EU expanding further east into former Soviet Union

Today the EU held Eastern Partnership summit in Riga to discuss further expansion east into the former Soviet Union, at the time of lingering uncertainty about the future of the UK in the European Union and the nature of the long due reforms within the EU.

The European Union is already overstretched, new members such as Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia did not integrate well; Croatia is mired in crisis. The Balkans, which is poised for membership, the process is moving between back and forth. The EU-colony of Kosovo is faced with mass emigration, in Macedonia there is political chaos with armed gangs capturing towns and it was only a week ago when 23 people died in clashes between heavily armed gangs and security forces. 

Its called Eastern Partnership countries, but there is very little in common among them, only that they are former Soviet Republics, and that they strive to west. The desire to be western is so paramount for these countries that any obstacle to its actualisation is seen as an enemy. Many believe that Russia is such an obstacle and as such a threat to the nation. Russofobien yet another factor among the eastern partnership; this is not enough for partnership with these countries but recipe for trouble with Moscow.

The strength of EU comes from the strength of its member states and one of its strong members is the UK which is renegotiating its membership with the Union. The focus of the UK on hard economic benefits – for example, in advancing the single market, reducing bureaucratic burdens, or pushing for trade liberalisation as a healthy balance against too much focus on political integration or on European-style state interventionism has been beneficial to the Union.

Recently many have seen this positive role of the UK diminish, with a much greater focus on the UK domestic policy agenda and a high distrust of the EU among British policy makers and, increasingly, the British public. Even in areas where the UK in the past would have been a champion for European solutions, e.g. enlargement policy or the digital single market, there is a tendency of disengagement.

As the role of the western countries diminish in the EU any further expansion eastward will change the nature and identity of the European Union. The former Communist countries of the EU are active members of the EU and carry more weight in contrast with their size and strength, any further eastward expansion will shift the centre of power in the EU from the West to Eastern Europe. Under the current EU voting system Eastern Europe already has significant power. Germany, France and the UK combine have a population of 217 Million and a nominal GDP of close to US$ 10 Trillion and a total vote of 87 in the European council while Poland, Czech Republic, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia which pretty much cover all of Easterner Europe have a combined nominal GDP of US$1.3 Trillion and a population of 70 million have a total combine vote of 96. Any future accession from the east will shift the power of EU votes to the East despite the candidate countries being small and medium income.

There are three important implications for the EU policy. 
first, the EU will become more Russofobien, as the Euro barometer study of EU attitude toward Russia shows that eastern European countries are the most Russofobiske countries in Europe. furthermore the candidate countries have deep Russian complex. 

Second, the EU will become more xenophobic as there is strong anti-immigration sentiment in the Eastern Europe. A PEW study shows that 60% of population in Czech Republic is against immigration and there has been slightly over 1100 asylum applications in 2014 while that figure for Germany is over 220,000.  This is while Czech Republic is the most prosperous of all Eastern European countries.

third, the EU will become less coherent and influential as the institutional strengths and economies of member states diverse, the western nations will seek to curb immigration from the east and south states which will put the free movement pillar at risk.   

The dangers of conflict with Russia, weak national institutions within the EU, weakened EU and deterioration of human rights within an expanded union might or might not be clear to Brussels bosses, but what is clear is where to find new markets and play geopolitics. 

Many Iraqis Believe Washington Aid Islamic State

The general in charge of U.S. special operations forces in Iraq for the past six months has come out to speak about wide spread believe among Iraqi troops who believe America supports the Islamic State. The top generals fear this potentially leaving U.S. forces vulnerable to reprisal attacks from their nominal allies in the fight against the militants.

Gen. Kurt Crytzer believes this is a communication issue, convinced that Washington’s information campaign in the Middle East is so inadequate that many, “Our adversaries are constantly one step ahead of us in the IO realm,” said Army Brig. Gen. Kurt Crytzer, using the acronym for information operations, while talking to reporters in Florida.  This view is shared among American policy makers; on Tuesday, Army Gen. Joseph Votel, the head of U.S. Special Operations Command was also commenting on the release of multimedia material by US forces.

Foreign policy writes that “the nation that invented the Internet and which is home to Hollywood and Madison Avenue still has trouble competing with the message promulgated by terror groups whose worldview hearkens back to the 7th century but use a sophisticated online and social media strategy to raise money and recruit new fighters.”[1]

The US policy makers commit yet again the fatal error of mixing the remedies they have or can obtain with the solution for the problem and the media as usually carries the dominant narrative. This is not an information or rather misinformation problem, its how the policies of the US, the West and regional allies has impacted the region and its people. The information campaign on the contrary has had a negative impact on the image of the West in the middle in so far as justifying, promoting and reiterating the official line while it has been proven time and again that the western policies are detrimental to the region. As such sources associated with the west has lost their credibility while alternative media such as Aljazeera, RT, Iranian media and IS campaigns have gained audience either as primary or alternative source of information.

The Islamic State could not have emerged without support from western powers and their regional allies. They funded and facilitated the travel of jihadis from 80 countries into Syria and then trained and armed them. In so long as the Jihadists were fighting the Syrian government Western government turned a blind eye on the crimes they were committing against Syrians and all the signs of rising tide of fanatic Jahidism among the Syrian resistance. The idea of overthrowing Assad was primary and an imminent reality after the fate of Gaddafi and no neoconservative and liberal interventionist would have thought it would take this long.  Ecstatic by the prospect the liberals and neocons ignored all the key lessons learned in the last twenty years:

1.    War is unpredictable: this becomes more obvious if one studies the dynamics of conflict in Afghanistan; where the mighty US army failed to sway the tide in its favour against a ragtag band of peasants they labelled Taliban.

2.   People suffer in war: what if this war get uglier and become longer, are you willing to take that risk in order to achieve your strategic objective of ousting Assad from power? This question is left out but there should be a way to get this question into the policy thinking.

3.   States become weaker: as primary caretaker of the community and population a weakened state exposes the population to dangers and decline in living standards but also give rise to violence and tensions in society.

4.   Fanatic Islamism is not your friend: following the pattern established by al-Qaida (allies to Afghan Mujahidin) and the Taliban policy makers should have seen this coming.

We are at a point in history with human tragedy of millions suffering before our eyes can nudge us a bit and the primacy and pursuit of national interest as defined by western leaders is above all. Even if Gen. Kurt Crytzer was right and this was a media war the west has nothing but hypocrisy.

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[1] https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/05/20/top-u-s-general-many-iraqis-believe-washington-aiding-islamic-state

Religious zest and the plight of women

Today as we stand looking at significant scientific, economic and technological advances that had been made in the last fifty years, you can’t help wondering how come the situation of women has improved so little or in parts of the world got worst. The reality is that millions of women are suffering and being oppressed under religious laws and Islamic cultures in many different parts of the world. The past fifty years have been some of the darkest in women’s lives. With the anti-secularist backlash, the rise of political Islam, and efforts over the past two decades to impose religion on the people, thousands have been executed - decapitated or stoned to death - and medieval laws to suppress women have been revived.

Islam is the ideology in power in most Muslim countries. In all of these, society has suffered serious setbacks in civil rights in general, and women’s rights in particular. Yet many voices seek to justify Islam: western academics, the mainstream western media, so-called moderate Muslims and some Eastern intellectuals all try to justify the operation and rationalize brutality. They tell us that what we are seeing is not the real Islam; they divide Islam into good and bad, moderate and fundamentalist. They tell us it’s their culture and that’s how they live. The British imams going on media to keep reminding us that all Muslims are not terrorists.  Outrageous and racist but because they are Imams or religious leaders their remarks are tolerable. They fail to address in any constructive way cultural, social, political and economic factors that has bedeviled Muslims across the world. Here are a few cultural issues that the Muslim leaders need to address.

1.     Equality of rights for women

Women are deemed to be inferior to men. Women are men’s belongings and women can have no authority over men. That a woman counts as only half a man in legal and financial matters; this is enforced widely and those Muslims who justify this rely on Islamic script. “And call into witness two men; or if two be not men, then one man and two women” (Koran, The Cow. Verse 282) and “ God charges you concerning your children: to the male the like of the portion of two female” (Koran, Women, verse 11)

2.     Sexual oppression of Women

Women earn God’s grace by obeying their husbands. The message is clear: men dominate, women obey. From a religious perspective, women are there merely for the sexual enjoyment of men and for purposes of reproduction. In Islam female sexuality is acknowledged, but limits and confines women to their sexual and reproductive roles. Most muslim has taken this too far by considering women as a potential danger by distracting men from their duties and corrupting the community. Orthodox interpretation place restriction on women’s sexuality, whilst men are given the right to marry up to four wives and the right to temporary marriage as many times as they wish. Free male–female sexual relations are considered a sin in Islam. This is justified by literal interpretation of Koranic verses that define which sexual relations are permitted under Islam, and the punishment for any transgression (called zena) outside these limits. Zena is punishable by flogging, imprisonment and stoning to death.

3.     Legal practice and women

Despite modernisation and reform, family law and the penal code have remained largely untouched, on the contrary in the last three decades fundamentalists have inserted their interpretation. Polygamy, men’s unconditional right to divorce their wives, the law regarding sex outside of marriage, men’s decision making over their wives’ employment and travel, and a woman’s lack of right to custody of her children are among them. Hijab is the definitive form of clothing for women. According to widely practice Islamic law, the legal age for a girl to wed is nine – an obvious case of sexual abuse and rape.

Conclusion

The state is a prerequisite for women’s liberation from religious oppression. A strong social movement and international support is needed with long-term commitment to build modern and stable states across the Muslim world.

Is it all Afghans fault?

Western online media coverage on the NATO exit is coloured with remarks on the western experience of Afghans and the benefits Afghans could have reaped from western presence.

I believe such remarks are counter productive bordering racism. The failure to stabilise Afghanistan is not a fault of Afghans but a letdown by institutions, if anything the Afghans are the victims; Afghans are resilient and honourable people, kind hearted, welcoming, and brave warriors. They are not the childlike brutes stereotyped in western media.  

NATO did not go to Afghanistan to improve Afghan lives but part of a US led alliance for getting revenge. It was very much a debt the allies paid to the US for the Marshall aid, democracy and saving them from communism.

Here are a few things NATO could have done to help Afghanistan:

1.     Train and equip a national army.

2.     Economic development

3.     Integrate Afghanistan into international political and economic system.

4.     Foster national leadership.

Here is what happened instead

1.     Arm and fund militia with history of human rights abuse and atrocities to fight the Taliban. Waging war against a part of the population under the labels of terrorist and Taliban by arming an extremist wing of another part of population under the guise of ‘state’. This labelling fails to capture the political and economic subjectivities and diversities of actors. The boundaries between these groups may be more about the subjective act of naming than any real practical separation between them. The US wanted blood and the allies tagged along by radicalising a section of Afghan people to settle old scores against another. This revenge policy led to antagonising the Afghan people and have blow in coalition face while costing tens of thousands of Afghan lives.

2.     The core strategy of international community was aid which only delivers assistance to very few and leaves out the majority to fend for themselves. Treating the symptom of poverty while ignoring the dysfunction of the state, which should be tasked to look after the welfare of the people. 

3.     No significant trade treaty, no long term strategic partnership, relationship at its low of all time with neighbours and antagonised the very leadership the west appointed to rule over Afghan people.

4.     Warlords, drug lords and criminals were bundled together by giving them a share in ruling over Afghan people.

Whether this war was a good thing or a bad thing was the decision of Westerns and as such their leaders should be held accountable.