Bob Harris - Who Hates Whom: Well-Armed Fanatics, Intractable Conflicts, and Various Things Blowing Up A Woefully Incomplete Guide

CONTENTS

DEDICATION

To the countless millions of
innocent human beings
who have died
because other human beings
were certain
they were doing the right thing

INTRODUCTION/FOREWORD THINGY

V isiting a museum in Turkey, I once stumbled across the oldest surviving peace treaty, inscribed in clay more than three thousand years ago. After historys greatest chariot battle, the Egyptians and Hittites reached the agreement pictured below:

These shreds of claythe Treaty of Kadeshdefined the border between two vast empires in terms that allowed both sides to claim victory. The treaty, therefore, promised good peace throughout the entire region. Forever.

And heres a map of that region today:

Yikes.

Three thousand years laterOctober 2006I was in my editors office, batting around ideas for my next book. However, my favorite notiona chronicle of weird sports worldwidedidnt grab him. (The only sport that really sells books is golf. You could do a coffee table book of Tiger Woods organizing his attic, and it would sell.) It was late, so we gave up.

I didnt mind. I love to travel, so I figured Id get on some planes, revisit Trebekistan, and stumble across an idea. Unfortunately, lots of places I want to visitVictoria Falls, say, or Persepolis, Cartagena, or the Chocolate Hills of Boholseem permanently surrounded by turbulence. So on our way out, I wished for a book to existentitled, I dunno, Who Hates Whom, maybewith little essays and maps that would help me understand in simple terms which parts of the planet are currently explosive and why.

Thats not bad, actually, my editor said. You want to write it?

In a lunatic moment of hubris, I said yes. So this is that. My best shot, anyway. But had my editor been in a more whimsical mood, this book might have been about Malaysian foot volleyball, German chess-boxing, and Turkish camel wrestling.

So, the ground rules:

This book is meant to be handy when you see something explode on CNN but they switch to Anna Nicole Smith still being dead before youre sure what went kaboom. So were looking mostly at Third World powder kegs, although since many conflicts remain rooted in colonial decisions, a few former colonial powers get entries, too.

A more accurate title might have been Whos Currently Blowing Up Whom, or Did Recently, or Is Probably About To, but the cover isnt big enough, and too many people might miss the fourth word.

In no way is this comprehensive. I omitted the United States, for example, since this edition is mostly for U.S. readers, and you already know whom youve recently hated and feared. There should probably be more here about Russia and China, but they deserve whole books, and in the space allotted I wanted to give you a variety pack. Theres nothing here about Senegals civil war, Fijis recent coup, or a dozen other significant conflicts. If your favorite insurrection or oppressive power didnt make the cut, my bad.

Obviously, these essays arent up to the minute. Writing a book about ongoing battles is like doing an oil painting of a fireworks display. I can try to fill in the history and context and players, but for updates, youre on your own.

I claim no expertise. Zero. My degree is in electrical engineering, and Ive been a comic, a TV writer, a memoirist, a TV debunker of urban legends, and the voice of a cartoon penguin, all of which qualifies me for squat. Im lucky Im allowed to drive. While everything should be pretty easy to verify from reputable sources in two Googles, surely there are errors I havent caught. I eagerly await being told of each one five minutes after publication. See WhoHatesWhom.com for errata and notes.

Dont worry if youve never heard of Baluchistan and the like. I certainly hadnt until working on this. If it helps, Im friends with Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, the two biggest winners in the history of Jeopardy!, and they hadnt heard of Baluchistan, either. And they know how many fingers youre holding up right now.

I have come to recommend strongly against looking for good guys. Conflicts often arent two-sided, and our capacity for rationalization means even the right side usually does lousy things. So be ready for conflicts with two marginally bad guys, three bad guys and no good guys, etc.

I made the graphics myself in Photoshop, based on public domain data, news reports, and government resources. (I took all the pictures, too.) Map boundaries may be off by a smidge. Please dont spaz. Political boundaries are fictional and temporary anyhow. No insult ever intended to your particular shade of gray.

Incidentally, maps are inherently filled with political choices. In a civil war, which city is the capital? (I just show every relevant city.) If a boundary is disputed, where do you draw the line? (The UN has handy suggestions.) What about disputed territories with multiple names? (Most common usage wins.) Common usage rules country names, too: Egypt is Egypt, not Misr; India is India, not Bharat; etc. But Ivory Coast is Cte dIvoire, because theyve been asking nicely for decades.

Acronyms are in original languages: the French group Mdecins Sans Frontires (Doctors Without Borders) would be abbreviated MSF here, not DWB.

I avoid the word terrorism, for moral and clarity reasons. For one, its common usageviolence against civilians by non-state actors as an absolute evilsubtly implies that officially sanctioned carnage is somehow more legit. Eek. Whether an air force blows up your village or rebels bomb it from ground level, the objectives and results are the same. (The UN definition makes no distinction between state and non-state terror, but popular usage does. No wonder governments like the word.)

Terrorist is also distorted simply to mean enemy. Nepalese Maoists were terrorists right up until they helped abolish an abusive monarchy. Theyre now the prime ministers cabinet during a peaceful transition to democracy. While Nelson Mandela was fighting apartheid, the White House deemed his party terrorist, but an anti-Castro militant accused of involvement in killing seventy-three civilians on a Cuban airliner went to work for Oliver North. And when rebels in Sierra Leone were hacking off peoples arms specifically in order to terrify people, the word was rarely even suggested, although you couldnt ask for a more precise example. Even Amnesty International used terrorism to refer only to Al-Qaeda, which may have benefited from the blood diamond trade.

Worse, the word obliterates distinctions. Terrorists in Lebanon, Sri Lanka, Spain, and Peru almost sound like theyre teammates, but they have literally nothing in common. Tossing complex, violent agendas into a giant bin called terrorism is both lazy and dangerous. Instead, lets force ourselves to use specifics: nationalist rebels or drug-financed paramilitary death squads or sex-crazed vegetarian pacifists. Speaking of which, not enough sex-crazed vegetarian pacifists are invading people. I checked.

Everyone knows how horrible 9-11 was. We dont minimize it by refusing to use a meaningless word. Instead, we force ourselves to think. This may be a useful habit.

If youre a well-armed paramilitary cell, a separatist group liberating your minority, or a religious movement purifying society, and you think Ive described your blowing-up-of-stuff unfairly, please consider: I am a reasonable man. More important, I am also spineless. Simply contact me via the publisher, explain how Ive misrepresented your cause, and with luck I will happily apologize, try to include your side of things more fairly in the next edition, and continue to enjoy full use of my physical body.