Nuclear attribution error

“Nuclear weapons are not the causes of conflict, they are symptoms of a threat environment already predisposed to war” (p. 63).

--Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan

As Dr. King pointed out, most of us are self-centered. We take everything personally. In the extreme, we label someone delusional if they believe President Obama's speech was made in reference to them. But what about when entire nations are delusional?

Einstein and others freaked out because they feared Germany would develop an atomic weapon. They convinced Roosevelt to start the Manhattan Project and we got our nuke--which we then used after Germany had surrendered. On Japan.

Which made the Soviets nervous, since the Cold War was immediately on, so they developed a nuke in response to our nuke which we had developed in response to a nonexistent nuke of Germany's.

Which alarmed China (not to mention Britain and France), since they had ceased to be commie buddies with the Soviets, so they invented and tested a nuke in response to the Soviets who had built theirs in response to the US who had made theirs reacting to Germany, who has never had one.

That got Nehru's knickers in a twist, since he had declared war on China in 1962 over a sliver of the Himalayas where no one lived, so India produced The Bomb in response to China who hadn't been thinking of India at all when they made theirs as a foil to the Soviets who had not contemplated China at all while constructing their nuke to counter America's who didn't develop theirs thinking of the Soviets but to beat the Germans to it, who were never actually seriously in the running.

Well, that fried General Zia's hash because of Kashmir and other reasons to hate India, so he said the Paks would have their nuke even if the people had to eat grass (of course he never had to, personally speaking, which is the norm for great military leaders), even though India had produced their Bomb in response to China, who had produced theirs in response to the Soviets, who had produced theirs in response to the US, who had built theirs to defeat the Germans, who gave up on all this early.

Perhaps the only ones who have nukes based on logic, however tautological, are the North Koreans, who have annoyed almost everyone and so are paranoid because no one likes them because they are paranoid. And the ultimate irony there is that they point at least some of their nukes toward the only people who have been attacked with them so far, the Japanese, who have never tried to develop these immoral, illegal, unsoldierly godawful things.

Sigh. And so it goes. Like a rumor mill that cranks out unnecessary conflict and costs, we've done this writ large with nukes. Will our species make it out of our troubled teenage years? Only if we mature quickly enough to avoid the ultimate self-inflicted wounds such as nuclear arsenals.

References

Chenoweth, Erica, & Stephan, Maria J. (2011). Why civil resistance works: The strategic logic of nonviolent conflict. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

Codependent consumers and dictators

Burma is the land of Daw Suu, the nonviolent leader of a partially completed nonviolent revolution. She is currently free (at least not on house arrest since 13 November 2010), though she and all who love her know that this has been the case before and that the military government could decide to put her back on house arrest or worse at any moment. She remains one of my all time sheroes.

Her Reith Lecture one month ago brings me to tears.  Her discussion of various forms of freedom and the universality of the human longing for freedom is so poignant from a person who chose to risk her life and who has sacrificed so much for her people's desire for liberation. She says:

The freedom to make contact with other human beings with whom you may wish to share your thoughts, your hopes, your laughter, and at times even your anger and indignation is a right that should never be violated.

Every time a government violates these basic freedoms or allows elements of a society to violate them that government fails its people. Every time a government engages in this oppression, or allows others to do so to members of its society, it moves further from the right to call itself a democracy. Burma is, of course, an example of complete nondemocracy. Aung San Suu Kyi--Daw Suu is her honorific to her people--is the 66-year-old leader of her nation's long struggle for freedom, a struggle that has been armed and unarmed.

Indeed, her father, Aung San, was the military leader who freed Burma using both violence and negotiation, and his memory was revered, setting the stage for her leadership, though she has proven herself far more egalitarian and inclusive than her father, whose record is highly suspect amongst the Karen peoples. Daw Suu is loved by virtually all Burmese who aren't a part of the ruling military clique. Spend time with any Burmese and you'll realize her spirit infuses all of them, a spirit that is both gentle and immensely strong.

The long mixed history of violence and nonviolence in Burma has given the selfish, brutal military the excuse to do the inexcusable, to deny people that basic freedom toward which Aung San Suu Kyi leads them. The generals are trying to spruce up their image with "elections" that Daw Suu's National League for Democracy called a sham (even their foreign officers are agreeing as they defect and apply for asylum).

Moving long nonviolent struggles forward to victory often requires one of two things, and sometimes both.

One, the people of that country need to shut it down until they achieve victory, which is actually muddled with the ersatz elections in Burma.

Two, externals need to be unified and strong in their support for nonviolent freedom fighters, and that is increasingly confounded by the growing strength of the Chinese influence economically and politically, since China's authoritarian brand of state-run brutally enforced capitalism defies the general world trend toward freedom and human rights and their trade with the Myanmar (Burma) rulers undercuts all other sanctions.

Thus, external sanctions on Burma have limited effect as long as China defies them and sanctions on China do not exist because we are too wed to cheap Chinese consumer goods, just as seemingly indispensable to our lives as oil, and thus we guarantee lack of freedom from Riyadh to Rangoon. Our struggle for freedom from hyperconsumerism is directly linked to humankind's struggle for all freedoms.

Happy Birthday, Ven. Rinpoche

He arrived with a small retinue and was almost to the front door of the Native American Center when a woman walked past with a fat little dachshund on a leash. He placed his hands together, facing the dog, and bowed deeply, head tilted to the same listening degree as the dog's. The dog's human looked bewildered but the dog seemed to be communing with the robed monk. It was one of those special intercultural, interspecies moments.

The Prime Minister of the Tibetan government in exile of the Dalai Lama spoke recently where I teach, at Portland State University. He was hosted by Dr. Cornel Pewewardy, Director of the Native American Studies program, at the Native American Student and Community Center on campus. The Prime Minister, the Venerable Samdhong Rinpoche, who was born Lobsang Tenzin on November 5, 1939 in Tibet, is believed by Tibetan Buddhists to be the fifth reincarnation of the Samdhong Rinpoche.

At age 20, in 1959, Ven. Rinpoche fled for his life along with the Dalai Lama, as the invading Red Chinese Army was killing monks, nuns and targeting the religious leadership in particular. They have been based out of Dharamsala, India ever since, and advocating for nonviolence and at least autonomy, if not freedom, for Tibet. Ven. Rinpoche has taught both Tibetan Buddhism and Gandhian philosophy at several universities in India and is fluent in Tibetan--his mother language--Hindi and English.

He is a gracious man. He moves slowly, talks carefully, and smiles big as he finishes his points. This is either a result of his personality or his training, and the meta-message is nonverbal but clear, "I'm saying something that some people may regard as controversial, but I mean the very best for all of humankind even as I struggle for the good of my people, who have suffered under occupation for decades. Wouldn't you like to agree and be my friend and ally?"

Cornel Pewewardy is Kiowa and Comanche. He sang a Welcome song to all--the crowd was mixed Tibetans, PSU students and interested community members. Dr. Pewewardy made everyone welcome and set the mood as honoring the Original People. The ties with the occupation of America by Europeans and then others were not stated but were obvious to the Tibetans' plight as a tiny unarmed population overwhelmed by a massive violent occupying and colonizing neighbor. In the moment, the struggles look hopeless.

Pewewardy and Ven. Rinpoche take the longer view. You can see their confidence in what Dr. King called the long moral arc of the universe bending toward justice. It reminded me also of the story of the Singing Revolution in Estonia, a tiny country trampled by Germany and Russia as they rampaged toward each other in war after war for centuries. "Patience is a weapon," says the narrator in the film by that name.

The Chinese will eventually retreat and Tibet will be independent. That was not the question; the question was how to make it happen the soonest with the fewest costs. Ven. Rinpoche described some of the forces and strategies, helping situate us all in that struggle.

Happy Birthday, Ven. Rinpoche, and many more before you again reincarnate!