Sanctions

As the world debates what to do about the Iranian nuclear development program, sanctions are the most frequently discussed weapon to be wheeled out in this battle. It seems as though sanctions are the weapon of choice when we are mad at someone, but not so mad as to have a war. This is not a new phenomenon as sanctions have been used for many years in this way. The questions are : “What is the outcome that we expect from imposing sanctions on a country with which we have a disagreement?” and “Is the expected outcome likely and desirable?”. During the Cold War with the USSR we imposed a wheat embargo on the Soviet Union and ended up punishing American farmers who lost one of their best customers. We also boycotted the Olympic Games in Moscow and ended up punishing a bunch of American athletes. The sanctions on Iraq during Sadaam Hussein’s regime impoverished ordinary Iraqis and enriched Sadaam and his cronies. Long running sanctions on North Korea have starved the peasants and have had no impact on the policies of the North Korean government. Do we expect that ordinary Iraqis and North Korean peasants will become angry and pick up their pitch forks and overthrow authoritarian governments supported by large well equipped armies? There are some examples of positive outcomes from sanctions. Sanctions may have an effect on democracies that have advanced economic systems that are well connected to the rest of the world. South Africa was such a case. Putting economic stress on the elite brought pressure for change. The sanctions did enrich some members of South African society as wealthy businessmen were able to purchase at fire sale prices the South African operations of international companies who pulled out. Sanctions would also most likely have an effect on Israel and lead to a behavior change, but that policy is not likely to happen. There are, however, de facto travel restrictions on military and political leaders of Israel who have been warned not to travel to Europe as they may be subject to arrest. There are numerous lawsuits in process in Europe against Israeli leaders for war crimes. Recently a retired Israeli army general could not get off his El Al flight in the UK for fear of arrest. Sanctions, however, will almost certainly not have much effect on Iran. They have an authoritarian government, lots of oil money, a very large customer, China, to support them and travel restrictions on the mullahs will probably not disturb them too much since they do not likely have plans for a European vacation. We perhaps should consider who we are punishing before we run out and initiate sanctions- ourselves, the poor, the elite, the government - might make a difference in our actions.

God bless America

This week, as part of our remembrance of the 9/11 attacks, our community was privileged to have Linda Biehl in our midst to promote dialogue on the subjects of forgiveness and reconciliation. Linda is the mother of Amy Biehl, a young American Fulbright scholar, whose was murdered in 1993 in South Africa by a mob of black militants in the township of Gugulatu. She told an inspiring story of growing to understand her daughter and her love for South Africa and its people She also spoke of growing to understand and forgive her killers through participation in the process of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission under the leadership of Bishop Desmond Tutu. The TRC was created after the demise of apartheid in South Africa to allow South Africans to deal with the atrocities that occurred on both sides and to promote amnesty and reconciliation for politically motivated crimes. This story touched almost everyone who heard her. The Biehls lived through the legalities of trying and convicting the perpetrators of their daughter’s murder and, 5 years later, of pleading for amnesty for them. In the process they developed a relationship of understanding, forgiveness and reconciliation with the killers of Amy. Two of the young men now work for the Amy Biehl Foundation. which endeavors to continue the work in South Africa that was so important to Amy. (If you are interested in more information on what they are trying to do click here.) Not everyone in the audience understood what the Bielhls were able to do. They said “How can you forgive that terrible crime?”; “Aren’t you condoning what they did?”. Linda’s response was “You can’t do anything about the past-you can only change the future” and “Amy showed us that individuals with a passion can make a difference and we are trying to honor her memory by continuing her work of helping those who are so oppressed and frustrated that they do things that they would not otherwise do”. This message of forgiveness and reconciliation is an important one to hear at a time when our media is filled with politicians exhorting us to hate the “Islamic fascists” and to condone the mistreatment of enemies who were “masterminds of 9/11”. As I recall there was some crazy Jew who was walking around the Middle East 2000 years ago saying nutty things like “love your neighbor” and “love your enemy”. He wasn’t saying things like God bless America, God bless Israel or God bless Iran. Instead he was saying things like God bless the meek and God bless the poor of spirit. Come to think of it, that got Him killed too.

Why Bother?

On the fifth anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, there has been a lot of discussion about whether there will be another attack. Maybe if you are Usama Bin Laden you are asking the question “Why bother?”. The objective of terrorism as a tactic is to terrorize the civilian population of the target country in order to change behavior and to cause economic dislocation and civil discord. Usama Bin Laden achieved these objectives in spades with his attack on the U.S. on 9/11/2001. Not only did he inflict much more damage and injure and kill many more innocent people than he anticipated, but his timing was perfect. Although he probably didn’t realize it, by attacking two months before the U.S. elections, he insured that American politicians remind us every year of how dangerous the world is and how vulnerable we are. No need to instigate another attack; Americans can continue to relive the old one.

The Older Generation

Yesterday I received a phone call to tell me about the passing of my mother. It was not an unexpected call as she was 103 years old and had been in poor health for a number of years. Nevertheless, it is a milestone when the last family member of your parent’s generation passes away and suddenly you are part of the “older generation”. The same day James Zogby, a successful Lebanese American businessman, wrote an op ed piece for the Jordan Times on the same subject. His is a story, not only of the passing of generations, but also of immigration and its contribution to America. Although my mother’s family probably immigrated some time around the Pilgrims, succeeding generations of immigrants, legal and illegal have made enormous contributions to growth and well being of America. We turn them away to our peril.
James Zogby writes:
My father’s last remaining sibling, Wadih, passed away this summer at the age of 98. It was, for my family, a transformative event. Ammi Wadih was the youngest of the five brothers and two sisters who had come to America to begin a new life in the early part of the 20th century. With his death, my cousins and I became the “older generation”. And with this passing of the torch, we took time to reflect on our immigrants’ story.
Like many immigrant families, our story had an epic-like quality, combining a mix of adventure, bravery and commitment.
It began in 1910, when the oldest brother, Habib, at the age of fourteen, left Lebanon to come to America. Traveling with an uncle and a cousin, his mission was to find work and, he hoped, to prepare the ground for the others to join him in the New World.
World War I hit Lebanon hard and faced with economic problems and threats to their security, my grandfather, Roshide, led the family and others from their village to the relative security of the Bekaa Valley. There they settled and farmed until faced with advancing Turkish forces in 1916. They were forced into resistance. He died in that year and, as he was considered a hero by those whom he led, he was buried in a tomb in the Bekaa.
At war’s end, my grandmother took the family back to their village of Kfartay, and began plans to join Habib in America. As my father was the next oldest, it fell upon him to be the next to travel. Because he could not secure a visa, he found work on a ship to Marseille where he worked for six months until he secured a position on another ship leaving for New York. On landing in America in 1922, he disembarked and remained as an illegal immigrant (he secured amnesty and became a citizen in the 1930s).
Habib and Yousef were reunited and laid plans for the rest of the family to join them. Six months later, my grandmother and her other five children arrived. We have a photograph of their reunion in 1923. In it, there are five young men, two young women and my grandmother, clearly tired and almost gaunt after their month-long voyage, but also clearly excited about their reunion, after 13 years, and ready to begin their new life together in America.
And what a great life it has been. From one home and one small business, they multiplied and prospered. They produced a generation of professionals, businesspeople and public servants. And they remained a close family unit. Their story is an American story and it is one to be proud of.
And now the last of that great generation, Wadih, has passed away.
Though never formally educated, Wadih read The New York Times and several Arabic newspapers every day. He annually traveled to Lebanon and retained close ties with our family there, and he taught our family here to love and respect their heritage.
Because our father had died when we were still quite young, it was from Ammi Wadih that I learned about what life had been like in their village of Kfartay, where my grandfather was buried in the Bekaa, and the story of our family’s passage to America. It is a blessing that his stories have been preserved by Utica College in their oral history archives.
Wadih and his brothers and sisters taught us well. From them we learned to cherish the tremendous opportunities and freedoms they had found in America, and to continue to hold close to our hearts the land of their origins. The incredible trajectory of their lives, in just one generation, is always with us. From that one room, stone home with a hard mud floor clinging precariously to a steep hillside in Lebanon, to their lives, and our own, in America, it is a story worth remembering and retelling.
And, it was from that group of eight brave travelers that we also learned the importance of family and country. By their example, we learned the importance of helping and protecting each other, of remaining close, and of maintaining honour and avoiding shame.
They were a great generation. But their story, while extraordinary in many respects is also ordinary — it is the story of so many other families who came in similar ways to America and accomplished so many great things in this country.
While remembering them, it is, I feel, equally important to recall that this American story is still being played out in communities all across our country by new immigrants who are coming with the same hopes and the same determination to succeed. This is our American story