APPENDIX
BIBLIOGRAPHY & RESOURCES FOR GLOBAL STUDIES
I. PROGRAMS
A.1. Capitol Forum http://www.choices.edu/capitol_forum/index.cfm
The Capitol Forum on America's Future is an experiential civic education initiative designed to
give high school students a voice in public consideration of current international issues.
A.2. Youth Speak http://66.40.219.233/peoplespeak/index.cfm
The People Speak is a national effort to engage Americans in discussion of America’s role in the
world. The People Speak Youth Circles is a collaborative effort of The People Speak and several
educational organizations involved in international education and youth civic engagement.
B. Global Ed: An Experiential Web-Based Study on Gender Differences in Group Decision
Making and Negotiation Skills http://www.globaled.uconn.edu/
The GlobalEd Project was created out of a need to systematically and scientifically evaluate
these perceived gender differences in leadership and decision-making styles and values and in
approaches to technology. The Project does this by using the ICONS (International
Communication and Negotiation Simulation) simulation approach to conduct international
negotiation simulations across each of three years with students in middle school and high school
social studies programs.
C.1. Model UN http://cyberschoolbus.un.org/modelun/index.asp
C.2. Cyberschoolbus was created in 1996 as the online education component of the Global
Teaching and Learning Project, whose mission is to promote education about international issues
and the United Nations. The Global Teaching and Learning Project produces high quality
teaching materials and activities designed for educational use (at primary, intermediate and
secondary school levels) and for training teachers.
D.1. InterConnections 21 (IC 21) http://www.ic21.org/
InterConnections 21 (IC 21) coordinates ASPnet/USA, working with schools interested in joining
the network and helping ASP members organize activities related to the priority themes. Since
1953, ASPnet has grown to include over 7,000 educational institutions in 171 countries, ranging
from pre-school education to teacher training. ASPnet is a program of UNESCO.
IC 21 promotes learning and action in schools and communities around the US about critical
world concerns. At present, there are 30 schools across the US involved in ASPnet. There are
no dues. Member schools must demonstrate commitment to the goals and objectives of
ASPnet/USA and are asked to submit brief annual reports and articles for IC 21 newsletters. The
current program is focused around creating opportunities for learning and action in the following
subjects: 1) promotion of human rights, peace and democracy; 2) teaching about the United
Nations system and global issues; 3) sustainability education and preservation of World Heritage
Sites (both cultural and natural)
D.2. World Heritage in Young Hands http://whc.unesco.org/education/kit/kitengfl/index.htm
Designed to encourage young people to take part in the conservation and promotion of world
heritage.
II. LESSON PLANS AND MORE
A. Peace Corps
A.1. World Wise Schools http://www.peacecorps.gov/wws/index.html
The Coverdell World Wise Schools program offers engaging stories, classroom resources, and
ideas for service projects based on the experiences of Peace Corps Volunteers around the world.
A.2. Global TeachNet http://www.rpcv.org/pages/globalteachnet.cfm
The objective of Global TeachNet is to promote students' knowledge of, understanding of and
respect for the people, cultures and nations of the world through returned Peace Corps
volunteers.
A.3. Peace Corps http://www.rpcv.org/pages/sitepage.cfm?id=867
Peace Match on-line speakers bureau.
B.1. World Bank
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/WBI/0,,contentMDK:20106337~menuPK:213942~
pagePK:209023~piPK:207535~theSitePK:213799,00.html
A learning and knowledge site for teachers and students focusing on Development Education
Program; For Schools; The Development Challenge; World Links.
B.2. youthink! http://www.youthink.worldbank.org/
Introduces core development issues.
III. ONLINE MAGAZINES
Online Magazines
www.theglobalist.com
The Globalist – The daily online magazine on the global economy, politics and culture
http://www.oneworld.net
Brings together the latest news and views from over 1,600 organizations promoting
human rights awareness and fighting poverty worldwide; includes guides (topics and
countries) plus In Depth on OneWorld (Use OneWorld Full Coverage and Search tools,
Guides and Channels, to research your areas of interest)
IV.SUPPLEMENTAL
A. Global Nomads http://www.gng.org/home.html
Uses interactive technologies such as videoconferencing to bring young people together face-toface to meet across cultural and national boundaries to discuss their differences & similarities,
and the world issues that affect them (cost for some programs).
B. International Education and Resource Network http://www.iearn.org/
Enables young people to use the Internet and other new technologies to engage in collaborative
educational projects that both enhance learning and make a difference in the world.
C. American Forum for Global Education http://www.globaled.org/
Initiates programs and materials, teacher training seminars and publications to guide and
implement their programs.
D. E-pals Classroom Exchange http://www.epals.com
School safe email and collaborative technology.
E. Global Leap http://global-leap.com
A resource for teachers around the world, enabling them to get help, advice and support to
develop videoconferencing in the curriculum, and to find videoconferencing partners and to book
interactive videoconference lessons.
F. New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/learning/teachers/index.html
Lesson plans and more for teachers and students.
G. o.s. Earth http://www.osearth.com/
How would you run the world? Global simulation workshop.
V. BACKGROUND
A. Development Education http://www.cgdev.org/Research/?TopicID=39
International news from other countries http://www.edweek.org/ew/news/international/
B. Education Week and Teacher Magazine
http://www.edweek.org/clips/news/intl/2004/10/20/index.html
Education articles from around the world.
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/index.jsp
Yale University’s globalization resources.
http://www.indiana.edu/~world/
Center for the Study of Global Change- Extensive resources compiled by Indiana
University; includes by country section and research by topic.
http://www.indiana.edu/~world/globalbib/index.htm
Globalization- Extensive resources compiled by Indiana University
http://www.indiana.edu/~world/terrorism/index.htm
Terrorism- Extensive resources compiled by Indiana University
http://www.katw.org
Kids Around the World uses the Internet to introduce elementary school-age children in
the United States to the lives of children of the same age in developing countries around
the world. In a time of globalization and increased interdependency between nations, this
site fosters curiosity, creates awareness, and encourages sensitivity and understanding
about other cultures. Photos of kids from developing countries engaged in daily
activities, read English transcripts of interviews with those children, and now listen to the
interviews as well! Hear kids around the world talk about their lives in their own
languages, such as Spanish, Indonesian, Vietnamese, Romanian, and more.
http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and teach it to their
>students.
Human rights resources:
>http://www.un.org/Pubs/CyberSchoolBus/humanrights/welcome.asp
>www.hrea.org/erc/Library (this whole website is great)
>http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/edumat/
>http://www.hreoc.gov.au/info_for_teachers/
>http://web.amnesty.org/pages/hre-resources-eng
>http://portal.unesco.org/education/en/ev.phpURL_ID=1920&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
Border Studies Curriculum – Latin America
http://www.outreachworld.org/resource.asp?CurriculumID=150
http://www.africaaccessreview.org/
Africa Access was founded in 1989 to help schools, public libraries, and parents improve the quality
of their children's collections on Africa. Our online database, Africa Access Review, contains over
1000 annotations and reviews of books for children. These critiques and descriptions are written by
university professors, librarians, and teachers most of whom have lived in Africa and have graduate
degrees in African Studies.
Bibliographies:
Mali Empire
Fatuma's New Cloth
Senegalese Glass Painting
Songhay Empire
South African Movers and Movements
http://www.bu.edu/africa/outreach - resources and curriculum for loan
http://exploringafrica.matrix.msu.edu/ - great curriculum units with activities, handouts,
resources etc.
http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/ssrg/africa/guide.html - lots of links to organizations
and resource links; search by country, region or topic.
http://www.peacecorps.gov/wws/- WorldWise Schools – classroom resources including
curriculum and lesson plans and interactive Global Cafe
http://www.peacecorps.gov/wws/lessons/bycountry.html - World Wise Schools
Teacher Guides
http://www.peacecorps.gov/wws/water/africa/lessons/HSgeog01/index.html water unit
http://www.peacecorps.gov/wws/water/africa/lessons/HShealth01/index.html water-borne illnesses
http://www.peacecorps.gov/wws/students/culturematters/index.html - Culture
matters with training guide
http://www.rpcv.org/pages/sitepage.cfm?id=61 – National Peace Corps AssociationGlobal Teachnet Resources
http://www.worldviewmagazine.com/issues/issue.cfm?id=36&home=yes – WorlView
Magazine
The uncommon experiences of Peace Corps Volunteers around the world are
captured in a new volume of Peace Corps readings and classroom lessons
based on them. "Uncommon Journeys: Peace Corps Adventures Across
Cultures"
is a 192-page collection of 11 essays by Peace Corps Volunteers or
former volunteers, detailing their experiences and feelings while
serving anywhere from urban Ukraine to the depth of the rain forest of
Congo. Eloquent, inspiring, revealing, humorous-these tales tell of the
challenges and rewards of serving two years in a new and sometimes
bewildering culture.
The standards-based lessons accompanying the essays are designed to
help U.S. teachers incorporate the passages into their social studies
and language arts classrooms. Visit
http://www.peacecorps.gov/wws/guides/journeys for more information and
to download the publication. To order a free copy, call the Peace Corps
Paul D. Coverdell World Wise Schools program at 1-800-424-8580 x1450,
or send an e-mail to wwsinfo@peacecorps.gov.
http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov1999/wellfoundedfear/
- “Tales from Real Life”: Documentary on Asylum Seekers from The
Epidavros Project, Inc. http://www.wellfoundedfear.org
>From the North American Human Rights Education listserv:
http://www.unhcr.ch/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/home - The UN Refugee Agency
Camerini*Robertson and its sister non-profit organization, The
Epidavros Project, Inc., specialize in films that bring complex issues
in the areas of development, society and political analysis vividly
alive.
One film, “Tales from Real Life,” has memorable stand-alone stories for
classroom and discussion use for high school and beyond. “Tales from
Real Life” is also accompanied by an extensive teacher's guide. The
stories are left open-ended, crafted so that creative teachers and
discussion leaders will use them to initiate many unique conversations.
The Stories:
- A grandmother who was once a resistance fighter;
- a high school kid whose life was changed forever by an article he
wrote for his school
newspaper;
- an indigenous artist caught in a civil war;
- a political dissident who describes his unusual torture after a
midnight arrest;
- a woman whose story show how domestic violence can become political.
Each story opens the door to a universe of questions, and each can be
looked at in several ways.
Running time: Each story is 12 to 15 minutes long Tales from Real Life
is accompanied by an extensive teacher's guide.
http://www.respectrefugees.org- RESPECT (Refugee Education Sponsorship
Program: Enhancing Communities
Together) works to increase awareness of refugee issues around the
world.
Our core project is the Global Letter Exchange Program by which we can
introduce your students to refugee students by pen-pal letter exchange.
You can request letters through our website at
http://www.respectrefugees.org/signup.php. We currently have letters
from refugee and war-affected students in Nigeria, Guinea and Northern
Uganda.
Please contact Marc Schaeffer at mailto:respect@respectrefugees.org
with any questions or concerns.
Lesson plans:
Four brand new modules on child labor that were developed as part of
the Child Labor Research Initiative at the University of Iowa Center
for Human Rights. The modules focus on the four worst forms of child
labor identified in ILO Convention 182 (Convention on the Worst Forms
of Child Labor). All modules are authored by experienced teachers who
have been teaching about human rights throughout their professional
careers. The four modules are:
"Child Slavery" by Beverly Witwer
http://www.hrea.org/erc/Library/display.php?doc_id=2246
"Child Soldiers" by Helen Finken
http://www.hrea.org/erc/Library/display.php?doc_id=2248
"Hazardous Child Labor" by Lois Crowley and Marlene Johnson
http://www.hrea.org/erc/Library/display.php?doc_id=2247
"Child Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation" by Jeanine Redlinger
http://www.hrea.org/erc/Library/display.php?doc_id=2249
Each module contains 4-6 lesson plans and each lesson is highly
flexible and adaptable. NCSS standards were used to guide the
development of these modules and they are designed so that teachers can
teach a lesson within
1-2 class periods to introduce the subject or fully integrate the
materials into the classrooms throughout the year. Teachers can also
combine different lesson plans or combine modules for a more
comprehensive introduction. We have found that child labor is an
extremely powerful issue to introduce to students because they are able
to relate and internalize the learning of this problem. And it creates
the necessary space to discuss larger human rights issues because
solving this problem requires us to examine other rights, including
education, health care, working conditions, participation, etc.
Chivy W. Sok
Project Director, Child Labor Research Initiative Deputy Director, UI
Center for Human Rights
Email: chivy5000@yahoo.com
Featured Story:
U.N. Pushes to End Use of Child Soldiers
The United Nations wants to stop armed groups from recruiting children; 250,000 boys and girls
were pressed into service last year.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/jan-june05/unreport_2-28.html
Lesson plan includes initiating, reading comprehension and discussion questions.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/teachers/lessonplans/world/unreport_2-28.html
Extended Lesson Plan: Children at War
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/teachers/lessonplans/world/childsoldiers_12-22.html
Students examine both the causes and consequences of the extensive use of children in combat
throughout the world.
Human rights website death penalty and more
http://www.amnestyusa.org/education/lessonplans/dp.html
http://www.amnestyusa.org/education/4thr.html
http://www.amnestyusa.org/education/lessonplans/
Boston University
African Studies Center
270 Bay State Road
Boston, Massachusetts
02215
(617) 353-3673
email: africa@bu.edu
www.bu.edu/africa
Thinking about. . . teaching about Africa
Africa in Our Schools & Community Program
African Studies Center, Boston University
270 Bay Rd, Boston MA 002215
Africa@bu.edu 617-353-7303
www.bu.edu/africa/outreach
KEY UNDERSTANDINGS in CONTENT:
1.
Africa is and has always been connected—a part of the world
 with the Middle East (from 400 CE)
 with Asia across the Indian Ocean (from before 800 CE)
 with Europe across the Mediterranean (from 800 CE)
 and later with the Americas
through multiple exchanges in trade and culture
2. Africa has a long history
Students need to learn that Africa has a history that began long before the slave
trade.
3. Africa is diverse
 religion
 landscapes
 wealth
 politics
 history
 clothing,, music
 ethnicity. . . and the relative importance attached to ethnicity
 urban/rural
4. Geography matters
GOOD PEDAGOGY ON AFRICA GENERALLY BENEFITS FROM:
1.
Recognizing the depth and breadth of misconceptions about the continent
2.
Compelling visuals
3.
“Meeting Africans”—i.e., hearing African voices




4.
in person
in primary sources
in literature
on film
Going for depth of learning, even when you have very limited time
Geography: key concepts on Africa
Barbara B. Brown, Director of Outreach
3 key understandings:
1. Africa is diverse
2. Africa is “regular” – i.e., not unusual
3. Africa is “real”—a living, vibrant continent of people
Africa is diverse
in every imaginable way:
religions
economy – including crops grown
physical geography: terrain, climate, wealth/poverty in land or resources
culture
political systems
history
use this as a theme or a backdrop for your own list.
useful teaching vehicles for diversity:
“How Big Is Africa?” map + guide
videos: (details below)
“Understanding Each Other” (see below for details)
“Lagos: Rich Man, Poor Man” “ “ “ “
taking a closer look at several disparate countries – eg.
S. Africa, Kenya, Ghana, Mali, Egypt, Senegal
Look at comparable data in e.g., Dushkin (publisher)
Global Insights: Africa For example data on:
religions
size of country
life expectance average income
% literate
major languages: how many?
Africa Is “regular” – not unusual
Focus on typical social groups, economic functions, etc
avoid focus of wildlife, tiny minority groups
use “regular” language – egg home or house, rather than hut; a people or ethnic group,
rather than a tribe
have students “meet” Africans
through stories or poetry by African writers
through visuals, incl. film
through school visits from Africans
follow the same themes or key concepts as you do for the rest of the world:
eg. movement of peoples cultures + goods; environmental gifts + problems;
changes across space + time
useful teaching vehicles:
“Body Ritual among the Nacirema” by H. Miner
short stories,
film – but thoughtfully selected to avoid the atypical
Through Africa Eyes, v.1 only. edited by Leon Clark. a grade 7+up
compendium of powerful excerpts from epics, key documents, vignettes,
fictional writing, etc. from African history 800-1960.
Africa is “real” – derives largely from taking in the above 2 statements
Some Outstanding Resources for Teaching
websites
www.bu.edu/africa/outreach
a wide range of resources: lesson plans, advice for teaching, videos for
borrowing, bibliographies + a great poster “How Big Is Africa” for sale
also for direct classroom use: “Africa: true or false?” an interactive, lively set
of
activities covering geography, history + politics
“Africa: true or false?” is available right from our home page
www.allafrica.com
the best site for reading news + editorials from across Africa. Selection can be
made by country or by topic
http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/ssrg/africa/guide3.html
probably the best “mega site” for accessing an enormous range of information,
from very basic to highly specialized. Hot links to many other fine resources
http://exploringafrica.matrix.msu.edu/teachers/index.html
a fine set oflesson plans (with evaluation built in) for teaching middle school kids
about Africa. Co-developed by classroom teachers and Africa specialists.
www.africaaccessreview.org
the best database of book reviews for children + young adults, searchable by
author, title, country. evaluates books to 4 categories: highly recommended,
recommended, advisory, not recommended.
teaching videos for geography
“Understanding Each Other” Altshuler Group [part of the excellent Journey to
Understandingseries]
superb. gr. 6-10. the best introduction to the continent and common
misconceptions. 15 min.
National Geographic “Africa” series; 8 self-contained episodes
excellent way to get into cultural geog,. w/ close-up look at different families +
individuals across the continent. grades 8-adult
(be aware though that the videos include too much wildlife in terms of Africans’ lives. This is
probably due to joint sponsorship of the show w/ the “Nature” channel,)
Lagos: Rich Man, Poor Man (Films for the Humanities) 20 min. HS & adult.
A look at the lives of two different working families in Nigeria’s largest city,
Lagos.
One family is wealthy while the other poor. The camera takes you on a visit to
their
homes, schools, work places and churches.
literature is a good way to get kids connecting with
Africans:
The Heinemann Book of Contemporary African Short Stories eds. Chinua Achebe
and C. Innes
contains classics from around the continent by some of Africa’s best known writers
[teaching a few stories is a great way to get going] high school adult.
Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe. The most famous novel of an African society
before
and during colonialism. high school. -adult
Tales of an Ashanti Father, P. Appiah. middle school.
Bury My Bones But Keep My Words: African Tales for Retelling, T. Fairman
middle school.
The African Mask, J. Rupert. middle school
.
Boston University
African Studies Center
270 Bay State Road
Boston, Massachusetts
02215
(617) 353-3673
email: africa@bu.edu
www.bu.edu/africa
Special Report
Africa: Myth and Reality
Barbara B. Brown
Social Education 58(6), 1994, pp. 374-375 1994 National Council for the Social Scudies
Why travel all the way to Africa to an international NCSS conference? The main reason
is simple: the most powerful learning comes from experience marched with more formal
education. This year's conference in Nairobi offered specialized tours around the city as
well as formal sessions on Africa and on general social studies issues. The conference
also provided participants with important opportunities to talk with colleagues from
Kenya and around the world.
Whenever we travel, we find how much more interesting reality is that our
preconceptions. African reality is certainly more complex than the books and movies we
are usually exposed to in the United States. The conference gave me the opportunity to
explore similarities and differences in politics and in educational reform. Unfortunately,
not all of my discoveries at the conference were pleasant. The scourge of old stereotypes
continues to plague Africa. The conference served as a strong reminder to be thoughtful
in how we teach about the continent.
Political Realities
Any reality we construct of a place is only partial. No matter how much knowledge each
of us brought to the conference in Kenya, we learned more. I arrived full of a knowing
cynicism about corruption and authoritarian rule in Kenya. Reading the newspapers
seemed only to confirm my suspicions. Yet Kenyan colleagues contradicted my
presumptions, insisting that I was paying attention to the wrong part of the news stories.
They pointed out that corruption and government threats were news: they were now
being brought into the open, when they had once only been the subject of whispered
conversations. Certainly the reporting of corruption and assassinations does not in itself
constitute democracy, but open debate about them represented an enormous step toward
such democracy.
Giving weight to my colleagues' argument was a visit I and other conference participants
were able to make to parliament. I sat in a visitors' gallery, crammed full of young
people, all hunched forward listening to the debate. It wasn't even a particularly important
debate that afternoon, yet people were eager to hear the arguments. The next day, I heard
sustained shouting outside my hotel room. I ran to my window to see a demonstration of
young men running, carrying palm fronds, and shouting about the victory their candidate
had just won in a by-election. I left Kenya encouraged by such political developments. I
also left mindful of the danger of missing the unwritten but crucial context in which news
stories are written.
Comparing Educational Reform
Visiting another country allows us to see familiar issues in new ways. Two presentations
at the conference made me pinch myself to be sure I wasn't home in Boston discussing
the frustrations of educational reform. In the first presentation, we heard a familiar tale of
gender bias in textbooks, this time in Kenya. However, as the talk went on, we learned of
a critical difference between the United States and Kenya: Kenyan texts are particularly
important because they are frequently the only books a child ever reads. Thus, the
struggle to end gender bias takes on a special urgency there.
Another presentation featured Kenyan education professors exploring the gap between
intended reform and actual classroom practice. As they shared their frustration over
resistance to moving from a teacher-centered to a child-centered pedagogy, I heard
echoes of similar conversations in Boston. However, visiting Kenyan schools with
colleagues reminded me of the difficulty of making such changes in schools where the
class size is of en sixty and basic materials are lacking. As a gift, I brought a world map
to one school, by no means the poorest in Kenya. The students couldn't locate Kenya on
it, because they hadn't seen a map before. For their art lessons, the teacher made paint by
mixing wheat flour with dirt. Yet on the playground, I saw fewer differences in
opportunities between the United States and Kenya. I watched children play many of the
same games as Boston children: soccer, dodge ball, jump rope, and jacks. Although the
school had no money for equipment, the children simply made their own. (These well
made toys and games will form the basis of a traveling kit for the Boston Children's
Museum on "A Child's Life in Kenya.")
Reality and Tourism:the Masai and the Exotic
Although these presentations at the conference offered new perspectives on old problems,
other presentations were more problematic. I had hoped that by traveling to Kenya I
could escape some of the stereotyped perspectives on Africa that I have witnessed in the
United States. Yet the conference organizers decided to single out the Masai as a topic for
three presentations. No other ethnic group on the continent was the subject of any
presentation. Many people from outside Africa are unaware that the Masai and other
semi-nomadic groups are atypical of Kenya and highly atypical of the continent. Most
Africans are farmers. It would be as if Africans were to attend an NCSS conference to
find that the only presentations devoted to U.S. ethnic groups were three workshops on
the Amish!
During colonial rule, the British highlighted Masai life, because as colonizers they
wanted to promote an image of Africans as different and nobly primitive. In U.S.
textbooks we still find residues of this attitude reflected in a frequency of photographs of
the Masai out of all proportion t their actual numbers (several hundred thousand in a
continent with more than 700 million people). We need to think about why the Masai are
so compelling a subject. Are we only interested in Africans as the exotic "other"? We
should remember that in teaching about Africa, our mistakes tend to come not from using
inaccurate or outdated information, but from choosing the wrong information to focus on.
The Kenyan tourist industry in some ways conspires to reinforce our stereotypes.
Tourism is a major source of foreign exchange. What better way to encourage tourism
then' to stress the exotic? Once in the country, it was hard to find postcards depicting any
of the scenes that were in front of my eyes. Instead, I was offered bare-breasted young
women, Masai warriors, and wild animals, all twirling on their spindles in the stores, with
only an occasional shot of an urban monument thrown in. I fear that the hotel
shopkeepers know what we want: In an attempt to turn the tables on these distorted
images, I bought a sample of these postcards for colleagues to take into classes at home
and ask students to compare with Kenyan reality. Then, they can collect postcards about
their own ciry and discuss tourism versus reality, perhaps concluding the activity by
creating their own postcards of Boston and Nairobi.
Unfortunately, it is not only the shopkeepers who know what we want. Jacaranda, one of
the publishers at the conference, claims to provide "authentic African children's books
from Kenya." Their managing director told me that they plan to produce yet more Masai
materials, even though they know the Masai are unrepresentative of Kenya. Why?
Because they will sell well to the United Stares, their principal market. The director said
she had to think of their "bottom line." (Jacaranda's Mcheshi series, however, avoids this
trap and is excellent.)
Television and Movie "Reality"?
At home in the United States, television and rhe movies have distorted African reality.
TV offers us a narrow perspective on nature programs and disaster politics. Hollywood,
for its part, has never been interested in reality, especially about black people. Perhaps
that is why most films about Africa have white stars, like Out of Africa, or focus on
animals, like The Lion King. We need to do careful reality checks on any media
representation of Africa. We need to ask: what is truly representative of the continent?
Most Africans have never seen the wild animals for which Africa is famous. A Kenyan
reacher told me that her first viewing was as a high school senior whose class raised
funds for all of them to visit a game park. Few African countries have big herds of
elephants, zebras, and other animals. A Nigerian colleague told me the first wild animals
she saw were in Madison, Wisconsin. . . at a zoo.
The Search for Accurate Teaching Materials
When we teach about Africa, a continent burdened by centuries of exploitation and
continuing misinformation, we have a special responsibility. Stereotyped textbooks,
picture books, films, and curriculum guides continue to litter our classrooms. We have a
responsibility to ask ourselves: is this portrayal representative? Is it an accurate depiction
of a country? Do we see urban and rural life? Rich and poor? Problems and possibilities?
In short, we have a responsibility to learn more in order to be able to question our
sources.
Fortunately, outstanding literature, texts, videos, and curriculum guides are available The
difficulty in accessing these is two fold: first, knowing where to search for these
materials, as many come from small publishers ant non-profit organizations; and second,
knowing how to separate the gold from the dross. An introductory guide to teaching
materials about Africa is available from the Africa Outreach Program at Boston
University. Besides this guide, educators can contact any of the federally funded National
Resource Centers on Africa. They each have an outreach staff person to advise on
purchases as well as to organize workshops and institutes in their area of the country. A
list of these centers is available through the Africa Outreach Program at Boston
University, 270 Bay Stare Rd., Boston. Massachusetts 02215.
As I was leaving Kenya, the airport offered me one last lesson on stereotyping through
two ads I saw posted. The first one, next to the check-in counter, depicted a British
Airvvays cockpit. In the pilors' seat with headphones on were a cheetah and a Masai
warrior. The second ad hit me appropriately as I was ascending the escalator to depart for
the United States. It depicted the familiar Marlboro man on a horse lassoing cattle. The
Wild West meets Wild Africa. Clearly, myths and stereotypes are not solely an African
problem. Our challenge as educators is to replace these myths with reality.
Barbara B. Brown is director of the Africa Outreach Program at Boston University.
Notes
1 Jo Sullivan, former director of Boston University's Africa Outreach Program, suggested
the analogy between the Masai and the Amish.
CRITERIA FOR EVALUATING MATERIALS ON
AFRICA
1. Is Africa characterized as a country rather than a continent?
2. Is North Africa treated as though it is not part of Africa?
3. Is the focus primarily on the lifestyle of small atypical groups (e.g. San, Massai)?
4. Are the illustrations representative and non-stereotypical? Is diversity shown and
described (e.g. rural/urban; wealthy/middle class; rich/poor; farmers/business;
people/doctors).
5. Is there a balance between information on men and women? Are the problems that
African women face placed in global contexts and accurately described?
6. Is history presented in chronological stages beginning with the early and ancient times,
or is the primary focus on the colonial period and the actions of Europeans in Africa?
7. Are offensive, inaccurate or biased terms used?
Inaccurate/offensive terms: native, hut, jungle, witchdoctor, dialect, primitive, warlike,
uncivilized, pagan, tribe.
Inaccurate/offensive names for groups: Bantu (correct: Bantu-speaking), Pygmy (correct:
Mbuti); Bushmen (correct: San or hunter-gatherers); Hottentot (correct: Khoikhoi).
Western Bias: developing, underdeveloped, civilized, emerging, backward, non-white,
non-Western, Black African, communist.
8. Are Africans described as "animists" who worship trees, rocks or insects?
9. Are "folktales" over-represented in elementary collections?
10. Do materials reflect African viewpoints and perspectives?
11. Do collections and curricula reflect an infusion of knowledge about Africa into
various disciplines and subjects?
Colonialism: key concepts
1. Colonialism was a new stage in a relationship between many African and
European nations that had been going on for 1000 years.
2. Conquest was precisely that: by force; sometimes by trickery; sometimes
by “agreement” so that the African nation could bargain for some rights
3. Racism played a role in conquest and in colonial rule.
4. The colonial period was short, roughly 1870-1960—but had a heavy and
lasting impact on economic, social and political affairs.
a. Colonialism fostered economic dependency, with long-term effects
b. Colonialism was authoritarian and fostered indigenous authoritarian
rule, with long-term effect
5. Colonial rule led to resistance and, ultimately, to independence
6. African voices (not just restatement by others of African views) are
necessary for understanding this period of history.
A very fine book of short reading, with a focus on African voices and
perspectives, is Leon Clark’s Through African Eyes, v. 1
A NEW MIDDLE EAST?
A REPORT OF FPRI'S HISTORY INSTITUTE FOR TEACHERS by Trudy J. Kuehner,
Rapporteur
Vol. 10, No. 1
January 2005
During the past two years the United States has launched several major initiatives
intended to remake the Middle East
as part of the War on Terrorism. This included the
overthrow of Saddam and the political reconstruction of Iraq; the "Road Map"
proposal for Israeli-Palestinian peace; a "forward strategy" to encourage democracy in
the region; multilateral efforts to contain nuclear proliferation; and a program to
encourage economic growth. All told, it is the most ambitious policy ever attempted
to transform the prospects of a region sunk in a generation of economic stagnation,
religious turmoil, and violent conflicts.
What impact has the War on Terrorism made on the Middle
East? Can we see any progress toward U.S. goals? Are we
moving toward an end of conflicts and a rebirth of economic
and political change, or the reverse? It is especially
important for American educators to understand these
political changes so that the next generation of Americans
will understand where this region is going and why. To
illuminate these issues, FPRI held its 12th History
Institute for Teachers on October 16-17, 2004. Forty
teachers from 15 states attended the weekend program at the Gregg Conference Center in
Bryn Mawr, PA, sponsored by Mason Crest Publishers (www.masoncrest.com) and
Mr. and Mrs.
Robert A. Fox.
FPRI's History Institute is chaired by David Eisenhower and Walter A. McDougall, and
is supported by grants from The
Annenberg Foundation and the Lynde and Harry Bradley
Foundation. Information about past History Institute
weekends is available on FPRI's website at:
http://www.fpri.org/education/historyacademy.html
A NEW MIDDLE EAST?
A REPORT OF FPRI'S HISTORY INSTITUTE FOR TEACHERS
by Trudy J. Kuehner, Rapporteur
THE FUTURE OF SAUDI ARABIA AND WHAT AL-QAEDA WEBSITES TELL US
Michael Doran of Princeton University discussed the
information available today on the various Islamist groups at their websites (see
Lawrence Wright's "The Terror Web,"
New Yorker, July 26, 2004). For Middle Eastern analysts, the Internet provides the
opportunity to monitor what the groups are thinking and saying day to day.
Al Qaeda represents the most extreme version of Wahhabism, the official ideology of
Saudi Arabia. It has generated enormous amounts of intellectual activity, posting
hundreds of thousands of pages of material on the Internet. For ideology and
propaganda, there's Sawt al Jihad (The Voice of Jihad); another periodical, Muaskar alBattar (Prophet's Sword), is devoted to military preparations for Jihad. The website
www.tawhed.ws includes Al Qaeda's library, with books for download and the full
text of fatwas. It defines the "straight path of Islam" the group feels it represents.
Of note, that site is mainly concerned with Al Qaeda's relations with other Muslims.
Indeed, Arabs and Muslims are more concerned about relations with other Arabs and
Muslims than with the West.
Saudi Arabia's two key political communities are the
Westernizing technocrats, centered in Jeddah, and the
Wahhabi clerics, who believe that all political associations should be based on religion,
not national identity. There is no single Wahhabism, but the main line of interpretation
began with Ibn Tayimiya, passed through his students, and was revived by Ibn Abdul
Wahhab in the 18th century. Wahhab made common cause with the Saudi royal family
and gave the dynasty its official ideology.
Saudi Arabia is in the throes of a population explosion.
With half the population under age 20 and the economy declining, the younger
generation knows it cannot hope to
replicate its parents' standard of living. It is
increasingly resentful, and both technocrats and clerics agree that something has got
to reform. But institutional change poses a problem for the clerics, who own a large part
of the state--schools, the judiciary, the police, mosques.
Al Qaeda is one of several Islamist groups in the country.
Sahwa (Awakening) was founded in the 1990s as a grassroots movement against
secularism. Its two leaders, Safar al Hawali and Salman al-Awdah, were jailed for
five years in the late 1990s for anti-regime activities. Where Sahwa has since moderated
its position, Al Qaeda developed on its own in Afghanistan in a different direction.
Where Al Qaeda promotes violent jihad, Sahwa shuns any conflict that would
jeopardize what Muslims already have in Saudi Arabia. The crackdown on terror the
Saudis have been carrying out since May 2003 is strengthening this group relative to Al
Qaeda.
Doran recommended Michael Cook's Forbidding Wrong in Islam:
An Introduction (Cambridge, 2003) as an excellent primer on this subject for teachers
and students.
To view a videotape of Doran's lecture, visit FPRI's website at:
http://www.fpri.org/multimedia/20041017.doran.saudiarabiafuture.html
IRAQI DEMOCRACY
Eric Davis of Rutgers University discussed how historical memory informs the cultural
and political consciousness of
both Westerners and the peoples of the Middle East.
Americans' understanding is often based on stereotypes: the notions that there can be no
democracy in Muslim countries; that Arab countries lack a sense of political community
and need authoritarian rulers; that tribal structures preclude the formation of national
identities. In fact, during the ninth and tenth centuries, Islamic, Christian and Jewish
theologians and thinkers established an ecumenical tradition that continued into the 20th
century.
Western analysis of Iraq often ignores Iraqi history prior to Saddam, including the first
Baathist regime, which seized power in February 1963 (Saddam's Baathist regime
seized power in July 1968). Before 1968, many Iraqi intellectuals and activists had been
working to establish a civil society and promote democracy, but they were imprisoned,
tortured,
executed or expelled.
Today, when asked about their vision of the future, Iraqis
rank security and employment as more important than
democracy. Elections and representative institutions are not the critical issues. What
they want is more a social democracy, an anti-sectarian state that is involved in the
economy. It is this strongly felt desire that Iraq never return to the sectarianism of the
Baath that offers the greatest hope for a pluralist, democratic Iraq.
One of the main problems facing Iraq is the lack of trust among its main ethnic groups
after forty years of sectarian rule. Thus one of the main potential functions of historical
memory is to overcome that legacy and the related lack of political self-confidence.
The Baath regime's Project for the Rewriting of History required professors,
intellectuals,
and artists to rewrite history to expunge the
accomplishments of the nationalist movement. Today, we see again many Iraqis
becoming actively involved in civic life:
establishing municipal councils, publishing newspapers and journals, and forming
organizations committed to working for democratic change.
The pre-1963 Iraqi nationalist movement had four elements vital to democracy
building: (1) cross-ethnic cooperation;
(2) associational behavior; (3) a desire for cross-ethnic and regional communication,
and (4) widespread artistic creativity and innovation. The government needs to see to
the rewriting of textbooks, by Iraqis, to promote better understandings of this. It can
use the mass media; emphasize folklore, as Iraqi ruler Abd al-Karim Qasim (1958-63) did
to foster solidarity; and promote coffee houses, especially those devoted to the arts.
Historically, the Iraqi coffee house has been one of the cornerstones of civil society,
where cultural and political debate has flourished. Creative uses of historical memory
can inspire Iraqis to regain a sense of civic pride and political self-confidence.
To read two of Davis's essays on Iraq, visit FPRI's website at:
http://www.fpri.org/enotes/20040630.middleeast.davis.iraqdemocracy.html
http://www.fpri.org/enotes/20030327.middleeast.davis.democracyiraq.html
U. S. POLICY AND THE ARAB-ISRAELI CONFLICT Harvey Sicherman, President of
FPRI, outlined how the war on terror and the failure of the Israeli-Palestinian peace
process had demoted the Arab-Israeli conflict from
Washington's top priority. American policy was based on a
particular model of how peace could be made. The 1967 War discredited the formula
whereby outside powers imposed a "rough justice" and then guaranteed it as had
happened
following the Suez crisis of 1956. Instead, Washington
would encourage leaders who had convinced each other of their willingness to make a
deal by reducing their risks in
making it with money, arms, and diplomacy. This model
produced peace treaties between Egypt and Israel (1979) and Israel and Jordan (1994),
both of which have held up well despite assassination (Sadat) and war (Lebanon;
Intifada).
The 1993 Oslo Agreement between Yitzhak Rabin and Yassir
Arafat appeared to be another such deal. But Arafat's
behavior at Camp David (2000) and his role in the subsequent al-Aksa intifada
discredited the Palestinian partner in
Israel and the United States. The negotiating record
indicated that gaps had been narrowed on territorial issues (borders; settlements) and
security arrangements but were very far apart on Jerusalem and refugees.
President Bush attempted to break the stalemate by publicly endorsing an independent
Palestinian state but coupling it to demands for Palestinian reform and democracy. The
U.S.- led "Road Map," developed by the "Quartet" of the U.S., EU, Russia, and U.N.,
failed, however, when Arafat sabotaged efforts to suppress terrorism by his first
Prime Minister Abu Mazen. By late 2003, the process began to look like a dead end to
Israelis, and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon adopted a new strategy of withdrawing or
"disengaging" from Gaza unilaterally. This "unilateral" initiative has turned out to be
the most multilateral of all the initiatives,
involving the Palestinians, Egyptians, Americans, and
Europeans.
Just as the Iraq War of 1991 begat the Madrid Conference that led to Oslo, the current
diplomacy took its cue from
the overthrow of Saddam. The war on terrorism and the
invasion of Iraq are central to U.S. diplomacy and the
Israeli-Palestinian peace process a secondary concern
pending the appearance of a Palestinian leader who is willing to act against terrorism.
It will remain subject to regional developments, especially actions by Syria and Iran.
The formula remains the same: leaders from each side must convince each other they
want a deal and then the United States can help to reduce their risks. In any event, the
peace available is not going to be the one of
reconciliation, as was hoped in 1993, but rather a peace of the generals, sustained by a
balance of power.
To view a videotape of Sicherman's lecture, visit FPRI's website at:
http://www.fpri.org/multimedia/20041017.sicherman.usarabisraeli.html
To view a videotape of a related Sicherman lecture on Democracy's Prospects in the
Middle East, visit FPRI's website at:
http://www.fpri.org/multimedia/20041019.sicherman.democraticmiddleeast.html
THE ROLE OF SYRIA, JORDAN, AND EGYPT
Najib Ghadbian of the University of Arkansas noted how, prior to 9/11, America's
pursuit of its three most important objectives in the Middle East (access to affordable
oil,
protecting Israel's security; and maintaining regional
stability) resulted in America's aligning itself with
dictators. Added to these objectives after 9/11 were
prosecuting the war on terror and promoting democracy.
After 9/11, Syria, Egypt, and Jordan condemned the attacks and offered assistance to
the U.S. None of them publicly condemned the war in Afghanistan. Their position
shifted, however, in September 2002, when President Bush sought the UN's consent to
making Iraq the second phase of the war on terror, which all three opposed.
Subsequently they diverged from each other, with Egypt and Jordan acceding to and
even providing logistical help for the war while Syria continued to oppose it.
All three countries were hurt by the war economically, as they had benefited from both
legal and illegal dealings with Saddam and depended on Iraq for oil and trade (the U.S.
did compensate Jordan for this loss). Politically, they shifted their focus from possible
reform to regime survival in view of the Bush doctrine. Moreover, in showcasing Iraq as
a test case, the U.S. provided neighboring countries with visions
of lootings and violence. Jordan's King Abdullah has
restored the country's parliament and taken other steps to satisfy the U.S. and continue
to receive aid, and Egypt is doing its best to retain regional influence and introduce
those reforms it can short of democracy.
Syria, meanwhile, while not named to the axis of evil in January 2002, has since
occasioned the Syrian Accountability Act President Bush introduced in December 2003,
which calls for it to halt its support for groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah, cease
developing biological and chemical weapons, withdraw its forces from Lebanon, cease
interference in
Iraq, and enter into negotiations with Israel. Prof.
Ghadbian proposed understanding long-term political
grievances, building more alliances on the model of U.S.Pakistani collaboration, and engaging countries' own
activists as more effective in the war on terror than imposing democracy from
without.
ECONOMICS, DEMOGRAPHY AND OIL
Bernard Munk of FPRI discussed oil in the Middle East, noting that while 9/11 did
create market uncertainty, it produced no fundamental change. The current problems
in Iraq, too, only superficially explain today's high oil prices. Over 50-100 years, oil
as a commodity has gone through long periods of low prices and short cycles of high
prices: it's a capacity issue. The key to lowering prices is expanding capacity. For now,
the world remains dependent on Middle Eastern oil because it is the cheapest barrel and
its reserves are known.
At best, Iraq exports less than 2 billion barrels/day, out of 75-80 b/d produced
worldwide. Production is now about back to its pre-2003 peak, but it will take 10-20
years of investment to develop what are probably the second to third largest known
reserves in the world. But a private company cannot simply go in and invest--states
control the market.
State involvement in the oil market has a long history going back to the 1904-05 RussoJapanese war, after which Britain formed Anglo Persian Oil (now BP) to ensure supplies
for its coaling stations around the world. Lawrence of Arabia then unleashed oil
companies' desire to get in on the reserves.
Oil was cheap after World War II, and the U.S. was an exporter. That's where its
story becomes interrelated with the Cold War. In the late 1960s, Libya threw out the
major companies; beginning the era of "resource nationalism."
Control was taken back by the producing states. Oil
companies in the Middle East became agents of the state, and the U.S. became a
significant importer of oil after 1971.
Tie-ups between governments and markets are a recurrent
theme, built around several characteristics of the
commodity. Oil is price inelastic--it takes a large change in its price to induce change
in consumption. There's also the problem of governments attempting to control price
volatility by holding reserves, which defeats the private holding of inventory. This
leaves no buffer to spikes and price moves. If oil were strictly a market commodity,
supply would be far more responsive to expanded demand, but oil is a "strategic
resource." Finally, the fact that sources of
cheap reserves are under government control makes it
virtually impossible for private companies to ignore
government policies regarding development. Taken together, all this means that the
market can't do the job. These factors produce price volatility which in turn produces
more intervention.
To view Munk's powerpoint presentation, visit FPRI's website at:
http://www.fpri.org/education/newmiddleeast/
WOMEN IN THE MIDDLE EAST
Beth Baron of CUNY, whose books include Egypt as a Woman:
Nationalism, Gender, and Politics (U. Calif. Press, 2005) discussed the long history of
Anglo-American "civilizing missions" in the Middle East that focused on women.
Anglo- Americans were involved in Christianizing, Westernizing, and democratizing
missions in the region from the early 1800s through the 1950s, with a heyday in the
1920s-30s. Over those years, church groups sent missionaries to Iraq, Lebanon,
Syria, Anatolia, Iran, Arabia, Egypt and Sudan to
evangelize and convert Eastern Christians, Jews, and
Muslims. Their method was to provide services, schools, hospitals, clinics,
orphanages, all of which targeted women, who were seen as the key to converting a
household. The majority of missionaries, too, were women, it being less expensive to
send out a woman than a minister and his family.
The outcomes were mixed. The efforts did leave hospitals and a network of schools at
various levels, many of which were
subsequently nationalized, among them the American
Universities in Beirut and Cairo. But Muslim converts were few, a strong antimissionary movement having emerged by the 1920s. Not accidentally, the Muslim
Brotherhood, one of the earliest Islamist groups in Egypt, had its roots in the peak
decades of the missionary movement. That anti-missionary
group actually adopted many of the methods of the
missionaries.
The Liberal Age, from the late 19th to the mid 20th century, was marked by the ferment
of legal ideologies. A women's
press flourished, and women called for education,
employment, and the reform of family law, which was based on Islamic law. They
sought to raise the legal age of marriage to 16 or 18, restrict polygamy and easy
divorces for men, and give women access to divorce. Both the British Colonial
regime in Egypt and various American foundations
(Rockefeller) sought to improve hygiene and family planning.
The Socialist period (1950s-70s) saw revolutions in Egypt, Syria, and Iraq and the
rise of state welfare. With education now a right for girls, women called for secondary
and not just primary education. They also sought voting rights and the integration of
their separate political parties. Women were entering socialist governments, usually as
social affairs ministers, where they focused on family issues. Of them, family law
proved most resistant to change and indeed remains unfinished business. After 1979,
women
were caught between authoritarian states and the new
Islamist movements. Islamic feminism emerged--women working within Islamic law to
promote their rights, most effectively in Iran--but also some women joined the Islamist
wave.
Looking at Iraq today, one might want to recall what happened after the 1958 Iraqi
Revolution that overthrew the monarchy and brought Abd al-Karim Qasim to power.
Stirred by
the League for Defense of Women's Rights, which was
affiliated with the Iraqi Communist Party, Qasim introduced legislation banning honor
killing and reforming the laws on personal status, divorce, polygamy, and inheritance.
A counterrevolution sought to roll these reforms back. After Qasim was assassinated in
1963, Saddam's second revolution continued the earlier reforms but in a controlled
manner.
(He had also silenced Islamists like those who had opposed
Qasim.) But this began to unravel in the 1990s, when Saddam needed to encourage
tribalism for political reasons. Many women's issues that are thought to be part of Islam,
such as honor killings, flow from tribalism. Islamic law in fact seeks to prevent family
members from taking the law into own hands.
The Coalition's Provisional Authority in Iraq attempted to
guarantee 50 percent women's representation in the
parliament, a percentage far higher than the ratio in America. It remains to be seen
if, when Iraqis go to the polls, the outcomes will be what the United States desired.
The greatest advocate of holding elections is Shiite cleric Ayatollah Sistani, who
supports women's voting (as they do in Iran but do not in Saudi Arabia) and would
promote Islamic family law. Shiite leadership may, then, turn out to be better for Iraqi
women than the former Sunni Islamic law.
Dr. Baron concluded that targeting women as the key to broader change tends to
backfire. When broader change does come, however, women's situations will improve.
THE NEXT MIDDLE EAST
Robert D. Kaplan, contributing editor to the Atlantic Monthly and a long-time
FPRI associate, delivered the keynote address, noting that as the passing of dictators in
the Middle East leaves weak, "neither/nor" democracies.
After fifty years of profound economic and social change,
the new leaders will not have the luxury of ruling
autocratically.
Where the Middle East was once largely a rural desert society, today it is a region of
mega-cities such as Cairo, Tunis, Casablanca, Damascus. As large numbers of people
crowded into these cities in the 1960s-80s, there were ample incentives for juvenile
delinquency, and yet the region remained nonviolent. This was because the society
adapted by intensifying to a more austere, ideological religiosity
suited to deal an impersonal urban environment. This
unfortunately paved the way for the emergence of terrorist groups.
Over the years, various "enlightened dictators" kept a lid on this, but as modern middle
classes emerge, the Middle East is on the brink of epic political change. That will lead
initially to an upsurge in terrorism. When a system collapses, there is a security
vacuum. Liberalization in the Middle East will lead to more terrorism, not less, until
these newly emerging systems gather institutional strength.
Even media such as Al-Arabiya and Al-Jazeera, which can operate counter to U.S.
objectives, are themselves products of liberalization.
Iraq may have been the bridge too far in America's post-Cold War democratic progress,
which started off easily in Central Europe after the Berlin Wall fell. But those nations
had industrial bases, significant middle classes, high literacy
rates, and low birth rates. The Balkans were more
troublesome: Yugoslavia collapsed, and Romania, Albania, and Bulgaria all had difficult
transitions. Iraq--surrounded by Iran, Syria, Kuwait, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the
poorest part of Turkey--is even more geographically and historically challenging.
While the Sunni Triangle remains troublesome, the northern third of Iraq, Kurdistan, is
a success story, and we're succeeding in the south, where the Shiites are preparing for
elections. This is a good (albeit underreported) narrative going on. Iran, however,
remains the big elephant in the Middle East, with 69 million people to Iraq's 23
million.
This may be the last really strong, centralized Iranian state. Whatever ultimately
replaces it is likely to be decentralized, and that will let the genie out of the bottle for
ethnic groups throughout the region. The best way we can
fast-forward change there is by concentrating on
consolidating Iraq. The better Iraq looks, the better change is going to look in countries
such as Syria, Iran, and Egypt.
To read the FPRI Wire on Kaplan's lecture, visit FPRI's website at:
http://www.fpri.org/enotes/20041217.middleeast.kaplanr.newmiddleeast.html
Great "reads" by Robert Kaplan:
Mediterranean Winter (2004); Warrior Politics (2001);
Eastward to Tartary: Travels in the Balkans, the Middle East, and the Caucasus
(2000); Soldiers of God: With Islamic Warriors in Afghanistan and Pakistan (1990;
republished in 2001, with a new introduction); Surrender or Starve: Travels in Ethiopia,
Sudan, Somalia, and Eritrea (1988; republished in paperback in 2003)
Tips about teaching the Middle East were presented by the following teachers: Paul
Dickler, a history teacher at Neshaminy High School and a senior fellow of FPRI's
Marvin Wachman Fund for International Education, Kathy Stokes,
Cherokee High School in Marlton, NJ; and Amy Glenn,
Lawrenceville School, NJ.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES ON FPRI'S WEBSITE
Teaching about the Middle East at the High School Level, by Adam Garfinkle,
Footnotes, 12/99
http://www.fpri.org/footnotes/0510.199912.garfinkle.teachingmiddleeasthighschool.html
The
American Encounter with Islam, William Anthony Hay,
Footnotes, 9/03
http://www.fpri.org/footnotes/084.200309.hay.americaislam.html
Teaching about World Religions, William Anthony Hay,
Footnotes, 12/01
http://www.fpri.org/footnotes/072.200112.hay.teachingworldreligions.html
The Merits and Perils of Teaching about Other Cultures, Walter A. McDougall,
Footnotes, 5/99
http://www.fpri.org/footnotes/057.199905.mcdougall.teachingothercultures.html
For other editions of Footnotes, visit FPRI's website at:
http://www.fpri.org/footnotes/
Note: FPRI served as Editorial Consultant to Mason Crest
Publishers for a 25-volume series on "Modern Middle East Nations and Their
Strategic Places in the World," designed for secondary school students, and currently
serves as Editorial Consultant for a 17-volume series on "The Growth and Influence of
Islam in the Nations of Asia." The Middle East series was published in 2004; the Asia
series will be published in 2005. For information:
http://www.fpri.org/pubs/middleastbookseries.html
http://www.masoncrest.com
Upcoming History Institutes for Teachers
* April 9-10, 2005: Understanding the Koreas
* October 15-16, 2005: Teaching 9/11 and the Global War
on Terrorism
To co-sponsor a History Institute or to participate in one, contact Alan Luxenberg
(al@fpri.org), of FPRI's Marvin Wachman Fund for International Education.
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ROBERT KAPLAN ON THE NEW MIDDLE EAST
December 17, 2004
Robert D. Kaplan is contributing editor to the Atlantic Monthly and a long-time
FPRI Associate. His books include Warrior Politics (2001); Eastward to Tartary: Travels
in the Balkans, the Middle East, and the Caucasus (2000); Soldiers of God: With Islamic
Warriors in Afghanistan and Pakistan (first published in 1990, republished in 2001
with a new introduction); and Surrender or Starve: Travels in Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia,
and Eritrea (first published in 1988; republished in paperback in 2003). He is writing a
series of books about the American military.
Kaplan delivered this talk as the keynote in FPRI's two-day History Institute for
Teachers on the Middle East held
October 16-17, 2004. Other speakers included Beth Baron,
City University of New York; Eric Davis, Rutgers University; Michael S. Doran,
Princeton University; Najib Ghadbian, University of Arkansas; Bernard Munk, FPRI;
and Harvey
Sicherman, FPRI. Dr. Paul Dickler, a Senior Fellow of
FPRI's Marvin Wachman Fund for International Education and a history teacher at
Neshaminy High School, provided "tips for
teachers." Videofiles of selected lectures will be posted
on www.fpri.org. The conference was supported by grants
from Mason Crest Publishers, Mr. and Mrs. Robert A. Fox, and the Annenberg
Foundation.
ROBERT KAPLAN ON THE NEW MIDDLE EAST
Summary by Trudy Kuehner
Mr. Kaplan addressed the challenges that the U.S. military is facing in the greater
Middle East and elsewhere, basing his comments on his experience over the past eighteen
months as an embedded journalist with U.S. Army Special Forces, the Marines, and
other military units in Iraq and Afghanistan, Colombia, the Philippines, the Horn of
Africa, and other areas.
The sad tactical truth, he observed, is that the war on terrorism after 9/11 began too
soon. The American military was not far enough along at that time in its transition from
an industrial-age beast suited to fighting big world wars with mass infantry invasions,
to a light and lethal force suited to dealing with unconventional insurgencies and
hunting down small clusters of combatants. The age of mass infantry warfare is coming
to a close. Operation Iraqi Freedom in March 2003 merely shaped the battlefield for
the
real war, which began afterward. The diplomatic and
political requirements of invading a country with over 100,000 troops in an age of
global mass media is now so great that it will happen less and less as time goes on.
INDIAN COUNTRY
In essence, he said, the U.S. military is back to the days of fighting the Indians. In the
second half of the 19th century, the U.S. Army had to fight large numbers of Indian
groups -- from different tribes and with different
languages and cultures -- of which there were almost as many as there were ethnic groups
around the world. It had the job of hunting them down and fighting them in small
numbers and unconventional conditions. Success was wrought by people who
knew the language and understood the culture: the
pathfinders and mountainmen.
The pathfinders and mountainmen, Kaplan noted, proved that before you could defeat
an enemy, you had to understand them and their culture and speak their language. The
U.S. Army never really learned how to defeat the Indians this way, by making itself a
light and lethal force, but won thanks to the railroads and other factors. Its large groups
of horsedrawn cavalry were the equivalent of Humvees today,
bristling with weaponry that were easily immobilized by small clusters of Indians on
foot, or just one lone bicycle bomber in the case of Iraq. Around the world today we
face not uniform conventional armies, but small clusters of combatants hiding out in
big third-world cities, jungles, and deserts who no longer require an economy of scale
to produce and deploy a WMD. Combating these adversaries involves intelligence
and linguistic work, among other things.
"Indian country" is a term our armed forces use a lot, and very specifically, Kaplan
noted. They not only mean no disrespect to Native Americans, but greatly admire
them,
hence their radio call signs such as "Black Hawk,"
"Comanche," "Apache," "Red Cloud," and "Sitting Bull."
"Indian country" is set to expand, because as dictators pass from the scene, particularly
in the Middle East, what are left are weak, neither/nor democracies. In the Middle East,
the emerging generation of leaders will not have the luxury of ruling as autocratically as
the passing generation, after fifty years of tremendous economic, social, and
demographic change. In the 1940s and '50s, the Middle East was largely a rural desert
society. Today, its mega-cities -- Cairo, Tunis, Casablanca, Damascus -- have many
millions of people and sprawling suburbs.
Urbanization is inseparable from the rise of extremism, Kaplan noted. As large
numbers of people migrated into these cities in the 1960s, '70s and '80s, their sons in
particular suddenly faced all the challenges of urban environments that lacked police,
street lighting, sewage, and water. There were ample incentives for juvenile
delinquency, and yet the Muslim Middle East remained nonviolent in terms of common
random crime. This was because the society adapted by intensifying to a more
austere, ideological religiosity designed to deal with an impersonal urban environment.
This alas had the unintended consequence of creating a fertile breeding-ground for the
emergence of terrorist groups.
Over the years, various "enlightened dictators" kept a lid on this boiling pot. But, as
modern middle classes emerge, the greater Middle East is on the brink of epic political
change, which has not kept up with all the economic and social change. Most
countries are ruled by the same systems they've had since the 1950s. Egypt, for instance,
is still governed by the emergency law passed in 1954, when Gamal Abdul Nasser
came to power. Political change has to catch up, and it will do so very dramatically and
tumultuously.
That will lead initially to an upsurge in terrorism. When a system collapses, there is an
initial security vacuum. In
the Muslim part of Southeast Asia--the Indonesian
archipelago, the southern half of the Philippines, the island of Borneo in Malaysia-the passing of military regimes such as Marcos and Suharto has led to the emergence
of terrorist groups such as Jemaah Islamiyya and Abu Sayyif that have taken advantage
of the security vacuum created by the passing of these regimes.
Counterintuitive as it might seem, then, Kaplan predicted that the initial liberalization
of the Middle East will lead to more terrorism rather than less, until these newly
emerging systems gather the institutional strength that the passing dictatorships had. In
Russia and South Africa, where oppressive systems collapsed, for the first 5-8 years
there was a tremendous upsurge in violent crime. In the Middle East, the collapse
provides new oxygen for the terrorist groups. There's no easy path to liberalization.
And so "Indian country" as the U.S. military defines it is going to intensify and enlarge.
GLOBAL MEDIA
The insurgency in Iraq signifies political and military failure on Washington's part,
Kaplan said, but in this day
and age, there's something else that also signifies
political and military failure, which is the arrival of the global media. Because the aim
of the U.S. military around the world--particularly in Colombia, the Philippines, the
horn of Africa--is to deal with problems before they get onto page 1 of the
newspapers. As soon as something becomes a page-1 problem, the "rules of
engagement" are restricted under the klieg light of the global media.
Kaplan spent last spring in Fallujah with the Marines. Last April, the Marines were
given the order to assault and take the city, after four American contractors were
brutally killed. However, about six days later, after the Marines were inside the city
about only a day or so away from taking it, a ceasefire was announced. The
administration called a halt just as the Marines were about to be victorious. This was
policy incoherence at the highest level, and it shows the effect the global media had on
Fallujah. Everything had unraveled exactly as planned, with the Marines taking the city
street by street, picking their shots. Because the
Marines were so professional, the level of civilian
casualties was extremely low. But the few civilian
casualties were exactly what the global media put all their
focus on. This put political pressure on the Iraqi
authorities, so that the administration had to pull the plug on the operation.
Could the administration have foreseen this? Yes. But the point is that the elements of
the global media such as AlArabiya and Al-Jazeera that concentrated on, even
exaggerated, the civilian casualties are products of the liberalization of the Middle
East. When countries begin to
liberalize and get independent television and radio
stations, these independent news organizations cannot be expected to think the way we
do. Their prejudices, passions, and insecurities will emerge out of their own historical and
geographical experience. Just as we could all argue about what the prejudices of Fox
News or CNN are, the Middle East's television stations reflect the conspiracy theories,
hopes, dreams, and exaggerations of their respective
societies. The irony is that the more liberal the Middle East becomes or the less
dictatorial, the more restricted the U.S. military is in how it can behave.
This change is inevitable. It can't be stopped or put on a different course. Therefore,
Kaplan said, the U.S. military increasingly must win without firing a shot, by the timetested rule used by the British, French, Romans, and others, which is to operate
indirectly. You train the indigenous army and let them do the work. You're right
behind them,
crediting them for any successes. You stay in the
background. Their own militaries gain legitimacy, which helps the state arise, which
helps the newly emerging democratic state gain legitimacy.
FORMING SOCIAL BONDS
One of the many things that went wrong in Iraq was that soon after the occupation, much
of the training of the new Iraqi security forces was put in the hands of private defense
contractors, who trained them in an impersonal way in large camps, then put them on
buses and sent them out to the villages, where they promptly deserted whenever there
was a hint of trouble. Months ago, we went back to the time-tested Green Beret/Marine
way of training, which is to embrace your Indian brothers. You train with them all day,
watch videos with them at night, go out with them, and sleep in the same hootch for
months. This bonding is why the Iraqi special forces performed so well in Ramadi in
October. Ramadi was the first specific sign we had that there are Iraqi security forces
coming off line who really can fight, be disciplined, go into sensitive situations like
mosques without killing
civilians, and accomplish their mission. This is one
positive narrative occurring in Iraq.
Based on his own observations, Kaplan said that the smaller the U.S. military
deployment, the more successful it tends to be. The smaller the number of troops and
the size of the unit, the more low-profile, the more we tend to get done, from Mongolia
to Somalia and Colombia to the southern Philippines. The 10,000 troops in
Afghanistan have treaded water very well, and finally we have a success with the
presidential elections. In Iraq, 138,000 have not prevented a deteriorating situation.
That is because the U.S. military as a whole is still organized for fighting an
industrial-age war. The deployment constellation of bases around Iraq is better suited
for Korea or World War II, while the adversary that we're fighting has been fighting
like the Indians or the Viet Cong. In the future, we're going to have to operate in the
Middle East the way we've been operating in the horn of Africa, which is more like
Lewis & Clark in the French- Indian Wars than it is like World Wars I and II and
Desert Storm combined. You send out small groups of highly trained officers to go into
small villages here and there and just explore. Find out what the citizenry wants,
needs, and fears, any foreigners who have been taking up residence, you
drum up intelligence even as you draw up plans for
humanitarian aid projects.
The best, most actionable intelligence is generally obtained when some form of
humanitarian assistance is involved, Kaplan remarked. People will tell a lot to
someone who is treating their children for malaria, scabies, and other diseases and
establishing a positive social relationship with them. The main point is that you use
small units, forward deployed, making decisions on their own, finding things out,
totally immersed in the local environment, because the enemy is no longer ten
thousand troops with tanks.
This means that the State Department and the Defense Department will have to
effectively collapse into each other. The tasks they face break down the barriers
between what the State Department does and what the Pentagon does.
The biggest enemy Washington has is its rigid bureaucratic divisions. We cannot afford
a Defense Secretary's riding roughshod over a Secretary of State or vice versa. The two
really have to work in tandem at all levels.
PROSPECTS
Mr. Kaplan concluded by addressing how he sees Iraq
influencing Iran and other places. Iraq, he said, may have been the bridge too far in
America's post-Cold War, imperial democratic progress. We started off in Central
Europe after the Berlin Wall fell and easily democratized nations such as Poland,
Hungary, and Czechoslovakia. Those nations were heir to the Habsburg and German
enlightenments and had large industrial bases and significant middle classes prior to the
ravages of Nazism and communism. With high literacy rates and low birth rates, the
only problem those countries had was that the Red Army was deployed on their soil.
The Balkans were more troublesome, because they were not heir to any
enlightenment. They were run by the poor, chaotic Ottoman/Turkish empire, which
on the eve of World War I had feeble, small middle classes, vast peasantries, and little
industrial development. Even their communist
regimes were more oppressive, less developed
bureaucratically, and more corrupt than the communist
regimes in north-central Europe. So it made sense that the Balkans' transition to
democracy would be more troublesome than Central Europe's. Yugoslavia collapsed,
and Romania,
Albania, and Bulgaria all had difficult transitions
bordering on anarchy at times. The outlook now is better but for some fifteen years it was
touch and go.
In Iraq, we've taken on the poorest portion of the former Ottoman empire, an area that's
even more geographically and historically challenging. The Balkans were next door to
Central Europe, a logical place for the expansion of NATO and the EU; Iraq is
surrounded by Iran, Syria, Kuwait, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the poorest part of
Turkey.
In the most troublesome third of the country, the Sunni Triangle, in early October,
we saw one big city, Samara, retaken by mainly Iraqi special forces, with a very low
casualty rate. It was the easiest city to retake, but it was a starting point. We have begun
to divide the resistance in Fallujah, because the more that Shiites come together to
form political parties for elections, the more pressure there is on the Sunnis in the
Triangle to do the same, or else they're going to lose out.
But already, the northern third of Iraq, Kurdistan, is no longer in the news, because
it's a success story. The southern third, the Shiite south, is less and less in the news,
because we're succeeding there. The work that the Army and Marines did in Shiite cities
such as Najav and Karbala recently has been astounding. They created a military
situation that forced one group of Shiites to take the other Shiites in hand. So that the
Shiites are forming political parties, they're getting ready for elections. This is a
narrative that is palpable, it's developing, and yet the media has not reported it and
Washington hasn't laid it out.
All the public sees is the car bombs. Beyond the static of specific incidents of violence,
they're not seeing any positive picture emerge.
Iran is the big elephant in the Middle East for the next few years. Iran is not a regime
that you topple with an invasion. It's a whole developed system with different
centers of power. Iraq has 23 million people, Iran 69 million. It's much more
urbanized. Iran may be one of the only countries in the world where student
demonstrations are implicitly pro-American. Almost any political change in Iran would
be positive for us. The Iranian regime is not unlike the Soviet Union under Brezhnev
and Chernenko: it's old, calcified, out of touch with its population, and narrowly
based. There will be political evolution in Iran, and the best way we can fast-forward
that is by concentrating on
consolidating Iraq. The principal job of the next
administration is going to be to consolidate Iraq. Then a lot of other situations will
improve. The better Iraq looks, the better change is going to look in countries such as
Syria, Iran, and Egypt.
When the shah fell, Iran was a very centralized state, and his regime was replaced by
another centralized state. The Shiite clerisy was finely developed and had an
impressive bureaucratic structure. But this may be the last really
strong, centralized Iranian state. Whatever ultimately
replaces it is likely to be much more decentralized, and that will let the genie out of the
bottle for the 26 million
Azeris in northwestern Iran to realize their ethnic
identity, for Turkomans to do the same; the evolution of all the Muslim lands of Central
Asia will be affected.
Central Asia is still in a Soviet phase. Its rulers are exBrezhnev-era central committeemen who have reinvented
themselves as independent khans. But these are still very repressive, Soviet-style
states. When you're in Central Asia, the closest truly sophisticated, aesthetic urban
area is Iran, which holds a powerful cultural attraction for these people. But the
current political system in Iran repels Central Asians. As the system begins to change,
we're starting to enter a period of epic movements.
As to whether history will judge the invasion of Iraq as having been the right or
wrong thing to do, Kaplan noted that a close reading of the Duelfer Report convinces
one that we should have invaded, while a partial reading suggests otherwise.
Ultimately, the invasion will be judged positively or negatively based on how it affects
change in the larger and more important Iran. If Iraq can be semi- stabilized and that
that stabilization leads to internal change in Iran, the invasion of Iraq is going to look
very good historically.
In north Africa, Kaplan noted, Algeria is improving and Morocco is evolving. Tunisia
has lagged behind, but it has a large middle-class and no ethnic disputes, so when the
Tunisian government opens up, impressive change should be seen there. Of course,
this more open society is leading to a greater terrorist threat in the Sahara region: the
opening of societies throughout the African Sahel, the Sahara and north Africa is
creating new oxygen systems for terrorists.
Kaplan concluded by noting that in its activities throughout the Middle East and all over
the world, the U.S. military has been given one of most thankless tasks of any military
in history: providing the security armature for an emerging global civil society. The
more it succeeds, the less respected and acknowledged it will be by the very society it
has created. If it weren't for the military's backing up America's security guarantee,
none of the liberalization in places like Qatar and other Gulf sheikdoms that allowed for
the creation of Al Jazeera in the first place would have happened. So the job of the
American military empire--using the word "empire" because the only historical
comparisons
are with great powers in the past who had global
responsibility--is to seek its own obsolescence. The closer it gets to that, the less
appreciated it is going to be by people around the world, particularly in the Middle East.
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