awakes in setting thinks the figure is probably

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closer to 100,000. Still, the establishment of he says, that’s nothing the Minute Men in to scoff South Carolina in 1860 at—as a percentage of as a major stepping- the U.S. population, stone on the path to that would be equal to civil war, but few recall about one million peo- that they emerged “as ple today. Northerners an offset to the Wide became so accustomed Awakes of the North.” to the roving bands of When the Wide Awake Wide Awakes that chapters did not when a small disband after the elec- earthquake struck tion, Southerners Boston in mid-October, feared a permanent some thought the national movement. sounds came from the Grinspan writes, Wide Awakes running “While certainly not a drills on Boston cause of the war, the Common. Wide Awakes’ presence Although the Wide ratcheted up sectional Awakes were non- pressure and invested violent, militarism per- Lincoln’s election with meated the group’s style weighty significance.” and ethos. They Wide Awakes later Wide Awakes on parade, sporting their distinctive black enameled capes marched in lockstep, said the group had practiced infantry drills (taught Grant), and wore uniforms. presaged the Civil War, but to them by former and future mil- Onlookers in the South perceived Grinspan says that “at the time itary icons including Ulysses S. a threat. Many historians point to they barely saw it coming.”

RELIGION & PHILOSOPHY a consequence of liberation the- ology, a doctrine sweeping across Latin America that sees political activism in the pursuit of econ- The Parishioner Is omic and social justice as part of the struggle for salvation. Always Right But Guillermo Trejo, a politi- cal scientist at Duke University, Church. Clergy across the coun- says that explanation falls short, THE SOURCE: “Religious Competition and Ethnic Mobilization in Latin America: Why the try joined radical indigenous overstating the extent to which Catholic Church Promotes Indigenous Move- peasant movements to protest clergy supported political move- ments in Mexico” by Guillermo Trejo, in Amer- ican Political Science Review, Aug. 2009. the Mexican government’s ments and ignoring regional vari- human rights abuses and de- ations in their involvement. A The latter decades of the mand land redistribution. Many better explanation: the growing 20th century were an explosive onlookers regarded the church’s presence of Protestants.

time for the Mexican Catholic newfound political awareness as Trejo’s theory looks at relig- NATIVE password: Archive

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ions as economists look at goods. retention strategy.” When a new sect threatens a Did the Catholic Trejo examined Mexican church’s dominance (external Church in Mexico indigenous peasant protests from shock), the established church (a embrace political 1975 to 2000. Regions with more “lazy monopoly,” in the words of religious competition (in particu- activism out of a Adam Smith) will vie for its lar, Chiapas) were hotbeds of commitment to members’ adherence by one- political activism. Where the upping the upstart. In the case liberation theology or Catholic Church enjoyed a of the Catholic Church in Mexico, in response to the monopoly (in the south-central that meant becoming a major growing inroads of state of Puebla), there were institutional force in the rural Protestants? rarely any protests at all. indigenous movements for One region—the Yucatan— land redistribution when had intense religious competition Presbyterians and other main- local churches led by native but very little protest. The com- line Protestant sects began to clergy, and providing social petition there, notes Trejo, came appear. services such as literacy assist- from Pentecostalists, who focus Not all instances of religious ance and health care. The on spiritual rewards rather than competition will encourage Catholic Church, handicapped worldly concerns. As a result, the churches to join the political by what Trejo calls a “reputa- Catholic Church spent less ener- fray, but in Mexico the circum- tion deficit” developed by gy on land redistribution and stances were just right. The serving “the interests of the more on promoting a “spiritual evangelizing strategy of the Pres- rich and powerful for centuries,” approach to everyday problems.” byterians directly empowered had to go beyond what the The Catholic Church may not indigenous adherents in ways Presbyterians offered. Throw- like to think of itself as a busi- that the Catholic Church had ing its weight behind Indian ness, but when threatened by a not: translating the Bible into peasant movements was a competitor, it surely knew how to Indian languages, establishing “radical and credible member tweak its product.

beginning of wisdom, but now it is the fear of war, EXCERPT famine, pestilence, flood, and other man-made apoc- alypses. For many, the global challenges of the 21st century require a combination of many qualities: an Sage Advice integrated theoretical knowledge; intelligent judgment or phronesis in applying theory to In terms of the history of an idea, it is a particular needs; reflection on what our needs really remarkable fact that most modern thinkers (in the are; openness to new possibilities; humility before West at least) have not been much concerned with the complexities of nature and the human soul; calm; the virtue of wisdom. Their dominant concerns have and perhaps most of all intuition into what is good, been elsewhere, as new concepts captured the imag- that immediate “knowledge of good and evil” that is ination: Reason, Natural Law, Science, Wissenschaft, the kernel of wisdom. Technology. But the last 30 years have seen something of a renewal of academic interest in the —WILLIAM DESMOND, a lecturer at the idea of wisdom, with many calls for a “scientific National University of Ireland, Maynooth, in study of wisdom.” . . . Fear is once again the In Character (Fall 2009)

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SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY do what they’re trained to do— prescribe pharmaceuticals (some- thing psychologists for the most part cannot do, since they are not No Method for Madness M.D.’s). If psychologists continue to neglect science and fail to make an Moreover, these treatments are evidence-based case for their care, THE SOURCE: “Current Status and Future Prospects of Clinical Psychology: Toward a “scientifically plausible”—they are many health care plans won’t cover Scientifically Principled Approach to Mental a good fit with our knowledge their services in the future, the and Behavioral Health Care” by Timothy B. Baker, Richard M. McFall, and Varda about how the brain works. But authors warn. Shoham, in Psychological Science in the many of the country’s 93,000 psy- The history of medicine pro- Public Interest, Nov. 2008. chologists don’t use these methods vides an example of how psycholo- and, what’s more, don’t under- gists can reform their profession. In Would you go to a doctor stand the science behind them. the early 20th century, the Ameri- who was ignorant of the medical Baker and colleagues write, “Con- can Medical Association began rig- advances made since Harry Truman siderable evidence indicates that orously grading medical schools on was president? No way. But the aver- many, if not most, clinicians view how their students performed on age clinical psychologist’s practice science or research as having rela- science-based licensing exams. The today doesn’t look much different tively little relevance to their prac- number of medical schools fell from than it did 60 years ago, and the tice activities. . . . They privilege 162 in 1906 to 95 in 1915, but the patients keep coming. their intuition and informal prob- quality of medical education mark- It’s not for lack of scientific prog- lem solving over what the research edly improved. Rigorous new ress, write professors of psychology literature has to offer.” accreditation standards are just the Timothy B. Baker of the University of Aspiring clinical psychologists therapy psychology needs now. Wisconsin School of Medicine and can get their credentials by complet- Public Health, Richard M. McFall of ing one of two degrees—a doctorate SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY Indiana University, and Varda of psychology (Psy.D.) or a doctorate Shoham of the University of Arizona. of philosophy (Ph.D.). Psy.D. pro- Great Many newer psychological grams tend to be much less selective; treatments have proven to be highly furthermore, their graduates do not Expectations effective. For example, multiple clini- perform as well on the national THE SOURCE: “Promises, Promises” cal trials have shown that cognitive licensing exam, and students and by Stuart Blackman, in The Scientist, therapy and cognitive behavioral faculty are much less likely to engage Nov. 2009. therapy provide more lasting benefits in scholarly research. Yet the num- More than 20 years ago, an to people who suffer from depression ber of degrees awarded by Psy.D. editorial in Science magazine called than antidepressant medication. (In programs grew by 170 percent on the federal government to boost cognitive behavioral therapy, between 1988 and 2001, while the spending on the effort to sequence the therapists help patients think through number of Ph.D.’s remained the human genome, which the author emotional patterns and work to same. said could lead to a cure for mental ill- change them so as to avoid fear or Increasingly, many people ness and thus prevent many from depression.) These and other recent- suffering from psychological joining the ranks of the homeless. vintage psychological therapies have disorders—a population said to Clearly, this hope has not come to also proven effective for treating have doubled in size over the last fruition, and that’s no great surprise, addiction, bulimia, schizophrenia, 20 years—are turning to primary- says Stuart Blackman, a science writer and post-traumatic stress disorder. care practitioners. These physicians based in Edinburgh. A tendency to

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promise more than they can deliver considerations on uncertainty and ing about 16 percent of the world’s has long been a feature of scientists’ risk.” Recognizing uncertainty and electricity with minimal emissions of work, but in recent decades overly risk, however, is central to good greenhouse gases. Another 44 units bold promise-making has become science. are under construction, and, accord- more central to the scientific process. Cures for diseases such as ing to the World Nuclear Association, It’s easy to blame a media culture Alzheimer’s, cystic fibrosis, and Park- ground may be broken for an addi- that demands “uncomplicated, defini- inson’s have seemed to be just around tional 70 in the next 15 years. There is tive, and sensational statements” to the corner for years. If the only thing also a larger and more indefinite “pro- drive stories, but scientists often have that comes down the pike in the near posed” category. Some 50 countries their own reasons for hyping their term is more disappointment, the have declared an interest in exploring research, glossing over challenges they public’s current high esteem for nuclear power. face, or laying out unrealistic time- science may erode. Blackman cautions That sounds like a lot of activity, lines. After The New York Times ran a that scientists (and the journalists who but it will take a much bigger surge of story in 1980 urging readers not to cover them) need to be more guarded construction to make a dent in emis- expect immediate miracles from in describing what the public can sions of greenhouse gasses. Richard K. research on cancer-fighting interfer- expect from their research, and when Lester and Robert Rosner, of MIT and ons, researchers complained that such to expect it. As the eminent physicist the University of Chicago, respectively, public expressions of doubt would Niels Bohr quipped, “Predictions can report that the world would need to at undermine their ability to get funding be very difficult—especially about the least double the amount of electricity for their work. future.” derived from nuclear power in order And there’s the rub. Intense com- to eliminate just a quarter of the petition for research dollars encour- SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY increase in carbon dioxide emissions ages scientists to overstate the impor- expected between now and 2050. tance of their research and the Nuclear Power The writers in this issue of Daeda- immediacy of the expected benefits. lus, which is devoted exclusively to Moreover, a growing focus on scien- Goes Global nuclear power, are less concerned with tific research as an engine of economic technological problems than political growth means that science must pro- THE SOURCE: “The Growth of Nuclear ones. Lester and Rosner say there are duce not only knowledge, but Power: Drivers and Constraints” by Richard two possible paths into a nuclear K. Lester and Robert Rosner, “Nuclear products that can be sold at a profit. Energy and Climate Change” by Robert H. future. One is to continue the long- Funders now customarily ask appli- Socolow and Alexander Glaser, and “Nuclear term trend toward standardization of Power Without Nuclear Proliferation?” by cants for an estimate of their work’s Steven E. Miller and Scott D. Sagan, in everything from reactor design to economic impact. Intense compe- Daedalus, Fall 2009. training and regulatory procedures. tition for publication in prominent Pioneered by France with its 58 reac- journals adds further momentum to The rising specter of glo- tors and increasingly embraced in the the cycle of scientists trying to “rhetor- bal warming, along with expected United States, which has 104, this ically overbid” each other. increases in the price of oil, is reviving strategy has produced an excellent More pressure comes from the fact the fortunes of nuclear power around record of safety and efficiency. But as that “politics is becoming more reliant the world. Today’s critics are talking developing countries seek nuclear on science to provide predictions to less about the accidents at Three Mile power, smaller, more customized guide policy,” Blackman writes. Last Island (1979) and Chernobyl (1986) plants with more built-in passive year, then–prime minister Anders than about the threat of nuclear safety features might be required. Fogh Rasmussen of Denmark weapons proliferation exemplified by What about the radioactive spent appealed to a gathering of climate sci- North Korea and Iran. fuel? Reprocessing in “breeder” reac- entists, saying, “I need fixed targets Today, 30 countries operate 436 tions creates byproducts needed in and certain figures, and not too many commercial nuclear reactors, produc- making weapons, but the more com-

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A machine used to excavate a five-mile tunnel emerges from Yucca Mountain, a possible nuclear waste repository in Nevada, in 1997. mon and desirable method is to store tively poor, unstable, and undemocra- one obvious path, but without move- the wastes. Lester and Rosner say that tic, ranging from Indonesia to Algeria, ment toward complete nuclear disar- existing surface storage techniques Kazakhstan, Haiti, and Belarus. Some mament, a goal of the treaty, such revi- can be improved, but the longer-term are plagued by high levels of terrorism, sion would be futile, they believe. The solution probably lies in new “deep including Thailand, the Philippines, incentives for nuclear power nations borehole” technologies that bury the and Sri Lanka. This raises concerns to become nuclear weapons nations wastes far underground. about safety as well as proliferation, would be too great. Robert H. Socolow and Alexander note Steven E. Miller of Harvard and Socolow and Glaser advance a Glaser, both of Princeton, note that Scott D. Sagan of Stanford, and makes detailed agenda for controlling prolif- uranium must be enriched in order to it imperative to think carefully about eration as nuclear power expands, produce fuel suitable for power plants, prevention. Strengthening the including multinational control of the and even a small factory could be Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is fuel process, from enrichment modified to make the more highly through disposal, and an end to repro- enriched form used in nuclear cessing. But they warn that panic over Dozens of countries, weapons—enough to make 25 to 50 global warming could lead to bad bombs. including many that decisions about nuclear power. Until a For the next decade, most new are relatively poor, solid nonproliferation scheme is in plants will come on line in countries unstable, and undemo- place, they conclude, it will be riskier that already have nuclear power. But cratic, want to build to expand nuclear power than to the list of longer-term aspirants nuclear plants. endure the increase in global warming includes many countries that are rela- it might prevent.

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ARTS & LETTERS “inexplicable compulsion” to write, need their own special institutions (MFA programs), and require fami- lies that accommodate their strange habits. Writing on the Brain Even when 20th-century writers could no longer take society or reli- ultimate causes in terms of evolu- gion for granted as novelistic frame- THE SOURCE: “The Rise of the Neuro- novel” by Marco Roth, in n+1, Fall 2009. tion and heredity.” A comprehensive works, Roth says, they could still fall explanation of consciousness has yet back on the subject matter of the The obsession with describ- to emerge, but even so, novelists, self. Now even the self is “an object ing human personalities in the cold whose stock in trade has been the whose intricacies can only be language of neuroscience has same as Freud’s—“introspection of described by future science.” The reached beyond the pages of the the self and observation of others”— rise of the neuronovel “appears as popular press and such influential are struggling for traction. another sign of the novel’s diminish- books as Daniel Dennett’s Neuronovelists are engaged in a ing purview.” Consciousness Explained (1991). It’s perilous exercise, Roth suggests. In now the stuff of fiction, writes many neuronovels, the author Marco Roth, a founding editor of indulges in “fancy language or rare ARTS & LETTERS n+1. Behold, the neuronovel. perceptions, and then hastens to This literary breed was mem- explain why, on medical grounds, Boogie On! orably inaugurated by Ian this is allowed.” This, Roth observes, THE SOURCE: “ ‘When I Say Get It’: A McEwan’s 1997 novel Enduring is the opposite of the modernist Brief History of the Boogie” by Burgin Math- ews, in Southern Cultures, Fall 2009. Love, in which a science journalist is project, which proposed stylistic stalked by a man with de Cléram- novelty and profound interiority as The boogie is everywhere. bault’s syndrome, a condition in new ways of describing everyone. We say “Let’s boogie” to mean “Let’s which the sufferer believes that But if “modernism is just the lan- get going.” Madonna sings its another person is secretly in love guage of the crazy, then real men praises. Country’s Johnny Cash, with him. Other examples include must speak like [thriller writer] Lee rock ‘n’ roll’s Chuck Berry, the blues’ Jonathan Lethem’s Motherless Child.” Furthermore, the “pathologi- John Lee Hooker, and countless Brooklyn (1999), in which the pro- cal premise” of most neuronovels others rode its distinctive propulsive tagonist has Tourette’s syndrome; forecloses the necessary “interpreta- rhythm. Though the word once Mark Haddon’s Curious Incident of tive leap” that fiction readers make referred to a very particular musical the Dog in the Night-Time (2003), as they discern metaphors for the style, diffusion throughout Ameri- narrated by an autistic teenager; universal human condition: “Mere can culture means that it has come and Rivka Galchen’s Atmospheric biological contingency has a way of to represent much more than a kind Disturbances (2008), about a man repelling meaning.” of music. It’s all about a certain who suffers from Capgras syndrome Why have novelists taken this feeling—and that feeling’s a good and stops recognizing his wife. wrong turn? One reason, Roth spec- one, says Burgin Mathews, a writer By the early 1990s, Roth writes, ulates, is that in the neurological living in Birmingham, Alabama. psychoanalysis was regarded as anomalies they describe, they see a The boogie emerged at the turn “bankrupt”—and Prozac was in. A reflection of their own circum- of the 20th century and for a time “new reductionism . . . explained stances. In this “new medical- went by a variety of names— proximate causes of mental function materialist world,” novelists are spe- barrelhouse, walking the basses, the in terms of neurochemistry, and cial cases who suffer from an sixteen, the fives, western rolling

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blues, and many others. The term Boogie spread from the rural haps best captured by an acclaimed didn’t appear in print until 1928, South westward into Texas, performance of a Chicago-based when a recording by pianist Arkansas, and Oklahoma, and boogie piano trio at the “Spirituals Clarence “Pine Top” Smith was north to the Midwest by way of to Swing” concert in 1938 at released with the title “Pine Top’s the turpentine and lumber camps Carnegie Hall, the temple of white Boogie Woogie.” The music may where many African Americans American music. have had many names, but its origi- labored in the early 20th century. In the decades that followed, nal sound was distinct—piano On weekend nights, the hearts of the boogie lost ground as a distinc- music featuring right-hand improv- these camps were their rowdy tive genre, but its influence only isations over a heavy left-hand bass social halls, called barrelhouses, grew as the sound was diluted. It pattern, known as a “rolling bass.” where traveling musicians would laid the groundwork for rock ‘n’ Often the style is explained as an play the boogie and people would roll. Disco dancers, gangsta rap- attempt to translate the sounds of a dance and drink the night away. pers, and country musicians all guitar or banjo to a piano, but In the 1930s, as many African owe it their due. “Boogie [became] Mathews suspects it sprang from Americans migrated to the urban broad and flexible enough to another source: the sound of a train. centers of Birmingham, New encompass any type of music, pro- One student of the genre wrote that Orleans, New York, Kansas City, vided that music contained some it represented “the haunting sound St. Louis, Pittsburgh, and, above element of high energy and upbeat of whistles, expresses romping all, Chicago, they brought the dance,” Mathews says. The barrel- along on a full head of steam, boogie with them. house dance halls and rumbling wheels clattering over points and, of By the end of the 1930s the bass lines may be things of the course, the insistent rhythm of the sound had crossed over into white past, “but the boogie-as-idea per- driving wheels.” American culture, a transition per- sist[s].”

Boogie music spread across the South and Midwest via the barrelhouses of lumber and turpentine camps such as this one in Minglewood,Tennessee,in 1920.

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ARTS AND LETTERS professional roles to document the ners. Albanian Ismail Kadare’s para- dramatic changes they were witness- bles of communist manners such as Art From Artifice ing.” Erstwhile writers of fiction “pro- The Pyramid (1996) and Spring duced a variety of creative nonfiction Flowers, Spring Frost (2002)—two THE SOURCE: “East-Central European Lit- eratures Twenty Years After” by Michael accounts of life in Sarajevo during of his 15 novels now available in Henry Heim, Peter Sherwood, Kristin the siege,” she writes, and a number English—helped win him the 2005 Vitalich, et al., in East European Politics of others “fashioned poetry that con- Man Booker International Prize. In and Societies, Fall 2009. templated both the personal and col- Romania, the work of the newest “It’s damned difficult to lective experience of war.” Many were generation of writers, says Sean Cot- tell a lie if you don’t know the truth,” forced to choose sides; novelist Ivan ter of the University of Texas, Dal- Hungarian novelist Péter Esterházy Aralica in Croatia came to be viewed las, “abounds in energy, crispness, writes in Celestial Harmonies as a mouthpiece for the repressive and humor and is sometimes (2004). Esterházy’s “stunned regime of Franjo Tudjman, while inspired by magical realism.” discovery that his father had acted Dubravka Ugresic˘´ was branded a Nowhere has literature shown as an informant under Hungarian traitor by the press and forced to go such a range of cultural responses as Stalinism,” says Peter Sherwood of into exile. in Poland. Initially, says Harvard’s the University of North Carolina, In the Czech Republic, where cul- Joanna Nizynska, writers there Chapel Hill, inspired him to pro- tural leaders became the de facto van- struggled both to explain the new duce “perhaps the most distin- guard of the Velvet Revolution, the world of democratic freedom and to guished work of art so far from Cen- most pressing task for the country’s come to terms with the repressed tral and Eastern Europe’s writers in the early 1990s was to horrors of the Holocaust. But more still-ongoing process of coming to “recover its lost chapters, to publish recently new voices have been terms with its communist past.” works that had been previously heard, including a group of distinc- Twenty years after the fall of the banned or had appeared only in tively Polish feminists (Magdalena Berlin Wall, the work of the region’s samizdat or exile,” writes Harvard’s Tulli, Kinga Dunin, and others), and writers underscores, as Michael Jonathan Bolton. More recently, Michal Witkowski, whose best-sell- Henry Heim of the University of Cal- younger novelists such as Stanislav ing 2005 “queer” novel Lubiewo ifornia, Los Angeles, points out, how Komárek and Pavel Brycz have had depicts a campy, proudly marginal- they “entered on their new life from a success with what Bolton calls the ized “world of Polish queens under different point of departure.” Intro- “novel of the century”: an epic-length communism.” ducing a dozen short surveys of the form in which the writer traces the It is no surprise that in many of literary scene in East European Poli- twists and turns of the Soviet period. these countries, writers initially felt tics and Societies, he writes that “it While literary lions such as Milan compelled to address the commu- would be a mistake to assume, as Kundera continued to publish from nist period in literature that many assumed during the Cold War,” abroad long after the reasons for their engages social reality with more that the region’s writers are “a kind of exile had disappeared, those who had enthusiasm than generally is seen indistinguishable gray mass.” stayed through the bad times—most elsewhere in the West. As Heim In Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, of them contemporaries of Václav observes, “They had grown up in and Serbia, for instance, the perspec- Havel, born in 1936—found societies that treated culture— tives of many contemporary writers themselves “forced to re-explain the especially literary culture—as inex- have been as fractured as the al- communist period to younger readers tricably intertwined with politics, liances in that war-ravaged area. who have no personal memories of societies in which the writer was Commentator Kristin Vitalich, of the political repression.” treated by the Communist Party as University of Washington, observes Some of the most inventive work an arm of ideology and by the dissi- that “many artists felt compelled to during the postcommunist period dents as a moral force, as virtually set aside their traditional genres and has emerged from unexpected cor- an opposition government.”

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OTHER NATIONS of “pink globalization.” Japan’s government has actively promoted the cute image, twice issuing Hello Kitty postage Land of the Rising Fun stamps and appointing three models to serve as kawaii taishi,

THE SOURCE: “Wink on Pink: Interpreting walks of haute couture. At New or ambassadors of cute, playing Japanese Cute as It Grabs the Global Head- York City’s Fashion Week last year, the roles of Lolita, who appears in lines” by Christine R. Yano, in The Journal one show featured the work of 30 sexualized doll clothing; of Asian Studies, Aug. 2009. cutting-edge designers inspired by Harajuku, a symbol of Japanese Hello Kitty, the iconic mouthless youth; and a schoolgirl in In the era of globalization, cartoon kitten that engendered uniform. In 2008, the Ministry of the land of the samurai and the Japanese cute. In Times Square, Foreign Affairs appointed the salaryman has acquired a strange shoppers flocked to a newly brightly hued Doraemon, a new identity. Japan now shows opened Sanrio Luxe boutique robotic cat, to be a “cartoon itself to the world as a country of peddling diamond-encrusted cultural ambassador.” “pink-clad girls, animated fan- Hello Kitty watches and fine Yano sees the phenomenon as tasies, and winking Kitty logos,” luggage. one part commercial exploitation writes Christine R. Yano, a profes- Sanrio is the company that and one part, well, something sor of anthropology at the Univer- launched Hello Kitty and the else. A clue as to what’s really sity of Hawaii. whole cute phenomenon in the going on may lie in the career of Kawaii, or “Japanese cute,” has 1970s. Founder Tsuji Shinitarou artist Takashi Murakami, an Andy become a global phenomenon. saw the cartoon figure as “the Warhol–like figure who has The rage for cute stretches from Japanese cat that would overtake played a big role in taking cute the prepubescent haunts of the the American mouse,” according global. In 2005 he curated an world’s shopping malls to the cat- to Yano. He is the de facto father exhibit in New York titled “Little Boy: The Arts of Japan’s Explod- ing Subculture.” “Little Boy” was a reference to the atomic bomb the United States dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, but it also “highlights what [Murakami] believes Japan has become in rela- tion to the United States” since World War II—“a forever- emasculated ‘little boy.’ ” Cute is a symptom of Japan’s infantil- ization, but as an “exploding sub- culture” it is also an assertion of Japanese soft power throughout the world, albeit an ironic one. Yet some Japanese don’t think their country looks pretty in pink. Hello Kitty welcomes customers at the world’s largest Sanrio store, located in Tokyo.The feline A few years ago the editors of The celebrated her 35th birthday in 2009, but she doesn’t look a day over 30. Japan Times wrote, “Japan has

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exported hundreds of things and elders encouraged the adoption of hire Inuit to work in the terri- ideas—from haiku to Hondas, Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit (IQ)— torial government have been an swordsmanship to sashimi—of literally, “that which has been long important part of spreading which it can be proud. Hello known by Inuit”—as the organiz- employment beyond the Qallu- Kitty...is another story.” They ing principle of the new naat (non-Inuit) minority. By the titled the essay, “Time for Good- government. But, as University of end of 2007 some progress had bye Kitty?” Toronto political scientist Graham been made, with half of all gov- White writes, “Allowing flextime ernment jobs held by Inuit, up OTHER NATIONS for [government] employees to go from 42 percent in 2003. At- hunting, clam digging, or berry tempts to use Inuktitut—the lan- O Nunavut! picking at opportune times, guage spoken by about 80 per- involving elders in policy develop- cent of the Inuit—in government THE SOURCE: “Nunavut at 10,” multiple ment, and incorporating cultural have been frustrated by low liter- articles edited by Ailsa Henderson in Jour- nal of Canadian Studies, Spring 2009. ceremonies into bureaucratic acy levels. Only 25 percent of stu- activities . . . do not fundamentally dents graduate from high school, The massive territory of alter the nature of government.” and those who do receive very Nunavut lies in the northernmost Half of all jobs in Nunavut are limited Inuit-language instruc- reaches of Canada. Occupying in the public sector, and efforts to tion, due to a shortage of Inuit- one-fifth of the country’s speaking teachers. land area, it is home to Government could do just 31,000 Nunavum- more to incorporate miut, who live in 25 EXCERPT Inuit culture, notes communities scattered Frank Tester, a professor across the tundra. And of social work at the it’s in those small towns The Golden Hour University of British that Canada is trying to Columbia. Consider the figure out how to bring One of the things that I have lost totally and problem of homeless- down sky-high levels of irremediably—I realized this when I returned to ness. For pretty obvious suicide (11 times the [Spain] after an 11-year absence—is the golden hour reasons, being homeless national rate), poverty, of siesta. . . . When we were children, the siesta hour in Nunavut does not and illiteracy. About 85 meant freedom, simple and radiant. It was the mean sleeping on the percent of the popu- blessed hour when the grownups slept. The racket street but rather “couch lation is Inuit. from the kitchen was stilled, and the maids too were surfing,” which creates In April 1999 Nuna- encased in mysterious silence, as though they had severe overcrowding. vut became a Canadian been paralyzed in some shadow: that of their Ottawa has attempted to territory after a decades- bedrooms, high at the top of the house, or perhaps address the housing long campaign by Inuit in the vegetable garden. It was our hour. The hour shortage through leaders to break off from when the boys from the other side of the river programs designed to the Northwest Terri- whistled, rhythmically and oh so sweetly, imitating jump-start a private tories. (Unlike Canada’s blackbirds or quails, or the wings of the singing drag- market. But relying on a 10 provinces, the territo- onfly. It was the hour of the cruel and unpleasant system of Western-style ries are creatures of the sun, which irritates adults. market economics federal government.) The makes little sense in a hope was to create a gov- —ANA MARÍA MATUTE, author of Paraíso inhabitado society that strongly ernment shaped by Inuit (2008) and other novels, in The Drawbridge (Autumn 2009) emphasizes relation- values. Early on, Inuit ships among extended

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family. It would make more sense were slow to expand coverage in phone use increases. (Because for government to create new the Congo, villagers built 50-foot- corruption is impossible to meas- housing cooperatives designed for high tree houses in order to get a ure, scholars use data on per- large extended families. better signal. But service is ceived corruption as a proxy.) In In the future, Canada stands to rapidly improving; in 2007, Cameroon, the expansion of cell make a lot of money in the north nearly two-thirds of all Africans phone use from almost nothing in from natural resources and ship- lived in an area with cell phone 1999 to 24 percent of the popu- ping routes that will become reception. That could be good lation in 2006 correlated with a newly accessible as Arctic ice news for corruption fighters. nationwide drop in perceived cor- melts. The stakes are high for Corruption can flourish when ruption of seven-tenths of a point Nunavut’s fledgling government, aid dollars flow into a community on a 10-point scale. Moreover, and as more money flows out of where there is so little Bailard observes a drop not just Canada’s north, they’re only going transparency that local officials in perceived corruption, but in to get higher. can siphon off money without experienced corruption as well. In detection. One 2004 study one comparison, residents of OTHER NATIONS found that only 14 percent of Namibia’s Oshikoto province, funds designated for school fees which has very good cell phone Mobile in Uganda actually got to the reception, were 15 percentage schools. Without cell phones, it points less likely to pay a bribe for Monitoring was difficult for aid donors to municipal services than people THE SOURCE: “Mobile Phone Diffusion communicate to school leaders living in Kavango, a neighboring and Corruption in Africa” by Catie Snow how much money they should be province with terrible cell phone Bailard, in Political Communication, July–Sept. 2009. receiving. Kept in the dark, the coverage. educators didn’t know when Bailard raises a caveat: There’s been a lot of buzz money went missing. Now, Corruption that directly and about how cell phones are equipped with cell phones, school immediately benefits “the masses” making it easier for Africans leaders are kept in the loop and may actually increase as a result to do business. A woman who middlemen cannot pocket money of cell phone use. For example, at catches and sells fish for a living undetected. election time, villagers who sell can take orders by phone, ensur- Using data from Transparency their vote can make quick use of ing that she doesn’t end up with International’s Corruption the small amounts of food or cash rotting, unsold fish. Business Perception Index, the United they receive in return. Such owners in remote areas can man- Nations, and the Afrobarometer schemes may be easier to orches- age bank accounts with text survey, Bailard finds trends trate when more people are messages. pointing toward lower levels of reachable by phone. Catie Snow Bailard, a profes- “perceived corruption” as cell Of course, cell phones do not sor at George Washington Uni- by themselves make for cleaner versity’s School of Media and politics. Someone has to be “on Public Affairs, says cell phones In Africa, cell phones the other end of the line commit- have another, less noted effect— ted to the fight against corrup- help reduce corruption reducing corruption. tion. If there are no concerned by making it easier to From 2000 to 2007, the citizens, aid agency represent- percentage of Africans with a cell spread the word about atives, reformers, or journalists phone ballooned from under two malfeasance. ‘dialing in’ in the fight... phones to 30, and demand is still strong. alone will likely make little differ- When mobile service providers ence,” Bailard writes.

86 Wilson Quarterly ■ Winter 2010 Also in this issue:

Felipe Fernández- CURRENT Armesto on the map that named America

Louis Bayard on BOOKS letters reviews of new and noteworthy nonfiction

Andrei Lankov on ordinary North Koreans Living on the Edge Martin Walker on Reviewed by Tom Vanderbilt Britain’s Glorious Revolution Joel Kotkin, along with his some- In his latest oracular Michael Anderson time nemesis Richard Florida, is perhaps production, Kotkin— THE NEXT HUNDRED on the 1950s the leading purveyor of a kind of psycho- whose other books MILLION: economic demography, a predictive include The New Geogra- America in 2050. Frank Shuffelton chronicler armed with Census tract data, phy (2000) and The City By Joel Kotkin. Penguin. on Abigail Adams Pew surveys, and some old-fashioned (2005)—takes as his 320 pp. $25.95 shoe-leather reporting, all recounted in starting point a single, Aaron Mesh on an urgent, assuaging, insider-y tone—a arresting statistic: “According to the most poker kind of Kiplinger Report for the national conservative estimates, the United States soul. I can imagine Kotkin and Florida by 2050 will be home to at least 400 mil- Catherine Tumber randomly encountering each other—in, lion people, roughly 100 million more on green cities say, the Admiral’s Club at DFW, as each is than live here today.” This next 100 en route to his assignation with civic million will be a bit different from the Peter Skerry on leaders eager to sup the sooth—and last 100 million; for one, the “vast major- Muslims in engaging in a dueling-PowerPoint exer- ity,” Kotkin notes, will be Asian or His- America cise, with Florida touting his “creative panic. For another, many of them, he pre- class” metropoles and their cappuccino- dicts, will reside not in the great fueled dynamism, and Kotkin his megaregions, but in the “Heartland”— “ephemeral cities”—places such as Port- which seems here to be somewhere land that are elaborate stage sets for hip around Nebraska—reversing a trend of urban play, ultimately overregulated and disinvestment and depopulation. The hostile to the wants of average Ameri- country will become more suburban, cans, who would find fuller expression of more dispersed. The good news, Kotkin their economic (and reproductive) poten- writes, is that “even with 100 million tial in a place such as Boise. Only one more people, the country will still be only man would be left standing amid the one-sixth as crowded as Germany.” acrid tang of overheated hard drives, but At its best, The Next 100 Million com- I’m not sure which. bines deftly energetic and sweeping

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analysis, spanning everything from the sociol- vations are tossed off as keening insights, ogy of immigrant communities to labor such as this (footnoted!) kernel: “Today, in the economics, with healthy smatterings of reve- age of computers and cell phones, children latory facts (“between 1990 and 2005 immi- who leave home are no longer ‘gone.’ They grants, mostly from the Chinese diaspora or send text messages, maintain blogs, and write from India, started one of every four U.S. e-mails to keep parents informed of their venture-backed public companies”). Kotkin is activities.” Once upon a dark time, they also particularly good at countering casual used landlines and sent letters. assumptions with larger data patterns. For example, while the portrait of the dying Mid- hile Kotkin’s optimism about the dle American town, struggling with fore- American future can seem a tonic closure and meth addiction, has become W against unquestioning prophecies familiar, Kotkin writes that “demographer of American decline or Dobbsian nativist Richard Rathge screeds, the book has an unremittingly states that since the Pollyannaish tone, like a gauzy-hued sales 1950s the overall document for a master-planned community Joel Kotkin offers a suasive population of the in one of the author’s beloved suburbs. rejoinder to the idea that it Great Plains has Worried about the impact of all those new will be China, not the United more than doubled.” people settling into dispersed exurbs? No States, that is dominant And Kotkin’s problem—we’ll be living in “Greenurbia” (one in 2050. interpretation of of several lamentable portmanteaus). “Devel- American exception- opment is often castigated as poor for the alism offers a suasive environment, but research suggests that mod- rejoinder to the idea that it will be China, not est, low-density development can use less the United States, that is dominant in 2050. energy than denser urban forms.” (He doesn’t But the book is not always so refreshingly define modest, nor suggest, since he seems to elucidating. For one, it often seems to be be antizoning, how such development would revisiting material from The New Geography. be regulated.) What about all those new peo- (Fawning profile of lifestyle-center developer ple driving all those new miles? Here he cau- Rick Caruso? Check. Beguiling Japanese soci- tions that “some aspects of suburban life,” ological phrase borrowed to describe U.S. such as long commutes, will “have to be trends? Check.) For another, Kotkin spends changed,” not by government, but rather by too much time rebutting old canards (e.g., the market forces. To wonder about the carbon history of antisuburban bias). His evidence footprint of all those new people or to ponder often seems selectively framed—while there is having fewer children is presented as radical certainly something to be celebrated in the environmentalism, a worldview nothing short fact that “scores of . . . Heartland towns and of that depicted in Cormac McCarthy’s post- cities, such as Sioux Falls, Des Moines, and apocalyptic novel The Road (despite his pro- Bismarck all grew well faster than the claimed nonpartisanship, Kotkin hews to a national average through 2008,” it would be rigidly anti–Smart Growth position). nice to know if, say, that increase came off a Far from being homogenous, Kotkin argues, bottom reached after decades of stagnation suburbia will become the new melting pot, the and decline. There are moments of repetition direct portal of new immigration; suburbs, as (an economist’s unremarkable observation he quotes one researcher, “can give rise to a that “suburbanites like the suburbs” appears much more integrated, rather than ‘balkan- twice), and on several occasions banal obser- ized,’ relationship among groups.” But there’s

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plenty of evidence to the contrary; for instance, A crowded melting pot: By 2050, roughly 100 million more a recent Pew Hispanic Center report noted that people will call the United States home. even as Hispanic school enrollment grew sharply in the past decade, segregation in many non-hierarchical? Something to remember districts increased. And research at the State the next time you go shopping for real estate University of New York, Albany, has identified in Brentwood or Compton. In his zeal to segregation patterns—ethnic enclaves—within defend suburbia from its elitist critics, Kotkin suburbs. Sociologist Robert Putnam has put tends toward monochromatic depictions of forward the unsettling proposition that “social “luxury cities” such as New York, which he capital” actually decreases with diversity; he calls a “demographic dead end,” a place filled notes, for example, that “interracial friendships with dour antinatalists harboring Scandin- (apart from that structural constraint on avian tendencies. He sets up a false opportunities for contact) appear to be actually dichotomy between “cultural cachet” and more common in less diverse settings.” People “family friendliness.” In material terms, yes, may like some of the trappings of diversity— cities are expensive—Kotkin warns that “an what I’ll call menu multiculturalism—but to individual from Houston who earns $50,000 suggest that suburbs will become polyglot mec- would have to make $115,769 in Manhattan cas with no social discord seems overly opti- and $81,965 in Queens to live at the same mistic. (Already there are myriad stories of level of comfort.” True in terms of raw increasing suburban crime.) numbers, but one doesn’t move to New York Similarly, Kotkin’s boosterism of post- expecting Houston-sized real estate, just as automotive cities is relentlessly breathless, one doesn’t move to Houston expecting all and often meaningless. “Conceived as a that New York has to offer. bucolic collection of suburbs,” he writes of Los Kotkin takes a particular, and often justifi- Angeles, “it has matured into a dense network able, glee in recounting the various doom- of communities, organized more like the saying (and largely unmet) prophecies of pre- random-access memory of a computer than vious futurists, from Malthusian alarmists to the linear, hierarchical pattern that was com- premature peak-oilers. But this also reminds mon to cities for millennia.” Los Angeles is us of the frailty of societal prognostication,

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not to mention the power of hindsight. It now cities: Their traditional role as the centers of seems easy to chart the reasons why Argen- creativity and the crossroads for trade and tina, which once possessed one of the world’s culture is becoming ever more essential in a most powerful economies, declined in the globalized information-age economy.” Now, 20th century, but for a time, those 19th- less than a decade later, he’s telling us that the century forecasts of a Pax Argentina looked suburbs are where all the action will be.

pretty spot-on. On Kotkin’s own Web site, we Tom Vanderbilt is the author of the 2008 book Traffic: Why are told that The New Geography “focuses on We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us) and its companion blog, How We Drive (www.howwedrive.com). He the digital revolution’s surprising impact on lives in Brooklyn, New York.

America’s Namesake Reviewed by Felipe Fernández-Armesto

enaissance so- and significance—the work of jobbing THE FOURTH PART phisticates sneered. OFTHE WORLD: humanists who probably had been fellow R How could a sleepy The Race to the students. little backwoods town like Ends of the Earth, The world maps Martin Waldseemüller Saint-Dié in distant and the Epic Story of made in Saint-Dié, with the help of his Lorraine, deep in upland the Map That Gave colleague, Mathias Ringmann, were America Its Name. pine forests, home to flax technically innovative. One was the world’s weavers and log sawyers, By Toby Lester. first printed globe. The other was a vast map, Free Press. 462 pp. $30 presume to rival the great engraved in black on multiple squares of gray- centers of humanist learning at the beginning ing paper, designed to be trimmed, joined, of the 16th century? Saint-Dié seemed too and pasted onto a study wall. The content was poor and remote for glory and fame. Yet innovative, too: The wall map was, as far as under the ambitious patronage of the young we know, and according to the cartographer’s Duke René, a group of learned men gathered, own commentaries, the first to attach the around the town’s printing press and cathe- name “America” to the Western Hemisphere. dral library, to undertake an audacious proj- Its fragility condemned it to hazard—worn ect—overly rash, by the standards of the and scraped off a thousand walls. But one town’s resources. They proposed to bring out copy survived, neglected for centuries, an updated edition of the most acclaimed geo- unmounted, in an old folder in a musty muni- graphic text of classical antiquity—Ptolemy’s ments room in a German castle. In 1901, an Geography, compiled in the second century erudite Jesuit schoolteacher searching for ad—and to supplement it with the new medieval Norse documents happened on it knowledge of the planet revealed by recent and recognized it at once for what it was. It is and current explorations. Eventually, the now the costliest treasure in the Library of project collapsed. The scholars died or dis- Congress. In Waldseemüller’s day, however, persed, and the focus of Ptolemaic research copies abounded, helping to fix the name of moved away from Saint-Dié. Meanwhile, “America” in scholars’ minds and on other however, the effort had changed the world by maps. generating two maps of enormous influence Ironies enshroud the story. Waldseemüller

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and Ringmann chose the name because they fashion, next to a depiction of Ptolemy, equal revered an account of transatlantic voyages in size and symmetrically placed. In the attributed to the Florentine adventurer Renaissance, there could be no higher compli- Amerigo Vespucci. But Vespucci was not the ment than to feature a modern man as equal real author of the work, which was a publish- to one of the great figures of antiquity. The ers’ confection, issued to exploit a market for basis of the compliment, however, was phony. marvelous travelogues. The work the human- Vespucci never took an accurate astronomical ists admired claimed that Vespucci had reading at sea. discovered the mainland of the New World Tragedy followed irony. The Saint-Dié circle before Columbus—a claim that turned out to began to break up when Duke René died in be false. (In a later map, Waldseemüller sup- 1508. Mathias Ringmann followed his former pressed all mention of Vespucci and drew master to the grave in 1509, deploring the cor- attention to Columbus’s prior landfall in what rosive effects of his sickness on his ability to the cartographer now, less catchily, called think in Latin of classical purity. By 1516, “Terra Incognita.”) Waldseemüller was so disgusted with his own Vespucci, in any case, was not the innova- earlier work that he not only withdrew the tive geographic visionary depicted in histori- name of America but repudiated the map that cal tradition: He hardly modified ideas he had given that name to scholarship. It was, he borrowed from Columbus and thought the wrote, “filled with error, wonder, and confu- “New World” was part of Asia. Moreover, sion. . . . As we have lately come to understand, Waldseemüller misread the supposed Ves- our previous representation pleased very few pucci text. Where the Florentine was credited people.” He was being excessively modest; the with discovering “a fourth part of the world,” map he valued so humbly cost the Library of Waldseemüller understood the allusion to be Congress $10 million in 2003. to a fourth continent, to stand alongside Europe, Asia, and Africa. But all Vespucci n every respect, the story of Waldsee- meant, in an authentic work of his own in müller’s map is impassioning: as a source which he first used the phrase, was that he I of insight into the history of our know- had navigated across 90 degrees of the ledge of our world; as an object lesson in the surface of the globe—a “fourth part” of the gropings and failings of Renaissance human- total. Even this claim was probably false, but ism; as a detective story in which a vital docu- had it been true, it still would not have justi- ment mysteriously disappears to be startlingly fied the mapmaker’s inference that Vespucci rediscovered; as an instance of the role of had disclosed the existence of a previously chance and error in making history; as a cau- unknown continent. tionary tale of the overlap of obscurity and The Saint-Dié set accepted Vespucci’s influence, notoriety and fame; and as a case claims to have improved on the techniques of study of stunning historical supercherie. In practical navigators in his day by using astro- The Fourth Part of the World, Toby Lester, an nomical instruments to reckon a ship’s Atlantic contributing editor, tells the story progress in terms of the motions of celestial better than anyone has told it before. But he bodies. Waldseemüller was so impressed by devotes little more than a quarter of the book Vespucci’s credentials as a scientific navigator to the map itself, choosing rather to locate it that, in the Library of Congress map, he in an immense context of 300 years of Euro- engraved the Florentine’s portrait in a pean efforts to picture the globe in the late cartouche at the top, from which the naviga- Middle Ages and early modern period. tor looks down on the world in proprietary Focusing on the work of the 13th-century

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English monk Matthew Paris, he starts with for two centuries in the seaports of Mallorca, the high-medieval project of encompassing Portugal, Castile, and other places on the whole of knowledge in encyclopedic com- Europe’s Atlantic rim. He also covers the pendia. He then turns to the effects of impact of the rediscovery of classical geo- encounters with the Mongols in enlarging graphic texts, and the contributions of European knowledge of Asia, before examin- learned armchair cosmography among schol- ing the efforts to explore the western ocean ars in Florence and Portugal (though he skips that began in Genoa in 1291, and continued over the importance of Nuremberg as a center

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of geographic inquiry and of Bristol as a In 1507,Martin published a drawing of the world that labeled launch pad of exploration). the Western Hemisphere “America.”Though he later repudiated his map, it tagged two continents with a name that stuck. Understandably, in attempting to cover such a huge swath of highly problematic material, Lester relies on the work of profes- treat them more searchingly and critically, sional scholars, whom he treats, I think, with especially on Columbus and Vespucci, in excessive respect. One longs for him occasion- regard to whom much of the scholarly tradi- ally to seize and shake his authorities, and tion has been discredited. Even so, Lester’s

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deftness in narrating a long and complex tale printing of the Library of Congress copy. No is impressive: fluent, clear, well informed, and one can doubt that it is genuinely an early perfectly paced. In short, he is an example of a impression of the long-lost map Waldsee- phenomenon increasingly embarrassing to müller published in 1507. But the surviving professional historians: a journalist who example was made from a well-worn plate at writes history better than we can. an unspecified time, perhaps years after the When he gets around to Waldseemüller’s first printing. This fact raises a potentially map, Lester makes a formidable contribution. headline-grabbing possibility. In 2003, the His convincing reasoning sheds new light on Library of Congress invested an unprece- the relationship between “Ringmann, the dented sum to acquire a map whose status as writer, and Waldseemüller, the mapmaker.” the oldest to bear the name of America is His analysis of the learned puns encoded in open to challenge. the Greek version of the name of America pro- For more than a hundred years, the John posed in the Saint-Dié cosmographers’ Intro- Carter Brown Library, affiliated with Brown duction to Ptolemy is satisfying. His account University, has housed a rival: an undated of Waldseemüller’s cartographic sources is work by the same cartographer, showing an enlightening. His study of the map from an outline virtually identical to that of a map iconographic point of view, though very selec- known to have been printed in 1513. This ver- tive, is challenging. (He sees, not entirely con- sion, however, is unique—or at least different vincingly, the imperial eagle as an organizing from the rest of Waldseemüller’s output of shape hovering around the map.) Some that year—in that it includes the name “Amer- aspects are omitted: It would have been of ica.” Lester dismisses this map’s claims to pri- great interest, for instance, to read Lester’s ority in a brief appendix; but until the possi- thoughts on the many curious legends and bilities of scientific analysis, especially of labels included in the map, in which informa- hyperspectral imaging, are exhausted, the tion about animals is puzzlingly prominent. printing dates of both maps remain open to The entire treatment is tantalizingly brief: It is question. There may be twists yet to come in a pity the author did not give himself space to the tale of “the map that gave America its broach more of the problems and deepen the name.”

analysis. Felipe Fernández-Armesto is a history professor at the Of the unposed questions, the most in- University of Notre Dame. His books include Amerigo: The Man Who Gave His Name to America (2007) and 1492: The triguing, perhaps, concerns the date of the Year the World Began (2009).

Personal Compositions Reviewed by Louis Bayard

y father wrote out. . . . Had a nice jog this morning.” Exactly YOURS EVER: me once a week People and the kind of stuff people post on Facebook M when I was in col- Their Letters. now. I read each of his letters exactly once and lege. Chitchat, for the most By Thomas Mallon. put it . . . where? That’s what I couldn’t part. “Your Uncle Joe Pantheon. remember in the days and weeks after his called.... Dishwasher went 352 pp. $26.95 death. I went through box after box, hunting

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for those ancient relics, and when I realized struggling to remain faithful to her soldier they were well and truly gone, I felt as if I’d lover on the far side of the world? betrayed not just my father but the whole It’s to Mallon’s credit that he is attuned to point of his writing me in the first place. the drama of these seemingly undramatic For isn’t there a sacred premise behind lives—and to the grim irony that letter writing every letter? That it will be kept and savored today thrives most in extremis, among the as long as there are eyes to read? Then again, prisoners and refugees who have been how many of the letters we’ve received over deprived of electronic communication. “Our the years are still with us? And what has hap- situations are very different,” an imprisoned pened to the letters we ourselves cast into the dissident writes Chinese leader Deng Xiaop- world? Is anyone brooding over those? ing; “you are at the top of a billion people and Letter writing may be an art, as Thomas I am at the very bottom—but life isn’t easy for Mallon argues in his richly entertaining either of us. It’s just that I am not the one overview, but it is a highly contingent and making your life difficult, while you’re the one perishable one—a bit like the mural that making it hard for me.” Joyce Cary’s half-mad artist, Gulley Jimson, That power imbalance is, at least in the paints as a valedictory on a condemned context of this letter, neutralized. Addresser church. For a letter to survive, someone must speaks to addressee on equal terms. Still, Mal- deem it worth saving, and someone must lon knows that most of deem it worth passing down. The famous cor- us approach a volume respondence of Madame de Sévigné, valued as like this not for democ- For a letter to survive, much for its aphoristic pith (“I fear nothing so racy in action but for the someone must deem it much as a man who is witty all day long”) as aristocracy of gossip. for its insights into the court life of Louis XIV, This he delivers in worth saving, and was pruned and, in some cases, rewritten by abundance. H. L. someone must deem it her granddaughter. Scottie Fitzgerald would Mencken on Wallis worth passing down. coldly examine her illustrious dad’s notes for Simpson: “a highly oxi- “checks and news,” then dump them in her dized double-divorcée.” desk drawer. (It was her daughter who later Hannah Arendt on Vladimir Nabokov: “There compiled and published them.) Tennessee is something vulgar in his refinement.” Oscar Williams’s letters to his sometime muse Maria Wilde on fickle Bosie (his former lover Lord St. Just have been set aside for posterity, but Alfred Douglas): “The mere fact that he where are the pages she wrote in reply? Did wrecked my life makes me love him.” Williams toss them away in a fit of pique? Or Telegrams, suicide notes, memos, did they just vanish into the maelstrom of his execution-eve manifestoes—they’re all here. life? Oh, sure, you may mourn the critters who got Even letters that survive the test of time away: Elizabeth Bishop or Evelyn Waugh or, may face a stiffer test from history. The words hell, Émile Zola. (Was “J’accuse,” his open let- of Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, and ter defending Alfred Dreyfus, too public a Winston Churchill will always command performance?) But you’re as likely to be attention. But what of a long-forgotten liter- astonished by how much Mallon has packed ary critic named Francis Matthiessen, whom into so small a space: Helene Hanff’s transat- we find in Mallon’s book building a romantic lantic flirtation with Charing Cross bookseller life with another man? What of the deaf Eng- Frank Doel; Walter Raleigh’s curiously prag- lish seamstress tensely negotiating her future matic and, as events would prove, premature with a tailor? The Oxford language student last testament; Sullivan Ballou’s heart-

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rending farewell to his wife on the eve of Bull ernity. “Mr. Jobs’s world,” he calls it. By which Run (almost impossible to read now without he means a benighted land where people have the strains of “Ashokan Farewell” in your ear). lost all capacity for reflection and “considered If Yours Ever runs more wide than deep, exchange.” Where even educated folk are that is at least partly a function of its subject. reduced to sending text messages that read, in Letters must often compress a great deal of their entirety, “r u there?” Where “addictive ore into a small seam—they make a virtue of gratifications have replaced the old, slow their own impoverishment—and the best anticipation of the daily visit from the letter-writers are those who strike pay dirt mailman.” with the least amount of spadework. This is There is, in short, a reflexive melancholy to what Mallon does, again and again. He writes Mallon’s self-appointed mission, and I’m not of Colette, living her life “as a kind of giant convinced that all his belletristesse is merited. maw.” Of Lord Byron, bent from birth on (Then again, waiting for the mailman has “becoming an adjective.” Of John Keats: “No always struck me as a dubious pleasure.) matter how hard circumstances press, the When I sift through my past week’s electronic bedsprings of his self are available for falling in-box, I find easily half a dozen messages back on; the harder his fall, the more cheerful that qualify as letters in every traditional his squeak.” sense. They are coherently structured, written I particularly liked Mallon’s take on Philip with care and design. They enlighten, they Larkin, who “craved sooty windows the way illuminate, they endear. They even follow the others do bright lights” and whose letters illu- old epistolary ritual of signing off (not minate “the distinction between happiness “yours ever,” but some venerable variant: and fulfillment. The former may be what one “yours”...“cheers”...“all best”...“xo”). My wants, but the latter is what one needs, and as e-mail may not ascend to the level of Madame such is much more profound. Philip Larkin’s de Sévigné, but then, neither did Madame de natural temperament was deeply, depres- Sévigné all the time. singly fulfilled.” More to the point, these messages would We might question Mallon’s fondness for probably never have come my way if the puns (“Pushkin came to shove”) and his senders had been obliged to take out pen and dismissal of John Milton, an advocate for paper. Indeed, it is the very facility of elec- divorce and a free press, as “English literature’s tronic communication that makes the Luddite most august and terrifying adherent to conven- soul tremble. When Mallon complains that tion.” There are moments, too, when the liter- e-mail has “made the telegram’s instant high ary worth of a particular writer (Jean Harris, dudgeon affordable to all,” it is clear that the say, or Neal Cassady) is more obvious to Mallon access troubles him as much as the dudgeon. than to the reader. But there is no denying the Look at me! I’m a belletrist, too! But does the love that undergirds the author’s labor or the relative ease of an e-mail’s composition neces- seemingly laborless way in which he calls these sarily detract from its value? Are postage dead pages back to life. stamps a bona fide of literary intent? What kind of life, though? That’s the ques- Even in the age of tweets and pokes and tion that began niggling at me the moment I blasts, the impulse to bring order to our closed this delightful book. Yours Ever is con- thoughts and lives persists, and at the risk of ceived as a museum for a lost art, and it is not sounding like a technojingoist, one might hard to see Mallon as the docent in the cardi- argue that technology facilitates this impulse gan sweater, ushering us into each room and as much as it impedes it. One might even then sending us off into the gloaming of mod- envision a day when the electronic message

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becomes more durable than the letter, when then, that he hasn’t signed off on the subject we no longer have to rummage through cellar completely, that he is even now composing shadows for our father’s old notes because our some postscript that will, instead of making a hard drives have tucked them away in some fetish of loss, observe without prejudice as our brightly lit corner. missives leave the printed page and head in That’s not the story Thomas Mallon set out still-unguessed directions. to write, but with his wit and range of refer- Louis Bayard is the author of several novels, including The ence, his curiosity and gift for synthesis, he is Black Tower (2008), The Pale Blue Eye (2006), and Mr. Timo- thy (2003). His reviews have appeared in The New York Times, as equipped as anyone to write it. Let us hope, The Washington Post, and Salon.

CONTEMPORARY AFFAIRS motivated by political conviction. Generally, it was some combination of famine and Quiet Desperation personal circumstances that drove them—a teacher whose father was a former prisoner of Reviewed by Andrei Lankov war turned coal miner; a scientist; a street There is no shortage of NOTHING TO ENVY: tough; a medical doctor; a couple of petty books on North Korea. Ordinary Lives in officials—to cross the border to China and Thanks to its nuclear ambi- North Korea. then make their way to South Korea. For tions, it attracts a surprising By Barbara Demick. some of them it was a risky undertaking; one, amount of attention for a Spiegel & Grau. helped by money from a relative in Seoul, had 314 pp. $24 country whose population a “VIP” defection, during which border and economy are roughly the same size as guards ensured her safety. Ghana’s. But little is said about average North In North Korea, self-isolation and daily Koreans. They come across as faceless people control have reached heights that would have who obediently follow the orders of their Dear seemed extreme in the Soviet Union under Leader, as Kim Jong Il is officially known, and Stalin. People are completely insulated from his opaque inner circle. Nothing to Envy, by sources of information other than what is pro- journalist Barbara Demick, rounds out the vided by the government (owning a radio set picture. Working in Seoul and Beijing as a Los with free tuning is a crime, and foreigners are Angeles Times correspondent, she interviewed virtually never seen), and as a result they sin- numerous people who had fled North Korea, cerely believe that their impoverished country into which few foreigners are allowed. Defec- is an island of prosperity in an ocean of desti- tors’ accounts of the country they left are sus- tution and suffering. Those few who harbor ceptible to distortion, so Demick focused her doubts have to be careful not to share their interviews on people who came from the city thoughts even with their best friends. of Chongjin, which enabled her to check their As a student at a prestigious university, the stories and experiences against each other. North Korean analogue to the Massachusetts Through their interwoven personal stories, Institute of Technology, Jun-sang, a promis- Demick shows us the lives of ordinary citizens ing young scientist, had access to restricted as they navigated the ravages of the last two material. It was seemingly innocuous books— decades, a time of social disaster, famine, and such as Gone With the Wind (to read it economic collapse. These defectors were not required a security clearance)—that caused

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him to reconsider the picture of Westerners as mindless machines driven by sex and money, World-Class Club Reviewed by Rahul Chandran and prompted his decision to leave. After years of intense (but chaste) romance with Mi-ran, a teacher, the two conceived of and In the sweltering sum- planned their escapes separately, not sharing mer of 1944, two months after FIVE TO RULE THEM ALL: a word; they still could not trust each other. A D-Day, British and Soviet The UN Security few years later they met again in Seoul, but by diplomats joined the Council and the that time they were living separate lives. Americans in Washington to Making of the Demick’s narrative is not always inspiring: discuss how the three powers Modern World. One of the chapters is titled “The Good Die that were shaping the world By David L. Bosco. First.” Those among Demick’s subjects who could preserve the peace in the Oxford Univ. Press. 310 pp. $24.95 witnessed the North Korean famine of years to come. Their answer 1996–99, in which anywhere from 600,000 to was a grand body of member states—the United two million people died, observed that the Nations—with responsibility for peace and secu- honest and goodhearted were less likely to rity falling to a “Security Council.” This elite club stay alive. Most who survived did so by redis- would have five permanent members—the covering the market: The famine was a time United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union, plus when “reluctant” capitalism boomed in North France and China—with the power to veto any pro- Korea. Contrary to what is sometimes as- posed resolution, and 10 other members elected on sumed, the country long ago ceased to be a a rotating basis from the galaxy of states. In the 65 centrally planned economy. The old Stalinist years since its creation, the Security Council has economy of iron and coal is largely dead, with frustrated those who thought it would mean an end only a handful of military factories still oper- to violent conflict, disappointed many who ating somehow. assumed that nations would actually unite, and About 17,000 North Korean defectors live alienated the American Right, which considers it a in South Korea, and most do not fare particu- constraint on U.S. power. Yet the fact remains that larly well. They arrive with an education that the Security Council is a critical venue for interna- is both anachronistic and distorted; they must tional dialogue. adjust to a society that is decades ahead of In Five to Rule Them All, David L. Bosco, a their native land and acquaint themselves professor of international politics at American with the basics of modern life. Demick’s sub- University, guides readers through the history of jects do better than most, but their success is the Security Council, from its first peacekeeping often equivocal. For example, a once rebel- endeavor in the Congo, through the Cold War, to lious teenager now runs a karaoke club where the present. This fine book blends insight into North Korean girls work as hostesses and great-power politics with saucy anecdotes, part-time prostitutes. including an account of the American-led sally to Sooner or later the Kim dynasty will be a famous New York City nightclub, Billy Rose’s consigned to the dustbin of history, but it will Diamond Horseshoe, designed to ease tensions take many more decades for the country’s 23 during those 1944 negotiations. The only wish a million people to heal the social and psycho- reader might have is for more discussion of the logical wounds inflicted by the brutal social current challenges that face the Security Council. experiment that is North Korea. Bosco highlights the Security Council’s suc- cesses, such as the tireless work of then–secretary- Andrei Lankov is a professor of history at Kookmin University, general Javier Pérez de Cuéllar and his team to end in Seoul. He is the author of several books on North Korea, includ- ing North of the DMZ: Essays on Daily Life in North Korea (2007). the Iran-Iraq War in 1988. He is also frank about

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the body’s failures, among them its inability to facilitate peace in the Middle East and to stop the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and the Srebrenica massacre, in Bosnia, in 1995. He is astute about the impact of seemingly subtle deci- sions by the Security Council, as when the Soviet Union’s perma- nent seat was transferred to Rus- sia in 1989 “with scarcely a whis- per of debate.” In rushing through this transition, Bosco writes, the Security Council missed an opportunity to realign power that “might have allowed adjustment to reflect new realities and refresh For six decades, the UN Security Council has brought the world’s great powers to the table. the council’s legitimacy with the rest of the world,” though, in keeping with the non- without a guaranteed say in the decisions, or prescriptive nature of the book, he doesn’t say for India, which has more than 15 percent of what that realignment ought to have looked like. the world’s population, to assume risks Today, we have moved beyond the post-Soviet without a share of control. moment. America is no longer the sole super- Second, the role of the Security Council in deal- power, yet it has no equal. As Bosco notes, large ing with problems that lack clearly defined non-Western blocs of nations have consistently borders—climate change, resource scarcity, terror- criticized the Security Council for paying too little ism, nuclear proliferation, subnational violence—is attention “to what many poor nations saw as the uncertain. President Barack Obama’s decision to root cause of much conflict: disparities in econ- chair a recent Security Council summit on nuclear omic development.” Today these objections are nonproliferation signals that the body has a role in heard less often, in part because the loudest critics, dealing with this issue, but the precise nature of including India and Brazil, have gained enough that role remains unclear. power to pursue their own interests aggressively. Hovering over Bosco’s book is an abiding But the Security Council’s relevance and legitimacy sense of the failure of the great powers to rec- are still in question in two key ways. ognize change, combined with a quaintly des- First, the informal arrangement that perate desire to preserve privileges and rights allowed the Security Council to intervene in of a bygone era. Set against this is the remark- and mitigate violent conflict over the last two able success of the Security Council in prevent- decades in Timor-Leste, Sierra Leone, Liberia, ing conflict among the great powers; its exis- Haiti, Kosovo, Guatemala, and elsewhere is tence accounts, at least in part, for the fact that increasingly unstable. In the past, permanent we have avoided another world war. Unless the members would make the decision to inter- five permanent members can find a pathway to vene, others (Japan and Germany) would pay, sharing and extending their power, the legiti- and a third group (often including India, Pak- macy of the Security Council will continue to istan, and Bangladesh) would provide troops. erode. It makes less sense, with each passing year, to Rahul Chandran is deputy director of the Center on Interna- the Japanese and Germans to foot the bills tional Cooperation at New York University.

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Monochrome Life communities, his judgments (arguably) err Reviewed by Darryl Lorenzo Wellington toward generosity. He empathizes with Whitopians’ fear of Between 2007 and 2009, SEARCHING FOR urban crime. He defends the principle of eth- the young African-American WHITOPIA: nic diversity, but commiserates with those political commentator Rich An Improbable Jour- who have abandoned it because they have Benjamin spent much of his ney to the Heart of seen “diversity done badly.” He writes of time living a suburban White America. bonding with his neighbors while playing fantasy—posing as a home By Rich Benjamin. golf, in rapturous prose that gently mocks the Hyperion. 354 pp. $24.99 buyer researching high-end game’s stereotypical associations: “On the properties, living in fashionable condomini- resplendent green, I too escape my modest ums and gated communities, and studying city abode, my work stress, my history, my with professional trainers to sharpen his golf identity, my skin. Whack!” He even puts the game. His foray into enclaves of wealth and best face on a visit to a church that preaches comfort might seem a mere vacation if it racial purity, expressing mere annoyance weren’t also a sociological study. “Statistics rather than real rancor. Overall, Benjamin can tell you only so much,” he explains at the concludes, Whitopias are populated by outset. “Understanding the spirit of a people decent and “delightful people” who have and the essence of a place requires firsthand inoculated themselves against guilt or experience.” discomfort over yawning socioeconomic The dwindling statistical dominance of inequities. whites in the country as a whole has been The dark side of Whitopias is revealed less accompanied by a marked rise of segregated in interpersonal relations than in residents’ white enclaves; in these upscale commun- peculiar obsessions, most notably with illegal ities, whites make up 85 percent or more of immigrants. In St. George, Benjamin attends the residents. While traditional suburbs a meeting of a group that calls itself the Citi- diversify and the poorest urban areas ware- zens Council on Illegal Immigration, at house minorities, since 2000 Whitopias which a speaker presents a slide show of omi- (i.e., white utopias) have posted at least six nous images of wild-eyed, dark, Hispanic percent population growth, most from non- men. Benjamin observes that St. George’s Hispanic whites. Culturally, they are conser- safety fixation—the maze of security systems vative; politically, they are typically Repub- installed in home after home, restrictive zon- lican. Often, they are designed by developers ing laws, and fierce anti-immigration to cater to old-fashioned, Ozzie and Harriet sentiment—smacks of fear beyond a rational values. The residents are neither blind to the relationship to the immediate threat. homogeneity of their environs nor apologetic Zealotry, if not racism. about it. “I don’t like the use of the term Benjamin concludes his book by attempt- white flight,” says a resident of Coeur d’Alene, ing to make a broader argument about how Idaho. “It’s sort of cultural flight.” to achieve racial harmony and eschew ethnic Aside from Coeur d’Alene, Benjamin spent and class balkanization in the 21st century. time in Forsyth, Georgia, and St. George, Mapping a plan to achieve a post-racial Utah, as well as a blue-state Whitopia: the America, he tosses off easy summary judg- Carnegie Hill neighborhood of Manhattan. ments. Inner-city blacks must “redouble their He says that he encountered no overt racial efforts to achieve the American dream,” he hostility in these places, and, while his very declares, though the daily hardships of the presence was an implicit critique of these poor have received scant attention in the

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book. More than the absence of black and calm, almost bloodless event, led by the tradi- Latino perspectives, however, it’s the lack tional aristocracy and gentry asserting the of attention to working-class and poor authority of Parliament. Pincus, a Yale histo- whites that hampers his attempt to wade rian, shows that it was far bloodier than the through a mire of diversity issues. Still, Ben- myth allows, with riots and armed skirmishes jamin’s case against Whitopias is clear: By breaking out across the country. One minor tying power and privilege to racial identity, incident in Reading saw 60 royal troops he suggests, they impoverish our understand- killed, far more than the number of protesters ing of one another and undercut collective who died in the famous Champs de Mars mas- commitment to a social contract. Fearsome sacre in 1791, during the French Revolution. institutions—though not populated with Supported by the traditional ruling classes fearsome people. though the 1688 revolution may have been, it clearly involved so many of the common people Darryl Lorenzo Wellington is a culture critic whose essays frequently appear in Dissent. that it came strikingly close to national democ- racy in action. Pincus cites local records of

HISTORY association, voluntary statements of loyalty, to show that more than 450,000 people publicly Britain’s Big Year affirmed their loyalty to King William after Reviewed by Martin Walker James sought to retake The Glorious Revolution of Steve Pincus has pro- his throne with French 1688: 1688 was far bloodier than duced the most important The First Modern and Irish troops in the myth allows, with riots new work of English history Revolution. 1689 and an assassina- and armed skirmishes in many years. His revolu- tion plot against By Steve Pincus. breaking out across Britain. tionary and persuasive analy- Yale Univ. Press. William was uncovered sis of the Glorious Revolu- 647 pp. $40 in 1696. James’s hopes tion of 1688 overthrows the traditional Whig of support from British interpretation of steady progress toward rep- loyalists proved highly and fatally exaggerated. resentative and elected government through In the national mythology, 1688 marks a Parliament that Lord Macaulay proposed in quintessentially English event, despite the the mid-1800s. Along with Macaulay’s paral- arrival of a Dutch prince and his crushing vic- lel narratives of the defeat of absolute monar- tory in 1690 on the banks of Ireland’s River chy, the flourishing of free institutions, and Boyne over James’s Franco-Irish army. Pincus the triumph of commerce, this version has demonstrates that the Glorious Revolution since become one of the founding myths of was intimately bound up with the grander modern Britain—and also of the United politics of Europe, and that King James’s States, whose Founding Fathers of 1776 saw attempt to copy the Catholic and absolute themselves as defending the liberties secured monarchy of France’s King Louis XIV in 1688. represented a triple threat to British interests. Macaulay argued that the replacement of First, James’s monarchy was Catholic, King James II, a Catholic who sought to be an whereas Britain was largely Protestant. absolute ruler, by his Protestant daughter Second, it was pro-French, whereas Britain Mary and her husband, William of Orange, was largely pro-Dutch, for commercial the leader of the Dutch Republic, was a classic reasons as much as for religious ones. Third, it exercise in English good sense and moder- was an autocracy, whereas Britain had been ation. He saw the Glorious Revolution as a advancing down the path of limited monarchy

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under law since the days of Magna Carta, and dominate Europe has remained the bedrock had, within living memory, fought a civil war of British policy for three centuries. and executed King Charles I to resist royal Why didn’t this bold perception ever take absolutism. hold? Pincus provides his own challenging This analysis leads to Pincus’s key insight, that answer: “A central point of this narrative has the Glorious Revolution represented a battle been that the hyper-specialization of history between two competing projects of moderniz- has not only made historical writing accessi- ation. King James had sought to modernize the ble to ever narrower audiences but that the country along French lines, establishing a large breakdown of historical processes into social, standing army and professional tax-raising religious, intellectual, political, constitu- bureaucracy, and bringing crucial institutions into tional, military, and diplomatic history has line, by, for instance, appointing militant Cath- made it impossible to specify broad revolu- olics to run Oxford and Cambridge colleges. The tionary shifts and identify their causes.” Pin- consequences of a successful counterrevolution by cus proves himself wrong: This is an all- James, warned the English cleric James Gardiner, embracing narrative history in the grand “would have been a French government.” The tradition.

Bishop of Gloucester preached that “’twill be Martin Walker is a Woodrow Wilson Center senior scholar. crime enough to be an Englishman.” His latest novel, Bruno: Chief of Police (2009), has been translated into 10 languages. But James faced the competing Whig and commercial project of modernization, whose great instruments were Parliament and the Tame Rebellion Bank of England, the latter of which was able Reviewed by Michael Anderson to finance the national debt incurred by the new foreign policy of resisting French domi- Has any decade of the THE PERMISSIVE nance across Europe. The Whig project was American Century been writ- SOCIETY: decentralized, whereas James had sought to ten about more yet under- America, consolidate power in his own person; it was stood less than the Fifties? In 1941–1965. participatory, whereas James had sought an both the popular and the By Alan Petigny. exclusive power; it was urban and mercantile, scholarly minds, it exists as Cambridge Univ. Press. 292 pp. $24.99 whereas James and his Tory supporters had caricature, one held in believed that all wealth came from the land; it contrast with an equally cartoonish was about limiting and challenging and conception of the Sixties: either a prison pre- balancing power, whether it was based in ceding liberation, or Eden before the London or Paris or Rome, rather than submit- Apocalypse. “When conservatives look back to ting to it. the 1950s,” Alan Petigny writes, “they see an The Britain that resulted (which, after the era of sexual reticence, a time when conserva- Act of Union of 1707, included Scotland) tive Christianity was on the march, a halcyon transformed its political system, political era of order and tradition untarnished by the economy, church and state systems, and for- turmoil that would come. Conversely, liberals eign policy. Absolute monarchy and Catholi- often vilify this time for its hypocrisy and cism had been defeated by Protestantism, repression.” More sensibly, scholars have rec- Parliament, and commerce. Britain had ognized that one decade flowed into its succes- become not simply a different state but a dif- sor, that the Fifties paved the way for the Six- ferent country, and so deeply rooted were ties. Although Petigny would have it these changes that the cardinal principle of otherwise, The Permissive Society resisting any other power that sought to demonstrates the truth of the middle way.

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Born from his doctoral dissertation, the Boone crooned in his 1958 hit, marriage was book displays more bumptiousness than bril- now a ‘50-50 deal.’ ” A majority of Americans, liance. American manners and mores “had both male and female, told pollsters they could been on the march for at least half a century,” endorse a woman as president, and “by the he writes, and the pace accelerated ever more end of the 1950s, not only were there rapidly after World War II. This moment he significantly more women serving as state leg- portentously calls “the Permissive Turn”; it islators than at the end of World War II or at was, in fact, the final triumph of the social the close of the 1940s, but there were slightly trend increasingly dominant since World War more . . . than at the end of the 1960s.” I (an event The Permissive Decade ignores), At the same time, however, Americans urban modernism. Petigny essentially yearned for the simulacrum of stability. Indeed, transposes contemporary culture wars back a a faux nostalgia for normalcy gripped the pop- half-century. What he approves of is “open and ular imagination, a desire to remember a world democratic,” not to mention “modern”; what that never was. This was manifested most spec- he disdains are prejudices such as “elitism and tacularly in the Red Scare, but, perhaps not sexual prudery.” The first, no surprise, is surprisingly, the urge to create an idealized “liberal,” the second “conservative”—labels now past was visited particularly heavily upon the so greasy that they would scarcely have utility next generation. Despite the near-hysterical even with the careful definition Petigny condemnations of their music (rock ‘n’ roll neglects to provide. A pity, because his hours “often plunges men’s minds into degrading and in the stacks have yielded a profusion of data immoral depths,” declared Martin Luther King that might facilitate some genuine insight into Jr.), their clothes (a juvenile court judge cited a pivotal era. blue jeans as “a factor in sex delinquency”), and Anyone middle-aged in 1950 had their deportment (“Going steady is a menace to experienced three worldwide catastrophes— the purity of our youth,” the principal of a two world wars and an equally devastating Roman Catholic high school proclaimed), economic collapse. Reconstruction was in Petigny perceptively notes that “the rebellious- order, for individuals as well as for society, and ness of teenagers was not only tolerated by the to replace the gods that had failed, Americans larger culture, but was, to a large degree, sanc- eagerly embraced ones that seemed more tioned.” No surprise: The “rebellion” was epito- promising. As Petigny details, psychology was mized by the pranks of Dennis the Menace; the valorized: In 1955, the publishers of MAD putatively defiant heroes of The Wild One and magazine issued a new comic called Rebel Without a Cause wound up “affirming Psychoanalysis; alcoholism was converted the ideals of the larger society.” from a sin to a disease; and the clergy set Uneasy, unsettled, traveling in competing about “transforming theology into therapy.” directions, the unacknowledged act uneasily Religion itself substituted appeasement for conjoined with the camouflaging word: This is apocalypse; Brotherhood Week “explicitly cau- the prescription for anxiety, the situation tioned celebrants against engaging in discus- Sigmund Freud considered the besetting condi- sions of theology or church policy,” and Dwight tion of modern man (not “guilt,” as Petigny D. Eisenhower famously advocated “deeply felt writes). Little wonder that the decade saw the religious faith, and I don’t care what it is.” finest works from cinema’s master of psychologi- Perhaps most tellingly, as described in cal subversion, Alfred Hitchcock—the Fifties Petigny’s best-argued chapter, the status of were indeed the Age of Anxiety. women was ever on the rise. They were no Michael Anderson is writing a biography of the playwright longer junior partners in marriage. “As Pat Lorraine Hansberry.

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A Revolutionary Woman Reviewed by Frank Shuffelton

In the Founding Fathers’ ABIGAILADAMS. race for enduring fame, John Adams had a secret resource. By Woody Holton. Free Press. 483 pp. $30 Her name was Abigail. Most of the Founders’ wives offered silent support, usu- ally in the form of affectionate encouragement and the management of household and family matters, but few contributed as much to their husbands’ success as Abigail Adams. Previous biographies have tended to emphasize how she embodied the new possibilities for women that emerged with the rise, in the latter 18th century, of companionate marriage, which prized affec- tion over dynastic or economic considerations. “Dearest Friend” was the greeting that opened many of Abigail’s letters to her husband. Abigail Adams had a marriage many have envied—but she Woody Holton’s biography recognizes this fought not to let it define her legal rights. aspect of the Adamses’ marriage, but he compli- cates the picture by showing the stresses and dif- bequests to family members, friends, and ferences of opinion that cropped up between dependents—and when she died in 1818, John Abigail and John, even if they never became honored it. Abigail’s resistance to coverture, which serious rifts. (For instance, in her most famous in effect suspended a woman’s legal existence letter, written to John while he was attending while she was married, is a theme of Holton’s the Continental Congress in 1776, she requested book. Abigail’s crusade, however, was a relatively that he “Remember the Ladies.” What’s less private one. She exercised her “protofeminist recalled is his jocular response: “I cannot but ideals within her own household,” he notes. Her laugh.”) In Holton’s version of the relationship, will, for instance, opens with the statement that it Abigail is occasionally a whetstone against is made “by and with [her husband’s] consent,” which her husband sharpens his thinking. And and she typically expressed her resentment at the Holton, a historian at the University of Rich- limits placed upon women in correspondence mond, shows more fully than earlier biographers with female friends and relatives. how Abigail’s financial acumen created a secure Abigail was born in 1744 in Weymouth, foundation for the Adams family and helped Massachusetts, where her father, William Smith, pioneer a new kind of economic empowerment was pastor of the Weymouth church’s north for women. parish. She never attended school, partly Well into the 19th century, married women because of frequent bouts of ill health, and partly were bound by the legal notion of coverture, because her parents did not value education for which put their property under the control of girls beyond reading and basic arithmetic. She their husbands. Nevertheless, Abigail drew up a was, however, an avid reader, and Holton will that disposed of personal property such as suggests that an important element of her edu- dresses and jewelry and also included financial cation was “networks of friends” who recom-

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mended books to one another and discussed ARTS & LETTERS them in conversation and letters. Her wit impressed her future husband unfavorably Song of Myself, Sung when they met, but a couple of years later she had apparently softened some of her sharp Again and Again edges, and he had grown appreciative of her Reviewed by Eric Liebetrau ability to counter his self-acknowledged vanity, A glance at any best- admiring her “Saucyness” and calling her “Miss MEMOIR: Adorable.” They married when she was 20. seller list demonstrates the AHistory. The Adamses’ 54-year marriage was marked popularity of memoir. Books By Ben Yagoda. by long periods of separation, beginning with such as Mary Karr’s The Riverhead. John’s travels as a young lawyer on the court cir- Liars’ Club (1998), Augusten 291 pp. $25.95 cuit and extending through his many years as a Burroughs’s Running With Scissors (2002), national public servant beginning in 1774. When and Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love left on her own, Abigail coped with farm labor (2006) have become literary touchstones for shortages, illnesses, and four children. She also American readers, many of whom identify earned money by providing hard-to-find items with the authors’ troubled childhoods and including pins, ribbon, and handkerchiefs to searches for redemption. But the genre itself Boston merchants. John acquired the wares in has ancient roots, writes University of Philadelphia and later in Europe at a favorable Delaware journalism professor Ben Yagoda in price, and by reselling through agents she could Memoir: A History. First-person accounts avoid the appearance of impropriety—proper reach back at least as far as 50 bc, when ladies were not supposed to be in business. Julius Caesar recounted his war campaigns in During the Revolution, she accumulated a his self-flattering Commentaries. Much of the tidy nest egg that she invested in state and autobiographical writing from that time does national bonds bought at steep discounts and not survive, and Yagoda points to The Confes- eventually redeemed at par, dealings of which sions of Saint Augustine (ad 397–98) as the her husband was not always fully aware. Her first autobiography. financial enterprises, along with the couple’s To avoid muddying the waters, Yagoda thriftiness, laid the basis for the fortune that uses the words “memoir” and “autobiog- kept the family afloat during the hard times raphy” somewhat interchangeably, to mean after the Revolution that wrecked other “a book understood by its author, its members of the founding generation. publisher, and its readers to be a factual Holton’s biography stands out for its account of the author’s life.” Recently, the treatment of Abigail’s entrepreneurship, and if genre’s very identity as “factual” has come earlier biographers have discussed her proto- into question. When in 2005 Oprah Winfrey feminist opinions, he is often more thorough confronted James Frey about the fabrications and nuanced than they were. His skillful use of and exaggerations of his addiction tale A Mil- primary sources, including Adams family corre- lion Little Pieces—a book she had touted spondence, affords a fuller understanding of from her powerful book-club pulpit—the events in Abigail Adams’s life than we have had. backlash was unprecedented. Feeling Holton’s biography is required reading for any- emotionally defrauded, readers, critics, and one interested in the Adams family. journalists began to question the veracity of other memoirists, including Burroughs (who Frank Shuffelton edited The Letters of John and Abigail has written about his childhood living in the Adams (2004) and The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Jeffer- son (2009). dysfunctional household of his mother’s psy-

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chiatrist) and Ishmael Beah, author of the graphic, and authorship has been “democra- best-selling book A Long Way Gone, which tized”—no longer confined to celebrities and describes his experience as a child soldier in politicians. Today, nearly anyone with a hard- Sierra Leone. Burroughs’s foster family luck story can foist it upon an often eager disputes his account; reporters questioned public. details and the chronology of Beah’s war And what of truth in memoir? In closing, years. Yagoda excavates the cases of Burroughs, The genre’s appeal persists, however, and Frey, and numerous others whose integrity Yagoda examines its development with a was challenged—on the grounds of mere journalist’s thoroughness, beginning with a exaggeration for effect, the restructuring or few modern milestones: the Million Little shuffling of chronology, or, in Frey’s book, Pieces fiasco; the record $10 million advance outright lies. Ultimately, Yagoda concludes, paid to Bill Clinton for My Life (2004); the “once you begin to write the true story of bizarre sagas surrounding both O. J. your life in a form that anyone would Simpson’s If I Did It (2007), his supposedly possibly want to read, you start to make com- hypothetical confession of how he murdered promises with the truth.” his ex-wife, and Peter Golenbock’s “inventive memoir” detailing the sexual exploits of Eric Liebetrau was the managing editor and nonfiction editor of Kirkus Reviews until it closed at the end of last year. Mickey Mantle. Yagoda tends to lean on extended excerpts, and some readers may skim the Card Studs longer quotations. But the narrative acceler- Reviewed by Aaron Mesh ates as he chronicles the first half of the 19th Not long after graduat- century, when the “most original and remark- COWBOYS FULL: able American autobiographical subgenre . . . ing from college, I, like The Story of Poker. drew on narratives of conversion, repentance, millions of other enthusiasts By James McManus. captivity, and adventure,” as in Narrative of infected by the millennial Farrar, Straus & Giroux. 516 pp. $30 the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845). The poker craze, developed a mid-1800s were dominated by works from P. slightly unhealthy interest in no-limit Texas T. Barnum, Ulysses S. Grant, and Mark hold ’em. Nearly every Friday night, I bellied Twain, all accomplished storytellers and up to a basement card table or, if a home game showmen. Barnum, “perhaps the greatest couldn’t be found, ventured out to an East self-promoter of all time,” eagerly and Tennessee bar called Mayo’s, where tour- candidly described many of the hoaxes he naments of dubious legality and $50 buy-ins perpetrated during his performances, includ- started every half-hour. Sometimes I won. ing the Feejee Mermaid, “likely the result of More often I watched my weekend pocket someone surgically connecting a fish tail with money go out the door in somebody else’s a monkey’s torso and head.” pocket. After bad nights, I would brood over The 20th century saw the birth of the “as the suspicion that my inability to bet told to” memoir, as well as the modernist tra- aggressively signaled a deficiency of character. dition of transforming autobiography into I wasn’t alone in drawing this parallel. fiction, exemplified by such classics as Marcel Among James McManus’s many insights in Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past Cowboys Full is the observation that (1922–31) and Sylvia Plath’s Bell Jar (1963). Americans have long used their homegrown In the last several decades, Yagoda observes, game—a modified French bluffing contest—to memoir has become more open, even define the kind of people they want to be:

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The game of poker may be as American as apple pie, but its image has never been as wholesome. shrewd, bold, unflappable, and streetwise. In shows how the game, like the country, grew tracing poker’s lineage from Mississippi river- in respectability even as its nature remained boats to televised tournaments, McManus fundamentally freewheeling. He compares argues that gambling strategies influenced steamboat cardsharps of the 1830s to the national history from the fresh-start bling-sporting rappers of today and makes a aspirations of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New case for poker as the true national pastime, Deal (named after the shuffling and distribu- capable of righting baseball’s wrongs: Arnold tion of cards) to the deployment of the Rothstein, the mobster who fixed the 1919 insuperable atom bomb (described by a Man- “Black Sox” World Series, was shot dead after hattan Project scientist as “a royal straight refusing to pay his losses in a stud game he flush”). Devised in polyglot 1800s New thought was rigged. McManus revives the Orleans and honed on riverboats, poker legends of high-stakes gunslingers Wild Bill developed as a uniquely American recreation: Hickok and Doc Holliday, but he also shows a contest played by free-market people, each how friendly games became a staple of the individual convinced he was a little more FDR and Truman Oval Offices. Poker even equal than everyone else. hewed the destiny of Richard Nixon, who as a In his last book, Positively Fifth Street World War II Navy lieutenant used his “iron (2003), McManus wryly recounted his butt” to endure marathon sessions of five- improbable fifth-place finish in the 2000 card draw; the $8,000 in winnings he World Series of Poker while on a reporting brought home helped stake him to a political assignment; as a historian, he is no less lively career. and nimble. Not a page of Cowboys Full goes In its second half, Cowboys Full shifts by without a crackerjack yarn, as McManus focus to the late-20th-century rise of poker

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as a global spectator sport, with an emphasis smooshed. The argument against urban con- on epic Las Vegas tournaments at Binion’s gestion was moral, aesthetic, and increasingly Horseshoe casino and emergent World Series grounded in science. Yet in spite of the of Poker celebrities such as the laconic Texan hygienic improvements of Progressive-era Doyle Brunson and cocaine-addicted whiz municipal reforms, the birth of the federal kid Stu Ungar. The game’s “grittiness and Environmental Protection Agency, and the peril might help to explain why its outlaw more recent recognition that auto-dependent cachet continues to linger,” McManus writes, suburban sprawl poses grave environmental “even when today’s live games are played hazards, cities remain the bane of environ- mostly by well-scrubbed folks sipping mentalists. Today’s movement to “green” cities mineral water in state-sanctioned card with more open parkland, urban agriculture, rooms.” Cheating may have diminished— and ecologically minded building design though it continues to crop up in online belongs to a long tradition. games—but players still feel that they’re get- Contrary to environmentalism’s anti-urban ting away with something. bias, David Owen argues, New York City—the McManus suggests a more philosophical ur-metropolis itself—is among the greenest side of the game in the person of Herbert O. human settlements on the planet, measured Yardley, a code breaker, spy, and poker instructor in terms of its carbon footprint. “The average whose nonchalant resilience over three wars and New Yorker,” he points out, “annually countless careers becomes the book’s running generates 7.1 tons of greenhouse gases, a joke. Yardley’s own book, The Education of a lower rate than that of any other American Poker Player (1957), counseled honesty and city, and less than 30 percent of the national patience as the virtues of the poker table. “In the average.” And the beauty of it is that New end,” McManus writes, quoting the journalist Al Yorkers don’t even have to try—or to care. Alvarez, “what he is describing is not so much a Simply by not driving, and by living on top of game of cards as a style of life.” The game that one another in small apartments stacked in began as a haven for scofflaws, layabouts, and tall buildings, the denizens of Gotham do swindlers can build character, too. more for the environment than the most

Aaron Mesh is a film critic and general assignment reporter for strenuously eco-friendly composter can Willamette Week, an alternative newspaper in Portland, Oregon. imagine. For those unfamiliar with the environmen-

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY tal argument for urban density, Green Metrop- olis (which developed from a 2004 article The City’s Limits Owen wrote for The New Yorker) is a fair place to start. Owen devotes a good part of his book Reviewed by Catherine Tumber to showing that high-tech green fixes—devel- From the moment Henry oping an electric-car industry, constructing David Thoreau drove a post GREEN Leadership in Energy and Environmental METROPOLIS: into the shores of Walden Design (LEED)–certified buildings, and going Why Living Smaller, Pond, the American environ- Living Closer, off the grid with residential solar panels and mental movement declared and Driving Less other technologies—offer false comfort, as its hostility toward cities— Are the Keys to long as they perpetuate our dependence on those sooted handmaidens of Sustainability. automobile transportation. Such measures do industrial despoliation into By David Owen. little more than flatter the vanity of architects, Riverhead. which, by 1920, half the 357 pp. $25.95 engineers, and high-end, conspicuously green American population was consumers, while providing a convenient

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marketing edge for a host of new products term design, the development of land-use pol- and real estate ventures. Michael icy, and transportation planning are precisely Pollan–inspired locavores also come in for a what far-flung cities in the hinterland need in drubbing. In reducing their “food miles,” order to prepare for a low-carbon future. New Owen argues, they ignore agricultural York may be contributing more than its fair efficiencies of scale while turning over share to reducing carbon emissions, and precious urban real estate to plants rather Owen is right to question the wisdom of than people. “greening” such places. But clearly he has The other prong of Owen’s argument is never been to Cleveland. that, absent politically infeasible federal fuel Catherine Tumber is a research affiliate with the MIT Depart- taxes, only the market will get us to environ- ment of Urban Studies and Planning’s Community Innovators Lab. She is writing a book about the promise of small-to-midsize older mental El Dorado. As long as the price of oil industrial American cities in a low-carbon future. remains low, Americans will continue down the auto-dependent highway to Helldorado, RELIGION & PHILOSOPHY where each suburban dwelling consumes far more energy than its vertical-living counter- Know Thy Neighbor part: If all eight million New Yorkers were Reviewed by Peter Skerry made to live at the sparse density of the clas- On November 5, a Muslim sic New England town in which Owen himself MUSLIMS IN resides, “they would require a space U.S. Army psychiatrist, AMERICA: equivalent to the land area of the six New Major Nidal M. Hasan, AShort History. England states plus Delaware and New opened fire in a facility at By Edward E. Curtis IV. Jersey.” Fort Hood, Texas, killing one Oxford Univ. Press. 144 pp. $12.95 Owen is right about the environmental civilian and 12 fellow efficacy of higher residential density, yet he’s soldiers and wounding many more. This hor- wrong—deeply wrong—about how better to rific incident is one that many Americans concentrate population. Let’s begin with his now associate with Muslims, but the book model: Focusing on New York City certainly Muslims in America presents a strikingly dif- carries rhetorical force. But, as Owen explains ferent image. On the frontispiece is a photo at the outset, the causes of New York’s density of an attractive woman hugging a young boy, levels are historically and geographically her black hair flowing from underneath a unique. Where does that leave the rest of the hardhat bearing the emblem of the U.S. Army country? How might his argument apply to a Corps of Engineers, and her green fatigues smaller city, such as Akron, Ohio? Or to emblazoned with an American flag and her Detroit, which has lost half its population last name: Khan. over the past 50 years, and must repurpose As this image suggests, Muslims today are vast areas of vacant land? In these places, adapting to life in America and integrating urban food production and ecological restora- into American institutions. Muslim women tion make a great deal of sense. And if these are getting educated and joining the work- cities must in-fill their urban cores anyway, to force, and while they tend to dress modestly, achieve density, why not do it with green many do not wear a headscarf. And as Ameri- buildings? cans are now suddenly aware, a few thousand Owen is quick to dismiss “planners,” even Muslim Americans serve in the armed forces, though his ideas are indebted to the Smart including personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan. Growth and New Urbanism movements, This assimilation is one facet of the story that which he mentions only in passing. Long- Edward Curtis, a professor of religious studies

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at Indiana University–Purdue University, (food permitted under Islamic law). Young Mus- wants to relate. Curtis, who never explicitly says lims born and raised in the United States iden- that he is a Muslim, opens the book by describ- tify with their faith but also describe themselves ing his friendly but awkward relations with his as “spiritual but not religious.” neighbor, a Baptist preacher whose son died in To his credit, Curtis also looks at the less Iraq. He wrote this book so that Americans who benign side of Islam in America. For example, he aren’t Muslim “may come to understand Muslim traces the rise of the African-American Nation of Americans just a little bit better.” Islam, whose leader, Elijah Muhammad, By and large, Curtis achieves his objective. preached anti-white racism, discouraged follow- He describes how Muslim slaves brought to ers from voting or serving in the military, and America centuries ago from West Africa held refused to display the American flag. Yet, as Cur- on to their religious practices and managed tis also shows, Muhammad’s son and successor, to pass some of them to succeeding gener- Warith Deen Mohammed, renounced his ations. Highlighting the diverse origins and father’s racist ideology, embraced orthodox other differences among Muslims in America, Sunni Islam, and made sure the flag was flown Curtis tells of one 19th-century convert, a at every member mosque. white middle-class Protestant named Alexan- More troubling is Curtis’s account of how, der Russell Webb. He saw Islam as embody- since the 1960s, many Muslim immigrants ing American principles of rationality and have brought with them the view that Islam religious pluralism, yet refused to associate can and should transform America. Some, with working-class Muslim immigrants from like the missionary Shamin Siddiqui (who the Middle East and South Asia. came from Pakistan in 1976) have called on These newcomers, scattered across the fellow Muslim Americans to exercise their country as merchants and peddlers, adapted rights as citizens “to transform the country their faith to their new country—adulterating into an Islamic state.” it at times and reinvigorating it at others. For Curtis is a model of clarity on the details of example, in Quincy, Massachusetts, in 1961, the Muslim experience in America, but much the Arab American Banner Society raised weaker when it comes to shaping those details money for a new mosque by holding fund- into a coherent portrait. And while it’s not raising picnics where alcohol was served, unreasonable for him to begin by stating that then took out a mortgage to sustain the this is not a book about Muslim terrorists, his mosque. On occasion, the society allowed the failure to reckon with the uncomfortable ques- mosque to be used for Halloween parties and tions their existence raises further detracts from sock hops. All of these actions violated some this portrait. Muslim terrorists act in the name aspect of Islamic teaching, and, as Curtis of a religion whose nonextremist mainstream relates, the members were reminded of this runs against the grain of American society’s lib- when, in the late 1960s, a new wave of immi- eral values. Americans—Muslim and non- grants arrived bringing a more orthodox ver- Muslim alike—are sorting out whether and how sion of the faith. the battle against such terrorists is to be distin- Today that pattern is being reenacted, as guished from the debate over our cultural and Muslim newcomers sustained by the revival of religious differences. Curtis’s goal of explaining Islam overseas seek to shore up the faith of their Islam to his non-Muslim neighbor is laudable, coreligionists. Yet in the United States the inte- but his book falls short of addressing, or even gration of Muslim Americans continues in articulating, such challenges. numerous ways. National fast-food franchises, Peter Skerry teaches political science at Boston College and is a some owned by Muslims, feature halal dishes nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

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Statement of Ownership, Management, and Circulation

(Act of August 12, 1970: Section 3685, Title 39, United States Code) 1. Publication Title: THE WILSON QUARTERLY. 2. Publication number: 0363-3276. 3. Filing Date: September 30, 2009. 4. Issue Frequency: Quarterly. 5. Number of issues published annually: 4. 6. Annual subscription price: $24.00. 7. Complete mailing address of known office of publication: One Woodrow Wilson Plaza, 3rd Floor S, 1300 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, D.C., 20004. 8. Complete mailing address of general business offices of the publisher: One Woodrow Wilson Plaza, 3rd Floor S, 1300 Pennsylvania Ave, NW, Washington, D.C., 20004. 9. Names and addresses of business director, editor, managing editor: Business Director: Suzanne Napper, One Woodrow Wilson Plaza, 3rd Floor S, 1300 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, D.C., 20004. Editor: Steven Lagerfeld, One Woodrow Wilson Plaza, 3rd Floor S, 1300 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, D.C., 20004. Managing Editor: James H. Carman, One Woodrow Wilson Plaza, 3rd Floor S, 1300 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, D.C., 20004. 10. Owner: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, One Woodrow Wilson Plaza, 3rd Floor S, 1300 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, D.C., 20004. 11. Known bondholders, mortgagees, and other security holders owning or holding 1% or more of total amount of bonds, mortgages, or other securities: None. 13. Publication Title: THE WILSON QUARTERLY. 14. Issue Date for Circulation Data Below: Autumn 2009. 15. Extent and nature of circulation: Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months: a. Total number of copies: 60,678 b. Paid and/or requested circulation: (1) Paid/ Requested outside-county mail subscrip- tions stated on form 3541: 51,996 (2) Paid in-county subscriptions: 0 (3) Sales through dealers and carri- ers, street vendors, counter sales and other non USPS paid distribution: 2,692 (4) Other classes mailed through the USPS: 0 c. Total paid and/or requested circulation: 54,688 d. Free distribution by mail (sam- ples, complimentary, and other free): (1) Outside county as stated on form 3541: 0 (2) In county as stated on form 3541: 0 (3) Other classes mailed through the USPS: 0 (4) Free Distribution Outside the Mail (Carriers or Other Means): 1,988 e. Total free distribution (sum of 15d, 1-4): 1,988 f. Total Distribution (Sum of 15c and 15e): 56,676 g. Copies not distributed: 4,002 h. Total (sum of 15f & g): 60,678 i. Percent Paid and/or Requested Circulation (15c/15f x 100): 96.5%. Actual number of copies of a single issue pub- lished nearest to filing date: a. Total number of copies: 59,348 b. Paid and/or requested circulation: (1). Paid/requested outside county mail subscriptions stated on form 3541: 52,441 (2). Paid in county sub- scriptions: 0 (3) Sales through dealers and carriers, street vendors, counter sales and other non USPS paid distribution: 2,360 (4) Other classes mailed through the USPS: 0 c. Total paid and/or requested circula- tion: 54,801 d. Free distribution by mail, (samples, complimentary, and other free) (1) Outside county as stated on form 3541: 0 (2) In county as stated on form 3541: 0 (3) Other classes mailed through USPS: 0 4. Free Distribution Outside the mail (Carriers or Other Means): 1,662 e. Total Free distribution (sum of 15d, 1-4): 1,662 f. Total Distribution (Sum of 15c and 15e): 56,463 g. Copies not distributed: 2,885 h. Total (sum of 15f & g): 59,348. Percent Paid and/or Requested Circulation: 97.1%. 17. I certify that all the infor- mation furnished above is true and complete.

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Credits: Cover, AFP Photo/Marwan Naamani; p. 2, © Adam Jones/Getty Images; pp. 12, 14 (right) © Corbis. All Rights Reserved; p. 13, Markus Essler/Zoonar GmbH; p. 14 (left), The Lincoln Institute; p. 15, Courtesy Everett Collection; p. 17, Photo by John Kouns, courtesy of the Farmworker Movement Documentation Project; p. 19, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University; p. 23, Piers Benatar/PANOS; p. 24, Mapresources.com; p. 26, Babar Shah/PPI Photo; pp. 29, 76, Copyright © The Granger Collection, New York; p. 35, Photograph by Angela Sevin; p, 37, Reproduced by permission from The Places in Between, by Rory Stewart; pp. 40–41, U.S. Army photo by Staff Sergeant Adam Mancini; p. 45, dpa Picture Alliance GmbH; pp. 48–49, Photograph by Daniel Barreto— www.danielbarreto.net; p. 51, AFP Photo/AFP/Getty Images; p. 55, Ramzi Haidar/AFP/Getty Images; p. 57, Fayez Nureldine/AFP/Getty Images; p. 61, AFP Photo/Joseph Barrak; p. 62, © Thomas Hoepker/Magnum Photos; p. 67, © 2009 Robin Nelson/Zuma Wire World Photos; p. 70, Ares/Caglecartoons.com; p. 80, Courtesy, Department of Energy; p. 82, Special Collections, Ekstrom Library, University of Louisville; p. 84, AFP Photo/Yoshikazu Tsuno; p. 89, Photocomposite from two istockphoto.com images, Joseph Luoman (crowd) and Jamie Carroll (map outline); pp. 92–93, 104, Reproduced from the Collections of the Library of Congress; p. 99, UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe; p. 107, A Friend in Need, by Cassius Coolidge, Cassius Coolidge-DeMarco Production/Licensed by Rosenthal Represents (www.RosenthalRepresents.com); p. 112, © Burt Glinn/Magnum Photos.

Winter 2010 ■ Wilson Quarterly 111 PORTRAIT

The ’60s Turn 50

As the New Year arrived, oldies deejays joined balding flower children in whooping it up (with age- appropriate moderation) over the silver anniversary of the 1960s. If the 2000s were the decade with no name, the very phrase “the ’60s” speaks volumes, and even emits an odor—the pungent aroma of burning marijuana. The old controversies over the decade are themselves like an olfactory contest: Were the ’60s a sweet and hopeful time that gave the nation new dreams to live for, or a decade that reeked of self- indulgence and planted the seeds of social decay? The answers are blowing in the wind.

112 Wilson Quarterly ■ Winter 2010 TheWilson

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