Oslo Massacre: Christian Fundamentalist or Extreme Anti-Marxist?

About 76 people were killed, 8 in a huge blast that devastated the main government building complex in central Oslo, and at least 68 of them about an hour later, participants in a Labour Party youth camp near Oslo on Friday July 22. All of the mayhem apparently the work of one man.

What kind of motive could be behind the double massacre in Oslo ? The self-avowed killer, Anders Behring Breivik, has told the police that his actions were "terrible, but necessary". In the hours since his arrest, a wealth of documentation has turned up, produced by himself and posted on the net. The first material that showed up was from a Norwegian conservative political website (document.no). The website is known as highly critical of muslim imigration to Norway and Europe, and while its conservative tendency is obvious, it cannot in my view be regarded as extremist. The site editor of document.no, obviously sensing the heat that was on when the suspect's name became known, compiled and published Breivik's “collected works” in one file in its pages the morning after the horrific events.

In what sense could he be a "Christian fundamentalist"? Judging from the 45 pages of his comments rambling across political topics, there is nothing to indicate a Christian fundamentalist leaning. There is hardly any talk of the Bible, God or Jesus Christ and what their teachings would dictate as right political action in today's world. The writer does declare himself to be a “conservative Christian”, and makes it clear that this makes him very critical of the Protestant Church of Norway. Apparently, though, he has referred to himself in his statement to the police as a "Christian fundamentalist".

This fits well with a propaganda video (a "manifesto", in English) which subsequently surfaced on the internet, produced by a man who calls himself "Andrew Berwick", and which is attributed to the suspect by the authorities. The themes of the video are anti-Marxist and anti-Islam, and the heroes are all the brave knights - especially crusading knights - who have kept Islam at bay through the ages. Curiously, there is no recent hero (ironically, El Cid is included though he spent years fighting for Muslims against Christians).  Notably, no heroes at all are portrayed in the fight against Marxism. That would perhaps have brought him uncomfortably close to the nazism that many of his ideas resemble, but which he takes care to stay clear of in all his statements. The video ends by showing the author himself posing in various gallant garb, in the last image posing with a machine gun.

The message of the video is clear. That of his other writings are more vague. There is a certain preoccupation with the pragmatic aspects of winning the soul of the Norwegian people for conservative causes, and a clear admiration of the success of the political left in Norway in monopolizing the country's political space for “Marxism” (he never talks about “socialism” and rarely about social democracy). That success of the left must in Breivik's view be destroyed, after which a new day will come for “conservative culture”. He views himself and other conservatives in Norway as hounded by “Marxism”. In a key passage Breivik says that “Today, Conservatives don't dare to flag their views on the street as they know that extreme Marxists will club them down. We cannot accept that the Labour Party subsidizes these violent 'Stoltenberg Jugend' [ref to Jens Stoltenberg, the Labour Party leader and Prime Minister] who systematically terrorize political conservatives.” (For those who do not know the country it may be added that there is no political violence occurring in Norwegian political life today that matches this description.) In a different context he also perniciously puns on the unofficial honorary label “Landsmoder” (Mother of the Country”) for the former Labour Party PM Gro Harlem Brundtland, making it “murderer” instead of “mother”. In short, there can be no doubt of his hatred for the Labour Party.

Breivik's obsession with what he sees as the need to stop Marxism and his hatred of the various political “boot camps” (youth camps) of the parties of the left are the most pronounced aspects of his writing that I see pointing toward the horrific deeds of July 22.

Among the latest materials to surface is also a sort of diary of the last 80 days before his attacks, detailing all his preparations of the bomb, test explosions, scares of being found out before he was ready, etc., the last entry made a few hours before the attacks.

This  man is clearly psychologically disturbed, but shows all the signs of normal intelligence. He has planned his acts meticulously, he writes well both in Norwegian and English and argues his viewpoints with considerable skill. A hard case to understand in all its grotesque inhumanity. If he wants to be known as a Christian fundamentalist, that may be a reflection of his evident admiration of the methods used by fundamentalist Islamists, a way to mark his "cause" as equally righteous as the beliefs held by the "marxists" and Islamists he hates so much. 

Indeed, the video is so full of hate that it alone explains the actions that followed. It is also so well made that it points to more than a lone man's work.

(This blog has been revised since July 23 due to the wealth of new material about the case. The number of victims was adjusted downward by Norwegian authorities from 93 to 76 on July 25.)

China Ready for War over the South China Sea Dispute?

Will China go to war with Vietnam and other regional neighbors over their disputed claims in the South China Sea? There are experts who think that is possible. Co-authors Rory Medcalf and Raoul Heinrichs of the Australian think-tank Lowy Institute argue this in a recently published report (Crisis and Confidence: Major Powers and Maritime Security in Indo-Pacific Asia, 2011). Their emphasis on the dangers focuses on the lack of regard in Asia for maritime confidence-building measures (CBMs).  

Though violent incidents in this area have been numerous over the years, I would personally doubt they could erupt into more sustained violence. Still, the dangers are legion and they are not being avoided, notably not by the major player on the scene, China. At this time tempers flare once more, as they have done intermittently since the 1980s. Governments of the Southeast and East Asian region – represented by their Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Ministries of Defence - are hotly involved, along with those of the United States. Navies conduct exercises and flagwaving protesters march on the streets of the region's capitals.

The 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) has made maritime relations between countries and the resolution of disputes much calmer and easier to handle than they used to be (even though the United States after 30 years of the convention's existence has still not ratified it). Nevertheless, there are problem areas where disputes remain unresolved. The South China Sea may well be the most complex of these.

The South China Sea is bordered by Vietnam to the west, the Philippines to the east, Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia to the south and China to the north. The eastern and northern parts of the sea are littered with reefs, sandbanks and occasional islands, mainly the Paracels to the northwest and the Spratlys to the southeast. Deposits of oil and other mineral resources have been located in many places. The South China Sea is also an area of active fishing by the littoral nations.

Moreover, a major portion of seaborne trade to and from (not least oil deliveries to) China, Taiwan, Japan and Korea moves through the area, making it both an area of general maritime interest to major maritime nations around the world, and a strategic interest for the countries referred to. By implication, that makes it an area of strategic interest even for other countries, most notably the United States.

Then why is there no movement towards resolving the issues? Because they are exceedingly complex.

Complexity factor 1: China claims sovereignty over all the islands in the South China Sea and the waters around them, for historical reasons. UNCLOS does not admit sovereignty claims on historical grounds. Customary international law, however, allows sovereignty claims for historical reasons under certain conditions (e.g., if the islands have been occupied, and the claims made public). The Chinese historical claims are not unfounded, but also not patently convincing.

Complexity factor 2: Six nations with territorial waters bordering on the South China Sea (Brunei, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam) are claimants for sovereignty over specific islands and/or exclusive Economic Zones in it. In addition, Taiwan advances its own claims on behalf of China.

Complexity factor 3: As just suggested, China's interests are claimed by two independent decision-making centres – the People's Republic of China in Beijing and the Republic of China in Taipei (Taiwan), each of which have established their own separate bases or installations in the area, and each of whom makes the claim on slightly different conditions. Taiwan, of course, is regarded as just a renegade province by China.

Complexity factor 4: While the claims of other littoral states are made in conventional terms according to UNCLOS, the Chinese claim is rather unconventional (a) in that China seems to claim the entire area – not just the islands but even the waters between them - exclusively for itself, and (b) also unconventional in that the Chinese do not declare specifically what the boundary of their claim is, but show it on maps represented by a dotted line – in fact, a line made up of nine (sic!) dashes. A normal claim for China would yield merely a slice of EEZ at the northern end.

Complexity factor 5: Islands with a civilian population or economic life of its own give rise to claims for maritime rights, especially the right to an exclusive economic zone (EEZ). But islands in the South China Sea are uninhabited and mostly tiny (the largest is less than one square km), and some of the claims made in the area refer to structures built on reefs that are submerged part of the time.

Complexity factor 6: Instead of seeking peaceful settlement of the dispute, China has repeatedly resorted to aggressive moves, and as early as 1992 granted exploration rights to a US oil company in an area as remote as possible from the nearest Chinese point of land (about 1000 miles away). Now several other claimants (Vietnam and Indonesia) have done the same. Vietnam has recently also invited the Indian navy to make regular use of one of their coastal naval facilities. These continuing moves make the situation in the South China Sea disturbingly fluid and complicate further any attempt to start working towards a multilateral settlement.

Complexity factor 7: All the involved parties did succeed in 2002 in agreeing on a “document of conduct” (under the aegis of ASEAN) intended in time to lead to a “code of conduct” for the area. Yet the code of conduct has so far not materialized and the conduct of the parties in the meantime does not seem to be governed by the restraint and will to build confidence called for in the 2002 document. Acts of violence – even if non-lethal – continue to occur. Demonstratively aggressive postures are taken by naval forces, and media reports on all sides are frequently inflammatory.

At this point, tension is high as military exercises are being held by several of the parties. The United States is exercising jointly with the Philippines. China has announced trial runs for its first aircraft carrier in the South China Sea to begin on July 1. While China and Vietnam, as the most intensely engaged opponents, managed to agree to back off from further confrontation for the time being, it is curious that China as the dominant actor of the region is not able to offer a more consistent example of how to go about peacefully resolving a complex dispute.

As one of the parties to UNCLOS China has a clear obligation to take a step back from what it calls its “indisputable claim of sovereignty over the islands and the surrounding waters of the South China Sea”. The course it has chosen is another, pointing toward the simplest solution: that China grabs it all. Intimidation is the name of that game.

What's Wrong with Asking Israel to Stick to its 1967 Borders?

To most of my readers this is old news, and tiring news. But President Obama has spoken (Thursday May 19^th), and some reaction seems appropriate.

Here's an old Israel supporter who has gradually lost faith in the Israeli leadership. In the fall of 1990, representing my institute in Oslo, I spent a couple of hours at the dinner table talking to our up-and-coming political visitor from Israel, Benyamin Netanyahu – he was a most charming and spirited interlocutor, setting out in our conversation his deep concern about peace with the Palestinians and the need for a basic change to come about in their mutual relations. This was three years before the famous Oslo accords. It was therefore very difficult for me to understand later on that he would not sign off on that agreement, and that as time went by he slowly made it clear that he would not support its implementation, finally declaring that he would fight it in every way he could. Some of my colleagues who had watched his rise over a longer period warned me back then that I'd been had. It took me quite some time to accept that they were probably right. For the past decade or more I have resigned myself to the understanding that this man was not – and is not – credible.

Of course, Israeli politics is not run by one individual; from an initially fairly stable political unit it has become a complex short-term coincidence of incoherent political forces, each of which is insufficient to provide a stable course for the nation. Yet it has been tough for many of us who have sympathized with Israel's right to exist alongside its neighbours, to see the unrelenting course taken by its governments in the past decade. The Palestinian side has helped the extreme side of Israeli politics immensely with its own practice of (and ideological support for) indiscriminate attacks on Israeli civilians. And so the old practice of an eye for an eye – the ancient law of Hammurabi, as familiar to Israel as it is to the rest of the region – goes on without pause. Israel attacks the Palestinians, and the Palestinians attack Israel, and no one knows for sure what is a retaliation and what is a fresh offence. The story is almost too familiar to repeat.

The Palestinians missed their chance in 1948 when they could have had what they are now denied – the entire West Bank and Gaza strip. They preferred instead to push the Israelis into the sea, having all Arab neighbours jointly attack the newly established state of Israel to achieve its extermination. After two years it was obvious that they had failed. The tottering Israeli state survived. Palestinian residents of Israeli-held territories left in large numbers, some under threat of force, others out of fear. The ensuing decades saw repeated attempts to shift the balance between the parties with surprise attacks, mostly by the Arab neighbours, but also by Israel (the 1956 war). The disastrous Arab failure in the 1967 Six-Day War - initiated by Israel after an escalating campaign of Arab provocations - led to Israel's long-term occupation of the West Bank, the Gaza strip and East Jerusalem as well.

I cannot believe that the great circle of Israel's (now gradually diminishing) sympathizers abroad would reject the 1967 borders. To terminate the occupation, to me, is the only way forward. The long series of permissions being unstoppably granted for new Israeli settlements to be established in the West Bank, and the unscalable wall to protect them, are a disgrace. Evidently the Obama administration is of the same opinion. It may be too little, too late.

With the Arab uprisings and regime changes of this year, democracy is uncertain to advance and some kind of primitive pay-back seems to be looming in any case. Israel has long held the key to its own future, but refused to put it into the lock. It may be a late stage now - perhaps too late? - to expect that same key to be able to turn things to the better.

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Unarmed Civilian Assassinated in His Home

There are many ways of relating Osama bin Laden's final fate. We have hardly seen the end of the story, especially when Western “experts” charge that a breach of international law has been committed by the United States (Ove Bring in Sydsvenska Dagbladet, David Allen Green in the New Statesman). So, the enforcement agent must put his own life and that of his team-mates at risk in order to ensure the humane treatment of one who has organized suicide bombings of thousands of people? Sure. Mind you, they did not even ask for his ID. 

In my view, it is not the HR principles that are stupid. In fairness, while Bring sees this as a serious matter, Green says he will hardly lose any sleep over it. Then again, many in the Muslim world think like the Swede, which leads them to call for reprisals against the US.

The obligation to provide bin Laden with a fair trial must be laid at Pakistan's door. The US took its own measures when its ally failed to do what it could and should have done.

There is a good old rule of foreign policy that says if you don't effectively control your own territory, others will – or at least they will take advantage of you. Territorial control is a military task. Pakistan, however, has a military that is busy with other matters, domestic politics above all. The only border they guard jealously is that with India. So it was apparently easy for the US Navy Seals team to swoop down from Afghanistan in their helicopters and snatch bin Laden where he was hidden in northern Pakistan, next to a Military Academy. The hue and cry afterwards about the transgression on Pakistan's sovereignty was predictable. However, blaming others for failing to respect an unguarded border is hard to take seriously, even more so considering the circumstances.

Now the dispute is on concerning who's to blame for bin Laden's eight-year residence in the area where he was found. We need not ponder long to guess that someone must have known. Of course, within the Pakistan Army and its Inter-Services Intelligence there are many different sections, and as in any large political organization sections often become factions with aims of their own, some corresponding to movements in the subterranean landscape of Pakistani politics. One of the ISI sections was previously in charge of training mujahedin to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan, among them the young Osama. No one knows for sure when they stopped doing that after the Soviets bowed out in 1988. I read somewhere recently that turning a blind eye to inconvenient facts is said to be a necessity in Pakistan's political culture. That is a believable statement.

Nordic Democracy: Endangered by Populist Extremism?

In Finland, the recent election victory (relatively speaking: 19%, tied 2^nd place) of the anti-immigration, anti-EU, anti-establishment party “The True Finns” (Sannfinländarna) has detonated a shock-wave rattling the other member countries of the European Union. The shock is real, to the extent that the new Finnish government has to approve the emergency package for Portugal which the True Finns have made a prime target of their EU critique. How could such “bottom dregs” win an election – in yet another European country? Memories go to Jörg Haider's former glory, of which little is heard nowadays, but the trauma of his party's ascendance to the height of Austrian politics and thus also that of the EU, little more than a decade ago, is a continuing nightmare in Brussels. Gradually, of course, it was found that the world did not come to an end, and the whole thing was brushed off understandingly as something one had to expect from Austrians, given their history.

The Nordics, on the other hand, have long prided themselves on being the most democratic countries in the world, and have also been accepted by many others as such. Even with the rightful claims to democratic excellence of the Americans, the Brits, the Frenchmen and the Dutch, the Nordic countries have a head start in many ways - in Iceland they have the world's oldest parliament still working; the Nordic flora of voluntary associations is about as rich as they come; and they have what many consider to be the world's most advanced welfare societies - despite the struggle in recent years to keep that flagship financially afloat. In all of this, the Nordic Social Democratic parties (variously through history also called Labour or Socialist parties), have been the leading political force everywhere.

Enter the so-called right-wing parties, in Denmark since the 1970s (currently Dansk Folkeparti, last election 14%), in Norway, also since the 1970s (Fremskrittspartiet 23%), even recently in Sweden (Sverigedemokraterna 5%). The oldest of these parties began as tax-protest movements, but all of them criticize the immigration from non-Eurpopean countries as excessive and want less interference from the EU in their country's affairs. They even gain support from many former Social-Democratic voters – what shame for the formerly progressive North!

But are they right-wing? And are they all the same? The label “right-wing” has possibly attached itself to them because they have all targeted the dominance of the social democratic labour parties.

Yet when the Finnish election results were recently published, the Norwegian Fremskrittspartiet's spokesperson disdainfully rejected any comparison with the Finnish party, saying they had rejected approaches for cooperation. “They want a strong state, but we are a liberalistic party”, he says. And indeed, the True Finns look more like a populistic centrist party.  In a recent analytical article in Svenska Dagbladet, Swedish-Finnish political scientist Ann-Cathrine Jungar lays out an illuminating comparison. She regards all of these parties as “center-extreme” rather than right-wing because they all have socio-economic policies typical of centrist positions. Yet she also points out that the “West-Nordic” (Danish, Norwegian) parties have moved in this direction from an originally more liberalistic, anti-tax position whereas the Finnish and Swedish parties had different origins. The True Finns are successors to an agrarian populist movement, while the Swedish party has roots both in anti-tax movements and neo-fascist movements of the 1990s.

Some take this as a danger signal for Sweden. However, I think Sverigedemokraterna's recent success has shown the party it does better with a more democratic profile. One can nevertheless perceive strands of influence here from nationalistic right-wing parties in Europe, emphasizing the need for a strong state, both in the Finnish and the Swedish party. Personally I would also regard the Norwegian party as mainly a rightist anti-tax, small-government party. Such differences are nuances, but not without significance.

In any case, all of these parties are strongly critical of the immigration policies of the EU and their own countries, regarding both this and the never-ending stream of money to foreign aid as pure waste that should have been channelled to the country's own citizens instead.

Here is where the establishment Social Democrats raise their charges of “fremmedfientlighet” / ”främlingsfientlighet” (xenophobia) and extremism. Controllers of the incumbent political correctness in the Nordic world for half a century, they dislike being challenged on their generosity, and strike back with the labels above and that of “populism” as well. To some it might sound a bit peculiar to hear Social Democrats derogating something that is “of the people”, but that is perhaps because they are quick to label as “populist” whatever grass-roots phenomenon they cannot themselves control.

The label xenophobic is part of Nordic party politics. In my view, it is a misnomer. Most of these voters have no particular dislike of foreigners; what they do object to is the government lavishing “social support” funds on immigrants who in most cases are not able to enter the labour market directly and who are allowed (indeed, for a long time were encouraged) to keep their own language and thus to remain unemployable in the long run. Next, the principle of “family reunion” allows them to bring their relatives to join them in the new country. These are in most cases not “the poorest of the poor”. They are those sufficiently healthy, crafty, moneyed and enterprising to beat their less fortunate brethren to the departure point on the Mediterranean coast or Turkey's eastern border.

Had there been a selection at the source it would have been possible to pick out only the really needy. As it is, the selection of non-European immigrants arriving is a confused self-selection, such that there is no obvious criterion to say, why not admit all others as well? In short, the policies of the EU and the individual destination countries are not sustainable. Even worse, the Nordic governments have refused to take the full and open debate required. The Swedish elections last autumn showed how this dam of political correctness – intended to stop populists from taking advantage of the immigration unrest - probably only served to channel additional power to Sverigedemokraterna.

So, the problem is partly that Social Democracy is disintegrating in the Nordic countries while the successor parties have not yet fully established themselves. In the process, the loyalty of “the people” - previously the unquestioned prize of the Left - is up for grabs. Beyond that, the current maelstrom of change also reflects the painful effort of disoriented voters to find a way to stop the effects of a world without borders. Messy, perhaps, but this is no threat to Nordic democracy.

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“Arab Democracy” – What Kind of Animal?

How do Arabs think of democracy? I am not an Arabist but there is one impression that stands out in my mind from this Arab spring: the call for leaders to step down and be replaced. Beyond that, I suspect the ideas of democracy among common men and women in the Middle East are rather hazy.

Nevertheless, the World Values Survey undertaken from 1995-6 to 2001-2 shows Arabs strongly agreeing with the statement that “democracy may have problems but it's better than any other form of government”. These UNDP studies show also that Arabs were the regional group that most strongly rejected authoritarian rule defined as a strong leader who does not have to bother with a parliament and elections.* The meaning of such responses is still less than crystal clear.

Watching from afar as Arab protests have played out in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Bahrain and Syria, we have heard unceasing calls for "democracy" and "freedom". Yet, we Westerners should perhaps stop and consider the possibility that maybe we don't know what they are talking about. And Arab readers of English-language commentaries should also ponder the chance that language and tradition could play tricks on all of us. Slogans, internet postings and interviews are translated, either by the demonstrators themselves or by reporters. How do we know what they really mean? What does "democracy" mean to most Arabs – and to young Arabs in particular? While a Westerner's first thought may be that we all know what democracy is, the thing they have on their mind may not be the same as the image raised in our minds by their shouts.

Of course, there are different types of democracies, and in recent decades a broad range of would-be democracies have emerged around the world that don't fit the classical mould. Democracy theorists have been struggling to classify them. For some of those imperfect variants the label “diminished subtypes” has been suggested** – these are cases that have some characteristics of democracy, but lack others. Sort of like a judgement of "not bad, but not quite".

Indeed, some countries in the Middle East claim to have a kind of democracy not found in the West, Libya under Gaddafi with its People's Committees being the most prominent case. On a visit there in 2003 I was told by my guide that Libyans all governed themselves by participating in the committee meetings for their neighborhood, and there was hardly ever any disagreements because “we all understand what is the right thing to do”. In reality, since the 1970s Gaddafi's Libya has had two pillars of government – the People's Committees that have mobilized support for the regime, and the Revolutionary Security pillar that exercises actual control in secret. Of course, the official account of the system only mentions the first pillar. The farce of Gaddafi's system did not really fool his people for long, but they went along, and young people like my guide naturally started out believing what they were told.

But Libya as Gaddafi made it could hardly be classified as a “diminished subtype” of democracy – it is rather what Weber called a “sultanistic regime”, an unlimited despotism. Lebanon, on the other hand, could perhaps be classified as a diminished subtype of democracy, diminished due to its constitutional grant of parliamentary seats to specific groups without regard for their popular support. Turkey might be another example of a diminished subtype, due to the constitutional role of the military and the judiciary.

Beyond these examples, however, traditional Arab ideas pertinent to democracy are not terribly impressive. There is the obligation (non-binding) of the ruler to consult with the ruled, and about governing "with mutual consent" (among the elites, that is). In fact there is no Arab concept of democracy even remotely reminiscent of the Western idea, whether in theory or practice.

Given this foggy state of affairs, what could the demonstrators mean? For the sake of simplicity, let us say there are two main possibilities. Either (1) the demonstrators know what real democracy is, and say they want it. Or (2) they have something else in mind that they call "democracy", which may be short of or different from the Western idea, but is something that would still be a huge improvement to them.

Admittedly not knowing the true answer, I suspect a tiny fraction of one percent of the demonstrators may fit the first alternative (they know that what they are talking about is what their Western listeners think they are talking about), while the rest, the vast proportion of them, are looking only for one big thing: to get rid of the present ruler NOW and be given a chance to elect a different one closer to their preference. Then, if even that person were to prove a bad choice, they want the additional chance of getting rid of that leader as well in a future election. This big dream is the primitive essence of democracy – asking for bad leaders to step down, asking for change for the better, and asking for a chance to throw even the new leaders out if they don't deliver.The hard part about it all, of course, is to organize it so that it can become a durable system for the long term. This is where some societies offer better preconditions than others for what Westerners call democracy.

Though I don't agree with Thomas Friedman's recent claim that the East European countries revolting in 1989 were so much simpler in societal make-up than those of the Middle East, I do share his pessimism about the prospects for the Middle East (“Pray, Hope, Prepare”, New York Times, April 12). If the demonstrators and freedom fighters are lucky, as I see it, they may be granted the first part of their wishes, getting rid of the tyrant - like the Tunisians and Egyptians have done. The next challenge – getting the opportunity to scuttle even their next ruler – may be no more than a dream vision.

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*M. Browers, Democracy and Civil Society in Arab Political Thought, Syracuse University Press, 2006, p 4, citing UNDP.

** D. Collier & S. Levitsky, Research Note: “Democracy with Adjectives: Conceptual Innovation in Comparative Research.” World Politics. Volume 49, Number 3, April 1997, pp. 430-451.

Libya - a Complex Muddle

The Libyan situation is now being acted out on multiple levels in a maze that should be a dream to conspiracy theorists. Theoretically, the situation in Libya is being dealt with by the UN Security Council through the instrument of an international coalition of governments contributing military resources to a no-fly zone. In reality there are several more levels, and they are not well connected with each other:

1. The bottom level is the struggle between Libyan rebels and the Gaddafi government's forces in which fortunes and loyalties seem forever changing and unpredictable; neither side has helpful international links;
2. The military action level of implementing the UN-mandated no-fly zone and associated airstrikes against Gaddafi forces in Libya – a multinational coalition venture lately led by NATO and consisting of both non-NATO and NATO forces gathered in a multitude of national military contributions, each delivered under specific limiting conditions and all subject to continuous coordinating discussion between the military authorities involved, working through the established machinery of NATO military diplomacy and NATO's consultation apparatus linking it to partners and other non-members;
3. The politico-diplomatic level of coalition government leaders and their officials – as of March 29 organized into a Contact Group of nearly 40 governments – seeking to hold the implementing coalition together from day to day, tackling sceptical parties like Turkey and Germany, and attempting to gain some semblance of coherence as to what their goals (long-term and short) actually are;
4. The global/international political level where Russia, China, India, Iran and others offer sceptical input into the UN Security Council oversight of the implementation of the resolution mandating the no-fly zone.

Interwoven with this multidimensional mess are (a) the domestic political struggles in all of these countries, most intense in the countries participating in the coalition and clearly more intense in the United States than anywhere else; (b) the diplomatic role-playing, mostly in the wings, of the intergovernmental organizations also involved, pushing their separate agendas (the African Union, the Arab League, the European Union, the Islamic Conference, NATO); (c) the international and national media competing in pursuit of their stories or in making them up.

You may think that you grasp an important part of the whole if you are completely informed about what is going on at one level. However, this is not necessarily so, because the connections between the levels are weak – the governments do not directly command the military level although they are supposedly their superiors, and the military cannot control what happens on the ground except indirectly through their use of air power and missiles. Even that use of military means depends on passing through several intermediate levels, since the employment of military force is still the responsibility of the national military units that make up the coalition.

Hence, all of these levels must produce outcomes pulling in the same direction for the totality of efforts to yield a meaningful overall result. What is the chance they will, instead of buckling up this way and that as domestic concerns, interstate rivalries and other pressures enter the picture? Not much, in my view. Even the military input from the outside now appears to have little chance of putting the rebels on top unless a more direct intervention takes place. That would be counter to the essence of the Security Council resolution (# 1973). In short, while the world's forces of goodwill for democracy have mounted an immense effort to save a chance for Libyan freedom, these activities appear to have precious little chance of making a difference where it counts. Inside Libya, Gaddafi cannot be counted out yet. Discussing his destination in exile is merely wishful thinking at this stage.

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CORRECTION (PREVIOUS BLOG):

Gaddafi (whose name is spelled in a multitude of different ways, even in English) has seven sons, not five as I stated in my previous blog. Even worse.

“The Arab Spring”: 1989 all over again? Yes and No.

Yes – these popular uprisings of 2011 are – as they were in 1989 - all going down (or up) in flames at the same time. No nice sequence pacing one after the other, except Tunisia setting it off, and Egypt opening the floodgates next by showing the revolution's maximum dimension and potential, the way the Baltics and East Germany did in 1989. From these initial, hesitant steps into the breach it quickly turned into a free-for-all, in 2011 as in 1989. In North Africa as in Communist Europe, popular sentiment that had been slowly brewing for years came to a state of boiling. A growing awareness of much better living next door stoked the fire in both cases. Whether it was tv, underground cassette tapes and VHF movies in the 1989 case, or mobile phones, Facebook or Twitter in the most recent case, it was enhanced communication reaching (especially) young people that triggered both revolutionary chains.

But: No – the similarities are both indicative and yet superficial. In 2011 there is no common controlling authority being challenged, no superpower tottering, just local dictators. There is no ideology from the top, only the smokesceen of Islam veiling oldfashioned despotism and an unimaginable greed. Unlike Eastern Europe, the Arab world seems to have had few movements living a secret organized life aiming for change. There has been systematic oppression, suffering and still somehow the bare survival of ordinary people. But there was never an overt justification of Muslim misery the way the Marxist-Leninist ideology was used to justify the oppression and low lifestyle of the Communist world.

Then there is the material wealth, above all the oil and gas, available to many of the rebelling peoples in 2011. In Soviet-controlled  Europe there were no riches to be redistributed. In the Middle East and North Africa, the worst crime of despotic leaders has been the theft of national wealth in the face of the abject poverty of their subjects. As the spirit of rebellion awoke, the image of a better future is a strong stimulus that has no comparison in Eastern Europe of 1989. True, the East Europeans also expected a better material future, but the riches they imagined were not as concrete and massive as those of (e.g.) Algerians or Libyans.

An open question is still whether the follow-up in the Middle East and North Africa is likely to be as successful as that in Eastern Europe (which admittedly has its downsides even two decades later). Obviously in 2011 “democracy” of some sort is a goal, however inchoate, but it has no historical reference very close to the experience of North African or Middle Eastern societies. Autocracy is the more familiar model, and (as Hillary Clinton just said), the West does not have all the answers. We may be facing a future of some kind of modified "auto-demo-cracy" emerging, more akin to the various Asian regimes in existence today.

The thought keeps coming back to me that I have no good answer to the charge that a people gets the government it deserves. If a people finds itself living under a despot, that is as good as deciding to do so; it is their choice. Some have called me heartless for that view. Yet the world is cruel, and we can only at our own peril ask others to meddle in our affairs to impose their sense of what is right.

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People Power Is not Democracy

Hosni Mubarak has left, Egypt is suddenly engulfed in celebrations of freedom, and bystanders in the rest of the world rejoice - and some also worry.

Regardless of what the spirit of Tahrir Square seems to be, "people power" is not democracy. People power is the power to block, to stop the country from working, to prevent the exercise of formal power. It served well to topple the dictator. 

But the demonstrating masses cannot act. To act they need organization, the selection of transitional leaders, reform of the constitution, and time to bring information to the people in preparation for ordinary elections. Democracy is not everybody rules, but choosing rulers who can govern well or be thrown out in the next elections.

Hopefully, the army can lead the first part of the transition to democracy in a peaceful and responsible manner, and leave the people to choose a transitional civilian leader in September. Several outspoken figures with outstanding credentials have already marked their presence on the field - Amr Moussa and ElBaradei among them. This chance for Egypt must not be wasted.

Egypt and the US: the Instability of Stability

President Mubarak has spoken once more. Amid a peak of demonstrations against him, and widespread anticipation that he would step down, he let it be known that he would continue to guide the country as a father guides his children, until the end of his term in September. The crowds were not pleased, but that is not likely to change his course. Even larger demonstrations are to be expected along with the announced general strike, certain to stir up renewed trouble where the army has to step in as peacemaker and with increasingly impatient (and violent) groups still supporting the regime.

President Obama, who yesterday more or less ordered the Egyptian President to step down, has learned the limits of American power the hard way - incredibly, just the way his predecessor did! Where do US Presidents get their notions of power from? The effect of Mr. Obama's statement was (surprise!) the direct opposite of that desired. A so-called stable US ally is now more unstable than ever, given the falling out between the two countries' leadership. 

If Egypt has turned out to be unstable, that is first of all the fruit of Hosni Mubarak's policies over 30 years. A firm hand and a strong executive, yes - a favored army and a clear eye on what the price of it all would be: Peace with Israel. But how a man in that position has managed - for three decades - to "forget" his people's needs with all the money washing over him from abroad, this is inexplicable. While Mubarak is hardly likely to be the richest man in the world, as some reports had it on Wednesday, according to a more sober assessment by msnbc.com his worth may be as high as 2 billion dollars. (http://openchannel.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/02/10/6025656-mubarak-could-leave-with-2-billion). In any case, Mubarak's regime has been stability itself, and no wonder - given those terms.

Yet stability is only meaningful if it endures the test of time. The challenge of stability is to keep the balance even as changes (for the better) are carried out. The recent events in Egypt demonstrate well the delicate difficulty of maintaining stability in a poor and populous country where ordinary people have not been given the experience of the slightest improvement over the long run. To suddenly meet the erupting demands from the raging demonstrating masses in the short run is of course impossible. This is what a stability-concerned government would have methodically done in the years before. Easy to say now, of course, but such views about Egypt have been raised for years. Stay tuned to Cairo for the next chapter in this familiar tale of old dictators' follies.

Egypt: Revolution, regime change or just stress test?

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is in a shaky position, after days of rioting on the streets of Egypt. Clearly, his people followed the example of the Tunisians. When Mubarak finally addressed the nation shortly after midnight on January 29 it was to put the blame on the government (his government) and to vaguely promise better conditions for the poorest among his citizens.

The Tunisian example probably led many observers to expect Mubarak to slip out the back door that night. That did not happen. But since January 27 he has an outspoken rival in the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize winner and former IEA chief, Mohamed ElBaradei, who just returned to Egypt. What can we expect from this challenge to an obviously authoritarian leadership? How do revolutions turn out once they have gotten “out of hand”, beyond the point of no return? At the time of writing this seems to be where Egypt is at.

In April 1917 Vladimir I. Lenin returned from exile in Switzerland, seeking the leadership of the Russian revolution, which until then had been off to a slow start under the bourgeois Kerensky regime that deposed the Tsar. Lenin and his comrades Trotsky, Stalin and others set off their own Bolshevik revolution half a year later and turned their country into the totalitarian Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), lasting 74 years. Though bad enough, this was not an isolated case.

In 1979 Ayatollah Khomeini returned from exile in France to an Iran in turmoil after the Shah had been deposed. From day one he made sure that moderate politicians – until then the most active in the reform process - would be weeded out from the new regime. Under Khomeini the Iranian Islamic Republic – a self-declared “theocracy” - was established in December 1979. As is well known, post-1979 Iran was and remains a totalitarian regime, irrespective of a few superficial vestiges of democracy such as a popularly elected parliament (with limited powers) and a president (with unconfirmed final authority).

Do these cases have something to say about Egypt 2011? Whether Mubarak is finished now or next summer is immaterial; he is effectively already gone. Could Mohamed ElBaradei’s return from exile signal the opening for a turn to a democratic regime, as the West would like to think, and as his own inclination would seem to indicate? Or could he fall by the wayside and mark just an interlude to a more authoritarian or perhaps even totalitarian/Islamist regime in Egypt, the way it happened in Iran and Russia? An Islamist state in Egypt would be a worst case for all concerned about Muslim extremism. Could it turn out that way?

Maybe – but probably not. Modern Egypt is a country with a strong, moderate Muslim political community, organized in the Muslim Brotherhood since the 1920s. The Brotherhood has long been banned and hence at the margin of politics, repeatedly bought off from attaining a more controlling place in Egyptian politics by whatever powers were ascendant. Their potential role under the new circumstances in Egypt is thus far uncertain, but their future ambition may remain modest like it has been before. That is, unless they have been waiting all along for an opening to reveal a previously hidden extremism. Be that as it may, the Brotherhood would anyhow require that the demands of the current popular protests are satisfied. 

This is where a moderate democrat like ElBaradei is potentially a key figure – and certainly not one to lead Egypt along the path to extremism. Yet, like Tunisia, the Egyptian system is without pointers to regime change. Should Mubarak manage to hang on for some time to come, the opening is still there for other actors - such as the army, for instance - to slip into the power vacuum and quietly take over. A strongly democratic leader (such as ElBaradei) backed by a broad popular movement (even if not genuinely democratic) like the Muslim Brotherhood, might be the way out of authoritarian dictatorship for Egypt. However, if and when the Brotherhood finds itself the legitimate governing party of Egypt, who knows what ideas might get into their heads. That is also where headaches come in for some of us.

To the West, an Egypt with the Suez Canal beyond Western political influence, is a huge strategic asset lost. No one in Western capitals will deny that. Will it mean back to another 1956? Or forward to a new kind of partnership? I’ll be as curious to know as you are.

Clamors for democracy where none existed before

I am not sure I would jump for joy if China were to go democratic overnight. Too much of everything there. But everybody should rejoice in the peaceful uprising of just 10 mill Tunisians. And let us all hope it stays peaceful, without losing sight of the aim of a democratic and stable system of government. A country with Tunisia’s advantages should have a decent chance at succeeding: a fairly well-educated population, advanced status of women, limited poverty. Yet the dangers are legion. The pool of qualified and untainted leaders is small. The opposition parties are (so far) weak and inexperienced. The trade unions are reasonably strong but without widespread membership. The Islamist movement in exile will presumably return and enter politics as well.

The demands for a new constitution and new elections are certainly justified, but will require a long process before they can be realized. Who writes the constitution? A constitutional assembly must first be elected that can draw up a proposal, which in turn must be ratified by the people in a referendum. Only once this is completed can ordinary elections be held. In the meantime people need to survive from day to day, and the country needs to be governed.

All of this will happen under the eyes of ordinary people under shabby governments all over the Middle East. It will unfold while the regimes in Algeria, Morocco, Libya, Jordan and Egypt are watching in suspense, and while Lebanon undergoes a severe political crisis of its own. A trigger or contagion cannot be ruled out.

Algeria’s aborted elections in 1991 are not forgotten. Won by the Islamist party in the first round – the second round canceled by the military – it triggered a decade of low-volume civil war, a slow-motion sequence of atrocities from both sides that wore Algerian society down. Although Tunisia is hopefully a different kind of case, that neighborhood memory hangs over current events like a cloud.

The Muslim world needs to prove it can go democratic, and perhaps this small Mahgreb country is the one that can deliver.

Political Asylum and Common Sense

All night - all year - I hear the patrol boat of the Guardia Civil, rumbling along the coast, back and forth, ceaselessly, over and over. The heavy diesel engine tells me Spain is on its guard. The refugees from African poverty are on their way. Several times a week the Guardia Civil rescues overloaded fishing boats with hopeful immigrants, 50 – 60 – 70 at a time, often pregnant women among them. Spain returns them all, except the pregnant women. Their children are allowed to be born Spanish citizens. Ever more pregnant women arrive.

Spain is both hospitable and tough on illegal immigrants. Most are now returned, by agreement with the governments of neighbouring African countries. But Africa is full of people who are full of hope. So is the Middle East. And South Asia. The poor majority of the world is looking for a better life.

This is not to raise a scare. Just understand that we cannot treat some of them as worthy of asylum because of political persecution, while the rest have to go back - or stay where they are. The worthy asylum seeker is an illusion of the current political majority in many European countries. The arrivals are practically all worthy of political asylum because of the conditions in their home countries. We just cannot take them all in. Our criteria are too open-ended to allow a fair screening to take place.

We need to accept that we have to treat them equally, and stop accepting any fairy tale told by those who happen to arrive. A Swedish immigration official described his practice in a TV interview today when asked how he evaluated his applicants: “You have to trust a human being.” As a humanitarian philosophy this is wonderful. As public policy – need I say more? There is no carrying capacity in all of Europe to keep all comers afloat on our welfare. It is their countries that have to be reformed, not ours.

Live With Disagreement

Historically, orthodoxy has been the norm in all societies. One view - that of the ruler – has been quite sufficient, thank you. Nevertheless, dissent always sneaks in. Over thousands of years, rulers have known two basic solutions: the gentle one, banishment (exile! Siberia!) or the simple one, "off with their heads!" Miraculously, after all the barbarities of the twentieth century, dissent finally started gaining broader acceptance. Democratic systems became the new norm, and dissent was the proof that democracy was real. Even in authoritarian societies diversity snuck in: Stealthily at first, by word of mouth, people began to disagree. Soon there was copying and tape recordings going around. Dissent became an organized activity. The fall of totalitarian governments in the former Soviet Union and ex-Yugoslavia, and the democratization of East European countries accelerated the trend.

Still, reactions to dissent were not far behind. Today Hungary is returning to censorship, the first European country to do so after the cold war. Beyond such bureaucratic solutions, there is, of course, the alternative of terror. Free thought and dissent can be stopped by spreading fear. A bloody example is good pedagogy – kill a few and watch how terror spreads. Western democracies look in horror as Muslims willingly take their own lives to kill even other Muslims who have chosen a slightly different persuasion.

Yet all Western democrats are confounded as they find the same issue at their own doorstep, where they have to confront people of a different conviction in their own societies, in their own neighborhoods. And too often they utterly fail their own test. If Western democrats can, they opt for the comfort of seeing and hearing only their own views – whether in Europe or the US, whether on the political left or right. Media have gradually become streamlined ("designer media") to fit this basic preference - they curtail dissent. We are close to the situation today where what is said by people or media of a different persuasion than our own does not count for us, we don't even have to know about it. 

Fortunately election campaigns still exist in countries where real democracy survives, to force us to think about alternatives, but the most comfy solution is always to do what we’ve done before. So – as a New Year’s commitment - shake loose: start reading something you expect to disagree with every day! (Lukashenko - that means you, too, please!)

How Can We Reduce Muslim Discomfort in Europe?

Clearly there are Muslim immigrants in Europe who do not feel at home. Ten or fifteen years ago they may have, but times are changing. Their host societies are no longer 100% pleased to have them. Many ethnic Europeans have started making demands on Muslims to learn the local language and accept the laws of the land, even to take a job before they receive state support. This is clearly uncomfortable for them, to such an extent that the EU and many host countries have taken steps to clear away such obstacles to understanding and make Muslims feel more at home. One example is that many schools have stopped teaching children to swim because the Muslim children are not allowed by their parents to participate. Another is the removal of Christmas from calendars and the neutralization of language pertaining to Christmas so that no-one should feel left out by having to see the name of the Christian idol so often.

Some of us wonder why this is such a strain for Muslims since Jesus Christ is one of their major prophets according to the Koran. It would seem only right for a religion that celebrates so many other prophets and illustrious leaders to add a holiday to mark the birth of Jesus. I have not seen anybody try to explain that, but I must be ill informed.

Then again I have been told I must be careful not to believe everything a Muslim tells me, since his utterances are not necessarily the truth – taqiyya excepts a Muslim from the ethical ground rule of telling the truth when he talks to a non-believer. This of course is not good news for a multicultural society, so we had better not talk more about it. 

China and the Peace Price

The capitalist dictatorship of China - after a long period of dithering marked by mandatory silence over the Tienanmen massacres (but not defence of its own behavior in 1989) - has launched its new line. China's communist government is now to be regarded as respectful of human rights and peace. The so-called "Confucian prize of peace" marks its conversion to such ideals. Let us hope that this new course can meander its way to a more genuine respect for the aspirations of Alfred Nobel and the prize that the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded to the imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xaobo for 2010. Before China this year, no government since that of Alfred Hitler has deigned to put pressure on the Nobel Committee for the Peace Prize - and on the Norwegian government hosting this independent body - to cease its work for freedom and peace.

Whistle-blowing, free speech and leaks

I like whistle-blowing, the reporting of hard-to-detect crimes by other insiders or by digging reporters. Whistle-blowing makes it possible to catch people committing crimes that would otherwise go undetected. Wikileaks is not doing whistle-blowing – it is simply dumping into the public sphere massive amounts of confidential or inside communication about the ordinary business of the US and other governments. Some of this publication is bound to have harmful effects both on government policies and on the legitimate activities of individuals, corporations and NGOs. How have the Wikileaks movement succeeded in sneaking that good label onto their indiscriminate acts of – yes! - vandalization?

I will also defend free speech to my last breath, but then it is the speech of the speaker, not some material written by others that he or she found somewhere and appropriated without authorization. Many Wikileak supporters now defend these exposés as a matter of free speech. This is just confused. The fact that some information exists somewhere unpublished does not mean that it should necessarily be published, to “let the truth come out”.

In today’s The Australian (newspaper) Assange calls it “scientific journalism”, i.e., to write up a story and then make it possible to click on the source documents to prove that this is “the truth”. Well and good as far as it goes, but it is not the method that is in question, rather the indiscriminate choice of content. There is much that is true – my medical records, for example – without that being sufficient reason to publish it. Assange's actions may be well-intentioned but also both naïve and misguided, to the point of putting us all in danger.

Two National Celebrations

December 6 is the national day of two European countries - Finland and Spain. How different can you get? Granted, both countries celebrate their liberation from authoritarian regimes in the 20^th century, but they were more than 60 years apart. European political scientist Stein Rokkan spent much of his life seeking to understand why European countries modernized at quite different times and at different rates of progress - some rapid, others painfully slow. Spain was one of the tough cases; Finland much earlier, but still the latecomer among the Nordics.

And if we look at the specifics, they are curious, to say the least. Finland’s release from Russia’s grasp was a battle not against the Tsar, but against his imperial heirs, first the Kerensky regime from March to November 1917, then against the new Soviet regime (established on November 7) – with Red forces all along desperately seeking to retain Finland for the new revolutionary regime, heavily supported by Finnish Red guards. Hence, Finland’s liberation was by half a civil war, half a war of secession. The price in internal wounds was such that even fifty years later it was difficult for Finns to talk about it and find reconciliation. But December 6, 1917 was the day that independent Finland was born.

The Spanish celebrate their democratic constitution of 1978, approved on December 6 by a resounding majority. Their enemy was not any outside force – it was their own authoritarian regime, the Franco regime, which had for forty years kept democracy at bay, first by force of arms, then by vengeful repression. Spanish democracy is by now solidly engrained in society, but the wounds are still there, visible for those who take their time to look. As time goes by, the consensus decision of the new democracy to leave the past in the past seems slowly to be coming apart.

History does not necessarily move “forward” - it moves backward and sideways as well.

The sorry lesson of lessons not learned

I introduce this blog with a message about education and learning. We are in deep trouble all over the Western cultural sphere. Self-anointed priests of educational novelty and "reform" have had a full generation's time in power in too many (most) West European countries. 

Most of you who read this have been in their care and I'm afraid you never knew the difference between what you got and the education you could have had. These wayward idealists are now in positions at the top of the educational establishments; hence just a few potshots at them will not work. As OECD report upon report documents their failures, politicians still seek their advice for the education of the future. Their targets have been the classical education standards underpinning "bourgeois society", and they are not about to give up this close to their goal. 

By now, "bourgeois society" is long gone. Quality education, however, must be rebuilt. Formal education is indispensable to the societies we live in, and must be brought back to its former standards. The technology we are so proud of is dependent on that, and so are the political systems we have allowed to get watered down to he point of irresponsibility.

Mass immigration from cultures outside our own sphere is adding its own complications. Additional languages are central to what needs to be checked. The problem is nothing new - but the urgency is. Look to Finland for the solution. Look to Spain - or for that matter Norway - and their language education policies for examples of wasted resources.