29 July 2015

Origins of the Taliban



Seeds of Terror by Gretchen Peters, 2009, Excerpts

The origins of the Taliban are steeped in legend, elevating the group’s barely literate, one-eyed leader to semi-divine status. The story begins in mid-1994 when rival warlords were ravaging the Afghan countryside and terrorizing the public. Neighbors came to Mullah Omar, then a teacher in a small religious school, or madrassa, outside Kandahar, to tell him two young girls in their village had been abducted by a local warlord and repeatedly raped. Horrified, Omar raised a force of thirty madrassa students [Talibs], armed with half as many rifles, and attacked the commander’s base. They freed the girls and hanged the commander from his tank barrel.

A few months later, Omar’s force intervened again when two rival commanders fought over a young boy both men wanted to take as a lover. Commanders were looting people, raping women and boys for days, and then killing them. Mullah Omar raised his voice against these people. As Omar’s reputation as a local Robin Hood grew, Afghanistan’s war-weary public embraced the Taliban, which swept across the country, capturing many towns without firing a shot. His supporters believed Omar was possessed with a profound, God-given wisdom.

The Taliban initially made commitments to stamp out the poppy trade – but only acted on them a handful of times. These commitments were swiftly dropped as political realities and need for funds overcame their original objectives. As the Taliban conquered district after district in Kandahar, they attracted the attention of other warlords with ties to the opium trade.

Fueled by drug money and joined at the hip by al Qaeda, the Taliban turned Afghanistan into the world’s first fully fledged narco-terror state. In the remote areas where it was grown, opium had literally become a form of currency. Local shopkeepers kept scales in their shops, as opposed to cash boxes or registers. You’d pay for your groceries with a golf ball-sized chunk of opium.

The Taliban built a fighting force of four thousand and was able to pay its troops three times what other Afghan commanders could. After taking control of Kandahar – just eleven months after their initial emergence – the Taliban claimed to have eleven tanks, nine transport helicopters, several MiG fighter jets, and stacks of heavy weaponry and ammunition. They set up a police training school and educated bureaucrats.

By September 1996, just two years after they emerged, they would roll victorious into Kabul. By 1997, Afghanistan became the world’s leading opium producer, having outpaced Burma.




Mullah Omar: Taliban leader 'died in Pakistan in 2013'
29 Jul 2015
Taliban leader Mullah Omar died two years ago in Pakistan, a spokesman for Afghanistan's security services says. The Taliban is expected to issue a statement soon. Sources at the Taliban's two main councils in Quetta and Peshawar in Pakistan told the BBC they were in intensive talks to agree on a replacement for Mullah Omar. Pakistan's government and security services have not commented on the claims so far. They have always denied that Mullah Omar was in their country. The Afghan government, elected last year, has embarked on a peace process with the Taliban.
Mullah Omar has not been seen in public since the fall of the Taliban regime in late 2001. Despite his long absence from the public view, the mystique of the man has been overwhelming. He had become a symbol and a unifying figure within the Taliban. While the day-to-day affairs have been managed by his deputies, everything else revolved around his name. Mullah Omar led the Taliban to victory over rival Afghan militias in the civil war that followed the withdrawal of Soviet troops. His alliance with al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden prompted the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington.
Mullah Mohammed Omar
- Taliban say he was born in 1960 in the village of Chah-i-Himmat, in Kandahar province
- Fought in resistance against Soviet occupation in 1980s, suffering a shrapnel injury to his right eye
- Forged close ties to al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden
- Became "Supreme Leader" of Taliban movement in 1996
- US-led forces overthrew his government in 2001

03 July 2015

Pope Francis Encyclica Laudato – 2015 Jun




Economic Growth 

Growth of the past two centuries has not always led to an integral development and an improvement in the quality of life. 

To accept the idea of infinite or unlimited growth proves attractive to economists, financiers and experts in technology. It is based on the lie that there is an infinite supply of the earth’s goods, and this leads to the planet being squeezed dry beyond every limit. It is the false notion that an infinite quantity of energy and resources are available, that it is possible to renew them quickly, and that the negative effects of the exploitation of the natural order can be easily absorbed. 

The deepest roots of our present failures have to do with the direction, goals, meaning and social implications of technological and economic growth.  

People’s quality of life actually diminishes – by the deterioration of the environment, the low quality of food or the depletion of resources – in the midst of economic growth. 

Economic growth tends to certain standardization with the aim of simplifying procedures and reducing costs. A politics concerned with immediate results, supported by consumerist sectors of the population, is driven to produce short-term growth. 

Debt 

The foreign debt of poor countries has become a way of controlling them. 

The culture of relativism drives one person to take advantage of another, to treat others as mere objects, imposing forced labor on them or enslaving them to pay their debts.  

Economics/Finance
 
The twenty-first century is witnessing a weakening of the power of nation states, chiefly because the economic and financial sectors, being transnational, prevail over the political. 

Economic powers continue to justify the current global system where priority tends to be given to speculation and the pursuit of financial gain. The financial crisis of 2007-08 provided an opportunity to develop a new economy. But the response to the crisis did not include rethinking the outdated criteria which continue to rule the world. Saving banks at any cost, making the public pay the price, only reaffirms the absolute power of a financial system, a power which has no future and will only give rise to new crises. 

The economy accepts every advance in technology with a view to profit, without concern for its potentially negative impact on human beings. The principle of the maximization of profits reflects a misunderstanding of the very concept of the economy. As long as production is increased, little concern is given to whether it is at the cost of future resources or the health of the environment. 

Some circles maintain that current economics and technology will solve all environmental problems, and argue that the problems of global hunger and poverty will be resolved simply by market growth. People’s quality of life actually diminishes – by the deterioration of the environment, the low quality of food or the depletion of resources – in the midst of economic growth.  

Talk of sustainable growth becomes a way of distracting attention and offering excuses.

Finance overwhelms the real economy. 

Recommendation

A change in lifestyle could bring healthy pressure to bear on those who wield political, economic and social power. This is what consumer movements accomplish by boycotting certain products. They prove successful in changing the way businesses operate, forcing them to consider their environmental footprint and their patterns of production. When social pressure affects their earnings, businesses clearly have to find ways to produce differently. 

Enlighten those who possess power and money
that they may avoid the sin of indifference,
that they may love the common good, advance the weak,
and care for this world in which we live. 

 

IMF report: concern about Income Inequality impacting growth.
Causes and Consequences of Income Inequality: A Global Perspective
June 2015 

Inequality within most advanced and emerging markets and developing countries has increased, a phenomenon that has received considerable attention. President Obama called widening income inequality the “defining challenge of our time.” A recent Pew Research Center survey found that the gap between the rich and the poor is considered a major challenge worldwide, and Pope Francis has spoken out against the “economy of exclusion.” The extent of inequality, its drivers, and what to do about it have become some of the most hotly debated issues by policymakers and researchers alike. 

Equality, like fairness, is an important value in most societies. Irrespective of ideology, culture, and religion, people care about inequality. Widening inequality has significant implications for growth and macroeconomic stability; it can concentrate political and decision making power in the hands of a few, lead to a suboptimal use of human resources, cause political and economic instability, and raise crisis risk. The economic and social fallout from the global financial crisis and the resultant headwinds to global growth and employment have heightened the attention to rising income inequality. 

Building on earlier IMF work which has shown that income inequality matters for growth, we show that the income distribution itself matters for growth as well. In particular, our findings suggest that raising the income share of the poor and ensuring that there is no hollowing-out of the middle class is good for growth through a number of interrelated economic, social, and political channels.



 

 

 

Further Lucifer Effect Resources



Books:

The Power Elite by C. Wright Mills

Cold War to the Terror War by Alfred McCoy, the shocking photographs from Abu Ghraib are nothing new.

Escape from Freedom by Eric Fromm, this classic reminds us of the first step a fascist leader takes even in a nominally democratic society.

The Torture Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraib by Karen Greenberg and Joshua Dratel, exposing the perversion of legal skills by government lawyers.

Oath Betrayed by Steven H. Miles professor of medicine and bioethics.

Without Sanctuary, a documentary catalogue of lynching postcards

Photography of the Holocaust by Janina Struk

Film:

Quiet Rage: The Stanford Prison Experiment [1985]

Das Experiment is a German film based on the SPE that has been widely shown around the world.

Repetition by Polish artist ArturZmijewski. A forty-six minute film that highlights the seven days paid volunteers spent in his mock prison.

Faces of the Enemy, Sam Keen show how archetypes of the enemy are created by visual propaganda that most nations use against those judged to be the dangerous “them,” “outsiders,” “enemies.”

The Marine Machine a full, graphic depiction of the making of a Marine by William Mares

The Wave, a powerful docudrama of this simulated Nazi experience captured the transformation of good kids into pseudo Hitler Youth.

Suicide Killers by French filmmaker Pierre Rehov viewed many Palestinians in Israeli jails who were caught before detonating tier bombs or had abetted would-be attacks.

Links:


Music:

Stanford Prison Experiment” is the name of a rock band from Los Angeles whose intense music is a fusion of punk and noise, according to its leader, who learned about the SPE as a student at UCLA.

Quotes:

The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. British statesman Edmund Burke

We must learn that passively to accept an unjust system is to cooperate with that system, and thereby to become a participant in its evil. Martin Luther King


Influence Tactics
Three simple influence tactics that have been consistently studied and documented by social psychologist: the foot-in-the door tactic, social modeling, and self-labeling of helpfulness.

[1] Our slow ascent into goodness step by step makes use of what social psychologists call the “foot-in-the-door” tactic. This tactic begins by first asking someone to do a small request, which most people readily perform, and then later on to ask them to comply with a related but much bigger request, which was the actual goal all along.

[2] Altruistic role models increase the likelihood that those around them will engage in positive, pro-social behavior.


[3] Give someone an identity label of the kind that you would like them to have as someone who will then do the action you want to elicit from them. When you tell a person that he or she is helpful, altruistic, and kind, that person is more likely to do helpful, altruistic, and kind behaviors for others.



02 July 2015

Milgram’s Authority Study



The Milgram experiment on obedience to authority figures was a series of social psychology experiments conducted by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram, which measured the willingness of study participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts that conflicted with their personal conscience. Milgram first described his research in 1963.

The Perils of Obedience by Stanley Milgram
Harpers 1974
The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the study and the fact most urgently demanding explanation. Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority.

The Lucifer Effect by Zimbardo, 2007, Excerpts

Methods from Milgram’s paradigm:

- Prearranging some form of contractual obligation, verbal or written, to control the individual’s behavior in pseudo-legal fashion.

- Giving participants meaningful roles to play that carry with them previously learned values and automatically activate response scripts [teacher, guard]

- Presenting basic rules to be followed that seem to make sense before their actual use but then can be used arbitrarily and impersonally to justify mindless compliance.

- Altering the semantics of the act, the actor, and the action. Replacing unpleasant reality with desirable rhetoric, gilding the frame so that the real picture is disguised.

- Creating opportunities for the diffusion of responsibility or abdication of responsibility for negative outcomes; others will be held responsible.

- Starting the path toward the ultimate evil act with a small, seemingly insignificant first step, the easy “foot in the door” that swings open subsequent greater compliance pressures, and leads down a slippery slope.

- Increasing steps on the pathway that are gradual.

- Gradually changing the nature of the authority figure from initially “just” reasonable to “unjust” and demanding, even irrational.

- Making the “exit costs” high and making the process of exiting difficult by allowing verbal dissent, which makes people feel better about themselves while insisting on behavioral compliance.

- Offering an ideology, or a big lie, to justify the use of any means to achieve the seemingly desirable, essential goal. Most nations rely on ideology, typically, “threats to national security,” before going to war or to suppress dissident political opposition. - When citizens fear that their national security is being threatened, they become willing to surrender their basic freedoms to a government that offers them that exchange. Erich Fromm’s classic analysis in Escape from Freedom made us aware of this trade-off, which Hitler and other dictators have long used to gain and maintain power: namely, the claim that they will be able to provide security in exchange for citizens giving up their freedoms, which will give them the ability to control things better.

- There are no male-female gender differences in obedience.


 






01 July 2015

Keys to Resistance



The Lucifer Effect by Zimbardo, 2007, Excerpts

The key to resistance lies in development of the three Ss: self-awareness, situational sensitivity, and street smarts.

I made a mistake: Encourage admission of our mistakes, first to ourselves, then to others. Doing so openly reduces the need to justify or rationalize our mistakes and thereby to continue to give support to bad or immoral influence.

I am mindful: We must transform our usual state of mindless inattention into mindfulness, especially in new situations. Ask for evidence to support assertion; demand that ideologies be sufficiently elaborated to allow you to separate rhetoric from substance. Try to determine whether the recommended means ever justify potentially harmful ends. Reject simple solutions as quick fixes for complex personal or social problems. Support critical thinking from the earliest times in children’s lives, alerting them to the deceptive TV ads, biased claims, and distorted perspectives being presented to them.

I am responsible: Taking responsibility for one’s decisions. We become more resistant to undesirable social influence by always maintaining a sense of personal responsibility and by being willing to be held accountable for our actions. Obedience to authority is less blind t the extent that we are aware that diffusion or responsibility merely disguises our individual complicity in the conduct of questionable actions.

I will assert my unique identity: Do not allow others to deindividuate you, to put you into a category, a box, a slot, to turn you into an object. Make eye contact. Anonymity and secrecy conceal wrongdoing and undermine the human connection. They can become the breeding grounds that generate dehumanization that provides the killing ground for bullies, rapists, torturers, terrorists, and tyrants. Never allow or practice negative stereotyping; words, labels, and jokes can be destructive, if they mock others.

I respect just authority but rebel against unjust authority: Work to distinguish between those in authority who, because of their expertise, wisdom, seniority, or special status, deserve respect, and the unjust authority figures who demand our obedience without having any substance. Doing so will reduce our mindless obedience t self-proclaimed authorities whose priorities are not in our best interests.

I want group acceptance, but value my independence: The power of that desire for acceptance will make some people do almost anything to be accepted and go to even further extremes to avoid refection by the Group. There are times when conformity to a group norm is counterproductive to the social good. It is imperative to determine when to follow the norm and when to reject it.

I will be more frame-vigilant: Who makes the frame becomes the artist, or the con artist. The way issues are framed is often more influential than the persuasive arguments within their boundaries. Moreover, effective frames can seem not to be frames at all, just sound bites, visual images, slogans, and logos.  They influence us without being conscious of them, and they shape our orientation toward the ideas or issues they promote. It is crucial to be aware of power and to be vigilant in order to offset its insidious influence on our emotions, thoughts and votes.

I will balance my time perspective: We can be led to do things that are not what we believe in when we allow ourselves to become trapped in an expanded present moment. Situational power is weakened when past and future combine to contain the excesses of the present.

I will not sacrifice personal or civic freedoms for the illusion of security: The need for security is a powerful determinant of human behavior. We can be manipulated into engaging in actions that are alien to us when faced with alleged threats to our security or the promise of security from danger. Never sacrifice basic personal freedoms for the promise of security because that sacrifices are real and immediate and the security is a distant illusion. Such as when a leader promises personal safety and notional security at the cost of a collective sacrifice of suspending laws, privacy, and freedoms.

I can oppose unjust systems: Individuals falter in the face of the intensity of the systems we have described: the military and prison systems as well as those of gangs, cults, fraternities, corporations, and even dysfunctional families. But individual resistance in concert with that of others of the same mind and resolve can combine to make a difference. Resistance may involve physically removing one’s self from a total situation in which all information, rewards, and punishments are controlled. It may involve challenging the groupthink mentality and being able to document all allegations of wrongdoing. Systems have enormous power to resist change and withstand even righteous assault.