Either we talk or, or…
I have never understood the idea that you can’t talk to terrorists. I don’t mean in the moment of vioence being committed. I mean the idea that negotiations with the Taliban in Afghanistan for example, are a non-starter for Canada.
We have committed 6 years to the “war on terror” and the exit strategy seems to be “kill all the bad guys before going home.” This is an impossible condition for victory. At some point people have to sit down and talk about how they are going to leave each other alone, no?
This interesting article in the NY Times is about Jonas Gahr Store, the Norwegian who brokered the Oslo Peace Accord in 1993. In it he talks about the need to talk to people as an alternative to say, unilateral declarations of war on hundreds of previously unconnected networks:
Norway’s message to the United States is blunt: the next administration, whether headed by Barack Obama or John McCain, should pronounce the war on terror over. Because it has tended to isolate the United States, polarize the world, inflate the enemy, conflate diverse movements and limit scope for dialogue, its time has passed.
“The way this has been framed, as an indefinite war that will last for decades, has impoverished our ability to understand the point of departure of the conflict and how we should deal with it,” Store said. “Engaging is not weakness, and by not talking the West has tended to give the upper hand to extremists on the other side.”
He continued: “Moderates lose ground if they cannot show tangible results. You don’t engage at any price, but the price can come down and we can achieve more.”
Norway has kept channels open to Hamas and to Syria. It has spoken with the Hamas leadership. It is convinced the West missed an opportunity by not talking in March 2007 to the elected Palestinian national unity government composed of Fatah and Hamas members. It argues that Taliban elements can be drawn out of terror into politics through talks.
In all of this, Norway has used the greater diplomatic latitude it enjoys as a non-member of the European Union. The E.U., like the United States, lists Hamas as a terrorist organization.
“We have enormous reason to be upset with Hamas because it spent every day after Oslo trying to destroy Oslo,” Store said. “But there is a strong realist tradition in Hamas oriented toward a political landscape. In general, it should be in our interest to get organizations out of military activity and into politics. The political working method has not been sufficiently tested.”
Interesting.
Chris,
Yes, interesting piece.
There’s one good reason for the government not to talk to terrorists:
There’s too much money in it.
It looks like we had a 10 year interim 1991-2001 when there was no major external perceived/constructed threat to mobilize populations against and to justify the continued building of the national security state.
And then 9/11 “happened” and changed all that…
There have been so many questions raised about 9/11 that it is hard to believe that it just “happened.”
Were “terrorists” were really behind it? A recent Canadian poll says that less than 1/3 of Canadians think so.
Might the question here be, how can we as ordinary citizens engage the elites behind the accelerated development of the National Security State?
And what positive previous experience on the part of citizenry can we point to?
Wondering: Do the Norwegians try to engage the US government privately? And if so, what does that look like?
Seems to me that terrorists were certainly behind it. Which terrorists is certainly the question, and bringing these terrorists to justice seems to be a project long bandonned in favour of an endless war and a low grade constant fear that demands lukewarm viligance.
If ever there was a situation people coupd talk their way out of, this is it, because it seems clear that we in North America talked ourselves into it.
Chris,
If the terrorists were the (s)elected leaders of the US, what would bringing them to justice look like?
What mechanisms and tools are available for this? I’m not sure we’ve seen the US Congress be an effective or meaningful check on abuses of executive power in more than 30 years.
I think back to the words of my Soviet history prof. at Berkeley who in 1989 pseudonmyously authored a piece for the NY Times that all this glasnost and perestroika is great, but for real change to happen in the USSR, there would need to be an exit from the Leninist system. A generation later, it’s an interesting question: “Did an exit from that Leninist system take place, or rather one form of serfdom was traded for another ostensibly kinder, gentler form of serfdom?
Is the exit from the system here about moving away from a constitutionally and legal-based form of governance (and in practical terms global dominance) to one based on conversation?
Democracies like yours and mine have a strange relationship with conversation. They ritualize it to the point of meaningless so that, in its highest formal form, in the legal system, two parties are not even allowed to speak to one another without doing so through a judge (and then mediated through a lawyer). There are few places where the formal workings of democratic systems come into true conversation, and yet everything that happens happens out of conversation, it’s just that the conversations that make things happen actaully happen out of sight of the formal mechanisms.
All very interesting, and I have no answer to your question, except that I think that hope is generally embodied in the ability of people to be fully human with one another and not posture in their formal positions.
Wondering, Chris, if you ever had a chance to look at Jim Rough’s Society’s Breakthrough. I think the perspective and frame he offers on all this is invaluable. And a great person with whom to take this conversation further with. If you like I can connect you two.
He lives down the coast from you in Port Townsend and has a TV show on cable access. I think he’d love to have you on his show…
I’ve found the Dynamic Facilitation and Wisdom Councils which he originated – and which it looks like you are familiar with- a tremendous gift to the world.
I know Jim’s stuff and he’s definitely on the top list of people I have to meet soon. Would love to talk to him about Dynamic Facilitation and Wisdom Council stuff, because it looks very cool. Thanks for pointing to him…
Some of this reminds me of conversation with Aung San Suu Kyi in 1994 by Bill Richardson, US democratic congressman, and others, including a representative from the New York Times, as reported in her book, Freedom from Fear. She was asked about her vision for Burma. Some excerpts from her reply:
“It’s not my vision…We must not emphasize this personality business…”
“You say, what is my vision of Burma? Well, my vision of Burma is of a country where we can all sort out our problems by trying to understand each other and by talking to each other and by working together. Democracy is not going to solve all our problems. If people think that democracy comes today and everything’s fine tomorrow, they’re very much mistaken. I’ve always told them so: democracy is just a beginning….”
“One of the best things about democracy is that practising liberal democracies always think of talking first first and fighting as a last resort. Whereas in a lot of cases talking is the last resort, when they’ve fought themselves to exhaustion and there’s nothing else they can do, then they talk. By that time, quite naturally, it’s done so much harm…”
“‘Parliament’ comes from the word [in French] ‘talk’, doesn’t it? You talk, you talk about your problems, you talk about your differences. It’s better to shout at each other than to kill each other. It’s not that I like shouting, but it’s certainly much better than shooting each other….”
“One doesn’t want just a difference in name. One wants a difference in attitude. And that is my vision, of a country where people are not afraid to work out their differences. You don’t have to hold back from dialogue because you think you’re going to lose face in some way, or because you think you’re not going to be able to come to an agreement. When you go to sit down to discuss something you always go…with the idea that some kind of agreement is possible. It may take time, it may have to be a compromise, but agreement is always possible as long as the will is there. Sincerity and goodwill are the foundations of confidence, and confidence is the foundation of any system that can succeed….”
Great article and the video on youtube is good too