American Literature: Geography Used Instead of Heroes

The Acton Institute has a good blog post on how American Literature uses different regions instead of heroes to convey civic virtues.  The blog points out how this is more Roman Republican than later European literature which emphasized martial and saintly elite virtues symbolized in specific hero characters.

Key takeaways are

Prior to the modern age most literary heroes exemplified the martial virtues of the warrior (courage, honor, duty) or the theological virtues of the saints (kindness, generosity, faithfulness). They were the virtues of the elite, whether militarily, politically, or spiritually. But in the post-Civil War era, America needed to reconnect with the virtues of the citizen.

and

The ideal virtues of the Via Americana—qualities needed to conquer and civilize regional peoples under one American republic—are remarkably similar. But whereas in Rome these virtues were embodied in mytho-theological constructs (e.g., Veritas, the goddess of truth), in America we associate them with the geographic regions (e.g., the frugality of the New Englanders). 

and

Americans can associate themselves with virtues of regions in which they do not live because they share a common connection of Americanness.

The blog posts ends with a powerful question:

[D]o we need strong associative ties and allegiances to larger communal groupings (either regional or federal) in order to live virtuously in our own local communities? Can Americans be good localists without first identifying with the disseminated virtues of Americana?

Map of Christmas Present Giving Entities in Europe and Western Asia

The map of "Who Brings Gift to Europe" is making news on the internet (and I have been unable to track down the source).  However, there are some interesting geographical trends.

Click to enlarge

Scandinavian countries tend to have a pagan or supernatural gift giver vice the Christmas Saint Nicholas-derivative.

Slavic countries tend to have Grandfather Frost.

The map does not mention the Dutch Sinterklaas (Saint Nicholas) from which the Dutch in New Holland gave the future United States Santa Claus.

Saint Basil beats out Saint Nicholas in Greece(!).

Some form of Father Christmas wins out in Western Europe.

Spain, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, southern Germanic realm (Bavaria, Switzerland, Austria, norther Italy), and Hungary have explicitly historical people give out gifts.

Jesus is the gift giver only in the southern Germanic realm and Hungary.

The original Christmas gift givers (the magi) are "still" giving gifts only in Spain (where they give on Three Kings Day and not Christmas).

Ralph Peters on the Cultural Geography of the Middle East and America's Poor Understanding of It

Ralph Peters, the former Lieutenant Colonel who's redrawn map of the Middle East caused such an outcry, recently gave a talk to a group of geographers concerning his thoughts on the cultural geography of the Middle East and America's foreign policy's misunderstanding of culture.  Here are the key takeaways from a colleague's notes.

Ralph Peters' map came out in 2006.  Note how the proposal for Syria mirrors what is going on now with the Kurds going their own way and the coastal area becoming an Alawite enclave aligned with Hizbollah in Lebanon.

On Borders and the Wrong Side of History

Peters believes that for the first time in modern history the United States has found itself on the wrong side of history by working to sustain legacy borders and regimes that do not reflect the true historical, contemporary cultural, and nationality boundaries.  He believes that we are still in the early phases of the post-imperial era.  Imperial Europe drew many of the international borders in colonial regions with a straight line on the map that doesn't even take rivers and natural boundaries into account, let alone tribal, ethnic, and national boundaries. This has resulted in two problems: 1) it forced people together who do not want to be together and 2) it forced those apart that want to be together.  Peters stated we are prisoners of the Rand McNally paradigm and we need to see beyond the borders drawn on the map.

Women's Rights

Peters floated the theory that the lack of female empowerment in the Middle East was the cause for the region's inability to stabilize   Basically, the denying of rights to women in the Middle East means that 50% of your potential workforce is underutilized an the remaining male workforce is expending a lot of effort illogically to suppress women.

(Catholicgauze note:  Suppressing women had little overall impact on the Middle East when the whole world kept women out of the productivity cycle but as the rest of the world changes the Middle East is the last major area paying for this policy)

Religion, Identity, and Recognizing It

Peters stated Washington pretends religion does not exist.  When asking "who am I?" we default to faith and ethnicity.  Religion answers the fundamental need to believe in something, it provides a refuge.  Peters pointed out empires rise and fall but religion remains constant and continues to exist.  We need to take religion seriously.  We need to fix political problems before they become religious problems.  The Palestinian movement is an example of a movement that started political but has since made the shift to religious zeal which makes it much more challenging to deal with.

Human Nature and Nature of Cultures

Because the Middle East cannot fix their own problems we should not expect ourselves to be able to solve them.  Peters stated the tragic thing we do as humans is to deny human nature.  We cannot accept the fact that some thrive on evil and killing their enemy.  Man has the propensity for violence, but our sheltered lives permit our self-delusion.  Homer, the father of Western literature, illustrated the taste for blood in The Ilidad. Peters reminded us that the end of Troy was due to the Greek barbarians from the other shore and he ended his discussion with "Never underestimate barbarians from other shores".

Pashtunwali: A Set of Fake Cultural Rules

Anyone who deploys out to, or just studies, Afghanistan will undoubtedly spend at least a day learning about Pashtunwali (or "way of the Pashtuns").  Pashtunwali is allegedly ten rules that the Pashtun ethnic group live by and will die for.  The ten rules are

• Hospitality 
• Asylum 
• Justice 
• Bravery 
• Loyalty 
• Righteousness 
• Trust in God 
• Courage 
• Protection of Women 
• Honor

Pasthtunwali has been featured in movies like The Beast...



 ... by amateur historians who believe the ten rules tie the Pashtun with the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel...



... and by United States military officers, State Department officers, and academics who study Afghanistan all study, write about, and interact in Afghanistan on Pashtunwali terms.

The problem with all this is Pashtunwali is made up.  The first mention of it comes from British Lieutenant J. S. Broadfoot in 1880.  The ten rules bit was based off the Western understanding of the Ten Commandments.  Most likely ten was chosen to equate the code with the Ten Commandments.  Later on, Pashtun words were given for each rule to make Pashtunwali sound more native and less British academic.

In fact, here is an 1886 summary of Pashtunwali from Broadfoot in a journal from the Royal Geographic Society



Yet today we teach our war fighters, peace makers, and academics that Pashtuns are like slavish robots to Pashtunwali.  We ignore that Pashtunwali was a rule of thumb to understand rural Pashtuns in the late 1880s.  This ignores cultural evolution, the shift from traditional Islam to introductions of foreign Salafi forms of the faith, and the fact that Pashtun culture has been deeply impacted by forty-plus years of war.  Any captured soldier who screams for asylum (nanawatai) is probably going to be found without his head.

Here is a Google Ngram study of the use of "pashtunwali" in literature.  The mention in the 1960s merely referred back to the original 1880s use of the term.  It was only during the 1970s Communist-made turmoil that the romantic notion of Pashtunwali took off.  We have been suckers for the term since.

I greatly favor teaching culture and using culture in military operations.  However, we must not make the Western orientalist mistake of believing others are complete slaves to their culture.

Historical and Geographic Illiteracy on Christmas Cards

I recently received a Christmas card showing the Holy Family in the village of Bethlehem at the time of the Nativity.

Fantus Paper Products' 50-7109 Christmas card has some issues

A quick look at the card reveals that the "little town" of Bethlehem has quite a skyline with domes and minarets.  Looking at the card I remarked out loud "That's not right".

The problem with the domes and minarets is that they do not belong to Herodian Judea.  Further, they do not belong to this time.  The video below shows a model of Jerusalem at the time of Herodian Judea/Tetrarchy/Roman Judea.  Notice that there are only a few domes anywhere and they mostly feature as accents on roofs.  Spires are almost unseen.



The modern dome was invented and popularized by the Romans which just reached Judea at the time of Christ's birth.  The widespread use of domes in the Middle East did not come until the Byzantine dome was popularized in the 500s and the dome's adoption by Muslim conquerors in the 600s.  Minarets meanwhile were based on Christian bell towers.  Bell towers were first introduced to churches by Saint Paulinus of Nola around AD 400.

After looking at the Christmas card pile I own I found even more historical geographical errors.

The card on the left, by Paper Magic Group, shows a 1,001 Arabian Nights-style Bethlehem  complete with olive domes and desert scenery.  Meanwhile the card on the right  has minarets and is published by the Catholic priest society the Columban Fathers.

On yet another card a minaret shows.

Even the Aid to the Church in Need, a Catholic charity reach reports directly to the Vatican, has minarets on its Christmas card envelops.

Showing minarets and domes on the Christmas card gives in to some Orientalist fantasy which portrays the Middle East as somesort of permanent Arabia.  It ignores the varied history and geography within the region.

I suspect mere historic and geographic ignorance is to blame for the cards rather than a political statement unlike a priest adding a mosque to a nativity scene to promote inter-faith harmony or Austrians protesting a Swiss law by adding minarets to Christmas cards.

The Christmas Tree in Mexico: Layers of Geopolitical Myths?

Several of my Mexican friends, both personal and academic, from Monterrey, Mexico took great pride in telling me about how German immigrants in the city introduced the Christmas tree to Mexico during the late 1800s.  No one could provide a source but everyone implied that it was common knowledge.

I took their word as truth as my travels through Mexico also revealed many more Christmas trees in the north compared to areas such as Mexico City and southern Mexico.  I even wrote the December 2012 monthly travel photo post about Mexican Christmas trees.

Much to my detriment, however, I did not consult geographer and Mexico expert Tony Burton, co-author of Geo-Mexico, about this.  His research indicates one (possibly two) Christmas Tree introductions to Mexico.

According to Burton, it seems that Emperor Maximillian brought over the Christmas Tree in the 1860s which then caught on with upper class Mexicans (most of whom in one way or another backed his government against the Liberal government of Benito Juarez).  Some other sources Burton describes claim that Mexican General Miguel Negrete, who fought against Maximillian and the French, got the idea for a Christmas Tree from the United States in the 1870s.

I told several friends about the above and encountered reactions which hint at nationalist and local myths at play concerning the Christmas Tree in Mexico.  An American economist friend who lived in Mexico laughed and said "Well, looks like Max did something."  Meanwhile, a Mexico City-based Mexican friend stated that there was no way "any Mexican would dare copy Maximillian."  Finally, a geographer in Monterrey could only reply with "but Christmas Trees came from the Germans [who immigrated to Monterrey]."

The second reaction reminded me of my visit to Chapultepec Castle when I asked a tour guide about the Mexican Conservatives who supported Maximillian.  Apparently, at least at the museum, there is a strong nationalist myth that no Mexicans supported Maximillian, only the French did.  After getting a stern message from the tour guide several Mexican tourists lectured me about how all Mexicans know Maximillian was a foreign puppet who had no true local support.  Later, a Mexican friend told me that I might of well asked a Mount Vernon tour guide about George Washington profiting off stolen Loyalist property.

So is there a tie between the current-day myth that no Mexicans supported Maximillian and possible Hapsburg Christmas tree-denialism?  Are the reports of General Negrete or German immigrants in the north introducing Christmas trees merely nationalist and local cover for adopting something the now hated Maximillian brought over from Europe?  I honestly cannot say.  There could have been easily multiple introduction of the Christmas tree to Mexico.  However, the mystery remains and it is even a little bit fun to imagine a conspiracy behind the beloved Christmas tree.

Halloween Geography: Where Horror Lives

Horror stories (in the traditional sense vice the modern slasher film) and ghost stories have an appeal to me.  Originally I was once a strong denier of anything beyond the natural in day to day life but I have seen and heard of enough things to make me "agnostic to the rest of the lower cosmos" as the Victorian author and theologian Robert Hugh Benson would say.

In my many conversations with Americans, Europeans, and Central Asians I have noticed certain geographic themes in horror stories by region.

The United States and Canada:  Horror stories in the United States and Canada mirror traditional horror from Europe.  Most of the stories take place in the wilderness (cabins in the woods, farms) or in meeting zones between wilderness and urban cities (abandon urban places where nature is reasserting itself, Indian burial grounds now covered by suburbia).  There has been a shift towards urban horror with vampires, ghosts, and some zombie movies but this is still a minority of horror stories.

The strength of rural horror seems to rely on the fact that the United States and Canada are both heavily urban societies but have low overall population densities.  This allows for black spots on mental horror maps which grant murderers, spirits, monsters, and aliens to run and fly without being seen.

Europe:  Traditional horror stories from Europe were rural affairs.  Werewolves and witches gathered in nature.  The city and village, meanwhile, formed a Christian civilization buffer zone against evil.  The Industrial Revolution changed everything.  The popularity of wild werewolves and their ilk fell while the ghosts who were wronged and did wrong became popular with the English and various monsters from continental fairy tales merely moved into the city.  Many English and continental horror stories also adopted xenophobic undertones with reverse colonization being a major fear (Dracula).

The cities are the overwhelmingly dominant place for horror in Western Europe while Eastern Europe and Scandinavia still have a place for some rural horror.  Norway and Sweden, with their high urbanization rates yet low population densities, are equally divided between their rural Troll Hunters and urban Let the Right One Ins.  Meanwhile, Russia only recently transferred from retelling fairy tales to modern horror in urban settings like Night Watch.

Central Asia:  My time in Afghanistan taught me that traditional Muslims can hold the belief that some places are meant for Djinns, smokeless fire beings, and not humans.  But instead of being terrified that these creatures are neighbors, traditional Muslims accept this fact and attempt to be good neighbors.  It would be like having a vampire as a neighbor and instead of worrying about the proximity of a bloodsucker to your family you would be more concerned about keeping the kids off its lawn and hoping the vampire does not vote for the opposite political party.

Central Asians did not seem to fear the wilderness.  I assessed this to be a combination of nomadic roots and the fact that while there are dangerous things like bandits in the wilderness many normal Central Asians can be as equally tough and barbaric against rogues.  Village and urban living is fairly new to many parts of Central Asia and the practice of building qalats, walled compounds for families, remains the norm.  It is not surprising that all the "ghost" stories I heard told by Afghans and Pakistanis involved Djinn invading the qalat.  The qalat's walls, acting as a guardian against the wild, being breached terrified many Central Asians I talked to.  I wondered if this contributed to the strong disgust Afghans, even anti-Taliban Afghans, had against special forces night raids on Taliban members' qalats.

The View of Geography in Boko Haram Explained by the Difference Between Traditional Sub-Saharan Islam and Egyptian Salafism

The main Islamist terrorist group in Nigeria has the Arabic name of "People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet's Teachings and Jihad".  The Hausa, the local Nigerian language, name for the group is Boko Haram, which translate to "western education is sinful".

Back in 2009 the leader of Boko Haram gave the group's perspective on geography.  According to the BBC, Boko Haram's thoughts are

"Like rain. We believe it is a creation of God rather than an evaporation caused by the sun that condenses and becomes rain.  Like saying the world is a sphere. If it runs contrary to the teachings of Allah, we reject it. We also reject the theory of Darwinism."

So besides Darwinism, Boko Haram rejects the hydrologic cycle and a spherical Earth.  This may confuse some who associate Islam with being accepting of science.  The truth is that Boko Haram's geography is actually a good example between more traditional forms of Islam and Egyptian-style Salafism.

The cosmos of traditional Islam is full of things like djinn, angels, and divine intervention on a daily basis.  Egyptian-style Salafism (EsS), however, started as a reaction to an Enlightenment-era Europe that militarily dominated the Islamic World, which at the time rejected the more advanced sciences ("if it is in the Qu'ran it is redundant and if it is not in the Qu'ran it is anti-God"). EsS sought to accept the  scientific mindset and reject the more "folk culture" aspects of the faith in order to bring about a scientifically advanced and yet still devout Islam.  EsS coincides in large part, but not exactly, with Saudi-style Wahabbism.  This helps explain why there are so many highly educated Arab engineers and doctors (black-and-white science) who tend also to be the most radically devout, such as Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri.  Meanwhile, areas outside the zone of the EsS Islamic reformation like Afghanistan and Nigeria are no less devout in their Islam yet practice a faith which keeps much of the old ways and remain skeptical of science.

In order to understand why certain militant Islamist related groups (al Qaeda/Boko Haram/Taliban) hold such radically different beliefs it is important to understand where the originate from.  Are they from a zone which is EsS, Wahabbi, and in a more traditional Islamic place.  Knowing their exact origins also helps with confronting them when the fight outside the religious zone.  The United States military has done a decent job turning local Afghans against foreign fighters by reminding the Afghans that Wahabbis will destroy Deobandi graves.

Puerto Rico in Numbers: Somewhere In Between the West Indies and the United States

What do you think?  Feel free to share your comments!

Puerto Rico and statehood is in the news again as both Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum battled over what would be necessary for Puerto Rico to become a state.  My own travel to Puerto Rico and subsequent research revealed a land somewhere culturally and economically between the West Indies in the United States.  The island greatly benefits from commonwealth ties to the United States but economics and cultural issues place it further away from the rest of the United States, sometimes in its own category or with the rest of the West Indies.

Many thanks to the CIA Factbook, Department of Labor, the United States Census, and the Washington Post for the figures used below.

Production

When it comes to GDP per capita, the market value of all final goods and services produced divided by the number of people, Puerto Rico's is only 49% is national average and 71% of the most under producing state, Mississippi.  However, Puerto Rico's GDP per capita is 122% of the Bahamas and 331% compared to the Dominican Republic's, the highest independent Hispanic country in the West Indies.

United States Average:  $47,482
(Lowest State) Mississippi: $32,967
Puerto Rico:  $23,380
(Highest West Indies Country)  Bahamas:  $19,139
(Highest Hispanic West Indies Country) Dominican Republic:  $7,055

Income and Poverty

Income and poverty is where Puerto Rico suffers compared to both the United States and the Caribbean.  Much like GDP per capita, Puerto Rico lags behind the United States in the median household income category.  However, several independent countries and dependent territories in the West Indies have lower unemployment rates than Puerto Rico.

Median Household Income
United States Average:  $50,221
(Lowest State) Mississippi:  $36,646
Puerto Rico:  $18,862

Unemployment:
United States Average: 8.3%
Puerto Rico:  12%
(Lowest West Indies Country) Cuba; 3.8%

Population Below the Poverty Line
United States Average:  15.1%
Puerto Rico:  41%

Language

Puerto Rico has both English and Spanish as official languages while the United States does not have an official language.  However, English and Spanish usage show a huge gulf between Puerto Rico and the United States.

United States and Language:
Able to speak English fluently: 96%
English as the primary language: 82%
Spanish as the primary language: 10.7%

Puerto Rico and Language:
Able to speak English fluently: 15%
English as the primary language: 5%
Spanish as the primary language: 96%

Population

Puerto Rico is not some outpost like the Virgin Islands or Guam, it is a heavily populated island on par with Oklahoma or Connecticut and it would be ranked 29th in population if it were a state.  It also would have impact on the federal level by having six House of Representative members, based on the rule of one representative per 600,000 residents.

Puerto Rico: 3,706,690
Ranking in Population Size as a State: 29
Probable House of Representative Members as a State: 6

However, Puerto Rico would be the smallest Hispanic West Indies country while still being larger than the English-speaking West Indies.

Cuba: 11,241,894
Dominica Republic:  9,378,818
Puerto Rico: 3,706,690
(Largest English-speaking West Indies) Jamaica:  2,847,232

Population and Diaspora

A major rebuttal Puerto Rico statehood supporters use is to state that all these fears of a cultural clash between the United States and Puerto Rico are unfounded because Puerto Rico "is already here."  There is some credibility to this as most Puerto Rican nations live in the United States and not Puerto Rico

Self-declared Puerto Ricans in the United States: 4,623,716
People living in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico:  3,706,690

Last Notes:

Now if Puerto Rico were to become an independent country a decrease in standard of living could be possible due to the loss of ties with American businesses and the free flow of money with the United States, just look at the Philippines for an example of this occurring.  However, continued or modified commonwealth status could grant more political freedoms while keeping the money ties in place.  Statehood risks increases in taxation, loss of economic handicaps like minimum wage law modifications, and loss of tax law loopholes.  Finally, while both the Popular Democratic Party and New Progressive Party state they support statehood, just how this is done remains unknown.  This causes a situation where most Puerto Ricans voice support for statehood while voting to keep the commonwealth.

Virtual Geography Convention 2012: How to Handle the Afghan Burnt Qu'rans

Welcome to the kick-off of the 2012 Virtual Geography Convention!  If you have a presentation or blog post you wished published please contact me at catholicgauze [at] gmail [dot] com!

Sometimes I am asked what a cultural adviser/human terrain team member/cultural geographer can do in Afghanistan.  The incident and fallout concerning burnt Qu'rans at the dentition facility in Bagram give a prime example.

The complete apology campaign has only angered Afghans and now the international Muslim community because it only shows America admitting it destroyed the Muslim holy book without giving a reason.  The lack of reason allows anti-American forces to claim that the West is wagging a war against Islam with no rebuttal to challenge the claim.

Instead of this, a cultural geographer would tell the military and political leaders about how Afghans take much more care of their Qu'rans compared to Arabs.  While many Arabs tend to have a place of honor for their Qu'rans, many Afghans will have altars or even special lock safes to store and honor their holy book.  This shows how special the Qu'ran is for Afghans.  It also implies that any Qu'ran destruction in Afghanistan would not be like other Qu'ran incidents in Iraq which cause anger but are quickly forgotten.  The cultural geographer would lastly point out Afghans, who see their country with the myth that it is only Muslim state never conquered and ruled by a non-Muslim power, as people chosen by God to be the practitioners of the truest form of Islam and take their role of defending the faith deadly serious.

The cultural geographer would then recommend that the press affairs office emphasize that it was the prisoners who defaced the Qu'ran by writing messages in it (it was messages between prisoners hidden in the Qu'rans which caused the military commander to order their destruction).  The cultural geographer would further recommend that a council of religious elders from all Afghan ethnic groups be gathered to release a statement on how it was wrong for the Americans to burn the Qu'rans but the book was already defiled by the prisoners.  A country-wide townhall campaign focusing on Pashtuns, the base of the Taliban, and Uzbeks, where the Taliban recruit members from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, should then be launched with copies of the marked pages passed around in the tens of thousands.  The campaign should also emphasize the numerous times the Taliban attacked mosques and imams.

The proposed campaign and its fallout would not make the international nightly news but it would be a huge win in the battle for hearts and minds and would even result in a loss of ideological and then material support for the Taliban.

However, no cultural adviser was available and this is what happened

Know Your Female Islamic Headdress

Burqa has to be one of the most misused terms for the last decade.  The word has been used to describe any female Islamic headdress.  However, this graphic sent to me for Afghanistan training shows the different types of head coverings in the Islamic world.

The (really) rough rule of thumb for where these headdresses are popular is

Hijab:  Roughly used everywhere in some form.  Many times a generic word for head covering.
Al-Amira:  A hijab found in Arabic countries and those places where Muslims wish to immitate Arab outside influence.

Chador: Required by law in Iran.  Traditional in Persian areas.

Niqab: Popular in the Arabian Pennisula.  Some use in Pakistan since the 1970s.

Burqa:  Eastern Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.  Becoming the Islamic fundamentalist dress of choice in Europe.

When I was in Iraq the women wore regular Hijabs in the "hair scarf"-style.  The only place I knew where the burqa was worn was in a city of 100,000 called Karmah (roughtly between Fallujah and Baghdad).  Karmah turned out to be a primary place for al Qaeda to breed as the city was already Wahabbi (the only city to have a native Wahabbi population).  The city still is a launching pad for al Qaeda attacks against Fallujah, Ramadi, and Baghdad.

Stalin's Harvests: The Conflicts Made By One Man's Geographic Changes

Ethnic Kyrgyz supporters of the ousted ex-president of Kyrgyzstan, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, are targeting ethnic Uzbeks, supporters of the new government. The riots are in the southern half of the control and have spun out of control. Some have even called the riots acts of "genocide" with up to 100,000 ethnic Uzbeks fleeing into Uzbekistan. The riots have several causes; among them are the change in government, demographic movements of ethnic Uzbeks and Kyrgyz in the fertile Fergana Valley, and traditional rivalry between settled Uzbeks and nomadic Kyrgyz. There is a key, historical cause though. The Economist calls it Stalin's Harvest. The "harvest" refers to Stalin's drawing of borders to suit his own, divide and conquer needs. And this is not the first bloody border harvest of his.

Stalin, and other members of the People's Commissariat of Nationalities. drew and redrew national boundaries in the 1920s and 1930s in an effort to reward, punish, and playoff subjects in the Caucasus.  Later on as head of the Soviet Union Stalin engaged in population transfers of various ethnic Muslim groups in both the northern and southern Caucasus. During his reign there were many harvests of ethnic blood through expulsions and mass killings. His death saw a curbing of ethnic killings; however, the collapse of the Soviet Union saw the incubated seeds of Stalin's ethnic violence emerge once more.

Georgia

Before the fall of the Soviet Union, Georgia was comprised of Georgia-proper, the ethnic autonomous republic of Abkhaiza (for Abkhaz) and the autonomous oblast of South Ossetia (for Ossetians). The last Georgian Soviet leader and first Preisdent of Georgia, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, demanded a "Georgia for the Georgians" while pushing laws to strip ethnic minorities of their special regions. War broke out between Georgians against the Ossetians and Abkhaz who received military support from Russia. The conflict is currently frozen, the last spat was the 2008 Russia-Georgia War, which ended in another Georgian defeat and limited international recognition of de facto independent South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Azerbaijan


When the Soviet Union was collapsing the first region to revolt against Stalin's map was the Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan.  As written about before in the Other Occupations piece, ethnic Armenians and Azeris went to war over an ethnic Armenian autonomous region in Azeribaijan.  Today the exclave is de facto independent and owns some previously ethnic Azeri lands

Republic of North Ossetia and Republic of Ingushetia, Russia

Muslim Ingush were forced into exile by Stalin because he believed they supported the Nazis during World War II. The Ingush, like many punished ethnic groups, were forced to relocate to Central Asia and Siberia in the mid-1940s. As the Soviet Union was collapsing many Ingush returned to their homeland and noticed it was smaller because much of the land was given to Christian Ossetians (who rival Belarusians in being the most Russian non-ethnic Russians). A conflict broke out in which Ossetians cleansed North Ossetia of many Ingush. Many Ingush from North Ossetia still live in refugee camps in Ingushetia today. The hatred of this loss has feed into the instablity in Ingushetia today.

Kyrgyzstan

The ethnic riots of 2010 are not the first mass ethnic killings in Kyrgyzstan. In 1990 in the city of Osh, one of the places where the 2010 ethnic riots is currently on-going, ethnic Uzbeks started to demand local cultural rights and autonomy. Ethnic Kyrgyz responded with riots that targetted Uzbek homes. Some Uzbeks from Soviet Uzbekistan in turn went to Osh to melee against the Kyrgyz rioters. Soviet Army troops were needed to quell the rioting and keep the peace.

Besides the four cases of mass ethnic killings above, there has been low level violence in Ukraine's Crimea where Crimean Tatars squatters are fighting ethnic Russian land owners over lands the Tatars lost because of one of Stalin's many ethnic exiles.

Stalin not only harvested ethnic violence during his reign but also laid the seeds for further violence with his expulsions and African-style border drawing. With Azeri-Armenian, Georgian-Ossetian-Abkhaz, and Krygyz-Uzbek tensions running high, expect Stalin's harvest to occur every so often.

Robert Kaplan: "For Greece’s Economy, Geography Was Destiny "

Robert Kaplan has an article entitled "For Greece’s Economy, Geography Was Destiny." In it Kaplan, a man I well respect for his military reporting and the job he has done bringing geography back into public discussion of global events, begins the article talking about how the poor soil of the Mediterranean coastal countries led to a culture of powerful, corrupt landowners. Meanwhile, Kaplan praises Northern Europe with its dark soil and its inland water ways as being the lands where liberalism was born thus giving the world the enlightenment, global trade, and movement. He uses these geographic factors to state Greece was doomed economically.

Kaplan sees the geographic trends but attributes it to the wrong factor. Yes, physical environments do shape cultures but culture's can adapt to environments in order to advance and improve. In a class I taught I pointed out how soil environmental determinism can be disproven by looking at chernozem. Chernozem, literally meaning black earth, is arguably the best agricultural soil in the world. It is found primarily in the Great Plains of Canada-United States and Ukraine. The Kievan Rus of Ukraine were only a minor European power (they became powerful when they shifted into modern-day Russia. Meanwhile, the Great Plains Indians were much less advanced than Woodlands Indians who built cities like Cahokia and formed political alliances like the Iroquois Confederacy.

In the case of Europe one should think of the Italian city-states like the Most Serene Republic of Venice and the Republic of Genoa which were world players. Civil law, descended from Roman law, is the world's most used legal system. Meanwhile Ireland, with good soil in the south and eastern parts of the island, has long been a background. In the case of Ireland, the Celtic Tiger seems to be a historical oddity as Ireland is one of the PIIGS which is drowning in debt. Also, Iceland has completely melted down and countries like the United Kingdom and Norway are experiencing their own economic troubles.

Kaplan has reminded some that geography is important and, yes, environment does play a roll. However, one needs to avoid the disproven thoughts that environment alone plays such a powerful role.

Women from More Economically Advanced Countries Prefer Beta Males

After crunching the data—including the women's facial preferences, their country of origin and that country's national health index—the Face Lab researchers proved something remarkable. They could predict how masculine a woman likes her men based on her nation's World Health Organization statistics for mortality rates, life expectancy and the impact of communicable disease. In countries where poor health is particularly a threat to survival, women leaned toward "manlier" men. That is, they preferred their males to have shorter, broader faces and stronger eyebrows, cheekbones and jaw lines. The researchers went on to publish the study in this month's issue of the scientific journal Proceedings of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences.

So states the article Why Women Don't Want Macho Men in the Wall Street Journal. The article describes how researchers saw a correlation between economical wealth and women's preferences for either manly or feminine, metrosexual guys. Apparently as women gain in a growing economy they no longer value a "rough" man and instead desire "compassionate, caring" guys. This in part explains why Johnny Depp is now considered more sexy than Sean Connery.

The lack of manliness is having real world consequences. "Boys being boys" is no longer being tolerated as young boys are being punished in the educational system for actions that were considered the norm fifty years ago. Scientists like Dr. Helen Smith have proposed that society and the educational system's punishment of manliness is part of the reason women make sixty percent of college students, a much larger rate of male unemployment, and other social ills affecting men and the public in general.

Gagauz: A Mixing Bowl People of Three Worlds

Think of the Balkans. One probably has the image of various ethnic groups strongly resisting outsiders while cling on to the old ways. There is another type of Balkans people, though. There is a group that has adopted the many traits of other ethnic nations and has become unique because of their melting pot culture. The Gagauz are that people whose cultural and political make-up combine all the major players of the Balkans in the last 600 years.

The Gagauz are ethnic Turks. Their very name means “straight-nosed Turks.” There are two theories on how they reached present-day Moldova. The first theory is that they are descended from the Ottoman conquers of the 15^th and 16^th centuries. The other theory was more popular in the past. It stated that the Gagauz were descended from the Bulgars, also a Turkic people, who pillaged their way into Europe from the Central Asian steppes. The basis for this hypothesis is that Gagauz use to call themselves “true Bulgars” when they lived among the Bulgarians. They resented Bulgarians calling them "Gagauz" because it implied they were Turks like the Ottomans rather than a small “t” Turkic people like the Bulgarians who became Slavic in culture. Today the Gagauz prefer the Ottoman-origin theory.

No one knows when the conversion happened but the Gagauz are Eastern Orthodox Christians belonging to a See in the Russian Orthodox Church. During the 1800s the first noting of religion amongst the Gagauz was made. The Gagauz were being oppressed by the Ottomans for being Christian. Around this time Russian Orthodox Church was the only Orthodox Church not under Ottoman control and it was therefore a political statement to belong to it while living in the Ottoman Empire. The Gagauz probably converted from Sunni Islam due to missionary activity or, if the Bulgar theory is correct, converted out of a desire to be aligned with a free Orthodox church.

The Gagauz speak Gagauz, a language closely related to Turkish. However, their alphabet is now in Latin. Previously Gagauz used the Greek alphabet but it switched to Cyrillic in the 1950s. The change was forced by the Soviet Union which sought to Russify the various cultures in the USSR.  It went to Latin after the fall of the Soviet Union.

The majority of Gagauz live in the former Soviet republic of Moldova. While they have been partially Russified by their adoption of Russian Orthodoxy and Cyrillic, the Gagauz have managed to keep their own language alive while being multilingual in Romanian and Russian. Their national identity nearly lead to war in the early 1990s. As the Soviet Union was falling apart, ethnic Romanians in Moldova changed the official language of Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic from Russian and Romanian to Romanian only. Also, the Moldovan nationalists were making it known an independent Moldova would seek to merge into a greater Romania. The Gagauz threatened to breakaway violently but war was prevented by Transnistria's war of independence. The crushing of the Moldovans by the Transnistrians and 14th Russian Army prevented any anti-Gagauz crackdown by Moldova. A period of undeclared independence existed from 1992 to 1994. In 1994 Moldova agreed to give autonomy to majority Gagauz regions and areas with a sizable Gagauz minority which voted to join the autonomous zone of Gagauzia. Gagauzia is a free, liberal democracy with its own parliment and good civil rights record.

Today the mixed nature of the Gagauz continues. Turkey has granted Moldova money to improve Gagauzia and has spent its resources by conducting cultural exchanges. The Gagauz tend to support the Communist Party of Moldova and are considered still close to Russia as they see the party and Russia as counterweight to the pro-European, pro-Romania parties. The Gagauz have become a focal point where Europe, Russian Eurasia, and a Turkish Near East merge. The mixing bowl Gagauz have become a people of three worlds.

What You Need to Know About Ukraine's 2010 Presidential Election, the Ethnic/Cultural Geography Behind it, and Where Ukraine Goes from Here

The election map also reflects the ethnic/cultural divide in Ukraine. Blue is the ethnic/culturally Russian zone that voted for Yanukovych while pink is ethnically/culturally Ukrainian that in 2004 voted for Yushchenko and Tymoshenko in 2010.

2004-2010

The Orange Revolution of 2004 excited many in the West. A pro-West coalition comprised of a nearly assassinated man and a woman who played up her family's peasant background with an iconic hairstyle overturned a stolen election and won power together. The Orange Revolution was to permanently server Russia's control over Ukraine and align the country with Europe and the United States.

That, sadly, was not to be. The almost assassinated man, President Viktor Yushchenko, strongly supported the United States and stood up to Russia. Yet his popularity fell immensely as the economy collapsed, various political parties turned against him, Russia repeatedly cut off gas, and Russia ignored his protests of their using Ukraine as a base in the 2008 Russia-Georgia War. The woman, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, began to chart her own course attacking all sides, making deals with all sides, and naming her political party after herself. Meanwhile, the Russian-backed candidate, Viktor Yanukovych, has been most passive of the three yet more successful as he briefly became Prime Minister and managed to rebuild the pro-Russia alliance of parties.

The 2010 Presidential Elections

The breakdown of the Orange Revolution occurred with the recent 2010 presidential elections. The pro-Russian Yanukovych came in first by two percentage points over Tymoshenko who campaigned on a platform promising to balance relations with the West and Russia equally. President Yuschenko only earned five percent of the vote and came in fifth.

Tymoshenko and her supporters are trying to make a second Orange Revolution and overturn the vote by claiming Yanukovych's backers are trying to steal the election again. However, this time she is lacking in a pro-West platform mandate. Also, she can be described as the Sarah Palin of Ukraine as one either loves her or hates her. An Ukrainian pro-Russian television pundit described her as "the incarnation of evil" and a pro-West commentator said she was the "mother of all lies." Meanwhile a supporter of her's in parliament said she was a "regular Ukrainian thrusted onto greatness." Whether or not she is successful in overturning the election she will undoubtedly cripple the country even further if she goes through with her mass protest threats. Her supporters could either become marginalized jokes like those of would-be Mexican president Andres Lopez Obrador or a serious political force like the various opposition groups formerly and currently in Georgia.

The Ethnic and Cultural Background

Corruption and Byzantine-style politics have certainly helped in developing the current state of Ukrainian affairs but the primal rift lies deep in the ethnic and cultural makeup of Ukraine.

Russia and Ukraine's pasts are inseparable. Ukraine's capital is Kyiv (Kiev) and it was the medieval capital of the Kievan Rus. The Kievan Rus is the proto-state which both Ukraine and Russia claim mutual cultural and political heritage from. The Kievan Rus' Prince Vladimir the Great's conversion to Christianity was the founding event for what would become the Russian Orthodox Church. After the defeat of Crimean Tatars in the eighteenth century present-day eastern and southern Ukraine became known as Novorossiya (literally "New Russia") as Russian immigrant colonialist took over land from the fleeing Muslims. Ukraine, for the most part, stayed part of Imperial Russia with briefly independent republican governments crushed by the Soviet Union before 1920. The Crimean Peninsula, meanwhile, only became part of Ukraine as a gift in 1954 (then it was merely a transfer from the Soviet Union to the Soviet Union so it only mattered on paper).

The intertwined relationship between Russia and Ukraine has left its mark on the geography of Ukraine. The eastern and southern parts of Ukraine form an economically better-off Russian belt. Seventeen percent of all Ukrainians are ethnic Russians with ninety percent of Crimea being ethnic Russian. Meanwhile, about a third of all ethnic Ukrainians, mostly those who live in the Russian belt, speak Russian as their primary language, watch and read Russian media, and are at least nominal members of the Russian Orthodox Church or its satellite Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate). Yulia Tymoshenko was one of these culturally Russian Ukrainians. She only learned a commanding knowledge of the Ukrainian language around the year 2000. The major pro-Russia party, Viktor Yanukovych's Party of Regions, caters to ethnic and cultural Russians. In fact the party's website is not in Ukrainian but instead only in Russian and English. Imagine if the Republican Party only campaigned in Spanish or the Conservative Party only operated in Hindi yet still could win national elections. That is how ethnically and culturally split Ukraine is.

Like in Moldova, the wealth and industry in concentrated in the ethnic/culturally Russian zone.

President Viktor Yushchenko failed in part because his initial base was limited to ethnic/cultural Ukrainians and he sought to impose Ukrainization in non-cultural Ukrainian parts of the country. Yushchenko tried yet failed to remove Russian-language government signs in eastern Ukraine. He also failed in banning Russian-language television. This not only offended the seventeen percent, ethnic Russians, but also the cultural Russians. Those two groups combine to create between forty and forty-five percent of the total population.

The effort to make Ukraine closer to the West at the expense of Russian-relations also cost Yushchenko. While Ukrainians are open to better relations with the West most actually believe good relations with Russia are a must. Recent polling by several agencies showed Ukrainians strongly reject NATO membership. There is some support for immediate efforts to join the European Union but an equal number are just as supportive for joining the Russia-Belarus Union State.

To the Future

The effort to have Ukraine join NATO was set back in Romania and died with the 2010 presidential election. The current geopolitical situation will have to change before a strong pro-West government takes Ukraine again. At the earliest this will take a decade. The Russian military bases in Crimea will probably be allowed to stay operating past the original 2017 deadline while NATO forces will only be allowed to dock at ports for short visits. Talk about Russian invading Ukraine for control of Crimea and the eastern half of the country were always week and should finally be laid to rest. There is no reason to invade Ukraine because a large minority of the country is solidly pro-Russia. Finally, Ukraine will probably no longer seriously consider joining the European Union.

Physical, Ethnic, and Political Geography You Should Know of Yemen

Yemen is all over the news since the attempted bombing of an airplane by the Yemen-based al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. In the spirit of ethnic groups you need to know of Afghanistan and Southern Russia, I present the Physical, Ethnic, and Political Geography You Should Know of Yemen.

CIA World Factbook Map of Yemen

Yemen occupies the southwest end of the Arabian Peninsula and is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the north, Oman to the east, the Red Sea to the west, and Gulf of Aden to the south. Though it is geographical close to East Africa and has historic ties to that region, the last 100 years-plus have seen considerable mental map distance between the two.

Physical Geography

There are several physical geographic regions of Yemen.

Along the Red Sea coast is the Tihmarra which is a sand dune region about 50 miles (80 kilometers) across. There is some irrigation that is feed by wadi wash, water that comes from mountain rains through dry riverbeds.

The central highlands dominate most of the former Yemeni Arab Republic (North Yemen). Here lives the core of the population. The major cities like Sadah, Amran, and Sanaa are located in the highlands and so are remote hill top villages that use terraced agriculture.

The immediate coastal region by Aden in the south is a low flat land with high temperatures. Aden is a natural port and has long been a cosmopolitan trade city.

The Empty Quarter is one of the world’s largest deserts and dominates eastern Yemen as well as parts of Oman and Saudi Arabia. The population is very sparse. Until 2000, the Empty Quarter borders for Yemen, Oman, and Saudi Arabia were undefined.

There are no permanent rivers in Yemen.

Ethnic and Religious Geography

Arab is the overall dominating ethnic group of Yemen but within the country there are many subdivision among tribes, clans, and ethnoreligious groups. Almost all the population is Muslim but there is a near even split between Sunni and Sevener Shia (Zaydi) with the Sunnis having a slightly larger population. The Zaydis differ with Twlever Shias, who mostly are Iranian and Iraqi, over leadership, history, and rituals. Zaydi Islam is very close to Sunni Islam. Most Zaydis live in the north between Sanaa and up into Sadah. There is a rebellion going on by the Zaydi Huthi tribal group but the religious nature of the rebellion can be questioned because many in the current government including the president are Zaydis as well.

There once was a strong Christian and Jewish presence in Yemen. Jews were in Yemen since perhaps during the reign of King Solomon around 950 BC. Up until after AD 500 a series of Jewish kingdoms dominated the region. The kingdoms looked out for Jewish interests in Arabia and even mounted persecution campaigns against Christians because of Christian Roman treatment of Jews. Christian Ethiopia responded and waged wars against the Yemeni Jews and took over part of the country. During the rise of Islam most Christians and Jews eventually moved into mountains and island regions. Up until the 1500s the island of Socotra was majority Nestorian Christian. Most of the Jews left after the establishment of Israel and the following anti-Semitic feelings by Arabs. The last large wave left during Operation Magic Carpet. Today there are perhaps 120 Jews left in Yemen and these live in a protected compound in the capital. At the start of 2009 there were 260 Jews left. There are about 4,000 Catholics, with Aden being the capital of the see, and slightly these Ethiopian Orthodox and Protestants. The Nestorians are completely gone.

Political Geography

Politically there is a north/south divide. The north, really northwest, has long been part of a Zaydi Imamate, Shia religious theocracy. Control went back-and-forth between the Zaydi Imams and later Ottoman Turk rulers. After the Turks finally left at the end of World War I the Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen was established and its king was also the Zaydi Imam. A civil war broke out in 1962 between socialist republicans backed by Egypt and the monarchy backed by Jordan and Saudi Arabia. The war so violent and focused on combined regular and guerrilla tactics that many historians equate the Yemeni civil war with the Vietnam War. The conflict lasted until 1970 with the republicans winning but at such a cost that many elements of the monarchy like tribal independence were kept in order that peace could finally be achieved.

The south on the other hand had a much different history. The British took Aden and the rest of south Yemen from Turkish oversight control between the 1830s and 1880s. In 1866 the British established the Aden Protectorate which was considered part of their Indian colony. The tribes had a fair amount of independence and a sort of “Egyptian relationship” existed between the United Kingdom and the people of Yemen. In the 1960s a nationalist uprising occurred with the British fleeing in 1967. A Marxist wing of rebels eventually took control of the former British zone and declared it People's Democratic Republic of Yemen. South Yemen established ties with other Communist powers, centralized the state, and did much to diminish tribal power except in the Empty Quarter.

As the Marxist south gravitated towards the Soviet Union, the nominal socialist north slowly started favoring the United States. North and South Yemen both realized that reunification was the preferred option but neither one wanted to take real steps towards that goal. A love/hate relationship formed between the two. In 1990 reunification happened with the creation of the Republic of Yemen but the North quickly proved the dominate one with leadership, under the current president since 1978 Ali Abdullah Saleh, and bureaucracy staying in place as many Southern leaders were dismissed. The south tried to declare independence in 1994 but a quick civil war crushed the movement.

Flashpoints

In the north is the on-again, off-again, on-again Zaydi Huthi rebellion. Rebels are fighting the government. Saudi Arabia recently intervened with troops and aircraft to support the Yemeni forces. Both Yemen and Saudi Arabia claim Iran is helping the rebels.

In the Empty Quarter tribes still exist. Al Qaeda has significant support here and uses various networks to survive and train in the region. Al Qaeda’s reach now stretches to the capital region. The group’s presence started after the Soviet-Afghan War when Osama Bin Laden started funding groups to overthrow the mostly secular republican government. It is because Yemeni complaints of Bin Laden’s activities that the Saudi government revoked his citizenship and he was forced into exile in Sudan.

The south is experiencing another revival of nationalism. This movement is centered in Aden. Aden is more secular, progressive, and less tribal than the rest of Yemen. The movement is so far political and the vast majority of violence has been on the part

The country on a hole is running out of water. Some estimates say that because of lack of desalinization efforts and rivers, the capital Sanaa may run out of water by 2020. A years-long drought is not helping matters with some provincial capitals already running out of water. On top of it all, many Yemeni farmers grow khat. Khat is an addictive plant that is chewed which relaxes the body while keeping the person alert (think supper coffee). Khat is needs lots of water to grow and Yemeni farmers are choosing khat growing over letting the wells and aquifers replenish.

Finally oil is presenting a problem. The oil region is a fairly quiet part of the country between the highlands and the full openness of the Empty Quarter. Over two-thirds of the economy is based on oil. However, oil reserves are rapidly running out and Yemen will have to be the first Arab petrostate to face the end of its oil run. It is estimated this will occur in only ten to fifteen years.

Portraits of the 56 Ethnic Groups of China

The People's Republic of China officially recognizes fifty-six ethnic groups in it's territory. This number ignores completely overlooked groups and claimed groups counted as something else. Also, the Republic of China claims that there are over a dozen ethnic minorities on Taiwan but the Communist government in Beijing counts them all as Gaosahn.

The website ChinaGate (for an non-Chinese website one can view ChinaHush) has "family portraits" of all the fifty-six recognized ethnic groups. The photos show extended families wearing traditional clothing.

The traditional clothing gives the feel of a propaganda piece. What would be really interesting to see is a picture of a real community of each ethnic group. Until then these family portraits are still neat to look at.

Map of Ethnic Groups in Southern Russia and Ethnic Rumblings There

Click to enlarge. Ethnic Russian in red, ethnic Muslim in green, ethnic Christian in blue, ethnic Buddhist in yellow

While most people are focusing on the War on Terrorism in Afghanistan and Pakistan, things are picking up again on the Southern Russia front. Russia is quadrupling its forces there after a failed experiment of relying on local, pro-Russian militias (thugs) against local, anti-Russian militias (thugs) who fight along side foreign Islamic radicals.

Few people fail to realize just how ethnically fractured Southern Russia is and how this has overflowed into international violence. Not all areas have been trouble spots. For instance Buddhist Kalmyks have gotten along fine with their Russian neighbors and the same goes Adygeya and Russians. However, even before the collapse of the Soviet Union this has been a trouble spot.

War:

• Armenians-Azeris: Technically outside the focused area but started off modern ethnic conflict in February 1988.
• Ossetians-Ingush: Started in 1992, this was probably the most personal of wars due to the low level technology and close fighting. Ingush returning from Stalinist exile wanted their homes back taken by Russian-backed Ossetians. Today there are still Ingush refugee camps in Ingushtia filled with Ingush with no place to call home.
• Georgians-Abkhaz-Ossetians: Not one, not two, not three, but four wars.
• Chechens-Russians: The most famous of the conflicts featuring two wars. First one was a tie tht went to the Chechens while Putin helped Russia win the second.
• Dagestan 1999: Islamists based in Chechnya invaded Dagestan to expand their Islamic influence. The war helped start the Second Chechen War.
• Ingush v. Ingush: Ingush angry at Russia and the world aligned themselves with outside Islamists. A civil war which is part of the greater Chechen-Ingush-Dagestan Islamist War is currently on-going.
• Currently Ethno-Islamic War: Ethnic Muslim groups are currently backed by international Islamists who seek the defeat of Russia and also the local pro-Russian Muslim governments.

Trouble Spots to Watch:

• Eastern Ukraine and especially the Crimea: Much of eastern Ukraine is either majority ethnic Russian or cultural Russian (ethnic Ukrainians who speak Russian as their first language). While violence will probably not break-out, Moscow could insight problems if it wanted to. A trouble spot within a trouble spot would be with the Crimean Tatars- ethnic Muslims who generally hate Russians. They make up 12% of Crimea and provide a possible in for Islamic radicals.
• Mingrelians in Gali, Abkhazia: In the southeast of the breakaway region of Abkhazia is GaliMingrelian, an ethnic subset of Georgian. The Mingrelians have strong ties to Georgia but supported Abkhaz President Sergei Bagapsh when he ran for president without the endorsement of Moscow. Now Mingrelians have been pushed further in the pro-Georgia camp but Russia may try to create Mingrelian nationalism to cause probelms for Georgia.

Switzerland: The Working Model for Afghanistan?

The most recent news about Switzerland is good economic news: the Swiss economy is judge to be more competitive than the United States'. A combination of smart, limited economic controls and a much more solid banking system has allowed the Swiss to reward capitalistic actions better than America.

While some underinformed observers may think of Switzerland as just another Western European country, it is very unique for that sector of the world. Decentralized government, functioning multiethnic population, and a conservative tint make Switzerland less like a Western European country and more like a working Afghanistan.

To understand how true this comparison is one must remember two things: 1) both countries are militaristic while practicing a form of isolationism and 2) Afghanistan was not always a basket case.

Membership in the Swiss military is mandatory and there are laws about citizens needing to own weapons. Meanwhile the average Afghan male knows how to use light weaponry with a fair chunk familiar with things ranging from heavy machine guns to anti-tank rockets. The Swiss have adopted a long and well known policy of neutrality. Meanwhile, Afghanistan has been concerned more about internal affairs and repelling foreigners rather than expanding its borders since the downfall of the Durrani Empire. The only exception is the Third Anglo-Afghan War in which the Afghans decided to go home after realizing it was impossible to rally themselves to invade Pakistan.

Since the establishment of a modern Afghanistan, meant to be a buffer between Russia and British India, there has been periodic turmoil but as the governments in Kabul became more established the less civil conflict there was. This is not to say Kabul ran the country, various local mayors and tribal leaders did, but everyone had a place and was generally content with it. During the first half of the Cold War both the USSR and United States gave aid to Afghanistan and help construct modern infrastructure. Social progression was very slow but an educated class was being developed. It was not till the Communist take over and the following Soviet invasion that modern Afghanistan became the war state it is now. This mirrors Switzerland where the various cantons have much more power than the central government in Bern.

There are some differences though that currently hamper Afghanistan becoming the next Switzerland.

Neutrality versus intervention

Various European powers have prized Switzerland for its neutrality. It has been a buffer between powers, a good meeting place for sides whose politics would prevent any other form of communication, and its banking laws have allowed states to realize its better to have an economic partner rather than a unwilling subject. Afghanistan has been a puppet, though throughout much its history. First the Persian, Russian, and British Empires fought to have advantage over each other by holding sway over Afghanistan. Then during and after the Soviet invasion Iran, Pakistan, and various Central Asian countries have favored factions in a long running civil war. The various factions would not have the funding, human capital, or weaponry if it was not for foreign funders.

Nationality

In Switzerland one defines themselves as a Swiss first then by their canton or their canton and then Swiss. Either way both the first choice and the second choice are usually nearly equal. Intra-national alliances are looked down upon. One alliance of German Catholic cantons was destroyed in a civil war by a united Catholic/Protestant alliance who feared the German Catholics were trying to unite against the rest of the country.

In the past Afghans were strongly tribal and ethnic divided yet rallied behind the idea of Afghanistan when foreigners threatened. The civil war has changed that. Now in the Pashtun south tribe is the most important factor with some ignoring Afghanistan and supporting a Pashtunistan that would unite parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Meanwhile the north is ethnic based with people identifying themselves as Tajik, Uzebek, or Hazara first while Afghan is a very distant second (or in the case of the Hazara a far third after ethnicity and political tribe).

How Afghanistan Could Work (Easier Said Than Done)

Afghans have tended to prefer a weak government in Kabul that can provide goods while leaving them alone to allow organic developments in society. Developing a democratic republican system that allows for tribal inputs with most of the control resting in local hands (much like the original intent of the American constitution) with a ethnically shared federal government like Lebanon could appease those who want strong local control yet still desire to have a say in national events. This would also prevent either a Pashtun bloc or everyone-but-Pashtun alliance from dominating the national government. After the anti-Communist forces took Kabul, many Pashtuns who previously cared little about Kabul became alarmed and anti-government because of the new non-Pashtun leadership. Political satisfaction increases when everyone feels they have input into both the local and national levels.

The big step to winning the peace is having Afghanistan's neighbors realize that peace is much more beneficial than war. Afghanistan has perfect geography because it can link oil pipelines in a way that avoids Russia and it can connect Central Asia to the Indian Ocean ports in Pakistan. Also, peace in Afghanistan help Iran and Pakistan return their Afghan refugees back home. The absence of terrorists would also help Uzbekistan, Iran, and Pakistan in ending their insurgency which use(d) Afghanistan as a safe zone.

Afghanistan is not Switzerland and will always have its own culturally unique traits. However, culturally acceptable divisions of governance and neighbors accepting a neutral Afghanistan that should not be unduly swayed could make Afghanistan a sort of Swiss-like state with limited central government control but peaceful.