The Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM: originally from Groupe Spécial Mobile) is the most popular standard for mobile phones in the world. GSM service is used by over 2 billion people across more than 212 countries and territories.[1][2] The ubiquity of the GSM standard makes international roaming very common between mobile phone operators, enabling subscribers to use their phones in many parts of the world. GSM differs significantly from its predecessors in that both signaling and speech channels are Digital call quality, which means that it is considered a second generation (2G) mobile phone system. This fact has also meant that data communication was built into the system from the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP)
he GSM logo is used to identify compatible handsets and equipment
From the point of view of the consumers, the key advantage of GSM systems has been higher digital voice quality and low cost alternatives to making calls such as text messaging. The advantage for network operators has been the ability to deploy equipment from different vendors because the open standard allows easy inter-operability.[3] Like other cellular standards GSM allows network operators to offer roaming services which mean subscribers can use their phones all over the world.
As the GSM standard continued to develop, it retained backward compatibility with the original GSM phones; for example, packet data capabilities were added in the Release '97 version of the standard, by means of GPRS. Higher speed data transmission has also been introduced with EDGE in the Release '99 version of the standard.
Minggu, 23 Maret 2008
Global Poverty Needs a Global Answer
HBS professor emeritus George C. Lodge’s idea of a World Development Corporation has been percolating for years—he wrote a seminal article on the proposal in Foreign Affairs in 2002 (reprinted on HBS Working Knowledge).
The WDC would be a for-profit organization that would create sustainable improvements in impoverished countries. Lodge advanced the ideas in a January 2006 two-part piece in YaleGlobal coauthored with economist Craig Wilson. The authors also have a book due in May, A Corporate Solution to Global Poverty: How Multinationals Can Help the Poor and Invigorate Their Own Legitimacy, to be published by Princeton University Press.
In this recent interview conducted by e-mail, Lodge is hopeful that the World Development Corporation will be formed. He explains why nonprofits aren’t the answer to ending poverty and asks that executives look beyond philanthropy to make lasting positive change.
Cynthia Churchwell: In your Foreign Affairs article, you shared ideas on first steps to forming a World Development Corporation. What obstacles do you think have prevented this organization from coming into existence? What hope do you have that it will be created in the foreseeable future?
George C. Lodge: Bureaucratic inertia is strong. Big organizations do not like change. There is considerable mutual suspicion among MNCs, NGOs, and multilateral organizations. They are all busy doing what they are doing.
There are ideological problems as I mentioned: Business and government are supposed to be kept separate and preferably distant. And many agree with Milton Friedman who famously said that the purpose of business is to maximize returns to shareholders and compete to satisfy consumer desires in the marketplace. Government—not business—is supposed to define and insure the fulfillment of community needs. (Of course, Friedman's formulation leaves the manager with two problems: the sum of consumer desires does not necessarily equal community need, and many—perhaps most—governments to not define or fulfill community needs in a fashion that is acceptable to many. Thus business is left with no choice but to do so.)
Nevertheless, there is slow and I believe inexorable movement in the direction of a WDC, because it makes sense for all concerned. It will take time but it will happen. Just the other day the CEO of a major MNC decided to take time to get it started.
Q: Your YaleGlobal piece mentions Growing Sustainable Business and the Investment Climate Facility for Africa as positive collaborations between business, government, and nongovernmental organizations. Are there other examples that provide hope of continued partnerships such as these for reducing global poverty?
A: Yes, there are many. Here are two: DaimlerChrysler some years ago, under pressure from the Green Party in Germany, decided it had to increase the amount of renewable resources it used in the manufacture of its cars. The manager of the company's Brazilian subsidiary decided to make use of locally grown coca fibers for the manufacture of head rests and seats. With the help of Brazilian NGOs and the U.S. government's Inter-American Foundation, he found a community organization called POEMA in the impoverished northern part of the country near Belem where coca grows abundantly. With public sector financial help a joint venture was set up with POEMA, a modern high-tech factory built, and coca plantations developed. Some 5,000 people were employed. Literacy levels soared. Political participation increased. Change had been introduced.
The U.S. Agency for International Development has funded initiatives by Land O' Lakes in some twenty-three poor countries. In Albania, for example, Land O' Lakes has organized 8,000 women into cooperatives for the production of dairy products, providing technical support, veterinary services, and the like. While requiring public sector funding at first, these operations eventually become profitable.
Q: In what ways could the World Development Corporation be better than other partnerships to improve quality of life and investment climates?
A: First, it would provide for a collective approach to poverty reduction. The WDC board of directors would include about twelve of the world's most admired MNCs. In addition, associated companies could be called on to participate in particular projects as necessary. For example, let us imagine a Nestlé dairy operation in a rural area. It might be augmented and complimented by companies engaged in electric generation, telecommunications, housing, and water purification. Poverty, as we have noted, is systemic. Its alleviation requires a systemic approach by companies that are profit oriented. They must be profitable to be sustainable.
Second, the WDC would take the initiative to target projects in countries that have a good chance of success, where the government is hospitable, the local business community eager for partners, and where public funds or low-cost financing can be obtained for the project's early stages. It would organize the interface with supporting institutions such as the World Bank and the UNDP, and with local business partners. And since the WDC would have NGO representation on its board, it would assure NGO cooperation.
Third, the WDC would be a center of research and learning about the impact of business on poverty reduction, something about which we know surprisingly little today.
Q: How much progress do you think has been made towards reducing global poverty? Are there other key components to poverty reduction in addition to multinational corporations?
A: Many Asian countries have made spectacular advances. These include post-WWII Japan and more recently Singapore, China, India, South Korea, and Taiwan. Nevertheless most Africans were better off forty years ago than they are today. Average per capita incomes in the Moslem world from Morocco to Bangladesh and beyond to Indonesia and the Philippines are one half the global average. Poverty in Central Asia is increasing as it is in many countries of Latin America, even those that are relatively prosperous like Mexico and Brazil.
The key to poverty reduction, as the Asian examples show, is business, especially small- and medium-sized domestic companies. They provide the jobs, the income, and the motivation for individuals to become educated and move up in the world. For local business to flourish, however, it often needs access to world markets, technology, credit, and managerial know-how. This is the reality of globalization. And MNCs provide that access.
It is also important that governments provide a hospitable climate within which business can invest and grow. Infrastructure also is important—ports, roads, electric power, etc.
The WDC would be a for-profit organization that would create sustainable improvements in impoverished countries. Lodge advanced the ideas in a January 2006 two-part piece in YaleGlobal coauthored with economist Craig Wilson. The authors also have a book due in May, A Corporate Solution to Global Poverty: How Multinationals Can Help the Poor and Invigorate Their Own Legitimacy, to be published by Princeton University Press.
In this recent interview conducted by e-mail, Lodge is hopeful that the World Development Corporation will be formed. He explains why nonprofits aren’t the answer to ending poverty and asks that executives look beyond philanthropy to make lasting positive change.
Cynthia Churchwell: In your Foreign Affairs article, you shared ideas on first steps to forming a World Development Corporation. What obstacles do you think have prevented this organization from coming into existence? What hope do you have that it will be created in the foreseeable future?
George C. Lodge: Bureaucratic inertia is strong. Big organizations do not like change. There is considerable mutual suspicion among MNCs, NGOs, and multilateral organizations. They are all busy doing what they are doing.
There are ideological problems as I mentioned: Business and government are supposed to be kept separate and preferably distant. And many agree with Milton Friedman who famously said that the purpose of business is to maximize returns to shareholders and compete to satisfy consumer desires in the marketplace. Government—not business—is supposed to define and insure the fulfillment of community needs. (Of course, Friedman's formulation leaves the manager with two problems: the sum of consumer desires does not necessarily equal community need, and many—perhaps most—governments to not define or fulfill community needs in a fashion that is acceptable to many. Thus business is left with no choice but to do so.)
Nevertheless, there is slow and I believe inexorable movement in the direction of a WDC, because it makes sense for all concerned. It will take time but it will happen. Just the other day the CEO of a major MNC decided to take time to get it started.
Q: Your YaleGlobal piece mentions Growing Sustainable Business and the Investment Climate Facility for Africa as positive collaborations between business, government, and nongovernmental organizations. Are there other examples that provide hope of continued partnerships such as these for reducing global poverty?
A: Yes, there are many. Here are two: DaimlerChrysler some years ago, under pressure from the Green Party in Germany, decided it had to increase the amount of renewable resources it used in the manufacture of its cars. The manager of the company's Brazilian subsidiary decided to make use of locally grown coca fibers for the manufacture of head rests and seats. With the help of Brazilian NGOs and the U.S. government's Inter-American Foundation, he found a community organization called POEMA in the impoverished northern part of the country near Belem where coca grows abundantly. With public sector financial help a joint venture was set up with POEMA, a modern high-tech factory built, and coca plantations developed. Some 5,000 people were employed. Literacy levels soared. Political participation increased. Change had been introduced.
The U.S. Agency for International Development has funded initiatives by Land O' Lakes in some twenty-three poor countries. In Albania, for example, Land O' Lakes has organized 8,000 women into cooperatives for the production of dairy products, providing technical support, veterinary services, and the like. While requiring public sector funding at first, these operations eventually become profitable.
Q: In what ways could the World Development Corporation be better than other partnerships to improve quality of life and investment climates?
A: First, it would provide for a collective approach to poverty reduction. The WDC board of directors would include about twelve of the world's most admired MNCs. In addition, associated companies could be called on to participate in particular projects as necessary. For example, let us imagine a Nestlé dairy operation in a rural area. It might be augmented and complimented by companies engaged in electric generation, telecommunications, housing, and water purification. Poverty, as we have noted, is systemic. Its alleviation requires a systemic approach by companies that are profit oriented. They must be profitable to be sustainable.
Second, the WDC would take the initiative to target projects in countries that have a good chance of success, where the government is hospitable, the local business community eager for partners, and where public funds or low-cost financing can be obtained for the project's early stages. It would organize the interface with supporting institutions such as the World Bank and the UNDP, and with local business partners. And since the WDC would have NGO representation on its board, it would assure NGO cooperation.
Third, the WDC would be a center of research and learning about the impact of business on poverty reduction, something about which we know surprisingly little today.
Q: How much progress do you think has been made towards reducing global poverty? Are there other key components to poverty reduction in addition to multinational corporations?
A: Many Asian countries have made spectacular advances. These include post-WWII Japan and more recently Singapore, China, India, South Korea, and Taiwan. Nevertheless most Africans were better off forty years ago than they are today. Average per capita incomes in the Moslem world from Morocco to Bangladesh and beyond to Indonesia and the Philippines are one half the global average. Poverty in Central Asia is increasing as it is in many countries of Latin America, even those that are relatively prosperous like Mexico and Brazil.
The key to poverty reduction, as the Asian examples show, is business, especially small- and medium-sized domestic companies. They provide the jobs, the income, and the motivation for individuals to become educated and move up in the world. For local business to flourish, however, it often needs access to world markets, technology, credit, and managerial know-how. This is the reality of globalization. And MNCs provide that access.
It is also important that governments provide a hospitable climate within which business can invest and grow. Infrastructure also is important—ports, roads, electric power, etc.
Abu Bakr (573-634)
Also known as Abu-Bekr Muslim caliph (civic and religious leader of Islam) from 632 to 34. Born Abd-al-Ka'aba, he adopted the name Abu Bakr (`Father of the virgin ´) about 618 when the prophet Muhammad married his daughter Ayesha. He was a close adviser to Muhammad in 622-32 and succeeded the prophet as political leader at his death. As the first Muslim caliph he imposed Muslim authority over all the Arab tribes, added Mesopotamia to the Muslim world, and instigated expansion of Iran into Iraq and Syria. Traditionally he is supposed to have encouraged some of those who had known Muhammad to memorize his teachings; these words were later written down to form the Quran.
Islamic art Art and design of the Muslim world
Dating from the foundation of the Islamic faith in the 7th century AD. The traditions laid down by Islam created devout, painstaking craftsmen whose creative purpose was the glory of God. Elements and motifs were borrowed from Byzantine, Coptic, and Persian Sassanian (AD 224-642) traditions and fused into a distinctive decorative style, based on Arabic calligraphy. Sculpture was prohibited and carvers turned instead to exquisite inlay and fretwork, notably on doors and screens, in Islamic monuments such as the Alhambra Palace, Granada, Spain, and the Taj Mahal, India. Today, Islamic art is to be found predominately in Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, the Indian subcontinent, and the Central Asian Republics. Calligraphy Regarded as the highest of all arts due to its role in transcribing the Koran, calligraphy was used to decorate pottery, textiles, metalwork, and architecture. Scripts ranged in style from the cursive Naskh with its extended flourishes to the angular Kufic. Interlacing patterns based on geometry and stylized plant motifs (including the swirling arabesque) typically framed and enhanced the lettering. Ceramics Drawing on Chinese techniques and styles, Muslim potters developed their own distinctive, often colored, lustres and glazes, which were later influential in the development of European ceramics. In the 11th-12th centuries Turkish Seljuk pottery was noted for its lively designs. In the 16th century, Iznik in Turkey became an important centre, producing beautiful wares, typically blue plant forms against a white ground, and glazed and coloured tilework for mosque decoration. Miniature painting A court tradition of miniature painting developed, which was primarily representational, featuring both humans and animals. Derived from the ivory carvings of Fatimid Egypt (AD 969-1171), it flourished in Persia during the Timurid (15th century) and Safavid (1502-1736) dynasties. The Tabriz school was transplanted to India by the Mogul emperor Akbar (see Indian art). Textiles Islamic weavers, notably those of the Fatimid period, produced silk brocades and carpets of an unprecedented fineness and beauty. Turkish ushak medallion carpets were exported to the West in the 16th century and featured in many Renaissance paintings, adorning floors, walls, and desks. (©Helicon Publishing Ltd, printed from the Hutchinson Educational Encyclopedia, 2001)
Islamic architecture The architecture of the Muslim world
ighly diverse but unified by climate, culture, and a love of geometric and arabesque ornament, as well as by the mobility of ideas, artisans, and architects throughout the region. The central public buildings are mosques, often with a dome and minaret; domestic houses face an inner courtyard and are grouped together, with vaulted streets linking the blocks. The mosque is the centre of religious life throughout the Islamic world, the masjid or `place of prostration´. The major mosque in a city is the masjid al-jum'a, the Friday mosque. The mosque form originated in Muhammad's house in Medina (where he fled from Mecca 622). It was a mud-walled courtyard enclosure with a shaded perimeter. The elements of the mosque are essentially functional rather than symbolic. There is no division between the sacred and secular. A mihrab niche indicates the orientation to Mecca. To the right of the mihrab stands the minbar, the pulpit. A minaret signifies the presence of the mosque and provides a platform from which the muezzin calls the faithful to prayer. A courtyard sahn is a place of gathering for the community. The Arab-type mosque plan of columned halls surrounding a courtyard is found throughout North Africa, Arabia, Syria, and Mesopotamia; an example is the mosque of Ahmad ibn Tulun, Cairo, Egypt, 876-79. The other great mosque type is the four-eyvan mosque originating in Iran. Here the courtyard has a high eyvan, or arched recess, in the centre of each side. This plan comes from the Persian house and is seen at its noblest in the Masjid-i-Jum'a in Esfahan, Iran, 8th-18th centuries. A very flexible plan form, it is found from Cairo to central Asia in mosques, theological colleges, caravanserais, and hospitals. In the Ottoman Empire, the stimulus of the Hagia Sophia (532-37), Istanbul, the great church of Justinian, inspired the development of the imperial Turkish mosque in which the open courtyard of the Arab and Iranian mosques is translated into a great space enclosed by a large central dome; an example is the Suleymaniye, Istanbul, 1550-57, by Sinan. The minaret was originally square, following the towers of Christian churches. Spiral minarets are found but most commonly they take the form of a tapering cylindrical tower. The Islamic city is a highly organic entity. The basic cellular unit is the courtyard house, representing the desire for privacy and familial obligations of Muslim life. The houses are grouped into quarters, often of a tribal or ethnic character. Each quarter has its own mosques and facilities. At the centre of the city stands the focus of the community, the congregational mosque, the masjid al-jum'a. The arteries of this intricate organism are the vaulted streets of the souk, or bazaar, which thread outwards from the masjid al- jum'a towards the great gates of the enclosing fortified walls. The key monuments and facilities of the city are found along the souk - the religious colleges, baths, hospitals, and fountains. Examples of these are found in Fez, Morocco; Aleppo, Syria; and Esfahan, Iran. Islamic private houses are invariably inward-looking courtyard houses. A bent corridor (for privacy) leads from the gated entry from the public lane into a courtyard paved with tiles, often planted with shade trees and with a pool at the centre. Surrounding the courtyard are the principal rooms of the house. Different sides of the courtyard may provide separate accommodation for sections of the extended family. Decoration and colour In Islam there is a general dislike of figurative representation. As a consequence, architectural decoration relies on calligraphic script and abstract ornament, often combined with a passion for colour, intensified by the desert environment. The domes and courts of such buildings as the 17th-century Masjid- i-Sháh, Esfahan, Iran, are entirely clothed in faience tiles. Arabic script is used extensively in the earliest surviving Islamic building, the Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem, AD 691, and thereafter the word of God plays a significant role in architectural decoration. Islamic gardens In a largely arid region, the Islamic garden represents an image of paradise. The basic plan is a rectangular enclosure walled against the dust of the desert and divided into at least four sections by water channels. Pavilions are placed at focal points within the gardens. An example is Chehel Sutun, Esfahan, 17th century. (©Helicon Publishing Ltd, printed from the Hutchinson Educational Encyclopedia, 2001)
History of Islam
Islam Arabic `submission´, that is, to the will of Allah Religion founded in the Arabian peninsula in the early AD 600s. It emphasizes the oneness of God, his omnipotence, beneficence, and inscrutability. Its sacred book is the Koran, which Muslims believe was divinely revealed to Muhammad, the prophet or messenger of Allah. There are two main Muslim sects: Sunni and Shiite. Others include Sufism, a mystical movement which originated in the AD 700s. The word Muslim means `one who makes his peace with God and Man´. Beliefs The fundamental beliefs of Islam are contained in the shahada (testimony) - `I bear witness that there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is the Prophet of Allah´ - which is a constituent part of the adhan (call to worship). Other beliefs central to Islam are the Creation, the Fall of Adam, angels and jinn, heaven and hell, the Day of Judgement, God's predestination of good and evil, and the succession of scriptures revealed to the prophets, who include Moses and Jesus. The perfect, final form of the scriptures is the Koran or Quran (literally `reading ´). It contains Muhammad's teachings, and was written down about twenty years after his death. It is divided into 114 suras (chapters), each of which is divided into a number of ayat (verses). Roughly speaking all lands where Arabic is spoken, together with Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and North Africa as far as the Tropic of Cancer, are solidly Muslim. In the Central Asian republics there are about 20 million in Uzbekistan, probably 8 million in Kazakhstan, and around 5 million altogether in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan. Other Muslim populations include China (29 million) ; the Balkan states (4.5 million); Malaysia (10 million); Indonesia (172 million), the Philippines (3.3 million), and sub-Saharan Africa (about 75 million). Islam is the second-largest religion in the UK, with about 1 million followers. Islamic law Islam embodies a secular law (the Shari'a or `Main Path´), which is clarified for Shiites by reference to their own version of the sunna (` practice´) of the prophet as transmitted by his companions. The Sunni sect also takes into account ijma' (expert), universal consent of practices and beliefs among the faithful. For the Sufi, the Shari'a is the starting point of the `Sufi Path´ to self-enlightenment. A mufti is a legal expert who guides the courts in their interpretation. (In Turkey, until the establishment of the republic in 1924, the mufti had supreme spiritual authority.) Beliefs Islam proclaims the unity of God, demands obedience to him, believes in an afterlife of bliss for believers and torment for the wicked, and makes Muhammad the last and final exponent of God's mind; he is `the seal of the prophets´. He did not claim to bring a new religion, but to revive the faith that was taught first to Adam and then to Abraham, was believed in by Moses, Jesus, and all other prophets, but which was corrupted by their followers. All prophets according to the Koran were without sin. The concept of inherited or original sin is foreign to the teachings of Islam. Observances The Shari'a includes the observances known as the `Five Pillars of the Faith´, which are binding on all adult believers. The five pillars are: belief in one God, prayer, almsgiving, the pilgrimage, and fasting. Salat is worship five times a day facing toward the holy city of Mecca (the call to prayer is given by a muezzin, usually from the minaret or tower of a mosque). Prayer should rather be called worship, for the prescribed forms contain no intercession; it is performed five times a day - before sunrise, after midday, in the late afternoon, at sunset, and when the night is dark. Worship is preceded by an ablution and the worshipper faces toward Mecca Each act of worship consists of sections, varying in number from two to four with a prologue and epilogue; a section consists of a litany said in various attitudes, sitting, standing, bowing, and with the forehead touching the ground. Worship may be performed anywhere, but preferably in a mosque. After the set ritual a man may offer what petitions he pleases. The midday prayer on Friday is the service of the week, with a sermon, and all men should attend. Other observances include zakat or obligatory almsgiving; alms might be called a religious tax, for the amount which the believer has to pay is fixed according to his wealth. Saum (fasting) takes place from sunrise to sunset throughout Ramadan (the ninth month of the Muslim year, which varies with the calendar). The sick, travellers, and pregnant women are excused, though they ought to fast the same number of days in another season of the year. In addition many Muslims fast two days in every week. Everyone who can should make the hajj or pilgrimage to Mecca. The faithful should make it at least once in a lifetime. Organization There is no organized Church or priesthood, although Muhammad's descendants (the Hashim family) and popularly recognized holy men, mullahs, and ayatollahs are accorded respect. As the law is regarded as the voice of God, a renowned lawyer is very near to being a priest. Traditionally, justice was administered by a cadi (judge), the chief of police and the inspector of the markets, who also kept an eye on schools to see that the boys were not taught from improper books. There were legal experts to whom the cadi could turn for advice in complicated cases. There was also an extraordinary court to hear those who could get justice in no other way ; in early days the ruler himself presided. In most countries nowadays only questions of personal status are heard by the cadi, because modern codes of civil, commercial, and criminal law have been introduced. Social customs Marriage is a civil ceremony. Under special conditions the Koran permits up to four wives, but if justice cannot be done among them `then marry only one´. A foster mother ranks as a true mother, so the prohibited degrees of marriage include the relatives of the foster mother. Strict rules are laid down for the division of an inheritance; males take twice as much as females, because women take their share in dowry, and the testator cannot will away more than one third of his estate or will anything to the chief heir. Modern legislation has changed some of this. Law is also modified by local custom; in Malaysia, and among the Berbers of North Africa, in many ways custom is stronger. Other social legislation forbids wine, interest on money, and sculpture of living beings. This last prohibition has had a great effect on art, causing the development of Arabic writing as an ornament in books and on buildings and coins and of arabesque in architecture. At death the body is washed, shrouded in grave clothes, and carried on a bier, generally without a coffin, to the grave, which is so constructed that the earth does not press on the body. A martyr who dies in battle is not washed. As a rule the prayer over the dead is not said in a mosque. Divisions On Muhammad's death in AD 632, the question of the immediate succession to the leadership gave rise to political splits which were later formalized as doctrinal differences. Muhammad was followed as leader by a succession of `rightly guided caliphs´ - Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali, the last-named being the prophet's son-in-law. The title caliph means deputy or successor). The powers of the caliphs were absolute under the law, although in theory the law was fixed by scholars, and the caliph was only its executive officer. The early caliphs remained Arab tribal chiefs. Each chief was accustomed to hearing the opinions of the tribe, especially its elders; but the final decision rested with the chief. The Shi'a tradition began as the party within the Islamic community that supported the candidacy of Ali; it later developed a theology based on Ali's mystical role as Muhammad's true successor. Members of the Sunni sect recognize all the four caliphs as lawful rulers, whereas the Shiites, who see legitimacy vested in the lineage of the prophet, regard the first three as only rulers, not caliphs. Mahdis The idea of a mahdi, or messiah, is central to Islamic thought. Many men have claimed to be the Mahdi, for example, the founder of the Fatimid dynasty in Egypt (died 934), the founder of the Almohads (died 1130), and the mahdi in the Sudan, Muhammad Ahmad, 1848-85). Others have striven to restore religion to its original purity, for example, Muhammad Abd al-Wahhab, spiritual partner of the founder of the dynasty which now rules Saudi Arabia. Occasionally, the dervish orders have taken to politics, for example the Senussi, who gave a king (Idris I, ruled 1951-69) to Libya. The spread of Islam Islam was founded as a universal and missionary religion. Between 711 and 1492 it spread east into India, west over North Africa, then north across the Strait of Gibraltar into the Iberian peninsula. During the Middle Ages, Islamic scholars preserved and developed ancient Greco-Roman learning, while the Dark Ages prevailed in Christian Europe. Islam was seen as an enemy of Christianity by European countries during the Crusades, and Christian states united against a Muslim nation as late as the Battle of Lepanto in 1571. Driven from Europe, Islam remained established in North Africa and the Middle East. In recent years Islamic regimes have been established in Iran, Afghanistan, and Sudan. Elsewhere, militant Islamic neo- fundamentalist groups have sprung up, which base their theological ideas on the textual foundation of Islam as represented by the Koran. Such groups are opposed to secular governments, which they see as promoting Western, and therefore non-Islamic, values. Modern trends and ` fundamentalism´ Modern trends, often referred to as fundamentalism, are considered by many people to be socio-political phenomena inspired by Muhammad Abd al-Wahab (1703-92), who called upon Muslims to return to the fundamentals of Islam. The ideological strands that reflect his views throughout the Muslim world have been shaped by a variety of local factors and influences. The Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt by Hassan al-Banna in 1928, was the chief influence, ideologically and operationally, that spurred the growth of many contemporary movements. By the late 1950s the industrialized West had exerted enormous and disruptive cultural and economic influences on the traditional Islamic value system of the Muslim world. Their impact gave the Muslim Brotherhood the impetus to develop its ideas, which had a similar impact on Muslims as did the earlier Wahabi movement. Both movements called for a return to puritanism in Islam; both were at the forefront of the opposition to governments which they viewed as corrupt. Although the Muslim Brotherhood did not proclaim total rejection of Western industrial culture, it sought to replace the `ethical vacuum´ with Islamic values. The organization came into conflict with Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1956 and with Syrian president Hafez al-Assad in 1980. In both cases, the confrontation led to government outlawing of the group, since the Brotherhood's growing popularity was seen as a threat to the political establishment. The call for Islamic revivalism has also been used by groups seeking power in the Islamic world, often leading to an inaccurate interpretation of Islam. An example is the Afghan Talliban, who deny women's basic rights, despite the equal relationship between the sexes prescribed by the Koran. Such misrepresentations of Islam result in widening further the gulf between itself and the West. Today, the term fundamentalism is used generically to refer to many Muslim activist groups and parties. The religious extremism often implied by the term is similar to the concept of ghulat. In Islamic history, this term was used for individuals accused of fanaticism. Although the term was more often used to refer to extreme Shiite groups, it serves to illustrate that Islam has suffered the same tendency towards extremism and violence as have other world religions. The solidarity of the Muslim world is amazing. In the 1300s Ibn Battuta, a geographer and explorer, traveled across the Muslim world to India, where he was employed as a judge. He found himself everywhere at home, even if some local customs shocked him. Things are not very different today, though nationalism has weakened this solidarity. (©Helicon Publishing Ltd, printed from the Hutchinson Educational Encyclopedia, 2001)
Uneasy questions of morality
The practices in use by the Islamic banks have evoked questions of morality. Do the practices adopted to avoid interest really do their job or is it simply a change of name? It suffices to quote a few authors.24
The Economist writes:25
..... Muslim theoreticians and bankers have between them devised ingenious ways of coping with the interest problem. One is murabaha. The Koran says you cannot borrow $100m from the bank for a year, at 5% interest, to buy the new machinery your factory needs? Fine. You get the bank to buy the machinery for you -- cost, $100m -- and then you buy the stuff from the bank, paying it $105m a year from now. The difference is that the extra $5m is not interest on loan, which the Koran (perhaps) forbids, but your thanks to the bank for the risk it takes of losing money while it is the owner of the machinery: this is honest trading, okay with the Koran. Since with modern communications the bank’s ownership may last about half a second, its risk is not great, but the transaction is pure. It is not surprising that some Muslims uneasily sniff logic-chopping here.
Dr Ghulam Qadir says of practices in Pakistan:26
Two of the modes of financing prescribed by the State Bank, namely financing through the purchase of client’s property with a buy-back agreement and sale of goods to clients on a mark-up, involved the least risk and were closest to the old interest-based operations. Hence the banks confined their operations mostly to these modes, particularly the former, after changing the simple buy-back agreement (prescribed by the State Bank) to buy-back agreement with a mark-up, as otherwise there was no incentive for them to extend any finances. The banks also reduced their mark-up-based financing, whether through the purchase of client’s property or through the sale of goods to clients, to mere paper work, instead of actual buying of goods (property), taking their possession and then selling (back) to the client. As a result, there was no difference between the mark-up as practised by the banks and the conventional interest rate, and hence it was judged repugnant to Islam in the recent decision of the Federal Shari’ah court.
As banks are essentially financial institutions and not trading houses, requiring them to undertake trading in the form of buy-back arrangements and sale on mark-up amounts to imposing on them a function for which they are not well equipped. Therefore, banks in Pakistan made such modifications in the prescribed modes which defeated the very purpose of interest-free financing. Furthermore, as these two minimum-risk modes of financing were kept open to banks, they never tried to devise innovative and imaginative modes of financing within the framework of musharakah and mudarba.
Prof. Khurshid Ahmad says:27
Murabaha (cost-plus financing) and bai’ mu’ajjal (sale with deferred payment) are permitted in the Shari’ah under certain conditions. Technically, it is not a form of financial mediation but a kind of business participation. The Shari’ah assumes that the financier actually buys the goods and then sells them to the client. Unfortunately, the current practice of “buy-back on mark-up” is not in keeping with the conditions on which murabaha or bai’ mu’ajjal are permitted. What is being done is a fictitious deal which ensures a predetermined profit to the bank without actually dealing in goods or sharing any real risk. This is against the letter and spirit of Shari’ah injunctions.
While I would not venture a fatwa, as I do not qualify for that function, yet as a student of economics and Shari’ah I regard this practice of “buy-back on mark-up” very similar to riba and would suggest its discontinuation. I understand that the Council of Islamic Ideology has also expressed a similar opinion.
Dr Hasanuz Zaman is more scathing in his condemnation:28
It emerges that practically it is impossible for large banks or the banking system to practise the modes like mark-up, bai’ salam, buy-back, murabaha, etc. in a way that fulfils the Shari’ah conditions. But in order to make themselves eligible to a return on their operations, the banks are compelled to play tricks with the letters of the law. They actually do not buy, do not posses, do not actually sell and deliver the goods; but the transition is assumed to have taken place. By signing a number of documents of purchase, sale and transfer they might fulfil a legal requirement but it is by violating the spirit of prohibition.
Again,29
It seems that in large number of cases the ghost of interest is haunting them to calculate a fixed rate percent per annum even in musharakah, mudarba, leasing, hire-purchase, rent sharing, murabaha, (bai’ mu’ajjal, mark-up), PTC, TFC, 30etc. The spirit behind all these contracts seems to make a sure earning comparable with the prevalent rate of interest and, as far as possible, avoid losses which otherwise could occur.
To sum up, in Dr Hasanuz Zaman’s words:31
... many techniques that the interest-free banks are practising are not either in full conformity with the spirit of Shari’ah or practicable in the case of large banks or the entire banking system. Moreover, they have failed to do away with undesirable aspects of interest. Thus, they have retained what an Islamic bank should eliminate.
The Economist writes:25
..... Muslim theoreticians and bankers have between them devised ingenious ways of coping with the interest problem. One is murabaha. The Koran says you cannot borrow $100m from the bank for a year, at 5% interest, to buy the new machinery your factory needs? Fine. You get the bank to buy the machinery for you -- cost, $100m -- and then you buy the stuff from the bank, paying it $105m a year from now. The difference is that the extra $5m is not interest on loan, which the Koran (perhaps) forbids, but your thanks to the bank for the risk it takes of losing money while it is the owner of the machinery: this is honest trading, okay with the Koran. Since with modern communications the bank’s ownership may last about half a second, its risk is not great, but the transaction is pure. It is not surprising that some Muslims uneasily sniff logic-chopping here.
Dr Ghulam Qadir says of practices in Pakistan:26
Two of the modes of financing prescribed by the State Bank, namely financing through the purchase of client’s property with a buy-back agreement and sale of goods to clients on a mark-up, involved the least risk and were closest to the old interest-based operations. Hence the banks confined their operations mostly to these modes, particularly the former, after changing the simple buy-back agreement (prescribed by the State Bank) to buy-back agreement with a mark-up, as otherwise there was no incentive for them to extend any finances. The banks also reduced their mark-up-based financing, whether through the purchase of client’s property or through the sale of goods to clients, to mere paper work, instead of actual buying of goods (property), taking their possession and then selling (back) to the client. As a result, there was no difference between the mark-up as practised by the banks and the conventional interest rate, and hence it was judged repugnant to Islam in the recent decision of the Federal Shari’ah court.
As banks are essentially financial institutions and not trading houses, requiring them to undertake trading in the form of buy-back arrangements and sale on mark-up amounts to imposing on them a function for which they are not well equipped. Therefore, banks in Pakistan made such modifications in the prescribed modes which defeated the very purpose of interest-free financing. Furthermore, as these two minimum-risk modes of financing were kept open to banks, they never tried to devise innovative and imaginative modes of financing within the framework of musharakah and mudarba.
Prof. Khurshid Ahmad says:27
Murabaha (cost-plus financing) and bai’ mu’ajjal (sale with deferred payment) are permitted in the Shari’ah under certain conditions. Technically, it is not a form of financial mediation but a kind of business participation. The Shari’ah assumes that the financier actually buys the goods and then sells them to the client. Unfortunately, the current practice of “buy-back on mark-up” is not in keeping with the conditions on which murabaha or bai’ mu’ajjal are permitted. What is being done is a fictitious deal which ensures a predetermined profit to the bank without actually dealing in goods or sharing any real risk. This is against the letter and spirit of Shari’ah injunctions.
While I would not venture a fatwa, as I do not qualify for that function, yet as a student of economics and Shari’ah I regard this practice of “buy-back on mark-up” very similar to riba and would suggest its discontinuation. I understand that the Council of Islamic Ideology has also expressed a similar opinion.
Dr Hasanuz Zaman is more scathing in his condemnation:28
It emerges that practically it is impossible for large banks or the banking system to practise the modes like mark-up, bai’ salam, buy-back, murabaha, etc. in a way that fulfils the Shari’ah conditions. But in order to make themselves eligible to a return on their operations, the banks are compelled to play tricks with the letters of the law. They actually do not buy, do not posses, do not actually sell and deliver the goods; but the transition is assumed to have taken place. By signing a number of documents of purchase, sale and transfer they might fulfil a legal requirement but it is by violating the spirit of prohibition.
Again,29
It seems that in large number of cases the ghost of interest is haunting them to calculate a fixed rate percent per annum even in musharakah, mudarba, leasing, hire-purchase, rent sharing, murabaha, (bai’ mu’ajjal, mark-up), PTC, TFC, 30etc. The spirit behind all these contracts seems to make a sure earning comparable with the prevalent rate of interest and, as far as possible, avoid losses which otherwise could occur.
To sum up, in Dr Hasanuz Zaman’s words:31
... many techniques that the interest-free banks are practising are not either in full conformity with the spirit of Shari’ah or practicable in the case of large banks or the entire banking system. Moreover, they have failed to do away with undesirable aspects of interest. Thus, they have retained what an Islamic bank should eliminate.
The coming into being of interest-free banks
The first private interest-free bank, the Dubai Islamic Bank, was also set up in 1975 by a group of Muslim businessmen from several countries. Two more private banks were founded in 1977 under the name of Faisal Islamic Bank in Egypt and the Sudan. In the same year the Kuwaiti government set up the Kuwait Finance House.
However, small scale limited scope interest-free banks have been tried before. One in Malaysia in the mid-forties4 and another in Pakistan in the late-fifties.5 Neither survived. In 1962 the Malaysian government set up the “Pilgrim’s Management Fund” to help prospective pilgrims to save and profit.6 The savings bank established in 1963 at Mit-Ghamr in Egypt was very popular and prospered initially and then closed down for various reasons.7 However this experiment led to the creation of the Nasser Social Bank in 1972. Though the bank is still active, its objectives are more social than commercial.8, 9
In the ten years since the establishment of the first private commercial bank in Dubai, more than 50 interest-free banks have come into being. Though nearly all of them are in Muslim countries, there are some in Western Europe as well: in Denmark, Luxembourg , Switzerland and the UK. Many banks were established in 1983 (11) and 1984 (13). The numbers have declined considerably in the following years.10
In most countries the establishment of interest-free banking had been by private initiative and were confined to that bank. In Iran and Pakistan, however, it was by government initiative and covered all banks in the country. The governments in both these countries took steps in 1981 to introduce interest-free banking. In Pakistan, effective 1 January 1981 all domestic commercial banks were permitted to accept deposits on the basis of profit-and-loss sharing (PLS). New steps were introduced on 1 January 1985 to formally transform the banking system over the next six months to one based on no interest. From 1 July 1985 no banks could accept any interest bearing deposits, and all existing deposits became subject to PLS rules. Yet some operations were still allowed to continue on the old basis. In Iran, certain administrative steps were taken in February 1981 to eliminate interest from banking operations. Interest on all assets was replaced by a 4 percent maximum service charge and by a 4 to 8 percent ‘profit’ rate depending on the type of economic activity. Interest on deposits was also converted into a ‘guaranteed minimum profit.’ In August 1983 the Usury-free Banking Law was introduced and a fourteen-month change over period began in January 1984. The whole system was converted to an interest-free one in March 1985.11
However, small scale limited scope interest-free banks have been tried before. One in Malaysia in the mid-forties4 and another in Pakistan in the late-fifties.5 Neither survived. In 1962 the Malaysian government set up the “Pilgrim’s Management Fund” to help prospective pilgrims to save and profit.6 The savings bank established in 1963 at Mit-Ghamr in Egypt was very popular and prospered initially and then closed down for various reasons.7 However this experiment led to the creation of the Nasser Social Bank in 1972. Though the bank is still active, its objectives are more social than commercial.8, 9
In the ten years since the establishment of the first private commercial bank in Dubai, more than 50 interest-free banks have come into being. Though nearly all of them are in Muslim countries, there are some in Western Europe as well: in Denmark, Luxembourg , Switzerland and the UK. Many banks were established in 1983 (11) and 1984 (13). The numbers have declined considerably in the following years.10
In most countries the establishment of interest-free banking had been by private initiative and were confined to that bank. In Iran and Pakistan, however, it was by government initiative and covered all banks in the country. The governments in both these countries took steps in 1981 to introduce interest-free banking. In Pakistan, effective 1 January 1981 all domestic commercial banks were permitted to accept deposits on the basis of profit-and-loss sharing (PLS). New steps were introduced on 1 January 1985 to formally transform the banking system over the next six months to one based on no interest. From 1 July 1985 no banks could accept any interest bearing deposits, and all existing deposits became subject to PLS rules. Yet some operations were still allowed to continue on the old basis. In Iran, certain administrative steps were taken in February 1981 to eliminate interest from banking operations. Interest on all assets was replaced by a 4 percent maximum service charge and by a 4 to 8 percent ‘profit’ rate depending on the type of economic activity. Interest on deposits was also converted into a ‘guaranteed minimum profit.’ In August 1983 the Usury-free Banking Law was introduced and a fourteen-month change over period began in January 1984. The whole system was converted to an interest-free one in March 1985.11
Interest-free banking as an idea
nterest-free banking seems to be of very recent origin. The earliest references to the reorganisation of banking on the basis of profit sharing rather than interest are found in Anwar Qureshi (1946), Naiem Siddiqi (1948) and Mahmud Ahmad (1952) in the late forties, followed by a more elaborate exposition by Mawdudi in 1950 (1961).2 Muhammad Hamidullah’s 1944, 1955, 1957 and 1962 writings too should be included in this category. They have all recognised the need for commercial banks and the evil of interest in that enterprise, and have proposed a banking system based on the concept of Mudarabha - profit and loss sharing.
In the next two decades interest-free banking attracted more attention, partly because of the political interest it created in Pakistan and partly because of the emergence of young Muslim economists. Works specifically devoted to this subject began to appear in this period. The first such work is that of Muhammad Uzair (1955). Another set of works emerged in the late sixties and early seventies. Abdullah al-Araby (1967), Nejatullah Siddiqi (1961, 1969), al-Najjar (1971) and Baqir al-Sadr (1961, 1974) were the main contributors.3
Early seventies saw the institutional involvement. Conference of the Finance Ministers of the Islamic Countries held in Karachi in 1970, the Egyptian study in 1972, First International Conference on Islamic Economics in Mecca in 1976, International Economic Conference in London in 1977 were the result of such involvement. The involvement of institutions and governments led to the application of theory to practice and resulted in the establishment of the first interest-free banks. The Islamic Development Bank, an inter-governmental bank established in 1975, was born of this process.
In the next two decades interest-free banking attracted more attention, partly because of the political interest it created in Pakistan and partly because of the emergence of young Muslim economists. Works specifically devoted to this subject began to appear in this period. The first such work is that of Muhammad Uzair (1955). Another set of works emerged in the late sixties and early seventies. Abdullah al-Araby (1967), Nejatullah Siddiqi (1961, 1969), al-Najjar (1971) and Baqir al-Sadr (1961, 1974) were the main contributors.3
Early seventies saw the institutional involvement. Conference of the Finance Ministers of the Islamic Countries held in Karachi in 1970, the Egyptian study in 1972, First International Conference on Islamic Economics in Mecca in 1976, International Economic Conference in London in 1977 were the result of such involvement. The involvement of institutions and governments led to the application of theory to practice and resulted in the establishment of the first interest-free banks. The Islamic Development Bank, an inter-governmental bank established in 1975, was born of this process.
ISLAMIC BANKING
Modern banking system was introduced into the Muslim countries at a time when they were politically and economically at a low ebb, in the late 19th century. The main banks in the home countries of the imperial powers established local branches in the capitals of the subject countries and they catered mainly to the import export requirements of the foreign businesses. The banks were generally confined to the capital cities and the local population remained largely untouched by the banking system. The local trading community avoided the “foreign” banks both for nationalistic as well as religious reasons. However, as time went on it became difficult to engage in trade and other activities without making use of commercial banks. Even then many confined their involvement to transaction activities such as current accounts and money transfers. Borrowing from the banks and depositing their savings with the bank were strictly avoided in order to keep away from dealing in interest which is prohibited by religion.1
With the passage of time, however, and other socio-economic forces demanding more involvement in national economic and financial activities, avoiding the interaction with the banks became impossible. Local banks were established on the same lines as the interest-based foreign banks for want of another system and they began to expand within the country bringing the banking system to more local people. As countries became independent the need to engage in banking activities became unavoidable and urgent. Governments, businesses and individuals began to transact business with the banks, with or without liking it. This state of affairs drew the attention and concern of Muslim intellectuals. The story of interest-free or Islamic banking begins here. In the following paragraphs we will trace this story to date and examine how far and how su cessfully their concerns have been addressed.
With the passage of time, however, and other socio-economic forces demanding more involvement in national economic and financial activities, avoiding the interaction with the banks became impossible. Local banks were established on the same lines as the interest-based foreign banks for want of another system and they began to expand within the country bringing the banking system to more local people. As countries became independent the need to engage in banking activities became unavoidable and urgent. Governments, businesses and individuals began to transact business with the banks, with or without liking it. This state of affairs drew the attention and concern of Muslim intellectuals. The story of interest-free or Islamic banking begins here. In the following paragraphs we will trace this story to date and examine how far and how su cessfully their concerns have been addressed.
Interview with Talal Asad
alal Asad on religion, modernity and Islamism:
Interview with Saba Mahmood, Stanford Humanities Review (1996)
Talal Asad is a professor of Anthropology at the City University of New York, and is the author of the groundbreaking work, Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993). Similar to Michel Foucault and Edward Said, Asad's works examine the mutual influence of knowledge and power in generating structures of thought dictating discourse and ways of organizing the world. He primarily focuses on the issue of religion and secularism.
Saba Mahmood is herself an eminent Professor of Anthropology at the University of California at Berkeley, and the author of Politics of Piety: the Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject (Princeton University Press, 2005); a work examining women in the Islamist movement in Egypt.
This interview, conducted when Dr. Mahmood was still a graduate student at Stanford University, was originally entitled "Talal Asad: modern power and the reconfiguration of religious traditions." In the excerpts provided here, Asad discusses the methods of Islamism, or the call for an Islamic polity. He provides fresh insight into important Islamic concepts such as ijtihad (independent reasoning) nasiha (advice), and ikhtilaf (difference of opinion), avoiding facile equations to their counterparts in the Western "liberal" tradition. He looks critically at the notion of religious "evolution" towards secularized deism and points to the curious phenomenon of disembodied religious belief in the West, where so-called Christians and atheists practice the same life-style. He warns against linking the social practice of Islam with the modern nation-state: not because of the practice of Islam should not be "public", but because the nation-state itself must be transcended.
***
Saba Mahmood: Given our discussion about polity and community, in what ways do you think the contemporary Islamist movements represent a vision of polity that is distinct from regnant conceptions of the nation, political debate, and consensus?
Talal Asad: A different vision of polity. That is an aspect of Islamist thinking that requires much more original work. I feel that there is a need to rethink the nature of the political in a far more radical way than Islamic movements seem to have done. To a great extent, there has been an acceptance of the modernizing state (and the model of the Western state) and a translation of its projects into Islamist terms. Often Islamists simply subscribe to the parameters of the modern nation- state, adding only that it be controlled by a virtuous body of Muslims. A much more radical idea is needed before we can say that Islamists have a vision of a distinctive kind of polity.
However, I don't want to exaggerate the homogeneity of these movements. There have been some interesting schematic attempts at rethinking. For example, the Tunisian Islamic leader Ghannushi, who is banned from Tunis, has recently argued for the political institutionalization of multiple interpretations of the founding texts. In one sense, the institutionalization of divergent interpretations is already a part of the Islamic tradition (both Sunni and Shi`a). But, if I understand him correctly, Ghannushi is trying to politicize that traditional arrangement and make it more fluid, more open to negotiation. Starting from the classic distinction between the essential body of the text, on the one hand, and its commentaries (i.e., "consequences"--what follows), on the other, he argues that the latter be brought into the political arena. This would involve the electorate being asked to vote for or against the policies that flow from given interpretations--and always having the option of changing its mind about them. In other words, the political implications of an interpretation (not all "the meanings" of the text itself) would be open to acceptance or rejection like any other proposed legislation or project. This clearly needs to be much more elaborately developed and clarified if it is to make political sense.
Are elements of this kind of thinking part of the Islamic discursive tradition?
I certainly think they are. That's what ijtihad, the principle of original reasoning from within the tradition, is all about. There is a lot of talk about ijtihad nowadays among Muslims, but too often it's used as a device to bring Islamic tradition in line with modern liberal values for no good reason. I believe it ought to be used to argue with other Muslims within the tradition and to try to formulate solutions to problems that are recognized as problems for the tradition by other Muslims.
You discuss in your work the practice of nasiha in Saudi Arabia, as an example of public critique within the Islamic tradition, which is quite distinct from the liberal notion of public criticism. Can you speak to that, given your comments on the limits and possibilities of specific traditions of thought?
Yes, nasiha is different from liberal notions of public criticism. For example, it doesn't constitute a right to criticize the monarch and/or political regime but an obligation. Similarly, the business of criticism is not restricted only to those expressly qualified--the educated and enlightened few. It's something that every Muslim has the duty to undertake, and whose theory the `ulama must continually reconsider and discuss for each time and place. It is, therefore, a form of criticism that is internal to a tradition. That is to say, only someone who has been educated in that tradition, who has been taught what "appropriate Islamic practices" are, can undertake it properly. This is not a criticism that anyone coming from the outside, a total stranger, say, armed with a fine sense of logical argument and a set of universal moral principles, can carry out. So it is quite different from the notion of abstract and generalized criticism that has to be confined to the enlightened, literate members of a polity.
Do you think that the post-Reformation Protestant conception of religion, as an internal belief system that has little to do with arranging political and social life, influenced or transformed the character of Islamic debates in this century? If so, in what ways?
Well, I think to some extent they have--where Islamic reform movements have adopted standards of rationality from modern Western discourses or even where Muslim apologists claim that Islam does quite well when properly measured by Western standards of justice and decency. This influence is also evident whenever the shari`a is made compatible with Western law and practice and is subjected to institutions of the modern state. And the modern state gives rise to two quite distinct movements--those for whom religious faith is something that fits into "private space" (in both the legal and the psychological sense), and those for whom the "public functions" of the modern state must be captured by men with religious faith.
It has often been argued that the tradition of liberalism is based upon principles of pluralism and tolerance in ways that Islamic tradition is not, and that the concept of plurality remains foreign to Islam. How would you respond to that?
Well, I would say that it is certainly not a modern, liberal invention. The plurality of individual interests is what the liberal tradition has theorized best of all. On the other hand, the attempt to get some kind of representation for ethnic groups and minorities in Western countries has been difficult for liberalism to theorize. Liberalism has theories of tolerance by which spaces can be created for individuals to do what they wish, so long as they don't obstruct the ability of others to do likewise. But these aren't theories of pluralism in the sense we are beginning to understand the term today. Liberalism has theories of multiple "interests," interests which can be equalized, aggregated, and calculated through the electoral process and then negotiated in the process of formulating and applying governmental policies. But that is a very different kind of pluralism from the different ways of life which are (a) the preconditions and not the objects of individual interests, and which are, (b) in the final analysis, incommensurable.
Now the Islamic tradition, like many other non-liberal traditions, is based on the notion of plural social groupings and plural religious traditions--especially (but not only) of the Abrahamic traditions [ahl al-kitab]. And, of course, it has always accommodated a plurality of scriptural interpretations. There is a well- known dictum in the shari`a: ikhtilaf al-umma rahma [difference within the Islamic tradition is a blessing]. This is where the notions of ijtihad and ijm`a come in. As modes of developing and sustaining the Islamic tradition, they authorize the construction of coherent differences, not the imposition of homogeneity.
Of course there are always limits to difference if coherence is to be aimed at. If tolerance is not merely another name for indifference, there comes a point in every tradition beyond which difference cannot be tolerated. That simply means that there are differences which can't be accommodated within the tradition without threatening its very coherence. But there are, of course, many moments and conditions of such intolerance. One must not, therefore, equate intolerance with violence and cruelty.
On the whole, Muslim societies in the past have been much more accommodating of pluralism in the sense I have tried to outline than have European societies. It does not follow that they are therefore necessarily better. And I certainly don't wish to imply that Muslim rulers and populations were never prejudiced, that they never persecuted non-Muslims in their midst. My point is only that "the concept of plurality," as you put it, is not foreign to Islam.
Talking of pluralities of interpretations within the Islamic tradition, some scholars make a distinction between the Sufi [mystical] and Salafi [reformist] tradition within Islam. You have criticized the ways in which these two traditions are often mapped onto rural/urban, folk/elite, and oral/scriptural dichotomies, respectively. Yet it is hard to deny the substantial differences between Sufi and Salafi thought. How can one fruitfully engage with these differences without falling into simplistic dichotomies?
Interview with Saba Mahmood, Stanford Humanities Review (1996)
Talal Asad is a professor of Anthropology at the City University of New York, and is the author of the groundbreaking work, Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993). Similar to Michel Foucault and Edward Said, Asad's works examine the mutual influence of knowledge and power in generating structures of thought dictating discourse and ways of organizing the world. He primarily focuses on the issue of religion and secularism.
Saba Mahmood is herself an eminent Professor of Anthropology at the University of California at Berkeley, and the author of Politics of Piety: the Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject (Princeton University Press, 2005); a work examining women in the Islamist movement in Egypt.
This interview, conducted when Dr. Mahmood was still a graduate student at Stanford University, was originally entitled "Talal Asad: modern power and the reconfiguration of religious traditions." In the excerpts provided here, Asad discusses the methods of Islamism, or the call for an Islamic polity. He provides fresh insight into important Islamic concepts such as ijtihad (independent reasoning) nasiha (advice), and ikhtilaf (difference of opinion), avoiding facile equations to their counterparts in the Western "liberal" tradition. He looks critically at the notion of religious "evolution" towards secularized deism and points to the curious phenomenon of disembodied religious belief in the West, where so-called Christians and atheists practice the same life-style. He warns against linking the social practice of Islam with the modern nation-state: not because of the practice of Islam should not be "public", but because the nation-state itself must be transcended.
***
Saba Mahmood: Given our discussion about polity and community, in what ways do you think the contemporary Islamist movements represent a vision of polity that is distinct from regnant conceptions of the nation, political debate, and consensus?
Talal Asad: A different vision of polity. That is an aspect of Islamist thinking that requires much more original work. I feel that there is a need to rethink the nature of the political in a far more radical way than Islamic movements seem to have done. To a great extent, there has been an acceptance of the modernizing state (and the model of the Western state) and a translation of its projects into Islamist terms. Often Islamists simply subscribe to the parameters of the modern nation- state, adding only that it be controlled by a virtuous body of Muslims. A much more radical idea is needed before we can say that Islamists have a vision of a distinctive kind of polity.
However, I don't want to exaggerate the homogeneity of these movements. There have been some interesting schematic attempts at rethinking. For example, the Tunisian Islamic leader Ghannushi, who is banned from Tunis, has recently argued for the political institutionalization of multiple interpretations of the founding texts. In one sense, the institutionalization of divergent interpretations is already a part of the Islamic tradition (both Sunni and Shi`a). But, if I understand him correctly, Ghannushi is trying to politicize that traditional arrangement and make it more fluid, more open to negotiation. Starting from the classic distinction between the essential body of the text, on the one hand, and its commentaries (i.e., "consequences"--what follows), on the other, he argues that the latter be brought into the political arena. This would involve the electorate being asked to vote for or against the policies that flow from given interpretations--and always having the option of changing its mind about them. In other words, the political implications of an interpretation (not all "the meanings" of the text itself) would be open to acceptance or rejection like any other proposed legislation or project. This clearly needs to be much more elaborately developed and clarified if it is to make political sense.
Are elements of this kind of thinking part of the Islamic discursive tradition?
I certainly think they are. That's what ijtihad, the principle of original reasoning from within the tradition, is all about. There is a lot of talk about ijtihad nowadays among Muslims, but too often it's used as a device to bring Islamic tradition in line with modern liberal values for no good reason. I believe it ought to be used to argue with other Muslims within the tradition and to try to formulate solutions to problems that are recognized as problems for the tradition by other Muslims.
You discuss in your work the practice of nasiha in Saudi Arabia, as an example of public critique within the Islamic tradition, which is quite distinct from the liberal notion of public criticism. Can you speak to that, given your comments on the limits and possibilities of specific traditions of thought?
Yes, nasiha is different from liberal notions of public criticism. For example, it doesn't constitute a right to criticize the monarch and/or political regime but an obligation. Similarly, the business of criticism is not restricted only to those expressly qualified--the educated and enlightened few. It's something that every Muslim has the duty to undertake, and whose theory the `ulama must continually reconsider and discuss for each time and place. It is, therefore, a form of criticism that is internal to a tradition. That is to say, only someone who has been educated in that tradition, who has been taught what "appropriate Islamic practices" are, can undertake it properly. This is not a criticism that anyone coming from the outside, a total stranger, say, armed with a fine sense of logical argument and a set of universal moral principles, can carry out. So it is quite different from the notion of abstract and generalized criticism that has to be confined to the enlightened, literate members of a polity.
Do you think that the post-Reformation Protestant conception of religion, as an internal belief system that has little to do with arranging political and social life, influenced or transformed the character of Islamic debates in this century? If so, in what ways?
Well, I think to some extent they have--where Islamic reform movements have adopted standards of rationality from modern Western discourses or even where Muslim apologists claim that Islam does quite well when properly measured by Western standards of justice and decency. This influence is also evident whenever the shari`a is made compatible with Western law and practice and is subjected to institutions of the modern state. And the modern state gives rise to two quite distinct movements--those for whom religious faith is something that fits into "private space" (in both the legal and the psychological sense), and those for whom the "public functions" of the modern state must be captured by men with religious faith.
It has often been argued that the tradition of liberalism is based upon principles of pluralism and tolerance in ways that Islamic tradition is not, and that the concept of plurality remains foreign to Islam. How would you respond to that?
Well, I would say that it is certainly not a modern, liberal invention. The plurality of individual interests is what the liberal tradition has theorized best of all. On the other hand, the attempt to get some kind of representation for ethnic groups and minorities in Western countries has been difficult for liberalism to theorize. Liberalism has theories of tolerance by which spaces can be created for individuals to do what they wish, so long as they don't obstruct the ability of others to do likewise. But these aren't theories of pluralism in the sense we are beginning to understand the term today. Liberalism has theories of multiple "interests," interests which can be equalized, aggregated, and calculated through the electoral process and then negotiated in the process of formulating and applying governmental policies. But that is a very different kind of pluralism from the different ways of life which are (a) the preconditions and not the objects of individual interests, and which are, (b) in the final analysis, incommensurable.
Now the Islamic tradition, like many other non-liberal traditions, is based on the notion of plural social groupings and plural religious traditions--especially (but not only) of the Abrahamic traditions [ahl al-kitab]. And, of course, it has always accommodated a plurality of scriptural interpretations. There is a well- known dictum in the shari`a: ikhtilaf al-umma rahma [difference within the Islamic tradition is a blessing]. This is where the notions of ijtihad and ijm`a come in. As modes of developing and sustaining the Islamic tradition, they authorize the construction of coherent differences, not the imposition of homogeneity.
Of course there are always limits to difference if coherence is to be aimed at. If tolerance is not merely another name for indifference, there comes a point in every tradition beyond which difference cannot be tolerated. That simply means that there are differences which can't be accommodated within the tradition without threatening its very coherence. But there are, of course, many moments and conditions of such intolerance. One must not, therefore, equate intolerance with violence and cruelty.
On the whole, Muslim societies in the past have been much more accommodating of pluralism in the sense I have tried to outline than have European societies. It does not follow that they are therefore necessarily better. And I certainly don't wish to imply that Muslim rulers and populations were never prejudiced, that they never persecuted non-Muslims in their midst. My point is only that "the concept of plurality," as you put it, is not foreign to Islam.
Talking of pluralities of interpretations within the Islamic tradition, some scholars make a distinction between the Sufi [mystical] and Salafi [reformist] tradition within Islam. You have criticized the ways in which these two traditions are often mapped onto rural/urban, folk/elite, and oral/scriptural dichotomies, respectively. Yet it is hard to deny the substantial differences between Sufi and Salafi thought. How can one fruitfully engage with these differences without falling into simplistic dichotomies?
Keith Ellison first Muslim in U.S. Congress
Keith Ellison recently became the first Muslim ever elected to a seat in the U.S. Congress with his winning a seat in the House of Representatives. He also became the first African-American from Minnesota to be elected to Congress, as part of the Democrat Party's victory in the 2006 Congressional elections.
He has already been making waves; on November 13 skipping a private dinner for freshman congressman hosted by President Bush. Instead, he attended an AFL-CIO event in order to meet with prominent labor leaders. "It wasn't even a close call," a recent AP report quoted Ellison as saying. "Maybe one day I'll get to meet the president. He's the president, and I respect him in his role as the president, but I have exceedingly sharp differences with him on a policy level."
News reports indicate Ellison's election likely had more to do with his competence as a law-maker and stance on social issues such as labor and health care, rather than any real political radicalism or religious identity. The House of Representatives has not yet assigned incoming Representatives to committees, but Ellison is reportedly interested in the Education and the Workforce, Judiciary and the Energy and Commerce committees. Speaking to his role as an American lawmaker and a Muslim, Ellison told the International Herald Tribune (9/22/2006), "Muslims want to express themselves in American life -- just like all other Americans do. I think that it's very encouraging that while some people seek extremism, American Muslims are seeking inclusion and engagement in the American body politic."
Included here is a transcript of what seems to be Ellison's most lengthy interview since his election. The following includes excerpts from a Democracy Now! interview with Amy Goodman on November 8, 2006.
AMY GOODMAN: You're not only the first Muslim elected to Congress, you are also Minnesota's first non-white representative in Washington. Can you talk about the significance of both?
KEITH ELLISON: Well, you know, I think it represents that a whole new group of folks can feel welcome to get involved in American politics and shape it within their own image, in an image that they believe reflects their values and their needs, as well. That's a great thing. I mean, the fact is, is that people of all colors, all cultures came together to help us in our bid for Congress, and we were able to succeed. You know, my campaign office, since the very beginning, looked like the UN. We had everybody in the room, people of all faiths, all cultures, all colors, working together behind a progressive agenda to challenge this Iraq policy, to raise the issue about the 47 million uninsured, to talk about fair working and middle class economics, to talk about the right to organize in labor unions, clean renewable energy, behind a progressive agenda.
AMY GOODMAN: Keith Ellison, you were a two-term state representative, a former criminal defense attorney. What are your main issues that you will bring to Washington?
KEITH ELLISON: Well, you know, in terms of my own personal things that I'm really concerned about, the war in Iraq is probably, you know, top on my list. I got into the race, because I was so opposed to the Bush policy. I opposed it from the very beginning, and then as this -- and I knew this war would never come to a good end. And unfortunately, well, and I was right, and I'm not proud of being right, but those of us who opposed this war from the beginning were right.
And so, now what we need to do is help the American people find their way out of this thing. So many feel like we can't get out, and we can't stay. You know, but I'm in favor of trying to organize people to bring the troops home, because I think this thing has been an abysmal failure.
I also think we need to stand up for the civil and human rights of the American people. The Military Commissions Act is just another example of how this war has had a corrosive effect on our civil and human rights. And we need to really begin to stand up for the Constitution again. So those are just a few things that I really feel strong about.
He has already been making waves; on November 13 skipping a private dinner for freshman congressman hosted by President Bush. Instead, he attended an AFL-CIO event in order to meet with prominent labor leaders. "It wasn't even a close call," a recent AP report quoted Ellison as saying. "Maybe one day I'll get to meet the president. He's the president, and I respect him in his role as the president, but I have exceedingly sharp differences with him on a policy level."
News reports indicate Ellison's election likely had more to do with his competence as a law-maker and stance on social issues such as labor and health care, rather than any real political radicalism or religious identity. The House of Representatives has not yet assigned incoming Representatives to committees, but Ellison is reportedly interested in the Education and the Workforce, Judiciary and the Energy and Commerce committees. Speaking to his role as an American lawmaker and a Muslim, Ellison told the International Herald Tribune (9/22/2006), "Muslims want to express themselves in American life -- just like all other Americans do. I think that it's very encouraging that while some people seek extremism, American Muslims are seeking inclusion and engagement in the American body politic."
Included here is a transcript of what seems to be Ellison's most lengthy interview since his election. The following includes excerpts from a Democracy Now! interview with Amy Goodman on November 8, 2006.
AMY GOODMAN: You're not only the first Muslim elected to Congress, you are also Minnesota's first non-white representative in Washington. Can you talk about the significance of both?
KEITH ELLISON: Well, you know, I think it represents that a whole new group of folks can feel welcome to get involved in American politics and shape it within their own image, in an image that they believe reflects their values and their needs, as well. That's a great thing. I mean, the fact is, is that people of all colors, all cultures came together to help us in our bid for Congress, and we were able to succeed. You know, my campaign office, since the very beginning, looked like the UN. We had everybody in the room, people of all faiths, all cultures, all colors, working together behind a progressive agenda to challenge this Iraq policy, to raise the issue about the 47 million uninsured, to talk about fair working and middle class economics, to talk about the right to organize in labor unions, clean renewable energy, behind a progressive agenda.
AMY GOODMAN: Keith Ellison, you were a two-term state representative, a former criminal defense attorney. What are your main issues that you will bring to Washington?
KEITH ELLISON: Well, you know, in terms of my own personal things that I'm really concerned about, the war in Iraq is probably, you know, top on my list. I got into the race, because I was so opposed to the Bush policy. I opposed it from the very beginning, and then as this -- and I knew this war would never come to a good end. And unfortunately, well, and I was right, and I'm not proud of being right, but those of us who opposed this war from the beginning were right.
And so, now what we need to do is help the American people find their way out of this thing. So many feel like we can't get out, and we can't stay. You know, but I'm in favor of trying to organize people to bring the troops home, because I think this thing has been an abysmal failure.
I also think we need to stand up for the civil and human rights of the American people. The Military Commissions Act is just another example of how this war has had a corrosive effect on our civil and human rights. And we need to really begin to stand up for the Constitution again. So those are just a few things that I really feel strong about.
Latino Muslims in America: the Rebirth of a Community
This paper represents the beginning phases of research originally intended as part of the author's PhD thesis in Sociology at Northwestern University. Aarón (or Haroun) now attends Loyola Law School in Chicago. His mother is Mexican and his father is Jewish. He converted to Islam two years ago, and considers himself part of the growing community of Latino Muslims in America. The version of the paper presented here has been edited for Islamamerica.org by Zakariya Wright.
Since the 1960s, immigration to America has occasioned unprecedented cultural cross-communication, leading inevitably to intermingling, and, in some cases, to various individuals and communities embracing religions not usually associated with their heritage. There is no better example of this than the Latino1 Muslim population here in the United States, which has grown significantly over the past nine years. This population is one that is apparently new to Islam, but as I will demonstrate, is one that has been able to reexamine the historical record to forge new cultural identities. As such, the advent of Latino Muslims has served to re-interrogate both what it means to be Latino and what it means to be Muslim in America. This paper will examine Latino Muslim identity in America, primarily by examining reasons for conversion to Islam within the Latino community.
Research to this point has demonstrated that Latinos who embrace Islam do so in part because of perceived Spanish (or Andalusian) Muslim heritage. But there are other more immediate doctrinal and social issues that likewise explain Latino conversion to Islam, including a broader flight from the Catholic Church and the perceived threat to traditional Latino values of family and community in America. My own work in the field, examining both immigrant Latinos converting in the United States and American-born Latino converts (such as myself), has supported these conclusions. Of course, conversion within the United States is not the only path to Islam for Latinos, but the long presence of Islam in Latin America itself is unfortunately beyond the scope of this paper.
The point should nonetheless be made that Islam is not a new religion in the Latino experience. Aside from more ancient links to Islamic Andalusia, there has been a large influx of Arabs, particularly from Syria and Lebanon, beginning in the 1860s. The number of Muslims currently in Latin America has been estimated at between four and six million, with 800,000 Muslims in Argentina and 1.5 million in Brazil alone. And Islam has not remained the exclusive domain of Arab or Indo-Pakistani immigrants. Aside from conversions among some of the ethnically African populations of Trinidad or Jamaica, for example, a few "indigenous" Muslim communities have likewise taken root. In the state of Chiapas in southern Mexico, a group of Tzotzil Mayan Indians have embraced Islam,2 establishing their own mosque and zabiha3 restaurant and butcher shop. Likely, many in Latin America have come to similar conclusions about the relationship between Christianity and slavery/colonial domination that those of African descent have come to in the United States. According to one writer: "Rather than viewing Catholicism as the native religion of their culture, they [Latinos] protest that Catholicism was originally forced on their indigenous ancestors by Europeans."4
There is no doubt that the significant influence of Islam on Spanish culture likewise affected Latin America, despite the best efforts of the conquistadors and Christian missionaries to isolate Islam to the "Old World." The year 1492, in which Columbus "discovered" the Americas with Spanish financial backing, was also the same year that the last Muslim caliph was defeated in Granada by the Spanish Christian forces. This was the beginning of the Inquisition and the end of any hopes for a Spain that embraced all three major monotheistic religions. The antipathy towards Islam and Judaism that helped fuel the Inquisition was present within the early Spanish colonists of the Americas. This fear of Islam is explained by Sylviane Diouf as follows:
The colonists had a genuine fear that the Muslims would proselytize among the Indians. These concerns may not have been rooted in reality, but they were strong enough to make Spaniards try to enforce a rigid segregation of Indians and Africans. Islam did not spread, but the Muslims may have made some attempts to reach out. Accusations and condemnations do not indicate that a deed or offense has been committed, but in 1560 the mulatto Luis Solano was condemned to death and the "Moor" Lope de la Pena to life in prison for having practiced and spread Islam in Cuzco, Peru.5
The amount of influence that Islam had on Spain was very important to how the settlers treated the Indigenous Americans, as well as the future mestizos (those of mixed race), who would soon make up a majority of Latin America. Spanish Catholics no doubt saw themselves in a race to save the heathens of the New World with Christianity before they could be tainted by Islam, which with the Ottoman Empire then at its apex, dominated the Old World.
But the Islamic roots of Spanish civilization could not be so easily forgotten, perhaps in large part due to Muslim Andalusia's reputation as a beacon of civilization and peace. The Andalusian capitol of Cordoba, for example, was described by a contemporary writer as follows: "There were half a million inhabitants, living in 113,000 houses. There were 700 mosques and 300 public baths spread throughout the city and its twenty-one suburbs. The streets were paved and lit... There were bookshops and more than seventy libraries."6 Such a vibrant heritage of Spanish Islam has obviously played a role in the process of Latino conversion to Islam. An article by Lisa Viscidi on the growing presence of Latinos in the United States illustrates the point:
Many Latinos who convert to Islam believe they are reclaiming their lost Muslim&heritage-which they view more positively than the legacy of Catholicism. Many Spanish intellectuals once disputed the extent of Moorish influence on Hispanic culture, but Latino Muslims who claim Islamic roots question the view of Western society's origins as exclusively European. They point to the African/Islamic influence evident in Spanish literature, music and thought. Thousands of Spanish words, for example, are derived from Arabic.7
The familiarity with influences from the Arab (Moorish) culture and consequently, Islam, have allowed the Latino "reverts" to Islam to create a connection between their present and their past. In much the same way that the so-called "lost tribes of Israel" seek recognition by the nation of Israel, Latino Muslims seek to be welcomed into the Muslim community not as new converts, but as reverts who are returning to a religion that was once theirs.
The largest Latino Muslim communities follow, as would be expected, the population patterns of the main Latino communities. This means that the largest Latino communities contain the largest Latino Muslim communities. Looking at the current numbers nationwide for the cities with the largest Latino communities, we find the top five are Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, Dallas and Houston. These cities thus also contain the largest numbers of Latino Muslims.
The exact number of Latino Muslims in the United States is difficult to know, as both the size of immigrant populations and the Muslim community in America are themselves subjects of dispute. In 1997, the American Muslim Council (AIM) estimated that there were 40,000 Latino Muslims in the United States. By the year 2004, this number was estimated at 75,000, statistically an 87.5 percent increase in seven years. But this still represents a relatively small percentage of Americas forty million Latinos.8 However, much as the African-American Muslim population was looked at as an insignificant size in the 1960s (with numbers now estimated at between 1.8 to 2.1 million or thirty percent of CAIR's overall estimate of six to seven million Muslims9), the Latino Muslim population is ripe for similar growth. According to the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), six percent of the 20,000 annual reverts (1,200) to Islam are Latino.10
The answer to the question of what types of Latinos are converting to Islam is quite complex because there is not one distinct group or personality profile. Based on my own sociological research in the Chicago area, Latino Muslims come from all sorts of backgrounds: new immigrants and first, second or third generation Latino-Americans; both men and women (although there are higher percentages of women); educated and uneducated; and from various Latin American nations including Mexico, Puerto Rico, Argentina and Brazil. What this exhibits is a microcosm of the much larger Latino community. Since the larger community is so diverse and varied in its composition, it is not surprising that the members of this community who are embracing Islam are just as diverse.
The majority of Latinos embracing Islam in the United States of America have begun to do so within the past ten years. Although there is a community that began earlier, in the 1960s in New York City (largely Puerto Rican in make-up), the spread of Islam within the national Latino community did not begin to grow until the mid 1990s. The first Latino Muslim organizations to be created were in New York City. These include Alianza Islamica and the Latino Dawah Organization (LADO), both founded in the 1970s in the Spanish Harlem neighborhood of New York City. They were created in order to address the growing number of Latinos (Puerto Ricans in particular) who were embracing Islam.
In order to answer the questions about why this particular population began to embrace Islam in large numbers we must look at the demographics of the areas where the Puerto Rican populations live.11 The city of New York is one of the most tightly packed urban centers in the world. People are packed into their neighborhoods and live in high-rise apartment buildings that stress a maximization of space and as a result, the citizens of these neighborhoods live very close to one another. Thus, it is more probable for them to have daily contact with a plethora of ethnicities, cultures, and religions. During the 1960s, African-American Muslim organizations, such as the Nation of Islam, were very active in Harlem and black Muslims became an increasingly visible phenomenon throughout the United States. Latinos often live with or near African-American populations. This close contact created an environment where the various populations are able to learn about each other, and Islam is one of the components that was shared with the Latino population in New York City.
More recently, however, Latino-Americans have been mostly affected by the rapidly growing immigrant Muslim communities throughout the United States, which have significantly increased the exposure of Latinos to Islam. This is evident in the largest Latino communities located in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Dallas and Houston.
The increasing numbers of Latinos embracing Islam in the last ten years deserves a more concrete explanation than links to pre-Inquisition Spain. Latino conversion to Islam can be sociologically explained through (1) a broader disillusionment with the Catholic Church within the American Latino community and (2) the similar set of cultural values shared by traditional Latino families and most Muslim communities.
Islam is of course not the only religion seeing a mass influx of Latinos. There appears to be a more general exodus of Latinos from the Catholic Church in America. According to Chris Jenkins of the Washington Post:
These concerns about Catholicism mirror a trend that many officials in U.S. dioceses have tracked for years: the defection of Hispanics. The Catholic Almanac estimates that 100,000 Hispanics in the United States leave the church each year, although some other experts put the number as high as 600,000. Most have moved to Pentecostal and evangelical Protestant faiths as well as Mormonism, Islam and Buddhism. Converts appear to be both men and women in equal numbers.12
Since the 1960s, immigration to America has occasioned unprecedented cultural cross-communication, leading inevitably to intermingling, and, in some cases, to various individuals and communities embracing religions not usually associated with their heritage. There is no better example of this than the Latino1 Muslim population here in the United States, which has grown significantly over the past nine years. This population is one that is apparently new to Islam, but as I will demonstrate, is one that has been able to reexamine the historical record to forge new cultural identities. As such, the advent of Latino Muslims has served to re-interrogate both what it means to be Latino and what it means to be Muslim in America. This paper will examine Latino Muslim identity in America, primarily by examining reasons for conversion to Islam within the Latino community.
Research to this point has demonstrated that Latinos who embrace Islam do so in part because of perceived Spanish (or Andalusian) Muslim heritage. But there are other more immediate doctrinal and social issues that likewise explain Latino conversion to Islam, including a broader flight from the Catholic Church and the perceived threat to traditional Latino values of family and community in America. My own work in the field, examining both immigrant Latinos converting in the United States and American-born Latino converts (such as myself), has supported these conclusions. Of course, conversion within the United States is not the only path to Islam for Latinos, but the long presence of Islam in Latin America itself is unfortunately beyond the scope of this paper.
The point should nonetheless be made that Islam is not a new religion in the Latino experience. Aside from more ancient links to Islamic Andalusia, there has been a large influx of Arabs, particularly from Syria and Lebanon, beginning in the 1860s. The number of Muslims currently in Latin America has been estimated at between four and six million, with 800,000 Muslims in Argentina and 1.5 million in Brazil alone. And Islam has not remained the exclusive domain of Arab or Indo-Pakistani immigrants. Aside from conversions among some of the ethnically African populations of Trinidad or Jamaica, for example, a few "indigenous" Muslim communities have likewise taken root. In the state of Chiapas in southern Mexico, a group of Tzotzil Mayan Indians have embraced Islam,2 establishing their own mosque and zabiha3 restaurant and butcher shop. Likely, many in Latin America have come to similar conclusions about the relationship between Christianity and slavery/colonial domination that those of African descent have come to in the United States. According to one writer: "Rather than viewing Catholicism as the native religion of their culture, they [Latinos] protest that Catholicism was originally forced on their indigenous ancestors by Europeans."4
There is no doubt that the significant influence of Islam on Spanish culture likewise affected Latin America, despite the best efforts of the conquistadors and Christian missionaries to isolate Islam to the "Old World." The year 1492, in which Columbus "discovered" the Americas with Spanish financial backing, was also the same year that the last Muslim caliph was defeated in Granada by the Spanish Christian forces. This was the beginning of the Inquisition and the end of any hopes for a Spain that embraced all three major monotheistic religions. The antipathy towards Islam and Judaism that helped fuel the Inquisition was present within the early Spanish colonists of the Americas. This fear of Islam is explained by Sylviane Diouf as follows:
The colonists had a genuine fear that the Muslims would proselytize among the Indians. These concerns may not have been rooted in reality, but they were strong enough to make Spaniards try to enforce a rigid segregation of Indians and Africans. Islam did not spread, but the Muslims may have made some attempts to reach out. Accusations and condemnations do not indicate that a deed or offense has been committed, but in 1560 the mulatto Luis Solano was condemned to death and the "Moor" Lope de la Pena to life in prison for having practiced and spread Islam in Cuzco, Peru.5
The amount of influence that Islam had on Spain was very important to how the settlers treated the Indigenous Americans, as well as the future mestizos (those of mixed race), who would soon make up a majority of Latin America. Spanish Catholics no doubt saw themselves in a race to save the heathens of the New World with Christianity before they could be tainted by Islam, which with the Ottoman Empire then at its apex, dominated the Old World.
But the Islamic roots of Spanish civilization could not be so easily forgotten, perhaps in large part due to Muslim Andalusia's reputation as a beacon of civilization and peace. The Andalusian capitol of Cordoba, for example, was described by a contemporary writer as follows: "There were half a million inhabitants, living in 113,000 houses. There were 700 mosques and 300 public baths spread throughout the city and its twenty-one suburbs. The streets were paved and lit... There were bookshops and more than seventy libraries."6 Such a vibrant heritage of Spanish Islam has obviously played a role in the process of Latino conversion to Islam. An article by Lisa Viscidi on the growing presence of Latinos in the United States illustrates the point:
Many Latinos who convert to Islam believe they are reclaiming their lost Muslim&heritage-which they view more positively than the legacy of Catholicism. Many Spanish intellectuals once disputed the extent of Moorish influence on Hispanic culture, but Latino Muslims who claim Islamic roots question the view of Western society's origins as exclusively European. They point to the African/Islamic influence evident in Spanish literature, music and thought. Thousands of Spanish words, for example, are derived from Arabic.7
The familiarity with influences from the Arab (Moorish) culture and consequently, Islam, have allowed the Latino "reverts" to Islam to create a connection between their present and their past. In much the same way that the so-called "lost tribes of Israel" seek recognition by the nation of Israel, Latino Muslims seek to be welcomed into the Muslim community not as new converts, but as reverts who are returning to a religion that was once theirs.
The largest Latino Muslim communities follow, as would be expected, the population patterns of the main Latino communities. This means that the largest Latino communities contain the largest Latino Muslim communities. Looking at the current numbers nationwide for the cities with the largest Latino communities, we find the top five are Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, Dallas and Houston. These cities thus also contain the largest numbers of Latino Muslims.
The exact number of Latino Muslims in the United States is difficult to know, as both the size of immigrant populations and the Muslim community in America are themselves subjects of dispute. In 1997, the American Muslim Council (AIM) estimated that there were 40,000 Latino Muslims in the United States. By the year 2004, this number was estimated at 75,000, statistically an 87.5 percent increase in seven years. But this still represents a relatively small percentage of Americas forty million Latinos.8 However, much as the African-American Muslim population was looked at as an insignificant size in the 1960s (with numbers now estimated at between 1.8 to 2.1 million or thirty percent of CAIR's overall estimate of six to seven million Muslims9), the Latino Muslim population is ripe for similar growth. According to the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), six percent of the 20,000 annual reverts (1,200) to Islam are Latino.10
The answer to the question of what types of Latinos are converting to Islam is quite complex because there is not one distinct group or personality profile. Based on my own sociological research in the Chicago area, Latino Muslims come from all sorts of backgrounds: new immigrants and first, second or third generation Latino-Americans; both men and women (although there are higher percentages of women); educated and uneducated; and from various Latin American nations including Mexico, Puerto Rico, Argentina and Brazil. What this exhibits is a microcosm of the much larger Latino community. Since the larger community is so diverse and varied in its composition, it is not surprising that the members of this community who are embracing Islam are just as diverse.
The majority of Latinos embracing Islam in the United States of America have begun to do so within the past ten years. Although there is a community that began earlier, in the 1960s in New York City (largely Puerto Rican in make-up), the spread of Islam within the national Latino community did not begin to grow until the mid 1990s. The first Latino Muslim organizations to be created were in New York City. These include Alianza Islamica and the Latino Dawah Organization (LADO), both founded in the 1970s in the Spanish Harlem neighborhood of New York City. They were created in order to address the growing number of Latinos (Puerto Ricans in particular) who were embracing Islam.
In order to answer the questions about why this particular population began to embrace Islam in large numbers we must look at the demographics of the areas where the Puerto Rican populations live.11 The city of New York is one of the most tightly packed urban centers in the world. People are packed into their neighborhoods and live in high-rise apartment buildings that stress a maximization of space and as a result, the citizens of these neighborhoods live very close to one another. Thus, it is more probable for them to have daily contact with a plethora of ethnicities, cultures, and religions. During the 1960s, African-American Muslim organizations, such as the Nation of Islam, were very active in Harlem and black Muslims became an increasingly visible phenomenon throughout the United States. Latinos often live with or near African-American populations. This close contact created an environment where the various populations are able to learn about each other, and Islam is one of the components that was shared with the Latino population in New York City.
More recently, however, Latino-Americans have been mostly affected by the rapidly growing immigrant Muslim communities throughout the United States, which have significantly increased the exposure of Latinos to Islam. This is evident in the largest Latino communities located in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Dallas and Houston.
The increasing numbers of Latinos embracing Islam in the last ten years deserves a more concrete explanation than links to pre-Inquisition Spain. Latino conversion to Islam can be sociologically explained through (1) a broader disillusionment with the Catholic Church within the American Latino community and (2) the similar set of cultural values shared by traditional Latino families and most Muslim communities.
Islam is of course not the only religion seeing a mass influx of Latinos. There appears to be a more general exodus of Latinos from the Catholic Church in America. According to Chris Jenkins of the Washington Post:
These concerns about Catholicism mirror a trend that many officials in U.S. dioceses have tracked for years: the defection of Hispanics. The Catholic Almanac estimates that 100,000 Hispanics in the United States leave the church each year, although some other experts put the number as high as 600,000. Most have moved to Pentecostal and evangelical Protestant faiths as well as Mormonism, Islam and Buddhism. Converts appear to be both men and women in equal numbers.12
Do America are going to expanding Their Power in Indonesia?
There are many rumors about America building their influence in Asia. Most recent rumors came from Indonesia where an Island called Lembek Island just by the coast of Sulawesi East Indonesia were about to be bought by American government.
Only the local people not the Indonesian government has realized this and they were offered to be bought their lands by this year. Only time will show the truth.
Only the local people not the Indonesian government has realized this and they were offered to be bought their lands by this year. Only time will show the truth.
Windows XP
Windows XP is a line of proprietary operating systems developed by Microsoft for use on general-purpose computer systems, including home and business desktops, notebook computers, and media centers. The letters "XP" stand for eXPerience.[2] Codenamed "Whistler" after Whistler, British Columbia, as many Microsoft employees skied at the Whistler-Blackcomb ski resort during its development, Windows XP is the successor to both Windows 2000 and Windows Me, and is the first consumer-oriented operating system produced by Microsoft to be built on the Windows NT kernel and architecture. Windows XP was first released on October 25, 2001, and over 400 million copies are in use, according to a January 2006 estimate by an IDC analyst.[3] It is succeeded by Windows Vista, which was released to volume license customers on November 8, 2006, and worldwide to the general public on January 30, 2007.
The most common editions of the operating system are Windows XP Home Edition, which is targeted at home users, and Windows XP Professional, which has additional features such as support for Windows Server domains and dual processors, and is targeted at power users and business clients. Windows XP Media Center Edition has additional multimedia features enhancing the ability to record and watch TV shows, view DVD movies, and listen to music. Windows XP Tablet PC Edition is designed to run the ink-aware Tablet PC platform. Two separate 64-bit versions of Windows XP were also released, Windows XP 64-bit Edition for IA-64 (Itanium) processors and Windows XP Professional x64 Edition for x86-64 processors.
Windows XP is known for its improved stability and efficiency over previous versions of Microsoft Windows. It presents a significantly redesigned graphical user interface, a change Microsoft promoted as more user-friendly than previous versions of Windows. New software management capabilities were introduced to avoid the "DLL hell" that plagued older consumer versions of Windows. It is also the first version of Windows to use product activation to combat software piracy, a restriction that did not sit well with some users and privacy advocates. Windows XP has also been criticized by some users for security vulnerabilities, tight integration of applications such as Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player, and for aspects of its user interface.
Windows XP had been in development since early 1999, when Microsoft started working on Windows Neptune, an operating system intended to be the "Home Edition" equivalent to Windows 2000 Professional. It was eventually cancelled and became Whistler, which later became Windows XP. Many ideas from Neptune and Odyssey (another cancelled Windows version) were used in Windows XP.
The most common editions of the operating system are Windows XP Home Edition, which is targeted at home users, and Windows XP Professional, which has additional features such as support for Windows Server domains and dual processors, and is targeted at power users and business clients. Windows XP Media Center Edition has additional multimedia features enhancing the ability to record and watch TV shows, view DVD movies, and listen to music. Windows XP Tablet PC Edition is designed to run the ink-aware Tablet PC platform. Two separate 64-bit versions of Windows XP were also released, Windows XP 64-bit Edition for IA-64 (Itanium) processors and Windows XP Professional x64 Edition for x86-64 processors.
Windows XP is known for its improved stability and efficiency over previous versions of Microsoft Windows. It presents a significantly redesigned graphical user interface, a change Microsoft promoted as more user-friendly than previous versions of Windows. New software management capabilities were introduced to avoid the "DLL hell" that plagued older consumer versions of Windows. It is also the first version of Windows to use product activation to combat software piracy, a restriction that did not sit well with some users and privacy advocates. Windows XP has also been criticized by some users for security vulnerabilities, tight integration of applications such as Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player, and for aspects of its user interface.
Windows XP had been in development since early 1999, when Microsoft started working on Windows Neptune, an operating system intended to be the "Home Edition" equivalent to Windows 2000 Professional. It was eventually cancelled and became Whistler, which later became Windows XP. Many ideas from Neptune and Odyssey (another cancelled Windows version) were used in Windows XP.
Windows Vista
Windows Vista is a line of graphical operating systems used on personal computers, including home and business desktops, notebook computers, Tablet PCs, and media centers. Prior to its announcement on July 22, 2005, Windows Vista was known by its codename "Longhorn".[1] Development was completed on November 8, 2006; over the following three months it was released in stages to computer hardware and software manufacturers, business customers, and retail channels. On January 30, 2007, it was released worldwide to the general public,[2] and was made available for purchase and downloading from Microsoft's web site.[3] The release of Windows Vista comes more than five years after the introduction of its predecessor, Windows XP, making it the longest time span between two releases of Microsoft Windows.
Windows Vista contains hundreds of new and reworked features; some of the most significant include an updated graphical user interface and visual style dubbed Windows Aero, improved searching features, new multimedia creation tools such as Windows DVD Maker, and completely redesigned networking, audio, print, and display sub-systems. Vista also aims to increase the level of communication between machines on a home network using peer-to-peer technology, making it easier to share files and digital media between computers and devices. For developers, Vista includes version 3.0 of the .NET Framework, which aims to make it significantly easier for developers to write high-quality applications than with the traditional Windows API.
Microsoft's primary stated objective with Windows Vista, however, has been to improve the state of security in the Windows operating system.[4] One common criticism of Windows XP and its predecessors has been their commonly exploited security vulnerabilities and overall susceptibility to malware, viruses and buffer overflows. In light of this, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates announced in early 2002 a company-wide 'Trustworthy Computing initiative' which aims to incorporate security work into every aspect of software development at the company. Microsoft stated that it prioritized improving the security of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 above finishing Windows Vista, thus delaying its completion.[5]
Windows Vista has been the target of a number of negative assessments by various groups. Criticism of Windows Vista has included protracted development time, more restrictive licensing terms, the inclusion of a number of new Digital Rights Management technologies aimed at restricting the copying of protected digital media, and the usability of other new features such as User Account Control.
Windows Vista contains hundreds of new and reworked features; some of the most significant include an updated graphical user interface and visual style dubbed Windows Aero, improved searching features, new multimedia creation tools such as Windows DVD Maker, and completely redesigned networking, audio, print, and display sub-systems. Vista also aims to increase the level of communication between machines on a home network using peer-to-peer technology, making it easier to share files and digital media between computers and devices. For developers, Vista includes version 3.0 of the .NET Framework, which aims to make it significantly easier for developers to write high-quality applications than with the traditional Windows API.
Microsoft's primary stated objective with Windows Vista, however, has been to improve the state of security in the Windows operating system.[4] One common criticism of Windows XP and its predecessors has been their commonly exploited security vulnerabilities and overall susceptibility to malware, viruses and buffer overflows. In light of this, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates announced in early 2002 a company-wide 'Trustworthy Computing initiative' which aims to incorporate security work into every aspect of software development at the company. Microsoft stated that it prioritized improving the security of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 above finishing Windows Vista, thus delaying its completion.[5]
Windows Vista has been the target of a number of negative assessments by various groups. Criticism of Windows Vista has included protracted development time, more restrictive licensing terms, the inclusion of a number of new Digital Rights Management technologies aimed at restricting the copying of protected digital media, and the usability of other new features such as User Account Control.
Women Find New Path to Work
The swift current of modern business presents a challenge for any woman deciding to temporarily step out of the corporate rapids to tend to family or other concerns. While they are away competitors come and go, technology constantly changes the nature of how business is done, and even the way we dress for success evolves over time.
Harvard Business School professor Myra Hart, an expert in high potential entrepreneurship, has offered several programs over the years to help HBS alumnae quickly regain the skills they need to re-enter the work force. This spring she brought together faculty and staff to create New Path: Setting New Professional Directions. In this interview, Hart explains the program and her hopes that future sessions can be expanded.
Harvard Business School professor Myra Hart, an expert in high potential entrepreneurship, has offered several programs over the years to help HBS alumnae quickly regain the skills they need to re-enter the work force. This spring she brought together faculty and staff to create New Path: Setting New Professional Directions. In this interview, Hart explains the program and her hopes that future sessions can be expanded.
Save Thousands With a Bi-Weekly Mortgage
You can save literally thousands of dollars and more likely Tens of thousands of dollars by following this simply relatively painless method.
By using this simple Bi-Weekly mortgage system to make your mortgage payments you drastically reduce the total amount of your interest payments and you can even cut the time it takes to pay off your mortgage! Sound interesting?
I did exactly this myself a couple of years ago after I had refinanced at a lower rate. But you don't have to refinance to take advantage of this great method! A single five-minute phone call is all it takes. Often there is no charge for this service. I actually pay the mortgage company $2.00/mo. for the service but it is well worth it!
Chances are, you can do the same thing. Here's how these "mortgage-reduction programs" work.
Normally, your mortgage is due once a month so you make 12 payments per year. By setting up a Bi-Weekly Mortgage payment plan you simply divide your payment in half and pay each half every two weeks.
At first glance it is hard to figure out how that can possibly save you anything. If you think about it a little harder you will realize that half the payment is made two weeks early so that saves you the interest on that half for two weeks. But how much difference can that make? Well over the life of a 30 year mortgage it may actually reduce the interest by a couple of thousand dollars. But wait there is actually more.
Remember we are paying our mortgage every two weeks not every 1/2 month. So... since there are 52 weeks in a year we are actually making 26 "half" payments. Or the equivalent of 13 "whole" payments a year. So rather than making 12 payments in a year you painlessly slide in another payment.
I say painlessly because your payments are actually smaller and more evenly spread out so you don't notice them as much as the one big monthly mortgage payment. And because they are spread more evenly budgeting actually becomes easier.
For those of you who get paid every two weeks it is even better because you know exactly how much is coming out of each paycheck for the mortgage. But even if you are paid weekly you will know how much is coming out of every other paycheck rather than having to worry about the big lump at the end of the month.
So with the Bi-weekly mortgage plan each year, you make one extra mortgage payment. That extra goes directly toward principal (paying down your loan even faster). Since you're reducing the amount of the loan balance faster, you're also reducing the amount of interest you're charged.
For example, if you took out a 30 year, 6% Fixed mortgage for $150,000 mortgage. Your monthly mortgage payments for principal and interest would be about $899. If you make these payments monthly for 30 years, you'll pay a total of $323,968. With $150,000 of that being a return of principal. The rest, $173,968, will be the interest you paid.
But if you pay your Mortgage Bi-weekly... you will only pay $136,671 in interest... saving you a whopping $37,296 in interest!
By using this simple Bi-Weekly mortgage system to make your mortgage payments you drastically reduce the total amount of your interest payments and you can even cut the time it takes to pay off your mortgage! Sound interesting?
I did exactly this myself a couple of years ago after I had refinanced at a lower rate. But you don't have to refinance to take advantage of this great method! A single five-minute phone call is all it takes. Often there is no charge for this service. I actually pay the mortgage company $2.00/mo. for the service but it is well worth it!
Chances are, you can do the same thing. Here's how these "mortgage-reduction programs" work.
Normally, your mortgage is due once a month so you make 12 payments per year. By setting up a Bi-Weekly Mortgage payment plan you simply divide your payment in half and pay each half every two weeks.
At first glance it is hard to figure out how that can possibly save you anything. If you think about it a little harder you will realize that half the payment is made two weeks early so that saves you the interest on that half for two weeks. But how much difference can that make? Well over the life of a 30 year mortgage it may actually reduce the interest by a couple of thousand dollars. But wait there is actually more.
Remember we are paying our mortgage every two weeks not every 1/2 month. So... since there are 52 weeks in a year we are actually making 26 "half" payments. Or the equivalent of 13 "whole" payments a year. So rather than making 12 payments in a year you painlessly slide in another payment.
I say painlessly because your payments are actually smaller and more evenly spread out so you don't notice them as much as the one big monthly mortgage payment. And because they are spread more evenly budgeting actually becomes easier.
For those of you who get paid every two weeks it is even better because you know exactly how much is coming out of each paycheck for the mortgage. But even if you are paid weekly you will know how much is coming out of every other paycheck rather than having to worry about the big lump at the end of the month.
So with the Bi-weekly mortgage plan each year, you make one extra mortgage payment. That extra goes directly toward principal (paying down your loan even faster). Since you're reducing the amount of the loan balance faster, you're also reducing the amount of interest you're charged.
For example, if you took out a 30 year, 6% Fixed mortgage for $150,000 mortgage. Your monthly mortgage payments for principal and interest would be about $899. If you make these payments monthly for 30 years, you'll pay a total of $323,968. With $150,000 of that being a return of principal. The rest, $173,968, will be the interest you paid.
But if you pay your Mortgage Bi-weekly... you will only pay $136,671 in interest... saving you a whopping $37,296 in interest!
Scenario Planning for Your Small Business’s Future
ou wouldn’t think that looking into a crystal ball would be a productive use of your time, but looking into the future is exactly what most small businesses must do on a regular basis. Scenario planning is crucial to small business success.
What is Scenario Planning?
Scenario planning involves looking at a number of vectors and asking, “What will the future look like for this vector?” in order to paint a picture of the future. You should look at:
Technology
Customer needs
Suppliers
The environment
Organizational dynamics
The objective is to identify the most probable change in dynamics and to understand how those changes will affect your business. You may not have gotten each scenario exactly right, but at least when change occurs you are prepared to be proactive rather than reactive.
How Often Should Business Owners Engage in Scenario Planning?
Most small businesses say they’ll put a stake in the ground and think that everything will remain constant. The truth is that everything changes on a consistent basis. It is likely there will be a major change in some area that will have a significant impact on your business strategy and planning.
I recommend that small businesses engage in scenario planning about once a year—more if the industry is fast-paced.
There’s no one-size-fits-all answer to how often a business should engage in scenario planning. It depends on the speed of the industry. But let me tell you, if you’re a software vendor, once a year won’t be enough.
Make the Time
Most small business owners don’t get bogged down in planning for the future. They get bogged down in the day-to-day. You have to allocate time on an annual basis to plan for the future, and you have to allocate a few hours each month to talk about what is happening in the marketplace.
Bringing in a Third Party
I recommend bringing in an objective third party to help with scenario planning. I even get an outsider to help with my own scenario planning, and scenario planning is what my company does!
There are several resources to help small business owners with scenario planning, including SCORE, state and federal resources, and consultants. It’s a real leap of faith for some small business owners to engage in scenario planning, but you have to be ready for change on a consistent basis.
What is Scenario Planning?
Scenario planning involves looking at a number of vectors and asking, “What will the future look like for this vector?” in order to paint a picture of the future. You should look at:
Technology
Customer needs
Suppliers
The environment
Organizational dynamics
The objective is to identify the most probable change in dynamics and to understand how those changes will affect your business. You may not have gotten each scenario exactly right, but at least when change occurs you are prepared to be proactive rather than reactive.
How Often Should Business Owners Engage in Scenario Planning?
Most small businesses say they’ll put a stake in the ground and think that everything will remain constant. The truth is that everything changes on a consistent basis. It is likely there will be a major change in some area that will have a significant impact on your business strategy and planning.
I recommend that small businesses engage in scenario planning about once a year—more if the industry is fast-paced.
There’s no one-size-fits-all answer to how often a business should engage in scenario planning. It depends on the speed of the industry. But let me tell you, if you’re a software vendor, once a year won’t be enough.
Make the Time
Most small business owners don’t get bogged down in planning for the future. They get bogged down in the day-to-day. You have to allocate time on an annual basis to plan for the future, and you have to allocate a few hours each month to talk about what is happening in the marketplace.
Bringing in a Third Party
I recommend bringing in an objective third party to help with scenario planning. I even get an outsider to help with my own scenario planning, and scenario planning is what my company does!
There are several resources to help small business owners with scenario planning, including SCORE, state and federal resources, and consultants. It’s a real leap of faith for some small business owners to engage in scenario planning, but you have to be ready for change on a consistent basis.
Seven Great PR Tips for Winning Press Coverage
Reporters are always looking for compelling stories. You can help them and, at the same time, win press coverage for your products, services, organization or cause. Every organization, including yours, has newsworthy information. Sometimes you just have to dig a bit to get to it. Here are seven suggestions that will help you find the stories within your organization that you can pitch to get positive press attention and boost your public relations:
1) Identify trends in your industry - use your organization/product/issue as an example of a trend -- and pitch them as story ideas to the magazines, newsletters and Web sites your customers and prospects read.
2) A milestone: does your organization have an accomplishment or anniversary to brag about that is of public interest - a new product, service, partnership, event, contract win or hire? Find a news hook for it. Here, for example, are some commemorations that might be good news hooks for your products or services: National School Success Month, National Preparedness Month, Self Improvement Month, and Hispanic Heritage Month.
3) Take note of a "First in a Series" article. If you and your company would fit into the series as good sources, contact the reporter with reasons you might be included in the next article in the series.
4) Commission a study or survey, the results of which need to appeal to news outlets you most want to reach. Co-sponsor the survey with a well-known industry organization to boost visibility. Online companies let you create, send, and analyze surveys via the Web at very small cost.
5) Spotlight newsworthy people in your organization. For example, if a staffer is a gifted writer, musician or athlete, pitch the story to the appropriate editors of the newspaper. That way you'll also have a chance of getting your organization mentioned in the Arts, Sports and Local sections as well as Business.
6) Write a column yourself. Somewhere in your organization is a white paper or speech that you can cut to 800 words and submit as an Op-Ed or "expert" column to a trade publication or local business journal. Buy reprints and add them to your sales and marketing materials.
7) Send news releases. They do work if concise, newsworthy, and timely. Keep out the fluff and spin. Put the real news in the headline and first paragraph. Before you send a release, put yourself in a reporter's place. "Could I write a story using this information?" A regular "drumbeat" of releases (one or two a month) keeps your visibility high and helps keep you current when reporters do Internet searches to look for information. About 400-500 words is the optimum length.
1) Identify trends in your industry - use your organization/product/issue as an example of a trend -- and pitch them as story ideas to the magazines, newsletters and Web sites your customers and prospects read.
2) A milestone: does your organization have an accomplishment or anniversary to brag about that is of public interest - a new product, service, partnership, event, contract win or hire? Find a news hook for it. Here, for example, are some commemorations that might be good news hooks for your products or services: National School Success Month, National Preparedness Month, Self Improvement Month, and Hispanic Heritage Month.
3) Take note of a "First in a Series" article. If you and your company would fit into the series as good sources, contact the reporter with reasons you might be included in the next article in the series.
4) Commission a study or survey, the results of which need to appeal to news outlets you most want to reach. Co-sponsor the survey with a well-known industry organization to boost visibility. Online companies let you create, send, and analyze surveys via the Web at very small cost.
5) Spotlight newsworthy people in your organization. For example, if a staffer is a gifted writer, musician or athlete, pitch the story to the appropriate editors of the newspaper. That way you'll also have a chance of getting your organization mentioned in the Arts, Sports and Local sections as well as Business.
6) Write a column yourself. Somewhere in your organization is a white paper or speech that you can cut to 800 words and submit as an Op-Ed or "expert" column to a trade publication or local business journal. Buy reprints and add them to your sales and marketing materials.
7) Send news releases. They do work if concise, newsworthy, and timely. Keep out the fluff and spin. Put the real news in the headline and first paragraph. Before you send a release, put yourself in a reporter's place. "Could I write a story using this information?" A regular "drumbeat" of releases (one or two a month) keeps your visibility high and helps keep you current when reporters do Internet searches to look for information. About 400-500 words is the optimum length.
Your Business…Who Do You Be?
Many of us are so wrapped up in our business that we don’t have a chance to step back and reflect for a moment, on who we are in our lives. This is a problem that all of us face at one time or another whether we are a corporate executive or a live at home parent. I can remember being a child growing up in middle class America wondering what it would be like to have all the material wealth in the world. While still in grade school, who I be was a kid whose only concerns were Saturday morning cartoons and what mom was cooking for diner. As time went on and I learned the “rules” of my parents house, as much as I just wanted to be, I created this story that I could no longer be, and had to do the things necessary to live in my fathers house, by following his rules.
After I moved out of my parents house, I created this story that I was tired of doing the things that my parents made me do and saw all the things that I could have with my new found freedom. I began working and started having all these new material possessions. I also had to worry about what I had to do in order to pay the bills so I could thrive. As my business began to grow and the money started to come in a little easier, I began to acquire the things that I always wanted to have.
Life was great, more money was coming in and I was having more possessions. I was doing the things that it took in order to have the possessions that the lifestyle I created for myself demanded me to have. Sometimes, I would have to sacrifice doing the things I really wanted to do, in order to do the things that would allow me to have more material things…forget about being.
My mind was only concerned on what I have, and what I was going to have. My business was created to support my story of things that I must “have”, because this is what a guy like me has. Every day I would put on my strong suit and like a robot work until the job was done, strictly so I could have all the material things that I thought I should have.
What is the purpose of the business you are in? What do you have? What do you do? Who do you be? Luckily enough my company downsized me and I no longer did the things I was doing in order to have the things I really wanted. I had a chance to take a look inside and remember who it is that I really am. Now as I decided to be, I am doing the things that I have always wanted to do and have everything I want.
No, I don’t live on my own personal island, lying on the beach being fed grapes by beautiful servants yet. But if I did, what would I have to look forward to. Don’t we all get energized by the possibilities that we are creating for ourselves. We all create stories of who we are and why we do the things we do, and that is why we have the things we have. Don’t forget there is the story of what happened and then there is what happened.
Why are you in the business you are in? If you won the lottery tomorrow, would you continue doing the things you are doing today? Who would you be if money wasn’t an object? Is it the same person that you be right now?
Many spend years climbing the corporate ladder only to realize that it was leaning on the wrong tree. Wouldn’t it first be best to figure out who you be, so you can do the things that you do and have the things that you know you should have. How easy is it to quit that high paying job that you hate? Could you be who you be and do the things that you do and receive even higher pay than you do at that job you hate?
I know what I believe, and I don’t change who I be. The only thing that changes is what I do and that affects what I have. Money is the byproduct of my ability to serve others. I will only serve doing that which I love, and in that which I love, I will be best.
Simply put the solution to the problem of doing and having things that sacrifice your personal being is simple. Do not work strictly for money. Do not sacrifice your dreams, goals and desires because of others pessimism. Decide what you love. Always be the person whom you are when no one is looking. When you are true to yourself, the world seems to fall into place as if everything is perfect.
After I moved out of my parents house, I created this story that I was tired of doing the things that my parents made me do and saw all the things that I could have with my new found freedom. I began working and started having all these new material possessions. I also had to worry about what I had to do in order to pay the bills so I could thrive. As my business began to grow and the money started to come in a little easier, I began to acquire the things that I always wanted to have.
Life was great, more money was coming in and I was having more possessions. I was doing the things that it took in order to have the possessions that the lifestyle I created for myself demanded me to have. Sometimes, I would have to sacrifice doing the things I really wanted to do, in order to do the things that would allow me to have more material things…forget about being.
My mind was only concerned on what I have, and what I was going to have. My business was created to support my story of things that I must “have”, because this is what a guy like me has. Every day I would put on my strong suit and like a robot work until the job was done, strictly so I could have all the material things that I thought I should have.
What is the purpose of the business you are in? What do you have? What do you do? Who do you be? Luckily enough my company downsized me and I no longer did the things I was doing in order to have the things I really wanted. I had a chance to take a look inside and remember who it is that I really am. Now as I decided to be, I am doing the things that I have always wanted to do and have everything I want.
No, I don’t live on my own personal island, lying on the beach being fed grapes by beautiful servants yet. But if I did, what would I have to look forward to. Don’t we all get energized by the possibilities that we are creating for ourselves. We all create stories of who we are and why we do the things we do, and that is why we have the things we have. Don’t forget there is the story of what happened and then there is what happened.
Why are you in the business you are in? If you won the lottery tomorrow, would you continue doing the things you are doing today? Who would you be if money wasn’t an object? Is it the same person that you be right now?
Many spend years climbing the corporate ladder only to realize that it was leaning on the wrong tree. Wouldn’t it first be best to figure out who you be, so you can do the things that you do and have the things that you know you should have. How easy is it to quit that high paying job that you hate? Could you be who you be and do the things that you do and receive even higher pay than you do at that job you hate?
I know what I believe, and I don’t change who I be. The only thing that changes is what I do and that affects what I have. Money is the byproduct of my ability to serve others. I will only serve doing that which I love, and in that which I love, I will be best.
Simply put the solution to the problem of doing and having things that sacrifice your personal being is simple. Do not work strictly for money. Do not sacrifice your dreams, goals and desires because of others pessimism. Decide what you love. Always be the person whom you are when no one is looking. When you are true to yourself, the world seems to fall into place as if everything is perfect.
You Too Can Work From Home
Most of us dream of waking up at noon, to our delicious brunch that the maid prepared, only to jump on the computer for an hour and spend the rest of the day relaxing on the beach or by the pool with our mate and kids playing by our side. The only stress we imagine having is whether to have the butler drive us in the Rolls Royce or should we jump in the Ferrari up the coast. Yes you can have this lifestyle with a home based business, but it does take a little work to get there…well maybe a lot of work.
Many of us see the commercials late at night of people just like you and I who have “made it in life” when they left their minimum wage job to start their very own home based business and are now mega-wealthy. What sets these people apart from me you ask yourself as you finish off your last Budweiser and eat the last piece of stale pizza before you call it another night. The answer is determination. We all can say that we want to live the lifestyle, but it is these people who have proven to be determined to live it because they are as you are reading this. Don’t worry, it is not that long and after reading this you will well be on your way to owning your own home based business.
Today 85% of people in the US hate their jobs and 95% of people want to own their own business. However, 70% of businesses fail in the first 3 years. A successful owner is a good consumer, compares prices and buys the lowest prices. There are many reasons why people do not open their own business; the first is fear, you must control it or it will control you. To do this put a face on fear, what is it and is that really a reason not to open your own home based business. The second of the main reasons is the opinions of other people. People stop us because they love us and don’t want to see us get hurt or don’t want us to be more successful than them.
If you are really determined read below and decide that you will start your own home based business today. I am not suggesting that you quit your job yet and go full time at home, though if you follow the proper steps, this will be the inevitable. The first thing to do is decide what kind of home based business do you want to start. You should find a growth industry or product that is recession proof, has low overhead, is a convenience that creates necessity, has broad appeal, is not available in retail stores, produces exciting, emotional response, is easy to use, consumable, priced competitively, has a money back guarantee and whose timing in market is good.
One of the easiest ways to have a successful home based business is to model a successful home based business. Look for a market that already exists and know the margins, they must be at least 4:1. Market the solution immediately and easily, solve a problem rather than prevent one because people will always pay more for the solution than the prevention, if you want proof talk to someone who has gotten cancer from cigarette smoking. You don’t need to find anything new, just d it better and remember there is always a market for the best.
So you found your product now what, in your spare time get an additional phone line with voice mail and caller ID and an 800#. Build a website, get incorporated with a tax ID number, think of a business name, print up some business cards, and you are good to go. I am going to suggest selling information on the internet. First I will address reasons to sell something on the internet as apposed to a product.
The first reason to sell something on the internet is the convenience and timing of the transactions, with improved and affordable web technology and e-commerce solutions, people can shop from the convenience of their own home 24/7. An internet business is easy and quick to start and readily accessible instantly. You will save money and make money easily because an internet business is the least expensive to start, operate and market. There is hardly any overhead and lots of tax breaks (to find out more on the tax break of a home based business, check out my article Hey Uncle Sam, I Run A Successful Business From My House). Web traffic is doubling every 100 days, so there are more prospective customers out there for your products and information. Today there are over half a billion people on line and that number is growing every day. Thirty trillion dollars will be exchanged on the internet this decade; do you want a piece of that?
Now that you agree you should have a business on the internet, allow me to share with you why selling information on the internet is your best choice. There are minimal production costs, once you have the words on file, if you bought them or they are your intellectual property; that is all of your cost of production. There is minimal production time, once an order is in, a copy and paste is all that is in order before you send a file. There are no inventory concerns because everything is on file in your computer and there is instant delivery to a global market with automated 24/7 sales and distribution. There are minimal marketing costs because the majority of your marketing is done over the internet. Ongoing revenue streams can be built into the product by continually marketing to your customer and you can promote yourself as an industry expert. You can also promote your offline business to the world on your website for free. Best of all the value of your content is determined by the information, not the production cost, this can lead to a pretty profit.
If you are not fired up, you better check you pulse. Tomorrow when you are at your J.O.B. (Just Over Broke), ask yourself is the life that I have always dreamed about, or can I succeed at a home based business. You can have your new home based business set up and running during your lunch hour. (For ideas on a home based business check out my article, Home Based Business Ideas.) For now, I look forward to seeing you enjoying life the way it was meant to be enjoyed…by your rules. Just remember, if your home based business is going to succeed, the word is determination.
Many of us see the commercials late at night of people just like you and I who have “made it in life” when they left their minimum wage job to start their very own home based business and are now mega-wealthy. What sets these people apart from me you ask yourself as you finish off your last Budweiser and eat the last piece of stale pizza before you call it another night. The answer is determination. We all can say that we want to live the lifestyle, but it is these people who have proven to be determined to live it because they are as you are reading this. Don’t worry, it is not that long and after reading this you will well be on your way to owning your own home based business.
Today 85% of people in the US hate their jobs and 95% of people want to own their own business. However, 70% of businesses fail in the first 3 years. A successful owner is a good consumer, compares prices and buys the lowest prices. There are many reasons why people do not open their own business; the first is fear, you must control it or it will control you. To do this put a face on fear, what is it and is that really a reason not to open your own home based business. The second of the main reasons is the opinions of other people. People stop us because they love us and don’t want to see us get hurt or don’t want us to be more successful than them.
If you are really determined read below and decide that you will start your own home based business today. I am not suggesting that you quit your job yet and go full time at home, though if you follow the proper steps, this will be the inevitable. The first thing to do is decide what kind of home based business do you want to start. You should find a growth industry or product that is recession proof, has low overhead, is a convenience that creates necessity, has broad appeal, is not available in retail stores, produces exciting, emotional response, is easy to use, consumable, priced competitively, has a money back guarantee and whose timing in market is good.
One of the easiest ways to have a successful home based business is to model a successful home based business. Look for a market that already exists and know the margins, they must be at least 4:1. Market the solution immediately and easily, solve a problem rather than prevent one because people will always pay more for the solution than the prevention, if you want proof talk to someone who has gotten cancer from cigarette smoking. You don’t need to find anything new, just d it better and remember there is always a market for the best.
So you found your product now what, in your spare time get an additional phone line with voice mail and caller ID and an 800#. Build a website, get incorporated with a tax ID number, think of a business name, print up some business cards, and you are good to go. I am going to suggest selling information on the internet. First I will address reasons to sell something on the internet as apposed to a product.
The first reason to sell something on the internet is the convenience and timing of the transactions, with improved and affordable web technology and e-commerce solutions, people can shop from the convenience of their own home 24/7. An internet business is easy and quick to start and readily accessible instantly. You will save money and make money easily because an internet business is the least expensive to start, operate and market. There is hardly any overhead and lots of tax breaks (to find out more on the tax break of a home based business, check out my article Hey Uncle Sam, I Run A Successful Business From My House). Web traffic is doubling every 100 days, so there are more prospective customers out there for your products and information. Today there are over half a billion people on line and that number is growing every day. Thirty trillion dollars will be exchanged on the internet this decade; do you want a piece of that?
Now that you agree you should have a business on the internet, allow me to share with you why selling information on the internet is your best choice. There are minimal production costs, once you have the words on file, if you bought them or they are your intellectual property; that is all of your cost of production. There is minimal production time, once an order is in, a copy and paste is all that is in order before you send a file. There are no inventory concerns because everything is on file in your computer and there is instant delivery to a global market with automated 24/7 sales and distribution. There are minimal marketing costs because the majority of your marketing is done over the internet. Ongoing revenue streams can be built into the product by continually marketing to your customer and you can promote yourself as an industry expert. You can also promote your offline business to the world on your website for free. Best of all the value of your content is determined by the information, not the production cost, this can lead to a pretty profit.
If you are not fired up, you better check you pulse. Tomorrow when you are at your J.O.B. (Just Over Broke), ask yourself is the life that I have always dreamed about, or can I succeed at a home based business. You can have your new home based business set up and running during your lunch hour. (For ideas on a home based business check out my article, Home Based Business Ideas.) For now, I look forward to seeing you enjoying life the way it was meant to be enjoyed…by your rules. Just remember, if your home based business is going to succeed, the word is determination.
Why Iraq?
When a country goes to war, one question that already should have been answered is "why?" But many people in the United States, Europe and elsewhere are genuinely perplexed about why the Bush administration is so determined, even at the cost of war, to oust Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. In their public statements, administration officials have, if anything, increased the puzzlement. They have portrayed their campaign against Iraq as a continuation of the war against terrorism. They have claimed to have evidence of close ties between Hussein and al-Qaeda, but outside of a few scattered citations, they have failed to make a case that Hussein is an active ally of Osama bin Laden.
By offering an implausible rationale, the administration raises suspicion, particularly outside the United States, that it must have a secret agenda for ousting Hussein. Many people think that President George W. Bush wants to control Iraq's oil fields on behalf of U.S. companies. In mid-January, the German weekly Der Spiegel ran a cover story titled, "Blood for Oil." But anyone familiar with positions taken by American oil companies knows that this is implausible. In the late 1990s, oil companies lobbied to remove sanctions on Iraq. And most oil executives are extremely wary about the Bush policies toward Iraq, which they fear will destabilize the region.
What, then, explains the administration's Iraq policy? I offer here my own account, based on interviews with administration officials, press reports and, where necessary, speculation. It's not an explanation that will satisfy anyone looking for a single cause such as "blood for oil." Like many policy decisions, this one was the complicated and compromised product of different views and different factions within the administration. At any given point, it has contained contradictory aspects, wishful thinking and irrational fears, as well as the more conventional geopolitical calculations.
Three factions in the administration have been involved in formulating the Iraq policy: The first and most important has consisted of Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. They are Republican unilateralist who disdain international organizations and have been reluctant to intervene overseas except when they saw America's interests clearly at stake. The second faction is led by Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and CIA Director George Tenet. They adhere to the classic blend of realism and internationalism that had characterized the Bush Senior and Clinton administrations. And the third faction has been the neo-conservatives, led by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz.
Before September 11, neither Bush nor Powell favored confrontation with Iraq. At the United Nations, Powell advocated "smart sanctions" designed to revive the Iraqi economy. Only the neo-conservatives favored confronting Iraq, but they were preoccupied with China and were not represented within the cabinet itself. By last winter, however, opinion on Iraq had shifted dramatically. Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld joined the neo-conservatives in favoring confrontation. But they didn't share the neo-conservative scenario of using an invasion of Iraq to install a model regime that would threaten its Arab neighbors, including Saudi Arabia. Instead, they were moved by two major considerations.
The first was geopolitical. Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld were not concerned about enriching American oil companies, but they were worried that if Iraq acquired nuclear weapons, Hussein could achieve dominance over a region vital to world economic stability. Quipped one State Department official in explaining their reasoning, "If the Gulf produced kumquats, would we be doing this? I have my doubts." They also feared that if Iraq acquired nuclear weapons, Israel would either attempt a preemptive strike of its own or develop a second strike capability that would destabilize the region. In his State of the Union address, Bush vowed that Hussein "will not be permitted to dominate a vital region and threaten the U.S.," but the administration generally has avoided any statements of purpose that explicitly included either oil or Israel. To do so, administration officials feared, would be to invite misunderstanding and opposition. Not to do so has equally invited misunderstanding.
The second consideration was more psychological. The September 11 attacks, combined with the subsequent anthrax episodes, created a national trauma -- a feeling of powerlessness in the face of the unknown. Bush and his administration were certainly not exempt. After the al-Qaeda and anthrax attacks, the administration sought to counter or eliminate any possible threat, and administration explanations invariably invoked America's newfound "vulnerability." Bush stated his own recurring nightmare in his State of the Union address: "Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons and other plans -- this time armed by Saddam Hussein. It would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known." This scenario, seemingly far-fetched to many Europeans, was not just for public consumption but rather reflected fears in the White House about another September 11. (Indeed, some CIA officials continue to believe that Iraq was responsible for the anthrax attacks after September 11.) Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld believed that by knocking out Hussein they would reduce America's vulnerability to attack. Of course, an attack against Iraq could increase the incidence of terrorism in the Middle East and against the United States by creating a new Islamic martyr. But Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld may have been convinced otherwise by neo-conservative arguments that an attack would scare Arab leaders into cracking down on their own native terrorists and curbing anti-Americanism in their schools and media.
Powell and his allies did not share these views. They continued to believe that Hussein could be contained without risk to the United States. Last summer they provoked a debate within the administration that was finally resolved (with pressure from British Prime Minister Tony Blair and congressional Democrats) when Bush agreed to seek a UN resolution that would focus on disarming Hussein rather than overthrowing him. From that point on, the administration no longer spoke of regime change as its objective. But the resulting decision reflected at best a compromise between Powell and the other two factions. Bush outwardly embraced Powell's strategy but continued to act as if the administration's real objective was regime change. He didn't just send troops to the Mideast but leaked war plans, and even had a military general boast that troops were already inside Iraq. He sought to bully rather than work with the United Nations.
Of course, Hussein would never have allowed inspectors back into Iraq if Bush hadn't produced a credible threat on Iraq's borders. But Bush never signaled to wary allies or to Baghdad that if the Iraqi dictator were to comply with UN Resolution 1441, the United States would withdraw from Iraq's immediate perimeter (and find the will to coexist with Hussein). He never sent his secretary of state, as his father had sent James Baker on the eve of the Gulf War, to make clear to Hussein that disarmament was an alternative to war. Instead, administration officials told reporters that they had no faith in the United Nations and that war was inevitable.
Bush was also unwilling to rest his case against Hussein solely on the Iraqi's refusal to abide by the post-Gulf War disarmament resolutions. Instead, the administration released in September, after the president's UN speech, an official strategy paper that sanctioned preemptive attacks against "emerging threats." The paper also stated that "while the United States will constantly strive to enlist the support of the international community, we will not hesitate to act alone." To Europeans who already believed that the United States was out to capture Iraq's oil fields, these words suggested that America aspired to be the new Rome.
Bush's September UN strategy was a hodgepodge of contradictory intentions. When Powell, the good soldier, finally abandoned any attempt to stop the administration's rush to war, Bush's goal became abundantly clear. But the reason for its urgency remained unclear and susceptible to misinterpretation, particularly outside the United States. The administration's Iraq strategy may yet turn out to be a success -- if, for instance, Hussein is forced into a last-minute exile. But Bush appears to have squandered an opportunity either to avoid a war or to fight one on the most favorable terms. If the administration had made clear that it would accept a disarmed Iraq without Hussein's ouster, it might have eventually forced the Iraqi dictator to comply with UN Resolution 1441. If Hussein still refused to comply, the administration would have enjoyed the broad support of a powerful coalition with which to go to war. Instead, the United States is likely to obtain at best a grudging acceptance of its war plans. And erstwhile allies, as well as implacable foes, will characterize the war as George W. Bush's attempt to take over the Middle East. In this interdependent world, that's not a reputation the United States wants to have.
By offering an implausible rationale, the administration raises suspicion, particularly outside the United States, that it must have a secret agenda for ousting Hussein. Many people think that President George W. Bush wants to control Iraq's oil fields on behalf of U.S. companies. In mid-January, the German weekly Der Spiegel ran a cover story titled, "Blood for Oil." But anyone familiar with positions taken by American oil companies knows that this is implausible. In the late 1990s, oil companies lobbied to remove sanctions on Iraq. And most oil executives are extremely wary about the Bush policies toward Iraq, which they fear will destabilize the region.
What, then, explains the administration's Iraq policy? I offer here my own account, based on interviews with administration officials, press reports and, where necessary, speculation. It's not an explanation that will satisfy anyone looking for a single cause such as "blood for oil." Like many policy decisions, this one was the complicated and compromised product of different views and different factions within the administration. At any given point, it has contained contradictory aspects, wishful thinking and irrational fears, as well as the more conventional geopolitical calculations.
Three factions in the administration have been involved in formulating the Iraq policy: The first and most important has consisted of Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. They are Republican unilateralist who disdain international organizations and have been reluctant to intervene overseas except when they saw America's interests clearly at stake. The second faction is led by Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and CIA Director George Tenet. They adhere to the classic blend of realism and internationalism that had characterized the Bush Senior and Clinton administrations. And the third faction has been the neo-conservatives, led by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz.
Before September 11, neither Bush nor Powell favored confrontation with Iraq. At the United Nations, Powell advocated "smart sanctions" designed to revive the Iraqi economy. Only the neo-conservatives favored confronting Iraq, but they were preoccupied with China and were not represented within the cabinet itself. By last winter, however, opinion on Iraq had shifted dramatically. Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld joined the neo-conservatives in favoring confrontation. But they didn't share the neo-conservative scenario of using an invasion of Iraq to install a model regime that would threaten its Arab neighbors, including Saudi Arabia. Instead, they were moved by two major considerations.
The first was geopolitical. Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld were not concerned about enriching American oil companies, but they were worried that if Iraq acquired nuclear weapons, Hussein could achieve dominance over a region vital to world economic stability. Quipped one State Department official in explaining their reasoning, "If the Gulf produced kumquats, would we be doing this? I have my doubts." They also feared that if Iraq acquired nuclear weapons, Israel would either attempt a preemptive strike of its own or develop a second strike capability that would destabilize the region. In his State of the Union address, Bush vowed that Hussein "will not be permitted to dominate a vital region and threaten the U.S.," but the administration generally has avoided any statements of purpose that explicitly included either oil or Israel. To do so, administration officials feared, would be to invite misunderstanding and opposition. Not to do so has equally invited misunderstanding.
The second consideration was more psychological. The September 11 attacks, combined with the subsequent anthrax episodes, created a national trauma -- a feeling of powerlessness in the face of the unknown. Bush and his administration were certainly not exempt. After the al-Qaeda and anthrax attacks, the administration sought to counter or eliminate any possible threat, and administration explanations invariably invoked America's newfound "vulnerability." Bush stated his own recurring nightmare in his State of the Union address: "Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons and other plans -- this time armed by Saddam Hussein. It would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known." This scenario, seemingly far-fetched to many Europeans, was not just for public consumption but rather reflected fears in the White House about another September 11. (Indeed, some CIA officials continue to believe that Iraq was responsible for the anthrax attacks after September 11.) Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld believed that by knocking out Hussein they would reduce America's vulnerability to attack. Of course, an attack against Iraq could increase the incidence of terrorism in the Middle East and against the United States by creating a new Islamic martyr. But Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld may have been convinced otherwise by neo-conservative arguments that an attack would scare Arab leaders into cracking down on their own native terrorists and curbing anti-Americanism in their schools and media.
Powell and his allies did not share these views. They continued to believe that Hussein could be contained without risk to the United States. Last summer they provoked a debate within the administration that was finally resolved (with pressure from British Prime Minister Tony Blair and congressional Democrats) when Bush agreed to seek a UN resolution that would focus on disarming Hussein rather than overthrowing him. From that point on, the administration no longer spoke of regime change as its objective. But the resulting decision reflected at best a compromise between Powell and the other two factions. Bush outwardly embraced Powell's strategy but continued to act as if the administration's real objective was regime change. He didn't just send troops to the Mideast but leaked war plans, and even had a military general boast that troops were already inside Iraq. He sought to bully rather than work with the United Nations.
Of course, Hussein would never have allowed inspectors back into Iraq if Bush hadn't produced a credible threat on Iraq's borders. But Bush never signaled to wary allies or to Baghdad that if the Iraqi dictator were to comply with UN Resolution 1441, the United States would withdraw from Iraq's immediate perimeter (and find the will to coexist with Hussein). He never sent his secretary of state, as his father had sent James Baker on the eve of the Gulf War, to make clear to Hussein that disarmament was an alternative to war. Instead, administration officials told reporters that they had no faith in the United Nations and that war was inevitable.
Bush was also unwilling to rest his case against Hussein solely on the Iraqi's refusal to abide by the post-Gulf War disarmament resolutions. Instead, the administration released in September, after the president's UN speech, an official strategy paper that sanctioned preemptive attacks against "emerging threats." The paper also stated that "while the United States will constantly strive to enlist the support of the international community, we will not hesitate to act alone." To Europeans who already believed that the United States was out to capture Iraq's oil fields, these words suggested that America aspired to be the new Rome.
Bush's September UN strategy was a hodgepodge of contradictory intentions. When Powell, the good soldier, finally abandoned any attempt to stop the administration's rush to war, Bush's goal became abundantly clear. But the reason for its urgency remained unclear and susceptible to misinterpretation, particularly outside the United States. The administration's Iraq strategy may yet turn out to be a success -- if, for instance, Hussein is forced into a last-minute exile. But Bush appears to have squandered an opportunity either to avoid a war or to fight one on the most favorable terms. If the administration had made clear that it would accept a disarmed Iraq without Hussein's ouster, it might have eventually forced the Iraqi dictator to comply with UN Resolution 1441. If Hussein still refused to comply, the administration would have enjoyed the broad support of a powerful coalition with which to go to war. Instead, the United States is likely to obtain at best a grudging acceptance of its war plans. And erstwhile allies, as well as implacable foes, will characterize the war as George W. Bush's attempt to take over the Middle East. In this interdependent world, that's not a reputation the United States wants to have.
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