The Nordic Theory of Everything and "the Nordic theory of love".

 Notes on Anu Partanen, The Nordic Theory of Everything: In Search of a Better Life. New York: HarperCollins, 2016. 

Anu Partanen, a Finnish journalist married to an American, and now living in New York, writes about the differences between “socialist” Finnish society, with its “well-being” approach to society, and the American “dream” of individual effort and success, capitalist, competitive, and celebrating the supposed ability for everybody to pursue happiness and the good life. She kicks the tyres of America’s education, health, welfare, and tax system and finds them quite flat. 

The book’s main title is The Nordic Theory of Everything, but, in fact, it might as well been titled “The Nordic Theory of Love”. Perhaps the publishers felt that would be misleading, or misunderstood, but actually Partanen refers frequently to the Nordic theory of love. What is it? Briefly, it is the idea that “authentic love and friendship are possible only between individuals who are independent and equal” (50). So the role of the state–as the expression of a collective will of the people, as it were–is to ensure that everyone has equal opportunity to be self-sufficient and independent “in relation to other members of the community” (51). “If you’re a fan of American individualism and personal freedom, this might strike you as downright all-American thinking”, writes Partanen. 

The difference is that the Nordic theory of love holds that it is the collective responsibility of the national community through taxes and the “well-being” system, to ensure that all members of the community has access to important drivers to enabling people to attain that measure of self-sufficiency and independence. These drivers are such things as access to a good education, the ability to enjoy good health care, a good work-life balance, and assistance with building strong and stable family life. 

In the Nordic countries most of these objectives are met through the provision services paid for by taxes. In the United States, they are left to individuals, family units and even private companies to provide. To give but one example of the last: health insurance, a necessity in the States, is often provided through one’s employer. Partanen provides numerous examples of how Nordic countries support their citizens in being able to be parents to continue working while raising a family, and especially parents with young new-born or preschool age children. 

One is through the provision of paid parental leave: for fathers as well as mothers. Mothers can take a year or even two to be at home with young children, while a man might take “six months or so while the mother returns to work” (92). There is even “daddy-only” time available. In Finland it is nine weeks, and three may be taken concurrently with the mother. The leave is available to either parent, so a father can choose to take longer time and allow the mother to return to work (94). Surveys show American fathers, Partanen states, would like to take paternity leave, but are “often stymied in this by employers who don’t offer such leaves”.  All employers and employees fund parental leave through their taxes, and parental leave is widely accepted as the norm by employers. In the United States, parents must manage parental leave themselves, either by finding (sometimes costly) child-care or relying on grandparents or other family members. The burden most often falls on the mother, who may have to leave the work force in order to care for young children. In Finland, jobs are held open for a parent who stays at home for up to three years, though Partanen does not say how employers manage the interim. 

One of the things that worried Partanen when she moved to live in the United States, and discovered that she would no longer have access to the Finnish national health service, was how she would afford treatment if she needed it. “Medical bills”, she learned, “were the cause of most personal bankruptcies in the United States” (170). Another difficulty was in needing to find a personal doctor: in the States, it seems, it was important to choose a doctor one wanted or was comfortable with. Partanen relates how one friend researched and spoke with family and friends about finding the best doctor. This struck Partanen as stressful, and one she had not faced in Finland. She always went to her local “public clinic”, secure in the knowledge the one doctor in Finland was as good as the next. As for costs, these, compared with those in the US, were minimal to non-existent. 

So what about taxes? It turns out that taxes for a single individual without children are comparatively low. A comparison of OECD countries in 2014, showed that “Denmark had the third-highest average tax rate at 38.4 percent”, Finland was ninth at 30.7 percent, while Sweden “fell under the OECD average with a rate of 24.4 percent” (254). While overall taxes may be higher than in the States, what Finns get in return for their taxes in benefits, puts them on more-or-less an even playing field with Americans, when the after-tax expenses for Americans are taken into account (many of these covered for Finns by the high-quality and reliable tax-supported services they receive).

Partanen writes clearly, and cogently. She provides many examples of the differences between the Nordic approach to social and political agendas and those of the USA. She draws on personal experience, anecdotes relating to friends and family and folk she has interviewed. She has evidently read widely, and absorbed and synthesised a large amount of information very well, as her extensive notes and bibliography show. One interesting feature of the book is the stress she puts on the fact that the Nordic “theory of love” allows for individual choice, and opportunity, and independence from “unhealthy” dependency upon others (parents, spouses, others). And yet this all takes place within a communitarian framework: one in which the well-being of the individual depends upon the collective support of, and the sharing of the financial burden by, society. Perhaps her emphasis on independence is because she writes for a context where “socialism” (a communal, societal, governmental collective welfare system) is under suspicion. Nonetheless, there is occasionally an implicit tension, I sense, between a yearning for freedom from “unhealthy dependence” for the individual, and the necessity for a communal, societal and governmental framework to deliver this. 

Partanen does appreciate many things about the American system: its dynamism, its entrepreneurial verve and innovation (though she shows that Finland does not lack these either), its freedom and its optimism. She acknowledges that Finland, by comparison can be conformist and a bit dour. She is sometimes asked why Finland has such a high suicide rate, if it is such a great place to live. She acknowledges that negativity and pessimism is a feature of Finnish society. But Partanen evidently is somewhat conflicted over life in her adopted homeland (she is now a US citizen). She feels that the Nordic nations “have set an example from which America could profitably borrow” and were it to do so, that might make her “want to stay forever” (329). In her epilogue, she relates the day in 2013 that she received her US citizenship. At the end of the ceremony, she tells of how her husband offered to take a photo of a man and his newly naturalized wife. As the man left, he glanced back at Partanen clutching her certificate of citizenship. “Enjoy America,” he said grinning. “I hope you like it.” (333). That, I sense, is for Partanen still something of an open question. 

Where does New Zealand stand in relation to the comparison between the USA and Finland? In many ways, in the middle: we aspire to being a “well-being” state, and through our system of taxation and associated benefits make some attempt to achieve “well-being”. However, we are increasingly resembling the United States’ approach to social conditions and governmental strategies. Sometimes, I think, it is as simple as the fact that we want a “well-being” state, but we don’t want to pay for it.

Reading John Steinbeck's, The Grapes of Wrath

On our trip to the USA, Finland and the UK recently, I re-read The Grapes of Wrath (first published in 1939).[1] It is years since I first read it, so I had forgotten most of the story line.  However, the following passage has remained with me. Al Joad is driving an old, second-hand Hudson truck along Highway 66 (“the main migrant road”), as the family drive out west from Oklahoma to look for work in California.

Listen to the motor. Listen to the wheels. Listen with your ears and with your hands on the steering-wheel; listen with the palm of your hand on the gear-shift lever: listen with your feet on the floor-boards. Listen to the pounding of the old jalopy with all your senses; for a change of tone, a variation of rhythm may mean–a week here? That rattle–that’s tappets. Don’t hurt a bit. Tappets can rattle till Jesus comes again without no harm. But that thudding as the car moves along–can’t hear that–just kind of feel it. Maybe oil isn’t getting someplace. Maybe a bearing’s starting to go.[2]

Perhaps when I first read that evocative passage, it resonated because I was driving a second-hand Morris Minor. I could identify with listening “with your feet on the floor-boards”, or on the accelerator or clutch, as the case might be.

            Grapes of Wrath essentially is the story of an “Okie” family, the Joads, who are pushed off their little farm by a combination of poor crops affected by dust-storms, and the march of progress, or rather the banks foreclosing on the owners of the land, and the tenant farmers being put off their land. So the “Okies”, thousands of them, set out for California, where they imagine there’ll be jobs and opportunity galore, and they’ll be able to buy their own houses.

            The story charts their progress. It details their deprivations, their hunt for places to stay along the way, their time in Government supplied transit camps, or private camps. It describes the way they are exploited in the jobs that they land: how, because of the abundance of people looking for work, the employers are able to drive down the wages to barely subsistence level, if that.

            Steinbeck captures the dialect of the “Okies” beautifully. He conveys their simple faith, and religiosity. He writes of their everyday interactions on the road, and the way that folk, by and large, helped each other out, and made friends quickly and easily.

            Steinbeck generally conveys the injustices and the difficulties that the Okies experience through narrative description. Occasionally he writes a more discursive type of description, where the narrator’s voice engages in exposition. Here, some of his indignation shows through, though it is generally fairly muted. Here are excerpts from Chapter Twenty-One. He writes about how the “moving, questing people [who] were migrants now”, are changed by the movement, and the reaction of those amongst whom they hope to settle.

The movement changed them; the highways, the camps along the road, the fear of hunger and the hunger itself, changed them. The children without dinner changed them, the endless moving changed them. They were migrants. And the hostility changed them, welded them, united them–hostility that made the little town group and arm as though to repel an invader, squads with pick-handles, clerks and shopkeepers with shotguns, guarding the world against their own people.

In the West there was panic when the migrants multiplied on the highways. Men of property were terrified for their property. Men who had never been hungry saw the eyes of the hungry. Men who had never wanted anything very much saw the flare of want in the eyes of the migrants. And the men of the towns and of the soft suburban country gathered to defend themselves; and they reassured themselves that they were good and the invaders bad, as a man must do before he fights. They said: These god-damned Okies are dirty and ignorant. They’re degenerate, sexual maniacs. These goddamned Okies are thieves. They’ll steal anything. They’ve got no sense of property rights.[3]

….

Steinbeck writes of how “the great owners and companies invented a new method” for making profits, by buying a canneries, and making profits off the end products while cutting the cost of the raw materials. “And the little farmers who owned no canneries lost their farms, and they were taken by the great owners, the banks, and the companies who also owned the canneries”. The little farmers also take to the road, so that “the roads were crowded with men ravenous for work, murderous for work.”

And the companies, the banks worked at their own doom and they did not know it. The fields were fruitful, and starving men moved on the roads. The granaries were full and the children of the poor grew up rachitic, and the pustules of pellagra swelled on their sides. The great companies did not know that the line between hunger and anger is a thin line. And money that might have gone to wages went for gas, for guns, for agents and spies, for blacklists, for drilling. On the highways the people moved like ants and searched for work, for food. And the anger began to ferment.[4]

In fact, the anger, such as it is, does not translate into violence, so much as protest, or strikes, actions which lead to violence against the protestors and strikers. Such violence that Okies mete out is localised, individualised and in the heat of the moment when a friend is attacked (see the incident with Tom Joad).[5]  Mostly, they accept their situation docilely, and compete with each other for work, and drive the cost of wages down:

When there was work for a man, ten men fought for it–fought with a low wage. If that fella’ll work for thirty cents, I’ll work for twenty-five.

If he’ll take twenty-five, I’ll do it for twenty.

No, me, I’m hungry. I’ll work for fifteen. I’ll work for food. The kids. You ought to see them. Little boils, like, comin’ out, an’ they can’t run aroun’. Give ‘em some windfall fruit, an’ they bloated up. Me, I’ll work for a little piece of meat.

And this was good, for wages went down and prices stayed up. The great owners were glad and they sent out more handbills to bring more people in. And wages went down and prices stayed up. And pretty soon now we’ll have serfs again.[6]

That final sentence, an authorial comment, says it all. Have we moved on much from the circumstances and values of The Grapes of Wrath?

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[1] First published by William Heinemann. The edition I read was in the Penguin Modern Classics series, published by Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1951.

[2] John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, 109.

[3] Steinbeck, Grapes of Wrath, 259.

[4] Steinbeck, Grapes of Wrath, 260–61.

[5] Steinbeck, Grapes of Wrath, 354–55.

[6] Steinbeck, Grapes of Wrath, 260.

Two books on Arab/Jew and Israel/Palestine relations.

The current conflict in Gaza has caused me to read a couple of books on the long-standing issue of the relations between Jews and Arabs, or Israel and the Palestinian territories. One is by David K. Shipler, Arab and Jew: Wounded Spirits in a Promised Land (Revised and updated edition; New York/London: Penguin Books, 2002; first edition Random House, 1986; Penguin 1987). The other is by Anna Baltzer, Witness in Palestine: A Jewish American Woman in the Occupied Territories (Revised and updated; Boulder, CO: Paradigm, 2007).

In his book David Shipler, who states at the outset that he is “neither Arab nor Jew” (xxi), puts his finger on where any hopes of peace and co-existence between Arabs and Jews, and between Israelis and Palestinians, must start. They must look into each other’s eyes: and see a fellow human being. He writes:

   Whatever happens in war of diplomacy, whatever territory is won of lost, whatever accommodations or compromises are finally made, the future guarantees  that Arabs and Jews will remain close neighbors in this weary land, entangled in each other’s fears. They will not escape from one another. They will not find peace in treaties, or in victories. They will find it, if at all, by looking into each other’s eyes. (xxxviii)

The notion of looking into each others eyes surfaces several times in the final chapters of the book.

            The book is divided into three sections. The first one, Part One, is called “Aversion.” It outlines four factors that have led to the way in which Israelis (or Israeli Jews) and Palestinians (and in many ways, Israeli Arabs, as well) have comes to exist in the way that they have: in a state of hatred and fear, with sometimes tentative and febrile accommodation and even friendship and love. These factors are: war, nationalisms, terrorism, and religious absolutism. Shipler takes a largely anecdotal approach to these topics, but references various events e.g. the massacre at Deir Yassin, or that annual “Day of Remembrance” when Israeli Jews remember those who have died in wars.

            The second part, “Images”, outlines the various stereotypes that each group has of the other: the Jews who see Arabs as craven, violent, primitive, “dirty”, exotic, sexually dangerous and lustful. Arabs who also see Jews as craven, violent, alien, superior or arrogant, and aggressive. There are stories interspersed with depictions of the way in which these stereotypes are portrayed, or believed, of Jews and Arabs who do have good relations with each other. But, as Shipler points out, these are isolated and individual cases, and, of themselves cannot do much to break down the suspicion, and alienation that exists within the wider societies. It should be said that neither the Jewish nor the Arab societies are monoliths. Within each there is a wide variety of types: for the Jew, there are the disparaties between Askenazi and Sephardi. The Sephardi, coming as they do from societies where many of the customs and social mores are similar to many Arabs. On the Arab side, there are differences in religion, as there are Christian as well as Muslim Arabs; and also one must distinguish between Israeli Arabs and Palestinians.

            In the third part, “Interaction”, Shipler examines some of the ways in which the two groups interact with one another. These are both positive and negative. There is, for instance, on the negative side, the way in which Arabs are harassed and treated by the secret police, or the surveillance and suspicion that Israeli Arabs are subject to, especially when they wish to travel abroad. A negative, but interesting example of co-operation between Jews and Arabs occurs in the criminal world, where Arabs will engage in burglary, while Jews then act as “fences” to on sell the stolen goods. Another is the finding that “40 percent of all pimps in Israel were Arabs managing Jewish prostitutes” (342).

            On the positive side, there is the instance of the relationship built up between an American Jewish academic, Dr. Clinton Bailey, who had become “one of the Western world’s foremost experts on the Bedouin tribesmen who live in the Negev and Sinai deserts” (358), and worked to protect their interests. Another chapter details some instances of intermarriage between an Arab and a Jew, in many cases it seems that the woman is the Jew. One chapter, entitled, “The Violent, Craven Jew”, includes a heartwarming interaction between a young Lebanese Arab woman and an Israeli army colonel, which ends with the young woman, who began defiantly, saying “I’m happy to meet you”, and the colonel saying, “You have touched my heart.” (200). In the penultimate chapter, titled “The Dream”, Shipler spends quite a bit of time describing the interaction between Jewish and Arab young people, eleventh and twelfth graders, who take part in a four-day “workshop” run at “the hilltop community of Neve Shalom” (457). They will play games together, and have “trust building” exercises before discussing their lives and their attitudes to each other, and to the circumstances of living in Israel. This chapter also relates some of the efforts taken within the school system to expose and break down stereotypes.

            Overall, there is much in this book to make one despair of the situation of mistrust, of hatred and of conflict ever being overcome. And one wonders how many generations the current military action in Gaza (since October 7, 2023) will set back any hopes for a peaceful, and just solution to the divisions in the region. Nonetheless, there are sufficiently hopeful signs within the book that suggest that progress is possible. However, it will require a change in the political, social, and institutional arrangements of the region. To begin with, Arabs (and especially the politically-driven groups, such as Hamas) will have to recognise the right of Israel to exist in security and permanently. On the other side, Israel will have to take its foot off the throat of the Palestinians, and genuinely support and work towards their political self-determination. A two-state solution is probably the best way forward: and this will mean that Israel and Palestine will both have to give up any idea that the whole of the territory belongs solely to Jews or Arabs.

            Anna Baltzer, a young American Jewish woman, provides in her book a personal account of some of her experiences during several visits to the West Bank, as a volunteer with the International Women’s Peace Service. This is “a grassroots peace organization dedicated to documenting and non-violently intervening in human rights abuses in the West Bank, and to supporting Palestinian and Israeli nonviolent resistance to the Occupation.” (11) Her book is largely a kind of journal (a series of dated entries) on her experiences, interactions with Palestinians, participation in protest actions, experiences of Israeli Defence Force brutality in 2003, 2004, 2005 and lastly 2007. She includes testimony from various Palestinians along the way, together with some analysis, and occasional background information or commentary drawn from other sources.

            This is the book to read to get a sense of what it means to have the Israeli foot on the throat of Palestinians. It is full of horrifying and, at times, unbelievable accounts. She details the everyday harassment of Palestinians by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) and often by Jewish settlers living in illegal settlements, along with the frustrations of having to pass through checkpoints. Beyond that there are stories of the detention of (mostly young) Palestinian men, the demolition of homes, unbelievably, in some cases while the residents are still inside. There is no doubt that there have been many instances of “extrajudicial” killing, with the perpetrators able to act with impunity and the connivance of the IDF; members of the IDF, as well as settlers, have been the perpetrators.

            It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the IDF, with the support of the government, has been tacitly conducting a policy to try and empty the West Bank of Palestinians by making their lives unbearable and infeasible. The word “genocide” has been bandied about in the light of the current conflict: this, I think, is too strong a word, and cannot be proven. It is not likely that the Israelis intend to completely wipe out the Palestinians. However, Baltzer several times refers to a policy of “ethnic cleansing”, and this may be true to the extent that much Israeli policy and IDF practice is designed to deprive Palestinians of their land, and livelihoods, and to provide Jewish settlers with security of tenure in illegal settlements.

            Can Israelis and Palestinians live together in peace? Can Arabs and Jews co-exist (not forgetting that some Arabs are Israelis, that is, citizens, though second-class citizens and subject to some of the same harassment as their non-Israeli counterparts)? Both these books suggest that the answer can be “Yes”, and there are those, both Arab and Jew, Israeli and Palestinian who are prepared to do so. But in order for that to happen there need to be changes at the societal, institutional, governmental level: and, perhaps hardest of all, an ideology will need to change, on both sides. 

ISRAEL and PALESTINE: Can They Ever Co-Exist?

 

I begin with two foundational statements which undergird my approach.

First, Israel has the right to exist and to live in security within its borders. This must be accepted by all parties–including those Arab states (and other nations, e.g. Iran, Pakistan) who still hold out against its existence. It seems to me, however, that for a number of Arab states, for a variety reasons, some self-interested no doubt, have come to that conclusion (see e.g. “the Abraham Accords”). Jordan, whom some consider should be the “Palestinian State”, has had a peace treaty with Israel since 1994. Interestingly, I have in my files a newspaper clipping headed “Arabs ‘ready to admit Israel’s right to exist’”. The clipping comes from The Christchurch Press, dated 16/9/1983 following a UN conference which ended with a final declaration the acknowledged “the right of all States in the region to existence with secure and internationally recognised boundaries, with justice and security for all the people.” The writer, Liesl Graz, wrote: “Decoded that means the Arab States and the Palestine Liberation Organisation are ready, for the first time in a formal document, to admit Israel’s right to exist with the quid pro quo of the right to exist of a Palestinian state.” What happened to that “olive branch”, I wonder?

Nonetheless, my second foundational statement, Palestine as a homeland for Palestinians also needs to be recognised as a legitimate state. Palestinians lived there–and many still do–for generations. There needs, therefore, to be a “Two-State” solution (more of this anon).

The past is the past: it cannot be changed, but it need not continually cripple the future. The creation of Israel is a complex and mixed story. There were injustices, outright subterfuges and duplicity from the beginning (think the “Balfour Declaration” and the Sykes-Picot Agreement). But very few nations have a “pure” genesis. My own country, Aotearoa New Zealand has its own shady bits in its history of creation and subsequent story. And most countries have suffered from the effects of colonisation. So Israel’s history is no more and no less a reason to say that it should not exist.

Over the intervening years, in the decades since 1948, there have been missed opportunities, and exercises in bad faith on both sides. Perhaps the aftermath of the conference reported on above was one missed opportunity. The continued occupation and the establishment of Israeli settlements on the West Bank is an instance of bad faith. Arguably, a missed opportunity and an instance of bad faith on the Palestinian side, came with the refusal of Yasser Arafat to accept the conditions offered by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak at the Camp David meeting hosted by President Bill Clinton in December 2000. Although the different assessments of the genuineness and fairness of those proposals indicates how difficult and complex, and often quite partisan, attempts at peace settlement are.[1]

On the other hand, there have been, and there are stories of goodwill and efforts at mutual understanding on both sides. Many Israelis, and Jews outside of Israel, recognise and support the Palestinian right to their own homeland, and oppose Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. A heartwarming account by Izzeldin Abuelaish tells of his experiences as a doctor living in Gaza who was able to work alongside Jewish colleagues in a hospital in Israel. His friends and colleagues in the hospital were genuinely and deeply concerned about the privations he experienced trying to cross the border from Gaza into Israel, and also for his and his family’s safety when the Israeli Defence Force shelled their home on one of its incursions into Gaza. Despite the fact that three of his daughters and a neice were killed when Israeli shells hit their home, Abuelaish believes Israelis and Palestinians can live together in peace if they can only get to know one another. Co-operation and co-existence are possible but politicians must take a lead in become “humanitarians”. [2]

We should not forget, too, that there are Palestinians who are Israeli citizens. There are, perhaps, sometimes questions to be asked about whether or not they are treated as “second class” citizens. That is an issue for Israeli society to determine and to fix if necessary. As an aside, I note that it was reported that Palestinian Israelis were among the first of those who rushed to help the vicitms of the Hamas militants’ recent incursion into Israel.[3]

The Two-State Solution.

A two-state solution, Israel and the State of Palestine, based on the 1967 borders should be established. A corridor for safe travel between the West Bank and Gaza will need to be enabled at a minimum, but I would hope that my suggestion of a Schengen-style arrangement outlined below would remove the need for that. Interestingly, Phyllis Bennis canvassing the possibilities for “an independent, viable, and sovereign State of Palestine in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem” goes on to write this:

   But as the construction of the Apartheid Wall and the continued expansion of the 440,000 settlers in huge city-sized settlements throughout the West Bank and East Jerusalem seem to make the creation of a viable Palestinian state impossible, more and more Palestinians are reconsidering the goal of creating a democratic secular or bi-national state in all of historic Palestine–encompassing what is now Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, and Jerusalem. Many, perhaps most Palestinians and at least a few Israelis, believe that over the long-term it is in the best interests of both peoples, even if there were an independent and sovereign Palestinian state, to create a single state, based on absolute equality for both nationalities and equal rights for all its citizens.[4]

For the present, it is perhaps a more realistic, though difficult enough objective to obtain a Palestinian State alongside Israel. I would suggest if such a state were to be created, the following parameters should obtain.

1.      Settlements: Of course, no new settlement should be built or begun in the West Bank, (nor within Palestinian areas of East Jerusalem). However, residents of the existing settlements should not be required to move, and existing settlements should not be dismantled. What should happen is that the Jewish residents there should become citizens of the Palestinian state just as there are Arab Israelis. They could, if they wished, choose to relocate within the borders of Israel. Hopefully, by adopting this policy, the angst, anger, and disruption that would likely ensue if settlements were dismantled, or residents evicted forcibly, would be avoided.

2.      There should be a common defence force, committed to the security of both states. Of course, each state could have its own police force, though there would be advantages to having a close cooperation between the two. Hopefully a common defence force would remove the possibility, or lessen the likelihood, of conflict between the two states.

3.      There should be a “Schengen-Area” type arrangement for travel and movement between the two states. That is, Israelis and Palestinians should be able to travel freely into each territory on  their passports or identification papers.

4.      The two states should work towards establishing a common economic zone and market (like the EU), but perhaps without the political structure (i.e. an EU-style parliament). The arrangement would be more of an economic-treaty affair. This would hopefully be also extended over time to include the whole region, and certainly including Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Egypt.

This will only really be workable if there is at the same time (both before and alongside) the creation of a two-state solution, a concerted effort by Israelis and Palestinians of goodwill to get to know one another.  Building up trust will be a long process. I imagine it may take several generations. There may need to be structural mechanisms (e.g. “Truth and Reconciliation Commissions”?) to address past hurts, injustices and misunderstandings. Certainly movements within civil society (some of which already exist) that promote peace and mutual understanding will need to be strengthened and broadened.

Finally, I know that it is always easy for those on the outside, and faraway to think they see where the problems lie and how to address them. Israelis and Palestinians will have to work this out themselves. Peace and mutual understanding, not to mention that ability to live together in close proximity, will be best achieved when they work out the strategies and processes that will enable a better future.

[Note: Phyllis Bennis, Inside Israel-Palestine: The Conflict Explained. Oxford: New Internationalist, 2007, provides a good question-and-answer introduction to the issue.  This is a good book to start with. A blog I wrote earlier, which appears below: "Israel/Palestine: A Lenten Course of Reading" (published April 22, 2020) contains a description of some other books, including the one by Izzeldin Abuelaish, and another by a Jewish American Rabbi Michael Lerner that includes some interesting proposals or "strategies" for dealing with the situation 

Leslie Stein, an Australian academic has written three books on the history of the creation and history of the State of Israel until 2014. They are: The Hope Fulfilled: The Rise of  Modern Israel. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003; The Making of Modern Israel 1948-1967. Cambridge, UK/Malden, MA: Polity, 2009; and Israel Since the Six-Day War: Tears of Joy, Tears of Sorrow. Polity, 2014.

Two excellent histories are: 

Anton La Guardia, Holy Land, Unholy War: Israelis and Palestinians. 3rd Edition; London: Penguin, 2007.

David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East. New York: Henry Holt, 1989.

Paul Danahar, The New Middle East: The World After the Arab Spring. London: Bloomsbury, 2013, has a couple of very interesting chapters on Israel, including one that gives an insight into the complexities of Israeli society.

Finally, Mitri Raheb, The Politics of Persecution: Middle Eastern Christians in an Age of Empire. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, has written an important book from a Palestinian Christian perspective, which covers the plight of Christians in the Middle East from 1799 until the Arab Spring. It includes an argument that the story of "persecuted Christians" is a Western construct to serve Western national interests.]

---

[1] For such different assessments, and, indeed, descriptions of the nature of the negotiations, see e.g. Leslie Stein, Israel Since the Six-Day War: Tears of Joy, Tears of Sorrow (Cambridge, UK; Malden, MA: Polity, 2014), 245–47, where he writes of the Palestinians missing “an historic opportunity” because they insisted on Israel coming their way “on all the issues on which it procrastinates” (his emphasis) including the right of Palestinians to return to their former homes. Anton La Guardia, Holy Land, Unholy War: Israelis and Palestinians (3^rd edition; London: Penguin, 2007) describes how “Prince Bandar, the Saudi ambassador in Washington, told Arafat his refusal to accept the Clinton parameters was ‘a crime’ against Palestinians and the Arab world.” (300). Phyliss Bennis, however, in Inside Israel-Palestine: The Conflict Explained (Oxford: New Internationalist, 2007), writes that Barak’s “‘generous offer’ was a myth” because it did not meet “the requirements of international law”, and because of that fact that “the disparity of power that had long characterized Israel-Palestinian negotiations remained unchallenged”, (see pp. 145–46). Assessments of bad faith often depend upon whose side one is on: or on perspectives determined by a particular stance.

[2] Izzeldin Abuelaish, I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor’s Journey on the Road to Peace and Human Dignity (London: Bloomsbury, 2011).

[3] The New Zealand Herald,  11/10/2023, A 17.

[4] Bennis, Inside Israel-Palestine: the Conflict Explained, 183–84; main quote on p. 184.

Critique and comment on Julian Batchelor's booklet, Stop Co-Governance

 

Julian Batchelor, Stop Co-Governance.

Clearing out Anna’s letterbox, while she’s away, I came across a little booklet. It is basically a lot of propaganda in an effort to discredit the concept of co-governance. Along the way it also attempts to trash the Waitangi Tribunal.

It’s also an extremely misleading document. That is being generous. It’s a combination of twisted history and conspiracy theory.

It begins like this, in outlining “The Problem”. “When asked about co-governance, many Kiwis think it’s harmless. They say things like “Oh, co-governance is not big deal. It’s just Maori and government governing the country together. I am OK with it. It’s simply power sharing…Nothing could be farther from the truth…Rather, it’s about private tribal companies and tribal representatives taking control of the country.” (4)

If indeed “many Kiwis” think that co-governance is about “Maori and government governing the country together” then they are seriously misinformed about what co-governance is. I suspect that this is just the first instance of the “spin” that Batchelor puts on the issue. He frequently refers, throughout his booklet, to “private tribal companies and tribal representatives” who are working to take over the country: to carry out a “coup”. Never once, does Batchelor say who he means by “private tribal companies”, or “tribal representatives”.

Batchelor states that co-governance arises out of a twisting of the Treaty of Waitangi. Though Batchelor acknowledges “Te Tiriti” as the document that Māori signed in 1840, he claims that it was based on an English draft called the “Littlewood draft”, which was the “final English draft” and represents in English what the te reo Māori version says.

There is no clear evidence that this is the English draft, from which the Māori version was made. As I understand it, the Māori version was translated by the missionary Henry Williams and his son Edward, from some notes made by William Hobson and a secretary, and a draft drawn up by James Busby. Claudia Orange, in The Story of A Treaty (2013), states that “Busby had added an important promise: that Britian would guarantee Māori possession of their lands, their forests, their fisheries and other prized possessions. Without that promise he was sure no one would sign.” (21).

This is important, because Batchelor wants to promote the “Littlewood draft” as the English original from which the Māori was drafted because the important second article which guaranteed these things does not specifically mention forests, fisheries etc. It reads: “The Queen of England confirms and guarantees to the chiefs and the tribes and to all the people of New Zealand, the possession of their lands, dwellings and all their property.” (Stop Co-Governance, 7).

I had not heard of the “Littlewood Draft”.  Batchelor says this about it: “It has this name because this draft was given to a lawyer by the  name of Henry Littlewood soon after the Treaty was signed at Waitangi. It went missing and was found in Auckland in 1989. Forensic analysis confirmed it was the final English draft. However, under pressure from activists, aided by politicians afraid of losing Maori votes, it was quickly taken out of sight by government officials and hidden away, to this day. [New paragraph]. When one compares the Treaty in Maori with the Littlewood draft, we could say that they are identical. This is how historians can tell that it was the Littlewood final draft which was used to draw up the Treaty in Maori in 1840.” (Stop Co-Governance, 6–7).

This is a very tendentious argument. It is unlikely that the Littlewood Draft existed before the drawing up of the Treaty. It is likely a document drawn up later (perhaps an attempt at getting at the gist of the Māori version?). If you want a “forensic analysis” of the Littlewood Draft, a good place to start would be to read a piece by Donald Loveridge, “The ‘Littlewood Treaty’: An Appraisal of Texts and Interpretation” (Google it). Appendix 1 will give you the text of the Littlewood draft; and Appendix 2 is the “English text of the Treaty of Waitangi sent to Sydney by Captain Hobson...etc” (which, given its source and dating, should be taken as the official English version, and is the one printed in most books about the Treaty). It should perhaps be noted in passing that is it probably impossible to get an exact (or truly equivalent) English translation of the Māori version, and exegeting the Māori (which is the version that should take precedence) is probably difficult and is what leads to the debates.

Batchelor also evokes the mythical (my word) “Tax Payer”. This generally means, it seems to me, the crowd that the writer wants to identify as the “Tax Payer”, and refers to the writer and his (or her) ilk. For instance, one suspects from the way that Batchelor writes, that Māori are not to be considered tax payers with a legitimate claim on how their taxes are used.  For example, he writes: “...New Zealand tax payers are funding private tribal companies/tribal representatives to take over their country.” (22) Later he claims that “Tribal Rule means that private tribal companies/tribal representatives will be completely running/controlling the country by 2040...99.5% of Kiwis will be disenfranchised.” (24). One might point out that somewhere between 12 to 15 percent of Kiwis identify as Māori.

Batchelor considers that “things started to really go wrong” with passing of the 1975 Treaty of Waitangi Act and the setting up of the Waitangi Tribunal. This exists to hear Māori claims to injustices, breaches to the Treaty and confiscations of Māori land carried out since the signing of the Treaty. “The Tribunal became a scam, a place where any Maori anywhere could bring a grievance, and then a claim, and the claim (i.e. cash and assets) would highly likely be honoured by the Tribunal.”  (11) This misrepresents the work of the Tribunal, where most cases are brought by tribes, or tribal entities and there is often a long process before any settlement is made. And while it is true that any Māori may make a claim, it is certainly not true, as Batchelor goes on to claim, that “only Maori could attend hearings” (11).

Batchelor cites a number of “historians”, and quotes some of their views. My impression is (from a Google search) that these persons would best be described as “amateur historians”, as their main training has been in some other field, e.g. engineering, or mathematics, and so forth. Somewhat surprisingly, he cites Sir Apirana Ngata in support of land confiscations. While he quotes Ngata correctly, he does so selectively. The quotation highlighted: “The confiscations cannot therefore be objected to in the light of the Treaty.” (Stop Co-Governance, 10), is followed immediately in the next paragraph by this statement: “The objections should be made in the light of the suffering of some of the tribes by reason of the confiscation of their lands.”

https://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-NgaTrea-t1-g1-t1.html  (p. 16)

The booklet Stop Co-Governance has been deemed an election advertisement by the Electoral Commission (and carries a statement to that effect in the back, although the author disputes the designation). The issue of co-governance is a large and contentious one in New Zealand at present. I will not go into it now, except to say that it takes various forms, and in some instances refers to a partnership at a local level (say over a given waterway) between Māori and non-Māori. It often entails the establishment of a board or committee of oversight that has representation of Māori on it, alongside local non-Māori members. A quick way in to it is to visit these links:

https://www.newsroom.co.nz/co-governance-its-nothing-like-you-think

https://oag.parliament.nz/2016/co-governance/part1.htm

And on the Waitangi Tribunal

https://www.waitangitribunal.govt.nz/about/

And from the above page, see link to Te Manutukutuku, Issue 69, January 2016, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Tribunal’s establishment.

A Prophet Without Honor: A Novel of Alternative History, by Joseph Wurtenbaugh

 

Imagine that, when Hitler moved to occupy and remilitarize the Rhineland in 1936, Britain and France had known that a secret order had been issued that the Wehrmacht was to immediately and peacefully withdraw to the frontier of the demilitarized zone, should there be any opposition from these two “Western” powers. This order was at the insistence of the Wehrmacht high command, who were opposed to this act of military aggression, because the rearmament of Germany had only just begun, and the German military would have easily been routed by quite a small force sent against it by either Britain or France.

            The premise of this novel is that what, in fact, happened was that the knowledge of this secret order was leaked to the British Government, who shared it with the leadership of France, so that, knowing that Hitler was bluffing, they stood up to his action, and forced the retreat of the German army. The consequence of this was that the Nazi regime fell, and the Third Reich ended then.

            This novel tells the story of how this came about. It details the life of a major actor in the betrayal of the order to the Western powers. This was a German Leutnant, Karl von Haydenreich, who was in the Abwehr, the German Army’s Intelligence Service, who gave the coded messages to Major Dwight D. Eisenhower, serving as a military attaché to the US Embassy in Berlin (and was Karl’s “god-father”) who then passed them on to an intelligence officer at the British Embassy. Von Haydenreich was receiving the information he passed on from General Kurt von Hammerstein Equord, Chief of the General Staff of the Wehrmacht (formerly the Reichswehr).

            The book is very interestingly plotted and the narration proceeds by means of a series of extracts from various sources: Autobiographies, and books, written by leading military men, a journal kept by Karl von Heydenreich, a book by Eisenhower, and various histories and accounts written by historians and others, as well as letter-extracts, and file notes. The extracts purportedly from historical characters are all fictional pieces.

The period covered is from before the birth of Karl, his upbringing and education in both Germany and, for a period, in a private school in England, his desire to study music and become a composer, and his eventual entry into the Reichswehr as an officer, and commission in the Abwehr. Through these devices, the reader learns about the motivations behind Karl von Heydenreich’s actions, and the influences upon him that led him to do what he did.

            The book also outlines the rise of Hitler and the Nazi Party, and gives a sense of what it was like to live in Nazi Germany. It also details such things as the casual racism, and anti-Semitic attitudes that existed in Germany even prior to the rise of Hitler. It profiles both Karl’s father, and his step-mother who had a major influence on him during his childhood and upbringing.

            In a note at the end of the book, Wurtenbaugh (the pen-name of Frank Dudley Berry) states that “the antics of Adolf Hitler described in the story, no matter how apparently excessive or bizarre, are all drawn from actual behaviors that he exhibited at various moments during his career.” (482). Whether the extreme and childish behaviour that is described at the climax of the story actually happened (in real life) is difficult to imagine. Hitler was certainly given to ranting and raving, and could work himself up into a frenzy. But he was also an actor, who could put on a show for effect: whether he would do something likely to demean himself in the eyes of others is questionable, although he did feel himself to be a “man of destiny” and considered himself so much in command of situations and other people that he probably felt immune from criticism or scorn.

            This book is also interesting from the point-of-view of the way in which it provides an insight into this period of history from various standpoints, and perspectives. It shows not only opposition to Nazi Germany but also support for it. It details the perils and difficulties of taking political decisions that are not popular because the reasons for them are not understood or known by the general populace.

            This is a work of historical fiction, and as the author says, also of “alternative historical fiction”. Where there are actual, historical figures appearing, their careers have been “significantly re-imagined” (ix). It is a book that captures something of the essence of what it must have been like to have lived through the early years of Nazi Germany (and, in some senses, what it was like throughout the period of the Third Reich).

(Novel self-published by Frank Dudley Berry, Jr. in 2017)

America the Superhero

I have suspected for some time that some Americans believe too literally in their action movies. In particular, they think that the superhero approach to solving the world’s problems, which they see in these types of films, is the answer. Now I have some support for this suspicion, in a book by Robert Jewett and John Shelton Lawrence called Captain America and the Crusade against Evil: The Dilemma of Zealous Nationalism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003).

            The authors describe what they call the crusading zealous nationalism that characterises much of the approach that the United States takes to the rest of the world. This mirrors the myth of “Captain America”, a cartoon character dedicated to saving the world and securing it for freedom and democracy, by the use of violence if necessary (it generally is). America’s sense of being “Captain America” in the world has a long history and is deeply embedded in the national consciousness. It had its foundations in the Puritan impulse to religious violence: to “convert” the world to its view of how things should be by force. When the first missionaries were sent to Hawaii, the Rev. Heman (ironic name) Humphrey preached a sermon in 1819 comparing their missionary endeavours to ancient Israel’s conquest of Canaan (p. 251).

            Another motivation for America’s crusading zeal is its sense of Manifest Destiny. Many Americans see their nation as fulfilling the role of a “city on a hill”, taking the benefits of their way of life to other nations. They see their nation as “innocent”, and unready to resort first to violence, but needing to do so in the face of evil forces ranged against it (or threatening to take over other nations). Feeding this sense of mission is the tendency towards conspiracy theories: perhaps the most obvious one in the twentieth century was the “domino theory” of the fall of South-East Asian nations to communism, if nothing were done to stop its spread from North Vietnam.

            The book traces the story of American “Captain America” syndrome and “redemptive violence” from its early days, through the Mexican-American war (1846–48), the Spanish-American war (1898), two world wars, the wars in Korea and Vietnam, through to the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan following the attacks on 9/11. Alongside the “Captain America” syndrome, the belief in conspiracy, sits a tendency to think, speak, and act against stereotypes: “the Hun”, “Japs” “Gooks,” or “Arabs”. To be fair, this is a general human tendency, not confined to Americans.

            One of the most common, and in a sense dangerous, stereotypes is found in the “good guy/bad guy” rhetoric. This stereotype, and its association with movies, is captured nicely in a story they tell of Reagan’s annoyance when his space based defense initiative was given the moniker “Star Wars”. Reagan saw it as a defensive stratagem and a move to ensure peace. In fact, a defence analyst Fred Reed stated that “Star Wars, if it works, will be an offensive weapon of absolute power” (p. 118, italics original). A film scholar Michael Rogin “reviewed Reagan’s movies and discovered that, in Murder in the Air (1940), [Reagan] played an agent maintaining the secrecy and security of ‘the Inertial Projector’, which ‘stops and destroys anything that moves.’ It had just the qualities sought for in Captain America’s religion of defense.” (119) Richard Perle, Reagan’s “brilliant young assistant secretary of defense, told colleagues that he thought the name [Star Wars] wasn’t so bad. ‘Why not,’ he said, ‘It’s a good movie. Besides, the good guys won’.” (p.107, quoting Frances FitzGerald, Way Out There in the Blue: Reagan, Star Wars, and the End of the Cold War, New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000, p. 39).

            In my opinion, the “good guy/bad guy” stereotype is particularly dangerous as it is applied as a defence of gun ownership. “Good guys” have to own guns, and, no doubt, carry them, so as to be ready to stop the “bad guys” with guns. The problem is that most people with guns are considered “good guys” until they go bad. The idea that a “good guy” carrying a gun will be able to pre-emptively stop a “bad guy” killing with a gun is most of the time pure fantasy.

            On the subject of guns, Jewett and Lawrence have a fascinating passage that is worth quoting in full. They write about the mystique of violence that has “imparted a distinctive character to American wars” (p. 254), rising first from Mexican war, and helping to “prepare the way for the Civil War in the 1860s”. They write:

As Michael Bellesiles has shown, the Civil War also ‘altered the national character’ and showed ‘the need for one American to be able to kill another’ with a firearm. For the first time in American history, guns had been made widely available by mass production, and they were in popular use. While guns had rarely played a significant role in American life for its first two hundred years, the Colt Company had begun in the 1840s to merchandize its pistols with mythic engravings of men defending their families against Indians with a Colt pistol. It was after the Civil War that the company perfected revolvers that would fire self-contained metal cartridges, which Colt called ‘the Peacemaker.’ According to Bellesiles, ‘The Wichita Eagle reported in May 1874 that ‘Pistols are as thick as blackberries.’ By that time a gun seemed to most men a requisite for their very identity…The Civil War transformed the gun from a tool into a perceived necessity. The war preserved the Union, unifying the nation around a single icon: the gun.’” (p. 255, quoting Bellesiles, Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture, New York: Vintage Books, 2000, pp. 429, 379, 430).

I suspect that the fondness of many Americans for the gun (leaving aside arguments derived from the Second Amendment) stems from the depiction of much gun violence in action and superhero movies. Apart from the fact that the hero has nine lives (if not more), the amount of shooting and blowing things up that goes on, makes it difficult to know who’s a “good guy” and who’s a “bad guy”.

            Against “zealous nationalism” Jewett and Lawrence place “the tradition of prophetic realism.” This, they state, “avoids taking the stances of complete innocence and selflessness. It seeks to redeem the world for coexistence by impartial justice that claims no favored status for individual nations.” (8) They use the description “prophetic realism” a little loosely at times, I feel, as it sometimes stands simply for anything opposed to zealous nationalism, even if the motivating factor is more likely to be pragmatic politics.

            Their book is itself an exercise in prophetic realism, and is well worth reading and pondering. While it is one thing to look at the United States from the outside (as a non-American) and consider its faults, it is both heartening and welcome to see that prophets within provide cogent and clear critique. They are the best prophets: hopefully not without honour.