George Handlery about the week that was. An ailment of our culture? Terrorism is a calling: Even released terrorists remain in the business. Two reactions to underdevelopment. Self-exclusion and the frustrated immigrant.

1. Shocking is that this will not shock. The suppressed ability to show natural outrage is a symptom of the ailment of our culture. Reports have asserted something disturbing about Antonio Samaranch who used to head the International Olympic Committee (1980-2001). Keep in mind that, even if you are probably taught that sport is sport and politics are politics, modern dictatorships use sports to prove the superiority of their system. Now those who had always felt that he was too chummy with the Kremlin are having the facts that confirm their earlier discomfort. The once Franco-man used to be the Minister of Sport. (Did the blemish of his past make him respond to pressure?) Then he became Ambassador to the USSR. Having been involved in a smuggling affair, he is said to have become vulnerable. The predicament led to extortion and that was followed by compliance. The individual case is also a reflection of the fact that Western governments and social institutions, as well as international organizations, were shot through with individuals who, under duress or by conviction, served Communism’s cause.

2. Surprising is that this surprises. Let me bring up an often repeated and with a yawn-accepted fact. Upon their release for being innocent – or not accusable in a US court – ex Gitmo detainees, tend to wind up (again) as players in terrorist circles. Heads should be rolling. Political careers should end by early and forcible retirement through outraged voters. This pertains not only to the USA but also to other countries where the convenient assumption of the blamelessness of captives has become mantra. Sort of as the backside of the medal, that ritually condemns the US. That magic measure makes of her enemies automatically innocents or even heroes of resistance. The aforementioned naives are not victims of deceitful foreigners nor are they surprised by unpredictable developments. The recycling of used terrorists is a systemic failure. It philosophical foundation is the way of thinking and the rickety savvy of an entire class of politicians and public pundits who prefer to be wrong rather than risk missing a knee jerk.

Let us backtrack. Just imagine. Your armed forces operate in a vast guerilla controlled and hard-to-access region. In the combat zone that is located in the middle of nowhere the troops apprehends a youngish person. His documents reveal that he has no means and that he has recently arrived from a place that is thousands of miles away. Accordingly, he has no connection to the location, while no plausible reason can be found for his presence. The analogy is that of firefighters that bump, as they enter a flaming building, into a person exiting while carrying a jerry can. Are you going to conclude that the guy might have something to do with the fire event? Alternatively, could it be that, as he claims, he just ran out of gas and decided to look for a gas station to refuel? Laughable? So is the story that the accosted wanderer clad in local garb just went out for a stroll and while doing so tiptoed a bit far from his home turf. Anyone prepared to believe this must be convinced that the uncommunicative Koran clutchers in Guantanamo are innocent lambs. If you release them, you deserve what happens thereafter. If that surprises you, you deserve what you get.

3. Have you followed this story? The first scene. It is about an American President. He has the notion that his words –indeed he is the master of phrases – can move the masses and make the sea part. His majority in the legislature proves the point and strengthens his position. One of his ambitions is to bring peace to the world. The people out there are tired of wars and wish for a secure peace in brotherhood. There is hope that the savior from America can bring that peace. Indeed, once he travels, his reception abroad is tumultuous. Until it turns out that he is not only determined to usher in a new and better world order but that he also expects of everybody to put their money where their mouth is. Second scene. It becomes obvious that the cheers were forthcoming because the audience waited for the president to give, without their input, something to all. The expectation was that the new man who can would place America in a new role. As the result of which the going would become easy for everybody.. Not all these hopes could be fulfilled. Heaven continued to stay above and was not for down here. So, the popularity of the miracle worker who had walked over from across the ocean waned.

Did you think this was about Obama past, present and future? Wrong. This was about President Wilson who went abroad to bring peace for all. In reality, unknowingly, he helped to make a bad peace. When concluded it was shrunk to an „armistice for twenty years“. The project of eternal peace was shipwrecked on the egoism of world leaders and the President‘s innocence. A new general war on the heels what was to have been the „last war“ was the upshot.

4. For underdeveloped societies that are mired in an antiquated tradition, there are two ways to react to their primary challenge. It is posed by a world that relentlessly moves forward at a quickening tempo, thereby leaving them behind in power, influence and wealth. One is to join the advancing. This can be done by copying their locally applicable methods of renewal. The implication of this strategic adjustment is that those folkways that block innovations need to be shelved. The other response is to condemn and reject the ways of those that lead the advancement. Create pressure to abandon their path and then make them retrace the path of their rise up, down to the level of the challenger. This approach of renunciation can be quite popular and examples furnished by several actors abound. In our own time, the threat to the attempted movement of diverse states and diverging systems that are set to move into modernity is that, a fraction of the Muslim world seems to fall under the influence of the combative proponents of the renunciatory approach.

5. Examining the record of countries that have historically welcomed and assimilated immigrants leads one to an interesting insight. If valid, the thesis helps to explain the success achieved by newcomers and receiving residents alike. On the one hand, the ability to assimilate and to integrate is partly dependent on the degree of industrialization of the hosting society. On the other hand, the integration of the entrants depends on their inclination to be modernized in their personal lives, meaning their will to set updated goals and to adjust their values in order to be enabled to pursue their objectives in novel ways.

Even when the above conditions are given, some immigrations will still fail. Unsuccessful immigrations can be committed to values, a religion or social-political concepts that were hallmarks of an order that they left physically because it did not work for them. These values, some of which express a different place and a different situation, can be imbedded in the consciousness of immigrants. If so, the result will be a very high degree of personal resistance to modernization. The more so since the new is expressed by an alien community and will be presented in a foreign language. At the same time, resisting the new hosting way of life negates the implicit logic of the original reason for emigration. If this is allowed to be the case, the advantages resulting from integration and its opportunities that the immigrant seems to have coveted when he decided to emigrate, will be outweighed by the emotional commitment to imported prejudices. False pride can be a contributory factor. The result will be lack of personal success, the trailing behind the indigenous in fortune, in prestige and the missed upward mobility of the offsprings through education and commensurate careers. The resulting inclination will provide a strong motive to find a false but excusing explanation for this collective lack of accomplishment – measured by the standards set by the surrounding majority. Ignoring the real origins of the laggardness relative to the unshared success with the majority, will lead to frustration. Those feeling that way will blame the majority and its way of life for their failure, which they will attribute to discrimination. Once this process unfolds, the failing group will harbor intensive hostility toward every trait that characterizes the majority.