Trump links terrorism to unstable Muslim countries
It was a passage from his executive order which gained my attention this morning and jolted my memory of a visa refusal.
‘Numerous foreign-born individuals have been convicted or implicated in terrorism-related crimes since September 11, 2001, including foreign nationals who entered the United States after receiving visitor, student, or employment visas, or who entered through the United States refugee resettlement program. Deteriorating conditions in certain countries due to war, strife, disaster, and civil unrest increase the likelihood that terrorists will use any means possible to enter the United States.’
In May 2004 I’d been returning from Eastern Europe with an American citizen carrying a visitor visa to the UK when he was refused entry on the grounds of being a suspected economic migrant.
A year earlier he’d been working in Crimea developing a social enterprise proposal for a Muslim community. In his project plan he reflected on a warning made some years earlier, to President Bill Clinton:
‘Once a nation or government puts people in the position of defending their own lives, or that of family and friends, and they all will die if they do nothing about it, at that point all laws, social contracts and covenants end. Laws, social contracts and covenants define civilization. Without them, there is no civilization at all, there is only the law of the jungle: kill, or be killed. This is where we started, tens of thousands of years ago.
‘By leaving people in poverty, at risk of their lives due to lack of basic living essentials, we have stepped across the boundary of civilization. We have conceded that these people do not matter, are not important. Allowing them to starve to death, freeze to death, die from deprivation, or simply shooting them, is in the end exactly the same thing. Inflicting or allowing poverty on a group of people or an entire country is a formula for disaster.
‘These points were made to the President of the United States near the end of 1996. They were heard, appreciated and acted upon, but unfortunately, were not able to be addressed fully and quickly due primarily to political inertia. By way of September 11, 2001 attacks on the US out of Afghanistan — on which the US and the former Soviet Union both inflicted havoc, destruction, and certainly poverty — I rest my case. The tragedy was proof of all I warned about, but, was no more tragedy than that left behind to a people in an far corner of the world whom we thought did not matter and whom we thought were less important than ourselves.
‘We were wrong.’
At Monterey in 2002, world leaders had acknowledged that while there is no direct causal effect on terrorism, poverty creates a seed bed i n which extremist ideologies will flourish. It was therefore a matter of enlightened self-interest to ensure such conditions did not develop.
From this perspective, it would be those who inflict conditions of poverty on others who could be regarded as non patriots who “place violent ideologies over American Law”
Clinton had been warned in 1996, that terrorism would likely flourish because the have-nots already live in terror:
‘When in self-defense mode, kill or be killed, there is no civilization at all. It is the law of the jungle, where we started eons ago. In that context, ‘terrorism’ will likely flourish because it is ‘terrorism’ only for the haves, not for the have-nots. The have-nots already live in terror, as their existence is threatened by deprivation, and they have the right to fight back any way they can.’
Writing in 1939 of Nazi Germany, journalist Malcolm Muggeridge had observed:
“By such means it is possible for an unscrupulous and ruthless minority to impose its dictatorship on the majority; to make them obedient, apparently amenable to any policy, however violent and inconsistent, and to inculcate them with any doctrine, however unreasonable and absurd. Unity of purpose is achieved, but by imposition from without, not by conviction from within. It is the unity of the chain-gang. In the process of achieving this chain-gang unity, whatever differentiates a civilised community from its jungle origins is lost. There can be no trust between man and man when all are in duty bound to act as informers; there can be no intellectual or moral integrity when opinions are dictated and any deviation from them punished; there can be no learning or art, no pursuit of truth at all, when the free exercise of curiosity and speculation is made a crime. Human life, so confined, is something very paltry, lacking in dignity, insignificant. Whatever is fine and permanent in human achievement has been realised through individuals courageously facing the circumstances of their being; and a society is civilised to the extent to which it makes this possible. Terrorism, which aims at putting out the spiritual light, is the antithesis of civilisation.”
When the United States put forward the European Recovery Plan in 1947. it was General George Marshall speaking at Harvard who said:
“Our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine but against hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos. Its purpose should be the revival of a working economy in the world so as to permit the emergence of political and social conditions in which free institutions can exist. Such assistance, I am convinced, must not be on a piecemeal basis as various crises develop. Any assistance that this Government may render in the future should provide a cure rather than a mere palliative. Any government that is willing to assist in the task of recovery will find full co-operation I am sure, on the part of the United States Government. Any government which maneuvers to block the recovery of other countries cannot expect help from us. Furthermore, governments, political parties, or groups which seek to perpetuate human misery in order to profit therefrom politically or otherwise will encounter the opposition of the United States.”
Returning to Ukraine in 2004, it was a ‘Marshall Plan’ proposal that reiterated what George Marshall told Harvard in 1947. Ukraine , a country stripped bare by insanely greedy oligarchs and on the brink of violent revolution.
It argued in 2007 what few cared to hear before the 2008 financial crisis, that rather than maximise profit for the few, profit could be deployed directly to resolve a wide range of social problems. I described this as the New Bottom Line.
‘This is a long-term permanently sustainable program, the basis for “people-centered” economic development. Core focus is always on people and their needs, with neediest people having first priority — as contrasted with the eternal chase for financial profit and numbers where people, social benefit, and human well-being are often and routinely overlooked or ignored altogether. This is in keeping with the fundamental objectives of Marshall Plan: policy aimed at hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos. This is a bottom-up approach, starting with Ukraine’s poorest and most desperate citizens, rather than a “top-down” approach that might not ever benefit them. They cannot wait, particularly children. Impedance by anyone or any group of people constitutes precisely what the original Marshall Plan was dedicated to opposing. Those who suffer most, and those in greatest need, must be helped first — not secondarily, along the way or by the way. ‘
Such was the traction of this idea, that at Harvard itself 4 years later, the concept of ‘Creating Shared Value’ was put forward.
‘It doesn’t have to be this way, say Porter, of Harvard Business School, and Kramer, the managing director of the social impact advisory firm FSG. Companies could bring business and society back together if they redefined their purpose as creating “shared value” — generating economic value in a way that also produces value for society by addressing its challenges. A shared value approach reconnects company success with social progress.’
“It doesn’t have to be this way” was an echo of what Bill Clinton was told 20 years ago, when presented with an argument about the purpose of business, which concluded:
‘It is only when wealth begins to concentrate in the hands of a relative few at the expense of billions of others who are denied even a small share of finite wealth that trouble starts and physical, human suffering begins. It does not have to be this way. Massive greed and consequent massive human misery and suffering do not have to be accepted as a givens, unavoidable, intractable, irresolvable. Just changing the way business is done, if only by a few companies, can change the flow of wealth, ease and eliminate poverty, and leave us all with something better to worry about. Basic human needs such as food and shelter are fundamental human rights; there are more than enough resources available to go around — if we can just figure out how to share. It cannot be “Me first, mine first”; rather, “Me, too” is more the order of the day.’
