The Dignity Agenda

By David Ignatius

Sunday, October 14, 2007; B07

"We talk about democracy and human rights. Iraqis talk about justice
and honor." That comment from Lt. Col. David Kilcullen, made at a
seminar last month on counterinsurgency, is the beginning of wisdom
for an America that is trying to repair the damage of recent years. It
applies not simply to Iraq but to the range of problems in a world
tired of listening to an American megaphone.

Dignity is the issue that vexes billions of people around the world,
not democracy. Indeed, when people hear President Bush preaching about
democratic values, it often comes across as a veiled assertion of
American power. The implicit message is that other countries should be
more like us — replacing their institutions, values and traditions
with ours. We mean well, but people feel disrespected. The bromides
and exhortations are a further assault on their dignity.

That’s the difficulty when the U.S. House of Representatives pressures
Turkey to admit that it committed genocide against the Armenians 92
years ago. It’s not that this demand is wrong. I’m an Armenian
American, and some of my own relatives perished in that genocidal
slaughter. I agree with the congressional resolution, but I know that
this is a problem that Turks must resolve. They are imprisoned in a
past that they have not yet been able to accept. Our hectoring makes
it easier for them to retreat deeper into denial.

The most articulate champion of what the administration likes to call
the "democracy agenda" has been Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
When she talks about the universality of American values, she carries
the special resonance of an African American girl from Birmingham,
Ala., who witnessed the struggle for democracy in a segregated
America. But she also conveys an American arrogance, a message that
when it comes to good governance, it’s our way or the highway.

That’s why it’s encouraging to hear that Rice is taking policy advice
from Kilcullen, a brilliant Australian military officer who helped
reshape U.S. strategy in Iraq toward the bottom-up precepts of
counterinsurgency. Sources tell me Kilcullen will soon be joining the
State Department as a part-time consultant. For a taste of his
thinking, check out his Sept. 26 presentation to a Marine Corps
seminar (available at ).

As we think about a "dignity agenda," there are some other useful
readings. A starting point is Zbigniew Brzezinski’s new book, "Second
Chance," which argues that America’s best hope is to align itself with
what he calls a "global political awakening." The former national
security adviser explains: "In today’s restless world, America needs
to identify with the quest for universal human dignity, a dignity that
embodies both freedom and democracy but also implies respect for
cultural diversity."

After I mentioned Brzezinski’s ideas about dignity in a previous
column, a reader sent me a 1961 essay by the philosopher Isaiah
Berlin, which made essentially the same point. A deeply skeptical man
who resisted the "isms" of partisan thought, Berlin was trying to
understand the surge of nationalism despite two world wars.
"Nationalism springs, as often as not, from a wounded or outraged
sense of human dignity, the desire for recognition," he wrote.

"The craving for recognition has grown to be more powerful than any
other force abroad today," Berlin continued. "It is no longer economic
insecurity or political impotence that oppresses the imaginations of
many young people in the West today, but a sense of the ambivalence of
their social status — doubts about where they belong, and where they
wish or deserve to belong."

A final item on my dignity reading list is "Violent Politics," a new
book by the iconoclastic historian William R. Polk. He examines 10
insurgencies through history — from the American Revolution to the
Irish struggle for independence to the Afghan resistance to Soviet
occupation — to make a stunningly simple point, which we managed to
forget in Iraq: People don’t like to be told what to do by outsiders.
"The very presence of foreigners, indeed, stimulates the sense first
of apartness and ultimately of group cohesion." Foreign intervention
offends people’s dignity, Polk reminds us. That’s why insurgencies are
so hard to defeat.

People will fight to protect their honor even — and perhaps,
especially — when they have nothing else left. That has been a
painful lesson for the Israelis, who hoped for the past 30 years they
could squeeze the Palestinians into a rational peace deal. It’s
excruciating now for Armenian Americans like me, when we see Turkey
refusing to make a rational accounting of its history. But if foreign
governments try to make people do the right thing, it won’t work. They
have to do it for themselves.

The writer is co-host of PostGlobal, an online discussion of
international issues. His e-mail address is
davidignatius@washpost.com.

Source: le/2007/10/12/AR2007101202147.html