But it’s not only the younger generations of protesters who increasingly have recourse to digital and mobile media in their activism. Old-timers are discovering new media technologies as well. This was exemplified in the recent publication of a series of photo albums on Facebook, containing hundreds of snapshots of Italian activists from a 1970s student movement, the so-called “Movement of ’77.” This was not the first attempt to reunite the 1977 generation, and yet, it has never been so successful. What makes Facebook different? Are we dealing with plain nostalgia here? I would rather argue that these digital photo albums, which open up a whole new perspective on the 1970s, as they turn attention away from dominant memories of terrorism and violence, have potentials in that they contribute to a more inclusive, alternative “history from below.”

In 2011, Time Magazine elected global activists “person of the year”. That same year, Italian student protests which had occurred 35 years ago revived on the web as photographer Enrico Scuro – class of ’77 – uploaded his photographic collection to Facebook. In doing so, he unchained enthusiastic reactions from former protesters, who tagged themselves into the photographs and left comments of all sorts. People also sent Scuro their own photographs, thus contributing to what has become something of an online family album, currently containing over 3,000 photographs. As they narrated personal anecdotes, complemented by other people’s recollections, the former protesters collectively reconstructed the (hi)story of a generation, a history not tainted by traumatic memories of terrorism and political violence – typical of the official and public version of the Italian 1970s. Furthermore, the Facebook rage led to a series of reunions outside the virtual world and, a few months ago, to the publication of a selection of the photographs in book form. So what made Facebook different from previous attempts to gather the 1977 generation?

Facebook helps individuals develop a sense of belonging to a wider community, for example by joining or “liking” groups. The online sharing of photographs reinforces this sense of belonging. It prompts acts of recollection in an interactive and public context, turning the photographs into an occasion for a collective and oral “show and tell,” like the real-life viewing of, say, holiday snapshots or family albums among family members and friends.

Indeed, Facebook reproduces orality in a very similar way as when you’re going through a photo album. The tags and comments, which read very much like spontaneous, real-life or telephone conversations, substitute the pointing out of people or places in an album. This effect is amplified by the use of a wide range of special characters, text symbols and emoticons.

Facebook also changes concepts of private and public, as personal stories and identities are shared in a collective setting. Some of the most intimate photographs in Scuro’s albums, for example, include snapshots of women during or shortly before/after child labour. But then private photographs are always also public and social, in that they depend on shared understandings and conventions.

Nostalgia inevitably plays an important role here. Unlike other European countries, the 1968 protests in Italy were not a one-off event, but extended well into the 1970s, culminating in 1977. In some locations, such as the popular university town of Bologna, the student movement of 1977 had a highly creative and fun-loving character. Things changed, though, after the violent death of a student during riots in March: terrorism and heroin rapidly disarmed the ’77 generation, leaving the former protesters with little more than beautiful memories and bitter critiques of Berlusconian politics.

But the albums don’t simply reply to the generation’s yearning for what is no longer attainable: nostalgia can also provide empowerment. The 1977 photo albums on Facebook then offer a positive and progressive sense of memory retrieval, as people or events that have been left out of official history are now re-inserted into a collective and alternative history from below, thus allowing for a more inclusive history of the 1970s.

It’s obvious, though, that these digital archives don’t fix memories in time, eventually. The options within Facebook to remove tags, comments and photographs, as well as to add tags without control, allow people to manipulate the past. This may explain why Scuro decided to publish a selection of the photographs in book form, thus bringing the digitized photographs back into the analogue sphere. This underscores the unstable character of social networks while demonstrating how people, in the end, prefer the material and tangible photograph to its digital counterpart.

This summer, a group of miners in Albania’s richest chrome mine in Bulqiza staged a spectacular strike. Ten miners barricaded themselves 1400 meters, nearly one mile, underground and refused to eat and drink. The workers’ drastic measure followed earlier protests both at their own mine in the north and in the capital Tirana. After 23 days of underground protest, ten miners replaced the first weakened crew, continuing the hunger strike to express opposition to low wages, unsafe working conditions, poor management, and the lack of investment in the mine in general. The hunger strike was part of a three month long work stoppage by some 700 Albanian miners. But Albania is no Tunisia, Egypt or Libya. While being one of Europe’s poorest and most corrupt countries, it has been dealing with slowing economic growth and weak political leadership beyond the attention of the global media. The miners don’t seem to be the vanguards of a civil rebellion, but rather the players in an act overshadowed by an ongoing fight between two political parties and their leaders. DeliberatelyConsidered asked Ermira Danaj, an Albanian participant in the Transregional Center for Democratic Studies’ Democracy and Diversity Institute, for a report. – Esther Kreider-Verhalle

DC: Were any of the miners’ demands met?

Ermira Danaj: This time, the miners have won, but it is one of the very few victories for workers  fighting for their rights. The owners of the mine promised to continue investments in the mine, in a transparent manner. They also agreed to improve working conditions, to pay a 13 month wage, to pay the workers for half the period they were on strike, and a wage increase of 20%. During the first hunger strike, miners from other regions and workers from other sectors, facing the same problems, had started showing their solidarity with the miners. This was very unusual. After a regional court had decided that the protesters had to leave the mine, the miners left voluntarily, but stubbornly started their hunger strike again in another location not far from the mine.

The history of Albanian mining after 1990 is not a happy story. During the communist regime, the export of chrome was very important for the country. But after 1990, along with the rest of the industrial sector, the mining branch collapsed. The new democratic government – democratic in the sense that it was the first government within a pluralistic political system – aimed to privatize state owned enterprises. The socialists who came to power in 1997 continued the free market reforms. Yet, critically, privatization never focused on the workers’ working conditions, their contracts or wages.

Privatization of the mining sector began in earnest in 1994, largely supported by foreign investors. While the mineral resource of chromium continued to be vital for Albania’s economy, the conditions in the mines deteriorated, with numerous serious injuries and yearly deaths. For a number of years, the US Department of State has lamented the poor working conditions in the Bulqiza mines in its annual Human Rights Reports.

In the past three years, many protests have been organized but with little effect. Conditions have not improved and the struggle for fundamental workers’ rights has not been publicly recognized. Neither had the miners received much support from workers in other sectors or from civil society. The only organization that supported the miners’ protest earlier this year was The Political Organization, a newly founded organization aiming at raising critical debate in the country, while supporting workers and vulnerable people. During earlier protests that lasted several days in front of the government’s building in Tirana, the group brought the miners food, clothes and blankets.

DC: The small city of Bulqiza, about 30 miles north of Tirana is dependent on the mining industry. Investment in the mining sector is crucial both to the economic vitality of the region and the country. Chromium is used to produce steel and aluminum alloys, and is exported to the biggest American steel producers and other foreign companies. The Bulqiza mine has been in foreign hands since 2007. It’s owned by the Austrian corporation Decometal DCM, whose Albanian subsidiary ACR runs it until 2013. Has there been any improvement at all?

Ermira Danaj: In several press conferences and other media appearances ACR representatives have reported their investments not only in the Bulqiza mine but also in other industrial sectors. The miners’ main demand has been an improvement of their working conditions, while their calls for wage increases always came second. The miners argue that their lives and their futures are dependent on the mines. The investments are needed to ensure that they and the city as a whole have a future. Because ACR will run the mine until 2013, the workers worry about what will happen after that, if sufficient investments are not made now. Just to give you an idea of the current working conditions: The miners’ third demand was to have showers in the mine and clothes!

DC: There is a history of tension between the new foreign owner, the Albanian government, and the miners’ union. There have been talks in January 2011 between the Union and the Austrian owners with the Ministry of Labor as mediator. Both sides signed an agreement that there would be no further increases in wages until 2013. Their average wages are more than double the Albanian minimum wage of about 140 Euro per month. Also, the Albanian authorities fined ACR in July 2011 because it was not living up to its investment contract. And, the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Energy suspended part of ACR’s license after two weeks of strikes at the mine. The same Ministry has been said to be in favor of the demands of the miners but to be against the method of striking, and instead prefers a dialogue.

Ermira Danaj: The strike is a legitimate action when workers’ rights are not being respected and workers are exploited. And the word “dialogue” has been one of the most harmful words in Albania, at least during the last years, because any form of oppression and exploitation is depicted and covered up by the word “dialogue.” When the dialogue is not working, and the workers’ conditions remain unchanged, then there are other possible instruments such as protests and strikes. In Albania the hunger strike has been quite delegitimized. And usually, the motifs behind protests are party politics. The three month long miners’ protest has been one of the very rare cases of persistent action. And while it is true that miners in Albania earn about 300 Euro (406 US Dollars), mining is dangerous and most miners suffer from health problems.

DC: Where do Albania’s political leaders stand on the problems?

Ermira Danaj: The miners’ issues are not addressed in political debate. Discussions between the members of the two major parties focus on fights between the leaders, and on gossip. Programmatic and ideological differences are all but ignored. In addition, the workers’ unions are weak and of little help, split as they have been for years according to party affiliation.

DC: Opposition leader Edi Rama did write an opinion piece in a local newspaper supporting the miners, while PM Berisha accused Rama of using the miners for his own political gain.

Ermira Danaj: This is the main issue here, the fact that the miners’ strike is used just as another element to feed the political struggle between the main parties. And in this context, instead of an op-ed piece, one would prefer to hear from the opposition leader an alternative position on the problems in the privatized mining sector. What will the opposition do if they come to power? Or, they could organize any political action in support of the miners. Unfortunately, in Albania there are only meetings and protests before elections, or after them, to protest the results.

Interestingly, because they feel they have nowhere else to turn the protesters asked for support from the American Embassy in Albania. The head of one of the Unions that backed the Bulqiza miners made an appeal to the US Ambassador to support the miners and to visit them to personally observe the working conditions. The miners had no expectation whatsoever that any Albanian politicians would support them. They made their appeal to the US ambassador because he is considered a good friend of the Albanian people and he represents a country where democracy and human rights are respected. The past two years,  the U.S. has been very involved  in Albania’s political crisis and the US Ambassador has stepped in before. This appeal for support to the US Embassy indicates not only a fundamental crisis in the Albanian political system, but also in civil society and in society at large. During their underground strike, the workers saw no other hope than to make an appeal to a foreign embassy.

DC: The story of Albania’s desperate miners was not covered in American media. How was local coverage?

Ermira Danaj: In the absence of any sensational political fight and in the middle of the media’s silly season, the hunger strike received quite some media attention. Yet, by focusing on the wage issue, they were inaccurately reporting the story. The investment issue was not part of the story, while, oddly enough, they did bring up the retirement age of the miners. Under the communist regime, the retirement age was 50 and currently it is 60. But the issue of retirement is up to the government. It has been an election issue, but it wasn’t part of the strikers’ demands that were all directed to the private owners of the mine.

Currently, the workers are in a trap between the private mine operator, the state and the media. The company and the state are not engaging in serious discussions about investment. Political debate is only about personalities and not about pressing issues. During the last two decades, our society has been preaching individual success as the ultimate value; fighting for workers’ rights looks so old-fashioned. So, given that the workers were doing the state’s job and were pushing the issue of investment with the private owners, the miners of Bulqiza scored a great victory. They did it all by themselves, they persisted, and weren’t corrupted. With their sacrifice in the form of a hunger strike 1400 meters underground, they showed others that resistance can work.

Chris Eberhardt was an India China Institute Fellow at the New School in 2008.  He is now conducting his dissertation research in China

A fellow of the India China Institute (ICI) has been arrested. He was privately eating dinner with others in Beijing, celebrating that Liu Xiaobo had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. After hearing that the ICI Fellow had been arrested, I decided to read an article by Liu Xiaobo that was published in 2006 in the journal Social Research titled “Reform in China: The Role of Civil Society.”

The work reminded me of Neither Gods Nor Emperors by sociologist Craig Calhoun, who analyses the student protests of 1989 that culminated in demonstrations on Tiananmen Square and the military response. What I see in both works is an effort by the Chinese people to challenge China to be better at what it claims to be, linking back to movements that emerged when the dynasty system collapsed in the early 1900’s.

While Liu was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, China was celebrating the founding of the People’s Republic. During the celebrations I went multiple times to Tiananmen Square. One night I saw a couple posing in front of flashing lights (pictured), behind which was Tiananmen Gate and Chairman Mao’s picture. I imagine that this man was probably wearing similar clothing when Mao was still alive. Every time I see a man wearing the blue hat and suit, it gives me pause. In Beijing, I am most likely to see people dressed like this fresh off the train or lined up by the thousands at 6am (2hrs early) on Tiananmen Square to view Mao’s remains.

I always wonder to myself how these people who line up for hours to view Mao, sleepy-eyed and just off a bus, understand a China where students pay almost as much or more than my rent to buy name brand clothing. It is these people who come from the heartland of China who are still thought of as the backbone of the country, still composing the majority of the population.

Perhaps it is not as well known, but every day the common people struggle to address problems in their life, with annual figures for protests greater than 80,000.  (Against the Law by Ching Kwan Lee and Popular Protest by Kevin O’Brien are two accounts of protests in China.)

I particularly enjoyed Ching’s work, documenting the balance between those in China’s rustbelt that expect China to live up to a social contract that drove the founding of the People’s Republic of China and those in the South, home to the world’s factories, that expect China to live up to a legal contract that links with China’s efforts to create a market economy.

The People’s Republic of China that is celebrated every October 1st had its roots in a small group including Mao who met in a small room in the French Quarter of Shanghai in the early 1900’s who founded the Chinese Communist Party. What Mao and the Chinese Communist Party was able to do in a way that the ruling Kuomintang could not or did not want to do was connect their vanguard struggle with the struggle of the proletariat during the Chinese Revolution. It was Mao and the Chinese Communist Party who victoriously declared the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, having made a bridge with the common people.

Although China does not have elections in the same manner as the United States, changes still take place in response to citizens concerns. While individuals like Liu are awarded prizes by outsiders, I will continue to humbly observe how it is that the common people of China respond to their rapidly changing China, and if bridges are made between the common people and the intellectuals.

Remember TV’s incredible bird’s-eye views of people standing in miles-long lines to vote? Remember Mandela with his awe-inspiring gravitas undiminished by TV lights, bringing a new humanity to our living rooms? Remember our admiration for the South Africans hammering out what was clearly the most progressive constitution in the world?

I am not going to tell you that this is all gone, because it is not. But even if it seems to have gotten reinvigorated, democracy here, like any new democracy, whether in Eastern Europe, Latin America, or anywhere else, is still fragile, and today it faces a major test.

Ironically there is a well-advanced effort by the ANC government to introduce a new piece of legislation that would dramatically restrict media freedom , and that — in an uncanny echo of Orwellian doublespeak — has been given the name Protection of Information Bill.  The bill endows the ruling party with the power to decide what information is “unfit” for consumption by the larger public. This launch of censorship, which for many reeks of the apartheid era, is effectively designed to stop any state information that could be classified as harmful to the “national interest,” which, as both media and public know, includes potentially embarrassing information about both past and present. If one reads the proposed bill it becomes clear that there is hardly anything in South Africa that could not be defined in terms of national interest.  Moreover it is up to politicians to decide what should be defined as a national secret. This legislative initiative is coupled with a newly proposed Media Appeals Tribunal “to strengthen media freedom and accountability,”  which recommends draconian penalties: e.g., from 3 to 25 years for those from the media who act against “the protection of information”

South African democracy may be young and fragile, but luckily it has a robustly refreshed civil society and a thick layer of moral authorities who speak out against the return of “1984”.

The Nobel Prize laureate, author Nadine Gordimer, a political activist whose books were banned under the apartheid regime, and Andre Brink, well-known South African novelist, have written a letter protesting these developments, now also signed by many other writers and intellectuals. In an interview for the well-regarded Mail and Guardian, Gordimer said, “People died in the freedom struggle and to think that having gained freedom at such a cost, it is now indeed threatened again… If the work and the freedom of the writer are in jeopardy, the freedom of every reader in South Africa is too.”

Civil society here is also expressed in its countrywide “Right to Know” campaign. I’ll stop right here, but please see these pictures from a recent march in “Joburg” that went from Witwatersrand University to the Constitutional Court. It was to be a silent march, but in the end it was a fitting combination of various forms of protest — songs, the high-stepping toi-toi , creatively sardonic buttons and t-shirts, placards with demands like STOP THE RETURN TO APARTHEID-ERA SECRECY, and lips silenced by masking tape. There is a one white button in particular which appealed to me and I’ll bring back to New York, in case it comes in handy in the new political climate.  Take a careful look, and discover some friends in the crowd…

President Obama’s “Address to the Nation on the End of Combat Operations in Iraq,” was consistent with his first public speech expressing his opposition to the war. He stood by the same principles, as he was fulfilling his responsibility as head of state, President for the entire nation and not only those who support him and his partisan position.  To paraphrase one of his standard lines, he was not speaking as President of the Blue States or the Red States, but as President of the United States of America.  The night of the address and in the days that followed, this most basic quality of his speech was overlooked.  Instead, there were misleading interpretations, from Obama’s critics and his supporters, revealing a fundamental problem in our public life.

The Partisan Interpretations

From his partisan opposition, the criticism was strong.  <<Obama should have declared victory,>> Senator John McCain and his interviewer Sean Hannity, agreed. (video) He should have given President Bush full credit for the victory.  He should have apologized for his opposition to the surge.     Lindsey Graham concurred and was particularly critical that Obama did not acknowledge the terrorists’ defeat and the need to extend our momentum in Afghanistan. (video) The emphasis on withdrawal instead of victory was the fundamental problem with the President’s speech.  “It’s not about when we leave in Afghanistan.  It’s about what we leave behind.”    Charles Krauthammer, in the instant analysis following the speech on Fox News, observed that the speech was “both flat and odd.”  Flat, because it did not celebrate the victory, but rather emphasized the withdrawal almost as a lamentation.  Odd, because of the way he linked his topics, from Iraq to Afghanistan to, most disturbing for Krauthammer, tacking on an “economic pep talk.”  There should have been a coherent speech about our missions abroad.  Instead there was a speech by a man who is only interested in his domestic agenda. (video)
And from his partisan supporters there was also serious criticism, mirroring the rage on the right.  <<Obama should have declared defeat,>> Frank Rich seemed to be saying in an interesting op-ed. piece yesterday.  Rich’s complaint was the exact opposite of Obama’s critics from the right. “What was so grievously missing from Obama’s address was any feeling for what has happened to our country during the seven-and-a-half-year war whose ‘end’ he was marking…‘Our unity at home was tested,’ he said, as if all those bygones were now bygones and all the toxins unleashed by this fiasco had miraculously evaporated once we drew down to 50,000 theoretically non-combat troops … Obama asked the country to turn the page on Iraq as if that were as easy as, say, voting for him in 2008. “  For Rich and many other critics of the war in Iraq, including me, there is a desire to properly learn from the disaster that the war in Iraq has been.  And he is quite critical of the speech because Obama did not directly confront this issue.

Deliberate Considerations

Yet, the critics from the left and the right overlook what the President was trying to do, indeed what he had to do.  He understood that this was a serious moment, requiring a serious and non-partisan address from the Oval Office, by the President, as the head of state.

A war, which required huge commitment and sacrifice, was drawing to an end.  The outcome of the conflict would be more determined by politics than by military action, and the primary responsibility for the outcome was passing from American to Iraqi hands, for better and for worse.  There has been no clear victory, but also there has been no clear defeat.  There are, rather, a series of serious political challenges in Iraq and in the United States.  President Obama was marking this situation, its gravity, while working from his judgment about the Iraq War, which dates back to his first anti-War speech.  He sought to speak to the whole nation, and to find a common ground. To recognize that the end of the combat mission left our country with profound challenges, the war in Afghanistan, a weakened economy and society.

When he spoke up against the impending “dumb war,” he reminded his anti-war audience that he was not against all wars, referring to the war in Afghanistan, and when he spoke up against the war he warned that it would weaken the American economy and society and would frustrate the pursuit of the American dream.  As the American combat mission ended, the President returned to these themes.  He sought to return all Americans, both war hawks and anti-war doves, to his early point – the need to face the challenges of the day, turning away from the divisions of yesterday.

Obviously, there was resistance to this message, resistance supported by the media and political environments.  There is a pressing need to work against these tendencies.  Obama tried.  In my next post, I will analyze his words against cynicism.

This week President Obama gave an important speech in the Oval office announcing the end of combat operations in Iraq.  In October 2002, before the war was declared, he distinguished himself as one of the few political leaders to express clear opposition to the Iraq war.   There is an important connection between his words and his actions, then, which I will consider in today’s post, and now, which I will consider in following posts.

The standard way to account for the connection is through cynical interpretation, explaining the texts of these speeches by referring to their context.  Much is lost in such cynical interpretation–here, the two speeches are Deliberately Considered.

The Context

On October 2, 2002, Obama was a relatively obscure politician, a State Senator considering a run for the United States Senate.  He had some significant movers and shakers in Chicago eyeing him, realizing his promise.  One of them, Bettylu Saltzman, who was organizing the anti-war demonstration, asked him to take part.  His political advisors calculated the costs and benefits, seeing a real problem if he sought to run in a state wide race.  As an African American, he might solidify his support among white liberals, fortifying the black – white coalition base of a potential run, but he may have appealed to them in any case, and he clearly would lose conservative Democratic support and the support of many independents, who at that time were overwhelmingly supporting the President and his impending war.  Nonetheless, since he actually did think that war would be a big mistake, Obama decided to give the speech, notable for its moderation in his opposition to the war:  “I don’t oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war” was the recurring theme.  (See David Remnick, The Bridge).

The moderation of the speech served his immediate purposes and it later helped his candidacy in the Democratic Presidential Primaries.  On this point, David Axelrod, Obama’s chief political consultant, has bemoaned the fact that there was no decent video of the speech.   Obama opposed the war, but tried to demonstrate at the same time that he was not soft on fighting terrorism.  It was a strange speech to give to an anti-war gathering, since he emphasized his support of war.  It was a speech which distinguished just from unjust war, raising serious theoretical problems as it addresses serious practical concerns (which I will address in a later post on his Nobel Prize acceptance address).

The calculation was real.  Obama, like all politicians, is not pure.  Politicians can’t afford to proceed without considering whether they can bring the public along with them.  But in order to actually be effective leaders, they must also base their actions upon their principled commitments.  This is a crucial difference and in this, Obama distinguished himself.  His text reaches beyond its context, and in this way it has enduring significance.

The Text

In his anti war speech he declared:

“I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda.

I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars. So for those of us who seek a more just and secure world for our children, let us send a clear message to the president.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s finish the fight with Bin Laden and al-Qaeda, through effective, coordinated intelligence, and a shutting down of the financial networks that support terrorism, and a homeland security program that involves more than color-coded warnings.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to make sure that…we vigorously enforce a nonproliferation treaty, and that former enemies and current allies like Russia safeguard and ultimately eliminate their stores of nuclear material, and that nations like Pakistan and India never use the terrible weapons already in their possession, and that the arms merchants in our own country stop feeding the countless wars that rage across the globe…

You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to wean ourselves off Middle East oil through an energy policy that doesn’t simply serve the interests of Exxon and Mobil.

Those are the battles that we need to fight. Those are the battles that we willingly join. The battles against ignorance and intolerance. Corruption and greed. Poverty and despair.”

The Deliberate Consideration

Obama was then a local politician, representing a liberal racially mixed district in the state legislature.  Later as a national politician, he was able to contrast his clear position from his primary opponents because of his early and consistent opposition to the war.  The speech addressed his immediate political calculations, no doubt.  But what is most striking is how his words capture his political commitments and policies now even more than the political calculations then.  He was underscoring his major concerns:  nuclear proliferation, peace in the Middle East, fighting for tolerance, energy independence, and social justice.  He predicted that the war would deflect national attention from these pressing issues, before the war began.  He has been struggling to work on the issues in the aftermath of a war that had the results that he publicly feared.  And the speech was continuous with, not at odds with, his present stance in the wars in Iraq, as the combat mission ends, and in Afghanistan, for better and for worse, as the war continues to pose fundamental problems.

Yesterday’s speech could have been given today.  And today’s speech could have been given yesterday, as I will explore tomorrow.

Why is an Islamic community center dedicated to intercultural and interreligious understanding in any way a desecration to the memory of the victims of the attacks?

Why is the planning of the center provocative or insensitive?

There are problems with facts and truth, as I have reflected upon in my previous posts, but there are also problems with interpretation and evaluation.  Given the facts, the community center can only be considered an affront if there is something fundamentally wrong with one of the great world religions.  This center is clearly not the work of radical fundamentalists.  Its goal is dialogue and understanding.  If these are jihadists, all Muslims are.  If we publicly speak and act with such interpretation, we are effectively declaring a religious war, playing the game of the religious fanatics.

And isn’t it odd that it is now, 9 years after the attacks of 2001, and not in the immediate aftermath of the September 11th attacks, that a broad fear of Muslims seems to be sweeping the country? So many major political leaders are complicit in the Islamophobia: from those who are stoking the flames, Gingrich and Palin and their media facilitators at Fox and company; to those who fear opposing the hysteria, Harry Reid and the like?

Even President Obama has not been clear about the problem (more about that in a later post).  I think that Islamophobia, not Islam, now presents a clear and present danger to American democracy, not only because it compromises our fundamental principles, but also because it challenges our security.  See for a report on this issue: U.S. Anti-Islam Protest Seen as Lift for Extremists

It has always been the case that the politics of America is a blend of cynicism and real democratic deliberation. I wrote about this extensively in my book, The Cynical Society.  There are the sound bytes and the serious modes of deliberation.  There are the media circuses and the deliberative chambers. And, there are slogans and extended reasonable arguments. But the proportions of the blend changes.  During the election, Obama used serious persuasion more effectively than his opponents and his predecessors as a political tool.  He consistently did this, most strikingly in his famous race speech in Philadelphia.   A provocative compilation of the words of his minister Reverend Jeremiah Wright was used to insinuate that Obama was an angry Black man, a reverse racist.  He responded with a carefully reasoned speech, addressing the problems and promise for racial understanding.

He has tried during his Presidency to do the same.  This has led to aggressive attacks by his opponents.  They attack not only in substance, but also in form, as he insists upon reasoned deliberate debate, his opponents flee from reason.  Many have wondered whether his cool reasoned response to this has been wise.  His critics within his Party, his fellow progressives, are most interesting in this regard.

There has been a concern that Obama has not been tough enough.  That he has been too open to an opposition that has been unbending.  He has offered respect and cooperation, while they have vilified and demonized him.  And when his opposition does not demonize, it refuses to condemn or distance itself from those who do.  The response to Obama is strongly ideological, irrational and demagogic, even though there are no substantive reasons why it must be this way.  It is not the case that the liberal position is necessarily principled, rational and deliberative, while the conservative one is not, but this is the shape of the political culture at this time.  The contest between Obama and the Democrats and the opposition is not only a matter of competing substantive policy positions, it is also a competition between the force of arguments and the force of manipulations.

I have to be careful here.  I am not just a disinterested observer, I realize.  I strongly support Obama on matters of race and American identity, on reform of the economy and the health care system, on the environment and mostly on foreign policy.  But I recognize that his position is a partisan one and it should be opposed by alternative partisan positions in a democratic polity.  My concern is that the opposition is not serious, but it may be effective.

On the other hand, although Obama’s partisan position is serious, but it may not be effective.  My concern has less to do with the politics of the moment, more to do with the culture of the Republic.  I think that the crucial issue here is not Obama’s success or failure or the opposition’s success or failure.  Rather, the primary democratic challenge is whether it is possible to go beyond cynical politics.  Obama’s electoral campaign was quite successful in this regard.  The nature of the partisan conflict during his Presidency has not clearly followed the same pattern.

I think he continues to pursue his political ends in a reasonable and open way, as both his opponents and his critics on the left are willing to flee reason and responsibility for the problems of our times.