The emir of Qatar, Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, meets April 14 in the Oval Office with President Barack Obama. The American president had high praise for the Qatari monarch's support for democracy in Libya. (Credit: Gary Fabiano/Sipa Press/Newscom )
Qatar: The small Arab monarchy with the loud democratic voice
Qatar, the tiny monarchy on the Persian Gulf that's rich in natural gas, is by no means a free country. And yet, it's become a champion for freedom in North Africa and the Middle East. Can it be a credible advocate, given its own democracy deficit?
It won high praise from President Obama as the prime Arab backer of the democratic cause in Libya. It led the Arab League to support the no-fly zone over Libya, and then it sent its fighter jets to enforce it. Qatar became the first Arab country to recognize the rebel transitional council as the only legitimate government in Libya. It's helping the rebels market their oil.
There's more. That stubborn dictator in Yemen who won't leave? Qatar and other countries the belong to the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council have been working on a deal to get him to quit. Meanwhile, Qatar wants to set up a Middle East Development Bank to support Arab countries as they undergo democratic transitions. The bank would be modeled on the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development that proved so crucial in helping Central and Eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
But there is another side to Qatar's democracy ledger. The country backed up Saudi troops in neighboring Bahrain to put down democratic protesters there (Qatar says it had to fulfill its alliance obligations). It's friendly with Iran (in the interests of fending off a grab of an enormous gas field that it shares with Iran). Despite reforms in recent years that allow municipal elections and women to vote, the rule of the royal family is firm. The watchdog group Freedom House designates Qatar "not free." The group complains especially about the lack of rights for foreign workers, who make up the majority of the population.
A good illustration of the credibility question is the Middle East media giant, al-Jazeera. The satellite TV network is based in Qatar, and owned by the government. Executives say the network maintains editorial independence, but apparently not. It reported enthusiastically and continually on the revolutions in North Africa, but it's been criticized for under-reporting the put down of protesters next door in Bahrain.
At the moment, Qatar itself is a peninsula of stability in the region. No mass protests here. Its wealth and social support for its citizens, and its reforms in education and the economy, have kept it peaceful and growing (its economic growth for this year is forecast at 20 percent -- the highest in the world).
Qatar is a helpful US ally. It is home to an American airbase, and has withstood severe criticism in the Arab world for that. It can be a forceful advocate for democracy in the region because of its influence, wealth, and forward-leaning ruler. But it will have to keep moving in the democracy direction itself, or, like its famed TV network, it may begin to lose the confidence of the democracy builders it is trying to help.
Bosnian Muslim women, survivors of Srebrenica atrocities in 1995, watch the news on the arrest of Ratko Mladic, in Sarajevo on May 26. ((Credit: AFP photo - Elivs Barukcic - Newscom))
Europe's triumph in the arrest of Ratko Mladic
A diverse Europe has long struggled to end its history of ethnic and religious violence. The European Union was created just to do just that. On Thursday, the continent may have reached a moment of triumph with the capture of Ratko Mladić.
The former commander of the Bosnian Serb army was the most-wanted man behind the 1995 massacre of about 8,000 Muslims in Srebrenica. With his arrest in Serbia (and coming trial before a Hague tribunal), the war-ravaged Balkans could now be better prepared to accept long-term peace.
The countries that once made up the former Yugoslavia were the last corner of Europe still prone to large-scale ethnic or religious violence. The victims of the Srebrenica massacre – the largest in Europe since the Holocaust – have to be given justice if the Balkans are to find peace.
The reasons for Mr. Mladić's capture have yet to emerge, but the lessons for other parts of the world – notably the Middle East – are clear. When tribal-like nations such as Serbia decide to put higher values – democracy and market economics – ahead of extreme nationalism, the chances for strife and war go down.
Serbs were not well served by leaders like Slobodan Milosevic who whipped up nationalist passions and historic resentments to stay in power. After a slow transition and astute intervention by the West, Serbia is now eager to join the EU and boost its economy. The capture of Mladić, who may have been protected by some Serb security forces, was a key condition for membership.
The lure of EU-style prosperity, as well as the influence that rising wealth will have on democracy in Serbia, must have contributed to the capture of Mladić.
Civic values do matter, and eventually win out. That's an important lesson now for places like Syria, Libya, and Yemen, where young Arabs of differing tribal and religious stripes are struggling to overcome differences to set up democracies and achieve a better life.
[A footnote: The Monitor discovered the massacre site of the Srebrenica victims, winning the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting.]
President Obama delivers his keynote speech to both Houses of Parliament in the historic Westminster Hall in London, previously accorded only to a handful of eminent figures like Nelson Mandela, Charles de Gaulle, and the Pope. (Credit: PA Photos/ABACA/Newscom)
Obama's 'values' speech at Westminster
One thing President Obama knows how to do is give a good speech. He delivered one today before the British Parliament, which was gathered in London's majestic Westminster Hall where no US president has ever spoken before.
In a nutshell, the president focused on the democratic and free-market values that bind the United States and the United Kingdom, and that sustain their leadership role in the world.
Values talk can get poo-pooed as empty rhetoric. But this was the right time and place for today's speech, coming in the middle of the president's week-long tour of Europe.
It's been a particularly rocky decade between the US and Europe generally, with war and recession challenging the world's democracy leaders. Europeans have been looking for a "reset" in transatlantic relations. At the same time, a vital corner of the world is now reaching for the rights that Americans, Britons, and other Europeans enjoy – a confirmation that it is values, and not just policies, that drive people.
"As two of the most powerful nations in history, we must always remember that the true source of our influence hasn't just been the size of our economy, the reach of our military, or the land that we've claimed," the president said. "It has been the values that we must never waver in defending around the world – the idea that all human beings are endowed with certain rights that cannot be denied."
On a global scale, you can see the difference that democratic values make. Security and economic interests – and arm-twisting – drove Russia and China to allow the UN no-fly resolution on Libya. But it is the democratic doer countries of NATO that are carrying out the military mission. And it is the freedom idea that caused Libyan rebels to denounce Turkey – a democracy – for resisting a no-fly zone.
Values without deeds are what make for empty rhetoric. At important points in history, the Americans and British have infused their morals with meaning – on the beaches at Normandy, during the cold war, and in the post-communist era.
This century demands more democratic deeds, otherwise known as leadership. That is the test for Mr. Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameron, and other leaders of the ever-growing democratic club.
Oprah Winfrey, whose last show on network TV is May 25, spoke last year at the Women's Conference in Los Angeles. ((Credit: Lionel Hahn- ABACAUSA.COM -Newscom))
Why I won't miss Oprah after her last show
The queen of TV talk shows, Oprah Winfrey, ends her daily program Wednesday after a 25-year run. While many viewers will miss the comfort and guidance that her show offered, Oprah’s exit from network television isn’t really a loss.
Rather, it simply opens a space for others to feed the American diet for self-help advice, but in new ways. The post-Oprah gurus of “yes, you can” optimism will simply build on her success, just as she built her “O” empire on the works of earlier motivational figures.
The self-help movement in the United States goes way back, and it’s always evolving. Its roots lie with the New England Puritans, who saw themselves as the chosen people ever in need of reform in order to be a model for others. Ben Franklin offered up advice in "Poor Richard’s Almanack." The Declaration of Independence declared a right to the pursuit of happiness. Horatio Alger told tales of boys made good by their own efforts. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote of self-enlightenment.
In the 20th century, the pace picked up with books like Dale Carnegie’s "How to Win Friends and Influence People." The 1960s and the “Me Generation” brought an explosion of “self actualization” through books, broadcasts, and seminars.
Oprah’s strongest antecedent may be the consciousness-raising groups of would-be feminists during the '60s. Just as she liberated herself from an abusive and poor upbringing, she sought to help others find power within themselves to overcome doubt, fear, and sadness. She became the high priestess of a secular spirituality.
The end of “The Oprah Winfrey Show” may simply be her way of acknowledging that she has succeeded. In Wednesday's show, she could repeat one of her favorite lines from the Wizard of Oz, when Glinda the Good Witch tells Dorothy: “You always had the power.”
There is a classic, ironic dilemma for those who are seen as dispensers of wisdom. When is enough enough?
After more than 5,000 shows, Oprah was wise enough to call it quits, at least in the big top of network TV, while she now focuses on her new cable TV channel, OWN. In leaving the bright spotlight of daily talk shows, she only confirms that she was needed for a certain time in American history and no more.
If many of her viewers still want her for more advice, they'll have to pay for it on cable.
British Prime Minister David Cameron met with social entrepreneurs in London last February to talk about his idea of a "big society." (Credit; AFP PHOTO/Lewis Whyld/POOL/Newscom)
Obama visit to Britain: How about a peek at Cameron's 'big society'?
During his three-day visit to Britain starting Tuesday, President Obama may want to see an example of “right-wing social engineering,” as Newt Gingrich would call it.
As a former community organizer from Chicago, Mr. Obama might relate.
Prime Minister David Cameron, the Conservative Party leader, has been struggling in the year since taking office to implement his grand idea of transforming Britain into a “big society.” The concept is still vague to most Britons.
Mr. Cameron wants to create a culture of giving – mainly charitable donations and volunteering – that will make up for cuts in government services that are necessary in these lean times.
But “big society” is also meant to make people more accountable and responsible by putting them more in touch with their communities. Many powers of the central government, for example, are being devolved to local governing councils.
London (like Washington) does not always know best. “In this past decade,” Cameron says, “we have surely tested to destruction the idea that a bit more state action here, a welfare payment, law or initiative there will get to grips with the crime, the drug addiction, the family breakdown that plagues too many of our communities.”
Some ideas that he’s putting in place: Making it easy to donate money through ATMs; enlisting teenagers to volunteer in a “national citizenship service”; lowering tax burdens for philanthropy. Many of the ideas come from America, which already has a strong legacy of giving.
Shifting an entire society’s values takes time and patience, something rare in politics, as Obama knows. Even Cameron’s own Conservatives are a hard sell for his concept after years of singing Thatcher individualism.
The United States has yet to go through the massive budget cuts that Britain is enduring. When it does, Obama may want to import back into America some of the “giving” ideas that Britain is now trying to absorb.
Oprah Winfrey spoken candidly about her miscarriage at age 14 during a CNN interview last January. She only became pregnant because of "bad choices and not having boundaries and the abuse, sexual abuse, from the time I was nine," she said. (Credit: Newscom)
Taxpayer cost per each unintended pregnancy: $9,000
Almost half of all pregnancies in the US are unintended, a fact well known and still much debated. But now a study by the Brookings Institution, based on 2001 data, shows that the median government cost to provide care for these mothers and their children is about $9,000.
Putting a figure to this taxpayer subsidy should help further the debate over how to prevent such pregnancies.
“Unintended pregnancy likely represents a substantial cost to taxpayers, draining already tight federal and state budget,” write the study’s authors, Emily Monea and Adam Thomas.
A majority of these babies were born to unmarried, low-income women who can’t afford the cost of delivery as well as prenatal and postnatal care. About 8 percent of unintended pregnancies result in abortion; in 2001, such abortions numbered 168,601 and cost the government about $567 each.
The study also estimates the total savings to taxpayers if all unintended pregnancies could be prevented: from $4.7 billion to $6.7 billion. Such a huge sum makes it compelling to spend money on pregnancy prevention – such as better education for low-income girls.
“Children whose births resulted from unintended pregnancy are less likely than other children to succeed in school and are more likely to live in poverty, claim public assistance and engage in delinquent and criminal behavior later in life,” the study notes.
Two-parent families are still considered the norm in the US. A poll earlier this year by the Pew Research Center found most Americans regard single motherhood as detrimental to society, although they look favorably toward other types of nontraditional families.
Dominique Strauss-Kahn attends a meeting in Autun, France, in 2006. Accusations that the powerful French politician who heads the International Monetary Fund sexually assaulted a Manhattan hotel maid unleashed a crisis in his homeland, where he had been considered a leading candidate for president, and added to the jitters of European economies in need of financial support. ( (Credit: Mousse/MCT/Newscom/file))
Strauss-Kahn arrest: End of the French media taboo?
Will sex-crime charges against a favorite for the French presidency undo a media taboo on the sexual escapades of the French elite?
Dalliances among the powerful are a nonstory in France. For one thing, strict libel and privacy laws discourage such media coverage. For another, infidelity is believed to be so common as to be a waste of reporter shoe leather. Perhaps more important, though, is the French attitude that affairs of the heart (or otherwise) are unrelated to affairs of state. They are private matters of no public consequence, and should be of no interest to the media.
Then along comes the case of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the chief of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). He was expected to soon announce his candidacy for the French presidency, and to win. But he was charged on Monday with attempted rape and other crimes related to a maid who came to clean his suite at the Sofitel Hotel in New York on May 7. (For the Monitor's editorial on Mr. Strauss-Kahn, click here.)
The French media have long known of Strauss-Kahn's penchant for women. But they paid little heed until an investigation in 2008 of his affair with an IMF subordinate, a Hungarian economist named Piroska Nagy. The affair was found to be consensual, but to have shown poor judgment. The admired leader of the IMF apologized. End of story.
But should it have been? Some French journalists wonder, given the criminal charges against Strauss-Kahn that now endanger his presidential bid and his successful leadership of the IMF in a time of stressed global finances.
A leading French political commentator told The New York Times that journalists haven't done their job properly. For instance, he now regrets saying nothing about a former French foreign minister who was involved with the daughter of Syria's defense minister. "I was wrong. It had an impact on France's foreign policy," said Pierre Haski.
Former French President Francois Mitterand once answered "yes, it's true, and so what?" to a journalist's question about whether he had an out-of-wedlock daughter. Only after his death did it come out that the French government had financially supported his mistress and daughter.
The separation of the private-and-work spheres is not as tidy as the French may imagine. A boss who exercises power over employees to win sexual favors can poison an office. In a letter to IMF investigators, Ms. Nagy wrote that she was "damned if I did and damned if I didn't" agree to the affair, which was brief. She also noted that Strauss-Kahn has "a problem that may make him ill-equipped to lead an institution where women work under his command."
One can hardly endorse TMZ-style journalism in the United States. But the French taboo is another extreme that keeps the public in the dark about important aspects of a public figure's character and its consequences.
'Til debt do us part
Before Congress so easily raises the debt ceiling by a couple trillion dollars, it should weigh this latest factoid: Countries with the highest debt levels as a percentage of their economy fared the worst during the Great Recession.
And those debt levels include state and local debt, as well as private debt.
The direct correlation between debt and economic endurance during the recent global downturn was discovered by a Massachusetts-based think tank, the American Institute for Economic Research.
The AIER study looked at industrialized nations, and found this:
"Those countries with the highest levels of debt as a percentage of gross domestic product – including Japan (whose total domestic debt equaled 572% of GDP at the end of 2007) and the 16 countries in the Eurozone (388% of GDP) – fared the worst, the analysis shows. The United States (329% of GDP) did slightly better, while the Canadian economy (233%) did the best.
"Japan’s GDP fell 10% during the recession. The 16 European countries saw GDP tumble 5.4%. The U.S. economy declined by 4.1%. And Canada’s economy slid 3.4%."
Within the European Union, the two nations with the largest debt, Greece and Ireland, saw the biggest drops in output.
The upshot is this: The United States is setting itself up for an even steeper decline in the next recession by taking on more debt.
If Congress were to agree on any deficit targets, then it should try to best Canada's debt level. Eh?
Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul greets supporters outside Grand Central Terminal prior to holding a fundraiser on October 13, 2007. (RICHARD B. LEVINE/RICHARD B. LEVINE/Newscom)
Ron Paul runs for president again. Will GOP embrace a libertarian in 2012?
Creating jobs. Strengthening family values. Improving education. Protecting Social Security. Those are the leitmotifs that generally mark a presidential candidate’s stump speech. They’re poll-tested to resonate with the broadest possible audience, which is why most stump speeches sound eerily similar.
Not Ron Paul’s.
Back in December 2007, I took my family to New Hampshire to listen to the candidates speak. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s event was jammed. Mitt Romney’s was, too. So we ended up in a hotel conference room listening to Ron Paul (a longtime Republican congressman from Texas) whip up the crowd with … references to ancient Roman emperors who weakened their currencies.
I’ve seen grown women swoon at a Seal concert. But I never thought I’d see it happen during a discourse about the Federal Reserve. The ecstasy of his devoted followers, however, never materialized into a broad following and Mr. Paul’s candidacy soon faded.
Now Paul’s back in the ring. He formally announced his White House run yesterday. But unlike his efforts in 1988 or 2008, the explosion of US debt along with the weakening of the US dollar have turned his fringe talking points into mainstream issues. Paul was a one-man tea party before the tea party movement emerged in 2009, and his consistency as a fiscal conservative certainly gives him major street cred.
Those who back Paul were certainly buoyed by a shock poll from CNN last week that showed Paul running better against President Obama than any other GOP candidate.
The problem, though, is that Paul is not running in a Libertarian primary. He has to win the support of Republican voters, many of whom have expressed coolness toward his rigorously anti-war, isolationist foreign-policy views.
For example, consider the audience’s reaction to Rudy Giuliani's rebuttal of Paul’s comments about 9/11 in this Republican debate from May 2007:
Four years later, Paul still doesn’t shy away from controversy. Just before launching his presidential bid this week, he told a radio host that he wouldn’t have authorized the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, citing respect for the rule of law.
That may be a principled stand, but it’s probably not one that will endear him to conservative primary voters.
The irony is that Paul’s non-interventionist foreign policy was in some degree a hallmark of Republican thinking as recently as 2000, when George W. Bush campaigned on a policy of avoiding nation-building or using troops as the world’s policeman. 9/11 changed all that, which proves that American presidents can adjust their priorities with great speed. But so can voters. Nearly a century ago, the nation backed Woodrow Wilson – perhaps the most progressive US president ever. A short while later, voters embraced Calvin Coolidge – arguably our most libertarian chief executive.
Is the timing right for Paul? He certainly thinks so:
Announcing his run on ABC’s Good Morning America, Paul said the “time has come around to the point where the people are agreeing with much of what I've been saying for 30 years."
"So I think the time is right."
Is it? I plan on taking my family back to New Hampshire this December. If we can't get into the Ron Paul rally because of a traffic jam, we'll know for sure.
Egyptians gather as firefighters extinguish a fire on a church after clashes between Muslims and Christians in Cairo on May 7, 2011. ((Credit: STR/AFP/Getty Images/Newscom))
Egypt's deadly rumors of interfaith marriage
Once again, rumors of an interfaith marriage between a Christian (a former one) and a Muslim have sparked riots in Egypt. Thirteen people were killed and two churches set ablaze in street fighting between Muslims and Christians – called Copts in Egypt – over the weekend. Hundreds were injured.
A human-rights expert I talked to said the rumors are a pretext for Muslim fundamentalists to incite sectarian strife. Interfaith marriage is not the root cause of religious violence, explained Dwight Bashir, at the US Commission on International Religious Freedom in Washington. Indeed, both the Coptic and Muslim religious organizations in Egypt forbid interfaith marriage.
Understood. But I can't stop thinking about this bloodshed and its connection to marriages of mixed faiths, especially given the trend toward interfaith unions in the United States.
According to the 2008 US Religious Landscape Survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, 37 percent of American marriages mix faiths. "American Grace," a 2010 book by co-authors Robert Putnam (of "Bowling Alone" fame) and David Campbell puts the percentage at more than half. Whatever the exact proportion, the rate of interfaith unions in the US has grown rapidly in the last two decades, from about 25 percent.
Many reasons figure into this trend. The religious divide that came as a reaction to the free-love '60s has been replaced by a political divide. America is still a religious country, but it's getting more secular, with 16 percent declaring themselves "unaffiliated," according to Pew. And then there's just the basic makeup of America as a diverse and open society: People of different religious beliefs work together, sit side-by-side in school, live next door to each other. When they become friends, the religious divide fades.
The American trend doesn't make interfaith marriage any easier on a couple or any less complicated as a theological question. But couples that share similar motives and aspirations, similar values if not faiths, are attracted to each other nonetheless. Religions are having to adapt. Last year, Reform rabbis in America acknowledged intermarriage as a given that requires increased outreach and understanding. It was a switch from the previous view of it as a threat to Jewish identity to be resisted. The Pew survey found that 27 percent of Jews marry outside their faith; others say nearly half do.
Intermarriage is possible, of course, because wedlock in the US is regulated by civil law. That's not the case in Egypt or elsewhere in the Middle East where it is regulated by religious establishments that forbid marrying outside the faith (conversion is a different matter). Tiny Cyprus, the closest country to the region that allows interfaith civil unions, has become a wedding magnet for couples of different religions.
But human rights advocates in Egypt are pushing for "personal status" laws that would allow civil unions as well as divorce. As a democracy, Egypt should move in that direction, setting an example for its neighbors. How quickly its culture would catch up with a new law is another matter.
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