Transcendental journalism?

“In this Day the secrets of the earth are laid bare before the eyes of men. The pages of swiftly-appearing newspapers are indeed the mirror of the world. They reflect the deeds and the pursuits of divers peoples and kindreds. They both reflect them and make them known. They are a mirror endowed with hearing, sight and speech. This is an amazing and potent phenomenon. However, it behoveth the writers thereof to be purged from the promptings of evil passions and desires and to be attired with the raiment of justice and equity. They should enquire into situations as much as possible and ascertain the facts, then set them down in writing.” — Baha’u'llah, Tarzát #6

When I was in the Alps, I had a productive conversation with a young Italian student who is doing her doctoral work at the Sorbonne. She was curious about my opinion on the “faith and reason problem” as a “religious philosopher” (i.e., a philosopher who is religious and who thinks about religion). I was surprised by my answer.

Totemism and Panopticon

This blog has been quiet for almost a month, first because I was happily secluded in the Alps for the better part of two weeks, and then because it’s examination season here in Leuven. Not only exams, but also PhD applications, grant applications (for neweurasia), and budget paperwork are all due this month. I’m somewhat frayed at the edges at the moment, as there’s not enough me (and what there is, isn’t especially great at time management).

Nevertheless, I would like to share something I have worked hard on these last few weeks for my “Media Ethics” course. Admittedly, it’s an academic Frankenstein’s monster: a paper entitled, “Totemism and Panopticon” (click on the link to read a pdf version), that fuses Foucault, Durkheim, and an immanent critique of Assange’s now well-known essay, “Conspiracy as Governance”, to explore the conflict between WikiLeaks and the United States under the Obama Administration. My use of Durkheim is key, as fundamentally I am proposing a spiritual and identity dimension to the debacle. Here’s my conclusion:

WikiLeaks as a reverse, grassroots panopticon with a peculiar ratio of liberal and democratic beliefs, a murky conception of the publics at stake in its Bolshevik-like endeavor to mobilize and transform the world, and an ambivalance between a Kantian and utilitarian understanding of the proverbial leak has collided headlong with the full totemistic power of the American national self as embodied in national security and the soldier, prompting in turn an equally Kantian response in terms of secrecy. This response is perhaps evidenced by the dogged manner in which the Obama Administration is pursuing legal action against Manning and Assange, the latter under the Espionage Act of 1917, a federal law which, as I understand it, has in mind the concept of leaking toward a specific enemy in officially declared wartime, not a general mass during what is still formally peace time (the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan never receiving formal Congressional declarations), even if that leaking occurred for journalistic-activistic-historical (much less contre panoptic) purposes. Even more remarkable — and all the more telling of the totemistic crisis at stake — was when United States Senator Joseph Lieberman expressed his confusion/disappointment on Fox News that Assange [had not yet been] tried for treason a sentiment echoed by several other pundits on the station, even though he is not a United States citizen.

My interests in monopsychism and panpsychism also extend to the notions of “mass consciousness” and “public opinion”, hence why I thought using Durkheim would be at least interesting, hopefully a bit funky and creative. The goal in the paper is to get a fix on the public ethos that Assange et al have engendered, specifically in my homeland. By the Greek term “ethos” I mean something akin to the English notions of character, disposition, and fundamental values. With respect to WikiLeaks — specifically WikiLeaks as its own variety of mass media (by dint of it being a digital entity) and as a response to and element of the broader mediascape of today — I also mean ethos along the lines of how the Greeks used the term to refer to the power of music to influence its hearer’s emotions, behaviors, and even morals.

Besides trying to find an interesting new angle to the issue, I also felt duty-bound as a Baha’i journalist to get a fix on what WikiLeaks means for me. Assange et al are a moral confrontation right at the intersection between my religiosity and my professional work. The philosopher, in an essay such as this, tries to sort out the resultant mess – although the philosopher is also torn, between Hegelian and Gandhian instincts.

Bracketing God

Much to my pleasant surprise, I’m in Milan again for Christmas, visiting my good friend Luca. It was a much longer journey here than last year, though, what with the massive general strike in Belgium coupled with an ungodly early flight, but it has been worth it, because immediately upon arriving Luca and I launched into a conversation concerning his views of what first philosophy should be, i.e., in Kantian terms, focus upon the conditions of the possibility for knowledge, and moreover, as a holistic action that does not have praxis, much less activism as its primary goal. The key concept here is Husserl’s epoché, which struck me as a theoretical tool that has vast applicability for religion.

So, here I am, in a library in Milan thinking over this while waiting for Luca to wrap up an essay for his PhD. Once more there is a feeling of fate, purposiveness, necessity. By accident, I happen to be facing the science fiction section (I just learned an Italian neologism: fantascienza), and what do they have prominently displayed there? Copies of Asimov’s Robot Series, Herbert’s Dune Series, and Lem’s Solaris, novels that speak to some of my core interests. Herbert and Lem especially leap out at me because of the difficulties I’ve been having with my would-be Lovelock paper: my professors, although they don’t want to discourage me, have doubts and misgivings about the project, and I’ve been wondering whether I shouldn’t just give it up for something more “easy” and “concrete”, say, the recent incidents in Zhanaozen and the complexities of trying to ascribe “exploitation” in a neo-patrimonial system like Kazakhstan’s. Perhaps the universe is saying with respect to Lovelock: go for it anyway; try, if not Gaia, then something about Nature. But seeing these books also makes me feel that I am somehow supposed to be here in Milan.

I want to try right now to link together several things that have been on my mind these past few months, but there are too many copper ball strands; it’s extremely difficult to see how they wind together as a single ball, and perhaps this is decidely praxis-oriented (or maybe I’m just being surprisingly Husserlian?) So, for what it’s worth, here is my thought process, in raw, literal, unprocessed form (and for those familiar with HTML, they’ll hopefully get the double entrendre implicit here in the way I’m using the blockquote function as a way to “bracket” my internal dialogue, thereby holding it up for analysis, inspection and reflection as though it were a diamond under a lamp):

Leuven, Louvain, Katholieke, Catholique — Ik weet het niet, Je ne sais pas!

Word in the Belgian press is that the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven shall be Katholieke no more — well, somewhat.

Although it’s still to be decided this week, officially, our Dutch name shall be “KU Leuven”, with the “K” no longer signifying anything (humorously, university officials like to emphasize that we shall also no longer be “K.U. Leuven”, either). Apparently, our English name shall be “The University of Leuven — KU Leuven” or “The University of Leuven (KU Leuven)”. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in terms of letterhead, website design, curriculum vitaes, etc.

This decision is part of the ongoing mixture of market- and identity-politics here in Belgium. It has been presaged by earlier identity problems (or continuities, depending on your view): previously, we were the Studium Generale Lovaniense (from our founding in 1425 to 1797), the Université d’État de Louvain (until the 1830s, with a brief closure during the Napoleonic regime), then the Université Catholique de Louvain/Universitas Catholica Lovaniensis until the political crisis of 1968 resulted in two universities with the same charter: the Flemish-Dutch Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in historical Leuven, and the Université Catholique de Louvain in the purpose-built town of Louvain-la-Neuve in southern Francophonic Belgium.

The latest change has been justified along two lines: first, that the Catholic Church is interfering with stem cell research (apparently, the change shall also entail removing the archbishop as chairman, leaving him as chancellor); and second, that the “Katholieke” adjective hurts our reputation in the United States, as it supposedly gives the wrong impression of us, i.e., that in order to have a degree from here means one must subscribe to the Catholic faith. Proponents for the change also argue that the university is becoming more and more pluralistic (that remains to be seen in some faculties, but as an official intention this is true).

A prayer for Liège

I first learned about the shooting in Liège from my friends at Demotix, who sms’d me looking for a photographer on the scene (Leuven should be no more than a half hour drive to Liège, although I’m constrained to sing trains, which during the mid-day means having to take a detour via Brussels). What quickly unfolded was a terrible story, the full nature of which remains to be deciphered but the general similarities of which — conceptually, technologically, and ethically — to the tragedy in Norway are disturbing.

Consequently, just as I did then, I want to offer a prayer, but not just one of mourning — although it is that — nor of solidarity — for it is certainly that, as well — but also of philosophical opposition:

“O My Servant! Thou art even as a finely tempered sword concealed in the darkness of its sheath and its value hidden from the artificer’s knowledge. Wherefore come forth from the sheath of self and desire that thy worth may be made resplendent and manifest unto all the world.” — Baha’u'llah, Hidden Words, Persian #72

Can Nature be exploited? Does the Universe have rights?

This has been a very odd semester, to say the least. Having turned 30, I’ve somehow become antsy; I find myself, for instance, more and more subject to the urge to write fiction, i.e., to “finally get going again” with my childhood passion (and my organization, NewEurasia, may also be taking an arts-cultural turn in its coverage during 2012-13). In terms of the intellectual themes predominating my academic life, I’m starting to move away from strictly Islamological issues and into other terrains that have long interested me, particularly the democratic/liberal theory and environmentalism.

Studying liberalism, of course, intersects with my journalistic work, so it shall come as no surprise to my readers that I’m looking into the phenomenon of “managed democracy” in contemporary Russia and Kazakhstan, and that I shall probably be approaching the topic from the perspective of Claude Lefort. It also feeds into my interests as a member of the Baha’i Faith, namely, whether global democracy is possible, indeed, whether there can be a global understanding of what it means to be “human”.

As for environmentalism, believe it or not, this actually emerges from my background in Averroism, and no, I don’t mean by way of Spinoza; again, it is by way of my childhood resources.

There is nothing to forgive

Graciously look upon Thy servant, humble and lowly at Thy door, with the glances of the eye of Thy mercy, and immerse him in the Ocean of Thine eternal grace. — Abdul-Baha

Today is the second anniversary of your suicide, and somehow, it has come easier — not because there is less to say, less to feel; no, quite the contrary, because there is too much, and all of it so beautiful.

I am the kashkúl, You are the tide

Today I turn 30. As my readers, friends and colleagues know, I’ve been thinking about this a lot. Inevitably, it brings up complex feelings — mingled uncertainty and absolute confidence in one’s life choices; a sense of the elusiveness of numbers, not quite mere human inventions, not quite correspondent to the fullness of reality; noticing grey hairs appearing amidst the dark brown, reminding you of inevitability. But overall, I’m feeling good today. The kingdom of the impossible is a bit closer than it was ten years ago, but for now, the horizon’s edge quivers with invitation.

And as I pass this milestone, really, without much effort on my own, I find that I do not want to reflect about myself in an atomistic sense, but about myself in its widest, universal sense: my loved ones who constitute my being — parents and clan, siblings both of blood and spirit, dearest friends, close colleagues, mentors and guides, readers and so many of the young people of Central Asia, even enemies, and all those who have crossed my path and helped me evolve. There are too many names, too many faces, too many moments both inner and outer, so forgive me for not explicitly mentioning specific people (and, indeed, due to the nature of my work in Central Asia, perhaps it’s also a bit wise if I don’t roll out a list of identities). Know that you all are part of me, and that through you, I find You, the Divine Countenance, the supremely agapeic Source.

None of us are monads, self-enclosed wholes; we are small universes, self-enclosed non-wholes seeking completion, an ancient Turkmen carpet of inter-subjectivity and inter-essence, woven with countless threads spun from eternity. And none of us shall perish; we have been bequeathed the gift of existence by the Divine, and I dare say it is not revocable, our ontological dependence notwithstanding. Standing upon the shore, looking out across the surging vastness of being, our individual currents are flowing, yes, for only brief moments as waves cresting upon the surface before before slipping into the depths, but we shall persist, as ripples, as ebbs and flows, as the contour of the coastline, and perhaps even as the bathymetry.

All the rights and wrongs and all the joys and sorrows and all the many, many lessons glistening under the blazing golden sun and the glimmering silver moon of the Divine Essence, so far away but its heat and its light so, so close, I feel the spray of salt upon my skin, and I rejoice: I am the kashkúl, You are the tide.

What might autumn be like in the future?

In general, the period of October through December is my favorite time of year, fertile yet transitory, transitory yet perennial. Eons from now, when our world has become ancient and our sun approaches its demise, I wonder what autumn might be like, because for me, it is a uniquely terran moment, tied to the destiny of our planet. I would like to imagine a world with a year twice or thrice as long as ours and the autumns and first chills of winter stretching out for months upon months — but perhaps that would ruin the uniqueness of the season, which seems so necessarily fragile, momentary, for only then can it reach for something eternal.

I recently had to purchase a new mobile phone as my old one, after travelling across three continents in my pockets, finally gave up the ghost this past September. This device comes equipped with a very primitive camera — despite proudly being a creature of the digital era, I am no technophile, and persistent poverty reinforces the need for simplicity even in this era of the smartphone. The quality of the photographs are intriguing: a camera for the journalist this is not, but it is one for the mystic. What’s striking is the odd painting-like quality, the blurred edges from the curvature of the lens’ plastic casing, and most of all, the sharp, brilliant light. Rarely have I found photos that capture so well the sublime character of a season that finds its strength in inevitability, finality.

“Go to the Tibetans”

Now for a post of a more positive tact than my last one, which I wrote in a moment of acute frustration. I spent the past weekend in lovely, misty Namur, trying to study Gauchet for a presentation I must make in two weeks. Indeed, as I think over it, I never realized just how Francophonic Leuven’s philosophical inclinations really are — even the only American on staff, Prof. Friedman, routinely cites Gilson — and considering that I’ll probably be using a lot of Lefort for my MPhil thesis, I may very well end up becoming versed in the French tradition, as well (my ancestors would be very happy with this, as apparently we’ve always had a Francophilic streak).

But more pertinently, I’ve been thinking about the question of my path, which has been the (rather self-centerred) focus of this blog for the last two months, and especially my metaxological dilemma, my limbo-like feelings this past October in particular. My old friend Ron and other lovely readers have suggested that perhaps I’m already on the path, and you know what? Maybe, just maybe.

Too old at 30

I’m turning 30 later this month, and rarely have I been so depressed by a number. Here in Belgium, where I’ve been basically based for the last two years/going on three (furloughs to Central Asia and elsewhere notwithstanding), according to my professors, I’m too old to do a PhD; according to my peers, I’m too old to date or marry, much less make savings or buy a house; according to employers, I’m too old to hire.

Empty trappings of materialism, but this is the bourgeois society I’m currently stuck in. How’s it like out there in the rest of the world? Leave a comment below and/or keep reading for a piece of my mind.

Trying to find the path

Well, I’ve gotten my wish: one more autumn in Belgium.

As feared, with the loss of the PhD possibility in Leuven, the teaching possibility at the American University of Central Asia also evaporated. The truth probably is that the situation was more fragile than I was willing to admit. Leuven just isn’t the right place to do my doctoral work, and moreover, I was staking my hopes in something too flimsy. Now I’m left trying to find the path I’m supposed to walk.

I feel very lost, as though I were in one of those royal Belgian estates with the labyrinth gardens, wandering in the mists. Have I somehow done wrong by myself? Is my lack of detachment undoing me? Am I now feeling the ripple of effects of divine wrath, circling out from the tiny pond of my life? These days I feel wounded and having to confront once more parts about who I am that shame me, which I had hoped I had overcome.

But is this just part of my path? I try to keep my chin up, to confront reality as it is and to put aside over- and under-reaction — although, of course, who really knows what reality truly is?

At least, though, I have my friends and a lovely neo-Gothic home, and I hope soon also the changing colors of the leaves and the cool breeze of Allerheiligendag. I am entering once more that special season for me: the time of masks, the time of truths.

A conversation with the Guardian

I’ve been in London the past few days on errands personal and professional. The big news since my last post is this: the anthropology PhD at Leuven shall not be happening. I cannot fault my would-have-been supervisor for ultimately choosing not to continue, as his reasons are solid and sound. Perhaps had he more certainty in his own career, it could have happened; perhaps his decision is a blessing in disguise — le temps à qui le dernier mot.

Unfortunately, some plans were predicated upon the PhD; their fruition is now in doubt. I also now find myself stuck with my Plan B: enrolled in the “pre-doctoral” (MPhil) program at the Hoger Instituut. I’m deeply unsure of whether I really want to pursue this degree. Those who know my academic aspirations well tell me to persist with it; those who know my heart’s aspirations well tell me to quit. Both options come with costs: more potential distraction from my career with the first, potential loss of house and visa with the second.

The conflict is by now well known to my readers: the philosophy faculty and I have very mixed feelings about each other, and meanwhile I feel called to Central Asia, to stake out my destiny over there. And yet, the two also seem somehow entangled, not least because I find myself unprepared to pack up and leave behind a second social microcosmos, thus risking a repeat of the pain and dislocation of 2009, for even more uncertain pastures. Simultaneously, though, deep within myself I feel a desperate need to detach — an Aronofskian contradiction, I know. The question is how literally or metaphorically I should take this: use the MPhil degree as I see fit and just shrug off the Hoger Instituut’s many faults, or am I simply overstaying my welcome in Leuven, practically and metaphysically?

Yesterday, after a meeting with one of NewEurasia’s media partners, Demotix, I took a spur of the moment decision to make a miniature pilgrimage to the grave of the Guardian of the Baha’i Faith, Shoghi Effendi, to petition his posthumous help and guidance.

Treading the metaxological waters

“In between.” Leuven’s William Desmond calls it the metaxu, the crack in the concrete of thought and experience that points to the ground of being beneath. But it’s also the air surging around and through everything, the starry void above encompassing the world, the ocean waters giving form to the continents. And it’s what I’ll be doing for the next few weeks — treading the waters.

This has been the plan since May 2011: after wrapping up my Master of Arts in philosophy here at Leuven, I would then begin a Doctorate with the anthropology faculty, which would include a pre-doctoral phase, probably an academic year in length, primarily composed of coursework in the Autumn and preliminary fieldwork with reporting in the Spring. However, matters are more uncertain — more metaxological — than I anticipated.

Spider-Man 2099 in Bishkek

I’ve just published a photo-essay on neweurasia (please forgive the lousy quality of the photos) concerning urban blight and nature in Bishkek. I find the interaction between the architectural embodiment of Soviet ideology and the Schellingian force of the environment fascinating, as their collision is forging a symbiosis of form and growth, a new ecology of sorts.

While wandering around taking these photos, however, I made another kind of discovery, one more personal than philosophical/aesthetic. I was wandering around behind an apartment block just off Frunze Street when I found a recently-painted mural of what at first appeared to be fairy tell characters from Russian and American (particularly Disney) traditions.

However, toward the very end of the mural, something caught me eye. As I approached, I discovered two very different kind of characters — the world-recognizable Spider-Man (right), and much to my surprise, Spider-Man 2099, a future version of the Wall-Crawler who had his own comic book series for a few years in the early Nineties, as part of the Marvel 2099/World of Tomorrow line-up.

Two thoughts occurred to me. The first was, of course, curiosity: how did this highly obscure cultural figure — unknown even to most Americans — end up all the way out here, in Kyrgyzstan? Probably some random issue made its way to Central Asia, perhaps in the backpack of a Peace Corps volunteer, and struck the imagination of one of the mural artists (although there could be countless other explanations).

The second was, yes, a feeling yet again of what we in the Baha’i Faith call a divine confirmation, another hint that Central Asia is where I need to be. That’s because, although I once (rather over-seriously) described myself on this blog as wanting to be a “Batman of knowledge”, I’ve actually always identified much more with the Webslinger — his struggle to balance the different aspects of his life, his desire to serve humanity, his attempts at empathy, his brilliance coupled with incompetence, his perpetual underdoggedness, his girl issues, so on and so on.

However, when I think about it, I may identity slightly more with Spider-Man 2099. He was probably one of the catalysts for my interest in post-humanism/trans-humanism; his real identity, Miguel O’Hara, had a slightly more realistic blend of idealism and emotion than Peter Parker; the future version of New York City — a satire, really, of post-Reagan America — was somewhat more relevant to me than that typically portrayed in the present-day series; and so on.

But there’s another aspect. My father bought the subscription to Spider-Man 2099 for me (as well as for Doom 2099, the future version of Dr. Doom and a character with whom I also felt a deep resonance), and we used to read and discuss the series together. I think Spider-Man 2099 was the successor to an earlier personal tradition, from a few years before in my youth, when we used to watch Dr. Who and Danger Mouse while eating salted carrots and celery.

And so, I wonder: in my two years here in Belgium, I stumbled upon so many little connections to my mother — relating my experiences here through the lens of her influences upon me was one of the ways I transformed and came to own my sojourn in this country, and simultaneously, how the divine or the cosmos sought to communicate its intents to me. Thus, if Belgium was hers, might Kyrgyzstan end up being my father’s?

A wraith lingering between Kyrgyzstan and Belgium

It seems that autumn has come early to Kyrgyzstan. Bishkek today is drenched in rain and the air is much brisker than it was yesterday. The change has been swift, sudden — but welcome. I’m not a fan of the summer heat; it’s rather oppressive. Somehow also my mental picture of Kyrgyzstan has usually be constituted with rain (perhaps because so many of the key moments of Kyrgyzstan’s brief history have occurred during rainy seasons).

From a spiritual perspective, it’s interesting that now, on the cusp of my return to Belgium, my favorite season has arrived. Is this how Kyrgyzstan tells me to come back soon? But it also makes me recall something: about a week before my trip to Kyrgyzstan, remarking in a prayer, God, I know that I must leave Leuven, to follow what I think is Your call. But, please, give me just give me one autumn in Belgium. It appears I may be granted my wish, that is, if all goes well with my PhD application.

Journalism on Solaris

If I’m capable of summoning the discipline to complete my PhD proposal and application, what I would like to do is to research ethnic and religious identity among Central Asia’s journalists, particularly how these factors shape their approach to reporting news. In my view, journalists comprise a key group of social architects in a society’s self-understanding, as it is as much through media as education, especially mass media, that a population’s self-perception is inculcated and shaped. Therefore, it is of pressing importance to understand how they construe events.

Incidentally, my time here in Kyrgyzstan has been partially spent doing preliminary “research” in the sense of conversations with various colleagues — anthropologists, activists, journalists, and friends — about my topic. Generally-speaking, there’s a lot of interest, in some cases even excitement, about my would-be project, particularly as it encompasses religious studies, regional studies, media studies, epistemology, some psychology, and anthropology. One of the cooler conversations occurred this past weekend during the Kyrgyzstan barcamp with several members and acquaintances of Internews’ Central Asian wing, in particular Nicolay Kolesnikov, a talended videographer with whom I got along very instinctively despite the language barrier (he will be good practice for my Russian once I start learning it). Nicolay was very sharp, as he immediately intuited that what I’m really exploring is whether journalists are objective.

He caught me, so to speak, red handed: when I suggested that journalists, à la Searle or Wittgenstein, are actually in the act of forging a reality out of the clash of their differing narratives, a clash that occurs ironically from their pursuit of ultimate, objective reality — indeed, they are creating an overlay of one reality over the bedrock of another, deeper one — Nicolay whipped out an analogy I didn’t see coming but which got me seriously thinking: “You know who wouldn’t need journalists? The Na’vi of James Cameron’s Avatar.” According to Nicolay, the Na’vi’s ability to interface with each other, their ecosystem, and even the souls (i.e., minds) of past generations, an ability constituting a combination of racial and geosystematic memory, rendered the problem of subjectivity moot. Theirs is a kind of collective objectivity (or objective collectivity), a unity of perspectives, perhaps in a way that is, at essence, not dissimilar from the Internet.

It was a daring argument, a challenge which, as both an Averroist and Science Fiction fan, I was more than happy to meet: I retorted with my own counter-example, that of Polish author Stanislaw Lem’s famed novel, Solaris, and it’s even more famed film version by Soviet director Andrei Tarkovsky. In other words, I upped the ante: he wanted to talk about conglomerate unities/pluralistic panpsychisms, but I went straight for the monopsychic jugular vein.

“My calamity is My providence…”

It’s sometimes hard to believe that ten years have passed since my home was brutally attacked, as I can still remember the events with crystal clarity. Nonetheless, the fifth-year anniversary was much more profound for me; by now, I have moved on from the trauma of that dark day, my wounds have healed, I am reconciled and at peace with the past. I pray that the rest of my fellow New Yorkers, as well as for my countrymen and all those around the world whose lives were affected in the aftermath, can eventually find light and meaning in what happened, to our city, to our nation, to our world.

“O Son of Man! My calamity is My providence, outwardly it is fire and vengeance, but inwardly it is light and mercy. Hasten thereunto that thou mayest become an eternal light and an immortal spirit. This is My command unto thee, do thou observe it.” — Baha’u'llah, Hidden Words, Arabic # 51

A knight of lousy faith, but faith nonetheless

When I came to Kyrgyzstan now over two weeks ago, I had originally intended to stay for only a few days, so as to attend the workshop on Central Asian Islam at the OSCE Academy and talk with my team mates about the future of neweurasia. Very quickly, my friends and colleagues here convinced me to extend my ticket — twice. I’m now scheduled to return to Belgium on Sunday, 18 September, right in time for the new academic year there and when I’m supposed to begin PhD program (assuming I can get my proposal and application done — ugh!) So, what have I been doing here in Bishkek?

For the most part, working my ass off. Specifically, trying to secure grant money for neweurasia, doing some preliminary research for my doctoral project, and trying to see what professional opportunities may exist for me in Central Asia. The plan currently forming is to have some kind of instructorship with the American University here in Bishkek, perhaps coupled with some kind of research position or stint with KIMEP in Almaty, all within the framework of my intended doctorate in Europe. But, frankly, fundamentally I’ve no idea what I’ve been doing, because really this trip has been an exercise in faith-leaping.

Scientific journalism un-redax

I’ve been a bit remiss on my “WikiLeaks beat” duties, as like much of the rest of the world I have only recently discovered the revelation of the entire unredacted cache of American diplomatic cables. In trying to figure out the situation — first and foremost ethically — I basically follow the version of events by Nigel Parry, who asserts that he was among the first people outside of the Guardian-WikiLeaks agreement to crack the cache, as well as the views of his more astute readers in the comments section. It’s clear that the snaffu emerges from a critical oversight on the part of Assange, an outright blunder on the part of Leigh (which was what made Assange’s oversight critical), and Lord only knows what game some ex-WikiLeakers and online snoopers are playing.

Immediately, my first instinct is that this has been a terrible development, as it runs the risk of putting careers and lives in danger, from the many State Department in-country human intelligence assets to the well-intentioned and often empathetic embassy employees whose inner worlds were revealed by the cables. Now, I’m familiar with all the ins and outs of the “blood on hands” debate/dispute, but I do not agree with most of the argumentation either way. My own experience as a journalist working in Central Asia, an informationally unfriendly region to put it nicely, teaches me some very fundamental, if complex facts: informants’ motivations are vastly varied, which means that there will always be someone around willing to talk, but also that authorities’ motivations are equally varied, which means that talking always carries with it an inherent scale of danger depending on the Who and What factors.

In other words, Assange et al cannot shirk responsibility for any one who will be hurt as a result of WikiLeaks’ actions — but then again, they should not have gotten into this business if they are not willing to bear this responsibility — nor can the State Department hide from the light under the veil of security and safety — because again, they should not have gotten into this business if they are not willing to bear certain culpabilities. WikiLeaks can be responsible if authorities track down informants using the leaks and the State Department knows full well that in most cases it can re-generate lost intelligence assets. These two parties are facilitating certain processes and realities, wanting to reap the positives but heap the negatives onto the other (at least in terms of their public relations; privately, I suspect they are more regretful, for the State Department is not so “imperial” nor Assange so “cavalier” as their mutual detractors would have us all believe).

By the same token, a debate that’s been missing has been the one regarding the moral culpability of the informants themselves. That’s because for every informant who is motivated by high ideals and the desire to improve his or her society, there is another who is seeking narrow personal gain. What I find striking is that, although discussing the motivations of informants and the morality of working with them is routine for journalists, diplomatic officers, and intelligence officers, the public discourse about these cables, almost from the get-go, seems to have presumed the innocence of the informants as a whole. If my assessment here is correct, then this is a huge lacunae in the ethical analysis of WikiLeaks — much less the State Department, who is working directly with these informants — about which simple rationalizations like “they’re traitors who deserve what they get” or “sometimes the good guys have to work with bad guys” I feel are unsatisfactory.