ch13- Social Rifts

If you thought the last two problems were hairy, this one is a gorilla of a hairball. We have a tendency to create social rifts. They come in all facets: political, economic, cultural, religious, racial, featural (as in ugly vs pretty, tall vs short, jocks vs geeks, etc.), you name it, we make it. We are clubby kind of folks. We surround ourselves with people like us, form named or unnamed clubs, have our views echoed back to us, reinforce our own mindsets, and pretty soon it is us versus them. The resulting effects of these rifts are chronic conflicts, social conflicts, cultural conflicts, racial conflicts, economic conflicts, political conflicts. Sometimes the conflicts are mild, some times luke-warm, sometimes hot and bloody, and sometimes world threatening. As to why we create these rifts, it is in the nature of our morphologies, we are herd animals, we're just wired that way.

Here we are going to concentrate on political and economic rifts, the world threatening type. As an example of a political-economic rift consider a little thing we had recently called the cold war. It was the ideological battle of communism versus capitalism. Each camp had a relatively few firebrand stalwarts, supported by a solid population leaning one way or another, and the rest of the population stuck in the middle. This is a great example of world threatening rifts. I personally think the name "cold war" was a misnomer. It was nothing cold about it. It lasted some 60 years. It raged all over the globe. Left millions dead. And as a bonus, it came close to starting a nuclear war a bunch of times. In the Cuban Missile Crises episode, it turns out, Castro would have launched if he had the key to the nukes. We came within a hair trigger's distance of blowing up the whole ball of wax. And in case you think we are out of the woods, add weapons of mass destruction, and specifically nuclear proliferation to our current rifts and we would be a spark away from blowing the whole game that took 14 billion years to create.

Consider the anatomy of that rift again, because it applies to all rifts. You have a relatively few firebrands on both sides starting a rift. You have a relatively solid population supporting the firebrands on both sides. And you have the rest of the population stuck in the middle. Now lets consider our rift du jour: Islamic Jihadists versus The West.

Actually this one is a compound rift. A good place to start is with the Arab-Jewish rift, which in itself is a compound rift. The historic component of the rift traces way back to when Abraham decided to have kids. Whether true or not, Jews trace themselves back to Isaac, and Arabs trace themselves to Ishmael. They've been at it ever since, a 4000-year-old sibling rivalry gone way out of hand. That rift has a religious component, Islam versus Judaism. It is a land dispute, God gave both of them Jerusalem. It is an economic dispute, Israelis have the money, the Palestinians don't (there is plenty of oil in pretty much every Arab country except Palestine, go figure!). Like it or not, the Muslim world, the Arab world, and the Jihadists in particular see Israel as a colonial vanguard of the west in occupation of Palestinian lands. They see no separation between United States and Israel. Add to that the American Christian Ultra-Right which actively seeks Armageddon and is arranging to get it by advocating the annexation of the entire Palestinian territory (they are in a permanent rush for Jesus to come back), and you got what you got in that rift.

Remember the anatomy of the rift: fire brands at the extreme, solid populations supporting them and the rest in the middle? That's what we have here. Actually the solution is clear to both sides. They have to live together, after all neither of them is going anywhere. But the firebrands want nothing to do with it. They have hated each other for so long, it has become a comfortable feeling. One can say they truly love to hate each other. It defines their existence. Believe it or not the real threat to them is the middle, within their own populations. The Israeli ultra-right assassinated their own Prime Minister when it looked like a peace deal was about to be struck. And the Palestinian firebrands set off suicide bombs when things start to get a bit too cozy.

Now lets consider another component of the Jihadi vs West rift: the Islamic-Christendom rift. Lets go over some history, starting at the beginning, with the reign of Prophet Mohammad (622 AD flight from Mecca to Medina). Then the Islamic armies began their expansion out of the Arabian peninsula in short order with the conquest of Persia (637-651) and the Berber invasion of Spain (711 AD, this would mark a direct salvo in creation of the Islamic-Christendom rift). Pope Urban II called upon the knights of Christendom to retake Jerusalem at the Council of Clermont in 1095, setting up the crusader wars. With that declaration the Christendom-Islamic wars started in earnest.
The next marker in the history of this rift has to be 1258 where the Mongol leader Hulagu Khan, a grandson of Genghis Khan, captured Baghdad and deposed the Islamic Caliphates. The Mongol rule morphed into the Ottoman rule after they converted to Islam. Sultan Mehmed, the Ottoman Emperor took Constantinople in 1453, deposing the Byzantine Empire, and the Ottoman empire established itself in what is now modern day Europe. The Ottoman blockage of the eastern trade routes gave impetus to westward expansion of Christendom culminating in Columbus’s journey to America in 1492. While the Ottoman-Christendom wars raged on, the Europeans went on to establish the Colonial Era culminating in the defeat of the Ottomans in the First Wold War (1918). One could argue that the Balkan wars in the 1990s were continuations of the battles of the Islamic ethnic remnants of the Ottoman empire and the Christians populations of the Balkans. In any case, since WWI we see a complete domination of the Islamic lands and people by the Christendom. Considering that the memories of people in that part of the world run deep, it is a safe assumption that they aren't all that thrilled by that outcome.

So those are two components of the Jehadi vs The West rift, the Arab-Jewish rift that is some 4000 years old and the Islamic-Christendom rift that is some 1400 years old.

But that's hardly the end of the tale of that compound rift, another component is the rift between Arab Populations and their governments. That rift has always been there, but it got particularly acute when oil was discovered and the colonialists, specifically the British decided that they wanted it. After the first world war, they helped set up tribal based governments where they existed, like in Saudi Arabia. And where there wasn't one, they drew a line on the map and created one anyway, as in Iraq. Then the oil money started to pour in. The tribal leaders married as many people as possible, resulting in Arab countries that were (and are) run by a whole bunch of hyper-rich cousins. That created an economic rift with political ramifications. Bunch of cousins had all of the money, all of the power and all of the guns and the ordinary folks basically lived on handouts.
After World War II, US basically assumed the colonialists mantle. Then the cold war got going and the cousins got the full support of the US. The Soviet Union was supporting whoever was willing to grab the power away from the cousins and join their camp (it worked in Iraq, Syria, Egypt, etc.). The cousins that survived got particularly brutal and the rift got deeper. When the nationalist in Iran tried to run their affairs in the 50's, US promptly orchestrated a coupe and returned a puppet king. The Iranians didn't like it much and 20 years later got rid of the king and installed an Islamic regime. That started the (Shiite) Jihadi ball rolling.
Then in the 80's the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan and US supported (Sunni) Jihadi movements all over that country. When the Soviet Union withdrew, the Jihadies could claim 2 victories, against the Soviets in Afghanistan and against US in Iran. They were emboldened, battle tested, armed to the teeth, with plenty of oil money. They were ready for business. And the primary order of business was to go after the cousins, starting with Saudi Arabia. Of course naturally, since the US was the basis of power of the cousins, they saw no separation between US and the cousins. The fact that US was the primary supporter (guarantor) of Israel fed the two rift together, creating a compound one.
So that is that rift, it is basically an Arab family dispute that the US just happens to be in the middle of, neck deep.

Before moving along, lets explore the Oil state phenomenon a little. Not only it is at the heart of the last rift, it applies to all of the other Oil States as well (Nigeria, Sudan, Venezuela, Russia, to name a few). Dictatorships can't economically compete with democracies. Why? One can do all manners of analysis and back it with all manners of facts, but from a morphological flow stand point, it is quite simple. Command economies corner the market on what to do, what to sell, how much to sell, how much to sell it for. They basically corner the market on wisdom. Democracies unleash the power of  the people to generate economic flows in every which way possible. So in dictatorships you have a few preconceived economic flows, in market economies you have all manners of economic flows. From a morphological flow stand point, wherever you have a lot of flows, mixing and matching, the stable dominant ones perpetuate and the unstable, weak ones dissipate. You have that in market economies, you don't in command economies. So market economies dominate. That simple.
Oil States violate that rule, not because they internally generate economic growth, they don't. They rely on a single economic flow channel, oil. But that channel, funded by free market economies, generate so much cash, that they can literally buy off their populations, for a while. Think about it, it would be quite hilarious if it wasn't so tragic. We are actually funding both sides of the war on terror: we are funding the Jihadies on one side with oil revenues, and our military-industrial complex on the other; just because we are such pathetic oil junkies. But even for the Oil States themselves this is a bad, poisoned, pill. Why? Because the health of their economy is solely dependent on the flow of oil. And when the prices of oil fluctuate, their societies correspondingly get rattled. If we ever get our act together and the price of oil bottoms out again, like it did after the 1970's oil price spike, then their economies will tank. And having gotten used to the riches while doing nothing, their populations will get restless, again, and you will have all manners of revolts, again. But even without that, Oil State social structures are tall unstable pyramids with a few ultra-rich on the top (that would be the ruling cousins in the Arab Oil States), a relatively few in the middle, and the vast majority at the bottom. And oil generates so much cash that they don't have the incentive to develop much else. You have this morphology in every single Oil State.

Now, lets get back to the subject at hand, the Jihadies. There are two brands of Jihadies, the Sunni Jihadies, e.g. followers of Bin Laden among others, and there are the Shiite Jihadies, and those would be the followers of Khomeini of Iran. It turns out that the shiites and the sunnis have been at war basically since the dawn of Islam. You see the shiites are the followers of the lineage of the prophet Mohammad. As soon as Mohammad passed away, the Islamic rule was consolidated  in the hands of the Caliphates. About a generation later, the ruling Caliphate tried to force the head of the house of the prophet, Hussain, to submit to his rule. He would have non of it. So the Caliphate had him and everyone with him killed in an event called Ashura, at a place called Karbala in Iraq in the mulsim year 61 (680 AD). Followers of Hussein became shiites, followers of the Caliphates became sunnis. They have been at each other's throats, in one form or another, ever since. The rift actually is worst. The flag bearer of shiites are Iranians, who are Persians. The Persians and the Arabs have been at each other's throats for something like 3000 years, 1500 years longer than this Islamic religious rift. The shiite zone runs from the east through Afghanistan and Iran, then Iraq, through Syria and Lebanon, the sunnis call this the shiite crescent. So, when you hear about the sectarian  violence in Iraq between shiites and sunnis, it dates back to that compound rift. And being brilliant global stategists that US leaders are, they managed to plant us smack in the middle of all of that. And for good reason, everybody with any knowledge of the history of this rift is scared silly that the sectarian strife will spill out of the Iraqi border and engulf the entire shiite-sunni geographical areas and shut down the oil flow, which is why we are there to begin with.

Yet another component of the Jihadi versus the West dispute is a cultural one. The West lives in the 21st century, the Jihadies by enlarge have a 8th century mindset and yearn for when the Islamic Caliphates ruled the world. That rift is basically an inter-Arab schizophrenia with one persona stuck in the 8th century and the other in the 21st. It turns out that they don't get along. And in as much as the West is the stalwart of the 21st century, the 8th century persona doesn't much like it either. The fact that we strut in there, throwing our weight around like a bunch of idle-wild cowboys doesn't help matters.

So that is the nature of the compound rift between Jihadies and the West. I'm sure there are other components, but for our current purposes these will suffice. Now the Jihadies have already demonstrated how much damage a handful of folks with box cutters, cheese knives and airline tickets could do. Add to that weapons of mass destruction and we have a bubble bursting threat. There already are Islamic nukes in Pakistan. It doesn't look like Iran is all that far behind. There are loose nuclear materials all over the globe. And that doesn't make the picture any prettier.

I know I've already scared the hell out of you. But before talking about solutions to the rift phenomenon I'd like to mention another potentially bubble-bursting rift (yes there are potential solutions, just bare with me for a while longer). That is the global economic rift between the ultra-rich and the abjectly poor.

There is no dispute that there is a global economy. Anyone on the Internet can order and sell anything to anywhere. It is also a fact that there is a global rift between the ultra-rich and the abjectly poor. This rift has the same anatomy as any other rift. You have the firebrands in the extremes, a solid population supporting them, and here, a relatively small middle (yes that would be the middle class).
In this case the firebrands on the right are the free traders. They represent the ultra-rich. They used to be nations, but now they are multinational corporations that have their tentacles everywhere. They own a lot and would very much like to own the rest. From their point of view, having the people that own the countries run them as well makes perfect sense. On the left you have firebrands that represent the abjectly poor. Once upon a time they would have been branded as communist or socialist revolutionaries, but since that racket is now reduced down to Castro, well revolution ain't what it used to be!

And that is the solution for managing the economic rift. If you want a stable rift, strengthen the middle class. If you want to ferment revolution, ignore it. We see that in action today. When was the last time you heard of a Swedish revolutionary front? That is because Sweden has a huge middle class. On the other hand a place like Guatemala has had revolution in the air in every year of its existence. There, all of the wealth is concentrated in the hands of the few, the ruling class. There is a very small middle class, and the vast majority of people live in abject poverty with little hope for economic betterment.

By the way that is the way to stabilize all rifts. A stable rift has a strong, active middle. An unstable, conflict-producing rift has a weak or no middle. 

If you want to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, create a strong middle class on both sides and link them up. They would have a common economic bond and a vested existential interest in each other's survival. The Islamic-Western rift will work itself out, violently or otherwise. On one extreme you have the Jehadi versus West rift that is caused by diametrically opposed ideologies, as was the case with the Talibal/Alqaida in Afghanistan, a case for the final solution. On the other hand you have a country like Turkey which is well on its way in integrating Islam and modernity. You have a country like Iran which is in a schizophrenic limbo, it is both Islamic-theocratic and a pseudo-democracy. You have countries like Saudi Arabia which practice tribal rule. You have countries like Qatar and United Arab Emirates that are trying very hard to convert from a tribal rule to something close to a free society. And of course there is Iraq where all hell is breaking loose and things could go every which way.
Even in a hairy situations like these we see an emerging solution, build up the middle, as in the case of Turkey and Qatar. If you don't, you'll end with a final solution type of a problem as was the case in Afghanistan. Even in Iraq, as badly as we have botched it, if you want a solution, build up a vibrant middle between the Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds.

The problem with building up the middle is that it is very easy to say and very hard to do. Politically, the extreme firebrands find the middle to be a mortal threat. The middle would close the rift and put them out business, e.g. Israeli-Palestinian extremists need each other to stay in business, a rift closing middle would put them out of business. Economically, the stalwarts of command economies want to stay powerful, a strong middle class would sow the seeds for alternative ways of doing business and potentially put them out of business. So whoever is on the top of the pyramid is going to do whatever is necessary to stay there.

Do we see a pattern here? Is there anything that could create a middle for all of these rifts: the rich versus poor rift, the Israeli-Palestinian rift, the Jihadi-vs-West ideological rift, the Arab cousins versus their populations rift? Again, from a morphological flow stand point the answer is deceptively simple, we've already seen it: a global knowledge worker economy. It already exists, it is already burgeoning, and it is way too small to have a decisive impact, especially in areas where debilitating rifts permeate. Think about it, a global knowledge worker economy will form the middle class to close the rich versus poor rift. There just aren't enough of them in the underdeveloped nations. It will close the Israeli-Palestinian gap. There just aren't enough of them linked up on both sides with common economic interests. It will close the Jehadi-vs-West ideological gap by soft landing Jihadi ideology in the 21st century. There are hardly any on the Jihadi side giving a counter balance to the Jihadi ideology. It will close the Arab ruler vs their populations gap by building a vibrant middle class and eventually changing that political map. And we know how to set up knowledge worker economies, establish the two morphological markers: A System and Culture of learning, and Economic Freedom. But the catch is that it has to be bullet proof. The stalwarts of the rifts will likely kill it as soon as they notice it.

I'll have more to say about potential solutions later on.