History and Culture. Are you cut out to be an American?

All Western European nations have some kind of requirement that applicants for nationality and citizenship show that they have transfered their sense of belonging and attachment from their birth nationality to their new country.

Requirements can include
Legal Residency: commonly, as in the US, a minimum of 5 years, but some countries require 8 or more years
Language: ability to read, write and speak the language adequately
Good moral character: usually only measurable by an absence of a criminal record, but personal references from friends, neighbors and co-workers may be required
Knowledge of history and culture: many countries, including the US, require that applicants pass a citizenship knowledge test.

The US just has revised its test:

Are you ready to be an American? Link to a sample test.

News Flash: Men Happier than Women

The NYT reports a study that indicates women are more stressed and more unhappy more of the time than men.
It's plausible. We're doing more than our mothers (in general, I'd say...I'm doing less), we have higher expectations, and the same amount of time to get everything done.

If this were true, what could we do about it? Should our priorities change? Should what makes us "happy" change?

Voting? Can I have your Identification Card Please?

What if we had to produce a government-issued ID with a photograph when we wanted to vote? Your drivers' license, your passport...


On the face of it, it doesn't seem unreasonable. Only US citizens can legally vote, and after registration, there are few checks on the voting procedure.

Indiana, and a few other states have voting registration laws that require proof of identity. However, the Indiana law has been challenged and the Supreme Court is considering whether to hear an appeal.

So what's the big deal? Why are people challenging these laws? Why don't most states already require proof of identity when voting? Why are we having this discussion?

First of all, there's very little evidence of voting fraud, as the NYT piece points out. There is certainly concern about fraud, but there doesn't seem to be much out there.


Second, who will be affected by this law? Who doesn't have government-issued ID cards? The urban poor, for one. People who don't drive and don't fly. The economically disadvantaged tend to vote Democrat. So some people argue that the ID requirement could effectively disenfranchise some portion of this group of people.


Is it all a conspiracy then by partisan Republicans to play on fears of immigration and disenfranchise a voiceless group of people? Or is there something more substantial at stake?


So are there any civil liberties that we should be concerned about?
If the government (federal or state) is in the business of establishing identity, do we lose anything? Do we gain anything?

Driver's licenses are only part of how our identity and relationship to the state is established. What about birth certificates? Marriage certificates? Death certificates?

What about our social security number? When are we required to provide that number? Well, when we pay taxes, for one. When we fill out almost any health care form, for another.

Birth, marriage, travel, death, employment, taxes....all moments when we interact with the state. We live in a regulated world. What's one more regulation, one more control? Who would it harm?

We try to regulate certain things--health insurance, unemployment, welfare--to ensure that those who belong here receive these services. Or we try to. There seems to be a general agreement that public education cannot be restricted to legal residents of this state. But welfare is becoming more and more restricted, more and more localised. Control of a mobile population can only occur when the givers know who the receivers are.

"Do you belong here?" demands an answer that perhaps, will be answered in the future with the production of a stamped paper signifying our identity.

Inspired by this opinion piece by Adam Liptek: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/24/us/24bar.html?ex=1191384000&en=9776ee1a13c547cd&ei=5070&emc=eta1

Are you ready to be a citizen?

What if we all had to take this oath?

The Oath of Allegiance to the United States, taken by naturalised citizens

I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen;
that I will support and defend the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic;
that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same;
that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law;
that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law;
that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and
that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.

September 17 is Constitution Day

My weekend assignment is to read it. Starting with the Preamble.

Bush's plan for success.

A few excerpts from Bush's speech last night, which I missed.

"[T]he way forward depends on the ability of Iraqis to maintain security gains."

"The principle guiding my decisions on troop levels in Iraq is return on success. The more successful we are, the more American troops can return home. "

Iraqi leaders "understand that their success will require U.S. political, economic and security engagement that extends beyond my presidency. These Iraqi leaders have asked for an enduring relationship with America."

"Whatever political party you belong to, whatever your position on Iraq, we should be able to agree that America has a vital interest in preventing chaos and providing hope in the Middle East. We should be able to agree that we must defeat al Qaeda, counter Iran, help the Afghan government, work for peace in the Holy Land and strengthen our military, so we can prevail in the struggle against terrorists and extremists."

But what if it doesn't work?

Rules for Bad Analogies, part III

I have to disagree with Senator John Kerry. Responding to the speech on August 30 by President Bush, in which Bush linked Vietnam to our war in Iraq, Kerry said, "invoking the tragedy of Vietnam" was "irresponsible." Kerry was referring to Bush's position, that leaving Iraq to early could have the same disasterous consequences that leaving Vietname did--boat people, reeducation camps, and the killing fields, in Bush's words.

As Contanetti's article in the Weekly Standard points out, Opposition to the war has been using the Vietnam analogy for years.

Rule 5: Once you introduce an analogy, you cannot shift the ground under your opponents feet and disallow it. Engage with their argument or consider perhaps that you may have chosen a "bad analogy".

Citizenship

Ann Althouse, a colleague of my late father, is a wonderful blogger and photographer. She captured a quote from Teddy Roosevelt that I find moving and inspirational. But then I find many of Teddy Roosevelt's speeches inspirational--particularly, his speech on the Duties of American Citizenship.

How often do we think of our duties as citizens? When we pay taxes we are fulfilling our duties as citizens. When we vote we are fulfilling our duties as citizens. When we criticize our government, we are fulfilling our duties as citizens.

How else do we, as individuals, interact with the state?

European View of Central Anatolia. Part II

Perhaps it was not the Venetians, trading for good, perhaps it was the Russians who were the first people with a European context to see the monesteries in Capadocia.

The history of the Russian Orthodox church centers around Kiev in the 1000s--and the Kievans looked to Constantinople, Syria, Athos, and Cappadocia. The mongol invasions of the 1200s, did not change this. The Mongols were, unlike Christian rulers, tolerant of all religions. So perhaps, while the Europeans were organizing crusades ( and incidently sacking Constantinople), religious people were travelling between Kiev and Anatolia.

These religious links go even earlier it turns out. In 400, AD there was a schism between Rome and Constantinople , in "field of eccliastical oikonomia, (Icons?) inherited from the Capadocian fathers. This implies there was a certain amount of contact before this time between the church in Rome and the religious houses in central Anatolia.

My question may be inaccurate. To ask how the first European viewed the Cappadocian landscape is to forget the Europe is a construct, and that contact between people in this region cannot be sliced into easily managed timelines. Capadocia was not "discovered"; it was always there.

So I need to look for first written records in European languages describing this region.

Trade and Religion. Two unique forces that create mobility among our population.

Travel in Contexts

The New York Times travel section includes a slide show showing Cappadocia, where Sara and I visited.Yes, it really was that beautiful.

I asked myself then, and I still do: What did the Europeans who first saw this landscape think?

I am reminded of lunarscapes, of Salvador Dali, of vulviform and phallic shapes. That is my late twentieth-century context.

Now, the region was peopled from 2000 B.C, first by the Hittites who came from Europe. Then Persians from the East, Romans from the West, and Turks, again from the East.

But what about the modern European gaze? What is the first recorded reference to Cappadocia by a western European? Who was it? A Venetian on the Silk Road? A Russian? What did they see? What was their context for placing Anatolia's material culture?

A piece written by Hans Theunissen Ottoman-Venetian Diplomatics,suggests that Venetian trade in Anatolia may not have been disrupted by the Mongol invasion of 1243. And, the city of Sivas in Eastern Anatolia, while under mongolian rule in the 13th century, was an important center for European trade. The Genoese had a consulate (late 13th century)! By the early 14th century, however, Turkish and Venetian interests clashed. Enter the Ottomans, who wish to control Anatolia. Treaties with Venetians might indicated increased trade by late 14th century. By 1414, Venetian priveleges were negotiated solely with the Ottomans. See Chapter Seven

Theunissen, Hans, ‘Ottoman-Venetian Diplomatics: the ‘Ahd-names. The Historical Background and the Development of a Category of Political-Commercial Instruments together with an Annotated Edition of a Corpus of Relevant Documents’, Electronic Journal of Oriental Studies 1/2 (1998), 1-698

And if I'd only been to the Met this summer I might have seen an exhibit on Venice and and the Islamic World

Rules for Bad Analogies, part II

Rule 3. Recognize that half of what you know is inaccurate, and the other half is subject to interpretation.
Rule 4. Recognize that it is hard to compare something you are immersed in with something you experienced second hand.
(all credit to wjw)

goats

Or, to be more precise, two fewer goats.

9/11 and Captivity Narratives

Regarding analogies, here's another historical comparison by Susan Faludi in the New York Times. She examines America's reaction to 9/11 in light of 17th and 18th-century American colonists' struggle against the Indians. She argues that Americans created "a fable of national invincibility on the American frontier" to cocoon themselves from their traumatic introduction to the Americas and early loss of life (significant in terms of percentage) in wars against the Indians. And, Faludi, writes, we're doing it again.

Bad Historical Analogies

As a historian, I often complain about people's ahistoricism and ignorance of the past when they make decisions about our future. However, often, when they do consider past events, I whine and complain that they are making false analogies. So I want to create a set of rules for using historical analogies when speaking of current and controversial events.

Here are two.

• Do not compare any event to the rise of German National Socialism, the Munich Agreement, or Hitler's Final Solution. Why? The scale of horribleness engendered by these events makes your analogy a mockery and hence people will disregard your point. It's a slur, even if you think it you don't mean it that way. Unless you're a German historian of the period you probably don't really know enough.
  


• Whenever you compare a past event to a current one, draw out the distinctions as well, in order to make the parallels more believable. Consider the differences in economic terms, social terms, political terms, and cultural terms, for starters. Use the analogy with moderation. Educate yourself enough to know how to do this.