Shariah in Lawless Somalia

Abukar Arman

Analysis on Somalia, Islamic issues and US foreign policy

Nowhere in the world is Shariah more contested (yet seldom debated) than in war-weary, Somalia where each of the entities competing for power claims to have embraced it while condemning its detractor, or rather, its enemy, as a dangerous imposter.

All the colorful politics motivating each contender aside, the most pressing question begging an answer is: Can lawless Somalia be governed by Shariah?

Short answer: It depends!

If by Shariah we mean the Talibanesque, self-righteous, and unjust brand currently being practiced by the Somali Neo-Islamists known as al-Shabab and Hizbul Islam, the answer is: No.

As these two groups have been asserting their authority through violence-driven territorial expansion, they have been rapidly loosing the public confidence necessary for them to sustain any gains. Horrific accounts attesting to their ignorance and to the cruelty of their method have been stirring panic and cultivating hate. Stories such as the two Neo-Islamist assassins who followed their victim-to-be into a mosque and prayed alongside him only to shoot him in the head after he stepped outside the mosque raise serious questions regarding these groups' understanding of Islam and Shariah.

Theirs is an obtuse, if not dysfunctional, interpretation of Shariah. They are oblivious to the education-based societal transformation that the classic Shariah seeks to achieve. To them, Shariah is a purposeless, uncompassionate, punishment-driven set of laws that are arbitrarily implemented without consideration of time, circumstances or objectives.

Therefore, it is a matter of time before the masses would conquer their collective fear and revolt against this accountable to no one, selectively oppressive, and entirely alien brand of Shariah.

If, however, by Shariah we mean the classic concept of Islamic governance adapted to address contemporary political, social, economic, and spiritual challenges in a just way, the answer is: Yes.

As a country whose national institutions have been utterly destroyed and almost all threads that once wove its society together have been unraveled, Islam is the only thread that remains intact. Therefore, adopting Shariah as a set of rules, regulations, and values to govern Somalia is not only feasible but perhaps the only sensible means to resuscitate that dying state.

Granted, the name "Shariah" connotes a politically radioactive concept in the West and that there are those who believe that Shariah and governance are mutually exclusive; however, that is hardly a fair estimation of this profoundly misconstrued system. [One might gain a broader perspective of this concept by reading Noah Feldman of Harvard's article "Why Shariah?" published by N.Y. Times March 16, 2008]

The Somali people are desperate for a government and indeed a system of governance (any for that matter) that they can invest their trust in; a system that protects them against injustices and guards their God-given right to life, to own property, to enjoy basic freedoms and to exercise their freewill.

Therefore, President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed and his government would have to identify the most crucial needs of the people.

Granted, in a number of his speeches while visiting the Somali Diaspora in the United States, he highlighted security, humanitarian needs, and capacity building as being his top priorities. While no one would dispute the importance of these three, some question 'why is peace and reconciliation not part of the top three priorities?' They argue that there should be an ongoing process that resists any temptation to give up prematurely.

That being said, the model of Shariah that is likely to succeed is the one that genuinely addresses the following categories of needs:

First: Preserving the sanctity of life and the provision of a secure environment in which the average Somali could reach his/her optimum potential. Within this, protecting the lives of civilians and addressing the humanitarian crisis reign high.

Second: Instituting a peace and reconciliation policy that would keep the door open and the peace process in motion.

Third: Protecting individual properties against any abuses including nationalization, and state properties by establishing a transparent system of accountability.

Fourth: Instituting policies that guarantee equality before the law and protect the rights of women and minorities.

Fifth: Protecting individuals from power abuse and preserving individual's honor by protecting him or her against false accusations, imprisonment, slander, and character assassination.

Sixth: Protecting freedom of assembly, conscience, and thought.

Seventh: Promoting education and protecting the God-given right of the individual citizen to question and scrutinize their leaders by protecting their right to elect their representatives.

Eighth: Enacting policies promoting ethical and moral conduct that, among other things, criminalize favoritism and other corruptions such as bribery and nepotism.

Ninth: Paving the way for the development of independent institutions that, on one hand, ensure a system of checks and balances, and on the other, enhance the overall function of the government.

Tenth: Instituting policies that protect the sovereignty of the nation and promote neighborly coexistence with neighboring states and with the rest of the international community.

President Ahmed must succeed in persuading people to accept the legitimacy of his government and to trust the individuals appointed to exercise that authority. And, in order to achieve that, those entrusted to lead must resort to taking tangible actions that would restore law and order and improve the lives of people. They must do away with the clan-based quota system that by and large appoints incompetent demagogues who neither serve the nation nor the clans in whose name they were appointed. More importantly, they must streamline all the militias led by shrouded warlords who are now considered government allies into a disciplined army that is accountable.

Hands Off Kashmir!

America's rapprochement with India, and its centerpiece nuclear agreement, is a bright star in the otherwise murky firmament of the George W. Bush years. India is a large power; it is a secular, democratic power, not influenced by Islamist radicalism. Its large Muslim population of 140 million seems generally--so far--not attracted to that kind of fanaticism.

India is a country with a population of 1.17 billion whose numbers are destined to exceed those of China by 2050. (Pakistan's population, much smaller, but not insignificant, is roughly 180 million). The advantage of the U.S.-India rapprochement, in the short and medium term, lies in the fact that this huge country is right next to a string of Muslim countries whose populations are generally (though not universally) hostile to U.S. interests.

Because of the strategic importance that the United States places on both India and its troubled sister, Pakistan, policymakers in Washington have periodically tried to play the role of peacemaker in the region, hoping to push both nuclear-armed countries to resolve the bad blood between them--which, for the most part, has revolved around the contested province of Kashmir.

In 2009, U.S. Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke reportedly tried to include India in his Afghanistan-Pakistan (AfPak) portfolio, which seemed to mean that he wanted to take a crack at the Kashmir problem. The Indians, however, would have none of it, and AfPak remains limited to the two nations that make up the somewhat unwieldy conjunction.

Steve Coll, in a New Yorker article on March 2, 2009, brought to light a parallel or "back" channel in Indo-Pak negotiations that took place during the regime of Pervez Musharraf. If the discussions had succeeded, and it appears they came close, it could have resulted in a sort of free movement of populations across the Kashmiri line of separation--without a change of sovereignty between the advantageous Indian and unimpressive Pakistani portions. However, Musharraf went into a political tailspin after his dispute with the Pakistan judiciary and had to leave office in August 2008. With his departure, the talks seem to have ended. Ironically, according to Coll, the Indians had come to trust Musharraf, despite the fact that he was the main instigator of the abortive Pakistani attack at Kargil, in Kashmir, in 1999.

The arrangement nearly worked out reflects the Indian insistence that the line of separation (called the Line of Control) must not be altered, as this could affect the status of the Indian-held Valley of Kashmir, the beautiful "jewel in the crown" of the whole affair. Moreover, from the Indian point of view, ceding any part of Indian-held Kashmir, in what would be seen as for religious reasons, would compromise the Indian political philosophy of secular government.

In any event, a settlement now seems extremely unlikely in the short term, especially after the horrific attacks on Mumbai in November 2008 which originated in Pakistan. As long as Kashmir remains as it is, unequally divided, Islamabad will likely never be satisfied, which means we can expect more Pakistani agitation inside India and an increasingly stronger riposte from New Delhi. There is definitely a fear that the two Pakistan-sponsored terrorist groups, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed are not only still active; worse, extrapolating from the attack on Mumbai, these groups may have set their sights on more ambitious targets, unleashing havoc within India's metropolitan cities rather than engaging India's massive deployments in Jammu and Kashmir.

So where do things stand now?

New Dehli seems intent on dialing down tensions. In October 2009, India withdrew two divisions (30,000 troops) from Kashmir. Still, India is estimated to have roughly 120,000 troops massed along the Line of Control which separates the two Kashmirs. Overall in the state, the exact number of Indian forces is not known but probably numbers in the hundreds of thousands.

Islamabad, for its part, may be likely to exercise greater restraint, given the horror that resounded internationally over the Mumbai attacks. Whether Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI)--which has long trained and supplied Islamist militias in the region with the aim of destabilizing Indian control--continues to support its proxy armies or no longer can keep them on a leash is another matter.

At the moment, in winter, the insurgency in Kashmir usually dies down, only to flower again in the spring. Yet, this week saw a suicide attack in Lal Chowk, the nerve center of the capital, Srinagar. The attack was claimed by a third terrorist group, Jamiat-ul-Mujahidin, with the announced goal of demonstrating that militancy in Kashmir is not over.

But should the United States attempt to mediate this ongoing struggle? Certainly, there are a number of analysts and officials in Washington who believe that a lasting peace in Kashmir would lessen the strains between these two nations and allow Pakistan's army to focus on more pressing problems--such as the rise of a powerful domestic Taliban that has inflamed the Afghanistan border regions and increasingly threatens and attacks the urban centers.

My answer is a simple "no." Kashmir does not constitute a negotiation in which Washington should get involved, even if it is 97 percent Muslim (in the Kashmir portion of the Jammu and Kashmir state) and was handed over to India by its Hindu maharajah in 1947. (The Hindu-majority Jammu portion of the state is the ancestral homeland of the Kashmiri Brahmins, whose most illustrious offspring was Jawaharlal Nehru).

The temptation for U.S. policymakers to get involved in the dispute is latent. In October 2008, Barack Obama, a month before he was elected, stated that "working with Pakistan and India to try to resolve the Kashmir crisis in a serious way" was among the "critical tasks for the next administration." Pakistan, as the irridentist party, would welcome it; indeed, the attacks by Pakistan-sponsored groups in Kashmir and elsewhere in India may be aimed in part in provoking the U.S. to intervene on the dispute. (Note the U.S. did intervene, and succesfully, at the time of the Kargil attacks).

But the overriding consideration is the new U.S.-Indian relationship which risks being diluted or worse, damaged, by an American intervention on the Kashmir issue which, almost by definition, would call into question the permanence of the Line of Control. India is too important to Washington to be left with a threat to its status quo, which has been in place for 60-plus years. India is the heir-state to British India. It retains the capital of British India, Delhi, and its government infrastructures. Pakistan has a new name ("land of the pure") and a new capital, Islamabad. The partition, occasioned by Muslim fears of being submerged by a Hindu majority, and which the British did not prevent, is now regarded by many as having been a mistake.

Moreover, the Obama administration already has its hands full, both domestically and overseas. With two ongoing wars, potential conflict in Iran, and recalcitrant partners in New Delhi and Islamabad, brokering a resolution in Kashmir seems a sight too far.

Kashmir is one case in which the U.S. tendency to remake the world order should be held in check. Unless tensions escalate dramatically, this is a conflict that India and Pakistan should sort out bilaterally. Hands off Kashmir!

Charles Cogan was an officer of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from 1954-91. His first overseas posting was to New Delhi, 1957-62, and later he was the chief of the Near East South Asia Division in the Directorate of Operations of the CIA, 1979-84. He is currently an associate at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard's Kennedy School.

The Elephant in the Room

The biggest pain in Asia isn't the country you'd think.

BY BARBARA CROSSETTE

Think for a moment about which countries cause the most global consternation. Afghanistan. Iran. Venezuela. North Korea. Pakistan. Perhaps rising China. But India? Surely not. In the popular imagination, the world's largest democracy evokes Gandhi, Bollywood, and chicken tikka. In reality, however, it's India that often gives global governance the biggest headache.

Of course, India gets marvelous press. Feature stories from there typically bring to life Internet entrepreneurs, hospitality industry pioneers, and gurus keeping spiritual traditions alive while lovingly bridging Eastern and Western cultures.

But something is left out of the cheery picture. For all its business acumen and the extraordinary creativity unleashed in the service of growth, today's India is an international adolescent, a country of outsize ambition but anemic influence. India's colorful, stubborn loquaciousness, so enchanting on a personal level, turns out to be anything but when it comes to the country's international relations. On crucial matters of global concern, from climate change to multilateral trade, India all too often just says no.

India, first and foremost, believes that the world's rules don't apply to it. Bucking an international trend since the Cold War, successive Indian governments have refused to sign nuclear testing and nonproliferation agreements -- accelerating a nuclear arms race in South Asia. (India's second nuclear tests in 1998 led to Pakistan's decision to detonate its own nuclear weapons.)

Once the pious proponent of a nuclear-free world, New Delhi today maintains an attitude of "not now, not ever" when it comes to the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. As defense analyst Matthew Hoey recently wrote in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, "India's behavior has been comparable to other defiant nuclear states [and] will undoubtedly contribute to a deteriorating security environment in Asia."

Not only does India reject existing treaties, but it also deep-sixes international efforts to develop new ones. In 2008, India single-handedly foiled the last Doha round of global trade talks, an effort to nail together a global deal that almost nobody loved, but one that would have benefited developing countries most. "I reject everything," declared Kamal Nath, then the Indian commerce and industry minister, after grueling days and sleepless nights of negotiations in Geneva in the summer of 2008.

On climate change, India has been no less intransigent. In July, India's environment minister, Jairam Ramesh, pre-emptively told U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton five months before the U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen that India, a fast-growing producer of greenhouse gases, would flat-out not accept binding carbon emissions targets.

India happily attacks individuals, as well as institutions and treaty talks. As ex-World Bank staffers have revealed in interviews with Indian media, India worked behind the scenes to help push Paul Wolfowitz out of the World Bank presidency, not because his relationship with a female official caused a public furor, but because he had turned his attention to Indian corruption and fraud in the diversion of bank funds.

By the time a broad investigation had ended -- and Robert Zoellick had become the new World Bank president -- a whopping $600 million had been diverted, as the Wall Street Journal reported, from projects that would have served the Indian poor through malaria, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, and drug-quality improvement programs. Calling the level of fraud "unacceptable," Zoellick later sent a flock of officials to New Delhi to work with the Indian government in investigating the accounts. In a 2009 interview with the weekly India Abroad, former bank employee Steve Berkman said the level of corruption among Indian officials was "no different than what I've seen in Africa and other places."

India certainly affords its citizens more freedoms than China, but it is hardly a liberal democratic paradise. India limits outside assistance to nongovernmental organizations and most educational institutions. It restricts the work of foreign scholars (and sometimes journalists) and bans books. Last fall, India refused to allow Bangladeshi and Sri Lankan journalists to attend a workshop on environmental journalism.

India also regularly refuses visas for international rights advocates. In 2003, India denied a visa to the head of Amnesty International, Irene Khan. Although no official reason was given, it was likely a punishment for Amnesty's critical stance on the government's handling of Hindu attacks that killed as many as 2,000 Muslims in Gujarat the previous year. Most recently, a delegation from the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, a congressionally mandated body, was denied Indian visas. In the past, the commission had called attention to attacks on both Muslims and Christians in India.

Nor does New Delhi stand up for freedom abroad. In the U.N. General Assembly and the U.N. Human Rights Council, India votes regularly with human rights offenders, international scofflaws, and enemies of democracy. Just last year, after Sri Lanka had pounded civilians held hostage by the Tamil Tigers and then rounded up survivors of the carnage and put them in holding camps that have drawn universal opprobrium, India joined China and Russia in subverting a human rights resolution suggesting a war crimes investigation and instead backed a move that seemed to congratulate the Sri Lankans.

David Malone, Canada's high commissioner in New Delhi from 2006 to 2008 and author of a forthcoming book, Does the Elephant Dance? Contemporary Indian Foreign Policy, says that, when it comes to global negotiations, "There's a certain style of Indian diplomacy that alienates debating partners, allies, and opponents." And looking forward? India craves a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council, seeking greater authority in shaping the global agenda. But not a small number of other countries wonder what India would do with that power. Its petulant track record is the elephant in the room.

Barbara Crossette, a former New Delhi bureau chief for the New York Times, is author of So Close to Heaven: The Vanishing Buddhist Kingdoms of the Himalayas.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/01/04/the_elephant_in_the_room?page=0,1

ISI fingers American diplomats

The wheels seem to be coming off US-Pakistan relations with the once close allies squabbling publicly even as Islamabad is whipping up hysteria over the so-called Indian threats and American machinations to weasel out of its obligation to combat home-grown terrorism.

The simmering discord between Washington and Islamabad came to a boil this week when the US ambassador to Pakistan publicly complained about harassment of American diplomatic personnel by Pakistani authorities and obliquely hinted that Islamabad risked losing US aid and projects if they continued to deny visas to US officials and space for the US mission to fulfill its multi-billion assistance program.

Ambassador Anne Patterson’s warning at a business meeting in Karachi was followed up by a rare public admonition of Pakistan from the US mission in Islamabad in which it expressed concern about the ''continued provocative actions and false allegations against US personnel working to implement the new partnership between the leaders of Pakistan and the United States.''

The wording of the statement suggested that the US believes there is a growing militaristic constituency in Pakistan that is now operating independently of the civilian government. The blog Politico put it rather more
bluntly under the headline, "Pakistan’s ISI steps up harassment of US Embassy," reporting that the ISI had even been putting pictures (with addresses) of US diplomatic personnel in Urdu newspapers" putting their lives in danger.

"Several times recently the RSO (Regional Security officer) at the Embassy has had to contact folks in their offices during the day, and tell them that they can’t go home to their house tonight because of the unwanted attention caused by the ISI/Journalist provocations. Station and Embassy have complained to ISI - but no acknowlegement (not surprising) and no abatement of the activity (worrisome)," it quoted an Af-Pak hand as saying.

Egged on by a hysterical section of the media promoting wild conspiracy theories, hard-line elements in the police and military have been detaining US vehicles and personnel, often accusing them of not carry proper
diplomatic papers and registration and carrying weapons. US vehicles and personnel typically do not display diplomatic registration or identity so they cannot be identified by terrorist hit squads. One Pakistani newspaper called "Nation," which specializes in rabid conspiracy theories, ran a Wall Street Journal
correspondent out of the country recently by alleging he was a CIA agent, recalling the horrible tragedy which befell his predecessor Daniel Pearl. The same paper has carried many stories about the alleged suspicious activity of US diplomats.

In a stern warning to Pakistan, the US Embassy called for ''immediate action'' by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which it said ''has responsibility to facilitate proper arrangements under which a foreign mission
may operate with full security.'' The mission also asked Pakistani officials ''to implement immediately the mutually agreed upon procedures for the issuance of license plates to US. Mission vehicles and to cease these contrived incidents involving US Mission vehicles and personnel.''

In the same toxic spirit, hard-line sections in Pakistan have also willfully contrived to distort remarks by the Indian Army chief Deepak Kapoor to drum up hysteria over the alleged Indian threat. Familiar policy formulations by the Indian general that New Delhi has to prepare for a war under a nuclear overhang because of Pakistani provocation under nuclear cover, has been conflated to ''Indian General threatens Pakistan with nuclear war'' (despite India’s professed policy no-first-use of nuclear weapons).

In the most recent instance, Kapoor’s remarks about the need for India developing capability to fight a two-front war has been translated to ''Indian General threatens Pakistan and China with war.'' While a few Pakistani analysts have responded soberly to the new doctrines being discussed in New Delhi, most commentators, including current and former generals, diplomats, and military frontmen, have reacted hysterically to what would be considered doctrinal deliberations in any mature society.

The idea behind the whipping up of mass hysteria against US and India in what is now being dubbed ''Paranoidistan'' appears to be a ploy by hard-line elements in Islamabad to disengage from fulfilling its bilateral and international obligations to tackle terrorist elements. With each terrorist incident, Pakistan is coming under increasing pressure from US to give up its obsession with the non-existent threat from India and focus on confronting its home-grown threats eating away at the country.

The Pakistani military has signaled clearly that it does not subscribe to the US prescription, and General Kapoor’s outline of new Indian doctrines has come in handy for this escape act. After distorting Gen Kapoor’s remarks and generating a sulfurous discourse in the media, the Pakistani military high command and the civilian cabinet defense committee both met last week to assert that ''Pakistan would never allow its security to be jeopardized.'' Pakistan’s beleaguered president Asif Ali Zardari, under pressure from the army, also joined this military-ISI generated hysteria by promising a 1000-year confrontation with India over Kashmir.

None of this has escaped the attention of Washington, which this week dispatched yet another high-powered Congressional delegation led by former presidential candidate John McCain to talk sense to Pakistan. McCain was unrelenting in response to the familiar Pakistani protests against drone attacks, bluntly insisting that the ''(drone) attacks are imperative to defeat the enemy,'' and ''with an improved decision making process the civilian causalities are totally minimized.''

The US delegation also heard protests from the Pakistani leadership about security measures introduced by Washington for screening Pakistani nationals among citizens of 13 other state sponsors of terrorism and
''countries of interest.'' But with new arrests in the Najibullah Zazi case and developments in the CIA forward base bombing case both revealing links to Pakistan, US threshold for Islamabad’s antics is diminishing all the time even as Pakistan is seen as a state sponsor of terrorism in all but formal designation.

In fact, Pakistan – or Paranoidistan, as some officials refer to it in private – becomes the immediate focus of attention after any terrorist attack, including ones like the Christmas Day bombing attempt of an airplane in Detroit, where there was no immediate Pakistani link. ''The fact that this particular person was not trained in Pakistan does not change the fact that the inspiration for all of this comes from al-Qaida, and al-Qaida's
leadership is based in the remotest areas on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border,'' US special representative to Af-Pak Richard Holbrooke, who will head to Islamabad next week, said at a meeting on Thursday.

Separately, John Brennan, President Obama’s assistant for counterterrorism, said al-Qaida in Yemen, which trained the Christmas Day Nigerian bomber, ''is an extension of the terror outfit's core coming out of Pakistan.''

Daily Pakistan--Jan 6, 2010

Column in Daily Pakistan--

Member of the Swiss Political Party that Pushed for Minaret Ban Converts to Islam

By Jason Hamza van Boom

The news about Switzerland’s ban on the construction of minarets has made the headlines, providing shocking evidence of the strength of increasing intolerance in Europe. I shall be writing more about the minaret ban and its implications later, God willing, but right now I wanted to share an interesting side note.

Daniel Streich was a member of the Swiss People’s party (SVP), the political party that pushed the minaret ban initiative. Streich is a military instructor in the Swiss Army and a local politician in the commune of Bulle. Formerly a devout Christian, he converted to Islam–and kept it a secret for two years.

Streich has left the SVP, made his conversion to Islam public, and has denounced the SVP’s anti-Muslim campaign as a witch hunt. As far as I can tell, this story has not broken in the English language press. So, I translated a news article on Streich from German to English, published at the Swiss news site Twenty Minutes Online. Here it is:

Daniel Streich, military instructor and, until recently, a Swiss People’s Party (SVP) politician in the city of Bulle, has left the party. The reason: He converted to Islam. For two years he kept this secret from his ex-party. Now, with the “witch hunt against Islam,” this situation has become unbearable for him.

He was a true SVPer and Christian. He read the Bible and regularly went to church. Now Daniel Streich, military instructor and community council member, reads the Qur’an, prays five times a day and goes to a mosque. “Islam offers me logical answers to important life questions, which, in the end, I never found in Christianity,” says Streich.

Because he could no longer stand the “SVP’s witch hunt against Islam” Streich left the part two weeks ago (around November 10, 2009) and has made his conversion to Islam become publicly known two years after his conversion. Now he’s participating in the building of the new Civil Conservative Democratic Party in the canton of Freiburg. The former churchgoer is vehemently against the minaret initiative: “If the initiative passes, it will be an absolute deep blow for me. I would have to ask myself, why I applied myself professionally and politically for over 30 years for this political system.” In contrast, Switzerland urgently needs more mosques. “It is not worthy of Switzerland to force Muslims to practice their faith in back alleys.”

Reactions in the SVP were mixed. “Everyone can believe what he wants to,” says General Secretary Martin Baltisser. SVP-National Council member Alfred Heer had a less friendly reaction. Politcal scientist Georg Lutz: “The SVP and Islam stand closer to each other than people suppose. Both advance a conservative worldview.”

With all due respect, I disagree with Lutz’ position. Muslims tend to have political attitudes that are similar to the social teaching of the Catholic Church: “progressive” on economic, environmental, and foreign policy issues, while being “conservative” on sexual ethics. But, a more accurate approach would be to say that Catholics and Muslims frequently do not fit within the stereotypical left/right divide.

If anything, I would say that both Catholicism and Islam are more to the Left. The Right emphasizes particularity (whether the micro-particularity of capitalist individualism or the macro-particularity of nationalism). The Left, on the other hand, tends to stress universality. A balanced political position will address both universality (we’re all members of the same species living on the same planet) and particularity (we are shaped and live in particular communities that have their own traditions, political needs, and strengths and weaknesses). How one falls on the left/right spectrum (assuming such a spectrum exists) would be a function of his or her relative stress on universality vs particularity. Since both Catholicism and Islam (along with other great world religions) say that what unites human beings is more important than what divides them, their fundamental tendency is somewhat to the Left (IMHO).

Anyway, there’s a sidebar item about an SVP politician trying to frame Streich’s conversion as a national security risk, implying that all Muslims in Western militaries are like the lone nut gunman at Fort Hood. (Ironically, in doing so he confirms Streich’s allegation that the SVP’s minaret ban is a “witch hunt” against Muslims). Here’s the piece:

Alfred Heer: Anxiety over the convert Daniel Streich?

Because Daniel Streich converted to Islam when he was an active professional member of the armed forces leads certain politicians to think: “That could be a security risk for the country. We’ve just seen what happened in the USA,” says SVP-National Council member Alfred Heer, referring to the shooting spree of a Muslim military psychiatrist at Fort Hood. Army spokesperson Christopher Brunner responded, “That is an absurd accusation.” The Swiss military is neutral on religious affiliations. Brunner: “it is totally irrelevant which religions our personnel belong to.” Performance, not belief, is what matters.

Whether Switzerland remains true to its democratic heritage, or follows the paranoia that feeds the extremism that devastated Europe in the 30’s and 40’s, depends on whether its citizens, in the long run, will think like Brunner or Heer. As for myself, I hope that some day I can see the Swiss Alps again without being harassed for my Islamic faith. Man denkt, Gott lenkt.