East Meets West in the land of Ignorance

Daniel Pipes, the great American scholar and expert on the Middle East, Islam, and more recently said in a Times of India interview that, “there’s a tendency in west Asia to blame western powers for whatever happens – be it as large as Islamic State or as small as a traffic jam.”  Having spent years in west Asia’s great cities and remote villages, I can confirm his observation.  Conspiracy theories abound.  They come from street vendors and auto drivers, educators and officials.  Take this exchange between an Urdu journalist (UJ) and me (RB) in Northern India:

   (UJ):  Every Muslim child knows that seven Jews control the entire world’s media.

   (RB):  Really?  I must have missed that meeting of the ‘world Jewish conspiracy.’  Who are they?

   (UJ):  Rupert Murdoch.

   (RB):  Not Jewish.  A good man; friend of Israel; but not Jewish.  [This is a well-established fact, challenged only by openly anti-Jewish sites like “Jewwatch.com.”  Murdoch attends church and holds an honor with the Catholic Church.]   Who else?

     (UJ):  Ted Turner.

    (RB):  Ted Turner?  I don’t think he even likes Jews!  [He is virulently and openly anti-Israel, has run afoul of the Jewish community many times, and in 1996 had to issue a public apology to the Jewish community for comparing Rupert Murdoch to Adolf Hitler, which is another fact making an alleged conspiracy involving the two of them nonsensical.]  It’s really shocking that you, a shaper of opinion and an educated person helps spread these blatant inaccuracies.  You’re supposed to inform your people, not feed them propaganda.

The level of ignorance about the United States especially, a nation that never colonized the region but has shed a lot of blood to save its people from terrorists, is astounding.  I once watched a rising star of India’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lecture a group of PhD students about how US policy was controlled by the Christian Church.  At a different university, I heard a renowned leftist professor suggest a US conspiracy against non-whites by saying that “ninety-percent” of African-Americans are in prison.  Neither even attempted to provide any objective evidence.

Our ignorance about you is equally shameful.  When I started working on human rights in Bangladesh, I was aghast at how few Americans knew where it was or even that it was a country.  At one point, many Americans at least associated it with former Beatle George Harrison; but even that has faded into history.  Then there was the college-educated American who heard I was working to save Hindus and who looked at me and very seriously asked:  “Hindus, aren’t they Muslim?”

Thus, the Pashtun who want Americans to understand their struggle so they can assess where their tax money goes, have to recognize this; the same goes for the Baloch and Sindhi.  For Americans, many of whom know little about Pakistan except the name, mere assertions of nationality are likely to fall on deaf ears.  If you want Americans to know your people and their dreams, you need to:

• Grab us on an emotional level, but not with rantings, wild accusations, and big theories. Let us see you, feel like we know you, so we can experience the same joys, sorrows, and aspirations as you.  This will take time and require a well thought out program of awareness.  As an American, I know what will do it and am anxious to help.  However, it must be done continuously, again and again without becoming boring or repetitious, and we must be proactive in addressing audiences.

• If you are going to allege any human rights abuses, incursions on your ancestral homeland, or other actions; you must make sure you have solid, objective evidence to support it. Through media and internet, we hear so many wild accusations and allegations of bad behavior that people are likely to dismiss them unless there is something else that resonates with them; and so often, the allegations turn out to be exaggerated or false.  More importantly, even if they are true, those who make them often fail to provide the convincing proof when they are inevitably challenged by those being accused.

If you do this, you will see as have so many other peoples, that Americans are the most generous people on the planet.  We have helped in disasters, used our geopolitical influence to stop human rights abuses, and even shed blood for good causes—whether it was stopping the atrocities against Muslims in Bosnia or funding the United Nations, even though it often takes positions against us and our allies.

It will not be easy or without its challenges.  However if it is done intelligently, in an organized fashion, and relentlessly, we will succeed.  You have a compelling story, and Americans are the right people to whom we should tell it.

US Should Grant Modi a Visa before it is too late

Imagine the following scenario.  It is mid-year 2014, and India has just sworn in its new Prime Minister--an individual committed to achieving for India its rightful place as an international economic and political giant.  A pro-growth PM, he will likely preside over the time when India's eclipses China as the world's most populous nation; and he has made it clear that this new India will stand for the values we Americans espouse against the forces of international authoritarianism.

The US Ambassador congratulates the Indian people on their new leader, talks about the strong relationship between India and the United States, and extends a hand to the new Prime Minister.  The PM politely accepts it but with a knowing smile of contempt and wondering about my country's duplicity and whether or not we will be a true friend to this resurgent India.

Although the Indian elections are almost a year away, polls and pundits are confident that Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi will become the nation's next PM.  As of today, the US government maintains its position that Narendra Modi is disqualified from receiving a visa to visit the United States; that he was somehow involved in the 2002 Gujarat riots in which over 1000 Hindus and Muslims died.  It is an odd position for us to take sitting atop our perch halfway around the world when people close to the ground have exonerated Modi of any such charges multiple times.

Although the Indian Supreme Court has declared Modi innocent of any wrongdoing, the US State Department, politicians, and self-interested ideologues believe that they know better and dismiss the court's actions.  I'm not sure what happened to our hallowed principle that people are innocent until proven guilty, but it seems we do not apply it in Naredra Modi's case.  Last week, the Indian legal system began the process of hearing the final gasp of Modi's detractors who are demanding that the court reject its own body's final report on their say-so.  It is not certain when it will dispose of this final stab at Modi, but as soon as it happens, the United States government would be wise to announce that if Narendra Modi wants to apply for a visa he will get one; that the charges against him have not been proven despite multiple attempt; that we have listened to those who slandered Narendra Modi's good name.

It is not only an insult to Modi himself and to the millions of Indians--Hindus and Muslims--who have made him Gujarat's longest serving Chief Minister, and one of its most successful.  In maintaining our baseless visa denial, we are declaring in one fell swoop that the entire Indian legal system is without merit; that the highly respected judges on its Supreme Court do not know what they are doing.  Is this how we treat a friend and ally?

My country has made peace with some of the worst world leaders imaginable:  Joseph Stalin who the Roosevelt Administration wanted us to call "Uncle Joe," Mao Zedong who was openly proud of the tens of millions he sent to their death, Palestinian terrorists and their Holocaust-denying "President," "moderate" Taliban, and Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood.  Yet, we hold firm against a man declared innocent time and again; a man who actually stopped Gujarat's annual that have not recurred under his administration?

My country's leaders need to acknowledge truth over politics and ideology and begin the same discussions with Modi that the UK, EU, and others already have.  Yes, it will be embarrassing if we suddenly extend a hand of friendship while holding the position that the man to whom we are extending it is worse than the rogues' gallery above whom we have taken into our bosom.  Worse for everyone, however refusing to budge in the face of facts threatens the quality of that friendship and the fate of the world going forward.