Women Removed from Islamic Universities

The Islamic government of Iran has chosen to enforce Sharia law, the traditional law of Muslims, and prevent women from studying at universities. The Telegraph reports that:

Female students in Iran have been barred from more than 70 university degree courses in an officially-approved act of sex-discrimination which critics say is aimed at defeating the fight for equal women's rights.

This is part of the same Islamic tradition which kept women from attending school in Afghanistan.

In a move that has prompted a demand for a UN investigation by Iran's most celebrated human rights campaigner, the Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi, 36 universities have announced that 77 BA and BSc courses in the coming academic year will be "single gender" and effectively exclusive to men.

'BSc' stands for Bachelor of Science, and is the British abbreviation; in the U.S., 'BS' is the standard way to refer to such degrees. While women have been barred by the Muslim government from studying many subjects at Iranian universities, men have been barred from none.

Senior clerics in Iran's theocratic regime have become concerned about the social side-effects of rising educational standards among women.

The Islamic leadership - the imams and mullahs - is working to keep women legally and socially inferior to men.

Under the new policy, women undergraduates will be excluded from a broad range of studies in some of the country's leading institutions, including English literature, English translation, hotel management, archaeology, nuclear physics, computer science, electrical engineering, industrial engineering and business management.

Similar measures are being taken in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya. In those countries, unlike Iran and Afghanistan, the measures to oppress women are organized through the political party known as The Muslim Brotherhood. In Iran, such measures are being forced onto the oil industry - a major source of the region's wealth and power - by the ayatollahs. Islam has a commanding hold on the Iranian economy:

The Oil Industry University, which has several campuses across the country, says it will no longer accept female students at all, citing a lack of employer demand. Isfahan University provided a similar rationale for excluding women from its mining engineering degree, claiming 98% of female graduates ended up jobless.

If female graduates are often jobless - a questionable assertion at best - it is either because they face discrimination in the Muslim-dominated industry, or it is because they've chosen to be wives and mothers. In either case, there is no justification for preventing women from studying. Ebadi wrote a letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, and to the high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay.

"[It] is part of the recent policy of the Islamic Republic, which tries to return women to the private domain inside the home as it cannot tolerate their passionate presence in the public arena," says the letter, which was also sent to Ahmad Shaheed, the UN's special rapporteur for human rights in Iran. "The aim is that women will give up their opposition and demands for their own rights."

Beyond education, the larger issue is simply personal freedom and individual liberty for women. There are already many regulations in the Islamic state of Iran which prevent women from exercising rights. This latest move simply indicates the trend toward even fewer freedoms for women, removing the few rights or liberties they had left. Until this latest legislation, women had been making substantial progress within Iranian universities:

Sociologists have credited women's growing academic success to the increased willingness of religiously-conservative families to send their daughters to university after the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Legal and social equality for women - long a hallmark of cultures in Europe and North America - remains elusive in the Middle East; in these cases, things seem to be getting worse rather than better.

Good Stuff and Bad Stuff in Egypt

Modern Egypt as we know it - in contrast to the ancient Egypt of Pharaohs and pyramids - began with the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire. In the early 1800's, Yugoslavian regions like Serbia began to be more autonomous within the empire, and oppressed nations like Greece fought for, and gained, independence and freedom in 1830. Historian William Duiker writes:

Meanwhile, other parts of the empire began to break away from central control. In Egypt, the ambitious governor Muhammad Ali declared the region's autonomy from Ottoman rule and initiated a series of reforms designed to promote economic growth and government efficiency. During the 1830s, he sought to improve agricultural production and reform the educational system, and he imported machinery and technicians from Europe to carry out the first industrial revolution on African soil. In the end, however, the effort failed, partly because Egypt's manufactures could not compete with those of Europe and also because much of the profit from the export of cash crops went into the hands of

landlords who were inexperienced at exporting such cash crops, and who were more interested in ensuring a continued lack of social mobility - keeping Egyptian peasants locked into the strict Muslim class structure which had dominated the region for centuries. These landlords were wealthy and would continue to be wealthy, whether or not the export business was successful. The ones harmed by the failure of export businesses were the peasant class, who stood to experience a modest gain in income, and the middle class, which was tiny but might have enlarged had the exporting been successful.

Egypt's first pass at modernizing - and the results of this attempt - are telling and predicative. Industrialization in any culture is a traumatic process: in England, Europe, and America, it caused urban misery until an economic equilibrium was reached in which child labor, long hours, and low wages were eliminated. But in a post-colonial Islamic nation like Egypt, industrialization goes past "traumatic" and into "utterly destructive" conditions - on top of which, it is doomed to fail. Industrialization was predestined to come to naught in Egypt because the rationalization of processes rests upon a world-view fostered by the calm logic of medieval Scholasticism, and upon the children of Scholasticism: physics, mathematics, and chemistry. Egypt's Muslim population - from peasants to aristocrats - had a worldview which didn't intuitively mesh with the rationalization of processes and industrial engineering management.

The Suez Canal is an example. Duiker writes:

Ever since the voyages of the Portuguese explorers at the close of the fifteenth century, European trade with the East had been carried on almost exclusively by the route around the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa. But from the outset, there was some interest in shortening the route by digging a canal east of Cairo, where only a low, swampy isthmus separated the Mediterranean from the Red Sea.

The land route between Europe and the East, which had been the original trade route before the Portuguese discovered the sea route, had become too dangerous, as the caravans traveling in both directions were attacked by raiders. One of those raiders was in fact Muhammad, the founder of Islam. His early source of income had been raiding the caravans traveling the region of Mecca and Medina. Trade between Europe and the Far East declined and languished for several centuries, only to flourish again when the Portuguese route was discovered.

The Ottoman Turks, who controlled the area, had considered constructing a canal in the sixteenth century, but nothing was accomplished until 1854, when the French entrepreneur Ferdinand de Lesseps signed a contract to begin construction of the canal. The completed project brought little immediate benefit to Egypt, however, which under the vigorous rule of the Ottoman official Muhammad Ali was attempting to adopt reforms on the European model. The cost of construction imposed a major debt on the Egyptian government and forced a growing level of dependence on foreign financial support. When an army revolt against the increasing foreign influence broke out in 1881, the British stepped in to protect their investment (they had bought Egypt's canal company shares in 1875) and set up an informal protectorate that would last until World War I.

Sadly, Egypt's story is one of financial opportunities gone bad. Although Muslim raiders succeeded in scaring away European traders who wanted to go through the Middle East to get to the Far East, it was a Pyrrhic victory - they "succeeded" in losing a tremendous economic opportunity: if European traders had continued using the land route to the Far East during the early Middle Ages, the countries of the Middle East could have managed this trade for a permanent continuous revenue stream. Trade using the Portuguese route around the southern tip of Africa represented lost opportunities for the Middle East. The Suez Canal was a chance to get back into that game: building, owning, and operating that canal guaranteed steady income. The Portuguese route was no longer the best path - now most shipping would once again go through the Middle East. But why was Egypt unable to operate the canal at a profit, when the French and the British were able to do so? What is it about the culture of Middle East which prevented this success? We cannot blame Arab culture, because the Arabs have been successful businessmen over the centuries. After the rise of Islam, Arabs continued to be astute traders, but it is important to note that not all Arabs became Muslims. The skills required to be a successful trader are different than the skills required to run a corporate operation like the Suez Canal. Although Egypt lost its financial opportunity in the Suez Canal, it would regain its political independence.

National consciousness had existed in Egypt since well before the colonial takeover, and members of the legislative council were calling for independence even before World War I. In 1918, a formal political party called the Wafd was formed to promote Egyptian independence. The intellectuals were opposed as much to the local palace government as to the British, however, and in 1952, an army coup overthrew King Farouk, the grandson of Khedive Ismail, and established an independent republic.

Khedive Ismail ruled Egypt from 1863 to 1879, and King Farouk ruled from 1936 to 1952. Having gained independence from the British, Egypt spent approximately thirty years under a monarchy. Ethnically speaking, Egypt is not a strictly Arab society.

Technically, Egypt was not an Arab state. King Farouk, who had acceded to power in 1936, had frequently declared support for the Arab cause, but the Egyptian people were not Bedouins and shared little of the culture of the peoples across the Red Sea. Nevertheless, Farouk committed Egyptian armies to the disastrous war against Israel.

In the late 1940's and early 1950's, Farouk symbolized the fence-riding character of Egypt's role in the Middle East. Not truly Arab, but often engaged in Arab causes, the Islamic identity of a vocal political faction inside Egypt would sometimes be decisive, or sometimes be overruled by other Egyptians.

In 1952, King Farouk, whose corrupt habits had severely eroded his early popularity, was overthrown by a military coup engineered by young military officers ostensibly under the leadership of Colonel Muhammad Nagib. The real force behind the scenes was Colonel Gamal Abdul Nasser (1918 - 1970), the son of a minor government functionary who, like many of his fellow officers, had been angered by the army's inadequate preparation for the war against Israel four years earlier. In 1952, the monarchy was replaced by a republic.

Under Nasser, and later under Anwar Sadat, Egypt seemed to have a chance to exploit its economic opportunities in a meaningful way - a chance to assume its place at the table of modern, economically significant, nations.

In 1954, Nasser seized power in his own right, and immediately instituted a land reform program. He also adopted a policy of neutrality in foreign affairs and expressed sympathy for the Arab cause. The British presence had rankled many Egyptians for years, for even after granting Egypt independence, Britain had retained control over the Suez Canal to protect its route to the Indian Ocean. In 1956, Nasser suddenly nationalized the Suez Canal Company, which had been under British and French administration. Seeing a threat to their route to the Indian Ocean, the British and the French launched a joint attack on Egypt to protect their investment. They were joined by Israel, whose leaders had grown exasperated at sporadic Arab commando raids on Israeli territory and now decided to strike back. But the Eisenhower administration in the United States, concerned that the attack smacked of a revival of colonialism, supported Nasser and brought about the withdrawal of foreign forces from Egypt and of Israeli troops from the Sinai peninsula.

Nasser's next project was to form a United Arab Republic; the first step was to unite Syria and Egypt in 1958. He hoped to include, eventually, all the other Arab nations, but he was unsuccessful in persuading them to join. The kings of Jordan, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia saw that this was a socialist plan to take money away from their kingdoms. Eventually, even the union between Egypt and Syria failed, in 1961. Nasser's political vision continued along the Pan-Arab line: to create political ties between Arab nations. This led to Egypt's close ties to Yemen and Algeria, to Egypt coordinating the anti-Israel activities of the Arab nations, and to Egypt's support for the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

Nasser was, however, humiliated when Israel gained territory in the Six-Day-War of 1967. He died in office in 1970, and was replaced by Anwar Sadat. Nasser's

socialist approach has had little success, and most governments, including those of Egypt and Syria, eventually shifted to a more free enterprise approach while encouraging foreign investment to compensate for a lack of capital or technology.

The chimera of socialist economics disappointed Egypt. Cultural problems accompanied economic problems.

In 1928, devout Muslims in Egypt formed the Muslim Brotherhood as a means of promoting personal piety. Later, the movement began to take a more activist approach, including the eventual use of terrorism by a radical minority. Despite Nasser's surface commitment to Islamic ideals and Arab unity, some Egyptians were fiercely opposed to his policies and regard his vision of Arab socialism as a betrayal of Islamic principles. Nasser reacted harshly and executed a number of his leading opponents.

By this point, it was becoming clear that peace and progress were permanently impossible for some segments of the Middle East. Although the millions of ordinary people who live there certainly desire both, a variety of cultural or social factors prevent both peace and certain forms of political and economic progress. Whether leaders are sincere or corrupt, Egypt - and one may generalize to a number of other nations in the Middle East - seems to swing back and forth between ruthless secularist dictators and harsh Islamist theocracies. Neither provides a particularly kind environment. Following Nasser's sudden and unexpected death in office, Anwar Sadat became Egypt's next leader.

Sadat soon showed himself to be more pragmatic than his predecessor, dropping the now irrelevant name of United Arab Republic in favor of the Arab Republic of Egypt and replacing Nasser's socialist policies with a new strategy based on free enterprise and encouragement of Western investment. He also agreed to sign a peace treaty with Israel on the condition that Israel retire to its pre-1967 frontiers. Concerned that other Arab countries would refuse to make peace and take advantage of its presumed weakness, Israel refused.

In 1973, the Yom Kippur War took place, as Egypt and Syrian forces attacked Israel. The results were inconclusive. A cease-fire was reached, and Henry Kissinger maintained a fragile peace for the next several years by means of his diplomacy. In 1978, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Sadat signed the Camp David Agreement, which provided a constructive peace for several years. This diplomacy ended, however, by

the assassination of Sadat by Islamic militants in October 1981. But there were deeper causes, including the continued unwillingness of Muslim governments to recognize Israel.

After Sadat's death, Hosni Mubarak became president. Mubarak was president of Egypt for a total of twenty-nine consecutive years. He was overthrown in 2011; the revolutionaries pointed to corruption in government, lack of free speech, police brutality, less than free elections, and economic unpleasantness. Although these serious charges did, indeed, have some truth to them, Mubarek also had some positive features: he had maintained a peace, or at least a ceasefire, with Israel for many years, and had created good trading relations with a number of other nations. The revolutionaries of 2011 took a calculated risk: they got rid of Mubarek without knowing exactly what type of government they would get next. Historian Michael Savage writes that

Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak had long been a U.S. ally and had kept the radical Muslim Brotherhood out of power for more than 40 years prior to Obama's intervention. The president suddenly insisted at the beginning of February 2011 that a transition to a democratic government in Egypt "must be meaningful, it must be peaceful, and it must begin now."

Historians note that Mubarak had good, or at least tolerable, diplomatic relations with a variety of nations, and with U.S. presidents Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush - and even with Obama's first two years in office. What changed, that suddenly Mubarak's removal from office was a demand? Mubarak had acted in the interests of Europe and America - and in his own interests, to be sure - in keeping the Muslim Brotherhood out of power: the Muslim Brotherhood, which represents not the peaceful moderate Muslims, but rather the violent extremists; the Muslim Brotherhood which does not merely have links to terrorist organizations, but which rather explicitly encourages and supports them; the Muslim Brotherhood which takes, not a nominal interpretation of Islam which is conducive to nonviolent coexistence, but rather the most orthodox and literal interpretation of the Qur'an demanding aggression. Hosni Mubarak, whatever his sins, had at least accomplished that much for peace.

The revolution of 2011 hoped for a democratic government, but had no concrete reason to expect one, and no plan was in place to institute one. To the contrary, a plan was in place - a plan unknown to most of the revolutionaries in the streets - a plan to discard the desire for democracy as soon as it had been exploited to remove Mubarak.

With that absurd statement - the idea that transitions of power in the Middle East could be peaceful and could result in democratic governments - Obama revealed one of two things: Either he

had been inadequately informed about the true nature of the situation in Egypt, a failure in information-gathering, or he believed that whatever replaced Mubarak would be better than Mubarak, even though it would not be democratic. Either his

advisors are hopelessly naive regarding what's going on, or he is secretly on the side of Muslim radicals and believes that the overthrow of our allies will hasten their rise to power.

Regarding the accuracy of the information presented to President Obama in various briefings, the question arises whether the true nature of the Muslim Brotherhood has been discerned by those who advise the president:

Less than two weeks after Obama made his mincing declaration that Mubarak must go, his Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, claimed that the Muslim Brotherhood was "largely secular." Within hours, the administration refuted Clapper's absurd claim, reinforcing the fact that its foreign policy is chaotic at best, subversive at worst.

Although Mubarak was an unsavory character - nobody will claim him as a champion of human rights - he did at least maintain a peace effort with other nations in the Middle East, and maintain some degree of domestic tranquility. The seizure of power by the Muslim Brotherhood ensures the increased probability of open war in the region, and violence by the Egyptian government against its own citizens.

In addition to revealing the administration's ineptitude, its positions with regard to Egypt helped reveal where Obama really stands: firmly against a strong ally of the United States and Israel. While the Mubarak regime was dictatorial, it did maintain order in the streets and suppress Islamist radicals. It also maintained peace with Israel.

It is useful to recall the distinction between "Islamic" and "Islamist" - the former refers to a faith, the latter to political ideology and the agenda attached to it. Mubarak had protected the Egyptian people from the oppression of such radicals, and been an ally to the United States. What was to be gained by his ouster? The government which would replace him was not guaranteed to be as friendly to the U.S., and would likely be less friendly. The regime which would take his place would grant no more civil rights to Egyptian citizens, and probably less. The revolutionaries in the streets would be bitterly disappointed. Having gotten rid of a bad dictator, they would find themselves under an even worse government.

Within a matter of weeks, Mubarak stepped down. As ... the Muslim Brotherhood was moving toward taking over Egypt, the Egyptian military stepped in and took charge.

Although some observers still hoped that the military would merely oversee a transitional period, the wiser revolutionaries in Egypt understood quickly that the game was over. They had been duped. Obama's

support of the ouster of Mubarak - under whom Coptic Christians were allowed to worship in peace - has led to the rise of violence toward Christians by Muslims. In October 2011, 26 Coptic Christians were killed and hundreds more wounded in attacks by the Egyptian military. The attack occurred as Christian groups marched through Cairo in protest against the burnings of their churches. Egyptian Muslims pelted them with rocks as they moved along, and by the time they had reached their destination at a radio and TV broadcasting facility, the army started shooting into the crowd and trying to run over the protesters with their vehicles. Observers predicted that the event would cause a massive emigration of Christians from Egypt.

The violent factions which Mubarak had held back were now unleashed - violent scenes like these were free to repeat themselves throughout Egypt. Mubarak was no angel - he was a thug - but he had also engineered a way to keep Coptic Christians and Muslims living together in the same country with a minimum of friction. The occasional incidents of violence by Muslims against Copts prior to the end of the Mubarak regime would be multiplied many times over after he left power.

In the wake of the murder of more than two dozen unarmed Christians by the Egyptian military, the president called on Christians to show restraint! How were they supposed to do that? By allowing more of their brethren to be murdered by the military? The president continued: "Now is the time for restraint on all sides so that Egyptians can move forward together to forge a strong and united Egypt." The loss of life was "tragic," but Christians need to put it behind them?

Observers noted Obama's under-reaction to the open aggression against an unarmed pacifistic religious minority within Egypt.

No international sanctions against the Egyptian military? No condemnation of an obvious hate crime against Christians? No withdrawing of U.S. foreign aid from Egypt?

Reasonable surveillance and reconnaissance certainly would have predicted the scenario of domestic violence which erupted once Mubarak was gone.

After Mubarak's ouster, the Egyptian military demonstrated that it was incapable of maintaining order. Reports began to emerge out of Egypt that indicated there were no police on the streets in Cairo and other cities. Coptic Christians, who make up about ten percent of Egypt's population, were clashing with Muslims, and the result was extensive casualties. Ambulances were nowhere to be seen, and the wounded were transported to medical facilities in garbage trucks. Roadblocks were frequently set up, not by the government, but by lawless thugs who stopped traffic and stole valuables from the occupants of the automobiles they detained. Without a functioning police force, vigilante groups sprang up, taking the law into their own hands. Reports also surfaced that the Egyptian army was partnering with the Muslim Brotherhood to perform "virginity tests" on women who protested in Tahrir Square.

Unspeakable acts of violence against women multiplied, perpetrated by the military, by the Muslim Brotherhood, and by unaligned thugs. Nobody was there to stop them. Around the world, the "girl in the blue bra" became a symbol for women who were mistreated, beaten, and worse by the Muslim Brotherhood. As time went on, it became clear that large and larger parts of the military were controlled, visibly and invisibly, by the Muslim Brotherhood. This eruption of mayhem was predictable. What was the strategy of the Obama administration? Perhaps it thought that if President Obama urged restraint, via TV and radio and internet and newspapers, his influence would steer the Egyptian population.

Just as the revolutionaries in the streets during the "Arab Spring" had their hopes dashed, so also were America's hopes for an ally dashed - Egypt after Mubarak would not be an ally, would not work for peace in the Middle East, and would not restrain the worst excesses of the radical Muslim Brotherhood. Peaceful and moderate Muslims were also dismayed; they are not represented by the Muslim Brotherhood.

Egypt is under military rule with the ouster of Mubarak. Although there remain deep divisions between Islamists and those who favor a secular government, the overwhelming likelihood is that the Islamic Brotherhood will prevail. With Mubarak gone, the transition to either a military government or one founded on Islamic law is guaranteed.

Although there are formalities yet to be accomplished, it is a done deal. While there is a nominal struggle between militarists and the Muslim Brotherhood, the reality is that there are enough connections between the two that the practical effects will be the same no matter which side wins. As the Los Angeles Times reported on July 11, 2012,

Months of multi-stage elections in Egypt have resulted in a slow-burning power struggle between the ascendant Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Mubarak-allied generals of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces.

With hopes for freedom and democracy dashed, the revolutionaries have gone home. They are not protesting in the streets. They have resigned themselves, after a brief flicker of hope during the Arab Spring, to a long Arab Winter. The L.A. Times notes that "things in Egypt are incredibly quiet."

Whether the new Egyptian president, Mohammad Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood, continues to consolidate his power, or whether the military gains might, is a question of no significant outcome. The case is clear: in a part of the world in which things can never be good, in a part of the world in which the only variation is between bad and worse, Egypt has taken a turn for the worse.

Varieties of Colonization

Over the centuries, countries have founded colonies - this happens so regularly that it may be assumed to be an organic aspect of statehood. But there has been great variety in the colonization process. We may examine (a) the colonies of the Greeks in the Mediterranean Sea and Black Sea area around 700 B.C., (b) the expansions of Islam as colonialism, (c) early European colonial efforts, sometimes recounted under the heading 'the age of exploration,' and (d) later modern European colonialism.

By enumerating these four categories of colonization, we do not mean to assert that other categories do not exist. There are also other forms of expansion which are not colonial: Rome's expansions arguably integrated new territory to an extent which transcended the concept of 'colony' so that the added territory was integrated into the mother country. We also note that colonialism is an ideology which does not lie behind all colonization efforts.

Each of these phases had slightly different motives and methods. Even within the last category, the modern European nations had varying approaches to managing their colonies. Historian William Duiker writes that the economic goals of colonialism

could be realized in cooperation with local political elites, whose loyalty could be earned (or purchased) by economic rewards or by confirming them in their positions of authority and status in a new colonial setting. Sometimes, however, this policy, known as "indirect rule," was not feasible because local leaders refused to cooperate with their colonial masters or even actively resisted the foreign conquest. In such cases, the local elites were removed from power and replaced with a new set of officials recruited from the mother country.

European countries could manage their colonies either through a system of direct control or through a system of indirect control. Each of the two options had advantages and disadvantages.

The distinction between direct and indirect rule was not always clearly drawn, and many colonial powers vacillated between the two approaches, sometimes in the same colonial territory.

An example of indirect control is the British rule of Nigeria, India, and Burma. Local government officials were used; they held office, made decisions, and operated their bureaucracies. They collected taxes and used the revenue in accord with the native governmental traditions. There were even elections and other forms of limited self-rule, especially in strictly local matters. The goal of the British was to continue to develop leaders within the native people. Governmental institutions were patterned on European or English styles but had local rules. For example, the British allowed the Indians to continue many aspects of their caste system. In Africa,

most European governments settled down to govern their new territories with the least effort and expense possible. In many cases, they pursued a form of indirect rule reminiscent of the British approach to the princely states in the Indian peninsula. The British, with their tradition of decentralized government at home, were especially prone to adopt this approach.

By contrast, the French in Somaliland and Vietnam, and the Portuguese in Angola, used a method of direct control. Foreign officials - from France or Portugal - were brought in to rule. There was essentially no self-rule, and the goal was assimilation: to integrate the colony not only economically into the mother country, but to change its society as well. The government institutions, processes, and laws were based only on the home country's patterns, and not on any local or native traditions. France's preference for direct, instead of indirect, control

reflected the centralized system introduced in France by Napoleon. As in the British colonies, at the top of the pyramid was a French official, usually known as a governor-general, who was appointed from Paris and governed with the aid of a bureaucracy in the capital city. At the provincial level, French commissioners were assigned to deal with local administrators, but the latter were required to be conversant in French and could be transferred to a new position at the needs of the central government.

Comparing indirect control of colonies by the British with the direct control of colonies by the French and Portuguese, it might seem at first that the indirect method was more humane and kinder to the native populations. But, in fact, both methods had their advantages. Under the direct control of French colonies in Africa,

Africans were eligible to run for office and to serve in the French National Assembly, and a few were appointed to high positions in the colonial administration. Such policies reflected the absence of racist attitudes in French society as well as the French conviction of the superiority of Gallic culture and their revolutionary belief in the universality of human nature.

Contrasting to the goal of assimilation was a competing goal, seen in alternative forms of colonization, of association: "collaborating with local elites while leaving local traditions alone." Obviously, the British system of indirect control had its own set of benefits for the natives:

One advantage of such an administrative system was that it did not severely disrupt local customs and institutions.

It is important to note that this distinction between direct control and indirect control of colonies applies mainly - almost exclusively - to European colonization efforts from the late 1700's to the early 1900's. Other waves of colonization in history, from the Greeks in the eighth century B.C. to the Islamic conquests and invasions of the Middle Ages, used different forms of management for their colonies.

Japan Modernizes

Like China, Japan had for many centuries a political policy of isolationism. But from the early 1800's onward, Japan emerged into world trade, more so than China, and more willingly than China. Historian William Duiker writes:

In contrast to China, where a centralized political system was viewed as crucial to protect the vast country from foreign conquest or internal fractionalization, a decentralized political system reminiscent of the feudal system in medieval Europe held sway in Japan under the hegemony of a powerful military leader, or shogun, who ruled with varying degrees of effectiveness in the name of the hereditary emperor. This system lasted until the early seventeenth century, when a strong shogunate called the Tokugawa rose to power after a protracted civil war. The Tokugawa managed to revitalize the traditional system in a somewhat more centralized form that enabled it to survive for another 250 years.

The Tokugawa era, then, can be defined as stretching from 1603 to 1868, until Japan loosened its isolationism and entered into more regular international trade. Japan's first contact with the modern West was with Portuguese sailors in the mid 1500's; Japan at first became even more isolationist in response to these foreign contacts. In 1853, however, Japan negotiated a treaty with the United States, providing for expanded merchant contact. Not only was Japan changing its foreign policy; it was also changing internally. The Tokugawa rule came to an end, replaced by the Meiji government. Under Meiji rule, the empire worked to modernize itself: semi-democratic deliberative bodies were formed, all social classes were to have a voice in government, all social classes were to have a degree of economic freedom, laws were to be rationalized, and a deliberate examination of other nations was undertaken to find ways to improve Japanese industry and the Japanese economy. Okuma Shigenobu, who was prime minister in Japan when the Meiji era began, and for a number of years in the Meiji era, wrote:

By comparing the Japan of fifty years ago with the Japan of today, it will be seen that she has gained considerably in the extent of her territory, as well as in her population, which now numbers nearly fifty million. Her government has become constitutional not only in name, but in fact, and her national education has attained to a high degree of excellence. In commerce and industry, the emblems of peace, she has also made rapid strides, until her import and export trades together amounted in 1907 to the enormous sum of 926,000,000 yen. Her general progress, during the short space of half a century, has been so sudden and swift that it presents a rare spectacle in the history of the world. This leap forward is the result of the stimulus which the country received on coming into contact with the civilization of Europe and America.

In addition to realizing that Japan's contact with Europe and the U.S. was responsible for its transformation into a modern industrial power, as foreseen by the deliberate Meiji policy of examining systems in foreign nations, Prime Minister Okuma also was active in Japanese politics during the war between Japan and Russia. The outcome of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905 altered the thinking of Western governments about East Asia - it raised concerns that Japan's expansionist ambitions and modern weaponry were a serious threat to European claims in the area. Russia's defeat in this was one of many factors which led to the fall of the Czarist government in 1917.

As Japan grew stronger, it established "spheres on influence" in eastern Asia, including the southern end of the Korean peninsula, the island of Taiwan (also called 'Formosa'), and the Chinese coastal city of Amoy (also called 'Xiamen'). This established Japan as a significant regional power, emergent from its isolationist phase. In fact, Japan's participation in World War II grew out of its effort to create an empire in the Pacific.

Recovering from its defeat in 1945 in World War II, aided by the United States, Japan recovered its industrial and economic power. Between the war's end and 1953, the United States gave Japan $2.44 billion dollars in reconstruction aid, even more money in the form of soldiers spending their wages in Japan as they were stationed there, and help in the form of expertise in the rebuilding process and in the form of actual construction as the American military built infrastructure. Japan once again took its place as a significant modern economy.

But Japan faces another problem. Given the carrying capacity of eastern Asia and the Pacific rim, Japan is significantly underpopulated. Despite serious worries in the 1960's and 1970's that there could be a overpopulation problem, the opposite is now true. Sustainable clean air and clean water can be provided for millions more than currently occupy the region, and responsible agriculture and renewable food sources can feed them. But despite this capacity, the population remains dangerously low, causing a number of economic, social, and political problems. Patrick Buchanan writes that Japan is

on the path to national suicide. Japan, its population peaking at 128 million in 2010, will lose 25 million people by 2050. A fifth of her population will disappear and one in six Japanese will be over 80. Japan's median age will rise from 45 to 55. And these projections assume a rise in the fertility of Japanese women that is nowhere in sight.

Japan - or any other nation - needs a large proportion of young people in its society. It is not sustainable to have a large elderly population with relatively few young workers.

In March 2010 came more grim news. Marketwatch reported the birth rate in Tokyo had fallen to 1.09 children per woman and if "current trends continued, Japan's population will fall to 95 million by 2050, from about 127 million now," a loss of 32 million people. At this rate, a fourth of the nation will vanish in four decades. "With as much as 40 percent of its population over 65 years of age," wrote Joel Kotkin," of Forbes, "no matter how innovative the workforce, Dai Nippon will simply be too old to compete."

If the population problems described above actually happen - if Japan is really going to lose a great percentage of its population, and if Japanese don't start having lots of children soon - the social, political, and economic problems caused will not only ruin Japan, but would be large enough to affect other nations: this degree of instability can cause wars. Further, the environmental impact would be disastrous: any hope for sustainable clean air and clean water is predicated upon a population which is growing steadily. The common notion that large populations are bad for the environment is simply wrong: the ideal population grows at a steady and slow pace. This allows for "green" planning, and provides the economic energy to put that planning into practice. The population crisis facing Japan would trigger a total abandonment of any "green" practices because of economic necessities.

Noting that births in Japan in 2008 were 40 percent below what they were in 1948, Nicholas Eberstadt writes, in Foreign Affairs, that "fertility, migration and mortality trends are propelling Japan into ... a degree of aging thus far contemplated only in science fiction."

The Japanese government has recognized the problem, and is attempting to deal with it. As in many other developed nations, cash bonuses and other incentives are offered to parents who have more children. It is not clear, however, that this will be enough to change the trend.

In December 2010, Agence France-Press, citing the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, reported: "On current trends, Japan's population of 127 million will by 2055 shrivel to 90 million." Recognizing the gravity of the demographic crisis, the Democratic Party of Japan, which was swept into power in 2009, planned $3,000 allowances per child and assistance with child care for families with grade-school children. The need seems desperate. In a 2010 Washington Post story on the decline in Japanese students attending U.S. universities, Blaine Harden wrote, "The number of children [in Japan] under the age of 15 has fallen for 28 consecutive years. The size of the nation's high school graduating class has shrunk by 35 percent in two decades."

It is clear that Japan's most pressing need is to have more children. The alternative is that Japan will simply cease to exist.

China in Recent Centuries

Chinese dynasties conceived of themselves as ruling with the “mandate of heaven” - a phrase which corresponds roughly to the absolute monarchies of France and Russia claiming a “divine right” to govern. The Ming dynasty held power from 1368 until 1644. Historian William Duiker writes:

In 1800, the Qing or Manchu dynasty (1644-1911) appeared to be at the height of its power. The Manchus, a seminomadic people whose original homeland was north of the Great Wall, had invaded China in the mid-seventeenth century and conquered the tottering Ming dynasty in 1644. Under the rule of two great emperors, Kangxi (1661-1722) and Qianlong (1736-1795), China had then experienced a long period of peace and prosperity. Its borders were secure, and its culture and intellectual achievements were the envy of the world. Its rulers, hidden behind the walls of the Forbidden City in Beijing, had every reason to describe their patrimony as the Central Kingdom, China’s historical name for itself. But a little over a century later, humiliated and harassed by the black ships and big guns of the Western powers, the Qing dynasty, the last in a series that had endured for more than two thousand years, collapsed in the dust.

The “mandate of heaven” seemed to be over. Many factors were at work during the last century of the Qing dynasty. Contact with other nations increased, despite the government’s longstanding official isolationist policies. Social tensions had long existed inside China, and they grew stronger in the years leading up to 1911.

When Western pressure on the Manchu Empire began to increase during the early nineteenth century, it served to exacerbate the existing strains in Chinese society. By 1800, the trade relationship that restricted Western merchants to a small commercial outlet at Canton was no longer acceptable to the British, who chafed at the growing trade imbalance resulting from a growing appetite for Chinese tea. Their solution was opium. A product more addictive than tea, opium was grown under company sponsorship in northeastern India and then shipped directly to the Chinese market. Soon demand for the product in South China became insatiable, despite an official prohibition on its use. Bullion now flowed out of the Chinese imperial treasury into the pockets of British merchants and officials.

Europeans, especially the English, wanted to correct the trade imbalance and wanted the Chinese to spend their bullion (gold and silver). The word ‘bullion’ refers to precious metals used in trade by weight, instead of in coin form. The most common example is gold bars. (This is different than ‘bouillon’ which is broth!) Creating a favorable balance of trade - making sure that you export as much or more than you import - is a historical factor which drives countries to invent new products, or seek new markets. Europeans wanted to trade with China, but China was not interested in most of the goods the Europeans had to offer. Despite both European and Chinese law against its use, the product that the Europeans had the most success in selling was opium.

When the Chinese attempted to prohibit the opium trade, the British declared war. The Opium War lasted three years (1839-1842) and graphically demonstrated the superiority of British firepower and military tactics to those of the Chinese.

Although the Qing / Manchu dynasty would last another 70 years or so, its decline in power was clear.

Even more ominous developments were taking place in the Chinese heartland, where European economic penetration led to the creation of so-called spheres of influence dominated by diverse foreign powers. Although the imperial court retained theoretical sovereignty throughout the country, in practice its political, economic, and administrative influence beyond the region of the capital was increasingly circumscribed.

Within China’s borders, areas were marked off, to be controlled by Russia, Japan, England, Germany, France, and Italy. It was clear that the imperial dynasty was no longer the actual authority in China. By 1911, the imperial government would fall, and although it was replaced by Sun Yat-sen’s nationalist democracy, instability would mark China from 1911 until 1949. Internal conflicts between nationalists and communists, and external conflicts with the attacking Japanese, prevented the solidification of a durable sociopolitical arrangement.

With the triumph of the communists in 1949, under the leadership of Mao Zedong (also spelled ‘Mao Tse-tung’), China was able to assert itself against foreign influences and once again chart its own course, even if that course was disastrous. China regained its sovereignty and autonomy, perhaps at the cost of human rights and individual freedoms. China’s new challenge would be to overcome the oppressor within (Mao and the communists) instead of the oppressors from outside (foreign economic powers).

Many observers speculated that overpopulation would be China’s next major challenge. Widespread food shortages after the 1949 revolution encouraged that view. But it has become clear that the near-famine conditions were due to mismanagement by communist officials, and surprisingly that, instead of overpopulation, underpopulation may be the next major challenge for China. The Washington Post reports:

More than 30 years after China’s one-child policy was introduced, creating two generations of notoriously chubby, spoiled only children affectionately nicknamed “little emperors,” a population crisis is looming in the country. The average birthrate has plummeted to 1.8 children per couple as compared with six when the policy went into effect, according to the U.N. Population Division, while the number of residents 60 and older is predicted to explode from 16.7 percent of the population in 2020 to 31.1 percent by 2050. That is far above the global average of about 20 percent.

The economic, social, and political disaster awaiting a country with such a low birthrate is as bad - or possibly worse - than the cruelties inflicted upon it by either domestic communists or foreign imperialists. Far from being overpopulated - the carrying capacity of Chinese territory with sustainable, renewable, and responsible land management would support a much larger population with food and with clean air and water - China faces a future of economic collapse and social chaos if it fails to have more children. An ideal birthrate is somewhere in excess of 2 children per couple. Patrick Buchanan writes:

Using UN projections of a Chinese population of 1.4 billion by 2050, this translates into 440 million people in China over the age of sixty, an immense burden of retired, elderly, and aging for the labor force to carry and the country to care for. Shanghai is already approaching that point, with more than 20 percent of its population over sixty, while the birthrate is below one child per couple, one of the lowest anywhere on earth. Due to Beijing’s one-couple, one-child policy, which has led to tens of millions of aborted baby girls, 12 to 15 percent of young Chinese men will be unable to find wives. As single males are responsible for most of society’s violence, the presence of tens of millions of young single Chinese men portends a time of trouble in the Middle Kingdom.

As the Chinese government begins to abandon its “one-child” policy, and even in some cases begins to encourage married couples to have more children, the question facing China now is whether or not it is too late, and whether China can rebuild its population. The Chinese can only survive by having many more children than they currently do. But will they do it? Some Chinese couples find the idea of having more than one child, even if that is necessary for the survival of the nation, financially challenging. The Washington Post writes:

Yang Jiawei, 27, and his wife, Liu Juanjuan, 26, said they would love to have two children and are legally allowed to do so. But like many Chinese, they have only the scant medical and life insurance provided by the government. Without a social safety net, they say, the choice would be irresponsible. “People in the West wrongly see the one-child policy as a rights issue,” said Yang, a construction engineer whose wife is seven months pregnant with the couple's first child. “Yes, we are being robbed of the chance to have more than one child. But the problem is not just some policy. It is money.”

Other Chinese couples have the financial ability to have more children, but simply don’t want to, having gotten used to the self-indulgent lifestyle of the “one-child" era. The Washington Post continues, interviewing Wang Weijia, a 31-year-old human resources administrator with an 8-month-old son:

Other couples cite psychological reasons for hesitating. Wang, the human resources administrator, said she wants an only child because she was one herself: “We were at the center of our families and used to everyone taking care of us. We are not used to taking care of and don’t really want to take care of others.” Chen Zijian, a 42-year-old who owns a translation company, put it more bluntly. For the dual-career, middle-class parents who are bringing the birthrate down, he said, it’s about being successful enough to be selfish. Today’s 20- and 30-somethings grew up seeing their parents struggle during the early days of China’s experiment with capitalism and don’t want that kind of life for themselves, he said. Even one child makes huge demands on parents’ time, he said. “A mother has to give up at least two years of her social life.” Then there are the space issues - “You have to remodel your apartment” - and the strategizing - “You have to have a résumé ready by the time the child is 9 months old for the best preschools.” Most of his friends are willing to deal with this once, Chen said, but not twice. “Ours is the first generation with higher living standards,” he said. “We do not want to make too many sacrifices.”

It is a clear law of economics that a nation needs a population growing at a slow but steady pace in order to have a sustainable standard of living. Will China be able to manage it?

India after Gandhi

Mohandas K. Gandhi is probably the most famous Indian in the world. Born in 1869, he studied law in London from 1888 to 1891. His exposure to English legal tradition and political philosophy stimulated his thinking about topics like trial by jury, writs of habeas corpus, and majority rule. Bringing these ideas back to India, as well as to South Africa, his goal to was ensure that people in other countries would follow the British path to civil liberties.

Ironically, as in many colonial cases, the logic by which the Indians would seek their freedom and independence from the British Empire would be the logic of the British culture - the colonies used England's intellectual heritage against it. The arguments would be drawn from the Magna Carta, the works of John Locke, and the English Bill of Rights of 1689.

One reason that Gandhi became so famous was his non-violent approach. Historian William Duiker writes:

In 1930, Mohandas Gandhi, the sixty-one-year-old leader of the nonviolent movement for Indian independence from British rule, began a march to the sea with seventy-eight followers. Their destination was Dandi, a coastal town some 240 miles away. The group covered about 12 miles a day. As they went on, Gandhi preached his doctrine of nonviolent resistance to British rule in every village he passed through: "Civil disobedience is the inherent right of a citizen. He dare not give it up without ceasing to be a man." By the time he reached Dandi, twenty-four days later, his small group had became an army of thousands. On arrival, Gandhi picked up a pinch of salt from the sand. All along the coast, thousands did likewise, openly breaking British laws that prohibited Indians from making their own salt. The British had long profited from their monopoly on the making and sale of salt, an item much in demand in a tropical country. By their simple acts of disobedience, Gandhi and the Indian people had taken a bold step on their long march to independence.

Gandhi would ultimately be successful, but India's independence would be problematic. Long-suppressed tensions inside Indian society, held in check by English rule, burst into the open. Conflicts between Hindus and Muslims emerged from hiding and remain until the present time. While Gandhi freed his country using nonviolent means, a few individuals in his country have used that freedom to engage in violence. Gandhi wrote that

Victory attained by violence is tantamount to defeat, for it is momentary.

In recent years, the violence between Hindus and Muslims has spilled over into attacks on other religious groups:

In September 2009, the London Times reported on the "worst anti-Christian violence" in India's history. In Orissa state, said local officials, "Hindu fanatics tried to poison water sources at relief camps holding at least 15,000 people displaced by mob violence." Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Christ were beaten as they took four orphans into an adoption center.

There is a sad irony in violence taking place in a nation which owes its freedom and independence to a nonviolent leader: both Mother Teresa and Gandhi won the Nobel Peace Prize - and those freed by Gandhi use violence on those who work for Mother Teresa's organization. The same logic - human dignity, human equality - motivated both Gandhi and Mother Teresa; yet mobs exploit Gandhi's freedom to assault Mother Teresa's workers.

This is not a comment critical of India; it is a comment about human nature. Similar stories can be told about many nations. It is a reminder that we need to be vigilant against our own inclinations and desires. Humans are prone to enjoy the fruits of virtues while violating those same virtues.

Greeks and Turks

The island of Cyprus has long been the object of desire - over the years and centuries, the English, the Greeks, the Ottoman Turks, and other powers have controlled, or attempted to control, the island. Its location places it perpetually in the midst of conflicting geopolitical ambitions. In 1960, it became independent, but its Turkish and Greek ethic residents did not blend harmoniously into one nation, and each group wanted to join the island diplomatically to its homeland. Conflicts between the two groups on the island tempted Turkey to send its army in 1964, but LBJ warned Turkey away from such action. Historian Barry Werth explains what happened in 1974:

In July, a Greek military junta had engineered a coup on the Mediterranean island, where ancient ethnic rivalries between Greeks and Turks had neared the breaking point for more than a decade. The junta installed as a president a former guerilla leader who called for enosis - unification with Greece. Kissinger, distracted by Watergate and with no good options, initially cabled both capitals that the United States rejected enosis, and he warned away the Soviets. Beyond that, the U.S. position, oddly aloof given the dangers to the Western alliance and international stability, supported the junta - until it was ousted eight days after the coup.

Providentially, the Watergate scandal was now moving into the past, and American was benefitting from the capable leadership of President Gerald Ford. Ford, in turn, correctly assessed Secretary of State Henry Kissinger as possessing the both the international understanding and the diplomatic skills needed to navigate the complex situation in Cyprus. On Wednesday, August 14,

during the early morning hours, Ford came face-to-face with his first foreign crisis. Kissinger woke him by telephone to say that Turkish forces had launched heavy air and ground attacks and appeared to be on their way toward seizing most of northern Cyprus. The Geneva peace talks had collapsed. Thousands of Greek Cypriot refugees were pouring southward after Turkish planes bombed Nicosia, the capital.

The Turks had already briefly invaded Cyprus in July of 1974; now, approximately a month later, they were doing it again. Within a few days, the Turkish forces took over a little less than half of the island. A ceasefire left the island split between Greeks and Turks. The other split nations in the world at that time (Korea, Germany, Vietnam) were directly the result of the Cold War. The dividing of Cyprus was primarily the result of longstanding tensions between Greeks and Turks, but indirect Cold War implications were present as well, demanding that Ford and Kissinger devise a thoughtful American response. To minimize loss of life, and avert a potentially larger conflict involving other nations in the region, Cyprus was left as a partially-divided territory with an ambiguous status: the Turkish region was not recognized as a legitimate government. It remains in essentially the same condition forty years later.