Battle Order of Liberty

As I read news about various attempts to modernize Middle East, one disparity jumped out. Often, the West would celebrate every bit of cultural and legal progress, yet there was preciously little news in the economic front. In fact, if anything, the West (especially the US) actively works to reduce importation of the region's most important product, oil. For example, American-led forces occupied Afghanistan and Iraq for almost a decade; from this, we seem to only hear news like woman education, election, and such, yet we rarely (if ever) seen anything "Made in Afghanistan" or celebrate, says, completion of a factory. In my humble opinion, this disparity is the very reason for the failure to establish a stable, self-sufficient governments and societies in these countries.

Before continuing, let me clarify something. I think that social and legal progresses are extremely important. The subjugation and debasement of women in those society are completely unacceptable. Education and election anchor stability and modernization. I wholeheartedly believe those above points.

That said, order of execution also plays a vital role in success and failure. In fact, for state and society building, it is among the deciding factor. It's like treating a sick patient. The same set of actions in wrong orders pretty much guarantees a patient's demise. In fact, a right order (eg. test reaction to a drug before administrating it) prevents wrong actions from happening. Same thing here. Sure, we will need to liberate women and stop human trafficking and such. However, do we need to do them first?

There are 2 reasons why this order (culture first, economic second) cannot work out. First, it destabilizes and, in some cases, outright alienates key stakeholders of the society. Second, it can be (and actually is) perceived as belittling the identity, culture, history, and dignity of these societies.

Let's start with the more eminently understandable reason: destabilization and alienation of key, powerful stakeholders. The stakeholders in question are the male elders of these societies. Remember this, so long as a region is not in an all out war, so long as some degree of order and stability is in place, there exist people who prosper and hold power. Furthermore, these people will recruit at least a sizable minority as their minions through shared privilege. For example, in a military dictatorship, the dictator himself (or herself, but female rarely reaches there) and the generals prosper and hold power; furthermore, they also buy support of the army through shared power and dignity (right to abuse civilians, says) and resources (food, weapons, pay, etc.).

In Afghanistan, the rulers are Taliban head honchos and local warlords. They also buy support of many men by giving them (the lesser men) moral superiority and power over their families. For those men, these both appease and chain them: on one hand, it feels good to be told how righteous you are, and it feels good to lord over some other people (i.e. your wives and children); on the other, these men "had" the privileges, which mean they could lose if the regime lost. Humans naturally have a bias against loss. This means that a new regime must give these men more than these privileges (roughly twice more?) for them to feel well compensated.

Fast forward, and we have American invasion of Afghanistan. From Western eyes, this was an act of justice: an international coalition taking down a terrorist organization and establishing order, justice, liberty, and democracy. Probably from Afghan women's eyes, it was a progress: they could now go to school and debate and vote.

However, how does the invasion look through Afghan men eyes? Now, I am clearly not an Afghan man whose life was disrupted by the invasion. However, I can conjecture of what such men may feel. Compared to, says, the women, who at least gained new, significant, day-to-day rights, what did the Afghan men get out of the invasion? Their fragile (violent? terrorist?) order was shattered; their lives and limbs were in danger every moment, awake or asleep. More importantly (because the above 2 points might or might not already happen under Taliban), their rights and privileges over their families were ruined, and whatever livelihoods they had accumulated burned with the bullets and bombs. And what did they get? About nothing. Sure, they can vote, but given that they had not voted for centuries, given that vast majority of election fairness was questionable, what does voting right really really gave them? Furthermore, corruption still ran rampant, so whatever new justice and political systems would not help the regular men anyway.

In other words, Afghan men saw nothing but loss from the invasion. Obviously, there are theoretical ways to counter this. The easiest of which would involve quick building of an economic base. Giving a person a (relatively, of course) decent job means more than just extra income and reduced poverty. It also means giving that person stake in the system. It binds such person with the success and survival of the economic and social way from which the person derives necessities and comforts. However, as said earlier, such news never seemed to come. This disparity means that the men would (women, one may imagine, have more concrete gains) have no stake and much loss. What else would such person do but rebel?

Now, to make the matter worse, men make up roughly half of the population. Furthermore, the cultural conditioning of the region gives them extra respect and importance. This means that their social weight was, at least, more than half of the countries. And the invasion very well pissed them off. So much for liberation.

Of course, I have been talking about Afghanistan, where a terrorist regime rule. Iraq must have been worse. Iraqi government was stable enough to briefly invade Kuwait. Such actions meant that Iraqi internal stability and economic development must be at least higher than Afghanistan. And what do the key players of this country, i.e. the men, get out of the toppling of their government?

So, economic weighting of gain and loss already put the interventions at deep risk. However, there is another factor to all of those social, cultural, and legal reforms. It pretty much guarantees the hostility to the invaders (i.e. "liberators").

Before weighing gain and loss, before debating liberty and slavery, as far as a local is concerned, such reforms are foreign. Foreign in 2 senses: first, foreign because these societies are not well-prepared to implement many of these reforms; second, foreign because the reforms themselves come from a different cultures. The first sense of foreignness, with appropriate determinism and resources, can be overcome. The second, though, is much much harder.

My opinion is that Americans generally are not well versed with the psychology of strangers imposing their ideals (usually at gun points or after destroying indigenous regime). However, for the imposed, this is a slap in the face. Well, maybe more of a spit than a slap. The slap is probably the forceful destruction of their local regimes. After all, the invaders are telling them that their cultures are terrorist, sexist, evil, and generally beneath contempt, and that they should (I meant, must) adopt this new set of ideals that they can barely comprehend. How would you feel if somebody tells you that?

Obviously, there are various (again, theoretical at this point) ways around this. The most obvious way is to through timing. If, says, a group of Iraqis successfully topple their current regime under the banner of liberty and democracy (which is essentially what the Arab Spring was about), Western government can rush in with resources and help. Because the change started within and is represented by the same people of the same culture speaking the same language, the ideals are more likely to be accepted.  The second way involves making these culture a part of a the invaders, then convert them over. An example would be to make Afghanistan a developed country, then tell them, you know, developed countries don't treat their women like that. I am pretty sure this is what European Union is about: to integrate Soviet sphere into the West, then to change their minds to adopt Western culture.

Either way, it's important to make the people feel like they belong with the invaders, to make them a part of the coalition, and to give them concrete gains. The lopsided victory of culture changes over economic improvement acted reverse of this. They first stripped a sizable chunk of the population of their privileges, then humiliated their culture and dignity, then lectured them on how to socialize and behave. Such a great plan! And some Americans actually expect the locals to welcome them as liberator. Sometimes I wonder what Bush and co smoked when they plan for Iraq.

Then, what of women liberation and fair election? Are they not worthy of implementation as soon as possible? I am not a woman, so I can be tactless here, but rushing in only hurt the local women in the long run. Remember, things don't disappear just because the laws ban them (like domestic abuse; it happens even in the US). Corrupted laws ban practically nothing. As such, there are a couple of (again, stressing this, theoretical) ways to implement these cultural and sensitive reforms.

First strategy involves step-by-step changes. The change can start with banning the most outrageous and hideous practices (like stoning to death or public beheading or such) or allowing/encouraging the most innocent steps (like free primary public education with sex segregated). Once the first step can be enforced properly, then the next step, slightly more aggressive step, can proceed, like banning child marriage. Then the next step. The idea is to change slowly to avoid backslashes.

Second strategy involves education, but a special kind. In Vietnamese, it's called "new wine in old bottles." The best English translation would be "wolf in sheep's clothing." Sounds bad? It is quite trickery, but not all bad. The strategy is to educate new ideas through existing and respected channels. I think "Iraqi security forces" are good example: instead of having white people shooting down Iraqi rebels (the rebels are terrorists, but they are Iraqi, so will raise Iraqi sympathy when shot down by outsiders), let Iraqi police hunt down Iraqi criminals. Similarly, there are various channels whose usage I don't see. Why don't we send progressive Islam preachers to Afghanistan and Iraq? I actually mean that. Some Americans seem to link "Islam" with "terrorism." However, it needs not be. Islam actually has a much more tolerant history than Christianity (mostly because empires in Middle East had to deal with more diverse population than, says, Holy Roman Empire). Or, mass sponsor Middle Eastern students to study abroad with contract to work in their home countries. Or, buy off (seriously, just buy them off) war lords to implement progressive reforms. The point is: do not call attention to the new ideas; cloak new ideas in old forms, languages, social structures, and rituals. That way, the locals may actually evaluate them rather than just reject out of principles.

Third strategy is out right trading: do this and we will give you that. Note: "this" and "that" must be chosen very very carefully. We want to appear belittling the invaded cultures and traditions. Furthermore, we want to establish long term relationship, not one off actions. A good way of trading, by the way, is to give first, then implement requirement. Remember human nature: we bias against loss. Thus, if we start with, "you do this first," the other party may walk away. Instead, we can say, "well, here is some privilege. Like it? OK, now you need to do this or we take it away." It's hostage trading, essentially. And what's the easiest commodities for trading? Economics, of course. One can imagine a factory who pays well, who then demands that all employees must send their children (girls and boys) to schools. Economic venues (factories, shops, offices) can also be political, educational, and cultural venues. It's the same even in the US: offices usually have billboards filled with cultural and leisure opportunities.

All 3 strategies above share a few important traits. First, they don't blatantly celebrate changes that may seem scandalous to a sizable (not necessarily majority, but numerous enough to disrupt socially) demographics. Second, they ensure that changes always come after buy-in: changes are applied to stakeholders, not "the people." The goal, as stated above, is to avoid rejection out of principles. Good ideas are only good if they are considered. Rubbing things, no matter how good, into people's face will get rebellion, not cooperation.

Thus, justice and liberty require a battle order. No one embrace outside invaders with open arms for long. No one like to see their identity and culture invalidated and held in contempt. No one fight for social and political orders to which they don't belong. Respect, buy-in, and shared progresses will help root progress. Lack of those, and progressives are at perpetual risk of beheading.