BOOK REVIEW In-Sen! Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny by Amartya Sen
Reviewed by Chan Akya
I finally managed to finish reading Amartya Sen's Identity and Violence: The
Illusion of Destiny, having had to put the book down out of sheer
tedium more than once in the past few weeks. This article is not only a book
review, though; having had enough time to work on the arguments, my attempt
will be to define the illusion of illusions. As in previous posts, I will
highlight the economic underpinnings of today's conflicts, which have long
since crossed
over from a sociological phenomenon.
Given the number of world events that have occurred during recent years,
including the daily bloodbath in Iraq, the Israel-Lebanon situation, a foiled
terrorist attack in the United Kingdom, terrorist outrages in India and a
hardening of US rhetoric, it would be fair to say that my attention was drawn
back to this book a multitude of times.
Hoping against experience, I expected later parts of the tome to put forward
more cogent arguments than the "can't we all just get along" rhetoric that
populates the first few pages.
UK examples
Sen's basic premise, repeated ad nauseam throughout the book, is that narrow
definitions of identity help to foment violence. Using Jean-Paul Sartre's quote
that "the anti-Semite makes the Jew", Sen goes on to explain that the
prejudicial treatment of Muslims is the main cause of their turning to
violence. That argument, which is specious on many counts prima facie, fails
Sen in the most mundane fashion - by homogenizing the causes for Muslims to
adopt violent means, Sen himself falls into an identity trap of tarring all the
"oppressors" of Muslims with the same brush. Implicitly, he assumes that
everyone treats Muslims badly, thereby eliciting a necessary backlash.
That argument falls flat when you consider the relative freedoms offered in the
West for Muslims to practice their religion. Using the UK as an example,
Muslims enjoy substantial religious freedom, and can claim the protection
offered to everyone else by the courts and the bureaucracy. Yet this is the
same community that has been polarized and indeed galvanized into extremism
over the past few years. Based in Cambridge, Sen had a singular opportunity to
demonstrate the underlying frustrations that have pushed British Muslim youth
toward extremism; it is quite sad that he misses the opportunity in the book.
In study after study, [1, 2] British education authorities have pointed out
that students from Caribbean, Pakistani and Bangladeshi backgrounds lag their
peers from Indian and "white" backgrounds. The lagging communities have turned
away from society as a result, with people from a Caribbean background more
likely to commit petty crimes such as theft, and therefore 10 times as likely
to be subjected to random stop and search. [3] The response from the other two
communities has been jarringly different, with Bangladeshis more likely to
become business people, particularly in sectors such as hotels and restaurants.
While many British businesses are successfully managed by Pakistanis, that
community also appears to contribute the greatest proportion of cannon fodder
to extremist causes. One of the reasons given for Pakistanis to join extremist
causes, by Sen and others, is that the British police are more likely to stop
and search Asians than white people - even though the same statistics show that
people of Caribbean descent have a worse experience.
Unlike Sen, I believe the answer lies in assessing the opportunities for
advancement and the sense of entitlement that people possess. Even if the UK
(apparently) provides all ethnic groups with opportunities for advancement,
some groups such as Armenians and Bangladeshis take these up better than other
groups such as Pakistanis. This leaves us with the other part of the paradigm,
namely entitlement and needs.
Saudi Arabia and the need for Islamic reform
Looking at Saudi society as a parallel example, basic needs of the population
are well fulfilled. However, social structures do not allow for mobility, as
the ruling family controls most physical wealth, access to capital and even the
informational infrastructure. In essence, there is no upside for young people,
and nothing to gain through hard work or innovation.
To say that Saudi Arabia missed the greatest opportunity for development in
recent decades would be trite, but also true. The ruling family's overarching
greed to control all wealth restricted it from venturing into various business
areas that could have easily been funded with oil wealth. Instead, the family
may have allowed itself to be persuaded by economic "hitmen", [4] paying for
projects that in essence repatriated oil profits to the United States.
The result is that despite oil wealth, Saudi Arabia has neither the hardware
talents of China nor the software exports of India that could supplement its
oil revenues. Its population stands around, rich on oil wealth but poor in
human-development terms. [5] Comparisons to the Spanish Empire, which plundered
the world's gold without creating any industry to sustain its wealth and
therefore imploded, seem too obvious from this point.
Attempts to circumvent social strictures have put Saudis against both the
ruling family and religious institutions. This mixture of feudalism with
ecclesiastical orthodoxy disallows social reforms in the most violent fashion.
Thus an attempt to provide democracy within traditional Bedouin society is
bound to fail, while railing against the world's Jews conforms to the
establishment's policy of channeling anger externally.
Here then is a case where people could define themselves as any number of
things - Saudi citizen, Arab, Sunni Muslim, religious worker, government
employee, etc - but choose instead the label of anti-Semite. After the events
of September 11, 2001, provided Arabs with a sense of the possibility to wage
asymmetric warfare on the West, other targets such as the United States and
Europe have been added to the list. It is my contention that Arabs have chosen
the label of "anti-West", rather than having had it foisted on them.
Going back to the British example, the unemployed Pakistani is likely to hail
from an economically backward area. Poverty, rather than ethnic background,
acts as the key incitement of race hatred. [6] When you mix people with nothing
to lose (British Pakistanis) and those with nothing to gain (Saudi youth), the
result is such tragedies as the London transit-system bombings in July last
year, and the (foiled) plot to blow up airliners this year. The common thread
to the misery is unfortunately provided by the shared religion, hence the
phrase "Islamic extremists".
My points in a previous article [7] about Islam failing its followers centered
on extremists hijacking the moderate agenda. Instead of focusing on measures
that could free pent-up social frustrations, the extremist agenda of focusing
on external threats has taken center stage, with disastrous consequences.
Religious reform would remove the link, which is why extremists target
moderates more aggressively.
What about Garfield?
All that about Sen's putative victim to one side, where does the United States
fit into all this?
As I wrote in a previous article, [8] the US has lost its competitive edge in
manufacturing. Ford contemplates dismembering itself, while General Motors
mulls an alliance with the French (mon Dieu!). The simple fact is that
after the Cold War ended, US innovation stopped dead in its tracks. Evaluate
the engineering aspects of any American car, and you are likely to walk away
completely unimpressed. A six-liter engine used by US car companies produces
the same power as an engine half that size from the Germans, and one-third of
the size by the Japanese (tuned, admittedly). Leave out engineering, and simple
design dynamics don't work either - Detroit has not produced a single desirable
car in the past decade.
The United States came to the forefront of righting human-rights wrongs such as
racism, but only when its economic prosperity was threatened by the status quo.
Now, America's lost competitiveness in manufacturing come alongside its
declining demographics (when keeping immigrants out of calculations), and
rising threats from the likes of India and China in all areas of the global
economy that it currently dominates. In this high-pressure economic
environment, rising geopolitical risks argue for an unwelcome acceleration of
the country's transition. Much like a worker who becomes a wife-beater when
threatened with losing his job, the US lashes out, with its anger directed
toward garnering any resource advantage that it can to lengthen its reign at
the top.
Sen's book fails because he refuses to evaluate the impact of underlying
economic imperatives on social behavior, instead looking at prejudices as a
"given". The United States is fated to relinquish its position as an economic
superpower sooner rather than later. The Middle East has no institutions to
support the transition of its society from oil-based wealth to that derived
from competitive products and services. The countries that have the skills to
become the next economic superpowers, namely China and India, should stay on
the sidelines as the tragedy unfolds.
Notes
[1] "Educational Inequality" by David Gillborn and Heidi Safia Mirza, November
2000.
[2] "Ethnic Segregation and Educational Performance at Secondary School in
Bradford and Leicester" by Ron Johnston et al, March 2006.
[3] British Crime Survey 2002/03.
[4] Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins; see also
Usinfo.state.gov for the US government's denial.
[5] United Nations Development Program Human Development Report, 2005. [6] The
Economist, December 13, 2001. [7] See
Islam and the absence of Chinese terrorists,
Asia Times Online, August 26, 2006.
[8]
Garfield with guns, Asia Times Online, September 2, 2006.
Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny by Amartya Sen. W W
Norton (March 27, 2006). ISBN: 0393060071. Price US$24.95, 224 pages.
times.
Hoping against experience, I expected later parts of the tome to put forward
more cogent arguments than the "can't we all just get along" rhetoric that
populates the first few pages.
