Who Are the MeK?

In the current discussion regarding the situation in Iran, which is becoming more heated than based on logical, political and strategical arguments - on any sides, the name of the MeK - Mujahedin-e Khalq (in English, the People's Holy Warriors) appears more often that it might be. A controversial movement, with barely any support within Iran, based on a bizarre mixture of Marxism and Islam, with clear cultish orientation, MeK invested an enormous amount of money in being taken from the list of terrorist organisations (during Obama administration) and nowadays, found its voice amplified through Pres. Trump's lawyer, Rudolf Giuliani, or the staunch supporter of bombing Iran, at any price, John Bolton. 

If people like Giuliani and Bolton are far from being naive and their participation to events in support of MeK is handsomely rewarded, there is a certain naive approach among people that all their life lived in democracies regarding who really are the 'freedom fighters'. It happened often during the Cold War, when people escaping communist states presented themselves as 'alternatives' to different dictatorships, told some moving half-truth stories about their persecutions and the role in building up a possible opposition, took the money and lived well ever after. In the case of MeK, less known is the cultish aspects of the ideological commitment. 

A couple of years ago, the prestigious RAND Corporation prepared for the Office of the Secretary of Defense a report about MeK in Iraq, which covers not only specific details regarding the then presence of MeK in this country -which they supported during the decade war against Iran - but also information about the elements of the cult. A welcomed reading for those who want to understand this group and have a well-informed opinion about this part of the world.
PS: Some of the MeK members were trained in the PLO camps in Jordan and Lebanon.

Against Labels

Don't Label Me by Irshad Manji is not an academic book in the very strict, elitist sense of the world. Rather a collection of thoughts and ideas about diversity, race, gender and their enemies, told as a dialogue between the author and her dog - a choice that it doesn't necessarily resonate with my academic/writing style - it analyses through examples and personal experiences the impact of stereotypes and ready-made ideas. 

Based on cultural, gender and personal history experiences, we are rather tempted to operate with labels than with open identifications. We don't have time, we don't trust our judgement and the challenges of new situations. Therefore, it is much better to apply the label used for a community to the entire sum of the individuals it is made of. It is also safe, as human nature is rather tempted towards the familiar than to the unusual and original - be it in ideas, feelings or personalities.

Irshad Manji is not stranger to controversy. Pledging for a reform of Islam, without placing herself on an atheist position, she is a person of faith that rejects dogmatism. In an approach that involves knowledge and empathy, the author demonstrates that labels - that are 'never innocent' - can be avoided following a careful deconstruction. A life where the use of labels is minimal is a life where individuals are free to be read and express themselves because once someone is instantly assigned a specific box of features, they 'involuntarily' turn into an 'avatar of other people's projections'. 'When one let labels stand in for people, we end up manipulating people. Our shared humanity, along with our distinctive individuality loses out'. 

When it comes to multiculturalism, the risk is to prefer to use the label(s) in order to designate the diversity, labels that, in fact, ignore the specificities and individual character threats. Therefore, the terms turns to be just another label which operates against the supposed openness it is aimed to represent. 'A society that revels in multiculturalism resembles a room full of folks buzzinh around with identity cards stuck to their foreheads. The first thing you see is their labels'. 

Thus, if one wants to really start a social change in terms of identity and openness towards the other, one should start with difficult dialogues about the concepts easily used without a proper critical feedback. Listening shall be a faculty used in order to understand and analyse not to win over arguments. At the end of the process, changing the mind is a state of mind and it cannot be done without a proper openness about it. 

Although the book is not stuffed with theories and critical approaches, it is guided by critical thinking, a character feature that is unfortunatelly absent sometimes from the academic discussions, as often limited to pledging pro or against a theory, based on dogmatic perspectives. 

Rating: 3.5 

About The Epigenetics Revolution

Reading a scientific book out of your academic comfort zone might be a half-way challenge, but deciding to write about it is a complex and not always successful endeavour. For a number of very specific personal reasons, I am very interesting in epigenetics and the challenges that this branch of science brought to the field of genetics and biology. Clear observations and analysis are bringing a dramatic change of scientific perspective to this domain.

Why out of two identical twins, only one developed schizofrenia? At what extent the food shortages experienced by a mother during pregnancy are influencing the weight and eventual eating disorder of the teen or adult? How is trauma integrated into the genetic code?

Some of those questions are extensively answered in The Epigenetics Revolution by Nessa Carey. Although it approaches a very complicated topic, not so easy to 'translate' into a mundane, popular language, the author maintains a certain balance in terms of vocabulary and affordability. It doesn't mean that you can understand the book and its topics without a minimal to advanced knowledge about modern biology, genetics and DNA structure. For those not necessarily familiar with the topic and the terminology, I recommend to read especially Chapter 12, which is relatively easy to approach by someone with a basic scientific background.

Most of the results exposed in the book are based on extensive research and experiments using rats, but also studies on various genetical diseases or evolution of a specific pattern from mother to child. At a very great extent: 'Events that take place in the first three months of development, a stage when the foetus is very small, can affect an individual for the rest of their life'. However, the epigenetics demonstrated that cells can change metabolically and specific internal or external - for instance, smoking, stress, pollution - can distort the genetic narrative. Some areas are resistant to reprogramming, but trigger events have the potential of reproducing DNA patterns that were actually passive, in stand-by. Sometimes, a trauma underwent by the child is enough to cause 'an ateration in gene expression in the brain, which is generated or maintained (or both) by epigenetic mechamisms. These epigenetically mediated abnormalities in gene expression predispose adults to increase risk of mental illness'. It is not a cause-effect trigger however and the multiple environmental, social and family influences can avoid the actualization of the mental illness.

I've pesonally found the book very interested from both the scientific and human point of view and most probably will use the knowledge I've built by reading this book for further reading in this fascinating topic.

Rating: 4 stars

How Democracies Die. And How We can Resuscitate Them.

The end of the Cold War was such an enthusiastic time for the field of the political science. Obviously, between the good and the ugly, the democracies had won and even the old ugly foe, USSR, was rebranded Russia and pushed towards multi-party system and free elections. For at least a decade later, most of the political scientists, following the enthusiasm shared by Fukuyama in the End of History was expecting a blooming of democratic systems all over the world.

NATO and EU expanded, Saddam and Gaddafi were toppled and even some Middle Eastern traditional dictatorships were giving some joyous signs of getting acquainted with democratic change. It was rather a religious belief in a redemption than a realistic evaluation based on clear facts and figures. The standards used to evaluate democratic systems were the results of the Cold War patterns of thinking and although at a certain extent - free elections, free media and multi-party system - were corresponding to the average projection of the democratic ideal, the concepts were way too generous to correspond to the constantly evolving dynamics of the various political systems all over the world. 

In less than a decade, all over the world, including within the apparent big winner of the Cold War confrontation - USA - the democracies as we knew it are under attack. In How Democracies Dies, Steven Levinsky and Daniel Ziblatt are introspectively researching the causes of the death and how eventually democracies can be kept alive.

There is a plethora of books published lately on the topic of the strange democratic reflux taking place lately. Far right parties and populist politicians are taken seriously by the voters all over the world - again. America is apparently going through the biggest political farce right now. Political allies united by the common respect of democratic values are turning opposite sides of the political spectrum - I am thinking about two noticeable examples that it happens to know a bit much better than the others, Turkey and Hungary.

The populists are climbing high on the peaks of political power in a relatively similar way: attacking their political opponents, the media and the justice which is trying to make them accountable for corruption, tax evasion and other law breaking facts. In the end, they, the populist have won and from the position of their office they continue to keep those institutions under attack. Some of those institutions might suffer, especially the media. Hopefully, in the US the journalists are not -yet - sent to prison and their jobs are not becoming obsolete following obscure economic arrangements of politicians, but the fact that the average American is make believe that the media is its enemy is an obvious failure for the watchdog. The terms of the attacks against political opponents are as bad in terms of human relations as any kind of totalitarian discourse. The communist dictatorships used frequently a retoric which used a vituperating art of neutralizing the enemies, including by taking away any human qualities. And if someone follows with the highest attention the usual terms Trump uses against his opponents - including within his own party, as it was the case of Sen. McCain - he suits very well this category. 

The two Harvard university professors who wrote the book are using an extensive comparative approach - mostly with Hungary, Turkey, Poland, Russia, Nicaragua and Peru - and historical insights into the American political - especially presidential - history. History is an useful tool to catch up with the present, by revealing patterns and possible trends. However, my biggest critic of this book is that it does not acknowledges on one side the lack of adaptation of the political science analysis itself to those new challenges - hence the fixation on the past, the more or less recent history - and on the other side, it ignores the influence of social media and technology on political analysis. In fact, both aspects are part of an old school of thought which is still predominant in the political science circles and that doesn't offer a measure good enough for a further understanding and building up new possible models and concepts.

Also missing from the book is a throughout evaluation of the state-of-arts of the political elites nowadays. Such an analysis might require a special volume - or two - but the current disfunctionalities in the American bipartisan system are dued at a great extent to the unpreparadness of the elites and often their inadequacies. 

I completely agree with one of the assumptions of the book that when democracy is in danger you need more democracy, but how you can build concretely those democratic networks and institutions, formal and informal channels able to face and fight the threats the democratic systems are nowadays under attack for, is a question largely remaining unanswered in How Democracies Die. 

When Being Multi-Lingual Doesn't Help

They say being multi-lingual is a precious gift and with a couple of important languages in my knowledge pocket, I am the last one to deny it. I grew up in a very diverse environment from the linguistic point of view and I continued this heritage through my life, work and relationships. I am only grateful for it, however, in very strict work-related circumstances, too many languages might be an impediment for proper communication and, at the end of the day, for efficiency and productivity in a company.

Lately, I had the following experience: Three people, with complete different backgrounds and educations, as well as age, trying to communicate in languages that are not their mother tongue's. We are supposed to work together for the next months, setting up a technical project in a language that none of us were native speakers. The perfect Babel.

Actually, the main issues facing such a multi-lingual environment is: right communication, time waste/management and a high risk of failure or misundersating the aims and even the very basis of the project(s). Therefore, a common basis is necessary in order to advance towards meeting the goals. For instance, someone might not know perfectly the details and nuances of a language - including the grammar - but he or she has a good knowledge of the technical terms used for his everyday work. Being able to communicate straight away requests and answers is the first step towards achieving the goals. Of course, one of the best solutions is to use a translator - at least until a certain language upgrade takes place, but this solution takes also time and might cost additional money that small companies are not always able to afford it willingly.

A situation with a high risk of blocking a project is when - as in the case of the situation I was faced myself - the team members assume superficially that the projects will advance with or without a proper communication. Often, communication is under-rated, being considered rather a luxury of glossy companies or used only in case of reputation management or branding. However, a regular communication - including thourgh morning meetings with project updates - is aimed at avoiding perpetuating mistakes due to misunderstanding of aims and possible solutions. 

My experience in the field of communication warns me always of the risks and I am more likely inclined to avoid a very diverse yet precarious multi-lingual environment. Take, for instance, a very specific situation: you have an emergency, when one member of the team failed to deliver the expected result. The situation is happening in the field of real estate. He misunderstood that he had to respect specific regulations in the field of construction. He went on with the work, people tried to finish within deadlines, investments were done in materials and extra payments done for the people. Midway, you have a control from the authorities in charge with the safety and security of the construction works and they request to demolish everything, or might even request an additional fine for disrespect of the local laws. Explaining the failures takes some extra time as well, as the team coordinators do not know what it is all about and need time to get familiar with the issue. In order to respect the final deadlines you need extentions of deadlines and eventually new approvals from authorities. 

The final verdict: unprofessional handing of relatively simple professional communication issues. 

My recommendation in such cases would be to try to create an homogenous team, with an advanced knowledge of the local rules and procedures. Hiring for short term a communication trainer or eventually paying on behalf of the company a basic language class will also help at a great extent. Although in both cases it involves additional costs, it is short-term and compared with the risks in cases such a common base does not exist, it is worth the investment. 

About Academic Shame

One of my best friends during my university years was a very ambitious young girl whose parents were barely reading and writing and who was ambitious enough to get a superb scholarship at Georgetown University. Her hardwork was an inspiration for me, and many others that were during those times more interested to test life, love and relationships instead of dedicating the best light hours to intensive study and exam preparations. At a certain extent, we knew that sooner or later we will find our place - because we were coming from middle-class families with a clear intellectual status in the society - therefore we did not have too prove that much. Meanwhile, my friend was catching up reading the books that we had included in our weekly reading plan or learning the languages our relatives started to practice with us at a very early age. We not even need to work too hard to pay our college debts because even if our parents were not always so well-off, there will be always some successful relative that probably will help with a loan one day, when the knife was getting closer to the skin.

It was good for America that a friend like mine, with a poor immigrant background, worked so hard to get into one of the most elitist universities, preparing future American diplomats. For me, it was an example that although nightmarish sometimes, the American dream is still working. And I am still convinced that hard work and dedication pays off, although nowadays it is getting harden and harder to cope with the post-university trauma of huge debts and the lack of social and professional integration. Why do you need so much hard work and financial pressure when once you graduated, you can hardly find a good academic or professional position, as most of the best jobs are offered based on a personal CV that counts less your academic achievements instead of your good family connections. With the right high-class connections you can have any job you want, regardless your grades and the circle is shrinking more and more each day.

The recent scandal involving bribes and favoritism in top league American universities as Yale, UCLA, USC and Standford is only one of the many examples in this respect. Although it involves mostly big money paid for admissions of athletes who couldn't play in various sport academic teams, it touches violently also to the ways in which people with a certain visibility consider that their children deserve a better place into the society. The fact that a protagonist from a movie called 'Desperate Housewives' wants her offspring to be part of the American intellectual elites and pays heavily for this - possibly with some of her years as well - tells a lot about what are we talking about. 

The fact that parents with an intellectual background want their children to be part of the same elites is not commendable in itself, but it does not request a more equal status than someone else. Let's compete and show your skills, but the departure point shall be the same. There is no genetical guarantee of brain further development or conservation from an intellectual generation to the other. 

The fact that politicians and well-offs offer themselves huge donations to universities although their deep system of belief is completely against the chore system of the said universities and societies in the middle of which those operate - remember the Muammar Gaddafi's links to LSE? - is a proof that the elites' system in our brave new world is getting through a deep crisis. No 'desperate' money will help this situation, until the entire crisis is evaluated in all its details. 

A clear and immediate answer - which has to do not only with America and its system, but has to do with the ways in which education operates and contributes to the overall reproduction of elites - would probably help avoiding a further wave of non-values and mediocrity in a system aimed to promote the difference between values and non-values.

The Need for Localisation

One of the most challenging part of writing and researching diversity - especially national and ethnic - is the need to be specific. The more vague, general and, theoretically, inclusive you are, the biggest the danger to be accused of misunderstanding and misleading the adequate definition of the topic you approach. 

My thoughts were pushed by a recent - with some academic notes - discussion I had on food. There could be specific criteria to declare a food tasty - education and cultural background being one of them - but when it comes to placing a food geographically, you can easily start a war. I am slowly slowly gathering more and more such testimonies - hopefully part of a book I hope to finish one day - one of the most famous - also because it has to do with an area which always burns - is the hummus war between Lebanon and Israel. As a final user, I might say that I love the hummus made by both Lebanese and Israeli cooks - although personally not a hummus lover because the food I grew up with was slightly different in taste and ingredients (call it bland, sometimes), but what exactly made a hummus to be made in Lebanon, respectively made in Israel is a matter of political choice, sometimes. 

Closer to home, the famous food appropriations of foods among the Balkan countries are less burning - right now - but in a small Serbian village might bring a lot of tensions if you label a food wrongly, as Croatian or Turkish. 

What you can really do in order to avoid such unpleasant political background to your plate - food to be enjoyed in a special ambiance and this is hopefully no big dispute about it - is to get into as many details as possible when describing a food. The details have to do with the special place where the meal was eaten and the very special details of the recipe. Some ingredients and ways to prepare might differ from a village to another and could be slightly altered from a family to another. Offering as many personal and individual details add a lot of zest to the recipe and the food story in general, as it opens up the ways to tell individual, subjective stories. 

The food love might lead to anthropological memories and could help recreate a world where table manners and customes as well as menus are part of individual narratives and histories. On the long term it can also create more enjoyable discussion about food besides setting up the world of fire for...a tasty bowl of hummus.