Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group

Religious Freedom and the Obama Contraceptive Mandate

By Stephen V. Monsma

An on-going controversy concerns the Obama administration’s attempt to mandate that under the new Affordable Care Act employers’ health insurance plans must include contraceptive coverage.  And contraceptive coverage is defined broadly enough to include sterilization procedures and what some consider abortifacients.  This has aroused the strong opposition of the Catholic Church—which has long opposed artificial birth control as a violation of its religious beliefs—and some evangelical Protestant groups, largely on the basis of the inclusion of what they consider abortifacients. 

Those who oppose the contraceptive mandate are claiming their religious freedom rights are being violated, since the mandate would require them to act in violation of their deeply-held religious beliefs.  Others claim that this a public health issue, not a religious freedom issue, since  assuring that contraceptives are readily available will protect women from unwanted pregnancies and reduce the number of abortions.  As a recent columnist in the New York Times wrote, “[T]he provision of preventive services without a co-pay does not interfere with a religious practice or ceremony.” 

This controversy—which has generated much heat and is likely to continue to do so throughout this election year—largely turns on one’s understanding of what constitutes a religious organization or a religious practice.   We all cringe at the thought of a government edict telling St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York how it is to celebrate the mass or who may or may not officiate at the mass.  We all recognize this would be a violation of the religious freedom rights we all hold dear.  The organization in this example (St. Patrick’s Cathedral) is clearly accepted by all as a religious organization and the practice (the celebration of the mass) as a religious practice. 

 But this agreement breaks down and the controversy explodes when the organization is not a religious congregation in the traditional sense and the practice does not involve a religious ritual or ceremony.  What about a nonprofit spouse abuse program that was begun by an evangelical Protestant church, is still largely supported by church members, and explicitly states that it is providing services in obedience to Jesus Christ and in his name?  Is it a religious organization?  And are the volunteers and staff who counsel with and offer help to women who have been abused and preyed upon engaging in a religious act? Or what about a Catholic college that takes its religious commitment seriously and seeks to understand the world within the context of historic Catholic thought and reflection?  Is it a religious organization?  And is a professor who seeks to apply Catholic social teaching in her sociology course engaged in a religious act?

As I explain in my book, Pluralism and Freedom: Faith-Based Organizations in a Democratic Society, for historic reasons Americans, and especially the educated elite, tend to exclude as religious organizations and religious practices organizations and practices outside of religious congregations and their core religious rituals and ceremonies.  But such a narrow view of religion is untenable.  It is inaccurate to say that when the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., led African American demonstrators out of their churches and into the streets in defense of racial justice he changed from a religious leader to a secular leader.  An official statement the National Association of Evangelicals testifies to its belief that its faith not only encompasses acts of love and mercy but demands them: “Jesus said that those who do not care for the needy and the imprisoned will depart eternally from the living God.”  The nature of religion as extending beyond the confines of church and synagogue was clearly summarized by Robert Bellah and his associates in their classic, Habits of the Heart, when they wrote:  “Yet religion, and certainly biblical religion, is concerned with the whole of life—with social, economic, and political matters as well as with private and personal ones.” 

To me, this means that when a governmental edict clashes with faith-based organizations’ thought-out, long-held, religiously-based beliefs and practices, our public policies should do all they can to accommodate those beliefs and practices.  This is what protects the pluralism and diversity to which we as a society claim to aspire.

Coming back to the current controversy over the contraceptive mandate, this means no church should seek to force its view of contraceptives onto all of society; no government mandate should seek to force faith-based organizations to provide contraceptives in violation of their religious beliefs.  Religious liberty and religious freedom rights are indeed at stake here.  We as a people have long lived together with our deepest differences by each group respecting those with whom it does not agree and allowing them, to the fullest extent possible in keeping with public health and safety, to follow their beliefs.  My book mentioned earlier suggests that we need to renew this commitment and broaden it to include the host of educational, health, and social service faith-based organizations that continue to contribute much to our life together.

 

About the author:

Stephen V. Monsma is a senior research fellow at the Henry Institute at Calvin College and professor of political science emeritus at Pepperdine University. He is the author of numerous works for faith-based organizations and church and state relations, including Faith, Hope, and Jobs and Putting Faith in Partnerships.

The Messages in President Obama’s Spotify Playlist

By Benjamin S. Schoening and Eric T. Kasper 

Now that 2012 is upon us, so is another presidential election. Barack Obama is seeking a second term as the presumptive Democratic Party nominee for president, and four candidates are currently vying for the Republican Party nomination. There are many strategic decisions which these politicians make to promote their candidacies, including crafting inspiring speeches, offering eloquent answers to interview questions, and creating patriotic backdrops at campaign events. For as long as there have been American presidential elections, one of the candidates’ quadrennial considerations has also been selection of the right music.

President Obama made news on February 9th when he announced his campaign’s Spotify playlist. For those not familiar with Spotify, it is an online music service that streams songs to members of the website. President Obama released his playlist in 2012 in much the same way that he announced his iPod playlist during his 2008 candidacy. Playlists such as this can send powerful messages to the electorate, as they can transmit political ideas or associate a candidate with a notable musical celebrity. With this in mind, let’s have a look at a few of the 28 songs on President Obama’s Spotify playlist.

One of the more notable selections is Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together.” President Obama previously sang the first few bars of this song at an appearance in the Apollo Theater in New York City on January 19th. Although originally written as a romantic song when first released by Green in the early 1970s, the song’s title and hook offer a powerful message from an incumbent president to the voters: vote for me, so that we can mutually continue along the path we are on now.

A second song choice by President Obama that musically asks for another opportunity to serve the country is U2’s “Even Better than the Real Thing.” In multiple places the overarching message is that the listener will be satisfied by giving the singer one more chance. The song goes on to refer to its audience as the real thing and even better than that. This can be interpreted as a way to “pump up” supporters of the President. Again, like “Let’s Stay Together,” the lyrics of “Even Better than the Real Thing” were clearly originally written with romantic intent, but the key catchy parts of the song can be co-opted to express relevant political messages.

REO Speedwagon’s “Roll with the Changes” exemplifies another important political theme for President Obama. The title of this tune harkens back to one of the President’s major campaign slogans from 2008: Change we can believe in. The lyrics go on to tell the listener that the singer is available when the listener is ready to move along with the changes that lay ahead. The lyrics also tell the listener that the tables have turned, and they imply that the darkest hour has passed. Certainly, one could see this as a message from President Obama that the economy is on the mend and things are getting better because of the changes he has implemented.

The songs a campaign chooses can also be used to thwart the message of the political opposition. One song on President Obama’s playlist that does this is “No Nostalgia” by Ages and Ages. Recently, Republican candidates have expressed a message that the country is on the wrong path, and only they can restore America to its past greatness. The hook of “No Nostalgia” takes aim at this notion, claiming that instead of looking to the past we should concentrate on the promise of what our country is now and can become in the future.

Of course, one must be careful not to read too much into these lyrics and song choices. Still, there is no doubt that President Obama and those working on his reelection campaign thought long and hard about which songs to release. Ultimately, song choice is an important consideration for presidential campaigns. The right song can become a memorable way to express important political messages. On the other hand, the wrong songs can muddle a campaign message, and key song omissions can lead to hurt feelings among those who were musically snubbed.

____________________

About the authors: Benjamin S. Schoening and Eric T. Kasper are the authors of Don't Stop Thinking about the Music: The Politics of Songs and Musicians in Presidential Campaigns.  Benjamin Schoening is Assistant Professor of Music at the University of Wisconsin-Barron County and music director of the Red Cedar Choir in Rice Lake.  Eric T. Kasper is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Barron County and the municipal judge in Rice Lake.

DUST: the Inside Story of Its Role in the September 11th Aftermath

By Paul J. Lioy

Memorial Day 2011 has just passed, and during the Spring of 2011 another page in the fight against terrorism and the need to be prepared for the unknown. Tom Kean, who has commented widely about preparedness, is still correct because even with the death of Osama Bin Laden threats remain high against our country’s people and infrastructure, and his words should be a reminder that being prepared for terrorist events is an important part of our country’s responsibility to protect and defend. The 10th Anniversary of the deadly attacks on the WTC, United flight 93, and the Pentagon is also just around the corner. They will be solemn occasions that will provide an opportunity to educate those who were too young to remember or are part of the next generation. Since the publication of Dust: the Inside Story of Its role in Role in the September 11th Aftermath, I have talked to many individuals and groups, and recorded interviews, about the reasons for writing the book. In my discussions, it became clear that people wanted to know how the results of our analyses of the dust were used to understand exposure and health response relationships. In reviewing what has been written since publication of my book, the actual health effects experienced by the workers/volunteers remain highly correlated with the time of a person’s arrival at Ground Zero, and whether or not he or she was wearing a respirator during their completion of Ground Zero related activities over time. Based upon all my conversations with physicians and other environmental health professionals, my hypotheses remain consistent: the unknown or unquantifiable gases released during the jet fuel fires were part of the etiology of the diseases derived from the aerosol that contained the WTC Dust and inhaled by the workers/volunteers during the first days after the collapse of the towers. However, they cannot be realistically reconstructed in toxicological tests because they would have to include both the WTC Dust and combustion gases released by “uncontrolled” fires caused by the burning jet fuel.

The reader response to other important aspects of my story has come as sort of a surprise. Many were associated with the content of Chapter 12 which deals with the lessons learned and the lessons that still need to be learned from 9-11. These are linked specifically to the 5 Rs + 1: Rescue, Re-entry, Recovery, Restoration and Rehabitation. The Plus 1 is Resilience. Because of the natural events that have occurred since 9-11 (e.g. earthquake and Tsunami in Japan), and military actions overseas, I have had opportunities to describe the levels of completion or success using the 5 Rs for some of those incidents. As a member of the general public you can use my 5Rs to grade us all on the actions and the outcomes of those actions that can and do occur in natural and terrorist events.

Paul J. Lioy is a Professor and Vice Chair, Department of Environmental and Occupational Medicine at UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. He is Deputy Director for Government Relations and Director of Exposure Science at the Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute of Rutgers University and RWJMS-UMDNJ. Dr. Lioy is the author of Dust: The Inside Story of its Role in the September 11th Aftermath.

Will She or Won’t She?: Sarah Palin and the Other Splashy Maybe Candidates and the Equal Time Rule

By Paul Siegel

Political pundits have recently been focusing on those possible Republican presidential contenders who would be giving up highly lucrative media and public relations careers were they to join the 2012 presidential race. First, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum were let go from their Fox News gigs, followed by Glenn Beck, then Mike Huckabee used his Fox program to take himself out of the race. Donald Trump – the day after NBC announced it would renew The Apprentice, also bowed out of 2012 contention. Attention has switched to Sarah Palin--- would she give up her Fox role, Sarah Palin’s Alaska on TLC (as well as her lucrative lecture business, which would be at least unseemly for a presidential candidate)?

Most news stories about who’s in and who’s out have suggested that these media celebrities are weighing dollar signs and considering the limited number of waking hours in a day as they decide whether to run. Missing from most accounts is the fact that one of the few remaining federal laws regulating political content on the airwaves plays a major role.

Section 315 of the Federal Communication Act, referred to more colloquially as the Equal Time Rule, tells broadcast stations (legal scholars are divided as to how strictly the Federal Communications Commission would apply the rule to cable stations) that if they allow one candidate for office to “use” their airwaves, they must invite all candidates for the same office to enjoy equal time in a similarly prominent spot at a future date, prior to the election. When Ronald Reagan was a candidate (both for governor and president), Bedtime for Bonzo had to be put to bed for the duration of the campaign. If Fred Thompson decided to run again for senator or for some other office, reruns of his Law & Order and many movie appearances would disappear from broadcast and likely from most cable stations too.

The rule applies not only to federal elections, but local ones as well. When The Tonight Show failed to realize that they had conducted an interview with the Mayor of Burbank when he was a candidate for re-election, the NBC affiliate in Los Angeles had to give free airtime to the other 11 candidates for that much-sought-after office. Similarly, when William Branch decided to run for a town council seat in Loomis, California (population 4,000 at the time), he had to give up his on-air duties as reporter for a local Sacramento station.

Thus it is that Fox News’ not having pushed Sarah Palin out the door (at least as of this writing) has suggested to some pundits that network management may know something we don’t know—that Ms. Palin may, like Mr. Trump before her, be teasing us with the possibility of a presidential run only to drum up publicity for her various media interests, that the Equal Time Rule will be invoked against her or her Alaska.

Paul Siegel is professor of communication at the University of Hartford. He was the founding executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Kansas and Western Missouri office, and he has served on the ACLU's affiliate boards in Illinois; Washington, D.C.; and Connecticut. He is the author of Communication Law in America: Third Edition. Go to www.paulsiegelcommlaw.com for more information.

After Dominique Strauss-Kahn?

By Sarah Tenney

The recent arrest and resignation of IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn emphasizes the importance of the institution’s legitimacy in the international arena.

Although often overlooked, the most fundamental role of the IMF is to serve as a trusted advisor to country authorities and other international organizations and groups. In this capacity, its staff of only about 2500 enjoys access to the highest government offices and officials in all of its 187 member countries. It has the “ear” of other important international organizations, civil society groups, the academic community, and the media. Indeed, its role as a trusted advisor lies at the heart of all of the IMF’s work and enables it to serve as the pivotal player in efforts to ensure a stable international monetary and financial system.

Over the past 67 years, the IMF has achieved the highest level of global legitimacy not only by recruiting and retaining the “best and the brightest” among the world’s economists, but also by maintaining a sound track record for impartiality, confidentiality, and policy analysis. Its staff and management are well-respected among member states for professionalism, cultural awareness, and diplomatic prowess.

All of this was suddenly called into question on May 14, when the leader of the IMF, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, was arrested on charges of sexual assault. Despite the tenet of the US justice system that the man is “presumed innocent until proved guilty,” the world’s media seems to have gone into a feeding frenzy, and Dr. Strauss-Kahn tendered his resignation to the IMF on May 18, 2011. (1)

While the IMF has been careful to separate the criminal investigation into Dr. Strauss-Kahn’s personal life from the work of the organization, the selection process for the next Managing Director will certainly be a matter for scrutiny. Indeed, the Executive Board was quick to give assurance that the selection process will take place in “an open, merit-based, and transparent manner.”(2)

Perhaps most interesting, the Executive Board has stated that the selection of the next Managing Director will be made without regard to geographic preference. In the period since 1944, convention has dictated that the President of the World Bank is always a citizen of the United States while the Managing Director of the IMF is a European. This informal understanding emerged at a time when these two groupings controlled the global economy and the conviction was that developing countries should not provide the leadership, because they were most likely to need assistance; thus, having a developing country national at the helm could leave the organization vulnerable to possible conflicts of interest.

Clearly, the sovereign debt crisis in Europe and continuing difficulties in the United States have rendered previous assumptions about those mostly likely to need help obsolete. Nevertheless, the United States and the European Union still wield the largest voting shares in the IMF’s Executive Board, and the current frontrunners seem to be Christine Lagarde, finance minister of France, and former UK Prime Minster Gordon Brown.

Regardless of nationality, the next leader of the IMF will have important work to accomplish if further progress is to be made in putting in place a fail-safe early warning system, reining in financial sectors, and promoting greater equality both within and between countries.

In order to accomplish these feats, the next leader will require at a minimum the qualifications set forth by the IMF Executive Board‘s press release of May 20, 2011:

. . . (s)he will be capable of providing strategic vision for the work of a high quality, diverse, and dedicated staff; and will be firmly committed to advancing the goals of the Fund by building consensus on key policy and institutional issues, including through close collaboration with the Executive Board, under whose direction (s)he will fulfill his or her responsibilities. (S)he will have a proven understanding of the Fund and the policy challenges facing the Fund's diverse global membership. (S)he will have a firm commitment to, and an appreciation of, multilateral cooperation and will have a demonstrated capacity to be objective and impartial. (S)he will also be an effective communicator.

Given recent events, the candidate may also need to have an unimpeachable personal background. Surely, the job will require a man or woman with bold conviction, fearless determination, and unparalleled political acumen to lead not only the institution, but also the world community in adjusting to a new and more complex global environment.

NOTES

1. IMF Press Release No.11/187, May 18, 2011.
2. IMF Press Release No. 11/191, May 20, 2011

Sarah Tenney is assistant professor in the Political Science and Criminal Justice Department at The Citadel and the co-editor of the Historical Dictionary of the International Monetary Fund : Third Edition (Scarecrow Press). She was a staff member of the International Monetary Fund from 1987 to 2003.

Print Journalism in the United States

By Edd Applegate

Print journalism in the United States is experiencing dramatic change as a result of readers favoring other media, including web sites, for their information. Consequently, newspapers are experiencing declining circulations and subsequently advertising revenue. In 2009, for instance, newspapers lost 26 percent in advertising revenue, according to the summary essay about newspapers (Project for Excellence in Journalism and Rick Edmonds), which is part of the “State of the Media: 2010.”

Newspapers, including newspapers in the major markets, have developed web sites which have become popular among readers, according to “Newspaper Web Traffic in Top Markets Leaps to an All Time High,” a press release that concerned a study by the Newspaper National Network. However, newspaper management has not been very successful in developing a system that generates enough advertising revenue from the web to earn a comfortable profit. In short, is going to the Web costing many newspapers more than it is worth?

As a result of declining revenue, newspaper management has laid off employees, especially reporters, by the thousands over the past few years. Several major dailies have even closed while other major newspaper companies filed for bankruptcy. The Tribune Company was merely one of several major newspaper companies that filed for Chapter 11 in 2009. And yet, despite these reductions, newspaper management asks their employees, especially reporters, to do more, often for the same salary.

Last year—2010—was an improvement over 2009. However, newspapers continued experiencing declines in advertising revenue, resulting in layoffs of more than 1,000 employees. Newspapers are no longer the key intermediary that companies need in order to reach consumers. Indeed, as Tom Rosenstiel and Amy Mitchell of the Project for Excellence in Journalism pointed out in the “Overview: The State of the News Media: 2011,” “Software programmers, content aggregators and device makers control access to the public. The news industry . . . finds itself more a follower than leader shaping its business.”

Where will the newspaper industry be in a few years? Well, one thing is certain: the typical newsroom will not be what it was just a few years ago. Editors and reporters will be employing a multitude of platforms—not just newsprint—to disseminate information to people. Besides, newsprint as we know it may not be around.

Edd Applegate has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in advertising and mass communications for more than 30 years, primarily in the School of Journalism, College of Mass Communications, Middle Tennessee State University. He is the author of numerous academic articles, chapters, and entries which have been published in scholarly journals, books, and encyclopedias. He is the author of several books, including Journalism in the United States: Concepts and Issues, which was just published by The Scarecrow Press.

Stockman’s March to Social Madness

By James W. Russell (first published on Perfect Swindle blog, 4/24/2011)

David A. Stockman, Ronald Reagan’s Director of Management and Budget, came right out and said it in an April 24, 2011 New York Times op-ed, “The Bipartisan March to Fiscal Madness” Social Security should be reduced to a means tested program that would benefit only the poor.

Instead of being the primary source of middle and working class retirement income, it would become a welfare program.

At a time when 401(k) type retirement plans have been exposed for not being able to provide anywhere near the retirement security that the traditional pensions that they replaced provided for working and middle class retirees who are now more dependent than ever on Social Security, removing that source of retirement income from ordinary people would be a road to social madness.

Stockman’s advocacy is consistent with the World Bank’s 1994 Averting the Old Age Crisis report that led to widespread disastrous privatization of national retirement systems in Latin America.

What neither he nor the Times disclosed is that since leaving the Reagan administration, he has become very rich through positions in the financial services industry, including in Salomon Brothers, the Blackstone Group, and his own company, Heartland Industrial Partners. That industry stands to profit handsomely from all diversions of current retirement savings from Social Security to its own 401(k) like plans.

And, of course, Stockman has become so rich from the financial services industry that he has no personal need for Social Security benefits during his own retirement.

James W. Russell is CSU Professor of Sociology at Eastern Connecticut State University and the author of Double Standard: Social Policy in Europe and the United States: second edition.

Detours on the Way to a Classless Society

By Rudolph H. Weingartner

For many right-thinking people—that is to say, liberals—equal pay for equal work has always been a goal to be achieved. While this aspiration pertained particularly to women, who once were very far from getting the same compensation as men and have yet to reach parity, it applied, as well, to discrimination that is based on race, religion, national origin, disability or age. The objective of reaching equality is an expression of a piece of American ideology that wants us to stand out as a classless society or at least to come closer than Old Europe, not to mention the lands of the Middle East. And since we are talking about economic criteria, this goal has a genuine resemblance to Karl Marx’s notion of a classless society, though it would be best to keep quiet about that, since it might scare off potential friends of the cause.

Progress is being made. Last January, President Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act. The law makes it easier to sue a company for pay discrimination and in that way discourages such bias in the first place. In another part of the forest, however, there is backsliding. I shall be pointing to practices, moreover, that cannot be alleviated by Congressional bills, signed by the Chief Executive. In the second edition of my Fitting Form to Function: A Primer on the Organization of Academic Institutions [Rowman & Littlefield, 2011], I give a brief deploring account of the vast increase of the use of adjuncts, part timers, and full time lecturers to teach students that the professoriate used to teach. These non-regulars, can never attain the stability of employment that tenured faculty enjoy nor are they remotely compensated at the same level as the so-called “regular” faculty.

You might say the work they do is not equal to that of the (proportionately) shrinking regular faculty and, indeed, for some of the regulars this would indeed be true. But many others, with a small number of courses to teach, engaged in research that is trivial that seldom brings beads of sweat to their brows. On the other hand, the teaching load of the irregulars is large, calling for multiple preparations and the ministering to—that is testing, grading, advising—myriads of students and poorly paid. Two classes of faculty: one markedly more favored than the other.

And now this insidious two-class system is infecting the world of lawyers. An account in The New York Times of May 24, 2011, “At Well-Paying Law Firms, a Low-Paid Corner” describes an expanding practice very similar to the one that has taken hold of the world of post-secondary education. Besides hiring attorneys who stand a chance of becoming partners of the firm (and are generously paid, accordingly), other “fullfledged,” competent lawyers are being hired, earning “less than half the pay of their counterparts, “doing pretty high-level work — writing briefs, visiting client sites, prepping witnesses for hearings.” Law firms used to be composed of two classes: partners and aspiring partners—a healthy division, like that of tenured professors and those on tenure-track. Healthy, because ability and energy came close to assuring “promotion” from the lower to the higher class.

What we are now seeing both in the world of higher education and in the legal establishment is the creation of inferior and superior classes with as much chance of moving upward as in medieval times, a serf had the potential of becoming a knight. Are these signs that we are sliding back into the Middle Ages?

Rudolph H. Weingartner is Emeritus of Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh and the author of Fitting Form to Function: A Primer on the Organization of Academic Institutions: Second Edition.

Bahrain: A Kingdom of Fear and Repression

By Emile Nakhleh

Bahrain, a small island country in the Persian Gulf used to be viewed by the international community as a relatively tolerant, inclusive, and liberal country. Once the “Arab Spring” erupted a few months ago in neighboring Arab countries, pro-reform demonstrations gathered steam in and around Pearl Roundabout in Bahrain demanding political and economic reform. The ruling Al-Khalifa family reacted with brutality and repression, including arrests and firing at protesters, detention of journalists, academics, parliamentarians, medical doctors and health providers, without regard for basic human rights. Within a few short months, Bahrain has become a Saudi satellite—politically and ideologically—and is no longer a shining beacon of tolerance in the Gulf.

Several reasons might explain why Bahrain’s uprising so far has not achieved the same results as in Tunisia and Egypt:

• A small population (barely over half a million)
• Pervasive Saudi influence
• The military and security leadership hails from the ruling family
• A tacit American and international support for al-Khalifa suppression of the uprising because of the stationing of the Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, concern about Iran’s influence in the Gulf, and worries about the potential for instability in the oil region.

Amnesty International in a recent briefing paper describes Bahrain as a “human rights disaster” and suggests that the regime suppression of dissent through arbitrary arrests and torture has created an atmosphere of fear and sectarianism. The al-Khalifa family heads a Sunni minority with access to power, privilege, and wealth and rules over a Shia majority that is mostly poor and dispossessed, with minimal access to government jobs and lucrative economic opportunities. Many Shia live in villages and poorer sections of the capital Manama. A few prominent Shia families have cooperated with Al Khalifa and have been amply rewarded with access to wealth and high government positions, including cabinet posts.

Since March 15, 2011, King Hamad has imposed a state of emergency under the rubric of a “State of National Safety,” which has given the security forces “sweeping powers” to arrest and try protesters in special courts for “offences against the state” with no “explicit human rights safeguards.” Under SNS regulations, hundreds of people have been detained, tortured, and injured. At least 30 protesters have been killed, according to media and international human rights reports. Many others have “disappeared” by agents of the regime in the middle of the night without a word to their families or access to legal defense. More recently two al-Wefaq parliamentarians, Matar Ibrahim Matar and Jawad Fairuz, were arrested by masked armed agents of the regime and whisked away without minimal due process. Their families were not informed of their whereabouts.

Regime repression of protesters and human rights activists—Sunni and Shia—continues unabated. More doctors are being tried in special tribunals for alleged “crimes against the state.” In reality, they were arrested and tried for providing medical help to those injured and beaten by security agents.

Talk of possible dialogue with the opposition, which was first voiced by the Crown Prince and the King’s son Shaykh Salman, has all but evaporated with the advent of at least 1,000 Saudi troops into Bahrain. These troops, including a few from Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, came to Bahrain as part of the so-called Desert Shield. They crossed the causeway that connects Bahrain with Saudi Arabia under the Gulf Cooperation Council collective security agreement. The Saudi leadership was extremely distressed by the downfall of Tunisia’s Bin Ali and Egypt’s Mubarak and therefore decided not to spearhead a “counterrevolution” to safeguard the Bahraini and other Sunni Gulf ruling families. The Saudi action reflects Riyadh’s claim that the “Arab Spring” is a threat to internal stability and that Iran was stirring Shia opposition in Bahrain, and potentially in Saudi Arabia.

Three key points underpin the on-going crisis in Bahrain:

• The current protest movement calling for government accountability and reinstatement of the constitution is decades old; in fact, it goes back to 1975 when the ruling family dissolved the National Assembly and suspended the 1973 constitution.
• The movement is not driven by sectarianism. Because the majority of the population is Shia, large numbers of the protesters are therefore Shia. Sunni reformers, however, are also actively involved in opposing regime repression and have been at the forefront of the reform movement.
• The Shia community is diverse politically, socially, and economically and has not voted as a bloc. Nor is the Shia community beholden to Iran. Bahraini Shia over the years have turned to Iraqi and Lebanese Shia Grand Ayatollahs for emulation, and although several prominent Bahraini Shia leaders have studied in Iran, the Shia community does not view Iranian senior clerics as their sources of emulation or marja'.

Bahraini protesters, like their counterparts in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Libya, Syria, and elsewhere, are as diverse as the wider Bahraini society. They are villagers, city dwellers, laborers, farmers, professionals, teachers, health providers, and government employees. They seek dignity, justice, respect, and the opportunity to live as free citizens. Many of their postings on the Internet, Facebook, and Twitter reflect their desire to have the freedom to dream for a better life and pursue their dreams without repression or restrictions on their freedoms to speak, to create, to travel, and to associate with others. They also aspire to join the rising Arab generation as a peaceful force of change in their societies.

Contrary to Saudi and Bahraini government claims, calls for reform are not a Shia thing or a recipe for sectarianism. Media reports indicate the sectarianism argument has been pushed by the Saudi and Bahraini leadership in order to justify their actions against Bahraini peaceful protesters. Many Bahrainis view the main goal of the Saudi presence in the country is to persecute the Shia community and silence all opposition voices.

The three key ingredients of the envisioned compromise involve a return to the 1973 constitution, a re-establishment of a popularly elected national Assembly, which the king’s father dissolved in 1975, and dissolving the current government, which has been headed by the king’s uncle, Shaykh Khalifa, since independence in 1971. The prime minister is perhaps the most disliked senior member of Al Khalifa because of perceived corruption, nepotism, and repression, according to academic analysis and media reports. Many Bahrainis also view him as a staunch opponent to reform within the ruling family. The opposition movement maintains that implementing these demands will lead to transparent and accountable government, a just distribution of wealth, recognition of freedoms of speech, assembly, and the press, and an independent judiciary.

The pro-reform demands are in response to economic, political, and social grievances, which many Bahrainis have endured for decades. I have discussed many of these grievances in the first edition of my book, Bahrain: Political Development in a Modernizing Society, which Lexington Books published in 1976. These grievances, including the same prime minister, continue to exist in the country today.

Emile Nakhleh is the author of Bahrain: Political Development in a Modernizing Society (Lexington Books, 2011).

Anti-Nuclear, Anti-American: Is a Pan-Asianist Japan on the Rise Again?

By Christopher W. A. Szpilman

Pan-Asianism crops up in most unexpected places. Take the case of one Hiroshi Takashi. Hirose (b. 1943), a self-styled expert on nuclear energy, is a best-selling if controversial Japanese author. Since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, if not earlier, he has been crowing on about a looming nuclear catastrophe and, in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear reactor disaster, he has emerged as a leading critic of Japan’s nuclear energy program. Although I agree with Hirose that nuclear power is replete with danger, I must note that his premises are largely false and his reasoning fallacious. But my goal here is not to dwell on the content of the anti-Western and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories Hirose propounds. I merely want to note that he can be legitimately described as a pan-Asianist. I realized this after I read Hirose’s Japan’s Destiny, Asia’s Destiny, published in 2004.

In this book, echoing the views of Japan’s prewar pan-Asianists, Hirose bemoans the moral decay and vulgarity of the United States and deplores what he believes is the slavish dependence of the Japanese establishment on America. Noting that America has fallen into moral decrepitude, is “spiritually stagnant,” and weakened politically by its military overstretch throughout the world, Hirose argues that “at long last we, the Japanese, have now a chance to lead Asia independently. No better opportunity than this will ever come our way….We must view Asia as our new paradise” (p. 374).

As Hirose sees it, it is the pernicious American influence that prevented Japan from remaining a genuine Asian country in the first place, because it caused the Japanese to lose empathy with their fellow-Asians. “After the war in Japan,” he says, “the feeling of friendship and solidarity with Asians was largely lost” (p. 382), presumably on account of the shameless deal with the United States by Japan’s leaders who swapped their (and Japan’s) Asian soul in exchange for material prosperity.

The conclusion is obvious. The long-lost empathy with their fellow-Asians can be regained, says Hirose, only if Japan “renounces its alliance with the United States.” Only then, he insists, Japan will be able to become the leader of Asia.

Such expressions of solidarity with Asia may come as a surprise when voiced by an anti-nuclear campaigner (for surely the problem of nuclear energy is not only limited to Asia but is of concern to all mankind), but they have much in common both with the views of many idealistic Japanese volunteers working to help the needy in war-afflicted Asian countries and, on the opposite extreme of the political spectrum, with the views of Ishihara Shintarô, a populist politician whose Pan-Asianist views we document in our Pan-Asianism: a Documentary History. Hirose’s case provides further evidence for the great relevance of Pan-Asianism to understanding modern Japan and Asia.

Christopher W. A. Szpilman is professor of modern Japanese history and international relations at Kyushu Sangyo University, Fukuoka. He is the co-editor of Pan-Asianism: A Documentary History, Volumes 1 and 2.