The Washington Outsider

Proper Governance In Africa, The Middle East, And Beyond Through Equal Representation And National Identities

1/16/2019

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​Governments that fail to maintain the support of the populations they govern face destabilizing civil unrest that only intensifies over the course of time.  Their failure to represent the Peoples of the territories they preside over and their refusal to respond to the interests of their Peoples also leaves governments without the pro-social imperatives they need.  Instead of managing communities in ways that cultivate healthy civil societies, which provide for the needs of the Peoples, dysfunctional governments cater to special interest groups and their own interests.  In neglecting the needs of their Peoples, and therefore the needs of their societies, dysfunctional governments transform themselves into burdens and ensure their inevitable devise.  Governments must, therefore, equally serve all the Peoples they govern, i.e. government must provide for equal representation and protection.  Although most modern people can agree to this simple principle, those in government tend to favor groups they prefer.  It is a failure of political leaders around the world to transcend their geographic, ethnic, cultural, religious, and political affiliations to serve their national communities.  This is a consequence of political leaders lacking a true national identity.  
​The groups people belong to help define their identity.  Their membership to the community they live in defines their geographic and communal identity.  Their ethnicity and cultural background help define their cultural identity.  Their religious and political views help define their ideological identity.  All of these and others make up a person’s social identity.  Depending upon where people live and their circumstances in life, individuals tend to belong to various overlapping social circles due to their complex social identities.  Those with more transient social and cultural identities tend to belong to more, larger social circles; whereas, the social and cultural identities of others rarely overlap, which means they tend to belong to smaller social circles.  Because differences between social circles often translate into conflicts, populations with less transient identities tend to conflict more often and more intensely with those who do not belong in their social circles.  In terms of governance, it is necessary to forge national identities that overlap with all social circles .  Only by forging such a national identity will political leaders feel obliged to serve the interests of all individual and all individuals feel secure in supporting national governments.
 
To understand the importance of national identity, what is needed to forge one, and how one can be bolstered, it is helpful to look at places were national identities are abstain or weak.  The Middle East and Africa have extremely complicated social orders that require first-hand knowledge of their various subcultures and robust microscopic analysis, but a macroscopic analysis of the power dynamics in these regions reveals a great deal about their struggle to form unifying national identities as well as the tendency of established and rising leaders to cater to the interest of their own factions instead of the common good.  To contrast the two regions, African nations have been struggling with ill-democratic governance and a failure to build mutually beneficial, unifying national identities far longer than Middle Eastern nations.  The ability of authoritarian governments in the Middle East to suppress weaker factions and force disenfranchised factions to abide by the national rule of the ruling factions afforded the region years of stability.  Since the Arab Spring Revolutions began, however, Middle Eastern powers have increasingly lost their ability to oppress disenfranchised fractions and force unified rule.
 
From Africa, where there has long been, at least, a superficial attempt to embrace democratic rule, the inability to form national identities stems from a lack of trust in their political systems and those empowered by those systems.  Democracy has too often been abused by those who seek power for their own factions as simply a means to legitimately seize power then consolidate and solidify control over the power of the state for a single faction.  For those who cannot abide by the results of elections, due to this inherent distrust, power-sharing arrangements have become a means to defuse civil unrest, but they also tend to tenuously secure power for two or more major factions while preventing the culturally evolution needed to create truly democratic nations with unifying national identities.  From the Middle East, it should be obvious that people cannot be coerced to embrace national identities.  National identities are the product of citizens feeling as though they are members and beneficiaries of national communities.  People need to have an strong enough interest in supporting their nations to transcend their ethnic, cultural, religious, and political identities in order to embrace their national identities, e.g. an American becomes an American when he or she feels empowered by the aspirations of traditional American ideals.
 
Unfortunately, Africa has received very little attention from Western world powers since the 1990s.  Nongovernmental organizations, aid programs, and regional governing bodies allowed Western powers, especially the United States, to place their Africa foreign policies on the back-burner.  Since the 1980s and early 1990s, Latin America has experienced this same kind of passive engagement thanks to free trade agreements and a slew of hands-off programs.  It is a product of the limited successes and failures of past foreign policy engagement as well as an attempt to limit the commitment of world powers to foreign policy endeavour beyond those that serve their preferred causes.  Instead of addressing foreign issues world powers have struggled to resolve, they have launched initiatives that attempt to build on past areas of success.  In the case of the Middle East, world power have failed to stem issues like armed conflict and transition authoritarian governments into democracies.  Where the Obama Administration embraced hands-off policies like drone strikes and continually attempted to pivot to Asia, the Trump Administration is steadily withdrawing from the Middle East.  Thanks to events like the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi Arabia and Turkey’s attempt to bend US military objectives to its interests, the US is increasingly unable to find common ground with its regional partners, which means the US is likely to further disengage from the Middle East.
 
If America’s pattern of passive engagement, partial-disengagement holds true and other world powers more or less follow the lead of the United States, world leaders will be attempting to launch hands-off initiatives to passively address the underlying issues in the Middle East.  In doing so, they would be wise to examine the role of national identity.  They would also be wise to reexamine their initiates in regions like Africa and South America.  Although authoritarian governments of the Middle East and their grip on power are major hurdles, the advantage of the Middle East is that the Muslim world is globalizing like the rest of the world, which means Muslims of all factions and nationalities are embracing a global Muslim identity.  This unity identity actually sets the stage for democratic, albeit illiberal, governance as it can unite people in the pursuit of their common interests.  With that in mind, the same lessons should be applied to world powers.  The Peoples of the United States, Europe, and elsewhere are losing their unifying national identities to political division and the egocentric tendencies cultivated by modern culture.  Instead of considering themselves Republicans or Democrats, for example, Americans on the Right and Left need to see themselves and those who hold opposing views as Americans.  White Americans, Black Americans, and Hispanic Americans need to see the benefit in recognizing each other as just Americans.  Christian and non-Christian Americans must also learn how to see each other as simply Americans.
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        • Should the Government Control Talk Radio to Make it More "balanced"?
      • How the People Are Lost in the Extremes of 'Right' and 'Left' in Politics
      • Should One's Faith Influence a Citizen's Vote?
      • Should the U.S. Government Help Fund Election Campaigns?
      • On Defunding Political Science Research
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      • Justice for All: The Case for Legal, Social, Economic, and Personal Justice
      • Why Hardliner Thinking in the NSA and CIA is Doing Damage
      • On the Baby Boomer’s Self-Centeredness
      • The Case for Personal Responsibility
      • What Modern Day Revolutionaries Need to Learn from Leader's like Mandela
      • Rising Western Acceptance of LGBT Primes Culture Clash
      • The Need for Wisdom Beyond the Numbers
      • Perceptions of the United States
      • How Honesty Relates to the Great Recession
      • Why the Middle Class and Rich Need to Support Their Long-term Interests
      • The Aristocratic Republic of the United States of America
      • Discussing the Need for Community Support
      • Why New Forms of Capitalism and Socialism Will Compliment Each Other
      • The Reason We Need to Understand What it is to Be Poor in America
      • Why the World Needs to Reinvest in America
      • Why Are We Against Terrorism?
      • Why Does Terrorism Exist?
      • US Influence: The Value of American Citizenship Around the World
      • Responding to "the Soldier as Sacrficial Victim"
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      • How comfort defines us as people >
        • Is Suicide a Cowardly Way Out?
      • Defense Against the Dark Arts of Manipulators
      • Defining Abuse >
        • On the Willing Victim of Abuse
        • How to Understand Abuse Victims
        • Recognizing Abuse
      • The Role of Substitution in Decision Making
      • Trying to Understand PTSD and Other Trauma-induced Mental Health Issues
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        • Mental Illness is Not the Cause of Anger and Violence >
          • Trying to Understand the Boston Marathon Bombing and Other Violent Crimes
          • Getting into the Twisted Mind of the Tucson Murder
      • Describing the Mind as Modes of Thought >
        • It’s Just Sex?
      • Relationships, or Arrangement
      • Understanding the Effects of Groupthink in the Workplace
      • Relating Circular, Inductive, and Deductive Reasoning to the Scientific Method and Religion
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      • The Need for Greater Economic Leverage >
        • Evaluating NAFTA and TPP
        • Undercutting Logistics with the Underpaid Independent Contractor
        • Unions: Hindrance or Essential to Free Markets
        • Eminent Domain Used Against Banks
        • Haitians Sue the UN for Failure to Help With Cholera
        • Looking at How Corn-based Ethanol and Other Alternative Energy Subsidies Stack Up
      • Empowering the Sovereign Nation-State by Rethinking Trade Policy >
        • Irish Sovereignty Lost Before Bailout
        • Why Sudan's Greatest Long-Term Hurdle is Our Lowest-bidder Economy
        • Reduce US Imports by Buying American Made Products
      • Ending the need for government support and tackling poverty
      • Income inequality: understanding the limitations and psychology of disadvantage
      • Looking at the Future of American Jobs >
        • On Questioning the Need to Address Economic Disparity
        • Minimum Wage is Not the Problem
        • Responding to the "Blip"
        • Why Education Is Not The Civil Rights Issue Of The Twenty-First Century
      • Considering the Impact of the Capital Gains Tax Deduction
      • Embracing a Capitalist Mindset >
        • Capitalism Versus Socialism
        • The Negatives of Socialism
      • Stealing Intellectual Property
      • Changing Business Models: From Enduring Entities to Cash Cows
      • Consumer and Investor Evolution in the Great Recession of 2008-09
      • Dealing with the Issues Surrounding the Patenting of Self-replicating Technologies
      • Is Technology Threatening Jobs?
    • Education >
      • The Role of Education in Creating a More Dynamic Workforce
      • Primary Education in America and the Changing Needs of Society
      • The Greatness of the American Education System
      • Ideas for Improving the United States Education System
      • Are Teachers Treated as Professionals?
      • Is Engaging Parents in Their Children's Education a Major Factor in Turning Around Low-performing Schools?
      • Should Grants Be Awarded to School Districts that Try Innovative Methods to Improve Student Achievement?
    • US Constitution >
      • On Reading the US Constitution
      • The Senate should not do more to limit the powers of the Judicial Branch
      • On the DOJ Justifying the “targeted Killings” of US Citizens
      • Corporations Do Not Have the Same Rights as US Citizens >
        • Corporate America Pleads the First
      • Discussing the Constitutionality of Per Capita Taxes
      • Was the California Supreme Court Right in Legalizing Gay Marriage?
      • Should the Bible Continue to Be Used for Swearing-in Ceremonies and in Courtrooms?
      • Should Religious Student Clubs Be Allowed in Public Schools?
      • Should the Government Control Talk Radio to Make it More "balanced"?
      • The Second Amendment: Not Outdated >
        • Are We Losing Our Second Amendment Rights
      • Eminent Domain Used Against Banks
      • Should a Woman Have the Right to Choose Abortion? >
        • Should Fathers Be Able to Opt Out of Parenthood?
      • Should Smoking Be Allowed in Public Places?
      • Is Teen Driving a Right or a Privilege?
      • Should US Companies Be Required to Provide Equal Pay to Women and Men?
      • Is eighteen too young to vote?
      • First Amendment Rights: The Priviledge of The Press
      • Do Mandatory Seat Belt Laws Violate Individual Rights?
      • Should cell phone use be banned while driving?
      • Dealing with the link between video game violence and children's behavior
      • Should police have to submit to routine drug and alcohol testing?
      • Public schools should not impose mandatory drug testing on students
      • Are High Taxes on Cigarettes Proper?
      • Should pharmacists be required to violate their religious beliefs and dispense the "Morning After Pill?"
      • Should school counselors uphold patient privacy or report students who become unstable?
  • For the record
    • Ongoing Issues >
      • Red Dawn in Ukraine: Understanding the Actions of Russia >
        • On Russia’s Coercion of Ukraine
        • The Russian Annexation of Crimea in the Eyes of the World
        • Putin Has Overplayed His Hand With Crimea
        • Ukraine in Terms of Resovereignization
        • Avoiding a Conflict Between America and Russia Over Ukraine
        • What Drives the World’s Interest in Russia’s Actions in Ukraine
      • China’s Aggressive Pursuit of Interests Demands a Global Response
      • Iran Makes a Deal: A Start to a Long-term Diplomatic Effort to Denuclearize Iran >
        • On the Future of a Nuclear Negotiations with Iran
      • America's Sphere of Influence: Retaking South-East Asia >
        • Power in Asia: Looking at the Power Shift in Japan
        • The China Paradox: Why America is Worried About China
      • Assessing US Support of Israel >
        • Tread Softly Israel for a Heavy Step May Be Your Undoing
      • Understanding the Dysfunctional Nature of the US-Pakistani Relationship
      • Recognizing the True Threat Behind the Current Unrest in the Middle East >
        • Reacting to the Escalating Crackdown in Syria
      • Assessing the Threat of North Korea >
        • Answering North Korea's Call for Food Aid: Breaking the Vicious Cycle Forced Upon Us by a Warring Nation
        • Dealing with the Restarting of the Korean War
        • North Korea Attacks South Korea
      • Dealing with the Ill-effects of Climate Change
      • Racial Inequality and Oppression Do Truly Exist in Today's Society
      • Should energy independence be a high priority in the US?
      • An overview of world wide Human Rights violations
      • Nuclear Threat from Pakistan
      • Return of The Cold War?
    • World >
      • Coverage of FIFA World Cup is a Chance to Focus on Poverty >
        • The FIFA World Cup Offers Benefits for More Than Brazilian Soccer Fans
        • FIFA Can Bring Brazilians Together as a Nation
      • Being Prepared for Any Potential Dangers at the FIFA World Cup Games
      • Treading Softly on the Politicizing of the 2014 Sochi Olympics Over Gay Rights
      • Why NATO Operations in Libya Lack a Well-defined Mission
      • China Hijacks the Web
      • Lessons from the Great Japanese Earthquake of 2011
      • A Modernizing Cuba Offers an Opportunity for Capitalists
      • The Seeds of Democracy Take Root in the Middle East
      • The Rebirth of Democracy in Tunisia
      • What May Come from the Hurt Revolution in Libya
      • Responding to the Violence of Qaddafi and Other Besieged Leaders
      • Embracing the Rise of a Democratic Egypt
      • Protests in Afghanistan Turn Deadly for Coalition Forces and UN Personnel
      • Haiti: Another Failing Humanitarian Investment
      • What Karzai Can Learn from Calderon
      • START II: A Necessary, Easy Success that Nearly Failed
      • Why Does the U.S. Government Support Independence for the Breakaway Serb Territory of Kosovo but Oppose Independence for the Breakaway Georgian Territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia?
      • Iraq's Electric Issues: When Human Wants Trump Economic Sense
      • The International Community Reacts to Wikileaks: We May Be Moving Toward a Third World War in Cyberspace
      • On Climate Gate
      • Assessing Obama's Afghanistan War strategy
      • 2009 Iranian Presidential Election: The Fallout
      • Resolving Sri Lankan Conflict through Free Media
      • What are the Global Consequences of Russia's Invasion of Georgia
      • The War in Iraq: an assessment of President Bush's surge strategy
      • Drug War: Actions of Venezuela, Columbia, Ecuador in terms of Resovereignization
      • Is the Iraq Refugee Crisis America's Responsibility?
      • US support for a united Kosovo, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia: why?
      • Should the US withdraw from Iraq?
      • Setting a Timetable for Troop Withdrawal from Iraq is a Terrible Mistake
      • War on Terrorism is needed
    • Law and Order >
      • Rape in the US Military
      • Ethics of Force-feeding Guantanamo Bay Detainees
      • Reacting to the Aftermath of the Tucson Massacre
    • Economy >
      • Affordability Drives Fear of Obamacare and the Individual Mandate
      • Is the Economy Built for a Job's Recovery?
      • Gutting Healthcare Reform of the Individual Mandate
      • Arizona Budget Cuts Lead to Lethal Healthcare Rationing:
      • Shameful Collection Practices of American Banks
      • The Fed Reveals it Actually Undertook an International Bailout
      • Thoughts on French Budgetary Reforms
      • Seniors Start Businesses
      • The Case for Slimming Down the US Military to Make it Better
      • Looking at the Obama Administration's New Approach to Economic Policy
      • Should the Government Regulate the Credit Card Industry?
      • The Big Three's Big Chance
      • The Unhealthy Tone of the Healthcare Reform Debate
      • Should the federal government offer a bailout for home owners?
      • Environmentalists: Do They Do More Good Than More Harm?
      • Responding to Scott Walker's Contribution to the War on Unions
    • US Government >
      • America Needs to Focus on the Impending Fiscal Crisis
      • Reacting to the Bush Era-tax Cut Extension Deal
      • Quitting the Obama Revolution: The Fickle Nature of American Politics
      • John Boehner's Circus
      • Is the Fed Putting Itself in Jeopardy?
      • Wikileaks Goes After the US State Department
      • Discussing the Political Environment Surrounding the 2011 Budget Debate
      • What the Democrats Can Do to Ensure a GOP Year in 2012
      • What the 2010 Midterm Actually Said
      • Congresswoman Kathy Dahlkemper
      • Democrats Minus Nancy Pelosi Equals Opportunity
      • Terrorists Go Postal: The Terrorism Threat Reexamined
      • Victory in the 2008 Election: Reaction to Barack Obama'a Win >
        • Expectations for Barack Obama
      • President Obama's first one hundred days
      • John McCain's Negative Campaign
      • Reasons People did not Elect John Mccain
      • History judges the George W. Bush Administration
      • Should the next US President focus on domestic issues?
      • President Bush, should he resign or be impeached
      • Should the Ban on Government Sponsored Assassinations be Repealed
    • Off Topic >
      • A Face of America’s Greatest Generation
      • A Story About a Man Who Made the World a Better Place
      • Making the World a Better Place
      • The Bipolar Ethical Nature of Google
      • Learning Computer Plays Jeopardy
      • Verifying Medicine is the Real Thing
      • Taking a Practical Step Forward in Optical Computing Using Slow Light
      • Scientists Take a Closer Look at How Lithium Batteries Work
      • Remarking on the First Blizzard of the 2010-2011 Winter Season
      • Driving in the Snow: Acceleration is the Key
      • How People in Northwest PA Are Coping with the Increasing Cost of Oil
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