This is not food; this is life.

Last night, while making dinner, something that my nutrition professor posted in one of our discussion boards kept running through my head, “the hypocrisy of not be willing to eat my [dog] but was okay with eating other animals” and suddenly found myself repulsed by the flesh I was holding in my hands. I swallowed that feeling, tried to push it aside, but I don’t think I can. I’ve flirted with the idea of becoming loosely vegetarian in the past and it always seemed too difficult, too time consuming, too expensive. I always had an excuse why it was simply easier for me to continue eating meat. My portion control is down pat. My choices are so much healthier than they used to be, but still there was a tiny little voice nagging me to consider an alternative way of relating with the world.

First, an explanation: I tend to identify with the spiritual concept of animism – in that I believe everything has a spark of whatever it is that makes life alive. From the tiniest seed to a fully self-aware human being (because let’s face it, not all of us are fully self-aware), I believe that there is no separation from that which I imprecisely call ‘the divine’. I prefer not to use terms like ‘god’ for two reasons: one, because I feel that it attempts to define that which we truly cannot comprehend and two, I feel that naming such an energy separates the individual from truly realizing his or her own divinity.

That said I don’t want to eat meat anymore. I simply don’t. I ate the chicken last night and every time I took a bite, I felt something inside me recoil and even now, I feel badly that I did so. I am fully cognoscente of the issues with ethical treatment of animals, I understand the energy cost that was expended to put that chicken in my hand, and I recognize the health risks that are present in a diet laden with meats. This is not, however, motivated by such reasons. This is motivated by the realization that it is selfish of me to consume that which I do not NEED and arrogant to continue doing so with all these facts on the tip of my tongue. I have long understood that I am fully capable of leading a healthy, vibrant and delicious life without the flesh of another being. It is time for me to commit to that idea. I have always been grateful to that which gives me life, but I find that my rationalization for eating the flesh of another species to be more and more insubstantial for the purpose of pacifying any conversation that might transpire to attempt to talk me out of the removal of animal flesh from my diet. This is a choice I am ready to make.


***EDIT***
After more contemplation, on the matter - if food is life and life is food then, there I believe there is no distinction between the form in which the life takes. Instead of worrying about vegetarian or omnivore or even carnivore, I'm more content in being aware of where my food comes from and being grateful for the life that was given to sustain me.

Posited: Should the international community promote democracy in authoritarian states?

Comparative Politics Writing Assignment 1

 

Democracy is defined as being ill suited to having a single definition. The complexity of this concept thereby resists attempts made to analyze and categorize the various manifestations of the systems that are characterized as democratic. Democracy, as a word, evokes images of “the struggle for freedom and a better way of life.” (Schmitter) However, as explained in article 8 of the supplemental reading, “What Democracy is…and is not”, the conditions that must be met in order for a state to be deemed democratic are minimal and can operate in a number of different ways contrary to the balance of the international stage. The revolution in Egypt was a prime example of democratic processes going awry of what the general consensus of global players had desired. After the ousting of Hosni Mubarak from his role as President after a near 30-year power monopoly, democratic election put into power the Muslim Brotherhood. What this transition means for the world remains to be seen.

Whether or not the international community should promote democracy in authoritarian states must be answered by reflecting on whether or not the international community is content to allow those democracies to blossom in whatever way a given state chooses to enact their own system. This effort of self-determination, which is a pillar of the democratic ideology, has not always been upheld when the results of democracy are contrary to the aspirations of fellow states. An example of this can clearly be seen in the history of Iran. In 1951, after Mohammed Mossadegh was elected democratically and proceeded to nationalize the oil industry of Iran, the British government claimed this act to be a threat to the security of the world. Eventually, Iran sought aid from the United States with Mossadegh calling on President Truman to “remember [our] own revolution against Britain.” On January 7, 1951, Time Magazine voted Mossadegh ‘Man of the Year’, touting him as the Iranian George Washington. Refusing to be swayed from his nationalization of the oil industry, Mossadegh continued to make enemies throughout the world and the cooperation of President Truman eventually lead to his defeat in the 1952 Presidential election in which Eisenhower claimed that Democrats were tolerant of communist penetration.

After winning the Presidency, Eisenhower approved a $1 million CIA budget to bring about the fall of Mossadegh. Much of this funding went to bribing religious and military figures within Iran, as well as merchants and the media. After a long and arduous conflict, another US Presidential election and active protesting within Iran, British MI-6 and CIA operatives had returned control of Iran to Mohammad Rezā Shāh Pahlavī, who is quoted as toasting President Roosevelt, owing his throne to God, his people, his army, and to Roosevelt. Ultimately, Mossadegh, a democratically elected leader, was placed in prison and then under house arrest until his death in 1967.

Democracies in foreign sovereignties have only been supported by the United States and Great Britain when the goals that state were in line with our own needs. Mossadegh is by no means the first democratically elected leader to fall at the hands of international espionage. In 1954, Jacobo Árbenz, President of the Republic of Guatemala was ousted in a coup d'état engineered by the United States government and the CIA. Árbenz had attempted to subvert tax dodging by the United Food Company who were regularly undervaluing their agricultural holdings. The Eisenhower administration once again stepped in for the favor of big business and operation PB/Success was enacted to fabricate ties between Guatemala and the Soviet Union, with whom we were still entrenched in the Cold War.

The reverse is also true; Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines, Rezā Shāh Pahlavī of Iran, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and Saddam Hussein of Iraq are but a few of the laundry list of dictators that the United States has, at least, supported and, at worst, played an active role in putting them into power. Much of this support stemmed from the hyper-reactive environment created by the hostilities of the Cold War in which many conservative leaders were dictatorial while leaders with liberal leanings tended to identify with a communist mentality. As such, governments that were party to the policy of containment were more inclined to support a dictatorship that would, in turn, support the Western effort to eradicate the threat of communism.

One has to wonder, however, as to whether or not in our technologically connected world such activities could transpire to the same extent as they have in the past. Part of the reason for the success of the revolutions in Egypt, Libya and other states is directly correlated with access to an international stage in the palm of every hand. The advent of Facebook, Twitter and other social mediums has increased global awareness of such human rights abuses – often to the point of forcing the hand of international organizations to get involved. In article 10 of the supplemental reading, “Why Middle East Studies Missed the Arab Spring”, F. Gregory Gause III posits the reasons for the successes of the revolutionaries when all attempts in the past have failed utterly. Some of these authoritarian regimes had been in place for upwards of 40 years. Why then, Gause asks, did these particular protests finally succeed? The key, he says, more than any other factor, is mobilization and access. Growing pan-Arab sentiment – the reverence of a shared culture placed above that of nationalism – rallied surrounding states to the cause of a central voice. In many cases, this attitude permeated throughout the military as well, dividing troops between those who supported the current regime and those who were disenchanted with being a tool of a ruler rather than his state.

Should the international community promote democracy? Absolutely, it should. The caveat is whether or not the international community seeks to pander to a newly formed democracy and shape it to the will of a supporting sovereign or if the supporting sovereign will uphold the rule of law that is intended to be the guiding principle of categorizing a system as democratic in the first place. If history is any indication of the future, then the majority of new democracies are doomed to be democracies in name only. Currently, there are a multitude of nations that resemble the characteristics of democracy, but fail to truly transition into states of self-determination through rule by the people. Take, for example, the case of Hugo Chavez of Venezuela who, in 2003, was able to utilize state resources to invalidate petition signatures to initiate a recall against his presidency, delaying the vote long enough for Chavez to rebuild public support and defeat the measure initiated by the people. 

Legitimacy in Egypt is struggling due to the nature of fast tracking such transitions - without a set of rules by which to abide, politicians cannot be chosen with the expectation of compulsory power. However, without politicians, the rules by which the state must be governed are in limbo as well, leaving the state in a perpetual catch-22 situation. The result of this tension is the placement of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) in a position of authority in which the consortium is placing pressure on the interim government to “outlaw protests, stipulate who receives outside funding and to create a constitutional stipulation making the military the guarantor of Egyptian democracy.” (Ottaway) The slow process towards democracy is maddening for protestors and provisional governments alike and yet, no one can construct a government without clear rules as to how that government should behave.

Bibliography

Gause III, F. Gregory. "Why Middle Eastern Studies Missed the Arab Spring." Annual Editions: Comparative Politics 12/13. Ed. Fiona Yap. McGraw-Hill/Dushkin, 2012. Print.

Hague, R., and M. Harrop. Political science: A Comparative Introduction. 5th edition. Palgrave/MacMillan, 2008. Print.

Ottoway, Marian. "Transitional Failure: Egypt and Tunisia." Annual Editions: Comparative Politics 12/13. Ed. Fiona Yap. McGraw-Hill/Dushkin, 2012. Print.

Schmitter, Phillipe C.. "What Democracy Is...and Is Not." Annual Editions: Comparative Politics 12/13. Ed. Fiona Yap. McGraw-Hill/Dushkin, 2012. Print.