To get another view of this change in vocabulary, you must read the satirical piece--A War by Any Other Name.
Goodwill begets an espionage trial.
In 2003, an Iranian-born Canadian photojournalist named Zahra Kazemi was arrested in Tehran, jailed in its notorious Evin prison and charged with espionage. Less than three weeks later, Kazemi was dead. An Iranian doctor who examined her before her death later reported that she had been raped, sustained a skull fracture and had her fingernails ripped out. Now another foreign journalist is imprisoned at Evin and also charged with espionage. In late January, Roxana Saberi, a U.S.-born reporter of Iranian descent who had been living in Iran for several years, was arrested for buying a bottle of wine. In early March, she was accused of "illegal activities," including working without press credentials. She was later indicted for espionage and on Monday her case went to trial, which lasted a day; a verdict is expected within weeks.
Ms. Saberi's credentials as a journalist can hardly be in doubt. Among other venues, she has reported for the BBC, National Public Radio, Fox News and the Associated Press. But honest journalism in any closed society is always likely to resemble "espionage," at least in the eyes of a suspicious dictatorship.
Thus, in addition to Ms. Saberi, Iran has in recent years also jailed or detained several other U.S. citizens, including Haleh Esfandiari, a scholar at the Washington, D.C.-based Wilson Center; Parnaz Azima, a correspondent for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty; Ali Shakeri, a businessman and Iranian democracy activist; and Kian Tajbakhsh, a scholar working for George Soros's Open Society Institute. All were eventually released, but a former FBI agent, Robert Levinson, went missing in Iran in March 2007. Florida Senator Bill Nelson believes he is being held in an Iranian prison.
Mr. Levinson aside, all of the detained were dual U.S.-Iranian citizens. Also notable is the regime's suspicion of people like Ms. Esfandiari and Mr. Tajbakhsh, both of whom are better known as advocates of engagement with the regime. The regime's mentality only becomes intelligible in the context of seeing these scholars as advocates of political reform, which it views as a soft form of revolution. Among the accusations Iran leveled against Ms. Esfandiari was that the Wilson Center had "played key roles in the intrigues that have led to colorful revolutions in former Soviet republics in recent years."
For now, the important thing is to assure Ms. Saberi's safety and to work for her release. But it is worth noting that her arrest came days after President Obama was inaugurated, that the espionage charges were brought about the same time U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke shook hands with Iran's deputy foreign minister in the Hague (an encounter the Iranian foreign ministry officially denies, by the way), and that her "trial" coincides with news that the Administration will drop the longstanding U.S. demand that Iran cease its uranium enrichment as a precondition to direct talks.
Advocates of engagement often make the case that talks are the best way to foster better relations with Iran, and a better Iran altogether. Ms. Saberi's prosecution is as good an indication as any of the real nature of the regime, and of how the mullahs intend to reciprocate Mr. Obama's open handshake.
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Date: Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 7:38 AM
ibrahim explores the historical bases for bowing and prostration and believes the president made a gross error. make your own decision. joe queenan satirizes the eloquence of nuanced speak-what the hell is anybody talking about?
Obama's Abominable Obeisance: Cultural Perspectives
by Raymond Ibrahim
Pajamas Media
April 11, 2009
Is Obama's deep bow (with slightly bent knee) to the Saudi king as bad as it seems? The White House, apparently forgetful that we live in the Internet age, where everything is swiftly documented and disseminated — or else thinking it leads a blind nation — insists the president did not bow. He supposedly always bends in half when shaking hands with shorter people, though he certainly seemed quite erect when saluting the British queen, who is much shorter than the Saudi king.
Obama bowed; this much is certainly not open to debate. All that is left now is to place his odious obeisance in context. As such, history has much to say about the seemingly innocuous bow.
Millennia before the current war between the West and Islam — the war Obama insists does not exist in the first place — the ancient Greeks (forebears of Western civilization) warred with the Persians (forebears of the soon-to-be-nuclear Islamic theocracy, Iran).
Writing in the 5th century B.C., the Greek historian Herodotus explained: "When the Persians meet one another in the roads, you can see whether those who meet are of equal rank. For instead of greeting by words, they kiss each other on the mouth; but if one of them is inferior to the other, they kiss one another on the cheeks."
This explanation reminds one of Bush's hand-holding/kissing sessions with the same Saudi monarch, which some insist exonerate Obama's bow. Not so; as the Greek historian explains above, such behavior is representative of equal rank in Eastern cultures.
As for Obama's conduct, Herodotus continues, "yet if one is of much less noble rank than the other, he falls down before him and worships him."
"Much less noble rank"? Could Obama, like his wife Michelle, who only recently became proud of America, be operating under the conviction that being American is not all that noble?
As for "falls down before him and worships," this phrase is a translation of the Greek word proskunesis, which means "to make obeisance," to "worship, adore," as one would a god, or king, or god-king. Basically, to fall on one's face in prostration to another. Connotatively, it implies "to make like a dog" — base, servile, and submissive.
While common to the caste-like system of Persia, prostration was something the freedom-loving Greeks scorned. Indeed, wars were waged simply because the Greeks refused to submit — literally and figuratively — to Persian tyranny.
According to Arrian's chronicle, at the height of Alexander the Great's power — when his hubris against the gods and megalomania against man were most burgeoning — he decided to implement the proskunesis in his court, provoking controversy among the Macedonians, until one of their numbers, Callisthenes, rebuked him by saying, "Will you actually compel the Greeks as well, the freest of mankind, to do you obeisance?" Another close companion to Alexander, Clitus, vexed at the former's increasing pomposity and the lack of manly dignity at his court, told Alexander, in the words of the historian Plutarch, that "he [Alexander] had better live and converse with barbarians and slaves who would not scruple to bow the knee to his Persian girdle." His words cost him his life.
It was one decade ago, when I studied ancient history with Victor Davis Hanson, that I last examined the proskunesis (never thinking the day was nigh when it would have modern applicability — and thanks to a U.S. president!). Recently corresponding with VDH about this whole sordid affair, he confirmed that "the Macedonians seemed to really have felt proskunesis was about the worst thing someone could do."
In light of the West's ancestors' utter contempt for proskunesis, let us now examine Obama's prostration in context:
First, it must be affirmed that, as with ancient Greeks, Americans find bows, prostrations, and other servile gestures distasteful. Interestingly, the Muslim world shares this same view, particularly so-called "radicals," who are constantly condemning "manmade" governments, such as democracies, as systems of "human-worship" to be eschewed at all cost. Writes Ayman al-Zawahiri: "Know that democracy, that is, 'rule of the people,' is a new religion that deifies the masses by giving them the right to legislate without being shackled down to any other authority" (The Al Qaeda Reader, p. 130).
This, by the way, is why the Saudi monarch does not tamper with Sharia: doing so would be tantamount to self-apotheosis. Expecting prostrations from others would be viewed little better by the theocrats surrounding him. (Watch the video and note that, while the king proceeded with an extended right arm, Obama dived in with a bow, almost taking the former aback.)
In short, both Muslims and Americans (at least until very recently for the latter) find bowing to be an odious enterprise and therefore do not offer it to, nor expect it from, others.
Conversely, some Far Eastern cultures incorporate the bow. Had Obama been in Japan and bowed (and received a reciprocal bow signifying equality), his actions would have been culturally appropriate (not to mention expected). Yet, Obama had as much reason to bow to a Muslim as he would have to a Christian or Jew.
Yet surely he didn't bow to Abdullah due to the latter's exalted status in the Muslim world ("Guardian of the Two Sanctities"), a status that schoolboy Obama in Muslim Indonesia must have viewed with awe, but rather out of politeness, because Abdullah is a king, royalty. Not so. Were this true, upon meeting the British queen — equal "royalty" — Obama would have stooped to her as well. (Nor can his iPod gift be considered surrogate.)
Whatever prompted that rather instinctive bow — Obama may be used to bending the knee to Saudi royalty, considering that Saudis may have paid his college tuition — and regardless of antiquated notions of "honor" and "dignity," merely diplomatically, it was a bad move.
Not only is the Wahhabi king symbolic of the most "radical" form of Islam — it's not for nothing that 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers, not to mention bin Laden, were Saudis — but his Sharia-enforcing kingdom is cited as one of the worst human rights violators in the world. Bowing to this man was therefore symbolically a bow of submission to radical Islam and all its attendant human rights violations.
This is compounded by the fact that, immediately preceding this ignoble bow, Obama was busy profusely apologizing to the Islamic world, insisting that the U.S. is not at war with Islam — and "never will be." Jihadis the world over must have been relieved to know that not only does the leader of the most powerful Western nation have no intention of naming them or placing them in context — so much for that first strategy of warfare, "know your enemy" — but that nothing they do in the future will ever cause the sleeping infidel giant's leader to arouse it.
Similarly, Obama's obeisance should give nuke-seeking Iran even more hope in its endeavors. After all, if the leader of the free West so readily bends the knee to Wahhabi despotism, how long before he bows to Iran, the true heir of proskunesis-Persia? And if he does not fully bow willingly, that is only more incentive for Iran to hasten and acquire nukes, so he can be made to bow unwillingly.
Finally, any would-be "moderates" or assertive governments who may have been serious about combating radical Islam and its attendant humanitarian abuses via Sharia have, through Obama's bow to the personification of radical Islam, just received a clear message: aside from occasional, perfunctory lip service, you're really on your own.
As for all those who would defend Obama's bow by saying he was being "diplomatic," because, you know, we "need" Saudi oil, how does that justify bowing, unprecedented from an American president, unexpected from the Saudi king?
When Alexander the Great, drunk with hubris, took on despotic ways, demanding that others prostrate themselves before him, the Macedonians revolted; some were put to death. What a long way Western civilization has come when today the leader of the free world and heir to democratic ancient Greece, far from despotically demanding that others offer him obeisance, voluntarily opts to prostrate himself — and in essence, all of America — before another. And what another.
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War By Any Other Name
Obama's new terminology has started a trend.
By JOE QUEENAN
The Obama administration has come under intense criticism for replacing the term "war on terror" with the emaciated euphemism "overseas contingency operations," and for referring to individual acts of terror as "man-caused disasters."
This semi-official attempt to disassociate the administration from the fierce rhetoric favored by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney has enraged Americans on both the right and left. Many feel that such vaporous bureaucratese is a self-emasculating action that plunges us into an Orwellian world where words have no emotional connection with the horrors they purport to describe.
Yet, if the intention of the Obama administration is to tone down the confrontational rhetoric being used by our enemies, the effort is already reaping results. This week, in a pronounced shift from its usual theatrical style, the Taliban announced that it will no longer refer to its favorite method of murder as "beheadings," but will henceforth employ the expression "cephalic attrition." "Flayings" -- a barbarously exotic style of execution that has been popular in this part of the world since before the time of Alexander -- will now be described as "unsolicited epidermal reconfigurations." In a similar vein, lopping off captives' arms will now be referred to as "appendage furloughing," while public floggings of teenaged girls will from here on out be spoken of as "metajudicial interfacing."
A Taliban spokesman reached in Pakistan said that the new phrasing was being implemented as a way of eliminating the negative associations triggered by more graphic terminology. "The term 'beheading' has a quasi-medieval undertone that we're trying to get away from," he explained. "The term 'cephalic attrition' brings the Taliban into the 21st century. It's not that we disapprove of beheadings; it's just that the word no longer meshes with the zeitgeist of the era. This is the same reason we have replaced the term 'jihad' with 'booka-bonga-bippo,' which has a more zesty, urban, youthful, 'now' feel. When you're recruiting teenagers to your movement, you don't want them to feel that going on jihad won't leave any time for youthful hijinks."
Central Asia is not the only place where the coarse terminology of the past is being phased out. In Darfur, the words "ethnic cleansing" are no longer in use, either by rebels nor by the government itself. Instead, the practice of targeting a particular tribe or sect or ethnic group for extinction is being called "unconditional demographic redeployment." In much the same spirit, the archaic term "genocide" -- so broad and vague as to be meaningless -- has now been supplanted by "maximum-intensity racial profiling."
"We've got problems here, sure, just like any other society," explains a high-ranking Sudanese official. "But we're not talking about Armenia 1915. We're not talking about the Holocaust. The Eurocentric term 'genocide' gives people the wrong idea. And it really hurts tourism."
Another very positive sign that global rhetoric is being turned down a notch is the decision by the North Korean government to refer to its offshore nuclear tests as "intra-horizontal aqua-aeonic degradation simulations."
"You start throwing around terms like 'nuclear testing' and you scare the hell out of the Japanese,' says a Hong Kong-based expert in East Asian euphemisms. "It's why the expression 'people's liberation army' always worked so much better as a recruiting device than 'mass murderers.'"
Another hopeful sign of a subtle cooling of heated diplomatic rhetoric is an official directive by the Hugo Chavez administration instructing journalists to stop using the term 'nationalizing oil fields.' Last week, the more graceful term "petrolic resource reapportionment" began to appear in prominent Venezuela media, along with "amicable annexation."
Yet perhaps the most encouraging sign of all is in Mexico, where vigilante groups have announced that they will no longer use the term "death squads" to describe their activities. Instead, death squads will be identified as "terminus-inducing claques," "free-lance resolution facilitators," and "off-site impasse adjustors."
Finally, in yet another determined effort to disassociate itself from the bellicose imagery favored by the Bush administration, the State Department and the Joint Chiefs of Staff will no longer employ the term "bad guys" to describe al Qaeda.
"It's juvenile, it's demeaning, and it's judgmental," says a high-ranking administration spokesman. "From now on, the bad guys will be referred to as 'the ostensibly malefic.' We'll get back to you when we have a new term for 'the good guys.'"
Mr. Queenan, a satirist and freelance writer, is the author of numerous books. His memoir, "Closing Time," will be published this month by Viking.
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