Magical Realism and Information Operations

[SWJED]

3 January post at Kent's Imperative - Magical Realism and Information Operations.

The beliefs, and processes of belief formation, of target audiences in information operations has always been underappreciated by operations planners and intelligence officers alike.

The Economist has an excellent piece examining one of the more pervasive beliefs in the Islamic world, and the impact of that belief on the narratives surrounding the Long War.

This is not the first time that elements of the fantastic have been noted in the propaganda of the jihad. In fact, many of the near legendary aspects of the Afghan conflict against the Soviets drew heavily upon this tradition, and was built upon by militant Islamists in other theatres...

[Rob Thornton]

Wolves can see them" he said. Nothing like having supper with your IA peers and being interrupted by the cell phone that rang every time the car carrying a possessed female relative of a close friend went North and hit another Pesh Check Point (The BN CDR being a Kurd would smooth it out - after all nobody should hold up a car with a driver a passenger and Jinn). It was a very matter of fact conversation. I've seen some strange stuff, so I figured who am I to scoff. Since I didn't, and seemed interested in how it progressed, the BN CDR told me the tale of how the woman became possessed and how she was being driven North to have an exorcism.

We also talked about properties animals represent. I'd describe MAJ Khaled one day as a "bear" of a man. In our culture and many others, the bear image is one of strength, ferocity and other worthy characteristics. In Iraq, the bear is seen as ponderous and clumsy. My mistake was forgiven for what it was, an intended compliment and cultural party foul. The wolf however, is a very respected image here - while we are all well aware of the European interpretations-My what big eyes you have!"

I think this is one of the reasons why anthropology could be so valuable a field here and in other places. Culturally we have a hard time admitting to magical realism - to do so seems to make us less in our own eyes. Maybe that has to do with our Neo-Classical / Empirical roots. A capstone class I took was in the field of the history of ideas. One of the things the professor pointed out was how there was a conversation to be listened to in D.C. by looking at the statues - they convey more then just memoriam. He also discussed architecture - Doric Pillars under Greek porticos representing Federalism. To get to the world of Magical Realism, you have to go South aways (well not really, you could go to the Appalachians, Blue Ridge or Catskills; or the Sea faring folks of New England - not the political types and holidayers - but the ones who work). In our US literature you have folks like Flannery O'Connor and William Faulkner - they certainly incorporated it - but that seems to close to really step outside and see it. I met a guy in Ethiopia (anthropologist type) back in 1987 who said he knew the guy who'd done the whole Serpent and the Rainbow bit - and was unable to come to a good empirical conclusion.

My first real experience with it was reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Jorge Luis Borges.

As for how it relates to IO - it worked well for Cortez, but not so good for Montezuma - but he got his revenge.

Marc - you've already thought on this allot - hypothetically, how would one proceed from anthropological line of operation?? I think there is allot to be gained here, not just from a straight IO, but being able to climb inside your enemy's (and your ally's) head and see it from their point of view is incredibly useful.

[slapout9]

Rob, if you get a chance watch the Steven Segal movie "Marked For Death".
He has to face a Jamaican gang that is powered by Voodoo! He finds an Anthropologist to learn how to take his power away(mostly symbolic). The movie is the usual cop sakie and kung fuey stuff but it makes some good points. The main bad guy has a twin brother and they often exploit this by appearing to be two places at once. That is why I wanted marct to expand on the concept of the power of symbols and the symbols of power. We need marct to talk more about this.
Rob, your dead own about learning symbols from the enemies point of view if we are ever going to exploit it properly.

[Stan]

Rob, Dead on the money. Why we constantly bear the ugly American tag. Few of us could care less about what makes the other angry or happy and why we do this and not that. Simple customs and culture. We don't need an anthropologist, but we do need to study a tad more.

In Central Africa, bald-headed people were considered all knowledgeable and known seniors (high ranking) were expected to hold the subordinate's hand while walking. You can imagine what you would look like in front of your peers as you walked up with a Zäirian General on you right side holding your hand (and a tight grip at that). Releasing before the senior permited would be taken as an outright insult. The good part is he would never hold your hand again, but the down side would be a total lack of communication and he would remember that even to his grave.

Estonia is a little less extreme, but have a very unique culture. You never shake hands more than once in a single day with the same person, and if he tries, you simply say we have already seen each other today. One never shake hands over a threshold and males rarely shake a female's hand (could piss off her boyfriend or husband). Instead of knocking on wood (which could be considered impolite and even disruptive) you (fake) spit over your left shoulder three times (similar to throwing salt over your left shoulder to warn away your enemy or preclude bad luck).

Ok, forgive the rambling, but you get the general idea. It doesn't take too long to get tuned-in and figure out what folks do and don't. This will pay itself back ten-fold and open doors.

Hell, you can even teach NCOs to do it
Regards, Stan

[marct]

Hi Folks,

I think this is one of the reasons why anthropology could be so valuable a field here and in other places. Culturally we have a hard time admitting to magical realism - to do so seems to make us less in our own eyes. Maybe that has to do with our Neo-Classical / Empirical roots.

Marc - you've already thought on this allot - hypothetically, how would one proceed from anthropological line of operation?? I think there is allot to be gained here, not just from a straight IO, but being able to climb inside your enemy's (and your ally's) head and see it from their point of view is incredibly useful.

Rob, Dead on the money. Why we constantly bear the ugly American tag. Few of us could care less about what makes the other angry or happy and why we do this and not that. Simple customs and culture. We don't need an anthropologist, but we do need to study a tad more.

You know, Rob, in some ways I definately agree with Stan here - you don't necessarily need an Anthropologist here, but you do need to study a bit more .

Okay, translation of that cryptic comment.....

The best way for 99.9% of people is to do exactly what you did, Rob: listen respectfully and ask questions (hey, that's what we do <wry grin>). As long as wyou don't pooh-pooh the custom or idea, no matter how silly it sounds to you, most people will think "hey, he's a good guiy, even if he can't tell a djinn from a shaitan".

As far as "using it", a la Cortez and his crowd, honestly, I wouldn't even try; you're too likely to screw it up and make bad mistakes that will come back to haunt you. Think of it this way; why fight someone on their own ground? If you want to involve magic (or magick) in this war, there are certainly precedents (take a look at Katherine Kurtz's Lammas Night for one of the best known precedents).

The way to "use" these beliefs is in two ways:

1. Find the people who already believe and operate within religious systems that use this type of belief. As far as the US forces are concerned, contact the Chaplaincy Office for the names of recognized Wiccan Priests and Priestesses, as well as the contacts for any Asatruar (I think there is an Asatruar crowd on one the the Navy aircraft carriers). For the Wiccans, see if you can find anyone who knows combat magic (it's a limited specialty) - maybe someone affiliated with the Fourth Face of the Goddess (if they are still around), or a solid Alexandro-Gardnerian coven. For the Asatruar folk, see if they will recommend someone who works on the Seitha path.
2. Use Anthropologists and Western Magicians, preferably the WMT crowd (there's some good ones in Toledo of all places) to work with local practitioners.

Sound nuts <wry grin>? I did tell you guys I did my MA on the institutionalization of modern witchcraft, didn't I?. Honestly, Rob, this is an area where you must have someone who believes in some type of the supernatural (according to Western rationalism), or who has a lot of experience in dealing with it.

You are right that this isn't about I/O operations - this is about "reality" as it is perceived. That economist article on Magical Realism was really interesting, and makes a good case in point. The djinn supporting the Northern Commander are still there. More importantly, the memebrs of the Northern Alliance still believe that their allies are Muslim Djinn, and that the Taliban are allied with their opponents (talk about a radically dualist view! Reminds me of the Zurvanite Heresy. Hmmmm, that gives me the germ of an idea...).

Look, one of the reasons why so many people in the Muslim world think that the US and the West are such hopeless naifs is the lack of belief in the spiritual world. "Crusader" is a spiritual, as well as historical, term. There is, however, a precedent inside Islam for non-Muslims to be allied spiritually with Muslims (ask your BTN CDR if he knows any of the tales of Moses and the Green Man [not sure about his Islamic name]). If we can mobilize some of this, it might be useful, although I do have fears about what the Immoral Minority..., sorry, Moral Majority, crowd would think about it.

Marc

[Stan]

Marc,
I would have to agree with you . I did my studies on the ground front and center, during social and political upheaval and 3 civil wars (10 years total)

How did I make it out ? Good question and I have an equally good answer: Knowledge of customs and culture, not reading some bible study class Bravo Sierra on pathetic symbols (Africans care about well-being and money, there are no jungle rules).

My neighbors homes flanked my house during the 2nd uprising and when I awoke, only my house was left untouched. Belgian females raped and males shot in the head. Both houses were totaled and the frames destroyed allowing the roof to come down (very typical African).

Only later would I learn that I was an acceptable white man amongst them who learned not only Lingala but culture and custom.

I'll wouldn't trade that day for any anthropology lesson on earth, as I still have the skin on my Alpha !

An education is great, so long as you know how to use it together with your common sense.

Regards, Stan

[Rob Thornton]

Marc,
Wow. Honestly I'd never thought about it from the perspective of using other theologies or mystical spiritualism - that seems wrong to my western sense of things (I'll have to consider why I feel that way ). Honestly before last night, I did not know that a djinn was different from a demon or a ghost - one of our Shiite interpreters explained it to me and promised to explain more. I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable trying to use it as an active sort of thing personally (although I'm not above advocating its exploration for possible uses) - for me its more of a passive sort of incorporation into understanding the environment which brings forth both the people I work with and those we work against.
I have not given this enough credit. I need to ask around some. The story of Moses and the Green man may be a good start. Is there any relation to Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight?

regards, Rob

[wondertk]

Let's not forget about "legal anthropology" in contending our enemies. Islam does not consist of just one or two holy books such as the Koran and Hadith. It consists of thousands of books and multiple interpretations of Islamic over time and space--very similar to rabbinical law, in that respect. Therefore, I suspect that competing sects in Iraq will have different intepretations of oral and written contracts and other types of agreements, depending on their version of Islamic law. In fact, puritanical Shias will have different interpretations of legal language than their non-puritanical brethren. In turn, one must be very careful in negotiating truces or other types of agreements among community groups.

[wondertk]

You all are bringing back fond memories of my life in Egypt as a study abroad student. The radical telesheikhs on Egyptian tv were fond of the term "viper." My dorm roomates and I used to have parties in the afternoon in which we would wager on which metaphor would be dominant today, and to whom or what would the metaphor be applied. In light of this thread, I wish I had taken notes...

Magical realism and Islamists/Jihadists? You bet. All these adherents to the "pure Islam" have to do is emulate Mohamed, a religious prophet who was aided in his disinformation campaign by an angel. Islam was founded on a magical realist precept of shrewd exploitation of metaphor and superstition and probably psychopathy.

Another good contemporary example of this would be Castroist Cuba's allowing Santeria co-religionist to operate freely in the country. Santeria exists there as a curious syncretic merger with revolutionary practices and Party tropes. You really can get a good dose of this during the Cuban Carnival month, which is not in February like most island carnival seasons, but rather it's in July and August, flanked by revolutionary symbolic dates, July 26 and Fidel's Brithday.

And of course, magical realist Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Fidel are good friends.

The Cubans have a penchant for inviting Muslim leaders from other non-aligned states to vists during Carnival, too. Surprise surprise.

Also, one more note about this: Bassam Tibi devotes some discussion in his book "The Challenge of Fundamentalism: Political Islam and the New World Disorder" to the symbolic nature of Islamist discourse. Tibi is always on my recommended reading list. He's a Syrian Muslim who practices in Germany.

[marct]

Hi Terri!

Glad to see you made it on . You know more about the Islamist ideology than I do... so, tell me, how do djinn fit into the MB/AQ crowd? I was suggesting earlier in the thread that we get a couple of good combat magician (Alexandro-Gardnerian preferably) and so Seitha practitioners to do some "work". Any ideas?

Marc

[slapout9]

One of the things about discussions and how they drift off course, but often lead to something interesting or useful. Stalkers often have charismatic personalities and can exert incredible influence over people almost like a hypnotic trance.
This got me to thinking about one of the absolute masters and that was Jim Jones and his ability to convince 908 people to commit mass suicide by drinking poisoned Kool Aid down in Guyana. I think this is what the expression "drinking the Kool Aid" actually means but perhaps people don't realize it. In the late 70's or 80's when this happened it was considered impossible, but it happened.
Think of all the Guerrilla leaders or terrorists leaders like UBL that have the same type of charisma and his ability to influence people. They have that Jinn like quality that can make them very formidable Psy-Op enemies. In contrast if we could come up with a Lawrence of Arabia type we could wheel and deal. So where is the Jinn of Lawrence?? Rob,Stan,Marct need to find him we need him. Might be over there Latville hanging around.

[jcustis]

I saw a history or discovery channel show on the Jim Jones stuff last night. I can very vaguely remember it when I was a kid. Scared the bejezzus out of me. Jungles, spooky voodoo, cultism. I can remember seeing it on the news and eventually the 60 minutes expose. I have no idea if my parents knew I was watching it, but it was spooky.

This djinn stuff speaks to an interesting conversation I had with one of my former platoon commanders during OIF 2.0. We had since moved on to other billets, but he was outside the wire almost every day. Because he knew Arabic and was a Middle Eastern studies major, he had a fresh perspective on what was going on.

When discussions turned to Zarqawi, he told me that a lot of Iraqis he'd met during ops didn't believe there was a Zarqawi. It seems that early on many had equated him with an Islamic version of the boogeyman. The notion of Zarqawi was quickly used to scare the heck out of Iraqi kids and keep them in line. If they didn't, Zarqawi would "get them" in the middle of the night. The point to this rambling is that maybe we don't need a djinn, but the counter-djinn, like an Aladdin...