How Atrocity Compounds and Multiplies; The Case of Maher Arar and Omar Khadr
The decision to suspend all ongoing MCA terrorism trials at Guantanamo has one slight unfortunate side-effect; the trial of accused 15 year old Canadian grenade-thrower Omar Khadr was actually starting to reveal some very interesting and important things in testimony (though of course stopping the trials was the right thing to do).
One surprising revelation was a purported link between Khadr and another Canadian who got mangled in the Bush Administration war on terrorism, the Syrian born Maher Arar. Arar, on his way back to Canada in September 2002 was detained by US authorities at JFK airport while changing flights. He was subsequently sent, not to Canada, his country of residence and citizenship, but to Syria, which was known to employ torture. The Syrians, eager to cooperate with America, tortured and interrogated Arar for a year before returning him to Canada, having found no evidence he was a terrorist. A subsequent Canadian inquiry would also clear Arar of any connection to terrorism and the Canadian government paid him $10M in compensation for Canada's role in Arar's illegal rendition to Syria. The US government did not cooperate in this Inquiry and has refused to clear Arar to the end of the Bush Administration.
In prosecution testimony on Monday, FBI Special Agent Robert Fuller claimed that during interrogations of Khadr in Afghanistan back in October 2002, Khadr claimed to know Arar, identified him by name from a photograph and claimed he had seen him in Al Qaeda safe houses in Afghanistan during September-October of 2001. This appeared to re-implicate Arar and vindicate at least his detention by US authorities. Then came Tuesday, and the cross-examination of Fuller.
(Another person's take on Robert Fuller's work on dignity and rankism, to start Sunday off on a high note. - promoted by Paul Rosenberg)
I didn't understand why I found Obama's race speech so moving until I read Fuller's comments on it. They seemed brilliant to me, so I proceeded to read Fuller's other writings. I think they make a powerful contribution to our understanding of the enigmas of our time, and may have the potential to helping us surmount them.
Fuller has had an illustrious career; first as physicist, then President of his alma mater, Oberlin College, as a citizen diplomat during the Cold War, chair of the board of Internews, and many other distinctions. The approach he takes to the issue of inequality may be a still greater contribution.
In his approach there are two main components to the problem of inequality: rankism, on the one hand, and dignity, on the other. The term rankism doesn't concern rank per se, only the abuse of rank. Some systems of rank are inherently abusive: white over black, male over female, hetero over homosexual, Christian over Muslim, extreme nationalism, and so on. But even legitimate systems of rank, those in most organizations, are often abusive; if not in principle, then in practice.
Yesterday, Spencer Ackerman published an important article on Barack Obama's foreign policy at the The American Prospect, " The Obama Doctrine," which had as one of its main themes the role of "dignity promotion" in Obama's thinking. Ackerman's focus is on Obama's foreign policy advisors (including the recently-departed Samantha Power, whose importance in understanding where Obama is coming from remains undiminshed, as she, unlike his other advisers, has already worked closely with him, serving in his Senate office for a year)/ All the adivisors share something in common-regardless of where they come from, all opposed the Iraq War, and weathered absurd, wrong-headed criticism as a result.
What Ackerman's article does-reason enough to set it well above anything similar-is take the next step and ask, "Where does this lead to next? What are the common factors underlying being right about Iraq, and how do they prefigure a different approach to foreign policy in the future?" The answers to this show significant promise that Obama's foreign policy thinking appears most similar to Clinton's only in the short run, if withdrawing from Iraq is the whole enchilada. But when the focus broadens, and turns to the future beyond Iraq, the differences become much clearer.
"Dignity promotion" is, to me, far and away the most promising aspect discussed, but it is far from the sole focus. Still, it represents a vital departure from current thinking. The question remains, however-how serious would it really be? There were, after all, strains of such thinking in John F. Kennedy's foreign policy (the Alliance for Progress, the Peace Corps), as well as Jimmy Carter's (human rights). Focusing attention on this promise now, and making it part of a wider dialogue is one way we can strengthen the possibility that it will really take root. To that end, let's take a look at some passages in Ackerman's article....
It's not simply a matter of protecting folks at the bottom, Hacker argues-effective dealing with risk is vital for creating an environment in which people feel secure enough to take on the sort of voluntary risk that helps drive the economy forward-what's often called "entrepreneurial risk," but that includes a wide range of choices to invest resources of time, money and effort in future possibilities that by their very nature cannot be certain. These include investments in eduction, training, changing careers, starting a new business, etc. In short, Hacker argues, a security orientation is not the polar opposite to an opportunity orientation-it is a vital aspect of an opportunity orientation. And it's this latter argument that gives Hacker's point about countering the Great Risk Shift a potential bipartisan cross-over appeal that fits perfectly with Obama's articulated intentions.
In this diary, I'd like to make another major issue proposal that is, if anything an even better fit for Obama. In fact, this is an issue that is truly transformative. It's called "rankism," and it consists, quite simply, of the abuse of the weak by the strong.
If the term "rankism" sounds a bit odd and contrived, the positive value opposing it is anything but. It's called "dignity," and the struggle against rankism is the struggle to make dignity a universal human right.
The purpose of this web site is to discuss the social cost of rankism and to develop a grassroots capacity to defend and protect dignity in everyday life. We hope you will join us in planning and building a world without rankism!
On the website, Fuller explains:
Rankism: A Social Disorder
An undiagnosed disorder is at large in the world. It afflicts individuals, groups, and nations. It distorts our personal relationships, erodes our will to learn, taxes our economic productivity, stokes ethnic hatred, and incites nations to war. It is the cause of dysfunctionality, and sometimes even violence, in families, schools, and the workplace.
Over the course of history, the most common abuses of power have acquired special names:
Each of these practices is an abuse of the weak by the strong. Each of these familiar named offenses is an instance of bullying, of pulling rank. By analogy with abuses based on race and gender, abuse based on rank is given the name rankism.
1. n. abuse, discrimination, or exploitation based on rank
2. n. abusive, discriminatory, or exploitative behavior towards people who have less power because of their lower rank in a particular hierarchy
Once you have a name for it, you see rankism at the heart of many infringements of human rights, far away or close to home. Rankism is the root cause of indignity, injustice, and unfairness. Choosing the term rankism, places the goal of universal human dignity in the context of contemporary movements for civil rights. Reexamining racism, sexism, and ageism as examples of rankism breathes new life into the movements opposing them. Identifying rankism in all its guises and overcoming it is democracy's next step.
