Opinion
Jay-Z's 'Open Letter' on Cuba trip kicks a brick out of cold war wall
Jay-Z's rap struck a chord because America is ready to drop the Cuba embargo. Let's hope President Obama is listening
"Hip-hop is the CNN of the ghetto." It was Chuck D of old school hip-hop group Public Enemy who first said these words. Yet Jay-Z the family man has proven that this saying is still true and has re-established his iconoclastic rep with his fans. Did Jay-Z and his wife Beyonce visit Cuba legally? Does it even matter when his response to the controversy, a rapidly produced song called Open Letter, is trending on Twitter and forced a response from the White House due to some of its lyrics?
Jay-Z's new rap is already in heavy rotation on pop and hip-hop radio stations across America. But you may be wondering why the voice of the Jigga is so influential here in the US. Jay-Z is not just an artist, he's well-known as a major mogul, a cultural trend-setter and as a high profile mega-donor and friend to President Obama and his family.
The lyrics in Open Letter referring to "boy from the hood but got White House clearance" could refer to either his trip to Cuba or to his famous visit to the White House situation room a couple of years ago. The Cuba trip has attracted the attention of Cuban-American conservative lawmakers who asked the Treasury Department to confirm the legality of the trip. The White House has said that the president, a known fan of Jay-Z's music, did not coordinate with Jay-Z or Beyonce on the trip. That may be true, yet once again, the far right is out of step even with their own constituents. The president's policies on Cuba are closer to those that Americans, even Cuban Americans, prefer. It seems more likely that Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, a Republican from the Miami, Florida area, is using public criticism of Jay-Z's trip for media attention.
Polls over the last few years consistently show that Cuban Americans (and Americans generally) think the US travel embargo is out of date. The most recent Florida International University poll revealed: a majority (57%) favors lifting all restrictions on travel, 60% oppose restrictions on family travel, and 57% even support re-establishing diplomatic relations with Cuba. Oh, and a whopping 80% of respondents believe that the embargo has "not worked very well" or "not worked at all".
In fact, Cuban-American support for the trade embargo in general has been dramatically decreasing over time, especially among younger people. President Obama's administration has eased restrictions on family travel to Cuba and instituted a "people-to-people" travel program intended to facilitate cultural exchange. These programs have been popular – hundreds of thousands of Americans have visited Cuba since the new rules were put in place. Only Canada sends more people to Cuba, and given that Canada and Mexico are two of the most popular illegal entryways for Americans to go to Cuba, it's clear that there is room for trade and travel growth among Americans.
Cuba is the only country in the world that Americans are restricted from visiting. If you can get a visa, the US government allows you to go anywhere else in the world, even places like Syria, Iran or North Korea. When Hov (another moniker for Jay-Z – short for Jehovah) says in Open Letter:
"I'm in Cuba, I love Cubans. This communist talk is so confusing. When it's from China, the very mic that I'm using"
This resonates with younger people who see a policy that is out of step and hypocritical given our close trade and diplomatic relationship with China, the largest communist country in the world.
Sanctions can work – the former economic isolation of South Africa toward the end of apartheid the current tensions with North Korea are proof. But they only work when many nations come together in agreement to apply economic pressure. We would influence Cuba's internal environment more rapidly if we normalized all relations, just as we did with countries like China and Vietnam. A popular lyric from "Open Letter" that's quoted says:
"Obama said 'chill, you gonna get me impeached.' But you don't need this sh*t anyway. Chill with me on the beach."
It's a soft pushback not just on Congress, but on Obama, the fair weather friend in the White House. Americans admire someone who is bold enough to stand up to the leader of the free world – and invite him to relax the beach.
On Twitter, there's nothing but applause for Jay-Z's new recording. Here's a few examples:
This guy said "hear the freedom in my speech" lol #jayz #ilovehim #hov #openletter
— Samantha Kristine (@sam___e) April 12, 2013
Im trying to chill w Obama n Jay up on the Beach #OpenLetter
— May 28th (L.M.B.Y.B) (@CD_Watkinz) April 12, 2013
i like what HOVs chattin bout, on #OpenLetter.
— lily huntley (@lilyhuntley1) April 12, 2013
Yall would be suprise at the amount of americans that goes to cuba every year.....BUT WHEN BEY AND JAY DO IT.. ITS A PROBLEM? #OpenLetter
— JessecaChan (@Jesse_hov) April 12, 2013
Twitter leans young, and is heavily used among Latinos and blacks in America, so it's a bellwether to watch. Ultimately time will tell whether Jay-Z and Beyonce's trip opens the door to a change in policy. As Jay-Z raps, "The world's under new management". The US embargo with Cuba is one of the last cold war walls to fall. Looks like it's ready to topple with the Jigga giving it a musical push.
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Civil war is the price Afghans will pay for the criminals the West installed
This week civil war was predicted, a result of giving so much power to warlords after the Taliban's overthrow
This week the defence select committee published a report which concluded that civil war in Afghanistan is likely when international forces leave next year. If the predictions of Securing the Future of Afghanistan are correct, the Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence share much of the blame.
When I returned to Kabul in January and asked an American journalist I'd known in 2001 his view of the situation, he said: "When you look at the facts on the ground, it is hard to believe that civil war is not inevitable."
The facts on the ground include the militias the west has set up in the countryside in a desperate attempt to shore up the barely legitimate Karzai regime. Sadly, these militias, plus the many Afghan private security companies, have contributed to a proliferation of armed groups that will be roaming the country after 2014. Ironically, in the MPs' report, the Foreign Office acknowledges the need to disarm the Taliban, yet omits to mention the problems of re-arming these groups, presumably because they are "the good guys".
What is so tragic is that back in 2001, the west did have the opportunity to assist Afghanistan on its path to peace. But myopia, jealousy and score-settling took precedence over dealing with the political problems that had led to the arrival of the Taliban. Using the maxim "My enemy's enemy is my friend", the US military took sides in a continuing civil war and co-opted the strongmen of the Northern Alliance. In theory, this was to reduce the need for American "boots on the ground".
These regional chiefs, or warlords, were mostly brought back from exile. They were unpopular, having committed war crimes during the civil war. But instead of sidelining them, the US and UK re-empowered them with cash and weapons and made them the allies' sole reference points. They still are, to the bemusement of ordinary Afghans, many of whom, particularly in rural areas, would have preferred a more genuine engagement with the more legitimate local leadership. Unfortunately, the use of strongmen to fight al-Qaida and Taliban has led to chaos in rural areas and a further fragmentation of the tribal system that we should have worked with instead.
As an election monitor in 2002 when a transitional administration was convened to start the state-building process, I witnessed how the warlords were given political legitimacy. The US ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, sidelined the popular former king and made a Faustian bargain with the warlords to allow them into the meeting. This paved the way for them to hijack the state-building process.
The democratically elected Afghans were ignored. The press did not report this, perhaps because it did not fit the narrative of democracy and images of Afghan women putting ballots into boxes. But it marked the end of any pretence that the international community had come here to deliver a "liberal peace" (encompassing democracy and human rights). So the strongmen returned to their fiefdoms empowered, while ordinary Afghans were cowed.
The result – extreme corruption, insecurity, inequality, poverty and violence – is what you see today: a crisis of impunity in Afghanistan. Sadly, our complicity in this is all too often ignored and, instead, analysis centres around historical prejudices: "These Afghans have always fought one another."
Increasingly, these criminal elements – often integrated into international organised networks – took ministerial or local government positions. They became the state. Which is why so much money has been poured in but has been lost to corruption. It is why, however many courthouses the British build, or training we give the Afghan judiciary, there cannot be a properly functioning justice system because there is no impartiality. Because the powerbrokers, having evaded the law themselves, have no interest in strong institutions and a decent justice system.
There can never be true reconciliation in Afghan society until the past is dealt with and those who have committed crimes are made accountable.
By the start of 2001, a famous commander of the 1980s anti-Soviet war, the Pashtun Abdul Haq, had spent two years devising a peace plan aimed at toppling the Taliban. The former king was to be the glue to unify different groups, and Haq engaged Ahmed Shah Massoud – the Northern Alliance leader assassinated in 2001 – tribal leaders and Taliban within the regime's military who were willing to defect. They had held meetings in Bonn and Istanbul. People were willing to work with him because of his history as a guerrilla leader and his record of bridging the ethnic divide. However, in Whitehall and Washington DC, his plan was dismissed.
Today the politicians are hoping that the "bad guy" Taliban will somehow reconcile with the western-backed regime of Hamid Karzai. But the reality is that the Taliban hardliners are controlled by Pakistan, while in Afghanistan many people continue supporting the Taliban because they know they will soon be back. They have already filled a vacuum in providing justice and security in rural Afghanistan, where the government has been corrupt, incompetent or hampered by the US military strategy, which has bred insecurity and chaos.
In reality, the west is using the talks to give itself a chance both to get out of Afghanistan and to claim that the state is stable. For both reasons, Pakistan's co-operation is needed, and Islamabad is driving a hard bargain with the US, even suggesting that Afghan military officers must be trained in Islamabad. In Kabul this year, several Afghans asked me: "Why is the UK appeasing Pakistan?"
Unfortunately, it looks like the need for a quick exit will mean the west caves in to Pakistan's demands. At that stage, we will have gone full circle in Afghanistan since 2001, with Pakistan once again back in the driving seat and civil war the only realistic outlook.
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Don't be fooled by the Senate vote to debate gun control
Despite this simulacrum of adult bipartisan politics, NRA-fearful senators lived to run away another day from meaningful gun laws
The Senate likes to think of itself as the cooler, more statesman-like representative body. They roll their eyes at the antics of House members, the showmanship that comes with being one of hundreds rather then one of a hundred.
But the vote Thursday to deny gun control opponents the chance to filibuster proposed legislation showed that the Senate isn't any less self-absorbed or any less petty than the House, it just moves slower. That the vote itself was a victory for gun control advocates just shows how low our expectations for meaningful gun control have sunk.
True: 16 Republicans voted to let the bill move forward into debate. Also true: of the 68 total that voted to let the bill move forward, 21 have "A" ratings from the National Rifle Association – ratings that will suffer should the NRA make good on its threat to use today's vote as part of its overall "score".
On the plus side: standing up to the NRA is a good thing. On the down side: many, if not most, of the Republicans who voted to let the bill proceed to debate have already decided to vote against the bill itself as it stands. Some – John McCain, Max Baucus, Tom Coburn – have explicitly telegraphed that intention.
These senators have spent today assuring the NRA and gun advocates that a "yes" vote was not, in fact, in favor of the bill, but rather, as Coburn put it:
"We ought to have this debate. America needs to know where we stand."
This sounds awesome; it sounds like Coburn is arguing for accountability from lawmakers! But it's not like anyone is confused by the intentions of those who voted to filibuster the bill.
I take that back: the NRA isn't confused. If you're new to the issue, however, you might think that Senators Mark Rubio, Mike Lee and Rand Paul were talking about something else entirely when they put out a statement decrying the vote. Its closing paragraph doesn't even mention guns:
"Unfortunately, the effort to push through legislation that no one had read highlights one of the primary reasons we announced our intention to force a 60-vote threshold. We believe the abuse of the process is how the rights of Americans are systematically eroded and we will continue to do everything in our power to prevent it."
The magnitude of the Newtown tragedy should have made it politically untenable to be against gun control. All it's really done is made it politically untenable to sound like you're against gun control.
The presence of Newtown families at the vote makes it all the more difficult to call out today's vote for the miserable shuffle forward that it is – if it's forward movement at all. But their presence also demands that we be honest about what's happened. We cannot let this count as a victory; it's just a continuation of the fight … a rhetorical battle whose cost is counted in real lives: over 3,000 since the Connecticut shootings.
Reporters on Twitter covered the Newtown families' reactions in real time. One asked, "It's a step, right?" On Twitter, NBC's Mike Viquiera asked:
Scenes from a vote: Newtown families emerge from chamber. What is a word that captures a look of both grief and success on a person's face?
— michael viqueira (@mikeviqueira) April 11, 2013
Keep looking in the mirror, America, you will probably get another chance to see it.
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Pedalling myths: The anti-bike lobby is flat out of plausible arguments
Oliver Burkeman: With the 'bikelash' reduced to incoherent rants, pro-car common sense is losing traction. Allow me to ride to the rescue
If you hold the view that bikes, and bike lanes, are among the greatest evils threatening society today, you might at first have been pleased to see this week's Toronto Sun column by Mike Strobel, which has circulated widely online. Initially, it appears to stand in the fine tradition of anti-bike screeds such as those by the New York Post's Steve Cuozzo or Andrea Peyser, or the New Yorker's John Cassidy. All are on the frontlines of what's been called the "bikelash", brave fighters willing to stand firm against the growing popularity of cycling across north America. (One of the most prominent developments, New York's long-awaited bikeshare progam, is due to launch next month.)
Take a closer look, though, and you'll notice that something's amiss with Strobel's piece. The average bikelash commentator, no matter how dyspeptic, considers him or herself obliged to come up with some sort of argument. That's why, for example, you'll see Peyser paying vastly disproportionate attention to the tiny number of truly awful accidents caused by cyclists. It's why Cuozzo likes to conduct dubious amateur surveys to try to show thatnobody uses bike lanes. But Strobel's rant against what he calls the "bicycult" is almost entirely devoid of argument. This is as close as he gets:
"The nitty-gritty: Streets are designed for cars, not bikes. Especially in winter, which is most of the time … Cars are common sense. They are our era's horses. They're also vastly greener and safer than your dad's Buick. They will never go dinosaur, despite the bike cult's best efforts."
Still, you've got to sympathise with Strobel's predicament. All the major cycling-related arguments have been won: bike lanes are popular; they don't hurt local businesses; more biking doesn't lead to more accidents; bike lanes make pedestrians safer and don't impede the flow of car traffic.
To anyone who agrees that cycling, much like genocide, is a phenomenon that all decent people should condemn, the implication is clear: the anti-bike lobby urgently needs some new arguments. It's my honour, therefore, to suggest a few they might like to use:
1. In some contexts, bikes are much more dangerous than cars. Consider a heavy bike, dropped from a height of 20ft onto a playground where numerous small children are playing, innocently unaware of the tragedy about to befall them. Now compare this to a car parked on a quiet street. Only the most biased, Brooklyn-dwelling NPR listener could deny the obvious: the bike, in this example, is much, much more dangerous.
2. If you support gun control, you should support bike control. Milquetoast liberals are always objecting to the argument that "guns don't kill people, people kill people", because the widespread availability of guns makes it more likely they'll be used for nefarious purposes. Well, just follow the logic. Bikes can be used for nefarious purposes, too: consider scenario 1 above, or the popularity of bikes among drug-dealers. It's a no-brainer, therefore, that bicycles should be subject to the same kind of ban currently proposed, in the US, for semi-automatic weapons.
3. Any true progressive should support cars over bicycles. The first bicycle dates from 1817. The first car dates from 1886. Are you a progressive or aren't you?
4. The popularity of bikes leads to newspaper "trend stories" like this one, about how some women who ride bikes also wear fashionable clothes. This is actually a pretty good argument.
5. Cyclists are bad people. Let's give Strobel some credit here: he points to Lance Armstrong, whose case proves that all cyclists are liars. It also seems likely that, in the near future, neuroscientific research will confirm that the same part of the brain lights up when cycling as when committing serial murder. The evidence isn't in yet, but are we really going to wait to dot every "i" and cross every "t" before taking action to counter the horrendous possibilities?
OK, that should do for now. Take heart, bikelash commentators! Now is not the time to backpedal. Steel yourselves and keep fighting, until that glorious day when bikes are gone forever.
© Guardian News and Media 2013
[Bike riders via Shutterstock]
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Liberal evangelicals: We aren't the mean-spirited, one-issue religion you see in the media
A white Evangelical leader who found his calling in the Civil Rights movement? A Pentecostal pastor organizing against mass incarceration? Far from the monolith the media portrays, Evangelicals aren’t all right-wingers and fundamentalists. They are diverse, complex, and undergoing change. Many are fighting for justice.
Summits on Tenth, a new Internet video series produced by AlterNet and the Nathan Cummings Foundation, features conversations that blast through conventional thinking on pressing contemporary issues. The first episode, “Evangelicals Building a Just America,” brings you Reverend Dr. Joel C. Hunter and Pastor Michael McBride --two dynamic church leaders that defy the public image of Evangelicals.
Simon Greer, CEO of the Nathan Cummings Foundation, uses his skills as an experienced organizer and leader to bring out some surprising insights from the Reverend and the Pastor.
Below, you can watch segments from the premier video of Summits on Tenth and below that, the full-length version embedded from the Summits on Tenth YouTube channel. What these leaders had to say may surprise and inspire you; it did for us. Thank you in advance for watching and sharing.
Watch Alternet for future Summits on Tenth episodes, which will tackle a variety of provocative topics, including the role and impact of fracking for natural gas in our energy debate.
And the full episode:
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Equal pay: Raising minimum wage will help women – and the economy
Copyright ImageClick to View Jennifer Diagostino, executive director of the Coalition for Economic Justice, CWA Local 1122 vice president, John Mudie, center, and president, Jim Wagner, right, participate in a rally in Buffalo, N.Y., Feb. 25, to call for a raise in the state's minimum wage. Op-ed contributors…
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Racial bias feeds the school-to-prison pipeline
Oakland High School sophomore Barry Williams answers a question from instructor Tiago Robinson during the Manhood Development Program at Oakland High School on March 12 in Oakland, California. This is the cover story in the Apr. 1 issue of The Christian Science MonitorWeekly.(Ann Hermes/The Christian…
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Russell Simmons on the 'war on drugs': 'We've got to start a revolution'
The hip-hop mogul and executive producer of The House I Live In tells of the suffering he saw while growing up in Queens
I'm particularly concerned about how the war on drugs has destroyed the fabric of the black community in America. I grew up in a lower middle-class neighbourhood in Queens that was destroyed by drugs. It was the heroin capital of Queens. Everybody shot dope. My friend in the eighth grade was shooting dope. I've seen the suffering first-hand and I've been involved in the suffering too. I used every drug there is, back in the day, but it didn't make me a bad person: it just made me a sad person, a diseased person. It didn't make me a criminal.
What would have made me a criminal is if I'd been arrested and sent to jail for 20 years, which could have happened easily. A great number of kids in my neighbourhood did go to jail, and they didn't come out so well. They were educated in criminal behaviour, came home violent criminals, and became repeat offenders.
People make choices, it's true. And culture helps them, sometimes, to make bad choices. Drugs are a hurtful choice. They don't promote stable happiness. There's nothing good about them.
I'm fairly optimistic that we can make a change and that President Obama will deliver on some of the promises he's made. From an economic standpoint, he needs to realise how the prison-industrial complex is robbing us – robbing us of money that we could be putting into education and sorting out the community and jobs and infrastructure. Currently, I'm working on getting people of influence involved in the matter, and I've written a letter to the president [Read it at rapgenius.com] detailing how he should address it. We've got to start a revolution, and that's what I'm trying to do right now.
Eugene Jarecki and the campaign to end America's war on drugsThe US war on drugs has cost one trillion dollars and resulted in 45m arrests. And yet nothing has changed, argues film-maker Eugene Jarecki. So what did the prisoners in a New York jail think when he showed them his documentary?
Brad Pitt: America's war on drugs is a charade, and a failureThe actor and executive producer of the documentary The House I Live In says US drugs policy needs a radical rethink
David Simon on America's war on drugs and The House I Live InThe writer/director, who contributed to this hard-hitting documentary, on why US drugs policy has gone terribly wrong
Shanequa Benitez: how I started dealing drugsEx-drug dealer and contributor to The House I Live In on the perils of being drawn into the dangerous world of drug dealing
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media 2013
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How could Christians not hate Jesus, on some level?
Feeling ambivalent is painful, but Christians must learn to manage contradictory emotions
I hate Jesus. Yes, you read that right. I do. I hate Jesus. Three little words that you may think it absolutely impossible for any Christian to say, especially just before Easter Sunday. Well, I disagree. These words are essential – though wiser heads than mine would probably advise that they are best uttered in a safer forum than a newspaper column. But let me explain.
One of the things that I have discovered doing regular psychotherapy is that ambivalence is survivable. Ambivalence is the experience of having contradictory feelings about the same thing, in particular the presence of both love and hate.
Understandably, the conjunction of these emotional reactions feels highly unstable. If you love you do not hate. If you hate you do not love. That is the commonsense position. The one seems to cancel out the other.
Yet even (perhaps especially) in our most intimate relationships, both are present. In a brilliant little paper called Hate in the Countertransference, the psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott suggests a number of reasons why a mother, for instance, is inclined to hate her baby. The baby is a mini tyrant. The mother has constantly to clear up its mess. It may have killed her sex and social life and reshaped her body. And what thanks does she get? The baby is "ruthless, treats her as scum, and unpaid servant, a slave".
The baby also hates its mother. Initially, the mother is present for the baby without distance or qualification. But as the mother gradually withdraws, so the baby is forced to recognise that she is other to him and separate. The child's sense of its own identity comes about at the same time that he suffers the trauma of love being apparently withheld. The baby cries out as it begins to appreciate that its own needs are not going to be met before they are demanded, and not instantly when they are.
There is a question of whether hate is exactly the right description for the swirling emotional turmoil of these very basic experiences. But what a "good-enough" parenting situation creates is a sense that these emotions are indeed survivable. The mother is able to absorb the baby's hatred without actually being destroyed by it. Thus the baby learns not to be so terrified of his own hatred that he is unable ever to articulate it. This is important. It is the things we dare not articulate that have the power to run us unconsciously.
How could Christians not hate Jesus, on some level? Much of his teaching is about the renunciation of desire. And on Good Friday he suffers the most excruciating torture and execution – something he had previously told his followers that they too must be prepared to emulate: "Take up your cross and follow me."
It's hardly emotional rocket science that none of us takes too kindly to such an invitation or can expect to be free from dark and complex feelings if we try and follow in these impossible footsteps. Let's call that reaction hatred, for want of another word. Because, no, I bloody well do not want to be crucified. Peter, who denied him and ran away, got that one right.
Of course, this hatred is survivable. That's the point. In psychoanalytic terms, Jesus can absorb our hatred and is not destroyed by it. That, in part, is what is going on as he is mocked and spat upon. Mocked by the very same people that once welcomed him with open arms.
This is a crash course on ambivalence on a cosmic scale. And it is the way we learn better to love again, without fear. We are no more trapped by our own hatred. Hallelujah.
Twitter: @giles_fraser
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media 2013
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