Reading Kenneth Pollack's survey of the Middle East I was reminded, a little, of the Meiji Restoration in Japan in 1868. Pollack says the Middle East suffers from a surplus of educated but useless males, disrespect for the rule of law, failed pseudo-socialist economies, kleptocratic leadership, terrorism, and the only apparently viable alternative is Islamicism and Islamic fundamentalism. In mid-19th century Japan there was an archaically-educated and underemployed hereditary elite, divided into roughly 250 highly independent clans and living on shrinking government stipends, a relatively weak legal tradition (again, about 250 independent systems), a tottering pseudo-monarchical Shogunate, and widespread disaffection with Japan's position in the world. A relatively small group of mid-rank radicals -- classically educated, with strong clan loyalties, pro-Imperial, anti-foreign -- engineered a coalition of regional powers and a small corps of troops using modern weapons and methods that forced the Shogunate to initiate reforms (as well as crackdowns because of the steady stream of assassinations and terror and infighting coming from the pro-Imperial factions) and eventually forced the Shogunate into total collapse. I wouldn't want to push the comparison too far: Japan had a dynamic mercantile economy (though it got a little creaky when foreign goods started to come in and Japanese silk started to go out) and strong middle class. Japan had only a small fundamentalist problem (and most of them were working on the side of the reformers, at least initially).

But the whole process, from the initial contact with Commodore Perry to the Meiji Restoration (named after the reign-name of the pro-Imperialists Emperor who conveniently took the throne that same year) took only fifteen years. Then, having toppled the Shogunate, the pro-Imperial samurai leaders of Japan proceeded to undertake a thorough and radical revision of Japanese society, economics, politics, law and culture. Within twenty years, Japan was playing an active role in regional politics; in forty, Japan was the leading nation in Asia. (And in eighty, Japanese Imperialism had led to the US atom bombing and occupying Japan and again reforming Japanese politics and society, so the story isn't entirely positive, but there's time for that later.)

So it wouldn't be entirely surprising to see a radical, but practical, Arab nationalism take hold and lead the Middle East through extensive and positive changes. If it follows the Japanese model: the movement will be led by middle and low ranking bureaucrats, competent but frustrated at the failure of opportunity; the ideology of the movement will be divisive, starkly nationalistic and a little frightening, but ultimately more focused on internal reform rather than lashing out. The initial moves of the movement, after seizing power, will be to break down traditional barriers (clan, state) to"national" identity and unity, as well as to jettison counterproductive traditions and entitlements (for example, the Meiji state legislated the samurai class out of existence). Ironically, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's speech to the Organization of the Islamic Conference seems to actually fit the bill pretty well.

So, in a round-about way, I'm starting to think that Pollack is right when he argues that success in creating an independent liberal democracy in Iraq is vital to our national interest (I already thought it was a good thing, by the way, but for different reasons, mostly having to do with the joys of living in a liberal democracy.). Given how powerful and threatening Japan became after its Restoration revolution, what would the world look like half a century after an Arabian Restoration?

I am a proud supporter of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, a charter member, actually, going back to my undergraduate days. I don't get much out of my membership except pride, since they are based in Washington, D.C., and I'm about as far away from there as you can get without actually leaving US territory entirely. And I'm really very mercenary about causes that I support: I don't care where the money comes from, as long as it doesn't come with strings attached.

But I was reading the latest issue of the membership magazine, Women in the Arts, a little 30-page quarterly that reminds me why I send my pittance, and sometimes teaches me something interesting. The number of active and respected female artists in the Rennaissance through modern times is really quite remarkable: a name or two per era for survey teaching (OK, a few more for the great moments like the Renaissance, or the early 20th century modernists, but how much do we really know about these guys?) and, if you're interested in art at all, a few favorites in your personal field. But art was popular culture, as well as high culture, and there were a lot more than"the masters" working at any given time, and some of those people, men and women, were really, really good. It's an area I'd like to spend a little more time on, when I have the time, particularly the social history of art and social history depicted by art.

But that's not what got my attention this time. I was reading through the stuff at the end when the list of big donors for the 3rd quarter of 2003 caught my eye. A lot of the usual suspects were there: big corporations like Ford, Hecht's, MBNA, Coca-Cola. There are also a lot of people I've never heard of, personal trusts and estates. But a few other names jumped out at me. Near the top, in the $10K-$25K zone, was the Second Lady herself, Lynne V. Cheney, formerly head of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Great! They've got money and NMWA needs it. Then things started to get strange.

In the next category down ($5K-$10K) was the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a single-minded cadre of pro-Israeli lobbyists whom I never would have suspected of having an interest in art, much less women artists of anything other than an Israeli persuasion. In the $1K-$2.5K range were the National Association of Bankruptcy Trustees and the Dermatology Foundation, and I'm sure there's interesting stories behind both of those, but I can't imagine what they are. (Actually, it's more likely these DC based groups just want to be able to work the parties, ply their own donors with exhibit tickets; those benefits come with big corporate contributions. But you got to admit that it looks odd.)

But the reason I'm writing this tonight, instead of working on my syllabi or sleeping, is that the United States Department of Justice also gave between five and ten thousand dollars to my favorite museum. I'm pretty sure that we have other arms of government which are supposed to be supporting the arts, and I'm pretty sure that DoJ is pretty busy with other things that have nothing to do with art (they don't even have responsibility for our color-coded alert system, though that was probably more Crayola than O'Keefe; most news outlets I pay attention to have started using the text versions --"high,""elevated," etc. -- instead of the colors, which makes a great deal of sense). Then I remembered. Back in 2002, there was a bit of a ruckus over the DoJ spending a few grand to cover up the semi-nude statues of The Spirit of Justice in the Great Hall where press conferences happen. In their defense, DoJ argued that news photographers were deliberately framing shots with the breast prominently featured, and that was clearly detracting from the dignity of the proceedings. I'm not taking sides here (both sides have a silly factor that precludes getting involved without looking stupid.) but I can't help but wonder if the NMWA donation from Justice is part of a fence-mending between the Department and the art and feminist communities? And is it working?

Politics has been described as"the art of the possible." I'm not sure who said it first: I first heard it in Evita, the musical, in college. But that phrase has been rattling around my head since President Bush's announced proposal for a new amnesty program for illegal immigrant workers. The program would convert the illegal workers into legal guest workers, but attempts to mitigate the free-for-all of illegal immigration by tying the migrants to specific jobs, requiring that US citizens (what about other legal residents?) be offered the jobs first, and applying minimum wage protections. The downside is that the work visas would only be good for three years, renewable once, so this is a definite step down from the permanent resident --"green" card -- status.

There have been objections from both pro- and anti- factions. Pro-immigrant folks, most of whom (correctly) see the proposal as an election ploy to win favor with Hispanic and Asian voters (could these be the hot swing group of the year?), want the amnesty to be more complete, allowing long-term illegal workers to be eligible for permanent residence and eventually citizenship. Anti-immigrant folks are afraid that the amnesty will do just that: legitimize millions of illegal workers, moving them closer to permanent status and creating an economic void at the bottom that will be filled with millions more illegal immigrant workers. This is one of those issues where the"usually associated with" rubrics break down: I think both parties have both pro- and anti-immigrant wings, at both the leadership and grass roots levels.

This certainly doesn't solve the illegal immigration issue: even if the program works as intended, protecting current migrant workers while creating mechanisms by which most of them eventually leave, there is still going to be illegal immigration and those workers will continue to take jobs in industries that aren't profitable enough to employ legal residents. (There just aren't that many industries in which legal and illegal residents are seriously competing for jobs. Taxi driving and janitorial work are about the only ones I can think of offhand. Construction doesn't count, because the illegal workers are used as a unskilled/semi-skilled flexible labor supplement, whereas legal residents are used as a skilled, inflexible core labor. Job exporting is another matter, of course, but without illegal migrant workers there'd be even more of that going on, too.)

Does that mean that the amnesty is a bad idea? Remarkably, no. This is something that we do every decade or so in some form or another. It looks like busy-work, doing something just to say that government is doing something, but it isn't. It is a mechanism for getting a better handle on the immigration numbers, reducing abuses against immigrants, integrating long-term immigrants into legal and social structures, and allowing immigrants to take a step up the socio-economic ladder. Yes, officially we're discouraging settlement, but I've never yet seen a government program designed to encourage sojourner (temporary or guest) labor migration which actually succeeded in getting more than two-thirds of the workers home (and neither has expert David Abraham). That's why we have both Japanese and Chinese communities in the United States: Back in the 19th century, the Chinese were brought in, and when they began settling in too great numbers the employers tried to switch to Japanese workers, whom they hoped would go home with greater frequency; they were wrong about that too. When the anti-Asian sentiment got bad enough, and the 1924 Immigration Act shut them out entirely, illegal Mexican migration picked up, along with the legal European migration, which the act was designed to promote. Illegal migration slacked, I think, during the Depression, but it picked up again in the post-1945 boom, and then we get to the bracero program, and the occasional amnesty, etc., etc., and here we are.

What I'm trying to say is that the US economy seems to be able to absorb more cheap labor than we let in legally, our" cheap" labor pays pretty good by international standards, and neither of those are going to change anytime soon. So the occasional amnesty, or guest worker program, is going to be necessary to keep the mess to a minimum. Understand that the program won't work as advertised, but it will work as intended. Which, I guess, just goes to show that even a "blind man in a room full of deaf people" can find his way sometimes.

SUNDAY UPDATE: It seems that I was a little premature in my above bipartisanship. Most of the Democratic candidates are attacking the proposal as inadequately generous to immigrants and the Republicans in Congress are considered highly unlikely to actually implement the President's proposal. I still think both parties have both pro- and anti- camps, but clearly there is some meaning in the differences. It's too bad, because it's nice to see something kind of moderate come out of this administration.

Reading the reports from the AHA, and my colleagues' musings about the value and oddities of the national meeting, I was reminded of my favorite conferences. As an Asianist, I'm a member of the Association for Asian Studies, and the national conferences are intense pleasures. Except at the biggest research institutions, there is rarely more than one Asianist per department at a college or university, and often not more than a few faculty with Asian interests. Even when there is some density of faculty, there are often institutional reasons why we don't interact more. So the AAS Annual is a blast: scholars whose work you've read and cited and who've read and cited your work; having to choose between equally compelling panels in your own field; catching up with friends... OK, so Western historians get to do that at the AHA, but it's not as easy for us Asianists. I'm going to San Diego in March, having organized a panel, and I'm pretty excited, even if I am behind on the actual paper-writing.

But the national is expensive to attend, and very particular about the panels they accept (AAS doesn't accept individual paper proposals anymore, and everyone on a panel, even your discussant, has to be unique to your panel). My favorite conferences, actually, have been the AAS regional conferences, annual events usually held in the summer. I've presented four papers at three different regionals now: New England, Western and Asian-Pacific. The discussions have been substantive, comments helpful, and even the more senior faculty at these events quite approachable and collegial. OK, it's a little harder to find people who do exactly the same work you do, but most of the papers are pretty good and people take feedback (both giving and receiving) more seriously. You get the chance to spend time with and build relationships with colleagues in your region, with much less posturing and preening than goes on at the national. There's no hiring going on, so the"stink of fear" (as one of my grad school colleagues put it) and undercurrents of competition are missing, and that's really nice. The AAS regionals are tightly integrated with the national organization, not some random outgrowth: the regional organizations send members to the AAS board, and I'm pretty sure there's a financial relationship as well.

What I'm wondering is: why aren't there regional AHA organizations? My ties to the historical profession are as strong as my ties to the Asian studies field, but local and regional historical societies seem to be very narrowly focused on US or local history. The closest thing I can find seems to be the annual Phi Alpha Theta (History honor society) gathering, but that's more an undergraduate event. Maybe I just missed it, but it'd be nice to have an institutional setting where historians can really come together and share their work and their experiences without the high-stakes atmosphere of the national meeting.