Made in China

While we were talking and writing about "The Communist Manifesto", I kept thinking about China. The big question for me, is how much longer can the Chinese brand of Communism last? I know that, like Russia in the past, they don't practice anything close to actual Marxism, but I'm still amazed that their system has held on for so long after the collapse of European Communism. I suppose it has something to do with the fact that so much of their population is disorganized and lives in rural areas. Another factor could be that China is still growing up technologically and economically.

A huge portion of their population doesn't have extensive, or any, contact with the outside world, or any means of organizing themselves into social or political groups, etc. Many of them live a feudal-like existence, working for different state or industrial lords. Still, they have massive modern and industrialized cities scattered about within their borders, with the technological means for theses urbanites to look at the world beyond what their government wants them to see. With a population that large, what would happen if enough of them got together and decided they didn't like the current system anymore? It's scary to think of China embroiled in a bloody civil war, especially with all of the nuclear missiles they have placed throughout their countryside.

I wonder if China's more upwardly mobile citizens will stay satisfied with the fact that they are making a ton of money off the rest of the world, and have an incredibly cheap, indigenous labor force readily available to them? Will this Chinese bourgeoisie ever wake up and seek more than just wealth? Will they ever want the freedom to create a government where they have a voice?

I know there are already opposition groups in China, but when is one going to really stick its neck out there and try to make some changes? Who will it consist of? Almost certainly the intellectual and economic elites will have to play a role because of their access and influence. It is possible that China won't have a revolution of any kind; instead, they might just stay on this path of controlled capitalism until the political, social, and economic systems have transformed themselves into more citizen friendly institutions without a fight.

Whether it happens gradually or abruptly, I think it is inevitable in this age of globalization for China's current system of government to be replaced with something closer to capitalism rather than Communism.

While we study the French Revolution I can't help but think how conditions have to be just right for sweeping social and political changes of that kind to take place in a society or country. Even then it usually results in a huge mess that takes decades to really sort itself out into a system that can be sustained. Our own revolution was no different. Once we had our independence it still took us a long time to develop a sense of of nationalism, and for us to figure out how our system of government was going to work. That's why I don't think our attempts at nation building in our own image in places like Iraq and Afghanistan will ever be what we would consider successful.

Ignoring the issue of whether we should have gone to war in either country, what we are basically trying to do in Iraq and Afghanistan is force a form of cultural and political revolution in the hopes that it will prevent both countries from becoming rogue nations that breed things like terrorism. All of this of course is on top of the fact that they give us strategic access to a region of the world where we desperately want to project U.S. power and influence. The question is before we came a knocking down their doors, did the citizens of either country want to live in a western style democracy? Granted, the majority of people in both countries weren't exactly happy with who was in charge at the time when we showed up, but they also weren't secretly pining away for political party fundraisers, conventions and equality among all of their citizens either.

My point (I think I have one) is that I believe the people have to be ready for a revolution of that magnitude to take place, and for it to be what we would consider successful and sustainable. Iraq has a better shot at having a stable, lasting government because it was a much more modern country to begin with. A lot of the infrastructure needed to sustain a democracy was already in place (of course we blew a lot of that up), and everyone knows we've spent billions on trying to rebuild and improve Iraq. I'm just not sold on having a small group of Western educated elites trying to run and maintain a democracy whose citizenry is composed of three distinct groups that, to put it mildly, don't get along. Most of them have a greater sense of loyalty to their ethnic/religious groups than they do to the country of Iraq. Only time and the interests of other nations, such as Iran and ourselves, will tell if Iraq can become a truly independent democracy, able to stand on its own. It could just as easily become a puppet state or mired in a horrible civil war.

Afghanistan is an entirely different story. Tribal loyalty is everything to most of its citizenry, and I believe the majority of them don't care anything about having the right to vote or a strong centralized form of government. They just want to be left alone in what they consider their inherited tribal territories, and continue to live a lifestyle that hasn't changed much in the last 100 years. So God help them now that all of that mineral wealth has been found within their borders. Now every world power will want in, regardless of whether they have some kind of flaccid democracy propped up by our support or just a strongman who keeps things together through fear and punishment. Once our support is gone I don't see any form of strong central government lasting there. That's why we may be in Afghanistan, in some form or another, for at least our lifetimes.

At the heart of all of this is that I don't think we actually stopped and took the time to ask the people of Iraq or Afghanistan what they wanted in the ways of a government and social reforms. Even though we were supposedly "liberating" them, we just went ahead and crammed our style of government and values down their throat. In the end I just don't think an outside power can manufacture a social and political revolution that serves its own interests and not those of the people it's supposedly trying to help.

My Fear of Fanaticism

One of the topics brought up by the philosophes in our reading for Thursday that we didn't talk about that much in class was fanaticism. I have a personal interest in this area because I feel like fanaticism is again getting out of control in our own time. I have dealt with fanatics abroad during my time in the service, but I also feel like we have populous sects of our society here at home that are becoming more and more fanatical on one end of the religious and political spectrum or the other.

Religious fanatics scare me the most because I have seen up close and personal what they are capable of when properly motivated. Voltaire said that "he who reinforces his madness by murder is a fanatic." I saw it over and over again in different conflicts where a powerful Muslim cleric would call on his people to murder others or sacrifice themselves in the name of God. Of course these "holy men" weren't going to volunteer to do the dirty work themselves, but instead some barely out-of-adolescence male would usually be the one served up for the cause. One sect even strapped suicide vests on three 14 year old girls, who, believe me, didn't volunteer for the job. Thankfully, they were stopped before anything happened. Besides the wars we're entangled in, I fear Islamic fanaticism on a global scale. Many of these terrorist leaders are themselves just pawns being used by greater powers who see an easily manipulated and expendable fighting force they can use to achieve anything but these so-called "religious" goals. For what usually lies behind all of this religious bluster is the thirst for wealth and power. Unfortunately, our own country and others created weapons that, in the wrong hands, can change the world in a few seconds. I hope we can resolve our conflicts with Islam and cool the fires of fanatical hatred before it's too late.

I don't want to just pick on Islam, because I have great Muslim friends and I have fought side by side with very devout Muslims who feel disgraced by the way fanatics abuse their faith. More and more of what frightens me are the fundamentalist Christian sects in our own country that are bordering on or have already crossed into fanaticism. While cases of murdering in the name of their god aren't as prevalent in our society, it still amazes me in a country as open as ours that so called "followers" of a man who is portrayed as the most tolerant man to ever walk the earth, can be so closed-minded and hateful. I have friends who are bright and kind people, but if you disagree or don't share their same beliefs about Jesus, then you're wrong about not only that, but just about everything else too. When you question their beliefs, they react in one of two ways - either with anger or like a five year old who plugs his ears and stomps his feet. Politics seems to have helped stoke these new fanatical fires and polarize some people in our country into opposing groups that can't seem to find the middle ground of compromise at all. Two such groups are people who base everything they do in their lives off of their faith, as opposed to people who look down on the deeply religious as being shallow or backward. I am neither, but I do feel that more and more of these fringe groups are carrying way too much political clout because of their ability to organize with new media, etc. It doesn't help either with the talking heads who are constantly present on TV trying to inflame the passions of one group against another. I guess the point I'm trying to get at with my rambling is that our country is at one of those pivotal moments in it's history. We can either come together, solve our problems, and move forward, or splinter apart and then blame each other during the aftermath. I personally believe we can and will come together, but only after those of our fellow citizens who quake with anger and the mere mention of one another, can find the middle ground of what's best for our country.

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