Showing posts with label Armineh. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Armineh. Show all posts
Monday, May 16, 2011
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
A skeptical perspective on the US war on Libya
The current intervention in Libya is scripted as being a defense of human rights and human lives. Obama has said that he refuses “to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action.” Skeptics like me wonder if this “values” laden narrative is not just Orwellian language for defending American “interests,” the norm in American foreign policy. This skepticism is based on the following:
First, the question that immediately comes to mind is would the United States do the same thing if the Saudi Arabian government had attacked rebels trying to overthrow its government? Somehow I find this hard to imagine. Even now gross human rights violations are committed in Saudi Arabia. I wonder why Obama finds them more acceptable than what is going on in Libya.
After the Iranian elections a couple of years ago, demonstrators who were being slaughtered by the Iranian government asked for US help to stop the Iranian government from the deadly assault it carried out against its citizens. The same president Obama said back then that he was troubled by the violence, but stressed that it was up to the Iranian people to choose their leadership. Why was that different?
Second, what is very disturbing is that the opposition to Gaddafi is always called the “rebels.” There is no face to them except for the scruffy, disorganized, chaotic bunch of men that are shown on TV. Who are these people? What is their ideology and vision for Libya? They want to be in charge, but what do they represent? Are they better than Gaddafi and, if so, how?
This immense effort launched by the US and UN to arm, support, and advise these “rebels” with ambiguous and unknown views and values is not only dangerous, but supports the skepticism about what is really behind this. Could it be that the West wants to change the map of the Middle East for the 21st century, much like colonial powers did in the 20th century? Could it be that we are searching for a new and younger generation of dictators that would uphold our interests in that region of the world?
Third, how many other countries are we going to strike militarily? Would Syria be next? How about Yemen, Bahrain, or Jordan? How about the Ivory Coast, Somalia, or Congo? What about North Korea?
Fourth, there is no political infrastructure in Libya that would allow a new democratic government to be established if Gaddafi is overthrown. What does this mean in terms of US and NATO involvement after Gaddafi goes?
After Afghanistan was invaded, NATO designed a constitution for Afghanistan that does not meet Afghan reality and has proved to be useless in terms of establishing a democratic Afghanistan. The central government in Afghanistan is dubbed as the government of Kabul (as opposed to Afghanistan) and is basically an ineffective body.
I wonder if the Libyan “rebels” who are asking for foreign military aid to overthrow Gaddafi realize that they will not be in charge when Gaddafi goes. At best, NATO will design a Libyan constitution, probably without any concern for Libyan cultural and social realities. At worst, Libya will become a haven for tribal wars, where much like Iraq, it will provide fertile grounds for Al Qaeda infiltration.
Fifth, what is the goal that this war is trying to achieve? Is it to allow the “rebels” to take over? Is it to put a democratic government in place of the Gaddafi dictatorship? No clear goal has yet been articulated. How could the U.S. and the UN militarily attack a sovereign nation without a clear goal? Perhaps a change of regime is the goal. A change for an unknown and ambiguous end is not likely to improve human rights.
Lastly, if human lives and rights were the real issue, why wouldn’t we look at the prison system in the United States, with the highest total documented prison and jail population in the world? [1]
A U.S. warship fired more than 100 Tomahawk cruise missiles at Libyan air defenses in March[2]; at half a million dollars each, this is more than 50 million dollars. How many American children going to struggling public schools could benefit from these funds being applied towards their education? (According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights education is a human right.)
Why not start caring about human lives and rights at home? Don’t we Americans also deserve it?
At every instance, the world community is interconnected. This interconnection influences the various aspects of every nation and people in these nations. In Libya, the world has given Gaddafi a Carte Blanche to do as he wishes by politically isolating him as long as he has been in existence, instead of engaging him. The US habit of bombing or politically isolating countries whose leaders it doesn’t agree with or protecting dictators that it agrees with it places some responsibility on the US for events in these countries. This approach has been expensive and counter to democracy and human rights. This type of foreign policy is not based on diplomacy, but on brute force, much like what Qaddafi is employing. Obama’s assertion that this time it’s for human lives and rights appears insincere and an insult to our intelligence.
The least we deserve is that our president provides real evidence that this is improving human lives and rights.
Armineh
Friday, March 11, 2011
Book review: Poorly Made in China – An insider’s account of the tactics behind China’s production game. (By Paul Midler, 2009)
Midler is a Mandarin-speaking MBA that has spend some years working as an intermediary between American importers and Chinese manufacturers in China. In fact, he calls China home. His account of what takes place between the American importers and the Chinese manufacturers is informative, nuanced, somewhat humorous, and (in my opinion) balanced. He discusses the complexity of this relationship and who the real losers are: the American consumers.
The manufacturers will do anything to get contracts; after securing contracts, they do anything to increase their profit margins, even if it is at the expense of quality. The importers are aware of this, but turn a blind eye. They import goods that have quality flaws, with unknown effects on the consumers. The consumers buy these products not knowing that quality controls do not exist and ignorant of the fact that these products might cause serious health issues (think of shampoos, soaps, etc.).
Midler describes how the relationship between the manufacturers and importers change with time. It begins with the manufacturers pleasing the importers to get contracts; but as time goes on, the tables are turned and the importers find themselves at the mercy of the manufacturers and the Chinese suppliers win in the long term. He says that the tactics are “straight out of Sunzi’s The Art of War, and it only occurred to importers much later – if it occurred to them at all – that their suppliers knew from the very start where they planned to be at the endgame.”
Midler says, “The manufacturer-importer relationship can be seen as an allegory for the future of relations between the United States and China…. Some leaders may feel that they have only the political past to use as a guide; but in fact, they have many microcosmic examples to take from business, and in these models can be found an appreciation for a variety of strategies and tactics.”
I highly recommend this book. We often hear sound bites that are not linked to the big picture from our politicians or pundits. Midler’s on the ground account is really key to understanding this incredible economic dynamic between the U.S. and China, which has lead to incredible growth in Chinese manufacturing, while decimating the American one.
Armineh Noravian
The manufacturers will do anything to get contracts; after securing contracts, they do anything to increase their profit margins, even if it is at the expense of quality. The importers are aware of this, but turn a blind eye. They import goods that have quality flaws, with unknown effects on the consumers. The consumers buy these products not knowing that quality controls do not exist and ignorant of the fact that these products might cause serious health issues (think of shampoos, soaps, etc.).
Midler describes how the relationship between the manufacturers and importers change with time. It begins with the manufacturers pleasing the importers to get contracts; but as time goes on, the tables are turned and the importers find themselves at the mercy of the manufacturers and the Chinese suppliers win in the long term. He says that the tactics are “straight out of Sunzi’s The Art of War, and it only occurred to importers much later – if it occurred to them at all – that their suppliers knew from the very start where they planned to be at the endgame.”
Midler says, “The manufacturer-importer relationship can be seen as an allegory for the future of relations between the United States and China…. Some leaders may feel that they have only the political past to use as a guide; but in fact, they have many microcosmic examples to take from business, and in these models can be found an appreciation for a variety of strategies and tactics.”
I highly recommend this book. We often hear sound bites that are not linked to the big picture from our politicians or pundits. Midler’s on the ground account is really key to understanding this incredible economic dynamic between the U.S. and China, which has lead to incredible growth in Chinese manufacturing, while decimating the American one.
Armineh Noravian
The assault of conservative lawmakers on the federal and state level on the right to choose.
We all agree that the choice to have an abortion is a complex one. But the one thing that is demonstrated over and over is that the right for a woman to have that choice is as important as the right of any human being not be tortured.
The video here shows a Nebraskan couple who were not given the right to choose even though they knew their baby had little chance of survival, because Nebraska law prevented them from having the choice to end the pregnancy. They describe their experience as “torture.”
The mother says, “There are things worse than death.” She goes on to say “The outcome of my pregnancy, that choice was made by God. How to handle the end of my pregnancy, that choice should’ve been mine. It wasn’t because of a law.”
She has this to say about the law (that conservative legislators have pushed in place): “If they thought about their daughters, their sisters, their mothers, their wives being in this situation, they would never want them to go through that.”
See video: http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid48788398001?bckey=AQ~~,AAAACEa20sk~,awHVm72MyKltMOqg2JcN9xSyrh4zXV0_&bclid=0&bctid=815506650001
The video here shows a Nebraskan couple who were not given the right to choose even though they knew their baby had little chance of survival, because Nebraska law prevented them from having the choice to end the pregnancy. They describe their experience as “torture.”
The mother says, “There are things worse than death.” She goes on to say “The outcome of my pregnancy, that choice was made by God. How to handle the end of my pregnancy, that choice should’ve been mine. It wasn’t because of a law.”
She has this to say about the law (that conservative legislators have pushed in place): “If they thought about their daughters, their sisters, their mothers, their wives being in this situation, they would never want them to go through that.”
See video: http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid48788398001?bckey=AQ~~,AAAACEa20sk~,awHVm72MyKltMOqg2JcN9xSyrh4zXV0_&bclid=0&bctid=815506650001
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Ataturk Was a Secular Nationalist Who Implemented Massacres and Ethnic Cleansing of Millions of Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, and Other Christian Minorities in Turkey.
In an article called “Saving Aqsa Parvez” in The Humanist magazine (the official magazine of the American Humanist Association) of October 2010, the author Luis Granados said that Kemal Ataturk had brought the humanist revolution to Turkey, implying that Ataturk was a humanist. Granados is wrong about Ataturk, as Ataturk was no humanist.
Rouben Paul Adalian[i] , the Director of the Armenian National Institute in Washington, D.C., and the author of From Humanism to Rationalism: Armenian Scholarship in the Nineteenth Century, the editor of Armenia and Karabagh Factbook, and associate editor of Encyclopedia of Genocide, writes[ii]:
“Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (1881-1938) was the founder of the Republic of Turkey and the consummator of the Armenian Genocide. Kemal was an officer in the Turkish army whose defense of Gallipoli in 1915-1916 defeated the Allied campaign to breach the Dardanelles and quickly eliminate the Ottoman Empire from World War I. … he stayed out of politics until 1919 when he organized the Turkish Nationalist Movement ….
…. The attack by Kemalist units against the city of Marash in January 1920, which was accompanied by large-scale slaughtering of the Armenians, spelled the beginning of the end for the remnant Armenian population. ….
The final chapter of the Armenians in Anatolia was written in Smyrna (Izmir) [by Kemalist forces] … in September 1922. … Mustafa Kemal completed what Talaat and Enver had started in 1915, the eradication of the Armenian population of Anatolia and the termination of Armenian political aspirations in the Caucasus.
In 1936 Kemal began to pressure France to yield the Sanjak of Alexandretta, or Iskenderun, a district on the Mediterranean under French administrative rule whose inhabitants included 23,000 Armenians. Preoccupied with the deteriorating situation in Europe, France yielded when Turkey send in its troops in 1938. Kemal died that year having prepared the annexation of the district. His action precipitated the final exodus of Armenians from Turkey in 1939 as most opted for the French offer of evacuation to Syria and Lebanon rather than risk mistreatment yet again.”
[Important aside: In April 1915 the Ottoman government embarked upon the systematic decimation of its civilian Armenian population. The persecutions continued with varying intensity until 1923 when the Ottoman Empire ceased to exist and was replaced by the Republic of Turkey. The Armenian population of the Ottoman state was reported at about two million in 1915. An estimated one million had perished by 1918, while hundreds of thousands had become homeless and stateless refugees. By 1923 virtually the entire Armenian population of Anatolian Turkey had disappeared.[iii] Ataturk’s involvement in the Armenian genocide took place prior to him being designated President of the newly proclaimed Republic of Turkey in 1923, as described above.]
George J. Dariotis, the Supreme President of the American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association writes[iv]:
“While Ataturk did shape Turkey into a secular Turkish state, as Turkey's first dictator he did so by committing widespread human rights violations against his own people and by implementing the large-scale massacre and ethnic cleansing of millions of Turkey's Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians and other Christian minorities.
After his forces had already routed the Greek army out of Asia Minor in 1922, Ataturk's troops perpetrated one of the most infamous and widely reported war crimes against an urban civilian population prior to WWII. According to reports by U.S. Consul George Horton, Ataturk's troops massacred 200,000 Greeks and Armenians in Smyrna (now Izmir), burning this cosmopolitan New Testament city to the ground while Western warships passively watched from its quay.”
P. D. Spyropoulos, Executive Director of the American Hellenic Media Project writes[v]:
"Arguments advocating the collective guilt of Asia Minor's indigenous Greek population and the fact that the mass slaughters of populations and other horrors perpetrated under Ataturk's command were effected during a time of war, should make any decent-minded person recoil in horror: both the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust were perpetrated under cover of war, and these very same arguments have been used by apologists of these and other horrors to alternatively justify or excuse them."
He also writes, “Given Ataturk's pivotal role in the massacre of tens of thousands of Greek Orthodox and Armenian Christians in Smyrna during Kemal's 1922 invasion and destruction of that once-cosmopolitan city; given the fact that Kemal was a high-ranking officer in the Young Turk government when it perpetrated the Armenian and Pontian Greek genocides and that his dictatorship established the Turkish state's official doctrine of denying and covering up these genocides; given that his regime's ethnic cleansing of over a million Greeks extinguished Asia Minor's indigenous Hellenic civilization from an area that it had flourished in for two millennia (see http://www.ahmp.org/1922NYT.html for reports of the 1922 holocaust by The New York Times); given Ataturk's brutal repression of practicing Muslims; and given the fact that Kemal Ataturk is directly responsible for creating the authoritarian militocracy that continues to rank as among the worst human rights violators on earth and as Europe's worst postwar transnational aggressor -- in effect the only nationalist-fascist government to have survived the WWII era to this day -- ….”
In summary, Ataturk was a secular nationalist who implemented massacres and ethnic cleansing of millions of Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, and other Christian minorities in Turkey.
Ataturk’s belief that Islam was holding Turkey back from being able to have the power that the Western nations had is why Ataturk chose to follow a dictatorial secular path. It was a desire for power, not humanistic concerns, that motivated Ataturk. Secularism (separation of religion and government) is what all humanists and many religious groups support; but secularism in itself is not humanism.
Ataturk is also responsible for the various laws in today’s Turkey, one of which forbids people in Turkey from criticizing Ataturk. According to human rights organizations, Turkey has some of the worst records for torture, unjust arrests and disappearances, and "unsolved" murders mostly committed by state-sponsored nationalist groups that call themselves "Kemalist", after Kemal Ataturk.
Ataturk’s legacy is secularism, combined with ruthless nationalism, realized with conscious use of fatal force against innocent human beings. For Granados, the author of the article in The Humanist, describing Ataturk as a humanist and omitting mention of the atrocities he committed is much like calling Hitler a great leader and omitting mention of the holocaust. For humanism to flourish, all of us, particularly the American Humanist Association in its magazine, must be careful not to make such harmful associations.
Armineh Noravian
------------------------
[Armineh Noravian was a member of the Board of Directors of the Humanist Community in Silicon Valley between 2007-2010, where she served as Vice President in 2008 and President in 2009 and 2010. She was also President of the Silicon Valley Chapter of Americans United for Separation of Church and state from 2005-2006, and a member of the Board of Directors of the ACLU, Santa Clara Valley chapter from 2006-2008. She holds a M.S. in Engineering and a M.A. in Applied Anthropology (cultural).]
[i] http://www.abrilbooks.com/artists/2492.html (retrieved 1/5/2011)
[ii] http://www.armenian-genocide.org/kemal.html (retrieved 1/17/2011)
[iii] http://www.armenian-genocide.org/genocide.html (retrieved 1/7/2011)
[iv] http://groups.google.com/group/soc.culture.greek/msg/48ffd33b4bd555b0? (retrieved 12/8/2010)
[v] http://www.ahmp.org/AtatStat.html (retrieved 12/7/2010)
Thursday, January 13, 2011
What does Leadership Mean?
The wounding of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and 13 others, and killing six bystanders in Tucson, Arizona, sparked much discussion about gun laws and vitriolic political discourse in this country. Perhaps this horrendous event is also an opportunity to look at what leadership means in a democracy and define our own roles as citizens.
On radio and television, newspapers and blogs, there are politicians, pundits, and others who express views with the intention of influencing opinions. Regardless of whether we agree with their positions, these people play public roles as leaders; they influence not only opinions, but also actions. However, being influential or having a public platform to express views comes with responsibilities.
Being a leader means acting in a manner that’s appropriate to the situation. For instance, sometimes leadership is about sitting back and listening. Sometimes it’s about being a consensus builder. At other times it might mean defending your views passionately. A smart leader is one who can read the situation and act accordingly.
But more importantly, a leader has to do what is in the best interest of all, with the goal of creating a more democratic, inclusive, open, civil, and dignitarian society.
Leaders in political office are elected to make a difference. They have the power to bring about change that they think would benefit their constituencies. They can do so by rationally setting forth their ideas and convincing people by reasoned arguments. This is in contrast to Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona, who for political and/or ideological reasons, demonized a group of people – undocumented immigrants – and advocated a law that allowed ‘special’ treatment towards them. She did this by making incendiary remarks, such as claiming, without foundation, that headless bodies had been found in the desert and signed the bill that gave the police wide authority and responsibility to demand proof of citizenship from people suspected of being undocumented immigrants (although portions of this bill are currently being challenged in court). Even if I agreed with the idea that undocumented immigration, a complex issue, can easily be fixed by getting rid of the undocumented immigrants, I would have opposed Brewer because of her dehumanizing of immigrants in ways that I find despicable; creating fear and hatred towards others is not the kind of leadership that we need, just ask anyone who has been through a genocide or has lived as a minority. It creates the kind of atmosphere in Arizona that has caused it to be labeled the “New South”; this is not the kind of leadership that creates a better society.
The event of Tuscon has made leaders from both political parties, including Brewer, and some pundits behave in a much more cordial manner, at least publicly, and at least for now. The big exception has been no other than Sarah Palin. Even Matthew Dowd, a former political advisor to President George W. Bush, was reported as saying that Palin’s message was not appropriate for the moment of national grief and that she had missed an opportunity to be seen as a leader. He was quoted as saying “Sarah Palin seems trapped in a world that is all about confrontation and bravado… When the country seeks comforting and consensus, she offers conflict and confrontation.” It seems that Palin is the kind of leader that is unable to judge the situation and act appropriately.
Perhaps the real lesson learned here is our role in a democracy: to clearly define expectations of our leadership and hold our leaders to it. Leaders have to be able to articulate a vision on complex issues that meet the needs of all in a manner that is not vitriolic, bullying, intimidating, or dehumanizing. Disagreeing passionately is good; disagreeing using threat and intimidation is not. If any public figures cross the line, if they dehumanize a group of people and select them for special treatment, they should be shunned. These are not acts of leadership, but acts of irresponsibility and destructiveness. We deserve better.
Armineh Noravian
On radio and television, newspapers and blogs, there are politicians, pundits, and others who express views with the intention of influencing opinions. Regardless of whether we agree with their positions, these people play public roles as leaders; they influence not only opinions, but also actions. However, being influential or having a public platform to express views comes with responsibilities.
Being a leader means acting in a manner that’s appropriate to the situation. For instance, sometimes leadership is about sitting back and listening. Sometimes it’s about being a consensus builder. At other times it might mean defending your views passionately. A smart leader is one who can read the situation and act accordingly.
But more importantly, a leader has to do what is in the best interest of all, with the goal of creating a more democratic, inclusive, open, civil, and dignitarian society.
Leaders in political office are elected to make a difference. They have the power to bring about change that they think would benefit their constituencies. They can do so by rationally setting forth their ideas and convincing people by reasoned arguments. This is in contrast to Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona, who for political and/or ideological reasons, demonized a group of people – undocumented immigrants – and advocated a law that allowed ‘special’ treatment towards them. She did this by making incendiary remarks, such as claiming, without foundation, that headless bodies had been found in the desert and signed the bill that gave the police wide authority and responsibility to demand proof of citizenship from people suspected of being undocumented immigrants (although portions of this bill are currently being challenged in court). Even if I agreed with the idea that undocumented immigration, a complex issue, can easily be fixed by getting rid of the undocumented immigrants, I would have opposed Brewer because of her dehumanizing of immigrants in ways that I find despicable; creating fear and hatred towards others is not the kind of leadership that we need, just ask anyone who has been through a genocide or has lived as a minority. It creates the kind of atmosphere in Arizona that has caused it to be labeled the “New South”; this is not the kind of leadership that creates a better society.
The event of Tuscon has made leaders from both political parties, including Brewer, and some pundits behave in a much more cordial manner, at least publicly, and at least for now. The big exception has been no other than Sarah Palin. Even Matthew Dowd, a former political advisor to President George W. Bush, was reported as saying that Palin’s message was not appropriate for the moment of national grief and that she had missed an opportunity to be seen as a leader. He was quoted as saying “Sarah Palin seems trapped in a world that is all about confrontation and bravado… When the country seeks comforting and consensus, she offers conflict and confrontation.” It seems that Palin is the kind of leader that is unable to judge the situation and act appropriately.
Perhaps the real lesson learned here is our role in a democracy: to clearly define expectations of our leadership and hold our leaders to it. Leaders have to be able to articulate a vision on complex issues that meet the needs of all in a manner that is not vitriolic, bullying, intimidating, or dehumanizing. Disagreeing passionately is good; disagreeing using threat and intimidation is not. If any public figures cross the line, if they dehumanize a group of people and select them for special treatment, they should be shunned. These are not acts of leadership, but acts of irresponsibility and destructiveness. We deserve better.
Armineh Noravian
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Humanist holiday donation to the VMC Foundation
Almost every December, I make a donation to the pediatrics department of a hospital in the San Francisco Bay Area. This year I chose the Valley Medical Center (VMC) in San Jose.
After some inquiries, I learned that the pediatrics department at VMC prefers to receive cash, as opposed to toys, so that they could purchase items which could be used by all kids (for example a new TV).
As I had done last year, I asked the Humanist Community to join me in this effort. I am happy to say that in early December, a total of $560 was sent to the VMC Foundation from:
a. San Francisco Bay Area Humanists - $100
b. Humanist Community in Silicon Valley - $460
Thanks to all for helping make a positive impact locally!
Happy 2011 to everyone!
Armineh Noravian
After some inquiries, I learned that the pediatrics department at VMC prefers to receive cash, as opposed to toys, so that they could purchase items which could be used by all kids (for example a new TV).
As I had done last year, I asked the Humanist Community to join me in this effort. I am happy to say that in early December, a total of $560 was sent to the VMC Foundation from:
a. San Francisco Bay Area Humanists - $100
b. Humanist Community in Silicon Valley - $460
Thanks to all for helping make a positive impact locally!
Happy 2011 to everyone!
Armineh Noravian
Friday, November 19, 2010
Humanism and Politics
By Armineh Noravian
Within the Humanist movement, there is a belief that political and economic ideologies should not and cannot be addressed via the Humanist philosophy because Humanists can differ widely from one another in their political views. What exactly does this mean and how does it affect what we do (or don’t do)?
Many Humanists support and sometimes even actively participate in organizations that have political clout and resources, and can influence changes that they deem important. But the one thing we don’t do is to organize as Humanists to make changes under the Humanist banner, unless it is in response to the Religious Right or about our favorite subject, separation of religion and government.
What I would like to do in this essay is to discuss (as provocatively as possible) the subject of Humanist involvement in politics.
As Humanists we have the Affirmations of Humanism, the Humanist Manifestos I, II, III, and 2000, the Amsterdam Declaration, and the Neo-Humanist Statement of Secular Principles and Values: Personal, Progressive, and Planetary. What can we do to make Humanism more than just a set of impressive manifestos, affirmations, and declarations?
The claim that political and economic ideologies should not and/or cannot be addressed via the Humanist philosophy leads one to think that these various affirmations, manifestos, and declarations don’t play a meaningful role in the lives of Humanists; it’s as if there is no alignment between these Humanist documents and the lives of those who claim to be Humanists and that these documents are irrelevant to the worldview of Humanists and unable to inform their actions. Worse than that, the downside of this is that Humanists cannot agree on any issue that is politically significant; this means that they are not able to take on an issue that will lead to significant social change and perhaps make Humanism relevant in the real world.
Even a cursory look at a couple of these documents shows why these arguments are false.
The manifestos, affirmations, and declarations can and do inform our actions - actions that could guide us socially, politically, and economically. For example, the Amsterdam Declaration says, “Humanism supports democracy and Human rights.” The Humanist Manifesto III says, “We seek to minimize the inequities of circumstance and ability, and we support a just distribution of nature's resources and the fruits of human effort so that as many as possible can enjoy a good life.” Clearly, these are supportive of political and economic rights, as well as civil and human rights. Furthermore, Humanism can provide a common framework for people all over the world. But for Humanism to be more than just a set of manifestos, affirmations, and declarations we need to do more than just talk; we need a pragmatic Humanist activism based on the ideas and ideals in these numerous manifestos and affirmations to give life to what are now merely words on paper.
This means that we need to articulate a coherent social, political, and economic vision of a more reasonable world and have our voices represented in the political arena. Otherwise, we’ll be doing what we are very good at doing, and that is, complaining that the Religious Right has too much voice and power.
What do we need to overcome? What are some of our challenges?
It appears that we Humanists prefer to keep to generalities because we can agree on those. It is often said that we should have an open-ended approach to issues; we also have a tendency to steer clear of social or political action, unless it is one of our favorite targets. This is one of the challenges that we need to overcome.
Our current approach allows many controversies to go without resolution within most Humanist groups, which provides a false appearance of ideological unity. We fear that getting into details will trigger conflict and cause the group to fall apart. This is why we are not able to have a unified public voice that articulates a Humanistic position on important and relevant issues of the day to counter the irrational voices that have taken over; this is why we are not able to apply Humanistic thinking to real world problems; and this is why, unlike most other groups, we have not been able to produce political leaders representing our Humanist philosophy.
One of the implications here is that we value our individualism and personal freedom to the point that to be inclusive we can only focus on generalities. One of the problems with this is that the inclusion and equal treatment of the range of views creates an environment where Humanists work against each other. This leads us to more debate and conflict, as opposed to compromise and action. But to take public positions on issues, we need to articulate a clear and unified position that is informed by our affirmations, manifestos, and declarations. If we are not able to do this, it would follow that our Humanist philosophy is more suited to private than to public life.
I think the notion that we need to stay with generalities to be inclusive is totally false, destructive, and irrational. First, it squelches reasoned and rational discourse on significant issues. Second, there are many specifics that we can all agree on under the broad generalized statement in our various Humanist documents because ultimately we agree on things that are basic human decencies and are reasonable. And third, those who believe we can only agree on the generalities, but not the means, show a lack of imagination, for there is a spectrum of means that are reasonable and possible only if we seek them.
I would like to address this fear that taking positions will lead to arguments and conflict, and be an alienating experience for those whose positions are not adopted by either their local Humanist groups or by more nationally organized groups, and that this will cause people to leave these groups and even cause groups to fall apart. Since the beginning of time, even in the simplest hunter and gatherer societies, humans have used political processes to manage dissent and slowly move discussions, debates, and negotiations toward a kind of closure that could serve as the basis of action. This type of closure is arrived at through consensus, compromise, or majority opinion. This simple human ability to use a political process to come to closure on issues that then guide our actions is what allows us to survive as humans. It provides the big tent under which we are all able to coexist. When we become ideological to the point that we are not able to do this, we have moved away from the Humanist position of rational and critical thinking; this should be a more serious concern than the group falling apart.
Another major issue that is commonly brought up when it comes to Humanists taking action: Being a Humanist or a non-religious person is a hurdle that prevents most Humanists from entering the world of politics. In other words, the “god thing” matters.
Although the god thing may matter, we have successful politicians, such as Pete Stark, who are atheists. So the god thing is not the only thing that matters. There are many other things that prevent Humanists from successfully entering the world of politics.
We need to learn to separate the private from the public. During an election debate with Bush, Kerry was told that Catholic archbishops stated that it would be a sin to vote for a candidate who supported unlimited stem-cell research and a woman’s right to choose. Kerry’s response was, “I can't legislate or transfer to another American citizen my article of faith. What is an article of faith for me is not something that I can legislate on somebody who doesn't share that article of faith. I believe that choice is a woman's choice.” This is not just a respect for our Constitution, but a separation between the private and public domain of Kerry’s life. We Humanists need to learn to do this.
Also, we need to learn to become part of a team. Our individuality will not disappear if we set aside our individual opinions and work toward a fusion of ideas that might better reflect a humanistic view as opposed to our own private view. Individuality and self-centeredness are two different things.
More importantly, getting involved in politics doesn’t mean that we need to vote for any candidate who publicly declares that he or she is an atheist. Our focus should be on the vision of the candidate. A good Humanist candidate is one who supports humanistic economics over corporate capitalism, who supports religious tolerance, and who is willing to change social structures in a way that would increase self-reliance and safeguard the dignity of human beings. In other words, he or she subscribes to the various Humanist values enshrined in our numerous documents.
Furthermore, what may prevent Humanists from successfully getting involved in politics is, what I call an attitude problem: We believe that we are the world’s best skeptics. In my opinion, we do not hold a monopoly on skepticism, and we sometimes misuse it and are confused by it. Ordinarily, healthy skepticism provides the basis for examining commonly held beliefs, questions the accuracy of certain ideas, and brings the structures that support inaccurate ideas into the limelight for closer scrutiny. This is a good thing. But if skepticism is used to ridicule most of the ideas that give meaning to people’s lives, without providing compelling alternatives, then it is destructive.
Conclusion:
In an issue of The Progressive, in an article entitled “Winning Isn’t Everything,” Steve Cobble, who worked on Kucinich’s campaign, said the following: “Sometimes, … politics is changing the landscape. … [S]ometimes politics is about changing the behavior of a major party. Or... strengthening a constituency that a major party can then adopt or co-opt. Sometimes … politics is about bringing new blood into a stagnant system, training a new cadre of organizers, changing the rules of the game. And sometimes … politics is about poetry as well as prose, offering a new way of thinking about America, challenging the power structure head-on, giving voice to the voiceless.”
I know that not everyone is a politician, nor does everyone want to be one. But I think the majority of us are involved in the democratic process one way or another, because we believe that even the little we contribute today creates an opportunity for someone to build on tomorrow. It allows us to speak truth to power and make others more seriously consider the issues; it keeps significant issues alive. We do this either though various organizations or individually.
Let me ask the question that I asked at the beginning of this essay: What can we do to make Humanism more than just a set of impressive manifestos, affirmations, and declarations?
I think one answer to this question is that we should practice Humanism and not just speak about it. Our Humanist philosophy - as stated in our manifestos, aspirations, declarations - is our guide to social, political, and economic action. We should get over the barriers that we have created for ourselves and start practicing our ideals, as enshrined in our Humanistic documents, for these will allow cultural changes, which will in time support a much more secular and dignitarian society, where the welfare of human beings comes first.
We should be leading this effort because it’s the Humanist thing to do. As they say, “Let us be good ancestors.”
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Armineh Noravian was a member of the Board of Directors of the Humanist Community in Silicon Valley between 2007-2010, where she served as Vice President in 2008 and President in 2009 and 2010. She was also President of the Silicon Valley Chapter of Americans United for Separation of Church and state from 2005-2006, and a member of the Board of Directors of the ACLU, Santa Clara Valley chapter from 2006-2008. She holds a M.S. in Engineering and a M.A. in Applied Anthropology (cultural).
Within the Humanist movement, there is a belief that political and economic ideologies should not and cannot be addressed via the Humanist philosophy because Humanists can differ widely from one another in their political views. What exactly does this mean and how does it affect what we do (or don’t do)?
Many Humanists support and sometimes even actively participate in organizations that have political clout and resources, and can influence changes that they deem important. But the one thing we don’t do is to organize as Humanists to make changes under the Humanist banner, unless it is in response to the Religious Right or about our favorite subject, separation of religion and government.
What I would like to do in this essay is to discuss (as provocatively as possible) the subject of Humanist involvement in politics.
As Humanists we have the Affirmations of Humanism, the Humanist Manifestos I, II, III, and 2000, the Amsterdam Declaration, and the Neo-Humanist Statement of Secular Principles and Values: Personal, Progressive, and Planetary. What can we do to make Humanism more than just a set of impressive manifestos, affirmations, and declarations?
The claim that political and economic ideologies should not and/or cannot be addressed via the Humanist philosophy leads one to think that these various affirmations, manifestos, and declarations don’t play a meaningful role in the lives of Humanists; it’s as if there is no alignment between these Humanist documents and the lives of those who claim to be Humanists and that these documents are irrelevant to the worldview of Humanists and unable to inform their actions. Worse than that, the downside of this is that Humanists cannot agree on any issue that is politically significant; this means that they are not able to take on an issue that will lead to significant social change and perhaps make Humanism relevant in the real world.
Even a cursory look at a couple of these documents shows why these arguments are false.
The manifestos, affirmations, and declarations can and do inform our actions - actions that could guide us socially, politically, and economically. For example, the Amsterdam Declaration says, “Humanism supports democracy and Human rights.” The Humanist Manifesto III says, “We seek to minimize the inequities of circumstance and ability, and we support a just distribution of nature's resources and the fruits of human effort so that as many as possible can enjoy a good life.” Clearly, these are supportive of political and economic rights, as well as civil and human rights. Furthermore, Humanism can provide a common framework for people all over the world. But for Humanism to be more than just a set of manifestos, affirmations, and declarations we need to do more than just talk; we need a pragmatic Humanist activism based on the ideas and ideals in these numerous manifestos and affirmations to give life to what are now merely words on paper.
This means that we need to articulate a coherent social, political, and economic vision of a more reasonable world and have our voices represented in the political arena. Otherwise, we’ll be doing what we are very good at doing, and that is, complaining that the Religious Right has too much voice and power.
What do we need to overcome? What are some of our challenges?
It appears that we Humanists prefer to keep to generalities because we can agree on those. It is often said that we should have an open-ended approach to issues; we also have a tendency to steer clear of social or political action, unless it is one of our favorite targets. This is one of the challenges that we need to overcome.
Our current approach allows many controversies to go without resolution within most Humanist groups, which provides a false appearance of ideological unity. We fear that getting into details will trigger conflict and cause the group to fall apart. This is why we are not able to have a unified public voice that articulates a Humanistic position on important and relevant issues of the day to counter the irrational voices that have taken over; this is why we are not able to apply Humanistic thinking to real world problems; and this is why, unlike most other groups, we have not been able to produce political leaders representing our Humanist philosophy.
One of the implications here is that we value our individualism and personal freedom to the point that to be inclusive we can only focus on generalities. One of the problems with this is that the inclusion and equal treatment of the range of views creates an environment where Humanists work against each other. This leads us to more debate and conflict, as opposed to compromise and action. But to take public positions on issues, we need to articulate a clear and unified position that is informed by our affirmations, manifestos, and declarations. If we are not able to do this, it would follow that our Humanist philosophy is more suited to private than to public life.
I think the notion that we need to stay with generalities to be inclusive is totally false, destructive, and irrational. First, it squelches reasoned and rational discourse on significant issues. Second, there are many specifics that we can all agree on under the broad generalized statement in our various Humanist documents because ultimately we agree on things that are basic human decencies and are reasonable. And third, those who believe we can only agree on the generalities, but not the means, show a lack of imagination, for there is a spectrum of means that are reasonable and possible only if we seek them.
I would like to address this fear that taking positions will lead to arguments and conflict, and be an alienating experience for those whose positions are not adopted by either their local Humanist groups or by more nationally organized groups, and that this will cause people to leave these groups and even cause groups to fall apart. Since the beginning of time, even in the simplest hunter and gatherer societies, humans have used political processes to manage dissent and slowly move discussions, debates, and negotiations toward a kind of closure that could serve as the basis of action. This type of closure is arrived at through consensus, compromise, or majority opinion. This simple human ability to use a political process to come to closure on issues that then guide our actions is what allows us to survive as humans. It provides the big tent under which we are all able to coexist. When we become ideological to the point that we are not able to do this, we have moved away from the Humanist position of rational and critical thinking; this should be a more serious concern than the group falling apart.
Another major issue that is commonly brought up when it comes to Humanists taking action: Being a Humanist or a non-religious person is a hurdle that prevents most Humanists from entering the world of politics. In other words, the “god thing” matters.
Although the god thing may matter, we have successful politicians, such as Pete Stark, who are atheists. So the god thing is not the only thing that matters. There are many other things that prevent Humanists from successfully entering the world of politics.
We need to learn to separate the private from the public. During an election debate with Bush, Kerry was told that Catholic archbishops stated that it would be a sin to vote for a candidate who supported unlimited stem-cell research and a woman’s right to choose. Kerry’s response was, “I can't legislate or transfer to another American citizen my article of faith. What is an article of faith for me is not something that I can legislate on somebody who doesn't share that article of faith. I believe that choice is a woman's choice.” This is not just a respect for our Constitution, but a separation between the private and public domain of Kerry’s life. We Humanists need to learn to do this.
Also, we need to learn to become part of a team. Our individuality will not disappear if we set aside our individual opinions and work toward a fusion of ideas that might better reflect a humanistic view as opposed to our own private view. Individuality and self-centeredness are two different things.
More importantly, getting involved in politics doesn’t mean that we need to vote for any candidate who publicly declares that he or she is an atheist. Our focus should be on the vision of the candidate. A good Humanist candidate is one who supports humanistic economics over corporate capitalism, who supports religious tolerance, and who is willing to change social structures in a way that would increase self-reliance and safeguard the dignity of human beings. In other words, he or she subscribes to the various Humanist values enshrined in our numerous documents.
Furthermore, what may prevent Humanists from successfully getting involved in politics is, what I call an attitude problem: We believe that we are the world’s best skeptics. In my opinion, we do not hold a monopoly on skepticism, and we sometimes misuse it and are confused by it. Ordinarily, healthy skepticism provides the basis for examining commonly held beliefs, questions the accuracy of certain ideas, and brings the structures that support inaccurate ideas into the limelight for closer scrutiny. This is a good thing. But if skepticism is used to ridicule most of the ideas that give meaning to people’s lives, without providing compelling alternatives, then it is destructive.
Conclusion:
In an issue of The Progressive, in an article entitled “Winning Isn’t Everything,” Steve Cobble, who worked on Kucinich’s campaign, said the following: “Sometimes, … politics is changing the landscape. … [S]ometimes politics is about changing the behavior of a major party. Or... strengthening a constituency that a major party can then adopt or co-opt. Sometimes … politics is about bringing new blood into a stagnant system, training a new cadre of organizers, changing the rules of the game. And sometimes … politics is about poetry as well as prose, offering a new way of thinking about America, challenging the power structure head-on, giving voice to the voiceless.”
I know that not everyone is a politician, nor does everyone want to be one. But I think the majority of us are involved in the democratic process one way or another, because we believe that even the little we contribute today creates an opportunity for someone to build on tomorrow. It allows us to speak truth to power and make others more seriously consider the issues; it keeps significant issues alive. We do this either though various organizations or individually.
Let me ask the question that I asked at the beginning of this essay: What can we do to make Humanism more than just a set of impressive manifestos, affirmations, and declarations?
I think one answer to this question is that we should practice Humanism and not just speak about it. Our Humanist philosophy - as stated in our manifestos, aspirations, declarations - is our guide to social, political, and economic action. We should get over the barriers that we have created for ourselves and start practicing our ideals, as enshrined in our Humanistic documents, for these will allow cultural changes, which will in time support a much more secular and dignitarian society, where the welfare of human beings comes first.
We should be leading this effort because it’s the Humanist thing to do. As they say, “Let us be good ancestors.”
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Armineh Noravian was a member of the Board of Directors of the Humanist Community in Silicon Valley between 2007-2010, where she served as Vice President in 2008 and President in 2009 and 2010. She was also President of the Silicon Valley Chapter of Americans United for Separation of Church and state from 2005-2006, and a member of the Board of Directors of the ACLU, Santa Clara Valley chapter from 2006-2008. She holds a M.S. in Engineering and a M.A. in Applied Anthropology (cultural).
Monday, October 18, 2010
Humanist Ethics and the Problem of U.S. Militarism - by Armineh Noravian
The following is a transcript of a talk I gave at the American Humanist Association Conference in San Jose (June 2010).
___________________________________________________________
We live in a world where we see hunger, poverty, cruelty, and injustice; we see human rights violations. As humanists we have causes that are morally justifiable to fight for. But to be consistent with our humanistic values, it is obvious that just any means to that end will not do. We need to always remember the words in the humanist manifesto that define our means loud and clear. Those words are: “differences are resolved cooperatively without resorting to violence.”
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights clearly spells out universal human rights in 30 articles. Nowhere in this document does it condone war as a means to achieving human rights. Nowhere does it suggest that the life of human beings should be jeopardized or sacrificed in defense of deeply held rigid beliefs. In fact, the whole spirit of the Enlightenment and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is to preserve the rights of each individual human being, with the primary right being the right to life.
The United States is currently involved in two war fronts, one in Afghanistan and one in Iraq. I am going to talk about both these wars from the perspective of a humanist and attempt to put a human face on these conflicts.
Let me begin with 9/11.
9/11 was a horrific and unforgettable experience for our country and certainly for those who were directly affected by it. 2,993 people from over 90 countries lost their lives. This attack was orchestrated and carried out by Al Qaeda, a terrorist group, hiding out in Afghanistan. Al Qaeda is a militarized and politicized Islamic group that developed partly as a result of CIA recruitment and training of the Mujahideen militants to defeat the Russians in the 1980s. 9/11 became President Bush’s justification for attacking Afghanistan in October 2001 and we’ve been there ever since.
Since the 9/11 attack was not carried out by the government of Afghanistan, but by a terrorist group made up of mostly Saudi citizens hiding in that country, it would be reasonable for humanists to ask, if a terrorist group hiding out in England were to have been behind the 9/11 attacks, would the United States have declared war on England and attacked England?
I don’t think so.
The attack on Afghanistan held the entire Afghan population responsible for the terror attack.
After 9 years we have not caught Bin Ladin. We have not eliminated Al Qaeda. We have not brought peace or stability to Afghanistan. We have not made Americans safer. We have not diminished the threat of terrorism.
We have however helped Al Qaeda morph into a real 21st century organization of “terrorists without borders.” We have avenged the deaths of the 2993 people who were killed on 9/11 by killing many times that number in Afghanistan.
The invasion of Afghanistan does not seem to have been based on reason, but on vengeance.
Remember, Humanists are big on reason.
The justification for this war has evolved. What began as a war against those who carried out 9/11 nine years ago, is now touted as a good war that is “liberating” the oppressed women of Afghanistan from the hands of the Taliban.
Some of the women of Afghanistan have a very different perspective on this topic. RAWA, which is the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, says, “The US ‘War on Terrorism’ removed the Taliban regime in October 2001, but it has not removed religious fundamentalism, which is the main cause of all our miseries. In fact, by reinstalling the warlords in power in Afghanistan, the US administration is replacing one fundamentalist regime with another. The US government and Mr. Karzai mostly rely on Northern Alliance criminal leaders who are as brutal and misogynist as the Taliban.”
So we can pat ourselves on the back because in 9 years we have managed to replace one group of thugs with another.
The story of the war in Iraq is even worse.
The war in Iraq was begun in March 2003. President Bush repeatedly asserted that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, even though the UN inspectors said they could not find any evidence of such weapons. As humanists we are big on evidence. But even though there was no evidence of weapons of mass destruction, some of the supporters of this war were people who call themselves humanists. The reason for this support was obviously not evidence, but fear. This preemptive strike was a strike based on an emotional justification, not a reasoned justification.
The U.S. invasion of Iraq, to rid the country of Saddam Hussein and his two sons (a total of three people), has been the cause of over one million Iraqi deaths , and countless who have been maimed, traumatized, displaced, shell shocked, and forced to live in desperate conditions around the world.
As the war raged on and the death toll rose, and as weapons of mass destruction were not found, President Bush and all those who supported this invasion made up other reasons to justify this war, reasons that fit the myth of “spreading” democracy and human rights, to those uncivilized others, the Arabs and the Muslims.
Women and minority groups who were said to have been repressed by Saddam Hussein and who were also used as justification for the invasion, have now lost virtually all of their rights.
Some claim one of the benefits of this invasion is a democratically elected Iraqi government. But this so-called democratically elected government was elected in an atmosphere of fear, violence, and intimidation.
Let me switch gears here.
People like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mohandas Gandhi have moved mountains through peaceful means. The changes they have brought about are long lasting. Our Humanist Manifesto captures their deeds with the following words: “Humanists long for and strive toward a world of mutual care and concern, free of cruelty and its consequences, where differences are resolved cooperatively without resorting to violence.”
Neither the war in Afghanistan nor in Iraq has brought about a change that can be considered long lasting or for the good of humanity. Neither war has been based on reason or evidence; both have been justified by pure emotion – vengeance and fear.
King and Gandhi fought with nonviolent means, and they won. They brought about changes that improved the human condition. Compare that with the outcome of the violent, deadly and costly wars we have fought in Afghanistan and Iraq. Although these wars have significantly improved the profits for corporations involved in the military industrial complex, they have not improved the overall human condition.
Unfortunately, I have observed that there are people who hold their belief system dearer than the lives of other people, and would kill people to defend their belief. Our humanist belief system, at its core, is fundamentally about appreciation of human life. It is therefore an absolute contradiction to kill human beings to further such a belief system. In other words, you cannot kill to further humanism.
As an ethnic Armenian, I have inherited a painful history. The Armenian Genocide, which historians call the first genocide of the 20th century, was not something that I experienced, but my grandparents did. Even so, after two generations, I find it difficult to talk about it or to look at photographs of the dead bodies of Armenian men, women, and children without feeling pain. Pain is passed along from generation to generation.
What we have done in Iraq and in Afghanistan will leave a painful legacy that will be suffered for generations to come. The grandchildren of survivors will look back and feel the pain that we, the United States, caused them. They will not forget or forgive us for what we have done.
I was born in the Middle East. I would say that I look like a typical person from the Middle East. I could pass for a person from Afghanistan or Iraq; I could pass for an Arab or a Jew from the Middle East. When I look at those people in Iraq or Afghanistan, or Palestine or Israel, when I see their photos, I think of my parents, my relatives, my cousins, my siblings; I think of them as me.
I feel for their loss as I would feel for the loss of someone who was part of my family. They are not faceless or voiceless for me.
I have two boys who are not too far off in age than the average American soldier who has been either killed or maimed for life in these wars. Our soldiers or their families are not faceless or voiceless for me.
As a humanist, I see all people on this planet as part of one gigantic family. I don’t see their lives as something that I can casually dispense with for any end.
Those who defend these wars in Afghanistan and Iraq often gloss over the lives of people who have been killed, as if they are disposable. In conversations you sometimes hear people say something like, “the deaths toll can’t be ignored, BUT, Saddam was a bad guy who killed people.” There is always the BUT, to justify the deaths of people.
Sometimes they call the killing of civilians “collateral damage”. These deaths are spoken of almost as a side issue, and often not tracked or reported. They are deemed as necessary to achieve an uncertain end.
I could have been born in Iraq or Afghanistan. Life’s circumstances could have dictated that I remained there. I could have been declared collateral damage by those who justify killing civilians in the name of liberating them. I could have been one of the women who is displaced because her home was destroyed, or her spouse and children were maimed and killed. My kids could have been those kids who saw their parents killed right in front of their eyes.
As human beings, we are limited in our ability to imagine the pain of other people. If we are not connected to the pain we cause, we can become good at inflicting pain. If all we see are images that appear like fireworks on TV when our air power is attacking Iraq at night, or dust rising in the distance from our bombs, we don’t feel the pain of those who are maimed, killed, and suffer as a result of our attacks.
As an American and a person who has her roots in the Middle East, I am deeply disturbed to see human beings killed in countries of this region funded by our tax dollars, cheered on by those who support wars, under the guise of defending human rights.
And now to close: As humanists we should remember that deeply held beliefs make it easy to accept the absurd. It can create hubris. Propaganda such as “we are going to war to liberate people” or “we are bringing democracy to people” or “we are protecting America” are the new myths that have replaced the older ones that said “we are bringing civilization and Christianity to the native Americans, or the Mexicans.”
As humanists, we should be able to differentiate between propaganda and facts: War is violence and violence does not bring about security.
As humanists, we should not outsource our moral responsibility; we should seek out those who present pseudo-rational arguments in favor of war and expose them for their lack of reasoning and lack of compassion.
There are numerous possibilities between the extremes of all out war on one hand and appeasement on the other. It is our lack of imagination and our failure to envision other possibilities that limits our options to these two extremes.
Just envision what real diplomacy could do.
Conflict is natural. Conflict resolution is natural. But war is not conflict resolution. Just imagine what a humanistic foreign policy could do.
From a humanist point of view, war is a human catastrophe. As Humanists, we should advocate diplomacy to prevent situations that ultimately lead to wars and to identify solutions that would pave the path for peaceful alternatives to war.
Lastly, one cannot be a humanist and advocate militarism.
_____________________________________________________________
Armineh Noravian was a member of the Board of Directors of the Humanist Community in Silicon Valley between 2007-2010, where she served as Vice President in 2008 and President in 2009 and 2010. She was also President of the Silicon Valley Chapter of Americans United for Separation of Church and state from 2005-2006, and a member of the Board of Directors of the ACLU, Santa Clara Valley chapter from 2006-2008. She holds a M.S. in Engineering and a M.A. in Applied Anthropology (cultural).
___________________________________________________________
We live in a world where we see hunger, poverty, cruelty, and injustice; we see human rights violations. As humanists we have causes that are morally justifiable to fight for. But to be consistent with our humanistic values, it is obvious that just any means to that end will not do. We need to always remember the words in the humanist manifesto that define our means loud and clear. Those words are: “differences are resolved cooperatively without resorting to violence.”
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights clearly spells out universal human rights in 30 articles. Nowhere in this document does it condone war as a means to achieving human rights. Nowhere does it suggest that the life of human beings should be jeopardized or sacrificed in defense of deeply held rigid beliefs. In fact, the whole spirit of the Enlightenment and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is to preserve the rights of each individual human being, with the primary right being the right to life.
The United States is currently involved in two war fronts, one in Afghanistan and one in Iraq. I am going to talk about both these wars from the perspective of a humanist and attempt to put a human face on these conflicts.
Let me begin with 9/11.
9/11 was a horrific and unforgettable experience for our country and certainly for those who were directly affected by it. 2,993 people from over 90 countries lost their lives. This attack was orchestrated and carried out by Al Qaeda, a terrorist group, hiding out in Afghanistan. Al Qaeda is a militarized and politicized Islamic group that developed partly as a result of CIA recruitment and training of the Mujahideen militants to defeat the Russians in the 1980s. 9/11 became President Bush’s justification for attacking Afghanistan in October 2001 and we’ve been there ever since.
Since the 9/11 attack was not carried out by the government of Afghanistan, but by a terrorist group made up of mostly Saudi citizens hiding in that country, it would be reasonable for humanists to ask, if a terrorist group hiding out in England were to have been behind the 9/11 attacks, would the United States have declared war on England and attacked England?
I don’t think so.
The attack on Afghanistan held the entire Afghan population responsible for the terror attack.
After 9 years we have not caught Bin Ladin. We have not eliminated Al Qaeda. We have not brought peace or stability to Afghanistan. We have not made Americans safer. We have not diminished the threat of terrorism.
We have however helped Al Qaeda morph into a real 21st century organization of “terrorists without borders.” We have avenged the deaths of the 2993 people who were killed on 9/11 by killing many times that number in Afghanistan.
The invasion of Afghanistan does not seem to have been based on reason, but on vengeance.
Remember, Humanists are big on reason.
The justification for this war has evolved. What began as a war against those who carried out 9/11 nine years ago, is now touted as a good war that is “liberating” the oppressed women of Afghanistan from the hands of the Taliban.
Some of the women of Afghanistan have a very different perspective on this topic. RAWA, which is the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, says, “The US ‘War on Terrorism’ removed the Taliban regime in October 2001, but it has not removed religious fundamentalism, which is the main cause of all our miseries. In fact, by reinstalling the warlords in power in Afghanistan, the US administration is replacing one fundamentalist regime with another. The US government and Mr. Karzai mostly rely on Northern Alliance criminal leaders who are as brutal and misogynist as the Taliban.”
So we can pat ourselves on the back because in 9 years we have managed to replace one group of thugs with another.
The story of the war in Iraq is even worse.
The war in Iraq was begun in March 2003. President Bush repeatedly asserted that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, even though the UN inspectors said they could not find any evidence of such weapons. As humanists we are big on evidence. But even though there was no evidence of weapons of mass destruction, some of the supporters of this war were people who call themselves humanists. The reason for this support was obviously not evidence, but fear. This preemptive strike was a strike based on an emotional justification, not a reasoned justification.
The U.S. invasion of Iraq, to rid the country of Saddam Hussein and his two sons (a total of three people), has been the cause of over one million Iraqi deaths , and countless who have been maimed, traumatized, displaced, shell shocked, and forced to live in desperate conditions around the world.
As the war raged on and the death toll rose, and as weapons of mass destruction were not found, President Bush and all those who supported this invasion made up other reasons to justify this war, reasons that fit the myth of “spreading” democracy and human rights, to those uncivilized others, the Arabs and the Muslims.
Women and minority groups who were said to have been repressed by Saddam Hussein and who were also used as justification for the invasion, have now lost virtually all of their rights.
Some claim one of the benefits of this invasion is a democratically elected Iraqi government. But this so-called democratically elected government was elected in an atmosphere of fear, violence, and intimidation.
Let me switch gears here.
People like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mohandas Gandhi have moved mountains through peaceful means. The changes they have brought about are long lasting. Our Humanist Manifesto captures their deeds with the following words: “Humanists long for and strive toward a world of mutual care and concern, free of cruelty and its consequences, where differences are resolved cooperatively without resorting to violence.”
Neither the war in Afghanistan nor in Iraq has brought about a change that can be considered long lasting or for the good of humanity. Neither war has been based on reason or evidence; both have been justified by pure emotion – vengeance and fear.
King and Gandhi fought with nonviolent means, and they won. They brought about changes that improved the human condition. Compare that with the outcome of the violent, deadly and costly wars we have fought in Afghanistan and Iraq. Although these wars have significantly improved the profits for corporations involved in the military industrial complex, they have not improved the overall human condition.
Unfortunately, I have observed that there are people who hold their belief system dearer than the lives of other people, and would kill people to defend their belief. Our humanist belief system, at its core, is fundamentally about appreciation of human life. It is therefore an absolute contradiction to kill human beings to further such a belief system. In other words, you cannot kill to further humanism.
As an ethnic Armenian, I have inherited a painful history. The Armenian Genocide, which historians call the first genocide of the 20th century, was not something that I experienced, but my grandparents did. Even so, after two generations, I find it difficult to talk about it or to look at photographs of the dead bodies of Armenian men, women, and children without feeling pain. Pain is passed along from generation to generation.
What we have done in Iraq and in Afghanistan will leave a painful legacy that will be suffered for generations to come. The grandchildren of survivors will look back and feel the pain that we, the United States, caused them. They will not forget or forgive us for what we have done.
I was born in the Middle East. I would say that I look like a typical person from the Middle East. I could pass for a person from Afghanistan or Iraq; I could pass for an Arab or a Jew from the Middle East. When I look at those people in Iraq or Afghanistan, or Palestine or Israel, when I see their photos, I think of my parents, my relatives, my cousins, my siblings; I think of them as me.
I feel for their loss as I would feel for the loss of someone who was part of my family. They are not faceless or voiceless for me.
I have two boys who are not too far off in age than the average American soldier who has been either killed or maimed for life in these wars. Our soldiers or their families are not faceless or voiceless for me.
As a humanist, I see all people on this planet as part of one gigantic family. I don’t see their lives as something that I can casually dispense with for any end.
Those who defend these wars in Afghanistan and Iraq often gloss over the lives of people who have been killed, as if they are disposable. In conversations you sometimes hear people say something like, “the deaths toll can’t be ignored, BUT, Saddam was a bad guy who killed people.” There is always the BUT, to justify the deaths of people.
Sometimes they call the killing of civilians “collateral damage”. These deaths are spoken of almost as a side issue, and often not tracked or reported. They are deemed as necessary to achieve an uncertain end.
I could have been born in Iraq or Afghanistan. Life’s circumstances could have dictated that I remained there. I could have been declared collateral damage by those who justify killing civilians in the name of liberating them. I could have been one of the women who is displaced because her home was destroyed, or her spouse and children were maimed and killed. My kids could have been those kids who saw their parents killed right in front of their eyes.
As human beings, we are limited in our ability to imagine the pain of other people. If we are not connected to the pain we cause, we can become good at inflicting pain. If all we see are images that appear like fireworks on TV when our air power is attacking Iraq at night, or dust rising in the distance from our bombs, we don’t feel the pain of those who are maimed, killed, and suffer as a result of our attacks.
As an American and a person who has her roots in the Middle East, I am deeply disturbed to see human beings killed in countries of this region funded by our tax dollars, cheered on by those who support wars, under the guise of defending human rights.
And now to close: As humanists we should remember that deeply held beliefs make it easy to accept the absurd. It can create hubris. Propaganda such as “we are going to war to liberate people” or “we are bringing democracy to people” or “we are protecting America” are the new myths that have replaced the older ones that said “we are bringing civilization and Christianity to the native Americans, or the Mexicans.”
As humanists, we should be able to differentiate between propaganda and facts: War is violence and violence does not bring about security.
As humanists, we should not outsource our moral responsibility; we should seek out those who present pseudo-rational arguments in favor of war and expose them for their lack of reasoning and lack of compassion.
There are numerous possibilities between the extremes of all out war on one hand and appeasement on the other. It is our lack of imagination and our failure to envision other possibilities that limits our options to these two extremes.
Just envision what real diplomacy could do.
Conflict is natural. Conflict resolution is natural. But war is not conflict resolution. Just imagine what a humanistic foreign policy could do.
From a humanist point of view, war is a human catastrophe. As Humanists, we should advocate diplomacy to prevent situations that ultimately lead to wars and to identify solutions that would pave the path for peaceful alternatives to war.
Lastly, one cannot be a humanist and advocate militarism.
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Armineh Noravian was a member of the Board of Directors of the Humanist Community in Silicon Valley between 2007-2010, where she served as Vice President in 2008 and President in 2009 and 2010. She was also President of the Silicon Valley Chapter of Americans United for Separation of Church and state from 2005-2006, and a member of the Board of Directors of the ACLU, Santa Clara Valley chapter from 2006-2008. She holds a M.S. in Engineering and a M.A. in Applied Anthropology (cultural).
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