The American-Kurdish (Kissinger-Barzani) Relationship: an Orientalist Reading

The American-Kurdish (Kissinger-Barzani) Relationship: an Orientalist Reading








Sardar Aziz

Graduate of School of Government at University College Cork, Ireland































Table of Content

Table of content 2
Maps 3
Preface 5
Introduction 6
Background 9
Orientalism 14
Barzani’s Rebellion 17
Cold war 19
Kissinger 23
Consequence 33
Conclusion 35
Bibliography 39


















































Preface
Wars begin elsewhere between countries that are at peace. Only in the Middle East do wars begin between countries that are at war; Kissinger; State Dep. Archive

When we [America] thought you [Iraq] were a Soviet satellite, we were not opposed to what Iran was doing in the Kurdish area. Now that Iran and you have resolved it, we have no reason to do any such thing. I can tell you we will engage in no such activity against Iraq's territorial integrity. Kissinger; State Dep. Archive

OH, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat. Rudyard Kipling; Ballad for East and West

“Level the mountains, and in a day the Kurds would be no more.” A Kurdish proverb

Disharmony is worse than injustice. Goethe; Faust

America when will you be angelic? When will you take off your clothes? When will you look at yourself through the grave? When will you be worthy of your million Trotskyites? America why are your libraries full of tears? America: I'm sick of your insane demands. Allen Ginsberg: America








Introduction

America and the Middle-East are closely linked to each other. They are linked in many different ways; energy, geo-strategy, Israel and lately the emergence of political Islam (terrorism). However, the role of America as a big player in the region is relatively new but nevertheless is a decisive role in shaping the politics of the region. The area was always a significant target for western colonial powers. From the time of the crusaders to the last Iraq war the aim of the invaders, was always to conquer the area. American presence in the region goes back to the nineteen sixties after the end of the old colonial style and the British decision to leave the region.

The Kurds are one of the many nations, of the Middle East. They are one of the most ancient inhabitants of the area having the longest and most tragic history. The Kurdish tragedy in nutshell is the struggle for the self determination and establishment of theirown independent nation state. The absence of a nation state is the main, if not the only, reason for the present Kurdish situation. Today, at the beginning of the twenty first century, they still face negation of their existence and fear of elimination. Kurds, as a result of geopolitics designed by the other powers without their consultation, are facing multiple enemies. Therefore, to continue their existence Kurds have to fight on many different fronts and seek help from every possible source. This particular and unique situation has been used and abused by many different forces.

This paper focuses on one of those situations; the Kurdish American relationships during the Nixon era. It highlights the role of Henry Kissinger as an engineer of that relationship, mainly with the Kurdish leader Barzani. The theoretical tool employed in the paper to read the point of view of the involved players and the nature of their relationships is the concept of Orientalism. Said in his book, Orientalism, (2003) draws on image of the east that was created by west: an image that is based on scientific research. It is rather imagined in a way to serve colonial power. The main purpose of the image is to create a picture of, the non-western, as the ‘other’; as they are less, not mature, violent, they have to be saved from themselves, and not being able to govern, create or produce sophisticated thinking. They are in comparison to the west ‘pre-Newtonian’ (Kissinger1974). These images of the non-western people allow western thinkers and politicians to justify their inhumane treatment and reduce the non-westerners to a tool.

The American attempt to reach The Kurds goes back to the early fifties of the last century, during the cold war era. According to declassified Department of State Documents on April 4 1954: diplomats from the American embassy in Baghdad started to visit Kurdistan and distributed leaflets and information as propaganda to influence The Kurds to not become a Soviet ally. That fear was always presence during the entire cold war era; therefore, reaching The Kurds, as Kissinger puts it in his memoir, the “central objective of our strategy was; reducing the Soviet influence” (1999:578).
There have been some short articles and a few pages in various books about this particular Kurdish-American relation but as far as the writer of this paper aware of, there has not been any comprehensive academic research in this area. Therefore, the literature review in this paper is absent. Instead the paper offers a brief but extensive and comprehensive background for The Kurds and the emergence of their political movements.
Orientalism as a theoretical tool and its impact on shaping the imagination of the main player, namely Kissinger has been discussed. During the work on the paper the researcher found that Said theory, Orientalism is not sufficient to explain the various dimensions of the issue, therefore the concept of careerism is borrowed from Hanna Arendt.

This paper devotes its last part for the implication of such treatment and how the defeat of the Kurdish rebellion led to local and regional wars. The distraction of Kurdistan and genocide against the Kurdish people; the eight years long bloody Iraq /Iran war, the Invasion of Kuwait; international trade embargo on Iraq and the death of more than a million children; the American invasion of Iraq and the long term consequences. The paper concludes that one of the main political issues in the Middle East is the Kurdish issue. The trivialisation of this issue and dealing with it as a ethnic minority problem inside the various countries in the region is a denial of the reality of the history of these people. The continuation of such a philistine attitude is the recipe for further tragedies.







Background

Kurdistan is the name of the territory inhabited by the Kurds. It is a land of spring flowers and waving fields of wheat, of rushing streams and sudden perilous gorges, of hidden caves and barren rock faces. Above all, it is a land where the rhythm of life is defined by the relationship between the people and the mountains. One range after another, the peaks stretch in all directions as far as the eye can travel the highest of them capped year-round under snow.
Kurdistan is more or less a homogeneous community where a majority of population are the Kurds. The country today is divided among: Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria. The Kurds constitute a single nation which has occupied its present habitat for at least three thousand years. They have outlived the rise and fall of many imperial races: Assyrian, Persian, Greek, Roman, Arabs, Mongols, and Turks. They have their own history, language and culture. The political geography of Kurdistan is a curse. In the ancient world the Ottoman Empire and the Persian Empire were the two big super powers in the region. Both empires were Muslim but from two different sects of Islam. Ottomans were Sunni and Persians were Shiat. Islam is a religion of power. Both the empires were expansionists and they fought each other down the ages. Kurdistan, as it is sandwiched between the two, was always their battleground. As a result of this Kurdistan as a land, which constitutes about half a million square kilometres, and as a population, whose number is estimated around thirty-five millions people, however their real number for political reason is never truly known, was divided between the two empires.
This situation continued until the First World War, when Ottoman Empire was on the loosing side having allied with Germany. After the war and the fall of the Ottoman Empire the new Middle East emerged. It was born through negotiations on big tables in luxurious hotels in far away countries. These were known as a peace process. The peace where the native people had no say, a process as David Formkin (2003) calls it; “a peace to end all peaces”.
In reality there were more than one peace processes. The first treaty was the treaty of peace between the Allied and Associated Powers and Turkey signed at Sèvres on August 10, 1920. There were three articles in the treaty dealing with the Kurdish territory and they came under section ‘III Kurdistan'. The first article of the three which was article number 62 in the treaty stated:
A Commission sitting at Constantinople and composed of three members appointed by the British, French and Italian Governments respectively shall draft within six months from the coming into force of the present Treaty a scheme of local autonomy for the predominantly Kurdish areas lying east of the Euphrates, south of the southern boundary of Armenia as it may be hereafter determined, and north of the frontier of Turkey with Syria and Mesopotamia, as defined in Article 27, II (2) and (3). If unanimity cannot be secured on any question, it will be referred by the members of the Commission to their respective Governments. The scheme shall contain full safeguards for the protection of the Assyro-Chaldeans and other racial or religious minorities within these areas, and with this object a Commission composed of British, French, Italian, Persian and Kurdish representatives shall visit the spot to examine and decide what rectifications, if any, should be made in the Turkish frontier where, under the provisions of the present Treaty, that frontier coincides with that of Persia.
In the article 63 of the treaty the Turkish Government agreed to accept and executed the decisions of both the Commissions mentioned in Article 62 within “three months from their communication to the said Government”. And the commission stated in the article 64.
If within one year from the coming into force of the present Treaty the Kurdish peoples within the areas defined in Article 62 shall address themselves to the Council of the League of Nations in such a manner as to show that a majority of the population of these areas desires independence from Turkey, and if the Council then considers that these peoples are capable of such independence and recommends that it should be granted to them, Turkey hereby agrees to execute such a recommendation, and to renounce all rights and title over these areas. If and when such renunciation takes place, no objection will be raised by the Principal Allied Powers to the voluntary adhesion to such an independent Kurdish State of the The Kurds inhabiting that part of Kurdistan which has hitherto been included in the Mosul vilayet.
Despite the racist and Orientalist view (which the paper dwells on later), as in the phrase; ‘if peoples are capable of such independence’, the treaty hitherto remains one of the most favourable international treaties for the Kurdish people and their question. There were some other attempts to create a Kurdish entity according to Fromkin in “1919 the British envisaged a series of autonomous Kurdish states, to be advised by British political officers. The attempt to organise them resulted in three uprisings, as the result the British left the area” (2004: 405).
Later on after long unrest in the region and in line with Woodrow Wilson’s declaration, the British Government instructed Arnold Wilson to ask the people of Mesopotamia what state or government they would like to see established in their area. Wilson’s reply was there was no way of ascertaining public opinion. While he was prepared to administer the provinces of Basra and Baghdad, they [the British] add also the province of Mosul. He did not believe they formed a coherent entity. Iraq, (an Arab term that the British used increasingly to denote the Mesopotamian land), it seemed to him too splintered for that to be possible. Mosul strategic importance (because of its oil fields and its Sunni populations) made it seem a necessary addition to Iraq, and the strong probability that it contained valuable oilfields made it a desirable one, but it was part of what was supposed to be Kurdistan and Arnold Wilson argued that the warlike The Kurds who had been brought under his administration “numbering half a million will never accept an Arab ruler” (Fromkin, 2004: 450).
This non acceptance of an Arab ruler continued through out all Iraq’s history. Iraq was born against the wishes of Shi’it Arab and The Kurds. As many other post colonial third world states, the country was dominated by a minority, in case of Iraq, this happened to be Sunni Arabs, for many geographical, historical, religious and political reasons. As Amy Chua in her excellent book (2003), the World on Fire explains; when a minority in a country dominates, they dominate every aspect of life, economic and politics. In the long run because of their status as a minority they are not in favour of democracy or any type of governing that might decrease their dominate position. The tyranny of minority is more tyrannical than the tyranny of majority. Therefore the history of Iraq was a history of the dictatorships and rule of iron fist.
In the early years after the birth of Iraqi state, it was not quiet in the Kurdish frontier. The Kurds opposed Baghdad’s rule and desired of independence Sheik Mahmoud, or as he is known among the Kurds as the King Mahmoud, was determent to establish a Kurdish state. But after 1918 everything changed dramatically in the region. Until after World War1 Britain was dependent on America for its oil. In the very same year Anglo-Persian Oil Company better known as APOC was established in the city of Abadan near Shat Al Arab, in the south of Iraq (Keay, 2003:125). “The RAF (Royal Air Force) was first ordered to Iraq to quell Arab and Kurdish uprisings, to protect recently discovered oil reserves”, wrote Jonathan Glancey in the Guardian.
At this time the policy of disregarding the life and the dignity of ‘Other’, namely native, commenced. In a memo, “D. 217/4”, signed by Winston Churchill; seven points about the use of poison gas against the Kurds are outlined. He says, “I want you to think very seriously over this question of poison gas. I would not use it unless it could be shown either that (a) it was life or death for us, or (b) that it would shorten the war by a year”. And in the following point he justifies his argument by saying; “It is absurd to consider morality on this topic when everybody used it in the last war without a word of complaint from the moralists or the Church. On the other hand, in the last war bombing of open cities was regarded as forbidden. Now everybody does it as a matter of course. It is simply a question of fashion changing as it does between long and short skirts for women” (Gilbert, 1976).
These historical events established an image of the worthlessness of the Kurds and made it easier for other like Kissinger to treat The Kurds in the fashion that he did. This becomes clearer in Winston S. Churchill’s departmental minutes in 12 may 1919.
I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas. I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes. The moral effect should be so good that the loss of life should be reduced to a minimum. It is not necessary to use only the most deadly gasses: gasses can be used which cause great inconvenience and would spread a lively terror and yet would leave no serious permanent effects on most of those affected (Gilbert: 1976).









Orientalism
Orientalism is a theory and concept coined by Edward W. Said. He was a professor of humanism and comparative literature in the Columbia University New York. According to him, “orientalism is a style of thought based upon an ontological and epistemological distinction made between “the Orient” and (most of the time) “the occident” (Said: 2003: 2).
Said borrowed his theory from the French philosopher Michael Foucault. Foucault draws a famous power-knowledge dichotomy in his discourse analysis theory. For the French scholar, discourses are never objective constructions, but rather techniques of control. Institutions – such as mental clinics – generate discourses, and this knowledge bestows power. Insanity is controlled by ‘experts’ and represented by ‘the other’ as ‘mental disorder’, without ever having a chance to speak for themselves. It is caged in the concepts and categories of ‘science’. This paradox, one that Said develops into a framework for explaining the encounter between the Orient and the Occident” (Jabar: 2003).
Said says: “I have begun with an assumption that the orient is not an inert fact of nature. That the orient was created - or as I call it orientalised” (2003:4). For that reason
Orientalism is not simply a scholarly subject to gain more accurate knowledge about a real object, the orient, but rather a discourse that creates it own object in the unfolding of the discourse itself. The two primarily characteristics of this orientalist project are its homogenization and its essentialization (the Orient and the oriental character are timeless and unchanging character).The result as Said point out is not the orient as it is, an empirical object, but the orient as it has been orientalised, an object of European discourses (Hardt & Negri, 2000, 126)
If the concept of orientalism can help us to understand how western elites and decision makers imagined the others (east), it fails to explain what the consequences of imagining. That shortfall might be resulted in Said’s distance from the area of politics and international relations as expert. In his profession Said dealt more with literary texts rather than anything else. To understand the consequence of the orientalist view, one has to ask, what happened to the orient people as result of such imagining. How have they been perused? To explain this shortfall in the orientlist theory the paper marries Said to the Jewish Political philosopher Hanna Arendt and her concept of careerism.
Both Said’s and Arendt’s concepts are closely linked. If orientalism created a picture of the other [Orient] that is uncivilised and barbarian: “we can’t reason with them; they can’t control themselves; they don’t respect the value of human life they only understand violence” (Hardt & Negri, 200: 124). When the others are dehumanised then the process of dealing with them ensures. Not treating them as human beings because by being human being they have certain rights which should not be alienated as in the charter of human rights, but they are merely a card or a tool or apparatuses. Therefore they have to be dealt with from a point of view of career. ‘The East is a career’ (Said, 2003), as Disraeli once wrote. And so was the Holocaust, according to Arendt. ‘What for Eichmann was a job, with its daily routine, its ups and downs, was for the Jews quite literally the end of the world.’ Genocide, she insisted, is a work. This is quite the same for Henry Kissinger. For him the Kurds were a card or a pawn, which have to be employed for certain amount of time and when they did their duty they have to be abandoned. This manner of treatment is admitted by the American administration itself. A congress report known as Pike’s report 1977 , states that: for “Teheran and Washington the Kurds were never more than a ‘card to play,’ a ‘uniquely useful tool for weakening’ Iraq’s ‘potential for international adventurism’” (Randal, 1988:155).
Kissinger himself was aware of this parallel. “Some commentators have asserted that my emphasis on a sense of proportion in foreign policy springs from a preference for order over justice, which they ascribe to the experience of having grown up in Nazi Germany” (1999:1078). Kissinger’s orientalist view was in both theory and practices. In his pre-office years as a scholar at Harvard University he wrote extensively about international relations and foreign policy.











Barzani’s Rebellions
Mustafa Barzani was born on 14th March1903 in a remote mountain area of Kurdistan [Iraq]. The area is named after his tribe Barzan. He died in a hospital in Washington USA on 1st March 1979. His family is from a religious background. After period of unrest and uprising in 1935 he was exiled to Sulaymaniyah. With his brother they departed the rocky mountain area of home to one of the most vibrant cities and cultural centres in the Iraqi part of Kurdistan. He broadened his horizon from that of tribal man to Kurdish nationalist, under influence of the city intellectuals.
In 1942 he escaped from Sulaymaniyah and returned to Barzan and started a new revolt against Baghdad. It was once again unsuccessful. This failure and the central government pressure made him and another 1000 fighters leave the Iraqi part of Kurdistan and cross the border to Iran. The situation was favourable for him at that time. When in December 1945 the Kurdish Republic of Mahabad was declared Barzani became the military leader of the short lived republic. The existence and continuity of the republic was dependent on the Soviets Union. When the Soviets withdrew their support the republic collapsed and Iranian military occupied the region. While many of the leaders of the republic refused to leave, Barzani and most of 1000 fighters refused to surrender. Following an epic journey they arrived in Baku the capital city of Azerbaijan.
He returned to Iraq after 1958 coup d'état when the country became republic. Initially he was greeted as a national hero. Barzani in his exile, which lasted for almost eleven years, accumulated quite big amount of political knowledge. As exile essentially is a time for reflections he reflected on his and the Kurdish situation (Kurdistan Democratic website).
At that time for the first time in the history of Iraq, The Kurds were recognized as a separate nation within the country. But that did not last. In 1961 Iraqi government stared the war against the Kurds. In 1963 after a military coup the regime changed in Iraq. The Arab Ba’th party came to power. Ba’th is a nationalist Arab party founded in the late fortieth of the twentieth century. The party’s founders were heavily influenced by the rise of fascism and national socialist parties in Europe. Ironically on the 11th of March 1970 the Ba’th government in Baghdad reached an agreement with the Kurdish leaders where Kurdish ethnicity and language were recognized and given a position on par with Arabic. It was an autonomous agreement, with all final decisions however, left to Baghdad.
The Iraqi government signed the agreement because of its weakness in international arena, (especially the army’s engagement in war with Israel), and some pressure from the Soviet Union. In the other words the agreement was not a strategic plan it was rather a short term one. Therefore, as soon as the situation changed, the Iraqi government also changed its attitude and in March 1974 the fighting resumed. Barzani knew Saddam and never trusted him but the agreement was better than nothing.





The Cold War
The Cold War, like every other phenomenon in the human history, has more than one official account. There is a conventional account and the other one, which one can call counter-conventional. The conventional account is usually louder and it has numerous adherents. But the counter-conventional interpretation requires archaeological efforts to reach some kind of truth. Therefore this paper is trying to avoid the propaganda of the orthodox account and engage in an archaeological effort.
According to Noam Chomsky the cold war account is not “nightmare versus defence of freedom, but it is more complex” (1992, 11). It is an axiomatic knowledge that both the Soviet Unions and the United States were [are] imperialistic power. The Soviets were driven by the ideology of Marxism and its utopian world view discourse. Americans are imperialist by nature and belief, their capitalism, their constitution, their religious puritan belief (City on a Hill), their economy, American always thought globally. This is clear in what Jefferson says: “I am persuaded no constitution was ever before so well calculated as ours for extensive empire and self government” (Hardt & Negri, 2000:160).
Both the imperialist powers had a dream of conquering, not only the planet earth, but the cosmos also. As result they engaged in competition. What is called cold war in the western discourses, in which they indicate that there was no battlefield and bloodshed, is a completely different story outside the west. It is true to some extent that both the Soviets and America did not engage in direct confrontation but both were directly engaged in proxy wars mainly in so called third world resulting in the death of thousands if not millions of innocent people.
In this game between the two super powers, unlike any other war, the battlefields were divers, as diverse as humanity. Battles took a place in Latin America, Africa, Asia, Middle East, and in some parts of Europe. It was also diverse in how the big powers were engaged. The Kurdish aspiration of self-determination and the geography of Kurdistan were ideal for such a proxy war. The American involvement came when they believed or realised that the Iraqi government and the Soviet Union had signed an agreement in 1972. A telegram, from American embassy in Tehran, to the Department of The State No 12737 states: “we believe Soviet and Iraqis signed military agreement last September when Iraqi Defence Minister was in Moscow. Agreement was substantial, perhaps largest yet”.
According to the CIA telegram the Soviet Union has had a long-time interest in Iraq particularly and in the Persian Gulf area in general, but the initiative for the 1972 treaty of friendship seems to have been taken by the Iraqis. The Soviets welcomed the treaty and saw additional psychological benefit from it since Sadat [the Egyptian president] ousted Soviet advisors from Egypt. They realise, however, that their relations with Baghdad irritated Iran, whose goodwill Moscow valued highly. While Moscow in time may seek more extensive use of Iraqi ports, over-flight rights, and possible use of Iraqi airfields for staging, it will probably move very gradually in this direction. The Ba’th leaders value Soviet military aid and were unlikely to jeopardize it by abruptly reducing the number of advisors, as Sadat did (CIA; 1972).
After the signing of the agreement the pressure [on America] came mainly from the shah, the king of Iran, the close allied of America in the region. In a memorandum on 27th of March 1972 form Harold H. Saunders to General Haig, under a subject supporting the Kurdish Rebellion, states: “the Iranian intelligence service, SAVAK, has again urged that we provide assistance through [text not classified] to the Iraqi Kurdistan Leader, Mulla Mustafa Al-Barzani”.
Beside all that both the shah of Iran and Nixon were aware of the Soviet effort to forge an agreement between the Kurds and Iraqi government. According to a memorandum from Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Office of the Director, Washington DC 20505, “direct pressure was exerted on the Kurds by a Soviet delegation which visited Kurdistan in late February 1972 for one night and included a member or alternate member of the Soviet Party Central Committee and representative of the Soviet Embassy in Baghdad”.
After his eleven years of undignified exile life in the Soviet Union, disrespectable treatment from the Soviet authorities, and above all the Soviet abandonment of the Mahabad Republic in 1945 and the tragic end of its leaders. (As they were executed in public area in the city of Mahabad; and left on show for days) Barzani found it hard to trust in the Soviets and its leaders another time.
However, Americans were cautious and hesitant initially, mainly because of their costly and defeated war in Vietnam, but later on agreed to the Shah’s demand. Helping Kurds was not easy primarily because of the geographical location and basic principles of the international law, namely the old Westphalian concept of sovereignty. But on the other hand Kurds were an ideal card to use in a highly strategic area; beside that the Kurds were an almost perfect tool for America because of their religion and culture. It occurred in many other places, during cold war era, in confrontation with the Soviet Union American diplomats leaned away from other groups or cultures and toward Islam because they viewed Islam as “manly, energetic, and tough-minded in the face of the Communist threat” (Rotter, 2000).
This paper tries to dwell on that contact. How did it occur? What was the Kurdish understanding of it? How did American see it? Why was limited and was there any care about Kurdish as a people and their aspiration for self-determination? Why did America find it easy to treat The Kurds in the way they did? First let’s talk about the main protagonist.










Kissinger
Born in Germany, distinguished statesman Dr. Henry Kissinger, being Jewish, escaped with his family, when he was fifteen, after the rise of the Nazis. After military service in Korea and Germany he attended Harvard, receiving a PhD in International Relations. In his doctoral thesis he championed the diplomats and heads of state who re-divided Europe into reform-school states after Napoleon's defeat (Peters, 2006). In 1968 he became an advisor to the Nixon campaign. After Nixon was elected he became the National Security Advisor. During this time he took control of US foreign policy, and was named Secretary of State in 1973, a position he held until the end of the Ford Administration. After returning to private life, Kissinger produced a number of best-selling books and continued to offer his expertise in foreign affairs as a media commentator.
Kissinger’s personality had huge impact on the nature of American foreign policy in. His working relation with Nixon was particular, as he states in his white house memoir:
By the end of 1970 I had worked with Nixon for nearly two years: we had talked at length almost every day; we had gone through all crises in closest cooperation. He tended more and more to delegate the tactical management of foreign policy to me. During the first year or so I would submit for Nixon’s approval an outline of what I proposed before every meeting. He rarely changed it. By the end of 1970 Nixon no longer required these memoranda. He would approve the strategy, usually orally; he would almost never intervene in its day –to-day implementation (Kissinger, 1979: 805).

This unique position as an ultimate decider by default made Kissinger more responsible to the events of his time. Henry Kissinger’s involvement with The Kurds and the Kurdish issue dates back to May 30 1972, after a trip back from the Kremlin in company with Nixon. It was relatively a short trip. It is known as the “22 hour Tehran stopover” (Randal, 1988:154) when he was “Giving the Shah everything he wants” (Randal, 1988:154). That became clear when Amir Aslan Afshar, Iran’s ambassador to Washington asked the Shah if President Nixon had given him what he wanted during the Tehran visits, the answer was ‘yes, more than I wanted, more than I expected’ (Randal, 1998:154). The shah got more than he was expecting especially arms, after the change in American foreign policy to what was known as ‘New Diplomacy’. “Before 1971, the total of the major U.S arms transfer programme, Foreign Military Sale (FMS), stood at less that $2 billion annually; by 1973, it reached $5 billion; and by 1975, it nearly topped $15 billion: the major recipients were Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Israel” (Tirman, 1997:25). Beside that “the president [Nixon] also decided to please the Shah further. Nixon agreed to finance a small share of the overall costs of underwriting Barzani’s continued rebellious defiance of the Iraqi government (Randal, 1988:54). Support was demanded by the Kurds and the Iranian Intelligence service (SAVAK).
The support was channelled through the CIA and it was a covered action. As the Barzani representative and delegation to the US, Mahmood Othman put it: “we were happy about it really. Because it was a breakthrough. We thought maybe gradually with time, it will be better and expand more. And maybe because America came in, it must be an improvement” (interview with Othman).
It is clear, from the Othman’s statement that the Kurds put a lot of hope in the American contact. It seems after all the betrayals and the inhuman treatment from neighbouring countries and other big power Barzani put all his hopes and dreams on America. “In his heart of hearts Barzani loved Americans”, said Sami Abdulrahman: one of Barzani’s principal aides. One wonders where this religious belief originates. To understand such a complex feeling one has to dwell on the matter from both sides; the image of America on one hand and on the other the Kurdish culture.
The Kurds are people who hitherto lived an agrarian way of life. Their philosophy originates from the agrarian life. The philosophy goes in parallel with the nature. The human/nature relation is the most ancient type of relations. Agriculture, dwelling, beauty, fear, trust, protection, these and many other components Kurds built throughout time with their surrounding. Their famous motto: “only Mountains are our friends” epitomises their special relationship with nature. The Kurds are incapable to understand the art of politics; as shaped in its Western style. For them a promise is a promise and when a man utters a word is responsible for it. Therefore, they do not carry hatred toward the other. Their process of otherness is nowhere in comparison with their neighbouring country or the west. To put it in nutshell they do not other the ‘Other’. In the other word the process of other-ing which was [is] the source of most horrific crimes, namely nationalism, does not exist among the Kurds. The lack of this otherness phenomenon was at the heart of the process of colonialism.
This genuine and honest embracement by non-western to the western has been always exploited. In the first chapter of A People's History of the United States, Howard Zinn deals with Columbus' arrival in the West Indies. The native inhabitants, the Arawak Indians, swam out to greet the European boats the first time they landed. Zinn cites Columbus' journal entries many times, including his reaction to the initial encounter with the Arawaks: 'They would make fine servants....With 50 men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want (Zinn, 1995: 1).' This attitude led to enslavement, high-jacking, murder and rape.
Kurdish literature and traditions is full of stories, epics, and anecdotes about betrayal. It has been repeated throughout their history. Despite that repetition The Kurds tend to not believe in the act of betrayal. They reject it because it is not pert of their agrarian culture. The Kurds prefer to solve their disagreements with others in a manly way, i.e. in the battlefield. For them betrayal is an act of cowardice. Therefore it became their weakest link.
This is mainly from the cultural side. From the political side, Americans are presenting themselves as defender of democracy and human rights. For an underdog nation, struggling for their self-determination, such rhetoric is applicable. President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points was committed to the ideal of self-determination for all peoples. The Twelfth Point stated that non-Turkish nationalities living under Ottoman control "should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous development." Therefore the last thing the Kurds expected that they would be betrayed especially by one of the most powerful country in the world. They saw in American involvement reinsurance for their cause. For the very same reason:
In March 1975, we [Mahmmod Othman] were in Tehran with Barzani, we were a delegation [to the Shah]. We came to Tehran the 28th of February to see the Shah. We were hearing some rumours about an agreement between Iran and Iraq and the Iranians told us, wait here, The shah has a visit in Algiers and when he comes back, he will see you. And he went there and signed the deal [with Iraq]. When we heard the deal from the radio, Barzani didn't believe it. Didn't believe we would be the victim, because he said United States is in the picture this time--it is different. Although he didn't believe in Iran, he thought if America is in it, so things must be different (interview with Othamn).
But the Kurdish agrarian eastern belief and American bureaucratic western belief did not go together. As Kurds America so saviour, America saw the Kurds as a tool in the international relations games, as Kissinger put it, “reducing Soviet influence was a central objective of our strategy” (Kissinger, 1999: 580). Kissinger was involved in the same policy in Angola and Chile. He attempt through the CIA “to inflate inherently weak local forces, because he had an idea it would serve US interest elsewhere, mainly by convincing the Russian (as he thought) that we could still poke a stick in their eye, despite Vietnam (Power, 2004: 277).
This policy of using the Kurds merely as tool or card to achieve a specific purpose and strip them of their rights, their needs, their aspirations, later on became more clear in the
Pike’s secret report, (a report by a congressional select committee 1975), which gave a detailed rundown of American undercover operations from Angola to Kurdistan. Leaked in 1976, it revealed how the Shah, with American connivance, first inveigled Barzani to resume hostility against Iraq, while purposely depriving the Kurds of the wherewithal to win, then (without a peep from Washington) abruptly abandon them to Baghdad’s tender mercies when he got what he wanted in March 1975 (Randal, 1998:155). Kissinger in his memoir defends his policy; “our purpose was to raise the cost to the Iraqis of imposing their regime, to increase the Kurds’ bargaining power, and thereby to induce Baghdad to conduct a policy more respectful to the security concerns of Iraq’s neighbours and the autonomy for the Kurdish minority” (1998:583). An esoteric reading for the text one can decode it quite easily. Kissinger was not concerned about Kurdish autonomy and he knew very well that nothing could be expected from a leader who wished to carry on adventure or war against its neighbours. It would be quite oxymoronic to believe a government [Iraq] grant right to its minority while willing to go abroad to conquer the land of the others. The role of the Kurds was clearly stated in the conclusion of the Pike’s report that for “Teheran and Washington the Kurds were never more than a ‘card to play,’ a ‘uniquely useful tool for weakening’ Iraq’s ‘potential for international adventurism’” (Randal, 1988:155). Kissinger and Nixon not only had nothing for the Kurds but they were barrier to any achievements. An excerpt from a classified House Select Intelligence Committee report, published in The Village Voice, February 16, 1976 states: The recipients of U.S. arms and cash were an insurgent ethnic group fighting for autonomy in a country bordering our ally. Documents in the Committee's possession clearly show that the President, Dr. Kissinger and the foreign head of state hoped that our clients would not prevail. They preferred instead that the insurgents simply continue a level of hostilities sufficient to sap the resources of our ally's neighbouring country. . . . Even in the context of covert action, ours was a cynical enterprise.
This cynical enterprise was the speciality of Dr Kissinger. He was well read and had his own personal vision of politics. He kept decisions for himself. He despised the machine of bureaucracy. He describes department of State as a ‘backchannel’ (1979:29). In the White House Years he says, “as time went by, the President, or I on his behalf, in order to avoid this endless confrontation, came to deal increasingly with key foreign leaders through channels that directly linked the White House Situations Room to the field without going through state Department” (1979:29).

He had an “abiding cult of secrecy” (Randal, 1988:156), and in his relationships with The Kurds “he has never said exactly when he began thinking that the United States should back them” (Randal, 1988:156). This secretive nature of the operation might have its justification in term of the international law, as Kissinger tried to claim in his memoir, right of sovereignty or the more realist one, crucial American interest. “The Kurds are amidst countries which profoundly affect the American national interest” (1999:578) as he said.
The ‘covert action’ has many indications among them; the Kurdish issue has to remain secret, and be dealt with it in covert operations mainly by the CIA. Actually the Kurds, despite their correspondence with some American statesmen, rarely met face to face with any officials. As Kurdish politician Othman put it “our contacts even when we started with Americans in 1972 it started with CIA. It was secret. They were never ready to make open contacts. Or political ones. It was on the CIA level and it was led by Helms who was the CIA chief at that time” (interview With Othman).
Kissinger kept the whole operation in his hand to give him the position of ultimate decider. Besides all that, the secret nature of the operation, kept the Kurdish issues a way from the congress, the media, and the American public. This is continued till the Barzani died. When Barzani went to America before his death, he wanted to explore other avenues and make contact with other people but neither the shah nor Kissinger wanted Barzani parading about the United States exposing the embarrassing and still secret story of America's aid to the Kurds of Iraq and its abrupt abandonment of them (Korn, 1994). America for Kurds were not only money and weapons, they were also concerned about avenues that mentioned above. Sustaining low profile toward the Kurdish problem made the process of hiring and firing them relatively easy. This secrecy was also a sign of how Kissinger looked at the Kurds and their issues.

Beside that Kissinger admits in his memoir that he looked down at Barzani; “heroes, we were learning”, he says, “are more pleasant to read about than to deal with”, because, “the very quality that inspires their courage also melds their inflexibility” (1999:584). It is obvious diplomatic language for saying that Barzani was narrow minded and did not know how to negotiate. This Orientalist view by Kissinger extended to all the Kurdish population when he describes them as they are; hill tribe people and he did not know much about them (Randal, 1988). This pattern of thinking and use of language, as can easily be described as Orientalist, is extended to other Middle Eastern people. In a meeting with [former] Iraqi Foreign Minster Saadon Hammadi in 17th January 1975, in the American embassy in Paris, Kissinger during the meeting uses vulgar language to describe Arabs in general, word like “stupid” (Stein, 2006) .

It is hard to put Kissinger in a theoretical frame work. He had an Orientalist point of view about non-westerners, he treated them and their issue as a career and he was ultimately a pragmatist and above all a realist. Despite all that there are still many mysteries in the way that he dealt with events and how he understood them. He never hesitated to be bold, cold, deceptive and immoral, toward the issues and events that he dealt with throughout his reign. It is a somehow unimaginable position for someone that escaped the racist and totalitarian system like Nazi as he puts it:
My father was a teacher in a local Gymnasium, and it was sort of a German middle-class existence until Hitler came to power in 1933, whereupon my father, being Jewish, was forced to resign and conditions became progressively more difficult so in 1938 my parents decided to immigrate to the United States (Kissinger, 1999: 1027).
According to Said, Kissinger was aware of the world he was dealing with. “It is natural for men in power to survey from time to time the world with which they must deal” (Said, 2003:48). As it was the pattern for other big figure in history like Balfour and Cromer. Kissinger is not hiding his intention in his essay ‘Domestic Structure and Foreign Policy’ he states “the United States must manage its behaviour in the world under the pressures of domestic forces on the hand and of foreign realities on the other, Kissinger’s discourse must for that reason alone establish a polarity between the United States and the world” (Said, 2003:48). And that polarity establishes two styles and “the two styles can be defined as the political as against the revolutionary approach to order or, reduced personalities as the distinction between the statesman and the prophet” (Kissinger, 1974: 48).

Kissinger is crystal clear about his view. For him as a hard-line realist stability and balance of power comes first. In his philosophical vision about the eastern style of politics he says:
Although this [pre-Newtonian] attitude was a liability for centuries-because it prevented the development of the technology and the consumer goods which the West enjoyed- it offers great flexibility with respect to the contemporary revolutionary turmoil. It enables the societies which do not share our cultural mode to later reality by influencing the perspective of the observer-a process which we are largely unprepared to handle or even to perceive (Kissinger, 1974:49).

For him statesmen manipulate reality and his first goal is survival (Kissinger, 1974:49); a very Machiavellian view. According to Kissinger, (in his pre-office writing): “he [the statesmen] feels responsible not only for the best but also for the worst conceivable outcome” (Kissinger, 1974:49). Based on that statement, he himself should be responsible for his act. This very responsibility hunts him and he later tries to evade it “as a policymaker it fell to me to help define the relationship between the pragmatic and the moral in American foreign policy” (Kissinger, 1999: 1078). If the ideal leader according to him is the pragmatic realist one whom;
his view of human nature is wary; he is conscious of many great hopes which have failed, of many good intentions that could not be realised, of selfishness and ambition and violence. He is, therefore, inclined to erect hedges against the possibility that even the most brilliant idea might prove abortive and the most eloquent formulation might hide ulterior motives. He[the statesmen] will try to avoid certain experiments, not because he would object to the results if they succeeded, but he would feel himself responsible for the consequences if they failed” (Kissinger, 1974:49).

The very principle that he advocates later on in his practice of power he violates. His avoidance to take responsibility of his involvement in the “Kurdish tragedy” (Kissinger, 1999:577) as he calls it, and responding in mocking language that “the covert action should not be confused with missionary work” (power, 2003:175).
“He [the statesmen i.e. the western politician] is suspicious of those who personalise foreign policy, [ironically that is what he did himself] for history teaches him the fragility of the structure dependent on individuals” (Kissinger, 1974:49). Because as Kissinger thinks; “to the statesman, gradualism is the essence of stability; he represents an era of average performance, of gradual change and slow construction” (ibid).

In a very Orientalise language Kissinger continues to describe the nature of the non-western political leader he states:
By contrast the prophet is less concerned with manipulation than with creating reality. What is possible interests him less than what is “right”. He offers his vision as the test and his good faith as a guarantee. He believes in total solutions; he is less absorbed in methodology than in purpose. He believes in perfectibility of man. His approach is timeless and not dependent on circumstances. He objects to gradualism as an unnecessary to circumstances. He will risk everything because his vision is the primary significant reality to him. Paradoxically, his more optimistic view of human nature makes him more intolerant than the statesman. If truth, both knowable and attainable, only immortality or stupidity can keep man from realising it. The prophet represents an era of exaltation, of great upheavals, of vast accomplishment, but also of enormous disasters (1974:47-48).

Like many of his western predecessors, Kissinger attempts to show that “west is west, east is east” as Kipling stated many years ago, and there are irreconcilable differences between them. “As for the differences in philosophical perspective, it may reflect the divergence of the line of thought which since the Renaissance have distinguished the West form the part of the world now called underdeveloped. The West is deeply committed to the notion that the real world is external to the observer, that knowledge consist of recording and classifying data- the more accurately the better(1974:47-48).


Consequence
As Barzani and his peshmarga (fighters) put pressure on the Iraqi central government, by fighting them Iraq agreed to hand over a very strategic piece of land to Iranian government rather than negotiate with the Kurds. In March 1975, subsequent to discussions at an OPEC meeting, Iran and Iraq agreed to meet and negotiate their dispute over borders, water and navigation rights. This meeting resulted in the Algiers Accord and a subsequent treaty signed June 13, 1975. Article three of the Accord states:
accordingly, the two parties [Iran and Iraq] shall restore security and mutual confidence along their joint borders. They shall also commit themselves to carry out a strict and effective observation of their joint borders so as to put an end to all infiltrations of a subversive nature wherever they may come from (Algiers Accord, 1975).
The piece of land Iraq handed over to Iran was in the Shatt-El-Arab waterway and as a result the thalweg, meaning the median, was designated as the border. The agreement caused the Shah of Iran to withdraw Iranian support for the Kurdish rebellion, which thereupon collapsed.
It is unrealistic that the shah enters an agreement with the Iraqi government without the prior knowledge and approve of the United States of America. The shah was the closest American ally in the region, so it is imposable, that Iran or rather the shah would sign an agreement with a country seen by America as a Soviet ally especially during the cold war era. For the very same reason Kissinger is in pain when he tries to deny that he had prior knowledge of the agreement. He states:
On March 9 [1975], I [Kissinger] elaborated to Rabin after the agreement between the shah and Saddam Hussein was announced. In Zürich, he [the Shah] told me about it in a hypothetical way. He said, "If I meet Saddam at Algiers [at the OPEC meeting] . . ." He put it as an idea, what turned up in the agreement. I told him strongly that it was a bad idea-particularly the idea that he believed the [Iraqi] assurances that no Communist would be put in an autonomous Kurdish zone. The Shah had not mentioned that a deal was imminent or that he would acquiesce in total Iraqi control of the Kurdish area.
As a result, I still continued to encourage Barzani. On February 20, I replied to a letter from him suggesting a personal meeting: I was most pleased to receive your message of January 22 I want you to know of our admiration for you and your people and for the valiant effort you are making. The difficulties you have faced are formidable. I very much appreciated reading your assessment of the military and political situation. You can be assured that your messages receive the most serious attention at the highest levels of the United States Government because of the importance we attach to them. If you would like to send a trusted emissary to Washington to give the US Government further information about the situation, we would be honoured and pleased to receive him.
A little more than two weeks later, on March 6, as I was preparing to embark on the Middle East shuttle that deadlocked, the Shah stunned us with the announcement that he had reached an agreement with Saddam Hussein in which he in effect abandoned the Kurds. The Shah closed his border and stopped all assistance to the Kurds in return for Iraqi concessions on the Shatt-al-Arab River, the waterway demarcating the Iranian-Iraqi frontier.On the human level, the Shah's actions were brutal and indefensible. But in terms of a cold-blooded assessment of Iran's security, the Shah's decision was as understandable as it was painful. Only overt Iranian intervention could now save the Kurds, the costs of which would surely exceed the $360 million Barzani had requested in 1974. The United States, absorbed with liquidating Indochina, could not even consider opening another military front and, given congressional attitudes, even political support was doubtful.
I did not care for the Shah's actions and even less for his deceptive methods. On March 10, 1 sent a frosty telegram in which I stopped well short of endorsing his actions and implied that I had doubts about the benefits the Shah seemed to hold in store for himself: With respect to the Kurdish question, there is little I can add to what I have already said to you personally during our recent meeting. This is obviously a matter for Your Majesty to decide in the best interests of your nation. Our policy remains as always to support Iran as a close and staunch friend of the United States. I will, of course, follow with great interest the evolution of Iraqi-Iranian relations policy in your area generally and toward the Soviet Union in particular (Kissinger, 1999: 593-95).

The above paragraphs all show that Kissinger has perfect prior knowledge of the Algiers Accord and its likely consequence. His failure to pressurise the shah to change his mind or at least consider the Kurds as a party to the agreement shows his disrespect for the Kurds and their issues. This policy of giving free hands to American allies to conduct every type of policy just because they are willing to be an American allies, historically proven to be a grave mistake. Henry Kissinger was the leading modern practitioner of this profoundly reactionary approach to international relations. “The Kissinger school amplified our cold war support for authoritarian and even dictatorial regimes, deformed Middle East as Metternich” (Ralph Peters, 2006).
The chronic political problem in the Middle East in general is the result of cold war realist type of politics pursued by American toward the region. America did not care about the internal policy of their allied because their priorities were the interest and stability. They ignored the long term consequences of their policy. This policy was advocated by the dominant school of thinking in the realm of international relations, namely the realist school.
Conclusion

On 3/10/1975 Mustafa Barazini, wrote a letter to Secretary of State Kissinger, he stated:
Our movement and people are being destroyed in an unbelievable way, with silence from everyone. We feel your excellence that the United States has a moral and political responsibility towards our people, who have committed themselves to your country’s policy” (Schorr, 1991).

But Kissinger response was, according to the Pike report, "Promise them anything, give them what they get, and fuck them if they can't take a joke" as he told a staff member in 1975.

The history of the Middle East proved that the Kurds are not just a minority scattered among some dictatorships and totalitarian states. Their mountain region is not isolated and they are not just a bunch of ‘hill people’. They are a vital part of a highly strategic region for self determination is snowballing and no power or policy can retrieve it. As Barzani son put it “Turkey, Syria, and Iran should get used to the idea of an independent Kurdistan” (Rubin, 2007). Not recognizing this fact only makes the region more volatile. Therefore, as Ralph Peters (2006) put it “the most glaring injustice between the Balkan Mountains and the Himalayas is the absence of an independent Kurdish state”.

The orientalist style of politics was not only materialised in the body of Kissinger but is still alive and causing damage to the region and humanity. The American support of Saddam and his genocide policy during Regan era, the American support for Turkey while that country engaged in the policy of total denial of the Kurdish existence, to name few among the many, are all the orientalist type of politics which reject the real geography and tries to impose an imaginary geography.

This paper show that an imagination can lead to idea, an idea can lead to policy, and a policy can have immeasurable effects on the ground. For America in the age of the terror the only way to peace is to treat the other as equal human beings with similar rights to Americans. What America needs is knowledge: a true knowledge, which is fundamentally non-political. The country might be full of think tanks and universities but they are not producing, as history shows, the real knowledge, simply because of their political bias. The political knowledge is never a real knowledge. The dominant paradigm over western style of thinking since renaissance is the notion of rationality, namely a prisoner dilemma. This thinking proved to be irrational. If the missions of human beings are self interest, immoral, economical then humanity is doomed to a perpetual war rather than a perpetual peace as Kant dreamed of. What is happening on the ground today in Iraq is a result of long term mal-governing and non democratic regimes. In the one of the richest country in the world in term of energy and resources people die every day in their hundreds. They might die of various reasons but their death is the direct result of the political situation.























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future of democrasy

The report about the future of democracy in Europe is coordinated by Schmitter and Trechsel with contribution by many authurs from various European countries. Therefore the paper can be regarded as relatively representative to European communities. It has contributors from Hungary, Sweden, UK, Norway, Switzerland, France, Malta, Germany, Italy and Poland. Beside that there are others from different organisations for instance; President of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe. Every individuals is member of an European institute. The paper is divided into three main parts; part I under the header “Challenges and opportunities”, covering variose area from; Globalisation, European integration, Inter-cultural migration, Demographic trends, Economic performance, Technological change, State capacity, Individuation, Mediatisation and Sense of insecurity.
While in the Part II “processes and actors”, the paper is dealing with issues like; citizenship, political discontent, cultural identity and protest, representation, political parties, civil society, decision making, “guarding the guardians”, inter-level accountability and mechanisms for direct citizen consultation. the last part of the paper which is Part III, highlightes Recommendations for reform. This part is the most important part of the paper, in which they introduce a guidline and a list of a tweentyeight “wish list” recommended reforms.
The report starts with an optimism which is the impossibility of “Mal governo”, “in this part of the world” i.e. Europe. Mal governo is “regimes that are not responsive to needs, that engage in corrupt practices, that defraud the electoral process, that restrict
or manipulate basic freedoms and that refuse to be accountable to their citizens” (p13).
The guiding hypothesis throughout the paper is that “the future of democracy in Europe lies less in fortifying and perpetuating existing formal institutions and informal practices than in changing them” (p15). As paper puts it democracy is a present time process, “Whatever form it takes, the democracy of our successors will not and cannot be the democracy of our predecessors” (Robert Dahl). Ergo for democracy to sustain and insure its continuity it has to be dynamic and go through perpetual changes and reforms throughout time.

According to the report “democracy has undergone several major transformations in the past in order to re-affirm its central principles: the sovereignty of equal citizens and the accountability of unequal rulers. It increased in scale from the city- to the nation-state; it expanded its citizenry from a narrow male oligarchy to a mass public of men and women; it enlarged its scope from defence against aggressors and the administration of justice to the whole panoply of policies associated with the welfare state” (p15). This progressive view which has a root in the idea of Enlightenment establishes an image that democracy like any other social and political concepts it only grows toward better or maturity. The paper summarise their tasks into three main areas:
–“identify the challenges and opportunities posed to contemporary European democracy.
– specify the processes and actors in both the formal institutions and informal practices that are being affected by these external challenges and opportunities, as well as by internal trends that are intrinsic to democracy itself;
– propose potential and desirable reforms that would improve the quality of democratic institutions in Europe” (p16).

Democracy is a frame. It has no particular shape or size; it is as large to contain all and as small to embrace an oligarch. Democracy’s history is confirming this trend more than anything else. But the challenge is how to enlarge it to contain all. In the other word how to make it such a soft cuddly place that every members of society desire to dwell in it, including children. This challenge has many folds.
The main aim of the Part I of the report is to “defines the major external challenges and opportunities facing democracy in Europe” (p4). The report interprets these challenges through the analytical device of rival hypotheses. For each there is a potentially negative impact and a potentially positive one. In other words, democracy could be strengthened or weakened, depending on the reaction of existing political forces and their willingness or resistance to reform.

One of the main external force faces the process of democracy is globalisation. It has weakened the authority and capacity of the national state to solve problems, particularly those involving economic regulation, but it has also provided non-state and trans-national actors with increased resources to pressure for more effective
regulation across national borders. Globalisation is a process in its embryonic age; it will change radically the style of democracy not only in Europe but throughout the planet earth.
If the purpose of the state (beside muscular purposes like defence, justice and economy) is to provide various type of services to its citizens and organise the community. Globalisation reducing this function to make space for an institution called corporations, which they are not only strange to democracy but in the best way they are obstacle to the process of democracy. This is occurring in the age that citizens are better-educated and differently employed which has brought with it greater “individuation” in the way in which they conceive interests and passions.
These interests and passions, in the age of capitalism, are more directed toward material and goods rather than concepts or spirits (the concept used merely in Hegelian way i.e. realisation of freedom). Ergo one can see more “citizens” in the shop malls and markets rather than cultural or spiritual places. This, in turn, has undermined the collectivist spirit that once belonged to trade unions, political parties and comprehensive social movements.
“But these changes have brought with them a personalised and intense conception of political action that demands more flexible and participatory structures that cut across the previous categories of class and ideology”. This in itself indicates that the society is not cemented and citizens are not linked to each others. The absence of class or ideology is a sign that citizens are not related to each others neither in idea nor in a
style of life. They are basically individual living in their cocoon. This scenario means citizens do not trust each others, let alone the authority. End of trust is end of politics.

Another huge challenge in front of the future of democracy is the phenomena of migration. The paper deals with this issue as every other issue in a neutral way. In one fold attempts to show who Inter-cultural migration may trigger xenophobic reactions from certain segments of the “native population”, thereby adding fuel to ultra-nationalist political parties. On the other fold, in the longer run, however, citizens in multi-cultural societies acquire a broader outlook and a greater tolerance for diversity. This point is nothing more than a wishful thinking. So far, there is no an empirical evidence, what so ever, that European society becoming more multicultural or tolerant. The machine of capitalism requires materials and energy. Human beings are a sort of energies; as they were the main source of energy during the time of slavery. With that legacy in mind, capitalism nowadays still looks at human beings from the point of need. Migrant are not needed as human they are needed as a (cheap if not free) work force. Therefore in the most of European countries they are living in a semi ghetto apart from the rest. This situation is very familiar to European history. Others are always been present in Europe, in the other word the process of otherness is part of Europe’s politics and culture. This is due mostly to the domination of the culture of hatred. This phenomena like a plague contaminating every single European countries. It is represented in the emergence of far right politics; those whom at the end after elimination of their imaginary enemy they will turn to their own fellow citizens.
“Part II of the Green Paper analyses the democratic “actors and processes” in relation to the extrinsic “challenges and opportunities” and to the intrinsic tendencies of the practice of “real-existing democracy”. Organising their discussion around “citizenship”, “representation” and “decision making”, the authors reveal trends, examine how the polities and citizens have responded and discuss experimental initiatives” (p4).

Citizens’ disaffection and discontent, as reflected in falling voter turnout and rising distrust of political institutions and politicians, is a strand that runs throughout this Green Paper (p5). “Today, one of the most striking features of European democracies is an apparently widespread feeling of political discontent, disaffection, scepticism, dissatisfaction and cynicism among citizens. These reactions are not, or not only, focused on a given political party, government or public policy. They are the result of critical and even hostile perceptions of politicians, political parties, elections, parliaments and governments in general – that is across the political spectrum” (p25).
For example, based on trends over the past thirty years, the authors project that if voter turnout continues to fall at its current rate, abstention in national parliamentary elections could be as high as 45% in Central and Eastern Europe, and 65% in Western Europe by 2020. This could very well compromise the legitimacy of decisions taken by parliament (p5).
Why to participate? However it is becoming almost cliché that is if one is not taking a part in politics she or he will live under a government against her wish. In the post-modern world it is illusion to measure the legitimacy of a government through the participation of people. With the development of science human beings are always in every different ways being fooled. They are not themselves. The paper acknowledges that by suggesting adding the choice of “none of the above”, which simply means not having or feeling being represented. This is too simple solution for such a huge matter.
Namely the tyranny of virtual over actual is the problem. The paper tends to blame citizens rather than the process: “Citizens tend to direct their criticism towards individual politicians of whatever ideological or programmatic orientation and to focus on their increasingly similar promises and ineffectual programmes. These attitudes can be linked to social status and education levels, and range from an ill-articulated feeling of general discontent among the poor and less educated to a more focused and informed criticism emanating from well-off, better-educated and more politically knowledgeable groups in society” (p5).
These insults as represented in towards working class and poor people are a form of racism. As the paper clearly states it: “these attitudes can be linked to social status and education levels, and range from an ill-articulated feeling of general discontent among the poor and less educated to a more focused and informed criticism emanating from well-off, better-educated and more politically knowledgeable groups in society” (p5).
Politics in nutshell is protecting your interests and status. Therefore those who have interests and status are keen to participate and those who have nether of them finding it hard to justifying it. After the fall of Berlin wall and the end of history, poor everywhere in the world are increasingly under pressure to be silent and happy servant in nowadays Dickensian world. Democracy is not requiring so called knowledge. It is directly linked to the human instincts; everyone has desire to protect his or her status and interests, but when people are striped of them they feel alienated toward whole entire process. Politics and economy are directly linked. Hence political equality has no meaning in a society dominated by economical inequality.
While there are some merit in the argument that lower class people might be not interested in politics; because of the ever increasing the complexity of the process. These citizens they have a “rather low (but somewhat unequal) level of education, social status, political information and sophistication, and a feeling of personal political incompetence. They are rather unable to perceive differences between politicians and parties. Lack of competence. Arguing that politics does not deserve their attention. Narrow vision of politics” (p28).
At the same time other express more sophisticated feelings of discontent. They say, for instance, that “there are not many differences among political parties nowadays”, “left- and right-wing parties are presently very similar; they pursue and drive the same policies”, “politics is increasingly lukewarm”, “it's no longer important, it's economics that matter now”, “nation-states can't do much against firms' decisions to relocate”, or that “the EU decides on everything”. These opinions are held by people who add that they used to be, but are presently much less, interested in politics (p28).
The authors also put the reader on guard against the decline of democratic decision making in certain public and private institutions. This tendency to “replace citizens
rather than represent them” is one of the intrinsic dangers of democracy when it relies increasingly on a technocracy of experts and specialised knowledge. Operating outside the realm of public scrutiny, such guardian institutions are not accountable to citizens for their decisions, even though they do have a substantial impact on the life opportunities of citizens and were previously in the domain of the public good (p5-6).

Part III proposes a list of twenty-nine institutional reforms that are aimed at enhancing citizen participation in decision-making and at making rulers more accountable. Among them; universal citizenship, discretionary voting, lotteries for electors, shared mandates, specialised elected councils, democracy kiosks. Intresting proposal like a “yellow card” provision for legislatures. It is worth mesioning most of the proposals are novel.
In this part the focus is upon doing democracy differently, rather than upon improving what is already in place. By acknowledging that “democracy did not only resolve problems; it also created them” (p83). Taking this “Madison’s advice into account” (p83) and taking the effect of the mass media on the contemporary democracy: newspapers, radio and especially, television, have effectively transformed democracy into a “public spectacle”” (p84).
The implementation of the wish lists might make the process of democracy more democratic and also more fun. The fun side of the process is more stressed on it in the report; this suggestion might be risky and controversial. “Some of these proposals, or at least aspects of them, are similar to those already being tried out in Europe and



















could be transferred to other countries. The authors stress, however, that reforms do not always have the same effect in different places, should always be considered as experimental, and should be adapted to different situations in different European states. The reforms were drafted taking into account the following guidelines: impartiality, feasibility level of application, strategy, time horizon and selection criteria.
The authors of the Green Paper believe that liberal political democracy, as presently practised in Europe, is not “the end of history” (p116). Democracy as a political process has to be in perpetual progress: not only can it be improved, it must be”. And only through change can retain the legitimate respect of its citizens. This is not imposable democracy “has done this several times in the past in response to emerging challenges and opportunities, and there is no reason to believe that it cannot do so in the present”.


According to the report there are reforms “should be considered most urgently. It is our collective judgement that the major generic problem of contemporary European democracy concerns declining citizen trust in political institutions and participation in democratic processes. Therefore, those reforms that promise to increase voter turnout, stimulate membership in political parties, associations and movements and improve citizen confidence in the role of politicians as representatives and legislators deserve prior consideration, especially in those cases where they also make politics more



















entertaining. The second most important problem concerns the increasing number of foreign residents and the political status of denizens in almost all European democracies. Measures to incorporate these non-citizens within the political process should also be given a high priority” (p117). The paper believes following reforms could be introduced in most member states by ordinary legislation, should produce immediate, if marginal, improvements in the quality of democracy:

– Lotteries for electors
– Specialised elected councils
- Democracy kiosks
- Education for political participation
- Voting rights for denizens
- Council of Denizens
- Incompatibility of mandates
- Electronic support for candidates and parliament (“smart voting”)
- Electronic monitoring and online deliberation systems
– An agent for promotion of democratic reform
The report “The Future of Democracy in Europe: Trends, Analyses and Reforms” is written to the members of the Council of Europe. In overall the report is eligible. It concerns the machine of democracy rather than the meaning and the effect of democracy. Despite that the report is written specifically for a particular group it can




















easily be useful for almost all those who are involved in the political process. The report is novel in many of its suggestions and recommendations.
The report is also can be criticised in many ways. The problem that faces democracy is not merely lies in its technicality; for instance the decline of voting. It goes deeper than that; it is directly related to the social and political circumstances. Inequality in economical opportunity leads to disenchantment and alienation. Those who are not participating in the process they don’t have the feeling of belonging. Belonging to community, space, others, state and nation requires a bond. It is duty of politics to establish that bond. Human beings essentially are social animals, what is required on politics is to bring about an atmosphere human beings feel their essentiality and at the end their belonging.



Sardar Aziz

4Sawmill Lane
Sawmill Street
Cork

Tel: +353(0)86-3565692
E-mail: aziz.sardar@gmail.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Education:

Ireland
2003 - Present University College Cork, BSc Government & Public Policy (4 year degree), currently in final year
Core subjects: ■ Economics
■ Managing Conflict; Ethnically Divided Society
■ Public Management
■ International relations
■ Human Rights
■ Local Government
■Work placement for four months in Cork County Council Housing Department
■ 10.000 word dissertation on American relationship, from an Orientalism point of view

2002 European Computer Driving License (ECDL), Cork

2001 Intermediate Cambridge Certificate in English, UCC

1991 - 1993 Diploma in Public Health Sulaimanya Technical College, Iraq

1990 - 1991 Leaving Certificate (equivalent) Iraq

Employment:

2006 - Present ■ Part time employee with ESRI
■ Freelance Interpreter, Word Perfect Company Dublin

2004 - Present ■ Journalist
Kurdistan: Ireland: freelance
Hawlati, Iraq Evening Echo, Cork
Awene, Iraq College Express
Rojhalat, Iran

On net: www.dangakan.com, Kurdish
www.Kurdishmedia.com, English
Blog: namoy.blogspot.com

Summer 2006 ■ Census Enumerator with CSO
■ Housing Officer, Cork County Council

2004 – 2005 ■ Freelance Interpreter, Access Translation & Euro translation Cork

2003 ■ Assistant, John Smith, University College
Cork UCC

1999 - 2002 ■ Waiting for residency permission in Ireland

1993 - 1999 ■ Managing family business (Iraq)

Volunteer:

2002 - 2005 ■ Cork Campus Radio, shows: “Europe” (national award), “Diversity” and “Think Tank”
2004 - 2005 ■ Establishment of The Mesopotamia Society, UCC: which promotes the culture and politics of the Middle East

Languages: ■ Kurdish: native language
■ Arabic: excellent
■ English: excellent

Skills: ■ Communication skills: public speaking, debating & negotiation
■ Analytical skills: Awareness and understanding of intricate
International political issues
■ Computer skills: Word processing, Spreadsheets and Internet

Additional Information:

Creative writing (short stories, film scripts), Kurdish and English published
§ Cinema: courses in filmmaking and Italian neo-realism, Cork Film Centre
Study trips to European Union, NATO (Brussels/Luxembourg), United Nations (Vienna) etc.
Widely travelled in Meddle-East closely observing the cultural, social and political life of the region
Playing soccer with a number of teams

Referees:

Professor Neil Collins Bernard Allen TD
Department of GovernmentUniversity College CorkCorkIreland




Sardar Aziz

4Sawmill Lane
Sawmill Street
Cork

Tel: +353(0)86-3565692
E-mail: aziz.sardar@gmail.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Education:

Ireland
2003 - Present University College Cork, BSc Government & Public Policy (4 year degree), currently in final year
Core subjects: ■ Economics
■ Managing Conflict; Ethnically Divided Society
■ Public Management
■ International relations
■ Human Rights
■ Local Government
■Work placement for four months in Cork County Council Housing Department
■ 10.000 word dissertation on American relationship, from an Orientalism point of view

2002 European Computer Driving License (ECDL), Cork

2001 Intermediate Cambridge Certificate in English, UCC

1991 - 1993 Diploma in Public Health Sulaimanya Technical College, Iraq

1990 - 1991 Leaving Certificate (equivalent) Iraq

Employment:

2006 - Present ■ Part time employee with ESRI
■ Freelance Interpreter, Word Perfect Company Dublin

2004 - Present ■ Journalist
Kurdistan: Ireland: freelance
Hawlati, Iraq Evening Echo, Cork
Awene, Iraq College Express
Rojhalat, Iran

On net: www.dangakan.com, Kurdish
www.Kurdishmedia.com, English
Blog: namoy.blogspot.com

Summer 2006 ■ Census Enumerator with CSO
■ Housing Officer, Cork County Council

2004 – 2005 ■ Freelance Interpreter, Access Translation & Euro translation Cork

2003 ■ Assistant, John Smith, University College
Cork UCC

1999 - 2002 ■ Waiting for residency permission in Ireland

1993 - 1999 ■ Managing family business (Iraq)

Volunteer:

2002 - 2005 ■ Cork Campus Radio, shows: “Europe” (national award), “Diversity” and “Think Tank”
2004 - 2005 ■ Establishment of The Mesopotamia Society, UCC: which promotes the culture and politics of the Middle East

Languages: ■ Kurdish: native language
■ Arabic: excellent
■ English: excellent

Skills: ■ Communication skills: public speaking, debating & negotiation
■ Analytical skills: Awareness and understanding of intricate
International political issues
■ Computer skills: Word processing, Spreadsheets and Internet

Additional Information:

Creative writing (short stories, film scripts), Kurdish and English published
§ Cinema: courses in filmmaking and Italian neo-realism, Cork Film Centre
Study trips to European Union, NATO (Brussels/Luxembourg), United Nations (Vienna) etc.
Widely travelled in Meddle-East closely observing the cultural, social and political life of the region
Playing soccer with a number of teams

Referees:

Professor Neil Collins Bernard Allen TD
Department of GovernmentUniversity College CorkCorkIreland




Sardar Aziz

4Sawmill Lane
Sawmill Street
Cork

Tel: +353(0)86-3565692
E-mail: aziz.sardar@gmail.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Education:

Ireland
2003 - Present University College Cork, BSc Government & Public Policy (4 year degree), currently in final year
Core subjects: ■ Economics
■ Managing Conflict; Ethnically Divided Society
■ Public Management
■ International relations
■ Human Rights
■ Local Government
■Work placement for four months in Cork County Council Housing Department
■ 10.000 word dissertation on American relationship, from an Orientalism point of view

2002 European Computer Driving License (ECDL), Cork

2001 Intermediate Cambridge Certificate in English, UCC

1991 - 1993 Diploma in Public Health Sulaimanya Technical College, Iraq

1990 - 1991 Leaving Certificate (equivalent) Iraq

Employment:

2006 - Present ■ Part time employee with ESRI
■ Freelance Interpreter, Word Perfect Company Dublin

2004 - Present ■ Journalist
Kurdistan: Ireland: freelance
Hawlati, Iraq Evening Echo, Cork
Awene, Iraq College Express
Rojhalat, Iran

On net: www.dangakan.com, Kurdish
www.Kurdishmedia.com, English
Blog: namoy.blogspot.com

Summer 2006 ■ Census Enumerator with CSO
■ Housing Officer, Cork County Council

2004 – 2005 ■ Freelance Interpreter, Access Translation & Euro translation Cork

2003 ■ Assistant, John Smith, University College
Cork UCC

1999 - 2002 ■ Waiting for residency permission in Ireland

1993 - 1999 ■ Managing family business (Iraq)

Volunteer:

2002 - 2005 ■ Cork Campus Radio, shows: “Europe” (national award), “Diversity” and “Think Tank”
2004 - 2005 ■ Establishment of The Mesopotamia Society, UCC: which promotes the culture and politics of the Middle East

Languages: ■ Kurdish: native language
■ Arabic: excellent
■ English: excellent

Skills: ■ Communication skills: public speaking, debating & negotiation
■ Analytical skills: Awareness and understanding of intricate
International political issues
■ Computer skills: Word processing, Spreadsheets and Internet

Additional Information:

Creative writing (short stories, film scripts), Kurdish and English published
§ Cinema: courses in filmmaking and Italian neo-realism, Cork Film Centre
Study trips to European Union, NATO (Brussels/Luxembourg), United Nations (Vienna) etc.
Widely travelled in Meddle-East closely observing the cultural, social and political life of the region
Playing soccer with a number of teams

Referees:

Professor Neil Collins Bernard Allen TD
Department of GovernmentUniversity College CorkCorkIreland

new social movements

New social movements and the diffuse of political aims
Sardar Aziz
University college cork

This paper attempts to answer the question of whether the diffuse nature of political aims of new social movements is strength or weakness. In order to achieve that the article shows the emergence of the new social movements, and the external forces that helped to bring about that situation. The main argument of the essay is; the withering of old style cleavages and replacement by new post-modern style of cleavages is one of the main factors of having such a social movement with a diffuse political aims. This is showing namely in the bankruptcy of Marxism idea.
The postmodernist idea is rather decentralised and chaotic as response of many tragic phenomena that occurred during the twentieth century. The article dwells on postmodernism and its characters on the one hand and on the other hand how that affected the nature of political aims in new social movements.
Beside that the paper refuses to employee the term of new social movement as a generic concept. It attempts to distinguish between right wing social movements and left wing social movement. The specific characters of the both movements and comparing them helps to better understand the phenomena of diffuse of political aims.

The ambiguous nature of political aims of new social movements has many factors. Outlining these factors, at least the most significant ones, might help to shed a light on whether that ambiguity is a strength or weakness. The two main factors are cited for the propos of this essay are: end of Marxism as a relevant idea to the post-industrial world and the emergence of postmodernism.
In the communist manifesto Marx and Engels famously wrote: “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles”. And they continue: “Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another”. By looking at the condition of the post industrial at least in western society, one can easily judge that neither the history is so strictly defined nor the individual belongs to those criteria. However, there is no doubt that class was or maybe still is one of the mega cleavages in society, but it is just one among many. Therefore “A spectre [that] is haunting Europe [west]”, is not “the spectre of communism”
In the same book Marx and Engels (1888) stated: “The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms”. This statement had its merit in his time but it seems clear that mature or post bourgeois society has changed the landscape of class and it is not the only cleavages ant more. These changes has root in the for of the states that established especially in post world war two, in the other word the emergence of welfare state and more significantly the phenomena of middle class.
Marxism belonged and has a strong root in what is known as the Enlightenment. Enlightenment according to Kant (1748) “is man's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity”. For Kant in his famous essay ‘what is Enlightenment’, “Immaturity is the inability to use one's understanding without guidance from another” (Kant 1748). According to Kant: “This immaturity is self-imposed when its cause lies not in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without guidance from another” (1748). He continues that “Sapere Aude [dare to know] have courage to use your own understanding that is the motto of enlightenment” (Kant, 1748).
If Enlightenment was a beginning of a long period known as modernity, then in the late or postmodernity those characters that Kant see as essential in some shape and figures are fulfilled. These can be seen in the emergence of the phenomena of individuality, democracy and many other significant phenomena. Modernity was the world of optimism toward human capabilities, toward better future, continues progress, toward the ability of the knower and the integrity of the known.
However, both the Enlightenment and the Modernity were revolution against the dominant of the divine discourse i.e. religion but at the end they tend to mimic their enemy. The modernity seems suffered what Friedrich Nietzsche alarmed other in his Beyond Good and Evil, he states: “whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster” (1911, 146). Ergo the discourse of modernity was manifested in an overall narrative that makes sense of everything. The modernity became another religious type metanarrative.
As religion the metanarrative was not regarded as just a story, but it demonstrated itself as the truth. The result was that it legitimated some knowledge, beliefs, and practices, and marginalizes others. Modernity was characterised and associated with rationality or a religious trust in human reason. This led to many horrific consequence, a “totalitarian temptations”, as Bauman (1997, 39) argues was “endemic in modernity”.
These conditions and many others like colonialism, wars, nature of economy and government, bureaucracy, nature of power all together in the one hand led to a sense of alienation and lack of freedom and identity crisis, on the other hand the universalisation of education and the progress of technology created an atmosphere more and more people wanted possessed knowledge about the situation and willingness to fight or demonstrate for it. Combination of all these led to the famous 1960s revolution. The 1960s led to a paradigm shifts in politics, in society, in identity forming, and all these led to the emergence of postmodernity. Postmodernity as Jean-Francois Lyotard defined it is, “incredulity toward metanarratives” (Lyotard, 1984). By this Lyotard meant that the postmodern condition is characterized by an increasingly widespread skepticism toward metanarratives, such as the unique status of the individual, the bounded-ness of information, and the march of progress, that are thought to have given order and meaning to Western thought during modernity.
In this paradigm shift many new social movements were born. Before indulge and make nay generalization one has to categories, however, crudely, the territory of social movements. Social movements are not only left style organisation (using the word loosely). There are numerous types of right wing social movements. The right wing types of social movements are less studied for an obvious reason, which the social science was born in 1960s and since then was dominated by left style of politics. The right wing types of new social movements are differing in their organisation and aims and the relation among its members.
As they belong to the conservative terrain of politics; they are more pro order and more organised. Their members are following their leader and tend to be more docile and less or not revolutionary at all. These new social movements are not suffering from diffuse of their political aims they are rather crystal clear about it. These movements are common among all religious societies; whether it is Islam, Christianity, Judaism, or even other non divine religions.They are all equally concerns about relatively similar issues. Issues of sexuality and reproduction, opposition to same-sex marriage laws and to other measures to extend benefits patterned on civil rights to homosexuals. These groups of social movements they focus on the family and traditional values, an emphasis on the value of the nuclear family in raising children. These groups are highly organised, hierarchical, with clear goal and political aims. Their cohesiveness and clarity about their political aims linked to their personal and general life perspective. They are less democratic, more docile. A comparison between the two right social movements and left social movements might shed a light on the nature of diffuse among left groups. Worth saying not every left is decentralised, orthodox Marxist are more militant than right wing social groups.
The parts of social movements which their political aims are diffuse are post-modern new social movements. “The membership among these groups does not follow traditional class line but rather falls into two categories: those who are paying the cost of modernisation and have been marginalised by the development of the welfare state and the middle class” (Paul D’Anieri et al. 1990: 447).
The issues that covered by these groups are often based on particular characteristic such as gender, race, or ethnicity. The old type of cleavages did not appeal to these groups they are more concern about universal, non-partisan issues such as; ecology, peace, etc. Because these issues are not burning issue for the individual the members tend to be easy and relaxed and not involve much in the group. For the same reason these group tend to be highly democratic and chaos in nature. They go beyond making ideology explicit. Postmodernism has not theorized agency; it has no strategies of real resistance. It cannot. This is the price to pay for that incredulity toward metanarrative.
For explanation the strength and weakness of the nature of diffuse political aims, the article examines the Anti [Iraq] war movements. According to Tariq Ali (2003)
On 15 February 2003, over eight million people marched on the streets of five continents against a war that had not yet begun. This first truly global mobilization—unprecedented in size, scope or scale—sought to head off the occupation of Iraq being plotted in the Pentagon. The turnout in Western Europe broke all records: three million in Rome, two million in Spain, a million and a half in London, half a million in Berlin, over a hundred thousand in Paris, Brussels and Athens. In Istanbul, where the local authorities vetoed a protest march in the name of ‘national security’, the peace movement called a press conference to denounce the ban—to which ten thousand ‘journalists’ turned up. In the United States there were mass demonstrations in New York, San Francisco, Chicago and LA and smaller assemblies in virtually every state capital: over a million people in all. Another half a million marched in Canada. The antipodean wing of the movement assembled 500,000 in Sydney and 250,000 in Melbourne.

One can argue one of the reasons that that big number of people marched together, when they were from various different groups, were the diffuse of their political aims. Because their political aims were not framed and they mostly came to oppose war from an ethical principle they found it relatively easy to set aside their differences and participate together. Groups like: “Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, the Socialist Workers Party, the anarchists as permanent antiwar movements. There were also nuns, toddlers, barristers, the George Orwell Society. Archaeologists Against War. Walthamstow Catholic Church, the Swaffham Women's Choir and Notts County Supporters Say Make Love Not War” (Cohn, Observer: 2007) rallied together.
Despite the strength the diffuse nature of political aim can be weakness for social movements. When the aim is not clear the action or participating in action or organising an activity is rather difficult. The movements with diffuse political aim find it hard to achieve any goal. However this phenomenon can not be avoided because of the nature of the post-modern society. As the article showed this situation it is a result of complex intertwined among many forces; like economy, politics, technology, etc.


Bibliography:
Ali,T. (2003). Re-Colonizing Iraq. New Left Review 21-May-June 2003 http://newleftreview.org/A2447
Bauman, Z. (1997). "The Camps, Western, Eastern, Modern", Studies in Contemporary Jewry, vol. X111, 1997, p.39;
Cohen, Nick. (2007) “Don't you know your left from your right?” The Observer. Sunday January 21, 2007
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1995122,00.html
Kant, I. (1748). What is Enlightenment.
http://philosophy.eserver.org/kant/what-is-enlightenment.txt
Lyotard, Jean-François. (1984). The Post modern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, trans. Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press
Marx & Engels, (1888). The Communist Manifesto
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/61/61.txt
Nietzsche, F. (1911). Beyond Good and Evilhttp://www.gutenberg.org/files/18267/18267-8.txt
Paul D’Anieri et al. (1990). New Social Movements in Historical Perspective. Comparative Politics, Vol. 22, No. 4. (Jul., 1990)