Politics & Communication with Joshua Gee

There was an excellent Op-Ed yesterday in the New York Times from Douglas J. Feith and Justin Polin of the Hudson institute describing how Taliban fighters in the Swat Valley bombed the shrine of Rahman Baba, the most revered Pashtun poet.

The bombers took aim at the poet’s shrine because it represented Sufism, the mystical form of Islam that has long been predominant in India and Pakistan. The Sufism of Rahman Baba generally stresses a believer’s personal relationship with God and de-emphasizes the importance of the mosque. It refrains from exalting violence and war and praises such virtues as tolerance, devotion and love. Its practice relies extensively on dance, music and poetry. Some of Sufism’s most esteemed poets and scholars are women.

The extremists are determined to destroy Pakistan’s moderate Sufi tradition — by claiming the exclusive right to fly the banner of Islam and asserting this claim through cultural, educational and violent means. Through intimidation, they silence musicians, still dancers and oppress women. As a result, artists and performers areleaving Pakistan’s Swat Valley and the North-West Frontier Province in droves.

Feith and Polin go on to write how the United States should work to support the local Pushtun tribes who oppose the Taliban and even suggest building a radio station to broadcast shows that would “revive the collective memory of Sufism and inspiring opposition to the Taliban. Other programs could highlight the cultural and physical devastation wrought by the Taliban and Al Qaeda.”

The question then becomes: Who is this man and what did he do with Doug Feith? Where was this kind of nuanced thinking when Feith was the former undersecretary of defense for policy during his time at the Pentagon? For those that don’t know, he is a major neoconservative thinker and was one of the main authors of the dummied up intelligence that drove us into the Iraq War.

Despite the source and though I don’t know much about this kind of cultural diplomacy (yet), this idea strikes me as sensible. We won’t win if we try to make the average citizen pick between the United States and the Taliban. People in that area don’t really like the US that much and don’t know enough about it to view it as something to aspire to; ideas like “democracy” and “freedom” are too intangible to inspire much of a following. However, by investing in forms of mass communications promoting the Pushtun’s own culture (Radio, internet, text messages), we could actually inspire some resistance to the Taliban. The downside to this are that we could also inspire backlash against the United States and Pakistani governments by inflaming Pushtun tribalism. Also, the Taliban is much better at fighting this kind of war (they know the area and major players better than we do and won’t hesitate to kill suspected collaborators). Still, imho this approach is a more nuanced and at least as important as just sending guns and supplies to our allies in the region or the Pakistani government.

For those that don’t subscribe, this week the President used his weekly online address to celebrate the Iranian New Year. Full video below:

Most blogs I have read hold this up as a token of how much administration has changed and also make jokes at the idea of President Bush speaking Farsi – fair points both. Ezra Klein does it best:

There are times when it’s hard to believe that this is how my country acts now. That somewhere in government, some young bureaucrat had the idea that the President should publicly honor the Iranian New Year, and that bureaucrat felt that her superiors would also think this a good idea, and, indeed, the thought went all the way to the President, who agreed that a display of engagement and goodwill was consonant with our national values and foreign policy goals. It is hard to believe that five years after we were ordering “freedom fries” in the congressional cafeteria, we’re posting Persian translations at Whitehouse.gov.

Hear hear. But, I think it is also worth comparing this to the previous administrations’ attempts at using public statements to influence Iran. In 2005, on the eve of elections in Iran that looked like they might unseat Ahmadinejad in favor of a slightly more moderate government, President Bush gave a speech saying that Iran’s electoral process failed to meet “the basic requirements of democracy” that the “oppressive record” of the country’s rulers would undercut the legitimacy of the upcoming vote. The result was Iranians getting upset that President Bush was trying to meddle in their affairs. President Ahmadinejad’s party won renewed support and the election. Good job there, I would have preferred he tried to speak Farsi.

I don’t know enough about Nowruz or Iran to say whether or not President Obama’s message contained cultural tones and phrases that wouldn’t make sense to an American but would be significant to Iranians that were listening for them (I would guess they did, but that is me giving President Obama the benefit of the doubt). I can say that I think this is the best medium to reach out to Iran.

Fun Fact: Iran has the most bloggers per capita of any country in the world. If you think the media won’t give you a fair shake (which Iran’s state-run media probably won’t), then take your message around the media and straight to the people. Online and Social media efforts to connect with the people of Iran may be the best bet to bring about real change to the perception of the United States.