A Hanging in Toulouse

By Luis Granados

Two hundred and fifty years ago last Thursday night, cries were heard from a house on a quiet street in the French city of Toulouse. Always known as a hotbed of anti-Protestant feeling during the civil wars of the Reformation, Toulouse at the time was preparing to celebrate the bicentennial of the magnificent slaughter of 4,000 unarmed Protestants on a single day, commemorated with annual parades and fireworks ever since. The cries came from the home of the cloth merchant Jean Calas, age 63, one of the few Protestants thick-skinned enough to make his home in Toulouse. Jean was never a trouble-maker; he employed a Catholic maidservant for decades, and offered no protest when one of his younger sons chose to convert to Catholicism. His eldest son, though, was a difficult case. Moody and depressed, Marc-Antoine Calas had been barred from practicing law because of his Protestant faith. At the age of 29, going nowhere fast, Marc-Antoine became obsessed with the literature of suicide, especially the soliloquy of Hamlet. On the night of October 13, 1761, his lifeless body was found hanging in a storeroom after a family dinner. A crowd gathered, and a rumor quickly self-generated that Marc-Antoine may have been killed by his father, no doubt because he must have been planning to convert to Catholicism like his brother had.

Not a scintilla of evidence supported any part of this conjecture, including the rumored conversion; a mountain of circumstance and consistent testimony pointed to suicide. Didn’t matter. The chief magistrate, David de Beaudrigue, knew how evil Protestants were, and knew that the French Protestant champion John Calvin had taught that parents of apostate children were supposed to punish them by death. He also knew how much his superiors in Paris appreciated firmness in dealing with heretics. So the entire Calas family – including the Catholic maid – was clapped into prison that very night, charged with the murder of Marc-Antoine.

The local hierarchy jumped into the controversy with both feet. The first step was to prejudge the case by giving Marc-Antoine a magnificent funeral in the cathedral, honoring what was proclaimed to be a martyr’s death. (Suicides were not allowed to have funerals at all.) Prayers seeking Marc-Antoine’s intercession were said to have resulted in the working of miracles. Then the Church published a “monitory,” ordering all Catholics to come forward with evidence to prove “this crime of detestable character,” on pain of excommunication.

Some 150 witnesses came forward, but none had any evidence other than hearsay, and none of their stories matched. Under the bizarre French law of the day, though, it was possible to aggregate “half-proofs,” “quarter-proofs,” etc. into a full-blown proof to establish guilt. De Beaudrigue also succeeded in frightening off the lawyer who had been appointed to defend the family, forcing him to make public repentance for agreeing to take the case. No witnesses favorable to the family were permitted to testify. “I take all the responsibility,” de Beaudrigue said. “It is in the cause of religion.”

After months dragged by without discovering any useful evidence, and with his fellow magistrates beginning to express doubts, de Beaudrigue finally rammed through a solution: Jean Calas would be subjected to unspeakable torture, known as “breaking on the wheel,” during which he would confess the guilt of his co-conspirators before being released to death. The torture part of the program proceeded smoothly, for hours on end. But Calas steadfastly refused, right up to his dying breath, to say anything other than that his son had committed suicide. A frustrated de Beaudrigue then had to acquiesce in the release of the remaining family members.

That would have been the end of that, but for involvement of the great humanist author Voltaire, who was then entering what he thought was going to be a comfortable retirement. When Voltaire first learned of the Calas case, he was unimpressed. He despised the Puritanism of the French Calvinists even more than he did Catholicism, which could be quite agreeably decadent. His first reaction was that Jean was probably guilty. Then he met the youngest Calas son, who had escaped arrest by not being in the house that night. Voltaire was moved by his demeanor, and investigated further; his contacts in Toulouse assured him that the Jean Calas they knew could not possibly have murdered his son. After he interviewed another Calas son who had been present at the house and endured the months of imprisonment, Voltaire became convinced that a horrible injustice had been done.

A law school dropout, Voltaire had failed to learn his limitations. (Clarence Darrow later remarked that “Even Voltaire’s father could not make a lawyer out of a genius.”) Without any basis or precedent, Voltaire began demanding that the case be reopened by the central government in Paris, so that the honor of the Calas family could be restored. Toulouse responded, probably correctly, that Paris had no authority to overrule its decisions, even had there been any matters still in dispute, which there were not.

Realizing he could never win on the technicalities, Voltaire took the battle to the court of public opinion: “It is only the voice of the public that can help us to obtain justice, the forms of which have been invented to ruin innocents.” Over the decades Voltaire had developed a vast network of contacts all over Europe; at his behest people as powerful as the king of Prussia, the king of Poland, the queen of England, and the czarina of Russia began pressuring the French government about how such an injustice could be allowed to stand. “All possible means must be combined, all voices joined in unison,” Voltaire insisted. One of his most telling arguments was that the verdict as a whole could not possibly be correct: if Jean were guilty and the rest of his family innocent, that meant that a frail 63-year old had managed to subdue and kill by hanging a strapping 29-year old, all by himself. “Let them produce the procedure; all the nations are interested.”

Voltaire even wrote a book, his Treatise on Tolerance, tracing the history of religious persecution to soften the public mood: “Tolerance has never yet excited civil wars, whereas its opposite has filled the earth with slaughter and desolation.” It was promptly banned.

Most of the French establishment wanted Voltaire to butt out. The Duc de Choiseul, the king’s principal minister, responded that “When one arrives at a certain age, it is wise to use one’s wits for the furthering of one’s own happiness and that of one’s friends. So I say to you, let the world wag its own way, since it is not your responsibility to change the order of things.” But nothing official Paris could do would shut him up. After nearly a year of pestering, including a decisive victory in winning over the powerful mistress of the king, Voltaire finally got the King’s Council to agree to review the case. The review was delayed for months because of Toulouse’s reluctance to turn over a copy of the transcript; when the magistrates whined about the expense of preparing the copy, Voltaire offered to pay the cost himself.

On March 9, 1764, a Paris tribunal by a vote of 40-0 voted to reverse the verdict and declare the entire Calas family “perfectly innocent” and grievously wronged, while demanding that the annual celebrations of the 1562 massacre cease. The king himself made a gift of money to Calas’ widow, in partial compensation for her lost income. Jean Calas became the last Frenchman ever “broken on the wheel.” David de Beaudrigue lost his sanity and jumped to his death. The back of officially-sanctioned discrimination against French Protestants was broken; so was the mystique of God, the church, and the government working hand in hand. The Calas affair didn’t produce the French Revolution all by itself, but it certainly helped set the stage. As for today’s Catholic Church, here is what the online version of the Catholic Encyclopedia has to say:

But there are weighty reasons to doubt the father’s innocence (Barthélemy). Voltaire cannot be considered an impartial historian of the case, owing to his preconceived desire to present a strong indictment against the Catholic Church, rather than to state the facts in their true light. The responsibility of the condemnation in no way rested with the ecclesiastical authorities.

PHILOSOPHY IS DEAD

LONG LIVE SCIENTIFIC METHOD!!

Out standing scientist Stephen Hawking along with Leonard Mlodinow declared positively that philosophy is dead.

Alarming to philosophy lovers, of course.

During 1940s M.N.Roy, humanist philosopher  warned that unless philosophy takes into consideration the philosophical consequences of modern science, it cannot survive.

That is exactly the reason why Stephen Hawking emphatically said that philosophy is dead.

The Grand Design is the latest book in which the authors proposed M-theory as unified development which Einstein dreamed of.

The philosophy has to answer the questions faced by modern world but fail to do so. What are they?

“Why is there something rather than nothing?

Why do we exist?

Why this particular set of laws and not some others?”

Hitherto people thought that everything was created by god. They did this out of ignorance. For every natural event like thunder, lightning, rain, fire, oceans, earth, planets, stars ancient people imagined gods behind them .Hence they worshiped them to get favors and to escape calamities. So many gods were created and several religions emerged out of peoples ignorance.

For the first time Ionian Greek thinkers put systematic rational thinking which changed the minds of people.

Thales, Miletus, Pythagoras, Anaximander, Empidocles,  Democritus  and few others are in the list. Their thought influenced generations but again religions camouflaged their causation.

Ptolemy ( 85-165 AD) through his 13 volume treatise convinced the world that earth is the center of the universe and also earth is flat. Christians accepted that theory.It continued until Galileo ,and Copernucus, Kepler radically changed our concepts and thinking. Sun is the center of the universe and earth goes round the sun. The rational thinkers suffered in the hands of fanatic Christian authorities. They regretted much later and accepted their mistakes.

As scientific thinking, innovation, discoveries progress , different theories emerged and some of them look diametrically opposed to each other.

Now it is established that four forces are certain namely:

Electro magnetic, Gravitation, weak nuclear force, and strong nuclear force.

Einstein came out with theory of relativity which radicalized the world concepts. At micro and macro levels there are particle, light, wave theories and also different concepts of universe. There are several dimensions. New Quantum theory again totally changed the thinking process.

Big Bang theory ( originally named by Fred Hoyle), Expanding theory, steady state theory and others also came out.

If so may realities and conflicts are there, which one is true and which one is not?

Are there many universes and if so each universe must be having its own laws too.

These are mind boggling theories.

Stephen Hawking came out with his M-theory where in synthesis and reconcialation  is possible. Positive energy of matter can be balanced by negative gravitational energy according to Stephen. The universe creates itself due to gravity. This spontaneous creation is the sufficient reason for the existence of universe, says Stephen and Leonard.

Thus M-theory is not only miracle, mystery but real too.

THERE IS NO NEED TO INVOKE GOD FOR SUCH DESIGN. Wonderful , excellent conclusion of Stephen Hawking.

What about intelligent design, then? It is only cunning way of introducing blind faith of religion in round about way.

      Is this end of all?

No. There is no end in Science. Scientific method  is ever growing and continuous process. All theories are tentative. If some thing better and provable theory emerges, people  support it. One great virtue in scientific method is: Self correction .It is not there in holy books, religions and blind faiths. This self correction only leads humans ever progressive and forward looking.

( please see : The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking, Leonard Mlodinow: Bantam books, New York pp 200;

Also Science and philosophy by M.N Roy)

INNAIAH NARISETTI

Magic of Reality Part 2 –Why are You so Insensitive About my Real Myths?

By Gary Berg-Cross

As I mentioned in my earlier blog not everyone is happy with Dawkin’s Magic of Reality book and its gentle debunking of myths. When Sally Quinn published a favorable review and profile on Richard Dawkins in the Post’s Oct. 4 Style (“Outspoken atheist explains magic of science to the young”) it was met by an angry Letter to the Editor by Jim Fowler, Ashburn. Jim largely ignores the science-centric nature of the book and started down the religious path arguing that Dawkins is no expert on religion:

“Mr. Dawkins himself is quite a contradiction. His understanding of science is truly profound, and his ability to communicate its truths is quite enthralling. Yet when it comes to the topic of religion, he exhibits a far less sophisticated comprehension, and his rants can come across mean-spirited. If he would only stick to science instead of veering into a domain where he is apparently not well-trained, his considerable gifts could be far more broadly appreciated.”

What rants he may be alluding to are unclear and how he veered into religion, at least in this book, is also unclear. Perhaps it is that not all myths are created equal. It may be OK to critique other people’s myths and knock Scandinavian Thorists but the story of Genesis, elevated by Hebrew tribes in the Middle East and enshrined in a claim of one true God is not to be treated this way.

Or it could be that the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins is not being criticized, but Richard Dawkins, the outspoken atheist and bestselling author of “The God Delusion” is. With this book he may have made permanent, vocal enemies who want to shout down anything he says. It’s analogous to what happened to Michael Moore and Al Gore when they exposed certain inconvenient mass beliefs as erroneous. that It doesn’t matter that he’s written what Sally Quinn called:

“a book for 12-year-olds, although with its entertaining clarity and beautiful illustrations, it’s also appropriate for adults who lack a strong science background.”

Perhaps it is that Richard can be wonderfully direct in interviews that accompany the book. For example creationists, as Dawkins acknowledged in a recent interview, “might have trouble with it.” Talking about believers in the Adam and Eve myth, Dawkins was expressed himself clearly:

“What baffles me about people like that,” he says, “is how they can get in a car, fill out tax forms, go to the grocery store or run a life, harbor these delusions and still be so ignorant and stupid? How do they navigate their way home without driving over a cliff?”

All of this directness can be seen and read in an exchange with Bill O’REILLY on his Fox show. A portion is reproduced below and you can decide who is playing “semantic games” and who is being clear thinking:

O’REILLY – You may remember about two years ago we had an atheist, Richard Dawkins, on The Factor. He was on a crusade to convince believers they’re idiots. Well now, Mr. Dawkins’ new book, partially aimed at children, called The Magic of Reality – I talked to him earlier this week.

Now, you wrote this book, and this book, you know, is marketed somewhat toward children, adolescents, correct?

DAWKINS – It is, yes.

O’REILLY – And you want them to not only believe in science – which I think is a good thing – but reject God and religion.

DAWKINS – No, this is a book about science. It doesn’t talk about God.

O’REILLY – It mocks God. I looked at it.

DAWKINS – No it doesn’t.

O’REILLY – Come on!

DAWKINS – Which page have you looked at?

O’REILLY – I mean I went through that book and basically you’re saying that everything can be explained by science. Correct?

DAWKINS – Well, everything about the natural world can be explained by science. But where does it mock God?

O’REILLY – It basically says that these things are myths. They’re not really true…

DAWKINS – Every chapter has myths at the beginning of it.

O’REILLY—Ah-ha!!!

DAWKINS – Some of them are Aztec myths, there are ancient Egyptian myths, the … {inaudible}.

O’REILLY – You're playing semantic games. You know what you’re doing. You’re trying to get to the kids and say you’re an idiot if you believe in God.

DAWKINS – It has nothing to do with God. I am talking about myths from all over the world. The Judeo-Christian myth is thrown in occasionally, as one of many myths that come from around the world.

O’REILLY – The Judeo-Christian philosophy isn’t a myth. It’s reality. This country is based on it.

DAWKINS – Whew! That’s not true.

O’REILLY – Yes it is. Throughout history, some of the worst regimes ever have been atheistic. You know that. Communists, under Stalin, Mao Tse Tung …

DAWKINS – That’s nothing to do with atheism……

****************************************************

And the story doesn’t end there. After the interview and later on his book tour Dawkins was scheduled to speak at a $95-a-plate dinner event at Wyndgate Country Club organized by the Center for Inquiry Michigan, along with the Richard Dawkins Foundation.

But the country club of cancelling his appearance after the interview on Fox News’ “The O’Reilly Factor,” where he discussed his new book, The Magic of Reality: How We Know What’s Really True.

Why? In a phone interview Assistant Director Jennifer Beahan of the Club said simply that the club owner did not wish to associate with individuals such as Dawkins or his philosophies.

Dawkins told the Detroit Free Press.

"This is sheer bigotry. If the country club had said, 'I'm not having Dawkins speak because he's a Jew, or because he's black, or because he's gay,' they would never get away with it,"

CFI is pursuing legal remedies against Wyndgate Country Club.

Predictions, Prognostications, Skeptics and Politics

Being a humanist and a religious skeptic, among other more colorful epithets I've undoubtedly been called over the years, especially by my kids, I am rightfully reluctant to suddenly declare myself a Political Prognosticator.

My career with the Feds has prepared me to do any number of esoteric and sleep-inducing things, but being a PP is not one of them, so I will let that be my disclaimer for this piece.

However.

I have been a Republican, an Independent and now can fairly call myself a reluctant Democrat, so I can claim to have seen and understood the political spectrum from all three perspectives over the last forty years or so, and during those years, have watched all sorts of political shenanigans and heard all kinds of explanations for all of them.

But there has always been a kind of undercurrent to the political life of America for most of my life, and that was two things. First, partisan politics always ended at the water's edge, and second, even bitter political enemies have always taken for granted the assumption that his/her opponents were, at heart, Americans with the best interests of America at the core of their political agenda.

No more.

Both of these iron-clad guidelines of American Politics have fallen victim to the bitter partisan political fighting of recent elections, and since the 2010 election, I think the gloves have finally been removed.

But the brass knuckles were not.

By very publicly announcing the intentions of the Republican Party to "make Obama a one-term President", Eric Cantor has voiced the goal of the Republican Party in no uncertain terms.

You know all those jobs that over 60% of Americans want the Congress to focus on?

Fugedaboutit.

Since January of this year, Republicans nationwide have passed laws regarding Abortion, Campaign Fraud (restrictions of voter's rights), Union busting (restrictions on Democrats' ability to raise campaign funds), Removing Fluoride from our Water and just about any other subject they could use to elicit campaign funds from an excited base and avoid talking about the one thing this country needs: Jobs.

Why? Why would otherwise intelligent people avoid something so necessary to the economic health of this country? Two words:

President Obama.

It is more important to Republicans that Obama not win in 2012 than it is to fix the economy. It is so important to make him a single term President that they will deliberately avoid doing ANYTHING that may even appear to give him a win. Especially if it works.

So now I come to my prediction:

There will be no jobs bill.

There will be no major economic bills passed at all, unless they can, like in the debt ceiling crisis, make the Democrats cave.

They will continue to pass meaningless bills to show their constituencies that they are pursuing their conservative agenda, but are being stymied by those evil socialists in Congress and the White House who are trying so hard to destroy this country "unless you send a conservative back to Congress - preferably me."

All in the interests of preventing Obama from being re-elected.

Because nobody else in this town will say it, I will. They are mean spirited, low down, evil minded wealthy jerks who are only focused on getting what their masters want:

A Kleptocracy, well leavened with a theocratic yeast, blown to oversized proportions.

Good-bye middle class, it's been good knowing ya.

Robert Ahrens

Rockville, MD

Egypt, Palestinian Rights and the Camp David Accords

September 2011 Attack on the Israeli Embassy in Cairo

Many non-Egyptians fear that the revolution will lead to war with Israel in support of a Palestinian state. Some say that a stronger role for the Muslim Brotherhood in Parliament will lead to abrogation of the 1978 Camp David accords and the 1979 treaty with Israel.  From my understanding of Egyptian history and culture and multiple visits since February 2011, I am convinced that war is not imminent and that the accords and treaty will be respected. However, Egypt will become a more active player in the efforts to establish a Palestine state.  Such a role will grow out of the efforts of Egyptians to establish a separation of powers among democratic institutions, civilian control of the military and transitional justice.

Until recently, analysts have considered the decisions of Egyptian leaders to be the most important factor in the country’s relations with Israel, Palestine and other Arab countries.  Today, Egypt’s engagement on Middle East political issues is more dependent on the establishment of its own responsive democratic institutions, modern political parties and effective advocacy groups.  Voices suppressed for decades are now in a position to influence government policy.  At the same time, the power of the military to influence foreign policy has become more overt.  Revolutionary groups have become important players in both domestic and foreign policy.

The interplay of these forces will lead to changes in Egypt’s role in the Middle East.  It is impossible to predict exactly what positions or actions the Egyptian Government will take.  We can be sure, however, that its actions vis-a-vis Israel and Palestine will correspond more closely to the desires of the Egyptian population.

To appreciate the factors that will influence Egypt’s Middle East policy, it is important to understand modern Egyptian history and the relationship between its leaders and people. I will present an overview of the events that have shaped Egyptians' feelings on Israel and Palestinian rights in three blog posts. This post traces Egypt’s history from the Ottoman Empire until Egypt’s defeat in the 1967 Six-Day War with Israel.

The Ottoman Empire

Egypt and Palestine were part of the Ottoman Empire for hundreds of years. In 1882, the British occupied Egypt.  While many Egyptians objected to Ottoman control of Egypt, they were pleased that the Ottomans, a Muslim but non-Arab people, controlled Jerusalem.  British colonialism was strongly opposed by Egyptians, especially after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire following World War I and the creation of the British mandate for Palestine in 1922.

British Control, Liberal Democracy and the Monarchy

Saad Zaghlul, Founder of the Wafd Party and First Prime Minister of Independent Egypt

Three of the ideologies that influence post-revolutionary Egypt and its role in the Middle East were forged during the British occupation – liberal nationalist, communist and Islamist.  Opposition to British control in Palestine led Palestinians to revolt in 1920, 1929 and 1936. In Egypt, the British allowed the development of a liberal democracy based on a modern constitution, with an effective Parliament and active political parties. Nationalists in Egypt led uprisings in 1919 and 1921, which forced the British to formally recognize the independence of Egypt under King Fuad, with nationalist leader Saad Zaghlul as Prime Minister.  However, the British continued to occupy Egypt and interfere with its governance. Communists and the Muslim Brotherhood competed with liberal nationalists in opposing the British.  Some of them joined with Arab nationalists in Palestine to support the 1941-42 drive across North Africa led by Nazi General Rommel, which was eventually stopped by the British General Montgomery in November 1942.

The 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Creation of Israel and Palestinian Displacement

May 1948 Israeli Declaration of Independence and Beginning of Arab-Israeli War

Both Egyptian leaders and citizens showed solidarity with the Arabs of Palestine during the 1947 Partition, the1948 Arab-Israeli war, the creation of the state of Israel and the displacement of Palestinians from their lands. The Egyptians, under King Farouk, Fuad’s successor, and the nationalist-dominated Parliament rejected the 1947 UN Partition Plan for Palestine and sent 20,000 troops to join other Arab League members fighting in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Farouk saw this war as a means to build Egypt’s leadership of the Arab world and a way of extending Egypt’s authority to southern Palestine. The 1949 armistice gave the Gaza Strip to Egypt.

The creation of the State of Israel and the annexation of the West Bank and Jerusalem by Jordan were bitter blows to Egyptian leaders, who spent the next eight years in a cold peace with Israel. Egyptian citizens were disappointed in the performance of their military.  In solidarity with other Arabs, Egyptian leaders voiced the sympathy of their citizens for the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees displaced during the war.  

Free Officers Movement, Creation of a Republic Government and the 1956 Suez Crisis

Free Officers Movement, including Nasser and Sadat

A fourth major ideology affecting Egypt’s role in the Middle East today was born in the 1950’s – Nasserism. A coup d’état by the “Free Officers Movement” in 1952 led to the fall of the monarchy, the creation of a republican government in 1953 and the assumption of power by Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1954.  In 1956, as the British pulled out of the Suez Canal, their last remaining foothold in Egypt, Nasser nationalized the Canal, and barred Israeli shipping through the Canal as well as through the Straits of Tiran leading to Israel’s port of Eilat.  Israel then invaded and occupied the Sinai.  Britain and France undertook a bombing campaign and sent troops to secure the Suez Canal. Pressure from the US eventually led to withdrawal of these forces and the establishment of UN Peacekeepers in the Sinai, but the Egyptian population was left with a stronger view of Israel as the enemy and greater pride in the Egyptian military.   

 Gamal Abdel Nasser – Arab Nationalism and Repression

Gamal Abdel Nasser

The vast majority of Arabs throughout the Middle East viewed Nasser as a hero.  Most Egyptians were proud of Nasser’s strong Arab nationalistic rhetoric, anti-imperialism, support for revolutionary movements in Algeria and Yemen and vehement opposition to Israel.

Nasser transformed Egypt by investing heavily in infrastructure, building the government bureaucracy and pursuing a significant program of land reform.  His goal was the establishment of a secular, militarized State. However, over the next decade, Nasser created a totalitarian state that gave primacy to the military. He established tight control of the military and intelligence services; abolished all but the ruling political party; led campaigns of severe repression against Islamists, communists, minorities and foreigners; and took total control of the media and national Muslim institutions.  In 1965, he imprisoned and eventually executed Sayyad Qutb, the Muslim Brotherhood’s leading theoretician.  Egyptians showed their support for Nasser in electing him as President in referenda where he was the only candidate.

Consequently, any opposition to Nasser’s intervention in Israel was repressed.  Those voices who opposed or supported another approach to his Israel and Palestine policies, whether communist, Islamist or liberal, were not part of the public discourse.

Creation of the PLO

Nasser Addressing the PLO

To demonstrate his leadership of the Arab world and ability to use Palestinians to pressure Israel, Nasser helped organize the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) by passing a resolution at an Arab League summit meeting in Cairo in January 1964.  The founding conference of the PLO took place in Jerusalem in May 2004, resulting in the creation of the Palestinian National Council, serving as the Palestinian parliament-in-exile. It also issued the Palestinian National Charter.  The Charter sought the establishment of a Palestinian state in the place of Israel, affirmed the Palestinians’ right to return and called for armed struggle to liberate Palestine.  It also aimed for the elimination of Zionism, which it called racist, fanatic, aggressive, expansionist, colonialist and fascist. 

Many Egyptians hailed this initiative in support of their Arab brethren and the recuperation of what Nasser called “Arab land.”  As tension mounted with Israel from 1965-1967, the vast majority of Egyptians supported the efforts of Nasser to use the PLO to prepare for the Six-Day War that broke out in June 1967.

The Six-Day War and its Aftermath

Egyptian Soldiers Surrendering to Israelis

Persuaded by a massive domestic public relations campaign of the strength of the Egyptian army, most Egyptians were proud that Nasser had decided to use the military forces again after 11 years for his purpose of recovering “Arab land” from Israel and “restoring the rights of the Palestinian people.”  His first step was to demand the removal of UN troops from the Sinai.  Then, as in 1956, he ordered the military to blockade the Straits of Tiran to prevent shipping to the Israeli port of Eilat. After Nasser massed Egyptian troops in the Sinai, Israel started hostilities on June 5 by bombarding and destroying the Egyptian air force.  Its troops then encircled and bombed the Egyptian army, which performed poorly and was confused by a retreat order. The Israelis took Gaza on June 7 and arrived at the Suez Canal by June 8. The Egyptian army had been defeated, even though most of its units had little chance to fight. Unlike in 1956, Israel remained in control of the Sinai and Gaza after the war, a bitter loss to Egypt.

Nasser was deeply shamed by the poor performance of the Egyptian military and the loss of the Sinai and its oil fields.  Almost all Egyptians were in a state of shock, finding it difficult to believe that Nasser could have led their country into such a cataclysm.  Some of them could no longer view him as a hero and began to think of his Arab nationalist project as a bad dream. Nasser never recovered psychologically and died in 1970.  His Arab nationalist movement died with him, as Egypt increasingly became a militarized police state with an ever-growing bureaucracy.

Nasser did leave a legacy of frustrated and repressed idealists, whether Arab nationalists, liberals, communists, Islamists or those who supported the supremacy of the military.  Each of these groups remained committed to the rights of the Palestinian people, coming from their own ideological perspectives.  The interaction of these groups and their attempts to support the Palestinians provided some of the seeds of the 2011 Egyptian revolution.


Rick Gold

Cross-posted from Post-Revolutionary Egypt

Why is the U.S. in Afghanistan, again?

By Bill Creasy

Afghanistan has become the longest American war. Meanwhile, the reasons for the war and the definition of success have gotten harder to understand and justify.

The war started after 9/11 in order to destroy the Al Qaeda training camps. The camps were destroyed and the government of the Taliban was removed from power, in short order, by Special Forces troops and local allies. Then the U. S. was left with the policy that Colin Powell called "You broke it, you bought it." Nation building and long-term battles against Taliban rebels were the only way to preserve the gains and hold onto territory. This policy continued in spite of the Bush Administration's ambivalent ideas about nation building, and their loss of interest in Afghanistan to start another war in Iraq.

Meanwhile, al Qaeda members withdrew to Pakistan. That included Osama bin Laden, who withdrew to the infamous compound in Abbottabad near the military academy, where he was found and assassinated. The Pakistan government seems to have an ambivalent attitude toward restraining al Qaeda. Some parts of the Pakistan government provide intelligence and turn a blind eye to the Predator drone bombings, which have increased under the Obama Administration. Other parts of the government may see Al Qaeda and the Taliban as a cash cow for getting U. S. aid, or as potential allies against their historic mortal enemy, India.

The current U. S. position is difficult to rationalize in any military or moral sense. It is unfortunate that the Bush Administration started this war with no exit strategy, and even worse that the Obama Administration has continued similar policies. Obama has promised to begin troop withdrawals, but there appears to be no clear plan for how fast withdrawals will happen.

It would be nice for the U. S. to have a military presence and a trusted government in Afghanistan. But occupying the entire country risks American lives, costs a huge amount of money, and there is no sign that the Taliban rebels are ready to give up. The U. S.-supported government of Hamid Karzai is corrupt and unpopular.

The indefinite occupation of the entire country is unacceptable. It is too much like colonialism. With modern weapons, or even primitive IEDs, in the hands of the rebels, an occupation will lead to many lives lost.

One solution is not to try to occupy the entire country. The U. S. should carve out a city-state protectorate area as a miliary base around Kabul. The rest of the country should be left to the local people. That approach has the following advantages:

1. The U. S. could occupy this small base of operations with much less personnel than the entire country. The civil operations could be assigned to the Afghans, with support only if needed.

2. The protectorate would give the U. S. military a base for air survellance to prevent training camps from being established. They could obtain intelligence from local people. This would fulfill the real requirement to protect the U. S. from further attacks.

3. The rest of the country of Afghanistan would be unoccupied and allowed to run its own government. This eliminates the need for nation building, and removes the oxymoronic effort to impose a democracy on a people who don't seem ready or able to run it.

4. It would free up U. S. military personnel to focus on other areas of the world that are becoming terrorist sanctuaries, like Yemen, Somalia, or the Sudan.

5. The U. S. protectorate in Afghanistan would give a place of sanctuary to Afghans who fear for their lives from the Taliban. This approach should alleviate the kind of religious civil warfare that caused massive loss of life in Iraq, as neighbors of different religions attacked each other, and educated professionals were forced to flee the country. Women or children who are threatened by Taliban policies could seek refuge. This effort would require U. S. support for the refugees, but it could still be less expensive than occupying the country. At best, these refugees could be the basis for an educated economic oasis in a poor, rural landscape. It could also be a model for securing refugee populations in countries like Somalia.

For these reasons, it seems advantageous to abandon most of Afghanistan back to the inhabitants, and hold only a small area of land around the capitol city.

Of course, no one wants to see another Taliban-led Islamic theocracy. But it seems safe to say that the U. S. can't tell them that it will be a bad kind of government. They just won't take our word for it, until they try it, and they have to face the problems and resistance for themselves. The "safe zone" would give a refuge to people who are victimized, until a better system develops.

Comments are welcome.

Bill Creasy is on the board of WASH and coordinator of the Baltimore chapter.

The Charm of Understanding Reality: Captured in a Children's Book Written by Richard Dawkins – Part 1

by Gary Berg-Cross

Pioneering Swiss developmental psychologist Jean Piaget spent a professional lifetime observing children to understand their thinking. It sounds strange today to say that what he found was revolutionary. But it certainly was and contrary to much of the learning thinking holding sway in his time 50 -80 years ago. A prevailing, simple assumption was that learning is just a unitary process and children start “empty”. Learning pumps in more knowledge over time so the quantity of their intelligence grows to be that of an adult. But there were few studies with actual children & toddlers to test this idea.

After thousands of interactions with young people some barely old enough to talk, Piaget began to see a developmental pattern to children’s actions, utterances and perceptions. Like most parents he could see that infants are active explorers from birth and prefer to look at novel objects. By 6 months infants seem to understand that objects continue to exist even if hidden under something. After many studies Piaget concluded that the differences weren’t so much quantitative, but qualitative and process driven. Young children don't think like grownups. From infancy they employ schema, a kind of mental structure to guide interacts with the outside world. As schemas develop their thought processes take on their own kind of order and have their own special “logic”. It’s not a linear accretion of knowledge. Instead using a child actively constructs different models about reality using their own reasoning “logic”. Early reasoning may include magical explanations, but it evolves over time as different ideas are tested out and more abstract thought is supported. In a phrase the young child is like a junior scientist who constructs their own knowledge from experimenting on the world. They struggle to understand why things happen. This ranges from why is the sky blue, why the moon doesn’t get smaller as we travel around and why do people die. Einstein, a friend of Piaget, provided the right sort of praise for the discovery - "so simple that only a genius could have thought of it."

Piaget's insight opened not only a new window into the inner workings of the mind, but like any other pioneer it’s not the last word on the topic. By the 1970s there was neo-Piagetian work. And there are grand fusions of Piagetian thought with more social theory. Such syntheses are driven in part by breakthroughs in other fields as is still happening to evolutionary theory.
One of Piaget’s lasting contributions was to educational applications. Schools of education have housed many of Piaget’s disciples. The obvious idea is that educational material should be structured to help the advance children’s understanding and answer questions of interest things according to their logic. It also provides insights into higher order and critical thinking where we reflect not only on a problem to solve but our own thinking to solve a problem.

Now a new book The Magic of Reality by Richard Dawkins helps fill a need for book geared towards critical thinking. It provides a nice spark for adolescent, rational and scientific minds taking first steps in hypothetico-deductive reasoning. Susan Jacoby wrote a glowing review in WaPO on Dawkins teaches children how, not what, to think, noting its intellectual merits.
Dawkin’s motivation for book is something Piaget would have loved with broad sections, such as “What is reality? What is magic?” Each chapter starts with a clear interesting questions such as – “Why is there a sun? What is an earthquake? What is a rainbows? Why is there night and day, winter and summer? Why do bad things happen? Are we alone?” He then describes a myth which tries to answer the question. This is contrasted with scientific explanations of reality. This is an exciting aspect of the book partly because Dawkins is the first of the prominent member of the “new atheist” generation to take on the task of helping children distinguish between (ancient) mythical & magical view of reality and how it is understood by science.
To do this Dawkins uses some proven literary techniques. Each chapter begins with different versions of myths from different cultures. So the Sumerian creation stories and desert religion miracle tales are not a central feature elbowing out other ideas. In the 2^nd chapter titled, “Who Was the First Person?” we get a Tasmanian aboriginal story, with a god injured in a star-god battle who is dying. The god decided to create humans as his parting gift but in haste forgets to give people knees and instead tacks on a kangaroo tail. The rival god from the sky, seeing that the new race of people is unhappy with limited mobility, descendes to earth to cut off their tails and replace them with knees. Juxtaposed with such stores Dawkins will employ evolutionary explanations and cites philosophers, such as Hume, to present the ideas of magical explanations and myths in a fair light. Myths aren’t so much silly or stupid, since the may capture the magical and informal thinking young minds. They are, instead, just early attempts to understand the world using an immature logic, just as young children have been doing in their own lives. By showing the weaknesses of magical explanations and myths we are lead to more satisfying ones.

Along the way Dawkins provides clear, clever and uncluttered rational answers with base definitions. “Reality,” Dawkins describes simply as, “ everything that exists.” This juxtaposed with a fuzzier idea of Magic which he notes “is a slippery word.” To claify Dawkins proposed 3 kinds of magic:

· Supernatural - what we experience in myth stories, fairy tales and, miracles

· stage - pulling rabbits out of hats

· poetic magic - such as the oceanic experience of music, sunrise and double rainbows.

In Dawkins' able hands children can experience a bit of this poetic magic in understanding reality. It comes not from tricks or supernatural infusions, but as a coming together of a deep, relational pattern of ideas.

Piaget would have appreciated the message and also the approach. Facts aren’t piled up in a heap to say what they should believe. Instead Dawkins leads a young reader along a logical chain of thinking to logical conclusions.

Something that reviewers also appreciate about this volume is the enchanting illustrations provided by Dave McKean that help grasp topics showing both myths and science in graphical form. Again this fits with Piaget’s notions that younger children need concrete examples to supplement more abstract concepts and processes.

Not everyone is happy with this book and Dawkins' gentle debunking of myths which seem like rants to some true believers and this a topic for Part 2 of this blog.

Vox Populi

by Edd Doerr

The following letter was published in the Washington Examiner on 10-11-11.

"Planned Parenthood does not push abortion"

"Carolyn Naughton (letter, Oct 6) is wrong to blame Planned Parenthood for the social problems more properly attributed to poverty and its concomitants. Planned Parenthood did not cause these problems, but is working to solve them by providing health care services and family planning aid to those who can least afford it on their own. Only 3% of Planned Parenthood's budget is devoted to abortions, and these are provided only to patients who voluntarily wish to end a problem pregnancy. PP does not 'push' abortion or any other service on anyone. It is one of our society's most valuable organizations."

"Edd Doerr, Silver Spring"

So, a modest proposal. [First, however, let me note that Naughton and her husband have for many years flooded the Washington area papers with letters echoing and promoting the Vatican line on reproductive choice ad nauseam.)

We Humanists love to argue and write endlessly, but all too often this is carried out just among ourselves. We would do well to direct some of our effort outward -- through letters to editors and entries on newspaper blogs. Remember that the Federalist Papers were originally letters to the editor written us by Madison, Jay and Hamilton to sell the Constitution to voters.

I practice what I preach. Over the years I have -- in addition to editing three different journals (The American Rationalist, Church & State, Voice of Reason), writing columns in Humanist magazines for 40 years, and turning out a pile of books -- published several thousand letters to editors in papers and magazines throughout the US.

If every reader of this blog would get off just one letter per week to a paper or magazine, or post at least one comment per week on a widely read blog, I am sure that it would help to make a difference. I do not mean duplicating what the "new atheists" are doing with their books but, rather, addressing national and local problems where we agree with progressive people across the spectrum -- church-state separation issues, reproductive rights, civil liberties, the assaults on public education, the environment, politics, etc.

I have published several collections of my published letters and would be pleased to send a batch to anyone who requests them for $10 to cover costs. Write to me at PO Box 6656, Silver Spring, MD 20916.