The Outlook is Grim for the People of Afghanistan

December 9, 2011

On what authority do I state this? I have one specific source and one general source.

The specific source is a day-long seminar held December 1 at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs (UI) on the campus of The Royal Institute of Technology entitled Afghanistan After 2014, which I attended.

The general source is the recent and current news of the world which has focused, again, more sharply on Afghanistan because of The announcement by President Obama that the US and NATO military forces will exit Afghanistan by the end of 2014; and, the convening of the Second Bonn Conference on Afghanistan held on 5 December 2011, ten years after the First Bonn Conference. In addition, there have been violent episodes within and without Afghanistan (in Pakistan near its border with Afghanistan), even as I compose this article, that bode ill for a strong and peaceful Afghanistan while the foreign troops leave over the next two years.

I have a small authority having worked for thirty days in 2005 as a volunteer consultant in Afghanistan, in the provinces of Kunduz and Wardak. You can see images and some narrative from this visit here.

I will offer links to current news and other sources of information after I present this summary of the seminar.

Seminar Summary, Four Sessions
(Note: remarks attributed to the participants are transcriptions from my hand-written notes; any errors of fact and interpretation are mine).

Twelve experts and scholars provided a comprehensive look at the history, current issues and possible outcomes for Afghanistan and the region around it. I will identify the participants during the course of this article. The sponsoring agencies for the seminar were:

FOI (Swedish Defence Research Agency)
SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute)
UI (Swedish Institute of International Affairs)

First Session: Reconciliation and Peace—a Possibility?

Masood Aziz, former Afghan Diplomat in Washington, D.C. began the formal presentations.

Ten years have passed since the first Bonn Conference in 2001. The news is generally bad in evaluating these years in Afghanistan. There has been some progress, but the outlook is bleak. Mr. Aziz is pessimistic because the Afghan government is weak, corruption is rampant, and the international community is losing interest.

There is a state of crisis, currently. The Afghan government may collapse after NATO/ISAF troops leave by the end of 2014. The Current USA conversation with the Taliban is going nowhere. NATO lacks a credible plan for transition for after 2014.

With a weak central government, and its possible collapse, the strongest remaining institution will be the Afghan army. (Here Mr. Aziz was not explicit, but it was clear that the prospect of a military dictatorship, or of the military playing a dominant role such as in Pakistan, was on his mind).

Counter-insurgency has been the main purpose of NATO and ISAF (International Security Assistance Force of NATO), not nation-building.

What to do?

Generally:

  • Redouble efforts to support and establish the legitimacy of the national government in the eyes of the Afghan people. If this confidence cannot be engendered, then collapse of the government is inevitable, with attendant violence between ethnicities and factions.
  • Need to buttress the rule of law, versus the rule of men.
  • Afghan security forces need to be at the service of the state.

From Wall Street Journal (http://online.wsj.com)

Specifically:

Development of Afghanistan’s mineral resources may be the game changer, e.g., the Chinese-run copper mine and the Indian-run iron ore mine. However, the danger of the “resource curse” may be a down-side. A major portion of the state income from the development of natural resources should be directed as cash transfers to the people, as is done in other resource-rich countries such as Mexico, Brazil, South Africa, Bolivia and Mongolia.

Mr. Aziz ended his prepared remarks thus:

The last ten years of NATO operations in Afghanistan have focused on strategic issues, mostly security. Since 2001 there has been a massive inflow of unconditional money from governments and NGOs causing the state to be dependent on these gifts. This is state-building from the outside, not from the inside and from the ground up via the people. Much of this money and other resources have flowed to former warlords.

Cash grants to the people from the income of natural resource development will force the government to rely on the people through the taxation of their income. This will also give new life and purpose to the National Solidarity Program and strengthen the governments and capabilities of the 34 provinces. Local communities will be empowered to take care of their own security and infrastructure projects. Not all security and infrastructure development need be performed by the national government.

Eva Johansson is head of the Afghanistan Section at the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA). Here are some of her points.

Children are the most often forgotten in the issues addressed. Additionally, SIDA is interested in helping women to participate in the formation of the country. Sweden, through SIDA, has increased its support of these issues to become the second largest donor. The emphasis on security and counter-insurgency has put the issues of women and children in lower priority, despite efforts of SIDA and UNICEF. SIDA continues to be concerned about the condition of women’s rights in Afghanistan.

In the Bazaar, Kunduz, June 2005

Peter Brune, Secretary General of the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan (SCA/SAK). The Swedish Committee has 6300 people in 12 of the 34 provinces. SCA/SAK have been on the ground in Afghanistan since 1982, providing education and other developmental services to people in the villages (not in the capital, Kabul).

In responding to Mr. Aziz’s comments Mr. Brune said it was a “tough call” to say we’ve failed. Mr. Brune introduced the discussion point that ten years is not enough time. This point was taken up and further developed by other speakers who followed.

Mr. Brune made these other points:

  • There needs to be a link between development and education.
  • It’s important not to be “diplomatic” in assessing and addressing the problems. We need to examine and learn from failures.
  • The state hasn’t failed yet. Girls are going to school; the army is being built, etc.
  • Others should do more of what the Swedish Committee is doing. [Link to a Power Point Presentation showing some of what the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan is doing]
  • SCA/SAK has zero tolerance for weapons in schools. It’s important to separate the military from education and other efforts at the grass roots.
  • We (NATO/ISAF, the Afghan government) are scrambling to build an army. Meanwhile the Afghan and Pakistan armies are facing each other on their common border.
  • There will be consequences in building a strong army in a weak state (thus buttressing Mr. Aziz’s argument).
  • What are the other institutions we can look to? The constitution, the executive and the parliament, none of which existed before the current government was established. [Note: he didn’t mention the judiciary, which is generally seen as corrupt and ineffective at the state level, although not necessarily at the local level).
  • Important people and entities are not talking with each other. For example, the Supreme Commander of NATO forces and SIDA have never met.
  • Real security is to strengthen the state.

Second Session: Reconciliation and Peace—a Possibility?

Robert Lamb is Director and Senior Fellow at Program on Crisis, Conflict and Cooperation at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Washington D.C.

There have been talks about peace talks, but no peace talks. After the Taliban fell many soldiers and commanders went home without veterans’ benefits. Foes of the Taliban included the Northern Alliance, led primarily by warlords, some of whom are still in place.

In the 2001 Bonn Conference the Taliban were excluded and, since they had no part in the deliberations they have no stake in peace. Therefore, they went to Pakistan and became “insurgents”. The talks about peace talks continue, to date. Pakistan now demands to be part of the conversation.

Bad things began happening in 2010. An imposter apparently representing the Taliban conned the government of Afghanistan out of a lot of money, and created extreme embarrassment for all connected parties. In September of this year the chairman of the Afghan High Peace Council, Burhanuddin Rabbani, was been killed by a suicide attacker. He was meeting members of the Taliban at the time in an effort to negotiate toward peace talks.

It’s not clear what we can do to prevent civil war in Afghanistan. Former warlords, some of whom are now regional governors, are hoarding money and weapons.

We need to prevent the collapse of the Afghan state. (Non-military) development is important, “big time”, but will do no good if the government collapses. We need to keep the potential combatants (in a civil war) co-opted in the Afghan Government. This means tolerating “some very bad guys”.

thoseheadcoverings. blogspot.com

Helene Lackenbauer is an FOI analyst and former political aide to the Swedish Force Commander in Afghanistan.

There are very few possibilities leading toward peace. Who are the actors and what do we provide them? What are our prices for peace? Are we prepared to sell out women’s rights? What do we intend for the Taliban?

Mr. Brune responded: Afghanistan is at war. There are police, weapons, explosives and insurgents. The Taliban is not defined in any way. There can’t be a universal strategy; we have to address each group’s needs and grievances. Peace can be based on justice; all their rights have to be recognized and supported (implying the need for a strong and professional, not corrupt, national judiciary).

Robert Lamb “lifts the gloom”

  • Eleven years ago Afghanistan was a medieval theocracy. How long does it take to for such a state to become a representative democracy?
  • There is a civil service, although it is constantly raided for employees to the better paid NGOs and other private organizations.
  • Free speech exists, even if it may be dangerous.
  • There are radios and telephones.
  • Most areas are less violent than Northern Mexico.
  • Ten years is nothing in the history of nation building. Transitioning from Warlord rule to the rule of law doesn’t happen quickly or easily. Afghanistan is still in the warlord phase and will be for a long time.
  • Seventy-five percent of Afghans think the government is doing a good job, although the jirgas have more effect at the local level. If the state isn’t there, they figure things out (at the local level).

[Here I am not sure whether Robert Lamb continues, or whether Peter Brune and perhaps others are responding]

    • The Swedish Committee for Afghanistan has one-half million girls in school.
    • Students have TV and radios.
    • Rural areas are more negative on the future and are concerned about the return of the warlords.
    • Afghanistan is ethnically divided and is waiting for the next war. If the Taliban returns, they will bring Taliban rules. (Taliban are fundamentalist Sunni Muslims mostly from the Pashtun tribe).

(Note: Languages are Dari (official) 50%, Pashto (official) 35%, Turkic languages 11%, 30 minor languages (primarily Balochi and Pashai) 4%;  Ethnic groups are Pashtun 42%, Tajik 27%, Hazara 9%, Uzbek 9%, Aimak 4%, Turkmen 3%, Baloch 2%, other 4%. Religions are Sunni Muslim 80%, Shia Muslim 19%, other 1%.
[Source].

  • (Upon the likely collapse of the national government) a new Northern Alliance will emerge to oppose the Taliban.
  • The concerns of the people are: civil war, political collapse, financial crisis, jobs disappearing. The current president Hamid Karzai will not be running to succeed himself in the next election—who will rule? If the election collapses, who will emerge, and how?
  • Governors are more powerful than the national government in the eyes of the people. When the Soviets left there was chaos. Will there be the same again? After the Soviets left it was worse than with the Soviets.
  • People in Kabul are more positive. Children are always more positive (Note: the median age is 18 years: source).

Ann Wilkens, former Swedish ambassador to Pakistan and former Chairman of the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan, emphasized the point that there is not a unified Taliban group in Afghanistan. There are splinter groups, some interested in insurgency, some in drug traffic and some with other aims, for instance relating to religious practice.

Masood Aziz augmented this observation by noting there is a spectrum of different groups and there is a problem in assessing the association of any of them with Al Qaeda, which is of non-afghan origin led by non-Afghans. In addition, Mullah Mohammed Omar, the past and present leader of the Afghan Taliban, has been hiding out in Pakistan, even when he was head of state during the time when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan.

Middle East expert at UI Magnus Norell raised the question of the current objective of the Taliban. He suggested they want influence in the current processes addressing the future of Afghanistan. Ann Wilkens asserted that the institution of Sharia law is their objective. Norell said that these were not mutually exclusive.

Masood Aziz said this is not a valid question because there is no unified Taliban. He further noted that strict Sharia law alienated Afghans during their Taliban rule. Afghans felt an alien force took over their state. Mullah Omar, who has no stated or known religious education or lineage, alienated Afghan tribal leaders during his rule.

Kabul, June 2005

Third Session: Counter-insurgency

Context:

  • “All the bad stuff” is located in Pakistan: the Quetta Shura Taliban and the Haqqani Network, for instance.
  • The tribal and other leaders in Afghanistan have a common enemy in the various Taliban entities, but have no common strategy.
  • The stated US objective is to disrupt and destroy Al Qaeda. Is it working, or should the US change its objective? President Obama has shifted the focus to counter-insurgency.

Stefan Olsson of the FOI stated the problem with counter-insurgency is that it will take ten years to wipe out the insurgents. There is too little time for this (by the end of 2014) and it won’t work.

Harsh Pant of King’s College, London, said the current tension between the US and Pakistan over insurgents in Pakistan will come to a head as a result of a vicious cycle.

Masood Aziz said that the US military has ever-changing nomenclature for what it is they are doing. “Stability” is now in vogue. Previously it was “Clear/Hold/Build/Transfer”. Before that it was “Fight/Talk/Build”.

Military officers are talking to village elders about democracy; they aren’t experts in this. The US military is trying to embed itself in the culture and change it from the inside. It won’t work.

Stefan Olsson said “counter-insurgency is not nation-building”.

We have to realize our limitations in using only the military to bring “stability”.

Question posed to the panel: Will Afghan security forces be able to fill the vacuum left by the NATO/ISAF departure?

One response: The Afghan people would like the troops to leave, but “not too quickly”.

Stefan Olsson: The Swedish government doesn’t know what the end state should be, or when.  The USA seems to want to fight the insurgents to the negotiating table.

In the Afghan security forces the Army officers are from the former Northern Alliance; that is, they are not of the Pashtun tribe as is the majority of the government officers. The Army may not feel itself subservient to a weak national government.

Other responses:

In that the USA/NATO have announced a time certain by which their troops will leave, the Taliban is in a position to wait to intensify their incursions.

The USA needs to stay after 2014, in some fashion, to deal with other countries such as Iran and Pakistan.

Neither the USA nor NATO has a strategy for filling the vacuum created by their departure.

Question from the audience: Can and will India be a force for good in Afghanistan?

Masood Aziz: Pakistan seems to want the opposite of what everybody else wants in Afghanistan. India, which is right next door, is the world’s largest democracy. In contrast, the military dominates Pakistan, but is not all-powerful because of the influence of organized groups such as the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) which wants to oust the US-backed Pakistani government.

In response to another question regarding the possible role of the EU, Mr. Masood said that the EU has the talent and moral foundation to help build infrastructure for Afghanistan. As an example of “moral force” he recited a story of how a US Peace Corps volunteer in the 1960s left an indelible impression on a now elderly man in a remote village.

Chief Engineer, local construction engineer, and driver -- employees of the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan, 2005

Fourth and Final Session: Geopolitics and the Regional Dynamics

Context: There has been a change in the global balance of power from West to East, in operational terms. The center of world politics has been Europe, but now is moving toward Asia/China.

Harsh Pant of King’s College, London opened the session.

American priorities are changing: Afghanistan is not as important as before, as China emerges as a priority.

Global priorities are going to be influenced/centered in Asia/Pacific.

Pakistan now realizes that it is not the most important ally the USA has in its region. The USA sees India as its most important ally vis-à-vis China, and Islamabad (Pakistan’s capital) is worried. Pakistan has to hedge its bets; it needs a friendly Kabul (Capital of Afghanistan) so as not to be flanked by enemies—India to the east and Afghanistan to the west.

Pakistan’s self-identity seems to have been that it is not India. The Pakistan military has never won a war, but the Pakistan army points the people of Pakistan to India for its raison d’être as an army. Pakistan has tried to marginalize India in insisting they not be included in Afghan talks. Washington finally realized that Pakistan was playing a double game.

India realized this marginalization and now has decided to invest in Afghanistan (refer to the previously mentioned iron ore mine in Hajigak). Additionally, India has been reaching toward Russia and Iran, both of which flank Afghanistan. India likes a western presence in Afghanistan, but Russia and Iran don’t—but India balances this somehow.

China is feeling encircled by the USA. They are reluctant to talk with the USA about Afghanistan and Pakistan. They don’t want to compromise their relationship with Pakistan.

Current events reveal a conflict between the USA and Pakistan, a symptom of the underlying problem of Pakistan’s feeling of isolation and loss of importance to the USA.

Neil J. Melvin, Director of the Armed Conflict and Conflict Management Programme at SIPRI, responded:

The USA is drawing closer to its Asia/pacific allies and courting new ones such as Burma. Therefore, Afghanistan will remain important to the USA in this context, but where does Afghanistan fit? We don’t know yet.

Russia is courting Afghanistan by encouraging it toward the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. (The six-nation SCO comprises China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. India, Iran, Mongolia and Pakistan attend its meetings as observers. Source).

Harsh Pant added that Pakistan’s uncertainty about the USA’s intentions makes it difficult for them to know how to act.

Former Swedish Ambassador to Pakistan Ann Wilkens stated that the sequencing of events is unfortunate for Pakistan. There are conflicting messages to and from all players in the region. What does the USA want? She noted that the Pakistan army was built by the USA.

Magnus Norell:  A report of the US Marines recommended forgetting nation building and to leave just a small counter-terrorism force in Afghanistan. It should be treated by the USA as a “marginal country”. We’re reading too much importance into it. You can’t solve Afghanistan unless you deal successfully with Pakistan. Let’s not look at Afghanistan as a regional issue. Keep it local.

From the moderator: From the perspective of Iran and Pakistan (which have long borders with Afghanistan) why is everyone waiting to see what the USA is going to do?  The USA doesn’t have the leverage for a regional solution.

Neil J. Melvin: it is a dilemma. Russia, Iran and others want the USA out, but no-one else has the strength to do anything constructive on a regional basis. Iran has around three million Afghan refugees and doesn’t like the Taliban. There needs to be trust building between nations in the region. China is interested in stability and doesn’t want attacks from terrorists, so it keeps a low profile. One of China’s important interests in stability is due to the question of whether to build an additional gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to China through Afghanistan.

From the moderator: the world economy affects Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan and things are looking austere for these countries. How does this factor into the regional issues?

Answer from panel: if the world and local economy were better, it still wouldn’t solve Afghanistan’s problem which is one of governance.

Last question form the moderator: What should we do? What should we focus on?

Reponses from the panel:

  • The West should continue to support Afghanistan economically.
  • Donor nations need more humility in their approach to Afghanistan.
  • Get out and stay out, militarily.
  • Spend aid on education, etc.
  • Don’t pull out (the military) gradually.

The moderators were:

Nathalie Besèr is Advisor to the Swedish Institute of International Affairs (UI)

John Rydqvist is Head of the Asia Security Studies Program at FOI.

END OF CONFERENCE


Links to information sources:

NATO in Afghanistan
Terrorism and Insurgency
Al‐Qaeda and Afghanistan in Strategic Context: Counterinsurgency versus Counterterrorism
The Quetta Shura Taliban (QST) and the Haqqani network pose the greatest threat to stability in Afghanistan
Quetta Shura Taliban
Haqqani Network
Mullah Mohammed Omar
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi
Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP)
Purdah
The pragmatic fanaticism of al Qaeda: an anatomy of extremism in Middle Eastern politics.
NATO/ISAF history and facts about its troops

Links to recent and current news affecting Afghanistan and the region

Afghan National Army prepares for life after NATO
‘West must see Afghan job through’, military chief says
Pakistani Taliban splintering into factions
Afghan Peace Effort Hits Wall
Attacks Point to New Afghan Conflict: Bombings of Shiite Worshippers in Two Cities Kill More Than 60 and Introduce Sectarian Strife Absent for a Decade
Kabul Promises Change, Gets Vow of Lasting Aid
A Counterinsurgency Success in Kandahar
Afghan opium production to expand after troops exit
Hornets’ nest: Why Pakistan may be America’s most dangerous ally
Pakistan Was Consulted Before Fatal Hit, U.S. Says; Deadly Border Strike Came After Forces Were Told Area Was Clear of Pakistani Troops, Officials Say
There Are No Moderate Taliban; the people of Afghanistan understand that accommodating the Taliban will result in fear and chaos.
India Wins Bid for ‘Jewel’ of Afghan Ore Deposits

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Posted by Ron Pavellas

Three Global Indexes: How “Corrupt” is Your Country? Where Does it Rank in “Prosperity” and “Economic Freedom”?

November 21, 2010

To be clear about the words in quotation marks in the heading of this article:

The Index of “Economic Freedom” is an annual measure, conducted by The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal, of 10 freedoms – from property rights to entrepreneurship – in 183 countries. These freedoms will be listed, below.

The Legatum Prosperity Index annually ranks 104 nations according to nine building blocks of prosperity, about which more below as well.

The Corruption Perceptions Index is part of an annual report published by Transparency International (TI) which ranks 178 countries according to the perception of corruption in the public sector.  TI defines corruption as the abuse of entrusted power for private gain, in both the public and private sectors. For the purposes of this article and study I have chosen to call TI’s report the “Transparency Index.”

Each of these organizations is independent of the others and employs different methods of measurement, so I thought it useful to see if there are correlations among and between their most recent findings, published in 2010.

Because the Legatum Institute indexed only 104 countries, I limited my country aggregations and comparisons to this number, less one that doesn’t appear in one of the other indexes. Even so, these 103 countries represent approximately 90% of the world’s population.

Here’s a quick take on how these three indexes tracked with each other, comparing data for each country by two indexes at a time:

You will see properly formatted versions of these three graphs, below. I merely intend to show here that there are strong correlations among the three indexes as shown in these scattergraphs. (The trend lines are automatically generated in the Microsoft Excel spreadsheets that created these graphs).

It seems intuitive that, in a given country, greater transparency (or less corruption) would be associated with greater economic freedom and with greater prosperity, and all with each. So, these graphs are mostly a test of how well the indexes are measuring what they intend to measure. My confidence in them is high.

It needs to be emphasized, however, that no causative relationship is implied, or should be inferred, between and among the underlying data in each graph. These are correlations, not causations.

It is also notable that each graph has a different ‘tightness’ of data points around each trend line. This may suggest the degree of relative confidence we can have in the apparent correlations we can see.

There are some major ‘outliers’ in each graph which stand apart from the major clusters of data points. These will be identified and discussed, below.

First, let’s see how Prosperity and Economic Freedom track with each other in CHART NO. 1:

PLEASE CLICK ON ALL EXHIBITS TO SEE THEM FULLY AND LEGIBLY

Other than several apparent outliers which will be discussed later, one can see a positive correlation between the two independent measures: the greater the Economic Freedom, the greater the Prosperity, but no causative relationship should be inferred.

I will leave it to the more mathematically and statistically able to calculate, from the source data available under the links in this article, the coefficient of correlation of the data points represented in this and the other two following graphs. Here is an Excel spreadsheet with basic data from which the graphs were developed: 103 Countries-population-Economic Freedom-Prosperity-Transparency 2010

Next, let’s look see how Transparency (the inverse of Corruption) tracks with Prosperity in CHART NO. 2:

The two independent indexes seem to have a positive correlation, with two major groupings: those countries ranking 5.3 and above on the Transparency Index, and those ranking 4.7 and below. Within both these groups, greater Transparency (or less corruption) seems to indicate greater Prosperity in a given country, and vice versa (no causative relationship should be inferred). The larger number of apparent outliers in this graph will be listed and discussed below.

Last, let’s see how Economic Freedom tracks with Transparency (the inverse of Corruption) in CHART NO. 3:

Other than three or more apparent outliers, one can see a positive correlation between the two independent measures: the greater the Transparency (or the less corruption), the greater the Economic Freedom, and vice versa, but again no causative relationship should be inferred.

Legatum Prosperity Index
lēgātum (Latin); a bequest, legacy

Now in its third year, the 2009 edition of the Prosperity Index ranks 104 nations according to nine building blocks of prosperity, which we have identified through extensive research and analysis:

 

• Economic Fundamentals
• Entrepreneurship and Innovation
• Democratic Institutions
• Education		 • Health
• Safety and Security
• Governance
• Personal Freedom
• Social Capital

Key findings (Edited)
1. Prosperous countries which lead the Index do well in all nine sub-indexes, indicating that the foundations of prosperity reinforce each other.
2. Entrepreneurs at the micro level need good economic policies at the macro level. Aspiring entrepreneurs will often hit a “ceiling” limiting their success if a nation’s economy is not fundamentally strong.
3. Freedom cannot be divided. While some nations seek to allow one aspect of freedom while restricting other aspects, prosperous nations respect freedom in all of its dimensions: economic, political, religious, and personal.
4. Prosperity is concentrated in the North Atlantic – for now. Sixteen of the top 20 most prosperous countries sit in North America and Europe.
5. Highly ranked nations include those with a long history of productive economies, effective and limited government, and social capital. Yet several other nations rank high that not long ago were afflicted with poverty, oppression, and unhappiness.
6. Good governance is central to life satisfaction and economic progress.
7. Security and safety function as both a cause and an effect of overall prosperity. A secure nation enables its citizens to flourish without fear of attack or harm, and prosperous citizens provide the financial resources and social capital to maintain safety and security.
8. Happiness is … opportunity, good health, relationships, and the freedom to choose who you want to be.
9. Some countries with ineffective governments still score well on social capital, indicating that healthy networks of families and friends play an essential role in helping a nation function.
10. It’s true that money can’t buy happiness … unless you are poor. Only in the poorest countries do increases in income have a significant effect on people’s life satisfaction.

Index of Economic Freedom

Economic freedom is the (ability) of every human to control his or her own labor and property. In an economically free society, individuals are free to work, produce, consume, and invest in any way they please, with that freedom both protected by the state and unconstrained by the state. In economically free societies, governments allow labor, capital and goods to move freely, and refrain from coercion or constraint of liberty beyond the extent necessary to protect and maintain liberty itself.

We measure ten components of economic freedom, assigning a grade in each using a scale from 0 to 100, where 100 represents the maximum freedom. The ten component scores are then averaged to give an overall economic freedom score for each country. The ten components of economic freedom are:

Business Freedom | Trade Freedom | Fiscal Freedom | Government Spending | Monetary Freedom | Investment Freedom | Financial Freedom | Property rights | Freedom from Corruption | Labor Freedom

Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI)

The 2010 CPI draws on different assessments and business opinion surveys carried out by independent and reputable institutions. It captures information about the administrative and political aspects of corruption. Broadly speaking, the surveys and assessments used to compile the index include questions relating to bribery of public officials, kickbacks in public procurement, embezzlement of public funds, and questions that probe the strength and effectiveness of public sector anti-corruption efforts.

For a country or territory to be included in the index a minimum of three of the sources that TI uses must assess that country. Thus inclusion in the index depends solely on the availability of information.

Perceptions are used because corruption – whether frequency or amount – is to a great extent a hidden activity that is difficult to measure. Over time, perceptions have proved to be a reliable estimate of corruption. Measuring scandals, investigations or prosecutions, while offering ‘non-perception’ data, reflect less on the prevalence of corruption in a country and more on other factors, such as freedom of the press or the efficiency of the judicial system. TI considers it of critical importance to measure both corruption and integrity, and to do so in the public and private sectors at global, national and local levels. The CPI is therefore one of many TI measurement tools that serve the fight against corruption.

The 2010 CPI measures the degree to which public sector corruption is perceived to exist in 178 countries around the world. It scores countries on a scale from 10 (very clean) to 0 (highly corrupt).

Outliers (See this Excel Spreadsheet as the reference for the following: Outliers)

Where any country has appeared more than once as an outlier in the three charts, whether in a favorable, mixed or unfavorable position, I have identified these as the countries to examine further to see what we can learn. Here are the Countries, by my ranking:

High (Favorable) Hong Kong
High-Intermediate Singapore
Intermediate Argentina
Botswana
El Salvador
France
Italy
Mexico
Paraguay
Peru
Intermediate-low Jordan
Saudi Arabia
Low (Unfavorable) Iran
Ukraine
Venezuela
Zimbabwe
    Let’s see what’s so special about Hong Kong and Singapore:

In Legatum’s Prosperity Index, Singapore and Hong Kong rank 17th and 20th, respectively, out of 110 countries. Singapore ranks 5 and 6 in in *Safety & Security’ and ‘Economy.’ Hong Kong ranks slightly lower in of these areas as well.

In the Index of Economic Freedom, Hong Kong and Singapore rank 1 and 2, respectively, in a list of 179 countries.

Here are excerpts from the Global Corruption Report of Transparency International regarding Hong Kong:

  • In Hong Kong as many as two-thirds of businesses believed that they lost opportunities on account of corruption by competitors within a one-year time frame.
  • In Hong Kong, Germany, France and Brazil, fewer than half the surveyed companies reported having a specific procedure for vetting agents and suppliers before entering into a relationship with them.
  • (In Hong Kong) laws or regulations require disclosing how a director’s compensation was reviewed and evaluated, but compensation (is not) linked to the director’s performance.
  • (In Hong Kong) the legal and regulatory framework (does not) provide whistleblower protection.

Here are excerpts from the Global Corruption Report of Transparency International regarding Singapore:

  • Laws or regulations do not require disclosing how a director’s compensation was reviewed and evaluated, but it is recommended by Code of Corporate Governance.
  • Compensation linked to the director’s performance is not mandatory, but it is recommended.
  • There is whistleblower protection for auditors.
  • Singapore has subsidised training related to the adoption of environmental and labour standards.
  • Much work remains to be done in the area of Sovereign Wealth Funds (such as Singapore’s Temasek Holdings and Government Investment Corporation) in governance and transparency.

My rough summary of these two political entities is that there is so much freedom to establish and operate an enterprise, and so much safety and security in daily life, that these far outweigh any corruption. The latter seems to be addressed in principle, if not fully in application.

    The Eight “Intermediate” Outliers

These countries are assigned at least one big favorable finding and at least one big unfavorable finding. The findings may have to do, at least in part, with current perceptions in comparison to past conditions. That is, most things may be not so good now, but they were very much worse in the past and there are some new good things. This seems generally true, from my reading, of the Latin American countries: Argentina, El Salvador, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru. Other than in Argentina, there is much emigration. Generally, there is little confidence in governments including the judiciary branch, despite welcome stability.

On the other hand are the countries whose past performance has provided a strong economic and social base, including infrastructure, but where the government seems to be losing its ability to cope with some major current issues. France and Italy seem to fit this description, even though the cultures and circumstances are quite different. One big difference between these two countries is French optimism and Italian pessimism (my interpretation).

Botswana is unique in its position of being an African country where things are measurably and sensibly improving and improved, despite a low standard of living for most people. There is great mineral wealth and much industry, with personal and business freedoms not found in other poor African countries, or in the five Latin American countries, above.

These summary impressions should be tested by the reader looking at the specific findings and comments under the three separate reports and summary charts.

“Intermediate-low” Countries

Jordan and Saudi Arabia are assigned one favorable outlying position, but also two unfavorable outlying positions.

As far as I can determine, Jordan’s one favorable point is in relation to other countries in a group which register much worse in Transparency, but all are low in Prosperity and Economic Freedom. Personal freedoms are low, as are the levels of social cohesion and health.

Saudi Arabia’s mineral wealth provides the basis for the one positive outlying measure, but personal freedom, safety and security, education, property rights (especially for women) and Transparency are low.

The “Low” Countries

These four countries are found in at least two unfavorable outlying positions, with Zimbabwe found in this position in all three charts. Iran, Ukraine and Venezuela are positioned unfavorably in Prosperity and Transparency. Zimbabwe is also positioned unfavorably in Economic Freedom. None of these countries is positioned favorably in an outlying position.

Personal Conclusions

Where one or two of these indexes may be short on observations or might lack objective accuracy about a given country, one or two of the others will make up for this deficiency, in my reading of them. In the event that one may still not be convinced regarding the placement of any country in these indexes, one always has access to a comprehensive and continually updated profile of all the World’s countries in The World Factbook of the CIA.

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Posted by Ron Pavellas

Russian Orthodox “Old Believers” in Alaska

September 20, 2010

1831 map of North America cropped to show Russian Alaska. Original map bought from Dee Longenbaugh, 'The Observatory Antiquarian Books, Maps and Prints,' Juneau, Alaska (Please click on it)

A few months ago, Eva and I visited South Central Alaska. I have lived in Anchorage and Homer during two separate periods for a total of eight winters. Eva, however, had never been in Alaska.

One of the many things about Alaska I wanted Eva to experience was Alaska’s Russian heritage. After all, Alaska was once the major part of Russian America, along with the coastal regions of North America to the south.

There are a great many place names in Alaska recognizable as Russian. In Sitka, the former capital of Russian Alaska, an annual celebration includes the symbolic changing of the Russian imperial flag for that of the USA. Sitka is on Baranoff Island, named after Alexander Andreyevich Baranov, chief manager for the Russian-American Company.

More to the point of this article is the presence of at least 25 Russian Orthodox churches in Alaska, all named after St. Nicholas.

Interior of St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church, Eklutna, Alaska, 2010

[Eva and I had earlier visited St. Nicholas Church and cemetery in Eklunta, Alaska, where we took several pictures, all of which can be seen here]

We didn’t have time enough to visit the Old Believer village of Nikolaevsk on the Kenai Peninsula, but I was able to point out to Eva a few Old Believers in the City of Homer, about 20 miles further south on the Sterling Highway. They are distinctive, primarily, because of their traditional dress.

These Old Believers in several settlements on the Kenai Peninsula did not arrive directly from Russia, or the Soviet Union. Theirs is a history linked with many other groups of Old Believers who have been leaving Russia and the Soviet Union for more than 200 years, due to a schism in the Russian Orthodox Church.

About 300 Old Believers left Siberia in 1945 to take up residence in Manchuria, China. When that country fell to communism, the group sought a new home.  Several South American countries took in the Old Believers.  In Brazil, the government did not interfere with their religion, but many of the families found it difficult to make a living.  Next, they came to the United States, establishing themselves primarily in Woodburn, Oregon in the early 1960s.

As several years passed by, young people in the community were beginning to fall away from the old ways. A few community elders began considering other more isolated locations for their parishes. One of them discovered that government land was available in the Kenai Peninsula area of Alaska, where the fishing was reputed to be outstanding.  The first Old Believer settlers on the Kenai Peninsula received a grant from the Tolstoy Foundation in New York and purchased 640 acres on the peninsula in 1967.   Initially, five families moved to Alaska and began building a community there in the summer of 1968. Ten adults, twelve children, eight cows and four calves started Nikolaevsk.

This community of expatriate Russians is descended from ancestors who refused to conform to changes in their traditional Orthodox religion.  After almost 16 generations of seeking places to live where they could preserve their culture, they started anew, and called their settlement Nikolaevsk in honor of St. Nicholas, the patron saint of the town’s church.

Old Believer Dress (http://www.sras.org/)

Old Believer Dress (http://www.sras.org/)

Russian Old Believers from China, Brazil, Iran, Turkey, Australia and other parts of the United States moved to Nikolaevsk.  By the second year, homes had running water and electricity. When the growing season in the Alaskan summers proved too short for the production of various favorite vegetables, the Old Believers built greenhouses with wood-fueled stoves in them to extend the season.

On June 19, 1975, fifty-nine Old Believers successfully obtained American citizenship.  A ceremony for their naturalization took place in the Anchor Point School gymnasium. In 1979 a second group of Old Believers took the oath of citizenship and became American citizens.  Since then, religious and cultural concerns prompted some families to fight against assimilation and leave Nikolaevsk to form new communities.

The initial settlers tried to limit their interaction with outsiders so they could better keep the old rites, even using separate dishes for outsiders who dined with them. They erected a sign that stood at the end of the dirt road: “Village of Nikolaevsk.  Private Property. Road Closed.”

Today, the sign is gone, the road is paved and the village is more welcoming to outsiders.  The town has modernized.   Economically and politically, the residents are integrated.  Socially, however, although polite and highly hospitable, they still maintain a sense of social separatism…

Old Believers are having to adapt their culture to their surroundings in order to survive.  Many residents are employed in the Anchor Point and Homer areas. A majority of the Russian Old Believers depended on commercial fishing as an income while many of the women worked in the fish processing plants.  Uncertainty in the fishing industry, however, with its feast-or-famine price fluctuations, has caused a growing number of Old Believers to seek other jobs, such as construction, and move to new communities outside their Russian village (source).

A more comprehensive history of the Old Believers can be found here.

For readers who have an interest in old maps, here is the full image of the map of which only part is seen at the beginning of this article:

Map of North America, 1831. You have permission to download and copy it if you give credit to me as http://pavellas.com

2 Comments | Alaska, Church, Religion, Geography, Travel | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ron Pavellas

What is it to be “Caucasian,” and…

September 6, 2010

…what and where is The Caucasus?

When I was quite young I learned that the word “Caucasian” somehow applied to me and my family as types of humans who were “white,” or at least not “Negro” or “Oriental,” but that was all. I never thought of myself as “white,” or any color, but identified with the ethnicity of the three of my grandparents who emigrated from Greece to San Francisco in the early 1900s. I didn’t know I was “white” until I joined the US Navy in 1954 at age 17.

Previous to this, “white” was reserved in my mind for “White, Anglo-Saxon Protestants,” or WASPs. Dad had explained what Anglo-Saxon meant, but I could never retain the history of the various invasions which Western and Northern European peoples visited upon each other in ancient times. And further, I couldn’t understand what Dad or anyone could tell me about the origin of the word “Caucasian,” other than it came from people living in a remote in-between place in Europe or Asia.

I haven’t thought of myself as “Caucasian” or “white” for quite a while now, just considering myself a human with roots in Europe in the short-term (20,000-40,000 years ago) and recognizing that all humans are rooted in Africa from around 130,000 to 200,000 years ago.

What took me back to thinking about “Caucasian” was my reading of a new book, The Ghost of Freedom: A History of the Caucasus, by the historian Charles King whose previous book The Black Sea: A History was the basis for an article in these pages on the Black Sea.

King’s new book clarified for me the origin, use, and misuse of the concept of “Caucasian Race,” and about the complicated and terrible history of the original peoples who have inhabited the region named “The Caucasus.” In writing this article I also used Russia: A History, edited by Gregory L. Freeze. Additional resources are under the links listed throughout the article.

“Caucasian” as a “Race”

Female and Male "Caucasian Bodies" (©2010 Zygote Media Group. Inc.)

The concept of a Caucasian race was developed around 1800 byJohann Friedrich Blumenbach, a German scientist and anthropologist. Blumenbach named it after the peoples of the Caucasus region, whom he considered to be the archetype for the grouping. He based his classification of the Caucasian race primarily on craniology. Blumenbach wrote: “Caucasian variety—I have taken the name of this variety from Mount Caucasus, both because its neighborhood, and especially its southern slope, produces the most beautiful race of men, I mean the Georgian; and because all physiological reasons converge to this, that in that region, if anywhere, it seems we ought with the greatest probability to place the autochthones (birth place) of mankind.”

Blumenbach’s… ideas lead to the widely(-held) conclusion that the purest and most beautiful whites were the Circassians, one tribe of the Caucasian region of Russia, a mountainous area on the Black Sea close to Turkey…

In the United States, the term Caucasian has been mainly used to describe a group commonly called White Americans, as defined by the government and Census Bureau. (Source: Wikipedia).

“Caucasian,” as applied to a “race” of people, is clearly based in discredited anthropological notions and in racist tendencies which are slowly, but certainly, being recognized and addressed. Caucasian, now no longer appearing here between quotation marks, is properly applied to those people, past and present, living in the region designated The Caucasus.

The Caucasus Region

For perspective, here is a chart showing the relationship of size and population of the Caucasus Region to the US State of California and the Kingdom of Sweden.

Click on image for greater clarity

The Caucasus Region is divided geographically, and for the most part politically, north and south with respect to the crest of the Greater Caucasus Mountains, as can be seen in the map immediately below. All the territory north of the crest is in Russia, divided among several political entities. The number of people in both the North and South Caucasus is roughly equal, with the North containing nearly 60% of the total area of the Region.

Caucasus Region, 1994 (Bureau of Intelligence and Research, U.S. Dept. of State) Click on the map for detail.

All Caucasia, which embraces not only the Great Mountains of Caucasus proper but also the country to the north and to the south of the Great Caucasian Range, is… designated by the common term “Caucasus.” This is a Latinized form of the ancient Greek name for this region “Kaukasos,” (which)… may in turn be traced back to Old Iranian “kap kah” (or) “Big Mountain.” Ancient Greeks made the Great Mountain Range the scene of the mythical sufferings of Prometheus, and (of) the Argonauts (who) sought the Golden Fleece in the mysterious land of Colchis on the Black Sea coast, south of the Range. Thus, geographically, the term “Caucasus” represents a definite territory located between the Black and Caspian Seas, a wide isthmus separating these seas and divided by the Great Caucasus Mountain Range into two parts — North Caucasus and South Caucasus. (Source)

The Northern Caucasus
What cannot readily be seen, even if you click twice on the above map for greater detail, is that there are now nine Russian Provinces, Russian Republics and Russian Territories (Krais) along the northern borders of Georgia and Azerbaijan. Before there were names for these polities and their predecessors, the original people of the Caucasus lived throughout the mountains (including the “Lesser Caucasus” to the south), their foothills, valleys and plains.

These northern political jurisdictions are, from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea:

Stavropol Krai

Krasnodar Krai

Adygea*

Karachay-Cherkessia

Kabardino-BalkariaNorth Ossetia-Alania

Ingushetia

Chechnya

Dagestan

(*an independent republic within Krasnodar Krai)

Altogether, these nine political entities have a population of 14,672,000 and comprise an area of 254,000 square kilometers, for a population density of around 58 people per square kilometer.

The Mountains—Greater Caucasian Mountain Range

They stretch for about 1200 km from west-northwest to east-southeast, between the Taman Peninsula of the Black Sea to the Absheron Peninsula of the Caspian Sea: from the Western Caucasus in the vicinity of Sochi on the northeastern shore of the Black Sea and reaching nearly to Baku on the Caspian.

The range is traditionally separated into three parts:

Here is a map of the area surrounding the highest peak in the Caucasus and, therefore in Europe (because this region is in Europe, not Asia), Mount Elbrus (Elbruz in the map) which straddles the common border of the Russian Republics Karachay-Cherkessia and Kabardino-Balkaria :

Mt. Elbrus ("Elbruz") Region of Mountains (Click twice on image for largest size)

The Mountains—Lesser Caucasian Mountain Range

The Lesser Caucasus Mountains are shared by Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. They lie south of the Greater Caucasus and run parallel to that range. The Lesser Caucasus Mountains extend about 350 miles (565 km) from near the mouth of the Rioni River on the Black Sea to near Azerbaijan’s border with Iran. The range is less rugged than the Greater Caucasus. Peaks rarely exceed 10,000 feet (3,050 m). (Source)

The Greater Caucasus Range runs diagonally from upper left to lower right. The Lesser range runs from the lower left corner, curving up toward the center then back toward the lower right. The Kura River Valley lies between them.

The River Valley Between the Greater and Lesser Caucasus Ranges

Starting in north-eastern Turkey, the Kura River flows through Turkey to Georgia, then to Azerbaijan, where it receives the Aras River as a right tributary, and enters the Caspian Sea. The total length of the river is 1,515 kilometres (941 mi).

People have inhabited the Caucasus region for thousands of years, and first established agriculture in the Kura Valley over 4,500 years ago. Large, complex civilizations eventually grew up on the river, but by 1200 CE, most were reduced to ruin by natural disasters and foreign invaders. The increasing human use, and eventual damage, of the watershed’s forests and grasslands contributed to a rising intensity of floods through the 20th century. In the 1950s, the Soviets started building many dams and canals on the river. Previously navigable up to Tbilisi in Georgia, it is now much slower and shallower, as its power has been harnessed by hydroelectricity stations. The river is now moderately polluted by major industrial centers like Tbilisi and Rustavi in Georgia. (Source)

A Brief History of the Caucasian Peoples

I now quote excerpt extensively from Charles King’s Book.

'Circassian wife and husband, 1860s - during Russian & Ottoman perpetrated holocaust' (thejunsui.wordpress.com)

In the Russian Empire (1721 – 1917) the generic term “highlander” or “mountaineer” was applied to any indigenous person living anywhere except on the steppe (prairie) or in lowland river valleys, people we might now classify as Chechens, Avars, Lezgins or Georgians. The equivalent term in English was “Circassian.” In its narrowest sense, however, Circassian specifically refers to speakers of Adyga languages, the major linguistic group of the northwest Caucasus…

By the time the Russian Empire finally conquered the last of the highlanders, another process of appropriation was already underway: the conceptualization of the Caucasus as a distinct place by generations of Russian and foreign writers, artists, and travelers. The mountains became metaphors for both love of liberty and unspeakable barbarism. Tribal allegiances were evidence of both inchoate national feeling and the inherent primitivism of local societies. The Caucasus was cast as either the fount of civilization (and of its highest representative, the “Caucasian Race”) or the antithesis of civilization itself. Today these visions still play a powerful role in politics, foreign relations, and communal interactions. National self-conceptions are wrapped up in them. Rights to territory are justified by reference to them. Notions of alien, friend and enemy, flow logically from them…

Classifying people—whether based on race, language, culture, or any other criterion—is always more complicated that it might seem. Words signify different things in different contexts. The English term “Caucasian,” for example, today denotes a racial category developed by an eighteenth-century German anatomist to identify the allegedly primordial form of mankind, with light skin and round eyes. Yet the equivalent term in Russian refers to a person having family ties to the Caucasus, with perhaps dark hair and olive skin. Virtually any other identification that might have currency today—Georgian, Chechen, Muslim, Sufi—was imbued with different meanings in the past. The collective categories that would eventually come to be used for ethnic groups, nationalities, and religions in the Caucasus were not present, fully formed when the Russians arrived. They were products of the imperial system itself—negotiated, reworked, and in some cases wholly invented as part of the process of imperial absorption and administration…

Throughout the nineteenth century, as more and more Europeans became familiar with the Caucasus they were fascinated by the physical appearance of the Circassians. The men were said to be tall, dark, and lithe. Their long mustaches, silver-studded weaponry, and close-fitting clothing…enhanced their noble, war-like mien.

[Post-publication addition: click on this link to read a review in the British newspaper, The Independent, of the book Let Our Fame Be Great: Journeys among the defiant people of the Caucasus, By Oliver Bullough. For more information regarding the resistance in Dagestan to the 2014 Winter Olympic Games to be held in Sochi, go to this website.]

South Caucasus Countries

These three countries, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia, are readily discerned in the first map displayed above.

What is not seen is that the borders and internal areas are not yet settled as to legitimacy, at least according to certain ethnic minorities, and by Russia and a few of its political allies.

Please click on the image for greater clarity

In addition, there are five small Azerbaijani exclaves within Armenia that appeared following the disintegration of the USSR in 1991. Their present status is unclear since the Armenian-Azerbaijani dispute in 1992-94 over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh. At this time they were unilaterally annexed by Armenia. Their economies are primarily based upon agriculture.

Four enclaves are found in north-eastern Armenia near the town of Kazakh.

  • Upper Askipara begins 1 km west of the Armenian village of Voskepar.
  • Azatamut begins about 1 km from the Azerbaijan border near the Kazakh to Idshevan highway.
  • The other two enclaves are tiny pieces of farmland southwest of the Azerbaijani town of Tatly . They cover 0.12 and 0.06 km².
  • Karki is found north of the Nakhichevan area about 4.5 km northeast of the town of Sadarak. It covers about 7 km².

In 1994 Nagorno-Karabakh declared itself an independent republic. If this is recognised by the international community, there may be about half a dozen new international enclaves – both Nagorno-Karabakhian exclaves in Azerbaijan and Azerbaijani exclaves in Nagorno-Karabakh. (Source)

Pausing for a deep breath

For you who have read this far, this seems quite a lot to digest about The Caucasus to me as well. But I can’t finish this article until I point out that there is rich history among all the many peoples currently and formerly living in this area that is not quite the size of Sweden. Much of this history will be found under the many links, above. To provide a glimpse into this history, please consider this final chart I created to show the major ethnic and linguistic groups currently found in the Russian (northern) part of the Caucasus. Please click on it to see the detail more clearly, or view it here:

Chechnya as a Current Example

Many parts of the Region remain unsettled, with intermittent guerrilla warfare in some parts, notably Chechnya after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989.

Islamic fundamentalism… posed a growing threat not only to the newly independent states of central Asia, but also to the Caucasus (above all, Chechnya)…

… (T)he Chechen conflict enabled (prime minister and candidate for President of Russia) Putin to demonstrate his mettle in an all-out military campaign to establish control over Chechnya and eradicate terrorism… (A)fter relentless artillery bombardment, Russian forces stormed the Chechen capital of Groznyi–from which they had been so ignominiously expelled earlier—and launched search-and-destroy operations against pockets of guerrilla resistance…

The ongoing war in Chechnya, which initially raised Putin’s popularity, began to arouse mounting criticism, especially from Western governments and human rights organizations. Although Russian forces established some semblance of control, they failed to crush all resistance or to end devastating terrorist attacks. And the war took a heavy toll—on the Russian military (around 20,000 casualties), insurgents (around 13,000) and civilians (between 30,000 and 40,000). This carnage eroded popular support in Russia itself [note: year 2005]… impelling the Kremlin to “Chechenize” the conflict by putting pro-Moscow Chechens in charge and relying on Chechen, not Russian, forces. Moscow arranged for Ramzan Kadyrov to succeed his father (killed in a terrorist attack) as the president of Chechnya.; the young Kadyrov quickly earned a reputation for brutality and the ‘disappearances’ of 2,000 to 3,000 fellow Chechens. The repression in Chechnya, even if provoked by criminal acts of terrorism, elicited sharp criticism in Western circles and reinforced criticism of Putin for ‘authoritarian’ tendencies. (Source).

[News of violence in Chechnya, 29 August]
[News of violence in Dagestan, 6 September]
[News of violence in North Ossetia, 9 September]

Location, Location, Location

Unfortunately for the settled peoples in the Caucasian isthmus, this great strip of land linking, historically and currently, the empires of the north and east and south—Russia, The Ottomans, Persia, The Mongols, among others—is a place to go to, or through, in search of new places or new opportunities, or through which to attack competing empires. As a result of various ambitions, the people of The Caucasus have been uprooted, dispersed, tortured, raped, slain and forcibly converted to other religions or ‘nationalities’ over the centuries. For example, there are very few real Circassians left anywhere in The Caucasus, although there are a great many who identify themselves as Circassian throughout the world. The same can be said for other population groups. Note, in the chart immediately above, that in many “republics” there are more Russians than original people, or the Russians are the largest minority. Only in Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetia are there a large majority of people who can rightfully be called, generically, Caucasian.

I have not written here anything substantive about those Caucasians who identify themselves as Georgian. The Georgians are a whole story unto themselves and I encourage those with an interest to look at these links for further information:

The World Factbook of the CIA

History of the Georgian People (WikiPedia)

Georgia.gov

Republic of Georgia, by Georgi Kokochashvili

6 Comments | Demography, Geography, Government, History | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ron Pavellas

Darwin, Natural Selection and the Connectedness of All Things

March 17, 2010

My return to this area of interest, after many months away from it, was due to my son Greg’s recent insistence that I read Mind of the Raven: Investigations and Adventures with Wolf-Birds, by Bernd Heinrich. I had read and greatly enjoyed another book by Heinrich several years ago, The Trees in My Forest.

As I read Raven and reread Trees, I recalled several others in the realm of natural science that have deeply affected me: The Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinction, by David Quammen and The Beak of the Finch: Evolution in Real time, by Jonathan Weiner.

I mention here, in addition, Where the Sea Breaks its Back: The Epic Story of Early Naturalist Georg Steller and the Russian Exploration of Alaska, by Corey Ford. This book is mostly a true adventure story. It does, however, spotlight the great naturalist Georg Steller after whom so many animal species are named: the Steller Sea Cow, the Steller Jay, the Steller Sea Lion, the Steller Sea Eagle, and so forth.

So, where to begin in a realm where there can be no beginning, where every thing and every event is preceded by and dependent upon some other thing and event, ad infinitum? How about this passage from Where the Sea Breaks its Back?

My wife is much too brazen… I have in her stead two young ravens… I have quite forgotten her and fallen in love with Nature…”

The 25-year-old German Georg Steller, a physician and naturalist, was on his way across eastern Russia and Siberia to the eastern edge of the Asian continent to accompany the great Danish explorer Vitus Bering on his adventure to Alaska, in service to the Empress Anna of Russia. The quotation provides a segue to the book about the raven. (More about the book and Stellar, further below).

Raven

Raven is a major figure in the mythology of many cultures: Athabaskans and other original peoples of the western North American continent, including Alaska; Germanic peoples, including ancient England and the Nordic countries; the Celts; and, there is brief mention of Raven in The Talmud and The Qur’an.

Raven (Source: Alaska Native Heritage Center, http://www.alaskanative.net/en/)

It seems clear, from the work and writing of Heinrich, that Raven without Wolf and, more recently, without Man-as-hunter, the species would have to have adapted other ways in order to have survived to this day. A speculation I proffer is: would Man-as-hunter have survived without Raven? Perhaps not, in that there is strong evidence that Raven shows the hunter (Wolf or Man) the location of large prey from its lofty and far-seeing position, in order to share the bounty of the successful hunt.

Other facets of ravens and their behavior are fascinating to learn about, including the possibility they have a reasoning “mind.”

Survival of the “Fit Enough”?

The phrase “survival of the fittest” is often used as a representation of what Darwin has taught us about natural selection, but it is faulty.

“Survival of the fittest” is a phrase which is commonly used in contexts other than intended by its first two proponents: British polymath philosopher Herbert Spencer (who coined the term) and Charles Darwin.

Herbert Spencer first used the phrase, after reading Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, in his Principles of Biology (1864), in which he drew parallels between his own economic theories and Darwin’s biological ones, writing “This survival of the fittest, which I have here sought to express in mechanical terms, is that which Mr. Darwin has called ‘natural selection’, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life.”

Darwin first used Spenser’s new phrase “survival of the fittest” as a synonym for “natural selection…” Darwin meant it is a metaphor for “better adapted for immediate, local environment“, not the common inference of “in the best physical shape”. Hence, it is not a scientific description, and is both incomplete and misleading…(Emphasis added)

Herbert Spenser, 1820-1903; Charles Darwin, 1809-1882

An interpretation of the phrase “survival of the fittest” to mean “only the fittest organisms will prevail” (a view sometimes derided as “Social Darwinism“) is not consistent with the actual theory of evolution. Any individual organism which succeeds in reproducing itself is “fit” and will contribute to survival of its species, not just the “physically fittest” ones… A more accurate characterization of evolution would be “survival of the fit enough…”[Source].

The Beak of the Finch clearly shows the benefit to a species in adapting to “immediate, local environment.” The book presents the painstaking gathering of data for over 20 years on the Galapagos Islands, documenting the current evolution of the beaks of finches to adapt to the shape of available seeds. The shapes of the seeds depend on the amount and extent of seasonal and annual rainfall, which is quite variable.

Trees, their “mutuals,” commensals and parasites

Ant mound in the forest near Saltaluokta Mountain Station, "Lappland," Sweden, July, 2008

What I had remembered from my reading, years ago, of The Trees in My Forest was that certain trees depend on ants for survival, and vice versa. Their relationship is a “mutuality.”

Upon my recent re-reading of the book I was reminded that for all trees, everywhere, there are relationships with other organisms that are vital to one or both parties: birds, bees and many other insects and mushrooms, for instance. Some events in nature are both friend and foe: wind, fire, ice, and snow. Some insects and non-animal organisms are deadly to some trees (e.g., Dutch elm disease) but other insects and organisms will help to ward off such diseases.

The question of why some trees are deciduous is discussed. It is a matter of adapting to the ice and snow that would otherwise accumulate on their broad leaves and vulnerable branch angles. The evergreen conifers have adapted by having branch angles and leaves (needles) which slough off the otherwise branch-breaking weight of accumulated snow and ice.

Of the five books presented here, I count this as the most poetic and revealing of the nature of Nature. Life is an intricate web of relationships which can unravel, in a given locale, when a key player is eliminated through forces of Nature and through Nature’s sometimes unwitting, sometimes insensitive agent, Man.

Islands, Biodiversity and Ecosystem Decay

As David Quammen points out in The Song of the Dodo, the Galapagos Islands are not unique in hosting species found nowhere else.  Islands, disconnected from the mainland, whether originally connected (such as Tasmania) or not (such as the Galapagos), affect the local species in ways that cause them to diverge from species on the mainland.

A Galapagos Hawk about to land on a giant Galapagos Tortoise (Source: http://www.progresoverde.org/)

A salient point made by Quammen is that one will find unique, but fewer species on a island or set of related islands. There is a direct relationship between the size of the habitat and the number of species supported by it.  What man has done to the mainland is to create many smaller habitats our of previous large and continuous habitats thus, in effect, creating islands where the number of species will decline and, perhaps, mutate over time into new species—if the animal or plant species will survive at all. Here are some words the author writes in the Introduction:

An ecosystem is a tapestry of species and relationships. Chop away a section, isolate that section, and there arises the problem of unraveling…

They have invented terms for this phenomenon of unraveling ecosystems. Relaxation to equilibrium is one, perhaps the most euphemistic. In a similar sense your body, with its complicated organization, its apparent defiance of entropy, will relax toward equilibrium in the grave. Faunal collapse is another. But that one fails to encompass the category of floral collapse, which is also at issue. Thomas E. Lovejoy, a tropical ecologist at the Smithsonian Institution, has earned the right to create his own term. Lovejoy’s is ecosystem decay.

The Otters of the Aleutian Islands

Where the Sea Breaks Its Back (published 1966) ends with a passage about the recovery of the Aleutian sea otter after the depredations of  Russian hunters, first, then others later.

The rate of increase in the two decades after the (Second World) war has been prodigious. Today there are more than five thousand otters on Amchitka alone, and they have reestablished themselves around Kiska, and down the island chain as far as Attu. The latest official count of the Fish and Game Department estimates approximately thirty thousand in Alaska. “The sea otter could again become an important part of our coastal fauna,” the California Museum of Vertebrate Zoology has stated. “The conditions for subsistence remain as about as favorable, except for the presence of the human hunter, and his activities could be regulated.”

Its food supply still exists in abundance. Its original habitat in the Aleutians is virtually the same as in Steller’s time. Perhaps for once, with proper conservation measures, we can reverse our long sad history of despoilation and plunder, and restore this shy and beautiful animal which, in the words of Alaska’s first naturalist (Steller), “deserves from us the greatest reverence.”

Unfortunately, since this book was published 44 years ago, the Aleutian sea otter population has become endangered, according to this petition to the national Fish and Wildlife Service by the Center of Biological Diversity in Berkeley, California in year 2000.

Human Ecology

The authors of the books presented here have an appreciation for the connectedness of things, living and otherwise. My first inkling of this concept was engendered by my taking a course entitled Human Ecology and Public Health, one of the courses at the School of Public Health in Berkeley in 1962, from which I ultimately received my BS and MPH degrees. The course has since been incorporated into others with different names.

The course content provided an awakening for me. I was, prior to this, a rather linear fellow (still tend that way) but now I could no longer accept a rather one-dimensional stream of cause-and-effect as a paradigm for the world and the universe.

The world of family and job responsibilities, however, tends to channel and focus one’s energies, only to cause one to lose sight of the great web of which we are a dynamic part. These books have re-oriented me to what I call “the real world” when I am hiking in the hills and mountains of California and, now, Sweden in the summertime.

Overlooking Storelulevatten (roughly "big lake Lule") near Saltoluokta Mountain Station, in "Lappland," Sweden, July, 2008

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Posted by Ron Pavellas

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