The Ontario District Branch (ODB) took a multifaceted approach to the topic
of violence and society at a daylong meeting in Toronto last month.
Gerald Schneiderman, M.D., chair of ODB's Program Committee, said,"
There is growing awareness of increased violence in Canada and the
global community." He brought experts from Canada and the United States
to discuss various aspects of this much-debated social problem.
Paul Polak, M.D., opened the day by recounting his journey from
Czechoslovakia to Canada in 1939. His father had foreseen the dangers of the
Nazi regime and saved his family from likely death in the Holocaust by
relocating.
Polak helped his father as he started from scratch to build a new life for
his family. "From that experience, I learned that I could always land on
my feet."FIG1
He brought that entrepreneurial attitude to the problem of poverty, which
he sees as a direct cause of violence.
Polak practiced psychiatry as a young man and saw links between mental
illness and the impoverished conditions in which his patients lived.
Through skillful investments in oil and real estate, he became financially
able to launch a career in which he could bring his entrepreneurial energy and
attitude to developing solutions to poverty throughout the world.
Today, Polak heads International Development Enterprises (IDE), a
multimillion-dollar effort based in Lakewood, Colo., that operates in 15
countries and Central America.
IDE's mission is to empower the rural poor to escape poverty, and its
approach is "to treat poverty alleviation as a business."
Polak began in Bangladesh in 1981 using strategies that he had employed as
a psychiatrist to try to understand the causes of serious mental illness and
how to alleviate it.
He went directly to rural farmers and questioned them about their views on
the causes of their poverty.
Rural farmers are the primary clientele because, Polak estimated,
three-quarters of the 1.1 billion people living in extreme poverty work as
small-scale farmers.
Polak said, "IDE regards the rural poor as potential customers,
producers, and entrepreneurs."
The approaches he came up with are simple, logical, and successful. He
believes that to compete effectively, rural farmers should maximize their
advantage by selecting labor-intensive crops. Lack of water was a critical
problem identified by those farmers. They frequently irrigated their fields by
carrying buckets of water, which was an inefficient and exhausting use of
labor.
Bangladesh also suffered from uneven rain patterns, with torrential rains
during the monsoon seasons and little water during the rest of the year.
To respond to those needs, Polak worked with others to develop a
foot-operated treadle pump. A user pedals up and down on two long bamboo poles
that activate two steel cylinders. Suction pulls groundwater into the
cylinders from which it is dispersed to a channel in the field.
IDE sells the pumps through local distributors for less than $100. Polak
said that approximately 1.5 million of them have been sold, and they have
increased productivity of more than 600,000 acres of farmland in
Bangladesh.
Polak's work has been featured in such publications as National
Geographic and Scientific American.
Jerrold Post, M.D., took a different tack to the problem of violence.
In a talk titled "When Hatred Is Bred in the Bone," he explored
the mind of a terrorist. "Policies designed to deter terrorists from
their acts of terrorism should be based on an understanding of what makes
terrorists tick," he said.
Post is a professor of psychiatry, political psychology, and international
affairs and director of the Political Psychology Program at George Washington
University in Washington, D.C.
He began by telling the audience that terrorists typically do not conform
to the stereotype of crazed fanatics. Emotionally disturbed individuals likely
would be excluded because they represent security risks to the group.
Instead, he said, research has shown that normality is the most common
outstanding characteristic of terrorists. Social psychology, rather than
individual psychopathology, therefore, becomes the best means of analyzing
terrorist behavior.
Post identified four terrorist types: nationalist-separatist, social
revolutionary, right wing, and religious fundamentalists that show differences
from each other, although they all employ terrorist tactics.
He distinguished between the first two groups in terms of generational
dynamics. Social-revolutionary terrorists, exemplified by the Red Brigades in
Italy, are disloyal to the generation of their families that is loyal to the
regime. National-separatist terrorists, such as al-Fatah and the Irish
Republican Army, are loyal to the generation of their parents whom they
believe were damaged by the regime in power.
Religious fundamentalists, such as Islamic, Jewish, Christian, and Sikh
radical extremists, are becoming increasingly important and are particularly
dangerous because they seek revenge upon the Western world and are not
constrained by Western reaction. The role of the leader, as exemplified by
Osama bin Laden, in these groups is crucial.
Post described his experience interviewing an Islamic fundamentalist
terrorist who was a defendant in the al Qaeda bombing of the U.S. embassy in
Tanzania.
He noted that typically unquestioning obedience to authority and Allah are
instilled at any early age for those who become terrorists.
Fusion with the group is important in all the religious fundamentalist
organizations.
Post said that recommendations for deterring terrorism grow out of an
analysis of what motivates terrorist groups. Terrorism, which is a form of
psychological warfare, is more effectively countered with psychological
warfare than with "smart bombs."
Information about International Development Enterprises is posted at<www.ide-international.org/index2.jsp>.▪