Poetic Engagement with Afghanistan, Caucasus and Iran: An Unexplored Strategic Opportunity?

This paper explores the role of poetry in the midst of chaos, highlighting the strategic challenge of engaging with another through poetry, where the aesthetic values may be radically different. Author Anthony Judge asks: why is poetry valued in cultures with which effective engagement has been frustrated over many years, and what are the fruitful rules of engagement within that framework?

In the paper's preamble, Judge considers the history of aesthetics and the military, observing that it is not widely recognised in the cultures beyond the direct influence of Islam the extent to which aesthetics is valued there, whether in the form of poetry or song. Words and images representing the "clash of civilizations" are, Judge claims, typically framed by the West as implying a direct physical threat between cultures. "Aside from conventional diplomatic dialogue, no other vehicle is considered appropriate to the engagement between worldviews so framed. It is of course the case that there is a long history of such physical conflict between such cultures."

Looking deeper, Judge examines various strategic uses for poetry during times of conflict. A project he describes here, launched by the United States (US) National Endowment for the Arts in collaboration with the US Department of Defense in April 2004, was designed to help soldiers write about their experiences in war. As part of Operation Homecoming: Writing the War Experience, writers were brought to military bases to conduct workshops for soldiers returning from combat. This was an effort to both preempt the poetry of resistance to the Vietnam war within the US and to provide a form of therapy for potentially traumatised combatants.

Judge explains that the Pentagon has tended to frame its use of aesthetics in the tradition of direct support to military engagement, whether in providing supportive music to its soldiers, enabling them to listen to music while operating combat vehicles on search-and-destroy missions, or as a way to facilitate interrogation (notably, through sleep deprivation). An exception of relevance to this exploration is the mnemonic value in the US military of rhythmically chanting, or even singing, roll calls or pre-flight checklists.

Detailed explorations of how poetry looks in various cultural contexts follows. For instance, Judge points out that, in Afghanistan, warlords are indeed valued for their poetic competence - but Americans have only recent begun to recognise this. The importance of shared poetic legacy is evident in day-to-day conversations across Afghanistan, Judge explains. For example, "a landay or tappa is an unrhymed couplet of nine syllables in the first hemistich and thirteen in the second. This is one of the oldest poetic and sung styles of that culture. It is a mixture between a singing duet and a poetic jousting match." This is a very popular form of expression in that culture, as evidenced by the fact that tappa is commonly found in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and North West Frontier Province - precisely the area considered the most challenging by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)'s United Nations (UN)-mandated International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). Judge wonders, "To what extent do foreign coalition forces engage with the people of Afghanistan through poetry?"

Despite these possibilities, Judge stresses the very limited number of Arabic or native speakers available to the intelligence services in the lead-up to intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan. While "interpreters" may have subsequently become available, he explains, questions could usefully be asked about their competence in the poetic traditions of those cultures. Therefore, "It is highly improbable that the 'interpreters' sought in support of any strategic conflict would now be selected or appreciated for their poetic insights."

However, Judge does see several possibilities for reframing strategic engagement. Amongst the 17 he lists is the following: "Negotiations are typically about controversial issues on which opposing views are strongly held. This is ideal thematic material to be processed (even competitively) by poets (singers, musicians) to explore modes of their harmonious integration - perhaps using the discordant elements to enhance the 'colour' of the work. Such contributions, occasional made for light relief at conferences, could be taken more seriously in offering complementary insights to negotiators and their constituencies."

There are, however, several constraints to bringing such possibilities to fruition. For instance, Judge indicates that poetic discourse involves improvisation, not the recital of poetry previously prepared. So, while students may be taught to read and appreciate poetry, to recite it, and possibly to write it, Judge argues, there is no sense in which they are expected to acquire skills to engage with each other through poetry - improvised spontaneously in response to content formulated in the moment. Potentially of relevance to that particular strategic challenge is understanding the process associated with the Arabic term "munatharah", which involves theory building, whereby an individual introduces his or her theory and then others comment on its strengths and deficiencies.

Judge moves on to provide several concrete examples of poetic interaction within specific cultures: oral poetry, interactive poetry, folk traditions, and interactive dialogue projects. A brightly coloured table illustrates a framework for clarifying the connotations of the phrase "poetic debate" to highlight those most relevant to socio-political poetic engagement. This table echoes the range of forms of participation in conferences of any kind - from reports about them (or about hypothetical events), through typical presentations of pre-prepared documents, ritualised set-piece dialogues, to improvisation in response to the thematic content of others. Judge suggests that, in the case of "poetic debate" or "poetic dialogue", the idea is to heighten the degree of resonance between participants in an improvisation - to "enhance the reverberations of the encounter as a whole."

The author then articulates an imaginative reflection on possible "Rules of Poetic Engagement". He begins by discussing collaborative aesthetics, noting that "A[n] aesthetic collaboration may be said to take place through a common inspiration, even though there is no direct interaction." The question here is whether the interaction between the differences of the poetic voices may enable the emergence of a "shared vision" that encompasses those differences without diminishing their significance. He also describes collaborative creativity, which is the focus of the Collaborative Creativity Group within a programme of the United Nations University, centered at the Maastricht Economic and Social Research and Training Centre on Innovation and Technology (UNU-MERIT). Yet "it is precisely what has proven to be viable and practical in the mysterious success of open source and related projects (Linux, Wikipedia) that inhibits recognition of the subtle strategic challenges of cross-cultural engagement, as in the Middle East." Judge characterises these challenges as a reflection of contrasting aesthetic preferences which are intimately related to issues of collective identity - and to challenging differences in ideological perspectives and their strategic implications.

Two lists - one outlining practical concerns, and one identifying characteristics of possible "rules" - follow. Within the latter list, he describes some viable patterns of improvised poetic dialogue, such as music improvisation, polyphony, multi-participant juggling, dance, and card games. Detailing insights from contexts and concepts such as the "rhythm of debate", "poetical rhetoric", "poetic resonance", "pattern language", musical genres, and experimental poetry, Judge emphasises the need for creative ways of combining useful rules, whatever they might be, in a way that does not inhibit creativity - suggesting we look to the philosophy and practice of Eastern martial arts, such as aikido, for indications of how to reconcile incompatible approaches to "the rules".

In concluding, Judge makes the case for enabling skills that combine improvisation, interaction (such that each responds to thematic content and aesthetic parameters introduced by the other), debate responsive to radically divisive socio-political and ideological issues, and cultural sensitivity, especially with respect to Islamic reservations. "The ambition need only be modest, whatever the potential. It might be fruitfully framed as a means of engendering a different framework of mutual respect - independent of other more conventional indicators of strength. Framed in this way, there is the possibility of more fruitful outcomes, mutually valued. Given the modest costs associated with this possibility - compared to other forms of more physical engagement between cultures - it is easy to argue that there is little to lose, with the potential of there being much to gain."

Editor's note: Since the above-summarised publication, Anthony Judge has developed the theme in: "Strategic Jousting through Poetic Wrestling: Aesthetic Reframing of the Clash of Civilizations".