War and Fireside

[Ian Carmichael]

Folks,
I'm launching this with fear and trepidation:
I'll pull it if it's divisive and unhelpful (in my opinion).

I've been thinking. I've been disturbed at the place Gaza has taken here - and not in any educational context. I believe it's out of place.
If it's not out of place, could you consider the material about ongoing conflicts on Wikipedia? There are 8 current conflicts listed with over 1000 violent deaths per year associated with them.
In the 'other conflicts' list there are 13 others, totalling 20/21 conflicts world-wide.
Should we give attention to each of these? If not, how should we select? Should we prioritise in terms of casualties? (Congo ~4,000,000, Sudan ~500,000, Somalia, ~3-400,000, Iraq, Afghanistan...) Should we prioritise in terms of economic impact? Our national involvement(s)?
(Until I did this little research I wasn't aware of the Nagaland rebellion, nor Balochistan... Next week I probably won't be aware again.)

But it is part of our ambit to investigate how we 'give peace a chance' in education. How do we do it? How best? Peace studies? Media studies? Media literacy? Investigations of our own histories in conflict? Investigation of the major slaughters of the 20th century? (In Alan Bullock's Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives, there's a chilling appendix of the casualties in major conflicts - including the Armenian genocide, the Stalinist purges, as well as the World Wars...)?

Investigations of peaceful victory - Gandhi, King, the Japanese villagers currently defeating the Yukasa (Japanes 'mafia')?

Is there a place for a unit: wars and peace: the causes of conflict and its cures?

[Or-Tal Kiriati]

Hi Ian.
I think that giving peace a chance take a grand chunk of education in Israel. I know some cynics may think it's Bu**it, considering current events. But those who are willing to get into the bottom of things may change their point of view.
***It's a bit long, but... A history discussion...***
So let's start this discussion with my 11 year old homework in history from yesterday.
His task was to write about the "first aliya", the first wave of Jewish immigrants to what is now known as Israel.
I jumped at the opportunity to explain to him how the Israel-Palestine conflict from the Palestinian point of view.
Just to clarify:
The main gap between the Palestinian and the Israeli point of view of the conflict is the time gap. In other words, at which point in the documented history of mankind would you start to tell your story.
I think the Israelis and Jews where ever they are, relate to a point in the bible where "god promises this land" to his chosen people, a promise he made to Moses.
The Palestinians would prefer to point to this "First Aliya" timing.
***
Break:
***
All documented history of man kind is full of stories about wars and conquest. It is a totally different question, unfortunately left unanswered: WHY? Why do people always want to conquer another area and defeat other people?? Why is the need to enslave other people? Limit other people's freedom? Why do nations throughout history had to push into other nations' land? The history is full of examples: America... Africa... Australia... What are they? 500 year old conquests??
Similarly you can go 500 years back in the Middle east, to the time of the Ottoman Empire conquests. You can also go back about 1900 years to the time where the Roman emperor has decided he needs to erase the name "Provincia Judea" (after putting down one of the Jewish rebellions) and started to refer to this geographical area as "Provincia Syria Palaestina".
***
Back to the First Aliya.
When the first wave of Jewish immigrants came to this area, around 1882, it is estimated that approximately 25,000 Jewish people lived here. Clearly they were a minority. The land was ruled by the Ottoman Empire, and most residents here were Bedouin and Arabs. There is not enough documentation about the numbers of people who lived here. The Jews have documented themselves. The Bedouin, considered vagabonds and the Arabs did not document their residency in this area.
That first wave lasted for 22 years, in which 25-35 thousands Jews immigrated into Israel, mostly from Russia. It was a combination of persecution and murders there and various awakening movements that drove them to look for a future in the land of Israel. Most Jews who escaped Russia during those years actually preferred to immigrate to America.
When they arrived to "Syrian Palestine" they purchased lands from the Turks and were in fact the first Jews in centuries to start cultivating the land of Israel. Some lands were bought from Arabs.
It took a while but the residents of this land started to realize that the percentages change. First conflicts were actually between the Bedouins and the Jews. Arabs were often hired to defend Jewish villages and farms. But soon enough the Arabs started to realize that the Jewish population is growing around them. The Turks have decided to put a stop to the expansion of Jewish population and stopped selling lands and allowing new immigrants in.
It didn't last long: a second wave of immigrants arrived prior to the first world war, and the third wave, from 1919-1923 was largely due to the Balfour Declaration of 1917. 4th and 5th waves followed. At the time the state of Israel was established in 1948 it counted nearly 900,000 Jewish residents.
***
And now to the educational question:
How would you feel if waves of immigrants came into your country, started to buy lands and houses, until you become a minority in your own country?
It's a difficult and unfair question that I asked my 11 year old. But it is necessary to make him understand what drives the Palestinians.
***
Back to the present:
There are 7.4 million Israeli people in the state of Israel today. 20% are Israeli Arabs. 4% are non Arab and non-Jewish. This statistics does not include the west bank and Gaza Palestinian population, as they are not Israelis.
The Israeli Arabs are Arabs residents of Israel who did not flee their homes during the 1948 war.
Palestinian refugees are often those Arabs who fled their homes and villages and cities like Haifa, Acre, Jaffa etc. during this war. They established refugee camps in the Gaza strip, which was a part of Egypt for some of this time, and in the West Bank, which was a part of Jordan during some of this time. They did not get Egyptian citizenship, nor Jordanian citizenship, nor Israeli citizenship.
***
What's next?? The state of Israel is an existing fact. It was 60 years old last May.
Can the Palestinians establish their own Palestinian state in the areas where they form a majority, like Gaza and some of the West Bank, and live in peace with the state of Israel?
What do you think needs to happen to enable a coming to terms with the existence of Israel?

[Ed Jones]

Thanks, Ian, a very, very, very good question.

The educational question here--and it is the most important question we can address--is how do we move people from just acting on feelings to carefully weighing when to take action, in what form to take action, and to what degree.

Most of you'll know that Ellen's "No Justification" call to action has appeared on other networks as well.

In Ellen's defense, here is an issue for which there is one simple, easy solution to the worst of the violence: The Israeli government (democratic) can stop 90% of the current violence. Unlike other conflicts, say Sudan, there is in Gaza one very easy out to the immediate carnage. Democratic peoples can take this step in an hour, and death and injury counts will plummet.

So its understandable why people feel that they should stand up and speak about this issue, and not others. Because they truly can make a difference. If enough people agree, the bombings etc. will stop on a dime.

Yes?

My question, then, is: is this good enough? Is stopping today's violence a satisfactory and complete solution? Back down today and pray for a better tomorrow. Trust that discussions will solve this and every problem. We can teach our young people this methodology.

And indeed this methodology works great if all people study and employ it. Alas, they don't.

The schools in Gaza and Waziristan and Khartoum are teaching a completely different methodology of resolving their differences with others. There it is called Jihad, and they have a very long, long line of scholarship to support which actions they should take, why, and in what measure. Those measures are extreme.

In the 1990's their approach to problem solving included slavery. By the tens of thousands, white Islamacist Arabs sold off Black Christians, then Muslims, to other Arabs around the world. In 2003, their method of solving issues switched to outright genocide. Maiming, as well as massive rape are other strategies.

One approach for Israel is to assume that those in power in Hamas are frustrated, but not to the degree of those in charge in Khartoum.

---
A deeper democratic question here is, how do we teach our children to look at those who lead us. Not just the currently elected governments, but the more permanent institutions. How do we teach them to view their Army, their Foreign Affairs decision making institutions? Do we teach them automatic trust? Automatic distrust? Or do we teach them to 'trust but verify'? Or some other approach?

Does academia even know enough to decide on such education questions? Military history has all but disappeared from the US campus. Does one in 200 college students see a textbook like US National Security: Policymakers, Processes and Politics? One in 1000 future professors?

[Luke King]

Connie said to let this simmer a while, so I hope my three months of letting it do so are enough. All I want to do is respond to Ed's last paragraph and give a quick answer to Ian's question of how to prioritize our involvement in foreign affairs. (My views do not represent the US Military, DOD, USMA, or the USCC. They are just my personal views.)

Ed, I found this article that addresses your last couple of questions:

http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/2008/04/03/why-dont-colleges-te...

It is a year old, but informative. Plus, it quotes an EMU professor and mentions my school, so it has to be good, right?

Ian, to answer your question, I would say this: give attention to all of those conflicts. Make the American people aware of them all. I would like to see current events become a bigger part of learning at every level of education. History is great and absolutely necessary to learn, but if a recent graduate only knows the international problems of the past, how can he fix the problems of today?

Beyond drawing attention to these issues, I do not think there is a "right" solution to our level of involvement. What I will say is this; military intervention is not always the solution. Nation building is a strategy we have yet to master, and maybe never will. It takes time, time the American people (sadly) do not have the patience for.

We discussed this very topic today at the West Point Center for the Rule of Law Conference on the future of international criminal justice. One speaker, Anthony Gambino, had an innovative and plausible way to look at capability building, an alternative to nation building. He talks about it in his analysis of Congo's problems in this paper:
http://www.cfr.org/content/publications/attachments/Congo_CSR40.pdf

The basic idea is to work from bottom up, not top down. He calls it TPA (effective training, adequate pay, and accountability of actions). The basic idea is to figure out which areas can be helped relatively easily (emphasis on the term 'relatively'), and start there (locally, probably small towns in most places). Once they have all three aspects of TPA in place, move outward.

The second point I would make on foreign involvement is that financial aid is not always the key either. Africa receives more financial aid annually than any other continent in the world (by a fairly large margin, I apologize for not having the numbers). Despite that fact, its citizens have some of the worst overall quality of life in the world.

In closing, I would just say I would like to see us leverage the capabilities of our intelligence agencies to figure out which countries-in-conflict our involvement in could actually help. I think the Obama administration is competent enough not be hoodwinked by these agencies. So listen to them, and make an assessment. First, would our involvement in any way make a significant impact in these countries? Second, which conflict(s) pose(s) the greatest threat to our national security?

Then I think we should act based on the answers to those two questions. But that is just my opinion.

[Connie Weber]

Luke! It's good to hear from you.

I'm sitting in a coffee shop in Chelsea, Michigan. Opened up Fireside this morning to check the network, see what's happening, see if anything is needed. And lo and behold, an essay by you!

Of course, you are responding to a rather touchy forum, so there's much more here than a simple how-do-do; you are sharing big ideas here. But anyway, hi!!

I like this. I like this about Fireside. It's good that we can address hard issues and talk about them squarely; and good also that we can take rests on topics and return to them.

There's much in your piece to discuss. My quick reaction is that the article "Why Don't More Colleges Teach Military History?" is a good one, full of important points.

What you wrote here holds wisdom: "I would say this: give attention to all of those conflicts. Make the American people aware of them all. I would like to see current events become a bigger part of learning at every level of education. History is great and absolutely necessary to learn, but if a recent graduate only knows the international problems of the past, how can he fix the problems of today?

From my experience, I believe in talking about most of the things we hear in the news with students in class. "Current Events" presentations and discussions are a big part of what we do. Even in elementary school it's apparent that we can build knowledge and awareness of what's going on in the world. In my class, we lean mostly towards science news, but we also get into some pretty big discussions of social problems now and then. Overall, knowing that that they'll have a forum for sharing their thoughts and questions makes students more attuned to what they hear in the news; that's got to be good, right?

This point you made, wow--what a lot of conversation could spring off of it: "What I will say is this; military intervention is not always the solution. Nation building is a strategy we have yet to master, and maybe never will. It takes time, time the American people (sadly) do not have the patience for."

I hope discussing things here can go much the way it goes in class, finding similarities in some parts of others' perspectives, agreeing to disagree about some other parts. Listening. Taking things in.

Oh, how wonderful that you put up this thoughtful essay. I'm only half-way through; will print it out so that I can read a hard copy of your essay, have the articles you refer to, and underline with a pencil. That's my favorite way to read things.

What I most wish is that you and some of the gang from Fireside could come over to the farm. We could be sitting under the stars, roasting marshmallows at the fire pit. The crickets would provide a nice background for us having an actual face-to-face discussion. Think of the topics we'd span! (Can that way of conversing, that form of exchange, be reproduced in network conversations? How close can we get? A worthy goal?)

I know you can picture all this--you actually know the place well. Think of us back when you were my student in elementary school and we came to the farm... And then how as a high-schooler you worked at the farm for years and years as a camp counselor. Think of those debates we'd get into, you and I, while all the other counselors ducked for cover. WE could handle talking about tough topics. Of course we had to keep the whole thing civil and undisturbing to the campers who were weaving their bracelets, molding clay, or playing cards! (In fact, you'd probably be playing Rat-A-Tat-Cat with a batch of kids at the same time you and I would be doing conversational point and counterpoint... fun. The fact that you had to be thinking of the complicated rules of the cards helped me gain time for thought-gathering. That's the only reason why I won all the arguments. ;-)

Just want to add before I close for now--how about adding in on some other forums, too?

So I'm coming back to talk more later on. Right now it's back to coffee and the tasks of the day. Thank you so much for sharing such a thoughtful writing, and for continuing to this reflective investigation about the importance of military history, awareness of current events, and thinking through the ways nations affect each other.

[Connie Weber]

Ian, I agree with what you have said.

What a terrible situation to be in. I think we all feel for everybody, and what to do?

We've made some progress is being able to listen to each other through a crisis; and I think it may be time now to rest the issue (simmer) here on Fireside, although there are many things we can discuss in the long run. I don't think this has to be a closure on discussing war (and particularly its affects on children) and what can do for people in crises, also what we should be doing regarding education about both peace and war. I just think we should have a pause right now.

Ellen wrote to me that it's ok for me to decide what to do about the thread she started "There's no justification for this." So after some thought, I decided to remove it.

[Laura Gibbs]

Hello Ian, you are so right about the pervasiveness of organized violence in our world... and we are all of us complicit in that, to greater or lesser degrees, and we are all ignorant, to greater or lesser degrees.

My own two takes on that are as follows:

1) Never refuse an educational opportunity to learn something more. We will never learn enough, but if we can learn more, then that is something. In the past week my email inbox has been inundated with emails, extreme emails, on both sides of the Gaza conflict. I have benefited from reading those emails, and I am grateful to my friends for sending them.

2) Find a way to teach it, somehow. For me, this has meant mostly being sure to include Islamic culture in my classes. That is my small contribution to my students' education - and I have come to discover from their comments that it may be the only bit of Islamic culture they encounter in their college classes.

3) Feel compassion on all sides. That may sound Pollyanna-ish and simple-minded. But I think it helps.

[Or-Tal Kiriati]

Laura, it is not "Pollyanna-ish" at all. It is so true. This is what I have been saying all the time to people who ask for advice about what to say and how to react.
Perhaps it is my excellent coach who simply taught me to be able to look at things through other people's eyes. But this is really good. When you understand the other side, and you empathize, several good things can come out: first you stop being angry, than you start to think about how to communicate truthfully and efficiently, in a way the other side will understand. When you empathize the other side may actually be willing to listen. It really does help if you can feel true compassion to all sides.
Ed, you have opened my eyes to something totally new! I didn't think about it before. But what you are saying is really similar to what a parent may tell the older child ... "from you I expected better...".
I never thought of it like that. This explains so much! It explains why the security council never gathered to discuss attacks on Israel for the whole time that Israel did not react. Again, like a parent towards the older child, there must have been some belief this child can manage. While I should be completely proud that the public "expects better" from this child, even older, bigger, stronger children may need more than higher expectations.
And the rest of this message will be sent privately to you.

[Ian Carmichael]

Thanks Laura,
Compassion on all sides is in the shortest supply. Two lines that return and return to me are these

Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.

So WIlliam Butler Yeats in "Easter 1916" (I don't understand the whole poem, but these central lines catch in my heart - and stand as a warning.)

[Ellen Pham]

I've been disturbed at the place Gaza has taken here - and not in any educational context.

I think that is an unfair assumption, Ian. To inform, and try to inform accurately, is part of the educational process.

You should give attention to those that move you, and that you have something to say about. It is an individual moral calling, I think.

I haven't read the rest of the responses yet, I am taking a little break.