Ruchira sent me a link to a recent Newsweek column by Fareed Zakaria, and it seems like it could use a comment box. Zakaria says he likes Obama, surprisingly, because of “identity.” It’s surprising because, as Zakaria himself admits, he’s not one for identity politics:
Obama’s argument is about more than identity. He was intelligent and prescient about the costs of the Iraq War. But he says that his judgment was formed by his experience as a boy with a Kenyan father—and later an Indonesian stepfather—who spent four years growing up in Indonesia, and who lived in the multicultural swirl of Hawaii.
I never thought I’d agree with Obama. I’ve spent my life acquiring formal expertise on foreign policy. I’ve got fancy degrees, have run research projects, taught in colleges and graduate schools, edited a foreign-affairs journal, advised politicians and businessmen, written columns and cover stories, and traveled hundreds of thousands of miles all over the world. I’ve never thought of my identity as any kind of qualification. I’ve never written an article that contains the phrase “As an Indian-American …” or “As a person of color …”
But when I think about what is truly distinctive about the way I look at the world, about the advantage that I may have over others in understanding foreign affairs, it is that I know what it means not to be an American. I know intimately the attraction, the repulsion, the hopes, the disappointments that the other 95 percent of humanity feels when thinking about this country. I know it because for a good part of my life, I wasn’t an American. I was the outsider, growing up 8,000 miles away from the centers of power, being shaped by forces over which my country had no control. (link)
Zakaria’s approach to “identity” is in some sense negative. He wouldn’t argue that Obama is better because he’s black, or mixed-race, or part-African, etc. But he will argue that Obama has enough of a personal, experiential link to the world outside of U.S. borders (non-U.S.) that it will benefit his judgment.
One could argue that the key distinction here is “experience” vs. “identity,” and that it’s “experience” of the non-U.S. we’re talking about really, not “identity.” But the way Zakaria phrases it (and from some of the other points he makes in the column) I sense that he’s talking about something much more visceral than what one might learn on a semester abroad in college. Perhaps he really does mean “identity” — as in, a set of immutable attributes — not “experience.” What do you think?
Hmmh. Its hard for me dissect out the difference between ‘identity’ and ‘experience’ in this context. So, are you saying, that say a second or third generation Indian (or any other national origin for that matter) might inherit the ‘identity’ without the experience of growing up in India. I have met plenty of ABDs who have no ‘identity’ even though they have the ‘experience’ of being raised sometimes by recent immigrant parents. The reverse is also true, some ABDs who have as strong as an ‘identity’ as me (a DBD). I think it boils down to the experience-if you havent lived it-ya cant feel it.
Fareed is more interested in blowing his trumpet than making any substantial point about identity. Sounds quite the patronising sort,
Fareed knows about the struggling peasants of rural India? This guy who went to Cathedral and then hopped over to Harvard after high school has no idea whatsoever about what it means to be a struggling peasant. He has plenty of ideas about what people should be doing. I guess that’s where the PhD in international relations comes in handy. For a guy who hasn’t got a single worthy prescription to his name Fareed, needs more modesty, much more.
Can/will the American public allow him to express that side of himself? I’ve heard commentators say he has to not speak about his international side because its off putting to the parochial American sensibilities and it will play into fears of his secret Muslim identity that he’s waiting to spring on us when the coast is clear. It embarrasses me to write this- but I’ve definitely been in online discussions w/ some African Americans who consider Mr. Obama’s “global” outlook proof that he wasn’t black. [This on a reputedly “conservative” blog for
African Americans“Negroes” -preferred term of self ID for that particular site]“black” is pretty immutable identity that supersedes all else, to a whole lotta people. I refrain from expounding on my elegent theory on race =class in the USA.
As a person of color, I’m also not one for identity politics.
Is identity a set of immutable characteristics? Kwame Appiah and Amartya Sen would disagree with you, as would I. I think identity is chosen and invented, not discovered, and such invention is shaped by experience. Part of this invention involves empathy– if you can sense intimately what it is like to be a member of another group and this understanding modifies your way of life, your identity is already modified as you become a little bit more cosmopolitan. And cosmopolitanism is an identity in itself. While one semester in college is typically not enough for such invention, Obama’s childhood experience could render him more sympathetic to cosmopolitanism. Perhaps this is what Zakaria is getting at– that Obama has not just been abroad, he can empathize with what is global, which causes part of him to be global.
Fareed Zakaria has always seemed to me to have something of an identity problem himself, always makin the point that while he looks Indian, his priorities and assumptions are all seamlessly those of white Americans at the relatively liberal end of the conservative spectrum. This stance has always seemed to me to be impossible in truth, as these values likely came to him after he arrived on these shores, and should have been mediated by his past understanding of the world, even if it was shaped on Malabar Hill or wherever. It was acceptable at the time of his rise to media prominence for someone of his personal and academic background to create out of himself a sort of paragon of white man’s virtues by those means position himself as spokesperson for the misunderstood masses of colored folk all aswarm out there, so maybe now is a good time for him to cash all of that in, because it’s getting out of date.
After all, this whole palaver is frothing up in the wake of Joseph Wilson’s silly HuffPo article in favor of the Hillary’s “experience.” Interesting thing about THAT article was that it referenced the London Times first thing, as if Obama would reorder the transpond alliance first thing he came to office, because you know he went to Kenya and Indonesia, not Agleterre, and he maybe doesn’t even have friends there. But of course that’s not where the London Times is coming from at all. In fact, timesonline published letters from readers in China and Japan that were totally down on the Hillary and angrily, openly against more of the same in the White House.
This new catch phrase or catch all argument about identity as substitute for experience seems to be the polite new way to say that experience in running the same old same old same old manifest destiny program may not be worth the fossil fuels required to move the Hillary to so many — what– 88?- countries after all.
When I read commentators fulminating about women wearing the burqa—which I don’t much like either—I think about one of my aunts, who has always worn one, and of the many complex reasons she keeps it on, none of which involves approval of misogyny or support for suicide bombers
I think Fareed above might be referring to this article from David Frum’s wife Danielle Crittenden who wore a burqa for a few days in DC and had this to say about her experience:
amardeep,
2.
He seems to view it not as a negative, not a non-positive, but as a clear positive reason to vote for Obama.
Jyotsana,
What do prescriptions have to do with this? Perhaps you are referring to the fact that he is not a medical doctor? Please clarify.
Interesting how Danielle Crittenden manages to sweep aside her own admitted experience of being treated with respect while in a burqa and instead burbles on angrily with her received ideas of causality, to toe some unidentified party line. I’m not saying it’s untrue that women are often abused in mysogynistic settings, but this is putting the cart before the horse- the garment is for protection from misconduct, not the cause of misconduct. This is the kind of dumbass thinking that Hillary has taken to 88 countries.
Fareed’s post reminds me of one of the most powerful chapters of Mark Penn’s recently published book, Microtrends. Ironically, Mark is currently running Clinton’s campaign. But he has an interesting take on the top-tier media and how there’s been a shift in the priorities of the intellectual elites in America. Removed from the struggle of their ancestors, elites (and I’m guilty of this) start focusing on the charisma of candidates, and don’t devote much time to a discussion about policy. On the other hand, now you have blue collar workers and regional publications who have a nuanced understanding about the implications of every tax/energy/health care policy in the book – since they are so concerned about their bottom line.
Personally, I’m frustrated by reading Fareed’s column, and I’m going to take the time to vent ;). There’s so much at stake at this election, there’s a lot of complicated issues being talked about, and I wish the media, (particularly the print media since it’s the ideal medium for the following), would stop writing epics about someone’s past and tell me about their health care plan! Or maybe I’m just asking for too much.
Joseph Wilson’s article is aimed at securing an ambassadorship to the UK or at least to Niger!
The point Wilson makes about the lack of experience in the national and the international arena applies to both our last two presidents – governors from southern states. Neither had been known to be globe-trotters who had worn down the heels of their penny loafers before they came to occupy the White House. Yet one of them turned out to be a decent negotiator of international issues and the other is a disaster. Which way might Obama go? We don’t know. It certainly depends on personality and from what we have seen so far, Obama seems a cool customer, not arrogant and willing to listen.
As for Hillary’s experience, what most people forget is that we might be in for a sequel here. So whose experience are we talking about – just Hillary’s or Bill & Hill’s? Given the fact that Bill Clinton is known to suck the oxygen out of any room (or convention hall) from anyone else’s breathing space, I am not even sure he will consult Hillary when he makes public policy pronouncements. I heard Hillary the other day joking on the campaign stump that it is becoming an American tradition that a Clinton cleans after a Bush. Very funny. How about a Rodham Clinton cleaning after Clinton? That was becoming a tradition too. Do we want to see it again?
See this recent editorial piece by Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post on the ramifications of having Bill Clinton as your “running mate.”
As for Zakaria on Obama, I think he is speaking of “identity” more than experience which are after all, linked. An identity which is distinct from that of the average American, white or black. The identity does not refer to skin color alone but also the ability to look at a familiar scene as an outsider and still be able to live it as an insider.
Whether we like it or not, presidential politics is often about identity. We have varying degrees of Christian identity being played out to the hilt on the GOP side this year. On the Democratic stage, it might come down to whether the healing effect on America will be better achieved by electing the first black president or the first female one.
Actually, no, many Indian farmers are aware of American trade and foreign policy as it pertains to them– India has what you might call a post-literate electorate, pretty well informed by video and audio news sources. I think I’ve readP.Sainath quoting farmers in different areas who seem pretty well informed about farm subsidies in the U.S.
I do not know if it is possible or wise to deduce (even insinuate) Obama possessing a sharper “international” sixth sense than Clinton on the basis of his background. It is an interesting argument to propose definitely, but does Zakaria also imply that Obama posseses the look as well to disarm the outside world’s present pessimism towards the United States? I am not sure. Zakaria is careful (too careful maybe) not to label Obama. Understandable since that would make his thesis touchy.
Maybe what is insinuated is that the non-American world, especially the incendiary non-American world, would identify better with Obama because he would represent a different albeit unknown chapter essential to court truce, but that is if they care. A certain vision is expected of a Bush or a Clinton in office in the non-American world. Obama will have a fresh international slate, incredibly advantageous if he is elected president. And the outside world may then presume the American presidency isn’t becoming nepotistc. And all’s well till Obama makes his first international political “mistake.”
fareed zakaria is an uncle tom! and white people are racist!
i think i appropriately addressed the questions that amardeep is asking, didn’t i?
Amrita, you are right. This is increasingly the case. I remember my grandfather (and other members of my family who are in this line of work) constantly following agri-commodities prices on the radio and discussing farm matters and criticizing some foreign subsidies (although not very knowledgeably), also watching agri-stuff on TV that we kids could not stand! When I read the word ‘struggling peasant’ though, I was thinking more of a farm worker who just works in fields but doesn’t own land. I think these constitute a larger portion of the rural population (depending on the part of the country) and literacy is still quite low. They often vote for whoever they are asked to vote for.
Now, now Razib, calm down. Fareed is the editor of a mainstream magazine, Newsweek, not the moderator of a relatively obscure white supremacist/race realist site that obsesses over proving how whites and yellows are genetically superior in IQ, looks, morality, achievement etc to the uncivilized browns and blacks. He feels affinity for Obama not Steve Sailer, Rushton, Murray, Derbyshire et al.
Amrita.
Thanks for link to Sainath’s interview. However, it seems to have an opposite view of farmers’ knowledge (e.g. “People mint money on the backs of farmers’ lack of information everywhere.”,”Asymmetries of information are everywhere, and denial of information is the game” etc) It seemed to me that you mistook Sainath’s knowledge for the farmers. (Yeah, I remember the farmers agitation against Monsato, Duncan, etc in the 90s, but that seems to be a case of farmers not being able to avoid infomation
This characterization makes me cringe. There is a lot of information today, but the s/n of the Indian media is horribly low and seems to be getting lower. Your linked article had a good example ” …the babalog who’ve learned their economics from Tom Friedman – not Milton Friedman, but Tom!..“
jyotsana
I think you hit the nail on the head here,
but ,
why the Catherdral hatred? You’re not from St Anne’s are you? 🙂
Obama’s identity is suddenly a hot topic in Democratic circles. As a person of color, I was touched by how Bob Kerry repeatedly referred to him as Barack Hussein Obama, for the benefit of the all white Iowan crowd on the eve of their primary. Given that he was in the midst of endorsing rival candidate Hillary Clinton, it was especially selfless of him to point out how Obama’s Muslim connections were a good thing, especially the fact that he attended a madrassa, albeit a “secular madrassa” as Kerry put it, as opposed to the religious one Clinton staffers have been graciously alleging for a while.
“It’s probably not something that appeals to him, but I like the fact that his name is Barack Hussein Obama, and that his father was a Muslim and that his paternal grandmother is a Muslim,” said Mr. Kerry. “There’s a billion people on the planet that are Muslims, and I think that experience is a big deal.” The fact that Kerry likes Obama’s middle name, despite the fact that, at least according to Kerry, Obama does not, just shows you how tolerant he is.
In great contrast to Bush, who puts Uncle Toms in token positions such as Secretary of State, Kerry would like to see Mr Obama in a Clinton administration role of reaching out to black youths and Muslims around the world. “As an African-American, he can speak in an authentic way to underperforming black youth who I think will follow his example.” Of course, if Obama loses the nomination, he’ll be even more authentic, having underperformed. What this country, and our underperforming black youth need, is authenticity.
Kerry even went out of his way to point out how others are saying how he’s an “Islamic Manchurian Candidate” (of course, there’s no connection between this and President Clinton saying, “We don’t know what we’re getting” with Obama). Similarly, the head of Hillary Clinton’s campaign in New Hampshire, Bill Shaheen, warned that those Willie Horton Republicans are going to use the racially coded “drug dealer” smear against Obama, a charge no white candidate who’s admitted using drugs ever faced. It’s quite sporting of the Clintons to warn Obama of these smears in advance. A special shout out goes to Clinton’s campaign manager, Mark Penn, for graciously saying “we’ve made clear that the issue related to cocaine use is not something that the campaign was in any way raising.” Obama is really being a bad sport by not returning the favor by saying something like; “I refuse to bring up my opponents alleged lesbianism.”
He’s clearly not in the Clintons’ class. I wouldn’t be surprised if he were so thoughtless as to miss the Neshoba County Fair.
Wow, that gold digging fraud Kerry sure is something. I never did like him. Now I loathe him.
I think this election really comes down to Obama/Ron Paul/breath-of-fresh-air vs Clinton/Guiliani/same-old-stench. If you want change, whether you are democrat or republican, the choice is clear.
Sen hasn’t got a clue about “identity” (or the many other things he blathers about). For a change could we take up serious explanations about identity rather than intelligently mediocre accounts?
21 jyotsana: Have you read “Identity and violence” and/or understood his arguments? Have you heard of Kwame Appiah? Is he also “intelligently mediocre”?
Wow the Clintons are classy.
ghussa, razib is being sarcastic/ironic.
Amardeep, I don’t think this is what Fareed Zakaria is saying, but for many people one’s identity/ies affect our life experiences. I think they’re both related but different issues. I think what’s exciting about Obama is his global outlook and experience, and while this is due in part to his diverse background/identity, I would hope that if someone else had had “global exposure” they would also be more thoughtful and interesting people. That’s probably reductionist and overly idealistic, though.
Field Negro, dilettante? 🙂 This argument also appeared in Slate, and is one of the most embarrassing and profoundly stupid/essentializing arguments I’ve heard. Not only does it play at a fundamentally racist argument, it’s also incredibly irrelevant and does no one any favors.
Oops I mistakenly thought it was the Kerry (John) from Massachusetts, the gigolo who marries only wealthy heiresses. Bob Kerry I thought was a decent fellow. He demeaned himself here.
my guess is booker rising, camille. she said conservative blog
You nailed it, Manju!
Dizzy Desi, I admit I just linked to that article as a good Sainath read. He does quote subsistence farmers on their response to World Bank and other American initiatives in another article but I can’t find it. I remember that because it was surprising to me that the people he quoted knew as much as they did, and I realized my mistake when e-mailing Sainath about that. Maybe landowning farmers, who, as Kurma says, are more aware of politics in a wider sphere talk to small farmers and landless farmers. I would hazard a guess that urban middle class people are more likely to get misled by Thomas Freidman.
Thank you Manju for bringing up the Bob Kerrey / Bill Shaheen / Mark Penn dirty tricks and all this while Hillary was pouring tea with her mom on TV campaign ads. I have been seething but didn’t want to begin an anti-Hillary flame war here since Amardeep’s post is not about her really. Kerrey’s recommendation of appointing Obama as the outreach person into the AA community reached the new low of condescension and stupidity. And all this after the choice words Kerrey had to say about Bill in 1992 and ’96 – one of them was about his lack of experience in national and international affairs
Obama has shown unbelievable class and restraint so far.
I can’t speak for non-landowning farmers in India, but I’ve actually always been surprised (I don’t know why, maybe b/c of lack of literacy/newspaper access) about the level of knowledge re: global development initiatives/politics among subsistence farmers in different parts of the world (this is just an anecdotal comment, not a blanket or authoritative statement). Then again, if it’s your life on the line, it’s not that surprising.
What I am normally surprised by, Camille, is how little I do know compared to most people who inhabit the so-called bottom pool of the economic food chain. Intellectually and academically, I think I am all right. It’s the common sense bit that I have trouble dredging out of a textbook. It makes sense many of these chaps understand the policies better than the policies understand them.
“Identity and violence” is even worse than “Argumentative Indian”. While both the volumes are riddled with careless factual errors, the former is utterly confused. That is the danger with using late 19th and early 20th century pseudoscience to analyse the issues of today.
I have nothing against Cathedral. Though I was not schooled in Bombay, I have known several fine alumni of the more elite schools of the city. Cathedral isn’t exactly the place where one gets to learn about struggling peasants. Fareed shouldn’t take his readers for a ride by writing pop prose. Diplomacy is a tricky business. For Fareed’s own sake I hope he doesn’t have to negotiate with someone like Lalloo, Jayalalita or Mayawati. There are many politicians and diplomats the word over who can forget more in an afternoon than all Fareed has learnt to date.
So, jyotsana, what about the prescriptions?
I don’t in general trust Fareed’s judgment or instincts. Having said that, I would like to believe that having an outsider’s perspective (such as growing up as an immigrant or a foreigner) does influence one’s ability to see different points of view and empathize with one’s “enemies” which could translate into good foreign policy. But if Kissinger is the best example Fareed can come up with, it doesn’t bode well.
Also, jyotsana, his “I have a PhD” line was clearly a self-effacing joke. All his readers know he has a PhD from Harvard or wherever.