zmwitkin

[zmwitkin]

Partisanship Trumps Morality: Roy Moore and the GOP Tax Bill

In the early hours of December 2nd, Senate Republicans passed a haphazardly written tax bill which, in its current form, perpetuates the rise of socioeconomic inequality and disproportionately affects democratic states. The bill gives tax breaks to the rich and to corporations, while eliminating many deductions that help lower incomes brackets and people in blue states. While the merits and demerits of the tax bill are important for understanding the current state of politics and our economy, we must consider how holding a vote on a less-than-ideal tax bill, in conjunction with the republicans’ support of Roy Moore the Republican Alabama senate candidate, perpetuates and increases partisanship and polarization. The passage of the senate GOP tax bill and the renewal of GOP support for Roy Moore exemplifies the normative shift that partisanship and partisan control of government, namely policy making control by the republicans, now outweighs responsibility to uphold ethical and moral lawmaking. Because of the divergence of opinion in the GOP about Moore, this controversy also has the potential to reshape the dynamics within the Republican party.

After multiple iterations of health care legislation written to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act failed, the Trump administration and Republican members of Congress are starved for a “legislative win.” What the undiscerning eye might not catch is the link between this vote and the controversial special election to replace Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Because much of the Republicans’ success hinges upon maintaining the votes to pass their tax overhaul bill, Republican lawmakers felt they needed to vote on a tax bill before the special election, when they were assured enough votes to pass, as a Roy Moore victory was in doubt.

After the allegations of sexual impropriety surfaced, Trump, the RNC and McConnell were in lockstep saying they will allow Alabamans decide the race for themselves, and that they cannot withdraw support of Moore based on “mere” allegations of sexual misconduct.[1] Others in the party explicitly condemned his actions and called on him to step out of the race. However, once the tax bill passed, Trump and the RNC reestablished their support for Moore. Trump even tweeted, “Democrats refusal to give even one vote for massive Tax Cuts is why we need Republican Roy Moore to win in Alabama.”[2] Other Republicans either maintained that he should step down, or neither condemned nor endorsed him. But why the sudden change of heart by the RNC and Trump? Once the tax bill moves out of committee for a final vote in both chambers of congress, Republicans will once again need enough votes to maintain a majority in order to pass the bill. Supporting Moore is a wholly partisan one.

By supporting Roy Moore, being either complicit, as McConnell and other Republicans have been, or actively supporting him, as Trump and the RNC have, Republicans effectively say that a Democrat in the Senate is worse than having an individual who committed heinous acts against girls and young women. With Trump’s history of “alleged” sexual misconduct, and now Moore’s, their supporters side with men accused of sexual misconduct for partisan and political gains, perpetuating a notion that partisan membership now outweighs any moral obligation of holding candidates and elected officials to the same standards by which we hold citizens.

Republicans’ decision to support Moore agrees with Levitsky and Ziblatt’s, assessment that the informal norms of “partisan self-restraint and fair play” have “eroded in recent decades.”[3] They cite the increased use of the filibuster to pass legislation along partisan lines, and the Republicans’ refusal to consider Merrick Garland for the Supreme Court. The Alabama Senate race and the support for Roy Moore, put in context with passing the GOP tax bill, is another example of how Republican’s self-restraint has corroded – this time to the point of supporting someone with an abhorrent history of sexual impropriety as a means to preserve political power and further their partisan legislative agenda.

Moving beyond the immediate implications of supporting Moore, this controversy has the potential to fractionalize the Republican party even further. To illustrate this, I draw on Sunstein’s scholarship on group polarization. He says, “When people find themselves in groups of like-minded types, they are especially likely to move to extremes.”[4]Following Sunstein’s thinking, those who broke away from Trump and the RNC to oppose Moore’s candidacy may rally together to become more stanchly resistant to the people, policies and rhetoric that the Trump/Moore camp endorses. The “Anti-Trump/Moore” faction of Republicans will use more restraint and follow their moral obligations as leaders and legislators to support policy decisions that prioritize ethics, morality and substantiated policy over loyalty to their party identity. Meanwhile, those who support their co-partisans “at all costs,” will continue to fall in line with Trump’s branch of the party which perpetuates compromises of morals and sound governance for political gains.

This controversy has the potential to be a turning point for the Republican party. Republicans can remain fractious, which compromises their power and stability as a solitary party, as Lust and Waldner assert in their point about party system fractionalization.[5] Or they can come together as a party to stand against sexual assault while maintaining a sense of unity through common policy-driven interests and values. One way or another, people who subjugate, oppress, assault and abuse women, and others with less institutional power, must not be the one’s representing the United States.

[1] Greg Sargent, “Opinion | Despite allegations, Trump isn’t calling on Roy Moore to step aside. Here’s why.,” The Washington Post, November 10, 2017, accessed December 10, 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2017/11/10/despite-sexual-charges-trump-isnt-calling-on-roy-moore-to-step-aside-heres-why/?utm_term=.ad704f3477a4.

[2] @realDonaldTrump – 12/04/2017

[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/16/opinion/sunday/is-donald-trump-a-threat-to-democracy.html

[4] Cass R. Sunstein, Going to Extremes: How Like Minds Unite and Divide (Oxford University Press, 2009), Chpt. 1.

[5] Lust, Ellen & David Waldner. 2015. Unwelcome Change: Understanding ,Evaluating, and Extending Theories of Democratic Backsliding. Washington, DC: USAID.

[zmwitkin]

Unfounded Fear

Stateless. She knows not of before. Sleeping. Bombs do not wake her. Fleeing. Fighting in the wake of her birth Destined. For another land to call home Innocent. Tied on her mother’s aching back. Unknowing. What is normalcy? Transient. She will not know differently.  

The neighbor said he had to go. Too young to fight. Too risky to stay. Take him. But he has no one. He is our son now. A wartime burden. An outcome. A solution. A life.

By Zach Witkin

[zmwitkin]

Senegal’s Democratic Façade: How Senegal is not the Example

Senegal has been widely regarded in the international community has having one of the most stable democracies in Africa. The 2012 election in which President Macky Sall defeated longtime incumbent Abdoulaye Wade marks the third consecutive democratic election and peaceful transfer of power, and serves to support claims of democratic consolidation and progress. However, the realities of a Macky Sall presidency have not lived up to this perception. Even though Senegalese voters have a voice in lawmaking and governance through the ballot box, the Sall administration has made half-hearted efforts to actualize campaign promises to tighten the length of presidential terms and fight corruption, and is actively working within the constitutional parameter to consolidate power.

Manipulating Term Limits

In his campaign platform, Sall pledged to immediately reduce presidential term limits from seven years to five years as a way to consolidate democracy. Once elected to office, Sall did not follow through on this promise until he submitted an official referendum in February 2016 – midway through his term (Kelly, 2016). The Constitutional Council, a body which rules on the constitutionality of rules and government proceedings, rejected the immediacy of the referendum, pushing its activation to the subsequent term, effectively deciding that Sall’s term would be seven years. Many have argued that the way in which he went about sending the referendum was a strategic decision to consolidate power.

Issuing this referendum when Sall did, and then the Constitutional Council rejecting its activation until the next term cycle, it appears to constituents that the council made this decision unilaterally and Sall merely accepted their ruling. According to Ozan Varol’s work, Stealth Authoritarianism, Sall’s political maneuvering is a prime example of when contentious issues are assigned to a judicial body in order for the executive to avoid blame or public backlash and maintain popularity by the public (Varol, 1693). From the perspective of Sall supporters, the way in which the Senegalese government navigated this piece of the 2016 referendum preserves their view that Sall is upholding his promise for the strength of democracy. But those skeptical of his actions might say that this is a strategy clad with intentions to hold onto power for as long as possible, while hiding behind a facade of democratic consolidation.

Packing the Constitutional Council

Adding to this puzzle, the term limit measure was part a larger constitutional referendum which includes fourteen other changes. One referendum item that is directly applicable to Sall’s presidency and power is the proposal to expand membership of the Constitutional Council from five to seven members, with the two additional members to be nominated by the Speaker of the National Assembly to join the current presidential appointees (Pham, 2016). This might seem like  a common-sense change aimed at diversifying power, but it possesses substantial underlying effects on the political landscape.

Changing the way in which members are appointed to the Constitutional Council appears to diversify power to other branches of government. However, the referendum stipulates that the two new members who are approved by the referendum be elected by the Speaker of the National Assembly, currently Moustapha Niasse, a member of Sall’s own party. As a result, the composition of the Constitutional Council has a greater number of members aligned with Sall’s party than it did previously. Additionally, council members’ terms are six years, with terms expiring every two years. So, with Sall’s seven-year term, in addition to the two new, party-loyal members, he will have a greater ability to appoint those who share his political ideology, and the people that Sall appoints will be on the Constitutional Council until after his seven year term. This directly connects to Varol’s argument in conversation with Ginsberg and Hirschl as it proposes that this idea of appointing judges who will be in a position of power after that leader leaves is a way of consolidating power through constitutional means. Additionally Bermeo’s article, On Democratic Backsliding, says that when party loyalists or supporters of the executive possess majority control an existing legislative or judicial body, they do so as an effort to “aggrandize” the executive, and by extension his entire party (Bermeo, 10-11). As a form of democratic backsliding, according to Bermeo, the referendum that Sall sent operated within the Senegalese constitutional framework, but the results have lead to a consolidation of power within Sall’s own party.

Arresting the Competition

Another question relating to the status of democracy in Senegal are the high profile arrests of Karim Wade, son of former president Abdoulaye Wade and senior member in his father’s cabinet, and the former mayor of Dakar and member of parliament (elected to parliament whilst in jail), Khalifa Sall. In April 2013, Macky Sall’s government convicted Karim Wade of embezzling $238 million; and detained in March 2016 for allegedly stealing $2.9 million of government funds, Khalifa Sall remains behind bars as he awaits trial.

Many argue that these arrests are signs that Macky Sall is following through on his vow to fight government corruption, while others raise questions considering both Mayor Sall and Karim Wade were two potentially leading candidates in the 2019 presidential race to unseat the incumbent president. A leading criticism surrounds Macky Sall’s reinstatement of the Court for the Repression of Illicit Enrichment (CREI), which has not existed for over three decades. Those against Sall assert that this move is just one way to authoritatively consolidate power by arresting, and in Wade’s case convicting, those who oppose him. The plot thickens when, two days before Karim Wade’s conviction on embezzlement charges, he was chosen as the candidate of the main opposition party for the 2019 election. Facing harsh criticism from United Nations Working Group of Arbitrary Detention and Senegal’s League of Human Rights on the legitimacy of the arrest, after serving three years of a six year sentence, President Macky Sall pardoned Karim Wade but did not forgive the $230 million fine that has yet to be paid. After being released, Wade fled to Qatar where he remains, with no chance to run for president.

Meanwhile, Khalifa Sall’s arrest and continuing detention, while he awaits trial on embezzlement changes raises similar questions surrounding the legitimacy of the case against him and around Macky Sall’s administration’s motives behind the arrest. Is it a coincidence that Khalifa Sall, a potential presidential candidate, is still in detention and awaiting trial? I do not think it is. The lawyers of the detained Sall have made numerous appeals for his release so that he may campaign for president while awaiting trial. They have only been met with avoidance and stagnation by the judiciary, thus preventing him from running an active campaign for president.

Maintaining the theme of consolidating power, like executive aggrandizement, Bermeo explains that the manipulation of elections, by keeping opponents from running as President Sall’s administration is doing, is another form of democratic backsliding (Bermeo, 13). While the Sall administration claims that the charges of fraud are legitimate, and the defendants maintain their innocence, the perspective that really matters is that of the judicial body ruling on the trials — the CREI, a court that Macky Sall reinstated for the exact purpose of trying Karim Wade. Once again, Macky Sall has worked, and continues to work within the parameters of his power and the constitution to manipulate the balance of power and decision-making to benefit his authority and rule. After vowing to fight corruption and promising to be a president uninterested in an authoritative grip on power during his campaign, Sall supports can make a superficial argument that he has followed through on his promises. However below the surface, Sall has made calculated strategic plays to consolidate power.

[zmwitkin]

Arrival in Yoff Layène, Dakar

Salaam Alekum! Writing you from my new neighborhood of Yoff Layène, a sleepy, sandy Sufi community situated in the north of Dakar. I was greeted at the airport last night by a driver for Africare, named Moussa, and rockstars of the Where There Be Dragons family, Babacar and Elke! It was so nice to see familiar faces upon my arrival! Elke’s sister, Jessica, was also on my flight, so we were able to navigate customs and baggage claim together. 

We stopped off at Babacar’s to celebrate the 12th birthday of Astou, his 12 year old daughter, rejoiced in reconnecting with his incredible family and ate some wonderful banana birthday cake. Truly a special welcome to Dakar. I am so grateful to Babacar and Elke, who have made by arrival so easy and welcoming. 

In addition to it being the month of Ramadan, today is the pentecost holiday, so offices are closed. Probably a blessing in disguise so I get a day before starting work! In the meantime, I need to set out to find an ATM and get the lay of the land. 

After a little stroll this morning, practicing nuyoo (greetings), and getting ever so slightly acquainted to my surroundings, I feel fortune to be living right next to La Grande Mosquée de Yoff and La Mausolée Seydina Limamou Lahi Al Mahdi…why you might ask? Well, everyone knows where it is, so I won’t get lost!

Thanks for reading by stream of consciousness update! Hopefully i’ll posts some more, better written posts. Once again, I’m so grateful to everyone who has made my being here possible - my family, Babacar, Elke, Dragons, Africare, (dare I say…) Brown, my wonderfully supportive friends, and many more! 

[zmwitkin]

Dear the sixty something year old special forces veteran I met while canvassing...

Fifty degrees and raining. Combine that with the prospects of a Trump administration, and the declining polling of Clinton this past week, and you have a recipe for election-induced anxiety and pessimism. This past Saturday, dazed but not at all confused following the latest ‘email scandal,’ I made my way up to Merrimack, NH to canvass. Many people say, “Good for you for doing this. I know I should be up there too, but I just don’t have time. Youth participation is going to be key in this election.” I whole-heartedly agree that millennial participation in the democratic process is essential; but while I say “thanks” to these people who praise my democratic participation, I question the claim that they are “too busy.” What takes priority over this seminal time in our history? We have the choice between a proven leader who has fought for the rights of all people for HER entire career and an orange headed buffoon who thinks the presidency is a 40 hr/week job and that tweets are the gateway to substantive policy. Watching a football game and drinking beer really is more important that this choice? Interesting. For those with a mindset of complicity, your vote, voice and hands (whatever size they are) are crucial to deciding the trajectory of this country and world. Knock on doors, drive people to vote, phone-bank, cut checks, DO everything you can…oh yeah and VOTE.

The goal of our canvass was to get out the vote (GOTV) –targeting historically tried and true democrats and Hillary supporter. We went door-to-door reminding people to vote, where their polling place is, and gauging interest in doing the very thing I was doing –volunteering, using my voice to try to assure that a qualified, stable, sane (normal size) hand will guide our future. Although I didn’t run into any difficult situations per say, I did get an ear full from you, suffice it to say, a non-Hillary supporter. So after listening to your monologue, I decided to write you a letter:

Dear the sixty something year old special forces veteran I met while canvassing,

First and foremost, thank you for your twenty-four years of service to this country. I have no doubt you served this country with honor and distinction. Leaving our conversation last Saturday, I can honestly say that I am puzzled by your logic. You said that you can’t support Secretary Clinton because you blame President Clinton for Black Hawk Down, President Obama and Secretary Clinton for the Benghazi attacks, the rise of ISIS and all the “liberal bullshit,” as you put it, the Obama Administration oversaw in the last eight years. You also said that her history of lying, deceit and lack of support for the armed services deters you from supporting her. I’m always willing to hear people out –and the morning I met you, I did just that. But what you said really concerns me. There were many ways I wanted to respond to this, but following the direction of the Merrimack field organizer, I did not challenge you or follow up with retorts questioning your rationale behind laying the blame of complex international conflicts on just a couple of individuals. So, I was resigned to nodding, keeping my thoughts on the tip of my tongue.

While I understand your frustrations regarding a couple tragedies in which we lost honorable public servants, the part of his monologue I found exceedingly puzzling were your opinions of Secretary Clinton’s character and the prognosis of her leadership, following the Obama legacy of assuring affordable care for all and strengthening our economy. Yes, I agree that the media coverage of her email scandal has contorted and shrouded her in an uncertain, greyish mystique and amplified her image as an untrustworthy establishment Washington politician. I’ll give you the establishment Washington politician part, but I question your qualification that she is untrustworthy. Did Secretary Clinton make a mistake by using a private email server? Yes. Has she tried to cover her tracks by conspicuously lying about what she did? Absolutely not. She came out and said that using a private email server for the sake of simplicity was a mistake. If she had to do it all over would she repeat it? No. If anything, I could argue that fessing up, taking responsibility for one’s mistake is admirable and trustworthy. When she is president, I have full confidence in her ability to take charge for her actions and hold others accountable for their actions as well.

What baffles me is that by not trusting an experienced international leader, you are resigned to trusting Trump to carry out the office of the presidency. By voting for this man, are you affirming that you trust him with the nuclear football. You trust the man who has questioned why we would make nuclear weapons if we didn’t plan on using them? You trust a man who would have the capability of sending men and women to war when he has called our military ill-equipped and compared our commanding generals to rubble? You trust a man who has attacked a Gold Star family? Do I also need to remind you of the plethora of attacks and remarks he has made about women, girls, Muslims, disabled people, the military, the LGBTQ+ community and almost every other identity besides old, white men, like yourself? I don’t know the principles on which you stand, as I wasn’t able to capture your life story in the five minutes you talked at me. But I’d gather that the military and your wife are two things that you hold closest to you. I’d ask you to think of what is at stake in this election. I’d ask you what is at stake for the dignity of the women in your life, the honor of your brothers that were lost in the Battle of Mogadishu, Vietnam and Desert Storm. What is at stake for your grandchildren? How will your legacy live on in their lives and in their hearts?

I’ve put my trust in Secretary Clinton and Senator Kaine to assume the highest positions of the executive office because they support those who need support the most. We are at important junctures in our society and I am confident in their ability to guide us in a sustainable and equitable direction. As the election is a merely four days from now, I encourage you to look beyond the polarization of the media, the construction of inaccurate narratives and the fear mongering that Donald Trump has instilled as a primary tenant of his campaign. Look three months from now, a year, five years, twenty years. How will this decision before us shape our existence and the existence of future generations? Reflect on what is important for you, as I have. Secretary Clinton and Senator Kaine have spent their lives dedicated to ensuring viable futures to all Americans. They have proposed concrete plans to rein in college tuition so that students with lower financial means can afford to earn a degree. Whereas Trump only cares about himself and those at the top echelons of society. As someone looking at careers in the public sector and non-profit work, I worry about my ability to afford adequate health insurance. Clinton and Kaine want to build on the Affordable Care Act to make an even more efficient machine. If you or I have a health problem, we wont fear an ability to be covered, under their leadership. This promising duo supports individuals who belong to all identity groups –not just the straight, cisgender, white, middle aged, men like yourself. They support men and women in the armed forces and I know that servicemen and women have entrusted them with their lives as well. With their leadership, will be proud to call myself an American.

I support these inspiring leaders because of their resolve, compassion, resiliency and have temperaments suitable to the office of the presidency and vice presidency. I have gone door-to-door and phone-banked on behalf of the collective future of both millennials and baby-boomers alike. When you step into your polling place or send in your absentee ballot, think for yourself, think of how your future will be sustained, check your privilege and be mindful of others around you.

Democratically Yours, Zach Witkin

#imwithher #lovetrumpshate

[zmwitkin]

And with that, as I haphazardly pack, I bid farewell to the summer "of experience" shall we say. It was interesting to say the least. Thank you to my friends and family for making my summer possible. Now back to @brownu for round 3... (at Sudbury, Massachusetts)

[zmwitkin]

For a couple weeks now, I have had the urge to write – but write about what? The Orlando nightclub tragedy; Brexit and Trump’s inconceivable, disturbing incomprehension of its ramifications; my trip to Barcelona; the day-to-day life of Marrakech during Ramadan; the time I tried to go to a café for ftour but they wouldn’t serve me because I wasn’t Moroccan (their words, not mine); the incessant ‘just looking’ voices that shout to me throughout the souks; how I am offered hashish or ‘something stronger’ about 15 times per day; or maybe the ‘friendly’ personalities of many Moroccan shopkeepers, until they realize I’m not a tourist and won’t pay 400 dirhams for a cheap leather bag; or maybe the internal debate I have when bargaining over a wallet –is this added banter really worth the 20 dirhams ($2) when presumably the marginal value of the 20 dirham is way more for the shopkeeper? –or is it the ceremonial value of coming to a mutual agreement on a price?

I started brainstorming these topics on a ‘cool’ Sunday morning a couple weeks back. While I sat under the shade of an olive tree in the gardens of the Koutoubia Mosque, the biggest in Marrakech, the loud speaker bellowed with its morning pray. The familiar words “Allahu Akbar (god is great)” rang out. As I continued to write, a man next to me spread out his prayer rug in the direction of Mecca, performed his abolitions and prayed. A man on the other side of me opened a bag of chips for his daughter –during Ramadan the father abstains from eating or drinking during daylight hours, showing his devotion to god.

When I think of this encounter, I can’t help but think back to the mass that Callie and I attended in the crypt of la Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, a couple weekends ago. While we waited to enter Gaudi’s masterpiece, we just sort of stumbled into a Catalana mass on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon. A young men’s choir from Atlanta provided the musical accompaniment –it was a truly international service. Filling the pews were old regulars who came to mass every Sunday and people like me who can’t even fake their way through the Lord’s Prayer but can recite a few lines of the Qur’an. We all gathered – the devoutly religious and the non-religious – in this monumental space to take in the significance of this holy tradition. I was there to experience the space and peer into a different faith —not too many people can say they’ve been to mass in la Sagrada Familia. Others were there, just like every other Sunday, to renew their commitment to god.

Coming back to Marrakech after that weekend –returning to the month of Ramadan –and sitting in the gardens of Koutoubia during the call to pray was honestly quite similar to being steeped in Catholic tradition at la Sagrada Familia. They were two vastly different settings, sharing a common purpose –reinforcing devotion and maintaining a strong spiritual presence. In these two small vignettes, the peacefulness of my surroundings also reminded me of how the US and western perceptions of the two religions differ considerably. Growing up in the post 9/11 era, where the world has become awash with senseless acts of violence, Islam has faced the brunt of the blame only because the perpetrators of such attacks claim their religion as a justification. Religion is no justification for violence, just as there is no valid reason to commit these extreme acts. It is disheartening to be asked by Moroccans on the street, “If you are American, why come to Morocco? Don’t you all have guns and hate Muslims? You speak Arabic. Why?” Now, those are some loaded questions. Most of the time I brush them off as I know many people just want to draw me in to make a sale. But occasionally I will try to explain my inclinations for coming to Morocco and learning Arabic. I tell them that the people who have a fundamental distrust of Islam, as a faith, only get their material from sources that perpetuate these ideas of distrust and hatred and have probably never gotten to know someone who practices Islam. Then for guns…I ask if they’ve ever heard of Ted Cruz, Donald Drumpf or the NRA.

[zmwitkin]

The Countdown

Wow. Here I am feeling nostalgic - or a bit anxious? As I sit with my back against the large picture window of Logan’s Terminal E, I can’t help but reflect on the past year. A couple weeks ago I was trying to remember my last flight. I thought maybe it was a trip to Washington DC to see family, but I knew that wasn’t right. As I got through security today, I realized that my last flight was in fact a god-awful red-eye coming back from my time at Middlebury’s Arabic Language School in Oakland, CA. Yeah, wow. That was last August!

Besides the relatively lengthy hiatus from air travel, i’m drawn to reflect on the past year - my sophomore year - a year of yet another major transition, a year without venturing outside the boundaries of the USA, but a year of tremendous learning and growth. As I think back to one year ago the questions many people asked me were, “How’s school?” and “What are you up to this summer?” Both answers garnered a theme of uncertainty: the first being “ehhh. School’s okay. I think I might transfer” and the second being “going to CA to immerse myself in Arabic for eight weeks, even though I have yet to learn a single world!” Now that I have the benefit of hindsight, I realize that I was pondering or planning to take risks. Considering leaving close friends at Connecticut College for a more stimulating academic experience at Brown perhaps contradicted Maslow’s hierarchy of need, putting my yearning for an academic environment better suited to my tastes above the incredibly supported web of friends that I had established. By enrolling in the Middlebury Language School, I took a huge risk by placing myself in an environment that left me effectively mute while I gained some knowledge of Arabic, a new, vast and intricate language.

Suffice it to say, those risks have paid off. As I sit, I am inching closer to my final destination of Marrakech, Morocco, where I will be working for the High Atlas Foundation helping to design agricultural and educational projects and run their social media presence. I could not have conceived of reading as much in one semester as I did (maybe even surpassing the amount of material I’ve read in my entire life). The texts on society formation and international aid stay with me for as long as I stay engaged in critical societal and international development. Now that I am sitting, waiting for my flight to Paris (then eventually on to Morocco) I feel so much more confident that I made the right decision. Thank you to all those who have made my year of transition possible.

[zmwitkin]

Friend or Fusha?

I considered trying to write this post in Shakespearian English. I thought better of it because of its archaic and clunky nature. I could have also written it using the southern form of “you all” or “you guys” just to get y'all a bit annoyed. Better yet, I could have written it in tribute to my wonderful, posh, high class, Londoner professor who religiously adds unnecessary “U’s” for some colour and flavour. Maybe you have caught on to what I was trying to demonstrate, or maybe you just want to say, “Zach, can’t all English speakers just agree on what to say and how to say it? I just want to be able to speak and write so everyone understands!”

That was an analogy to my experience learning Arabic at Middlebury’s Summer Language School at Mills College in Oakland California. Hold up. Arabic in Oakland, California? Yup, Arabic in Oakland. For the past 100 years, Middlebury College (in Vermont) has had one of the premiere language learning immersion programs in the world, including in languages’ home countries. Many people have also been skeptical. Why did you spend that much money to learn Arabic in the US? While I can only report from hearsay, one problem with intensive language courses in the Middle East and North Africa is that after classes end for the day, before students arrive back at their homestays, they speak English amongst themselves. That aspect was absent at Middlebury. We signed our lives away and declared we would refrain from speaking, reading, writing, or listening to English during our tenure in the program, except in emergencies or when English was the only possible way to communicate. While the majority of students were native English speakers, we were all fumbling our way through one of the toughest languages on earth.

In my head, before I could formulate sentences to ask it, I thought it would make life more straightforward if everyone spoke the same dialect, chose one word for “where” and put dots on their ي consistently. If you are an Arabic speaker, you’ll know what I mean. Instead, every country, some varying more than others, have their own distinct dialects. As a beginning Arabic speaker at Middlebury, I was focused on getting a solid foundation in Fusha. I knew that I would eventually gravitate to an ameeya (a dialect). To give you some perspective, I heard that one day at Middlebury is roughly equivalent to one week in a standard university Arabic course. It felt like it too. From 8:45am to 1:15pm we had class. We had an hour break for lunch, then headed back into the classroom for another hour. After that, we had homework, clubs, lectures, movies, and more homework. All of our daily interactions from holding the door for someone to asking for the salt to asking if Maha went to NYU and her father really worked in the UN were in Arabic.

One time in an Uber, riding back from our normal coffee homework sessions in Rockridge, a nice strip of shops and coffee houses near Berkeley, we were talking amongst ourselves in our “Shakespearian style” Arabic. Our driver was confused. He knew we were not speaking English but we were three white American college students speaking something other than English. Our incredibly outgoing driver happened to be half Yemeni and half Emirati. He hopped into the conversation and was ecstatic, albeit confused, that we decided to spend our summer learning Arabic. He invited us to his cousins hookah bar, but alas we were drowned in work. It was those little things that kept me motivated to engage in the language throughout those eight weeks. As much as the program turned into a love-hate relationship,

I could not have imagined starting one the most challenging languages any other way than intensively at Middlebury. I will always be grateful for the people I met–the stellar Sydney(tayn) and Meredith. We collaborated on skits and homework. We ate every meal together and most importantly they kept me sane as we sang, danced and studied our way through strange words like United Nations and crowded.

[zmwitkin]

The Role of the Majority

It’s easy to chalk up racism to ignorance. It’s easy to say, “Oh, I didn’t mean it in that way…” It’s even easier to disengage from reality and appear closed to racism and bigotry that persists. When one calls Palestinians “rabid pit bull[s] chain in a cage…snarling, going for the throat…” or scrawls a racially insensitive phrase about black people, I refuse to accept dismissiveness or disengagement based off the notion that we live in a post racial society or the overused response, “well, race is a social construct.” I believe that instances of blatant racism must be addressed with the historical impact and potential impact in mind.

Many of my characteristics represent the majority of the student body at Connecticut College. I am a cisgender, heterosexual, and privileged white male. Historically, these categories have not been bigoted, segregated, ‘othered’, or exoticized. I have never been racially profiled in the school’s athletic center and asked if I even go to Connecticut College. The police have not stopped me because of my race or accused me of making an incendiary devise based off the color of my skin and the contents in my hands; my car has never been tagged with the words “pit bull.” I do not know what it is like to face instances of racism that directly denigrate my identity.

I’ve always considered myself to be socially active and aware. In fact I’ve always felt that it was my prerogative to take an active and leading stance. Throughout the past semester, I have realized the vitality of my role as a privileged white male. The role of the majority (basically the white people) in movements like this one is to be active but not overwhelm the voices of those whose backgrounds, identities, and beliefs were belittled. Throughout the semester my role was to support my friends and to make sure, as a community, we insight change on a broken system that gives preference to light over dark skin, the rich over the poor, Christians over Muslims, and heterosexuals over homosexuals. We claim we are a nation founded on the principles of freedom and justice for all. But when large quorums of our population fear for their rights to safely maintain their individual identities, are we really carrying forward those ideals?

During an all-campus forum following the racially insensitive words of Prof. Pessin’s Facebook post and graffiti that directly targeted black people, the facilitator asked the community, “Who here is an activist?” I was seated next to my peers, the same peers I stayed up with until the early hours of the morning drafting emails, making Facebook events, talking, consoling, and planning. Peers with similar backgrounds as me and peers who were directly attacked because of their race, religion, and background stood. I was hesitant but I finally did. Faculty members rose as well. These faculty members stayed up with us, and were always on campus or at the other end of the phone line. Am I an activist because I felt I had to support my friends? I’m not sure I am. I would have stood right away if Liza, the facilitator, had instead asked, “Who here is an activist or an ally?” I am an ally who is constantly learning, growing, and maturing in that role.

[zmwitkin]

Freedom of Expression in Islam

The portrayal and perception of Islam in states around the world differ dramatically. Recent attacks in Paris have reignited the debate surrounding Islam. In the culture of religion in France, citizens argue that their rights as individuals to practice and display their religion is in question. In the weeks since these events, states across the world have been questioning societal boundaries pertaining to state’s collective identity as well as individual’s freedom of expression. Where is the line distinguishing responsible and rash criticism? What is the proper response to an offensive remark? These questions need to be talked about. That is the only way society will progress on interfaith, multicultural, and interracial issues.

Following the tragic events in Paris, Tariq Ramadan and Rick MacArthur made contrasting points in their discussion on freedom of expression and the right to portray religious figures and symbols. Mr. Ramadan said that “… insulting the prophet, insulting Islam, I made it clear from the beginning this is your freedom to do so, I don’t think it’s good, I don’t think it’s an intelligent and decent way to deal with freedom of expression.” Meanwhile Rick MacArthur responded, “…provocation is part of the discussion. And if you can’t have provocation, you can’t have an authentic discussion.” I feel that both arguments are pertinent to the Charlie Hebdo attacks, but I am concerned that by saying provocation is necessary to have constructive discussions, it indirectly serves to validate the attackers’ actions. If change cannot come without an instance similar to this occurring, then how can a society, such as in France, peacefully come to resolutions? What Tariq Ramadan said is quite poignant. While I am not denying the fact that Charlie Hebdo had the right to characterize the prophet in the manner that they did, I agree that it was not the responsible thing to do. These values, or lack of filters, have kept France from embracing difference. Racial remarks and portrayals continue to alienate both sides—the white population as dominant, and the minority communities as weak. When there is a serious problem associated with the oppression of minority identity, it is not wise to blatantly stir up anger against communities that struggle to have adequate representation and respect. 

In discussing this ongoing discourse in French and worldwide media, it is important to understand the basis and standards of tolerance, factual elements of law, religion, and the intersection of the two. While the attacks on the Charlie Hebdo office, and the kosher supermarkets were isolated attacks, the sentiment behind religious expression and secularism has been volatile. I have a hard time grasping the logic behind France’s desire for immigrants, people of religious, ethnic, and racial minorities, to assimilate into society and forgo their traditions and inherent cultures. The wish to preserve the ‘French identity’ lacks appeal in France because it getting ever more diverse. I feel the ‘proper French identity’ is becoming, or has already become, archaic. Why should someone like Malek Chebel, a respected scholar in France with two French doctorates and an upbringing in an Algerian Muslim household, be subjected to such conformity? Part of what makes his contributions to academia and to this conversation so powerful is his unique experience being in the minority, but also identifying with France—having “passports into both worlds,” as he remarks. People’s right to freedom of expression is not being upheld because of the expectation that those ‘different’ from the desired French citizen assimilate into the society. 

While Ramadan and MacArthur stressed the importance of freedom of expression, France’s laws and its societal norms only serve to oppress weaker communities. While I agree that the attacks in Paris served to open a dialogue on the rights to express one’s self freely, the provocative statement portraying the prophet and the attacker’s retaliation should not have been what prompted these worldwide conversations. We need to actively think and imagine other people’s struggles and how others perceive our actions.