Tag: Extremism
Peace picks for April 3-10
1. U.S.-Egyptian Relations In The Age Of ISIS | Monday, April 3rd|11:45-1:00| The Hudson Institute| Register Here
Egyptian President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi’s visit to Washington in early April presents an opportunity to renew the American-Egyptian alliance. Over the past three and half years, a wide gulf in policy approaches has led to disagreements on a range of issues, from democracy and human rights, to Islamist extremism and the Libyan Civil War. Will the diplomatic visit mark a new chapter in U.S.-Egyptian relations?
President Sisi’s visit comes at a critical moment for his country. In the Sinai, the Islamic State’s local affiliate is inflicting daily casualties on security forces. Its genocidal campaign against Egyptian Copts has led to a mass flight of Copts from north Sinai. This followed the bombing of the St. Mark Cathedral compound in Cairo that left 29 people dead.
As the new Trump administration refines its strategy towards the Arabic world’s most populous country, Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom will host a discussion on the security, political, and religious freedom challenges facing Egypt. On April 3, Ambassador Alberto Fernandez, Vice President of the Middle East Media Research Institute, will join Hudson Senior Fellows Nina Shea and Samuel Tadros to assess the situation in Egypt and discuss effective U.S. policy options toward the country.
2. Is Something Stirring In Central Asia? |Monday, April 3rd | 4:00 PM | Atlantic Council | Register Here
Since the death of Uzekistan’s President Islam Karimov in September of 2016, the stability that characterized key developments and overall dynamics in Uzbekistan as well as in the Central Asia region as a whole, has been undergoing a noticeable shift. Initiatives of the newly installed President Mirziyoyev in Uzbekistan and proposals regarding reforms by President Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan suggest that something may be stirring in Central Asia. This first joint forum of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute and the Atlantic Council will present these developments, ask if they represent a real shift, and consider the implications of such changes for the Central Asia region as a whole and for its place in the world.
Moderated by Dr. S. Frederick Starr, Chairman, Central Asia-Caucasus Institute
American Foreign Policy Council; The event features Ambassador John Herbst; Ambassador Richard Hoagland Interim Co-chair OSCE Minsk Group; Daniel Rosenblum, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Central Asia State department; Dr. Martha Olcott, Visiting Professor at Michigan State University.
3. Afghanistan: The Reconciliation Option |Tuesday, April 4th |12:15- 2:00 PM | The Stimson Center| Register Here
U.S. commanders characterize the fight against the Afghan Taliban as a “stalemate.” As U.S. national security leaders and Congress evaluate strategic choices in Afghanistan, the discussion has narrowly focused on military options and troop levels. The Stimson Center is pleased to host Ambassador Richard Olson who will detail what an alternative approach, a reconciliation option, might look like in Afghanistan. Shamila Chaudhary, former Director for Pakistan and Afghanistan on the National Security Council (2010-2011), will offer comments, Sameer Lalwani, Deputy Director of the South Asia program, will moderate a discussion, and Stimson Center President Brian Finlay will convene the event.
4. Global Cities, Local Neighborhoods In Displacement, Migration, And Promise | Tuesday, April 4th|4:00 -7:00 PM | Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars| Register Here
Please join the Urban Sustainability Laboratory and the Education Policy Program and the Center of Education Policy and Evaluation in the College of Education and Human Development at George Mason University for the first in a set of seminars to discuss equity and justice challenges that confront our cities and neighborhoods.
By addressing critical issues that face our urbanized world, the seminars seek to both advance public understanding about the significance and future of our world’s cities and to create more sustainable, equitable, and peaceful cities through research and policy.
On April 4, a panel of experts will examine key issues facing neighborhoods and communities in transition in the United States. From Ferguson to Baltimore, Chicago to Los Angeles, cities and neighborhoods are experiencing transition to larger processes of urban renewal, gentrification, and marginalization, while at the same time under pressure from an intersection of housing, social welfare, education, and political forces within and beyond this country. Panelists will identify solutions and offer a vision for American cities, especially in an increasingly stratified world:
Leon Andrews, Race, Equity, and Leadership Initiative, National League of Cities; Johanna Bockman, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, George Mason University; Michelle Chatman, Department of Crime, Justice, and Security Studies, University of the District of Columbia; Sonya Horsford, Teacher’s College, Columbia University; Derek Hyra, Metropolitan Policy Center, American University
5. Foreign Fighter Fallout |Tuesday, April 4th | 9:00- 12:00 | CSIS | Register Here
As international and local forces battle in Iraq and Syria, an unknown number of the conflict’s tens of thousands foreign fighters may flee to other areas. These returnees could bolster international operations for the Islamic State and al Qaeda, oxygenating social tensions or conducting attacks on U.S. interests and allies around the world. Please join the CSIS Transnational Threats Project (TNT) for an in-depth discussion between Lieutenant General Michael K. Nagata, Director of the Directorate for Strategic Operational Planning at the National Counterterrorism Center and TNT Director & Senior Fellow Tom Sanderson. The discussion and Q&A will be followed by an expert panel discussion moderated by Tom Sanderson.
Weighing the Options: Choices and Challenges in the Middle East (in Arabic) |Wednesday, April 5th | 11:00 AM| Atlantic Council| Register Here
President Donald Trump confronts an array of difficult choices as he and his administration consider how to address the conflicts and problems in the Middle East that continue to threaten global stability. Please join us for an interactive online video discussion in Arabic with Hariri Center experts Abdul Rahman AlAgeli, Sarah El Sirgany, and Nabeel Khoury about the shifts in US policy towards the Middle East under the Trump Administration and how the new approach will impact regional conflicts and alliances, among other issues. The panelists will also share their views on whether the recently released Albright-Hadley Middle East Strategy Task Force report’s strategy is a valid vision to address the problems in the region. Mohamed Elmenshawy will moderate the discussion featuring Nonresident Fellows at Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East at the Atlantic Council Mr. Abdul Rahman AlAgeli, Ms. Sarah El Sirgany, and Dr. Nabeel Khoury.
6. Containing the Civil War Contagion| Wednesday, April 5th | 12:30-1:00| MEI | Register Here
Civil wars in Syria, Libya, Yemen and Iraq have killed hundreds of thousands, displaced millions, enabled the resurgence of terrorist organizations, and threaten the stability of neighboring countries as well as Europe. These conflicts erupted in the wake of domestic demands for change in the face of repressive governments and in the context of bitter proxy struggles between regional powers. Bringing these civil wars to a sustainable and inclusive end is key to denying space to terrorist groups, repatriating IDPs and refugees, and starting the process of post-war reconstruction.
The Middle East Institute (MEI) is pleased to host Kathleen Cunningham (Univ. of Maryland), Marc Lynch (George Washington Univ.) and Kenneth M. Pollack (Brookings Institution) for an analysis of the causes and trajectories of the Middle East’s civil wars and policy implications for the United States. Lynch will present the thesis of his recent book The New Arab Wars and Pollock will draw on his co-authored article “Escaping the Civil War Trap in the Middle East” in opening remarks. MEI Scholar Ross Harrison will join as discussant.
7. Syria’s Trajectory and Challenges for the United States |Thursday, April 6th |8:30 AM -3:00 PM | Carnegie Endowment | Register Here
In six years, the Syria conflict has evolved from a democratic uprising to the world’s most pressing international crisis. As a new administration in the United States hones its policy to address the conflict, Carnegie’s Middle East Program will bring together speakers from Syria, other Arab countries, Turkey, Europe, and Russia to examine the potential scenarios for the future of the Syria conflict, the role of external players, as well as the serious political, humanitarian, and security challenges posed by this tragic conflict.
Carnegie’s Middle East Program gathers scholars from around the globe to examine the potential scenarios for the future of the conflict in Syria. Marwan Muasher, Nikolay Kozhanov, Hossein Mousavian, Galip Dalay, Riad Hijab, Rouba Mhaissen, Jihad Makdissi, Abdulhakim Bashar, Bassma Kodmani, Taysir Raddawi, Tobias Ellwood, Shanta Devarajan.
8. A Guide To Geopolitics In The 21st Century|Friday, April 7th |12:00-1:30 PM | Foreign Policy Research Institute | Register Here
How to understand a world where Russia threatens to break up the post-Cold War order in Europe, while China lays the groundwork for a new order in East Asia, and the entire Middle East is riven with conflict —this is the assignment we’ve given to one of the world’s great geopolitical thinkers, Jeremy Black, author of over 100 books on military and diplomatic history.
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Charlie Hebdo
It is all too easy to think of many valid reasons to denounce the murder of 12 staff members of the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo. But the event should also give us pause and make us think about what is going on in the minds of the people who do such things and how to prevent them from happening in the future. It may be necessary to label the perpetrators as evil and it is certainly appropriate to call for their quick capture and fair trial. It is likewise necessary to defend the right of anyone to laugh at whomever they want. But it is not sufficient.
We may never know precisely the motives for this massacre. Even if they eventually stand trial, the perpetrators may not say much. So we’ll have to go with the flow: this looks like an act of retaliation against Charlie Hebdo for it satires of Mohammed, Islam and Sharia. Let’s assume for the sake of argument that is correct.
The passionate defense of one’s religion we should all understand. It wasn’t all that long ago that New York Mayor Rudi Giuliani was cutting off funding to the Brooklyn Museum because it displayed an artwork known as “Piss Christ” (and it was eventually attacked and destroyed, in France).* I’m with Mohammad Fadel when he notes here that Giuliani’s attitude was frighteningly hostile, even if the means he had the privilege of choosing were more genteel:
My own folks are fond of the slogan “Never again!” when it comes to people who say they want to be rid of us. And we mean it. But Jews and Catholics in the United States have a lot of levers of power to wield before it comes to murdering our assailants. Even if we are deeply offended, we know that retaliation using political, economic, moral and social instruments will be more effective than violence.
That is what some people doubt. Extremists are extreme: they believe only violence will make their point and enable them to get their way. They feel under attack and want to fight back. They don’t think they are doing evil. They think protecting their own is doing good.
Why should Muslims feel under attack? Let me count the reasons:
- They are under attack from nationalists, especially but not only in France, who view them as foreigners, alien and undesirable.
- Aspects of Western culture that we regard as normal (kissing in public, scantily clad women, drinking alcohol) are offensive to many Muslims.
- Some Western countries, including France, have tried to prohibit some Muslim practices, in particular the hijab but also the call to prayer.
- They see us as applying double standards: vigorous concern for our own victims of violence, but indifference or worse towards theirs (witness Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen and elsewhere).
- Muslims share the legacy associated with the Old and New Testaments, but Christians and Jews reject (or ignore) the Quran and the Prophet Mohammed.
So when Charlie Hebdo takes shots at Mohammed, Westerners see it as a joke, maybe one in poor taste, but not something to get upset about. Some Muslims see it as part of a pattern of hostility, and a few want to retaliate but lack imagination and means other than an AK-47 and a rocket launcher.
So what do we do about it? First, we hope the French police catch the perps and see that they get a fair trial and appropriate sentences in a French court. All you need to know about Guantanamo you can learn by imagining what would happen if the murderers were caught, not put on trial but jailed indefinitely and subjected to harsh interrogation techniques. The extremists would certainly gain, not lose, if that happened.
Second, we need to restrain the nativist reactions of non-Muslims, who will be calling for (and voting for) expulsions of foreigners and crackdowns on immigration. That is precisely the wrong direction to go in. I don’t expect any mainstream Muslim organization not to denounce these murders in the strongest possible terms, even if they think Charlie Hebdo went too far in its satire. It is important to make it easier, not harder, for them to stick with the majority view, in France and elsewhere, that free speech has to be protected from murderous thugs, no matter how offensive the scribblings.
Third, we need much more understanding of the Muslims who live among us. Americans think Muslims are 15% of the population. In fact they are less than 1%. In France, they are thought to be 31% of the population but are in fact 8%. I can only imagine what other distortions lie harbored in our brains. Christian/Jewish relations have improved enormously since I was called names on the playground I won’t repeat today (some of you might never have heard them). We need to commit to the same kind of improvements with the growing Muslim population in our midst, ensuring that we know what is offensive and why as well as underlining our own commitment to freedom of speech.
I’ve got no beef with Charlie Hebdo. It was doing what it was invented to do. But let’s try to make things better, not worse.
*PS: Sorry: I confused two old stories here. Piss Christ was attacked in France, but Giuliani’s complaint was about The Holy Virgin Mary, a work featuring a Black Madonna sprinkled with elephant dung and images of female genitalia. A distinction but not much difference.
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