Small War on Basilan (catch all)

[Dayuhan]

But if you don't think local elites have a major impact on US politics, you haven't been paying attention. This is true in every country to some degree, and in a country with any form of republican democracy it is very true and significant.

I think you're missing the matter of degree. Philippine local elites don't "have a major impact" on policy, they control it. They don't influence the government, they are the government Imagine a place in the US where local elites can fix an election to the point where the non-preferred candidate gets zero votes and votes for the preferred candidate exceed the number of voters, or where supporters of opposing candidates can be beaten or killed without legal repercussions, where the local elites control virtually every form of economic enterprise and openly treat the public coffers as a private account. Can you imagine an American town where citizens line up in the Mayor's parlor to beg for the favors funded with public money, while someone sits by taking note of who gets what so the favors can be called in later?

Lyndon Johnson showed tremendous selfless moral courage in ignoring what all of the polls, advisors, and his own political instincts were warning him about what would happen to his political career if he insisted on pushing for civil rights reforms, but in the face of all of that, push he did. Many experts believe that it was this, far more than the nature of events in Vietnam, that was the primary factor in his decision not to run for a second term. The three landmark civil rights bills that he pushed through congress changed America forever and for better. It all looks so benign and obvious now in retrospect, but at the time it was HUGE, not obvious at all, and stirred up tremendous turmoil.

Yes, it was huge... but again, there was real support for reform from a large part of the populace, including a large part of the populace outside the group that was being discriminated against. That supported a good deal of the moral courage. You don't see Christian Filipinos in Manila demanding fair treatment for their Muslim brothers in Mindanao. The attitude is more on the "kill 'em all" side. There's virtually no constituency supporting moral courage, and a huge constituency opposing it.

As information technology continues to empower populaces and non-state actors there will be increasing demand for political elites and their backers to take note of what the people are telling them and to actually address reasonable concerns that they may well have been ignoring and suppressing for generations or even centuries. The tide is turning. Those governments who recognize this and evolve will prevail and endure; those who think that they are somehow immune to this powerful dynamic will ultimately implode. Even those that may seem so stable on the surface today. The signs are there for those who are willing to pause and read them.

I think the impact of information technology is overrated. It's a tool and people will use it, take it away and they'll use other tools. There were revolutions before it hit - ask the Marcos family - and they managed to communicate. Certainly facebook and twitter mean squat on Basilan, and they aren't rallying any support in Manila either.

Again, if Filipino political elites "take note of what people are telling them" about Mindanao, the repression will only get worse, because the bulk of the populace doesn't want concessions or reform.

Americans may well cheer when a Qaddafi is dragged from a sewer pipe and riddled with bullets. Will they cheer as loudly when these scenes are of leaders we see as critical allies??

Hosni Mubarak was a "critical ally", and Americans seem able to cope with him being in jail. Egyptians seem reasonably amenable to a continuing relationship with the US. These situations are not unmanageable, especially if we let go when it matters.

Just as national leaders must evolve and be more in tune to their populaces as a whole (and not just the traditional powerful elite), so too must powerful nations that may well be stable at home be more in tune to such perceptions among the populaces of the nations we engage with and rely upon for economic or security interests that we perceive as vital.

The world is evolving at an unprecedented rate on the back of technology. Those governments who are willing to evolve with it will prevail. Those who cling dogmatically to the status quo will struggle or fail.

In many ways yes, we have to be more attuned to populaces as a whole. That includes being aware that most populaces don't want us interfering in the internal affairs of their nations, at all. Responding to situations and trying to help populaces that have decided it's time to move is one thing, and there's a place for it. Trying to initiate change ourselves or trying to appoint ourselves champion of a populace is a very different thing and it's not generally going to be advisable. In most of these cases it really isn't about us, and we have to accept that we are not going to be the drivers of evolution, in the Philippines and in most other places.