Economic and Educational Development

Role of Education

Education can alleviate violence almost immediately if the conflict has arisen because of economic, social, or political disparity. Yet, one of the clearest indicators of disparity between the majority and the minority populations is the level of education. In both southeastern Turkey and in the Philippines the illiteracy rate is substantially higher, the quality of education is poorer, and the gender difference is greater. According to the Republic of Turkey's Prime Ministry Southeastern Anatolia Project Regional Development Administration 2000, most Kurdish villages do not have a primary school. Where one exists, a single teacher is responsible for teaching in Turkish to five classes. The following chart shows the percentages of illiteracy in southeastern Turkey compared to the whole country and the rural to the urban areas. Approximately 80% of the 69,660,559 population are Turks and 20% are Kurds (World Factbook 2005).

Illiteracy Rates in Turkey-Percentage of Population

The general illiteracy rate in Turkey 55%

Kurdish illiteracy

72% Over six years of age were unable to read

The general illiteracy rate in Turkish areas 41%

Southeastern region of Turkey 85.6 %

Southeastern region of Turkey female

illiteracy rate 81.8%

Turkish Areas female illiteracy rate 55.6%,

In1993, Kurdistan had fifty secondary schools, yet schools lacked the resources, teachers, and necessary support to provide an adequate educational system. In the past as part of a nationalist agenda, the Turkish government banned Kurdish language instruction; now a student must sign a petition for the university and the government to take language instruction. Students have appealed for Kurdish lingual instruction and have often been denied this right for fear of harassment and security. In part, this failure to have lingual rights has ignited the Kurdish separatist movement. The state elite view social discontent not as a problem to solve, but rather as a security breach to be repressed. The educational system fails to address such topics as pluralist democracy, good governance, managing change, human rights, rule of law and conflict resolution, and even the discussion of the need for these topics. As a formal candidate to the European Union, Turkey's government and citizenry must meet the Copenhagen Criteria regarding human rights, rule of law, cultural pluralism, and respect for diversity. Even though the government is trying to advance its country, sometimes obstacles to development result from the cultural environment, such cultural or religious norms as the role of women in society.

Many women are not aware of their inalienable rights, and no service informs them about these rights. In Mindanao, I asked Alia, one of the students who got married at an early age, "Why did you get married so young?" She told me that she did not have any other choice, because a female has to marry a person who had touched her because of the chastity laws; otherwise, he or she could end up being subject to an honor killing. Similar cultural barriers and social norms prevent certain groups from gaining access to public services (such as schooling, health, facilities, or job training), so those minorities are blocked from entering universities and public sectors jobs. They may face harassment from the community, including boycotts of their business, physical destruction of properties, or physical threat. There they view the role of the women as taking care of the household and that of the man as working and providing support for the home.

In an interview with Aslinah, the head of the Muslim Student Organization, she explained that many Muslims in the Philippines discourage their kids from getting an education under the Philippine government's curriculum. They consider those schools as Christian schools, but they want to have their children to receive their education from Islamic schools, where they teach mostly religion rather than basic reading, writing, math, or life skills, and the children of the elite have good schools, but the lower level of kids are discouraged from getting an education. When I asked a group of Muslim students from the University of Mindanao, "How does your community view you because you are attending Christian school?" one girl told me that some of them view their going to such a school as a good thing, and some of them view them as being spoiled by loosing their identity, a greater problem for the male students than for the females.

According to the World Factbook 2005 on the Philippines, of the total population (87,857,473) approximately 92.6% of those over fifteen can read and write, with 92.5% males and 92.7% females doing so. The Philippines is the only country in Asia that has the highest literacy rate but among the Muslims (5% of the population compared with 80.9% Roman Catholic) has an illiteracy rate of almost 80 %. This kind of biased policy toward the Muslims has implications for educational values as well. Professor Shariff Julabbi of the MILF/BMA argues that the Spaniard strategy of using a Christian type of education as an instrument to further their imperial ambitions brought serious consequences to the Moros' education system. Therefore, he says that Muslims resist invaders' attempts to establish schools in their areas. Since Spaniards' systems of education were based on their values, the Muslims strongly rejected their institutions and interests. In his view, since then no western type of educational system has been successfully introduced in the Muslim land. In part the stereotypes of hatred and experiences from the past lead the Muslims to illiteracy, backwardness, and stagnation. From my observation, this type of negative experience prevented their getting an education unless they are not in a Muslim school. The society feared that those who attended Christian schools would become Christian even though many Muslims leaders and their children have received their education from the Christian schools. Muslims there believe that not speaking Arabic means a student is not a good Muslim, but do not realize that without speaking Arabic, he or she still can remain a good Muslim by reading the translated scripture from Arabic to English. They do not realize that although it is good to know Arabic, it is not necessary to learn it. Instead many Muslims think that today they are backward because their educational stumbling blocks have roots in the colonial era that created an educational gap between Muslims and Christians in this country. Professor Julabbi admits that the educational advancement achieved by the Christian Filipinos enabled them to develop their socio-economic and political structures more rapidly than Muslims. There are some other reasons for the disparity between majority Christians and minority Muslims in the Philippines. First, because of the Christian settlers to Mindanao, eventually the Muslims felt that they had become a minority in their homeland. As a result of the immigration from the north, the Christians became the dominant political force in the south. In their view, Muslims found themselves again subjected to and ruled by another colonial power. But Muslims felt that Filipinos were subjected to oppression and colonization and instead of helping the Muslims to develop their education, political, and economical infrastructure, they replaced them with their own pattern of leadership and authority incompatible with the Muslim cultural and religious values. The Roman Catholics' legislative and implementation policies to legalize their actions took away their ancestral lands to make way for resettlement projects and agricultural plantations. Even though Americans tried to use education as instrument to integrate them with society, Muslims were not open to western types of education. One Christian student who was doing his masters degree in economics, Joeron Dalisay, explained that the Muslims rejected the Christian teachers and the textbooks because they were written from a colonial view point. Interestingly, no one mentioned that if Muslims set up schools in predominately Christian areas and used their resources, that they would never teach Christian values, yet they expected the Christians to fund education and Islam. Because of their strongly held views, they were afraid that their young would get a distorted picture of their own history and adopt the Christian culture.

The Muslims in Mindanao saw this kind of Catholic educational systems as attempting cultural suicide. Therefore, they refused any kind of western style of education, keeping them in a state of relative backwardness, having neither the economic resources nor the political strength to develop an alternative to educational systems relevant to the realities or the cultural and religious values of their society. This condemned them to backwardness and to the status of uneducated people, subjecting them to more exploitation and oppression. Because their lack of education undermined their socio- economic development, they could not compete with the Christians because the Christians were better equipped, had a better education, and consequently could get better jobs, leading them to a good income, status, and wealth while the Muslims became extremely poor, except for the religious and political Muslim leaders and their children who were well educated and wealthy also. When compared to their neighboring Christians in terms of roads, electricity, health center, irrigation, government schools, buildings, and drinking water, this kind of policy neglect was aggravated by the long years of civil disturbance as well as the continuous political instability of the region. On the other hand, a student, Joeron Dalisay, said that today even though the Philippine government and western companies wanted to invest in the southern Philippines, because of the lack of law and order, they declined. Muslims first have to make sure that there is rule of law and security, so that westerners will be willing to invest in the Muslims' land. As a result of disorder, corruption, and violence, mostly Muslims pay the price and live under harsh conditions. Also a Catholic priest, Father Boyer, explained that the Muslim leaders do not get along and do not want peace; therefore, the Muslims should also be blamed as well, not just the government, because Muslims failed to bring peace and order in the region and mostly remain corrupt.

When I talked to the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Marciano Melchor, and a faculty member in the College of Engineering, Lilia Panchito, at the University of Mindanao, both were for a federalism solution for Mindanao because Mindanao has rich resources; yet, all the resources go to Manila, so that nothing is left for the Mindanao people. Also, both agreed that there must be a greater integrative process, not just economic development, because the importance of education should be pressed upon those community leaders.

Economic Development to Reduce Violence

Economic development policies can weaken local support for violence activities. These polices can contribute to the expansion of a new middle class in communities that have traditionally tended to support violent groups. For example, in the southern Philippines, I meet a Muslim, Nacier Saripmacmod, who is an ex-rebel who has fought in the jungle, but now he has his own businesses, the Universal Nursing and Physical Therapy Review School and the Zenith Davao Review Center for Marine Engineering. During our conversation, he told me that if the government promised to create jobs for the rebels who are in the jungle, he could get all rebels out of the jungle. He said that people are literally starving. They have no jobs, and as illiterate, unskilled Muslims, they have no other alternative to violence. In his words he called the policy "stomach development." He said, "If I had enough money to feed those people, they wouldn't go live in the jungle." He told me that he had lived there. "It is a terrible place," he said, and he confessed that he did not achieve anything and knows he wasted his time. Now, he is happy, running a preparatory center for those who want to get an accountant license, and he is very successful; he plans to open a Muslim school in Mindanao because he sees an urgent need for good education in the Muslim communities. He explained that it is easy to teach how to pull the trigger on a gun, but it is hard to teach to how to read and write; nevertheless, he is now advocating a pen instead of a gun solution. With significant insight, he revealed that pulling the trigger is the easiest skill that a leader can offer deprived people. It is true that poverty, illiteracy, and ignorance are like a disease in both communities of the Muslims and of the Kurds. If we eliminated illiteracy, the other two conditions would eliminate themselves. It is common sense that if a person has a good education, he will have a good job and a middle income. The income will increase the social status of the person, and as a result of a good social status, that individual will be a productive citizen of both the community and country, more likely participating in politics and civic activities.

Also, economic development can discourage recruits from joining terrorist groups. Many terrorist organizations attract new members from communities with those who are marginalized rather than integrated, and those who are oppressed, illiterate, unskilled people. For example, in Turkey, the government considered Kurds as "mountain Turks." There was clear social and political injustice between minority Kurdish and majority Turkish population areas, but for many years no one bothered to address the issues. Consequently, it was easy for the PKK to recruit many young men and women to join the organization. Before Abdullah Ocalan was captured, I happened to meet a young Kurdish lady, who did not have a good job, and her house had been destroyed. Her family fled because the military forced them to leave their villages, so most of them sought refuge in large cities like Istanbul, but there they lived in a shanty house with no water, no sanitation, and no electricity. (Usually they just find empty property and construct a building without any government permit). She told me that she did not like the government and sympathized more with the PKK than the Turkish military. She said, "The Turkish military destroyed my house, the Turkish government destroyed my house, so I want to destroy theirs. They forced me to live like this." A PKK member could easily recruit that young lady whose own government destroyed her hope and future. Therefore, the lack of social and economical development can assist the terrorists in their recruitment because terrorist groups offer recruits financial incentives and family support. Economic development policies can help to reduce the vulnerability of potential recruits by reducing their needs and by providing those people with viable alternatives to violence. For example, my interview with the founder of the banana plantation and ex-mayor of the Muslim Autonomous Region (ARM), Datu Ibrahim "Toto" Pendatun Paglas III, a grant recipient of the Wilson Fellowship Award confirmed this point. Toto had recently run for governor but was defeated. As the Chairman of the Advisory Committee, Business, and Peace Program, and the Presidential Assistant for the GRP-MILF Peace Process, he speaks with authority on local issues. He explains that economic development has been particularly effective in providing economic alternatives to communities that have traditionally received support from the violent groups. He also said during our conversation that private investment has had a positive effect on unemployment and transferred the area known as "field for killer" into a peaceful good community. Of course, not all terrorist recruits come from the poor families; recruitment depends on the region and nature of the conflict. Terrorists can just as easily come from the middle or upper class as the poor section of society. In both Turkey and the Philippines recruits come from across the class spectrum with general support from local communities. Also, sometimes the government fails to keep their promise and fails to implement development initiatives due to lack of sufficient financial support. It erroneously inflates the hopes and aspirations of local communities, and then when those expectations are not met, an intense backfiring occurs, triggering resentment and creating the likelihood of violence.

Countries that have budgeted revenue for the underprivileged areas have met with significant success in reducing the violence. For example, Ireland has directed both national and international funds toward Northern Ireland to target impoverished areas that provide recruits for the Irish Republic Army. The following chart compares expenditures over a five-year period in Northern Ireland and in Mindanao. While it is true that other factors may contribute to the peace, the investment in social and economic development makes a significant contribution as noted in the chart below (Cragin & Chalk, 2002).

Social and Economic Development in Northern Ireland and Mindanao.

Economic Support Northern Ireland

1997-2001 Mindanao

1996-2001

Central Government 515 2

International Community 28 4

Total 543 6

(Annual per capital in U.S. dollars)

Thus, in Northern Ireland, public expenditures have been set aside to target social needs. Since 1997, the United Kingdom has spent an average 515 million dollars annually on these efforts. In addition to that, the European Union has contributed 28 million annually, a generation of a total aid package of $543 per person per year (see the table above). According to Cragin and Chalk, the main focus of this investment has been on dealing with education, health, housing, infrastructure, and urban development. As a result of this funding, there is not much difference between the Catholics and the Protestants in terms of access to schools, hospitals, and suitable domiciles. But the figures provide a negative example for Mindanao in the Philippines, where the social and economic aid totaled $ 6 person per year. (See the table above). This comparison helps us to explain the dismal failure of most development policies instituted in Mindanao that do not inhibit support for terrorism, because most of the money was channeled to the Roman Catholic populated areas. The differential increases the already existing wealth differences between the Catholic majority and the Muslim minorities. The combined effect has helped intensify the support for the local insurgent and terrorist groups. Consequently, it is vitally important to implement aid polices to ensure that the aid ends up in the hands of those who needs it. In the case of the aid distribution in north Ireland, the EU administrated its programs in such a way as to avoid bias and hatred by letting local residents be involved in the design of specific projects and by including them in the distribution and oversight of the system. The local Catholic and Protestant representatives were held accountable for implementing the projects jointly with members of the opposing community with the results being generally good. By contrast, the Philippines have failed to meet the local needs, and the funds have ended up in the hands of corrupt people. The central government also failed to establish adequate mechanisms to ensure accountability for the development aid that was transferred to Mindanao.

Also, the economic development policies initiated because of extra-national organizations intervention can be used as a carrot to encourage the people not to be recruited easily. For example, in pursuance of EU membership, the Turkish government has issued a series of bold reforms. These reforms include the advancement of Kurdish cultural rights, the southeastern economic development called "Villager Rehabilitation Program," and other programs which have attracted private investment and the emergence of infrastructure to support development. However, success in these programs will boost entrepreneurship and investment. The Justice Development Party's (AK) platform decided to avoid Islam and to express support for the French laicism model, as a fundamental requirement for the democracy, at least nominally supporting, "the state's impartiality toward every form of religious belief and philosophical conviction," meaning that "the state, rather than the individual, is restricted and limited to the idea of ‘neo-Ottomans' as part of this administration's guiding policies." The state's role in the confederation would be to guarantee each community's autonomy. As a consequence of this pluralist policy, the Kurds have felt increasingly attracted to the AK party's openness and ethnic diversity. This system allows for an envisaged, decentralized, pluralist political system of "multiple legal orders" under laws (White, 2002).

The Philippines and Turkey are capitalist-statist economies, yet both the Muslim-majority provinces in the Philippines and the Kurdish-majority regions in Turkey lag behind their counterparts in most economic development indicators. In the Philippines the economic and political development suffers under mismanagement of public revenues, widespread corruption, and insurgencies, in spite of its having been one of the wealthiest countries in Southeast Asia prior to the 1960s. Even with President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, a U.S. trained economist, boosting tax revenues by cracking down on tax evasion and stabilizing budget deficits, the chronic corruption and rampant crime has plagued the country, affecting the poor disproportionately (Freedom House 2005, p. 504). The Philippines loses approximately 10% of its gross domestic product (7l6 billion) because of tax evasion affecting its budget deficit and in turn the funds for education, infrastructure, and health care. Further, the conflict between the government and the MILF has created economic hardship for fifteen million Filipinos in southern Mindanao. With the New People's Army, Abu Sayyaf, and the MILF kidnapping the foreign and the wealthy, attacking Christian villages, and executing those captured, investors are reluctant to set up businesses in the region. By contrast, Turkey has had incentives to develop economic initiatives for the southeast. In its bid for membership, the EU has granted it "market economy status," boosting domestic and foreign investors' confidence in the economy. However, the Kurdish region continues to suffer in the aftermath of the government's destruction of over four thousand villages and forced mass movement and has failed to benefit from Turkey's intermittent upswings in economic growth. Likewise, the violence against the Turkish military, and in some cases civilians, has deterred economic growth. For a variety of reasons, the economic disparity between the Muslim region and the rest of the Philippines and between southeastern Turkey and the rest of the country is both visible and measurable.

The Kurdish people in Turkey traditionally base their economy on farming. Particularly in the emirates, a feudal relation dominated. Peasant farmers worked land controlled by powerful lords. Both urban merchants and rural agha invested in the land. So the Kurds shared their labor with lords giving them a portion of the crops. Only the agha could distribute the land he owned. For the most part, the Kurds did not develop an indigenous mercantile, industrial, or proletariat (in the classical Marxist sense) system with a historical mission to destroy tribal and feudal economic structures, at least not until today. Sometimes the agha and sheiks and a new class of urban and usually non- Kurdish landlords, or even sometimes the government, used impoverished rural agha as their local overseers, so the process could be corrupt and brutal. By nature tribalism is socially conservative and remained in place until recently. According to anthropologist Thomas Bois, the traditional Kurdish tribesman lived in small inwardly oriented, outwardly defensive cultures (1966). Tribal life was rooted in traditional behavior, traditional relationship, traditional activities, and obligations between members. Traditional economy is an economic system in which decisions such as who, how, what, and for whom are all made on the basis of customs, belief, religion, and habits ("Economy" 2000). Economic development relates to tradition particularly if that tradition restricts individual initiative and lacks advanced goods, new technology, and growth because those of that tradition think that they have no needs for those advancements. Instead they hold the notion that "this is what my grandfather did and what his grandfather did."

The Kurdish areas of Turkey are far less developed economically than the western provinces. There are far fewer vehicles, poorer roads, and almost no industrialization. Human development levels in the southeastern Kurdish region lag behind national levels, while the incidence of human poverty remains much higher, and migration out of the region continues. The region faces development challenges in terms of income level, educational opportunities, gender equality, and socio-economic opportunities and facilities. Migration away from the rural areas increases the population of the urban areas considerably, and this creates additional challenges to provide public services. According to the United Nations development program, as a result of high fertility in the Kurdish region, 41% of the regional population is younger than 14 and 23% are aged between 15 and 24 years. Children and young people are the most disadvantage and vulnerable groups that suffer from the lower socio-economic status of the region. In conditions of poverty, having large numbers of children increases the household costs, so that poor families require their children to work, sometimes in poor conditions. In some families in which parents are unemployed, children work in the streets as the only breadwinners in the family. These children are open to various social and health risks such as substance addiction, alcohol, delinquency, pick pocketing, seriously affecting each child's development and the future of the next generation. In addition to the problems resulting from working in the streets, young Kurdish people aged between fifteen and twenty-five have their own social and economic problems that arise from lack of education, unemployment, and inability to express themselves. Also, many of the Kurds who are forced by the military to leave their home and villages settle in the western provinces and live in shanty houses in worse conditions than before. In their new location they have integration problems as well. Women of the Kurdish region also suffer from gender inequality; women in the southeastern Kurdish region do not have economic opportunities or an equal share of public welfare. Most of the women are uneducated, traditionally the young girls do not equally benefit from educational opportunities, and their economic capacity is quite limited. Besides the high illiteracy rate among the women, they are sometimes subjected to violence and threatened by honor killings if they have sexual improprieties.

David Horowitz posits that ethnic groups tend to measure disadvantage in terms of deviation from some concept of proportionality in relation to the population (1985; p. 191) and, as a result of that disadvantage, are more likely to initiate a secession movement. In his study he differentiates among the advanced and backward groups in advanced and backwards regional economies, making four combinations to determine the effect of economic, political, and status. In his schema the Moros in the Philippines are a backward group in a backward regional economy, the same as he lists the Kurds in Iraq, a group that fares better than its counterpart in Turkey. "Relative regional position is a causal element in the emergence of secession not because it predicts separatism in any straightforward way but because it conditions the claims that ethnic groups make and their responses to the rejection of those claims (p. 172). The backward regions voice dissatisfaction based on revenue expenditures of the center if their per capita income is less even if their contribution to the revenue is less. Implications from secessionist movements are significant in that a greater number of secessionist movements come from backward regions that are less capable of sustaining themselves because of a lack of administrative capacity and personnel, experiencing "post-secession difficulties." He concludes that ethnic separatism depends on the early or late secession with the latter having time to prepare for the independence. They are often more cohesive, better organized, and conducted under the auspices of a political party. Likewise, late secessions allows for work on alternative policies to avert secession (p.195).

Michael Hechter's theory on internal colonialism (1975, 1999) and Ted R. Gurr's theory on relative deprivation use a framework to study the causes and consequences of ethnic conflict. Introducing the idea of permanent deprivation, the framework suggests that once an ethnic group perceives that the state has permanently deprived it either of class, status, power, or any combination of the three, it will organize a separatist movement. According to Hechter, when a group attains the status of an "internal colony" and the state consequently subjects it to intense, systematic, and deliberate discrimination in terms of its political, economic, and social relations with other groups within the state, a separatist movement begins. After Ted Gurr conducted a study of various forms of political violence across several nation-states, he concluded that both long-term economic factors and perceptions of regime illegitimacy play a role in explaining political strife or violence. His theory failed to explain how perceptions of economic deprivation (relative to a group's expectation about the economy compared to the rest of the economy and hence the label "relative deprivation") and perceptions of illegitimacy of power together caused people to resort to violence (1971). The reality of economic disparity, however, combines with the perception of a permanent status to cause the deprived to see violence as the only option. The Muslims of the southern Philippines experience an economic disparity and consider themselves relatively deprived. Their history chronicles a record of subjugation and thus depravation. Islamic traders and missionaries plied their goods from China to India by way of Malaysia to the Sulu Archipelago in the ninth and tenth century, finally settling in the city of Jolo by the thirteenth and fourteenth century and beginning the vigorous Islamization of the southern islands (Yeger 2002, p. 185). From Sulu the Muslim traders and missionaries spread to the southern coast of Mindanao and were followed by a stream of Malay Muslim clerics from Sumatra, who subsequently brought the Filipinos under the Muslim sultan. The indigenous people, a heterogeneous group, thus became unified under Islam. Ninety percent or more of the Muslims in the Philippines now inhabit the four main communities: the Tausug and the Samal of the Sulu Archipelago and the Zamboanga region, the Maguindanao of Cotabato region and part of Zamboagna, and the Maranao of the Lanao Lake region. The remaining nine or ten percent are dispersed in the Zamboanga region, Bukidnon, Davao, and Palawan (187). Consequently, having come under the Sultanate, the region resisted the central Spanish government in Manila in 1565 when the Spaniards arrived, and when the United States took over the Philippines from Spain in 1899, they maintained their right to autonomy. The Tausug most aggressively fought for secession. Adamantly refusing to cooperate with the Christian Filipinos in Luzon and the Visayas who controlled the bureaucracy, the Muslims in the region maintained their political and ideological identity. When the Philippines attained Commonwealth and then independence, the Manila government implemented a policy of assimilation and integration. For the purposes of nation building, the government encouraged the migration of Catholic settlers from the Northern provinces to the areas of Mindanao. This resettlement policy deprived the Moros of a substantial amount of territory and of means of livelihood. The Moros continued separatist struggle from 1968 to the present resulted from the dispute over territorial claims, attacks from both civil and state parties, a climate of hate, and particularly the declaration of martial law. A new, young, educated, and radical leadership emerged among the Moros in the mid 1960s further deepening the cleavage and intensifying the violence. In conclusion, ethnic conflict in a country subjected to first Islamic, second Spanish, third Japanese, and finally American colonialism remains seemingly intractable. Overcoming the perception of permanent deprivation requires democratic rather than authoritarian leadership, government free from corruption, education, and cooperation among the local, regional, and national governments as well as non-governmental institutions that will assist in ushering in a civil society with rule of law.

The economic deprivation among the Muslims in the Philippines remains a significant cause of violence. When I interviewed a former Muslim National Liberation Front (MNLF) fighter, Datu Ibrahim "Toto" Pendatun Paglas informed me about the criminal system in Mindanao. There are two Muslim rebel groups: the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the Abu Sayyaf. These two groups fight for secession, but a criminal faction kidnaps locals and foreigners, demands extortion, sells drugs, and commits other sorts of illegal activities. When the government chases the criminal group, the criminals seek refuge in the jungle and essentially join either one of the other groups, so that in the end three groups work together and share the profits and spoils. He argued that teaching the youth and bringing economic development are the most vital steps for bringing peace and order in the order-less land. He claims that the government does not sincerely try to solve the problem of Mindanao. He believes that sometimes even the military smuggles the weapons into the heavily Muslims populated areas and then later will go after them and put them in jail. Like many others in the region, he believed the government conspiracy theory that the government wanted to keep a presence in Mindanao and needed to have reason to be there. In his mind he assumed that the government tried to create trouble to provide an excuse to be there.

Like the jungles for the Moros, the mountain and landscape have impacted the Kurdish social organization because they are often poverty stricken, usually isolated in their mountain valleys, and almost always resentful of their powerful neighbors. Not uncommonly Kurdish people commit highway robbery or smuggle things from a neighboring country, seeing it as legitimate economic income. Also, the armed guerrilla branch of the PKK perpetrates violence against Kurds as well as against the Turkish military. These activities affect the perceptions that the majority has of these minorities and intensify already negative stereotypes.

In the Philippines many Roman Catholics adopted stereotypes and prejudices toward the Muslims from the earlier Spaniards as well as from news reports on the activities of the radicals in the southern region. I was talking to a group of college students in Manila who were Christian and asked them what their view of Muslims was. They answered that Muslims were uncivilized, brutal, and treacherous bandits and pirates, impressions gleaned from media reports of murders, kidnappings, and beheadings in the southern Philippines and the continued actions of some Tausug who among the sources of livelihood of agriculture, fishing, and local commerce, continue to engage in piracy and smuggling (Yegar 188). I also asked a group of Muslim students the same question but about their views of Christians. They answered that they see Christians as the most extremely ethnocentric people, who do not appreciate the Muslim culture and traditions and who, if they could, would destroy Islam. Also, they see Christians as land hungry occupiers who use the army effectively to drive the Muslims out of their homeland. The students do not base their views on personal relationships but on generally held perceptions. According to a member of the MILF, Professor Julabbi, the economic set back of the Muslims in the Philippines goes back to during the period of confrontation with the Spaniards. In an interview he presented his rationale for why the Muslims are more economically disadvantaged than the majority Christians. In his view, to weaken the resistance, the colonizers systematically destroyed the Moro plantations, fields, and orchards and as well as their flourishing trade and commerce with other neighbor countries. In addition, he claimed that they destroyed the Muslims vessels preventing them from doing business with neighboring countries. Since then the Mindanao Muslims' have never developed their land; instead it has remained the most economically backward land in the country. These communal memories underpin his view of the majority today.

From 1980 onward, Turkey directed its economy to allow greater integration in world markets. The economy became more diversified and thus supplied a much broader range of goods and services. By 1985, the industrial sector accounted for 33% of GDP, while agriculture, including forestry and fisheries, was 20%. The Kurdish economy, however, is stagnant in Turkey even with its great resources. Kurdistan's main economic activity is agriculture with animal breeding as the most important component. Agriculture makes up and estimated 65% of the national income in Kurdistan (30% crops and 35% livestock production); industry, including petroleum, accounts for 25%; and the other sectors (construction, light industries, transport, and commerce) constitute the remaining 10%. Because they lack veterinary services, diseases sometimes wipe out whole herds and flocks. Also, the Turkish government banned the use of plateaus for grazing livestock in the southeaster region, leaving many Kurds without a means of livelihood. In addition, because of the military's historical devastation of Kurdish homes and lives, quite a large segment of Kurds resettled in Istanbul, Izmir, Ankara, and Adana for economic purposes. Although southeastern Turkey's Kurdish region provides the primary energy resources' including water, oil, natural gas, hydropower, coal, solar energy, and other unexploded minerals, such as uranium, the Kurds remain below the poverty line. Water and oil have traditionally great import in the economy of the neighboring countries dividing the Kurds. The southeast Anatolia project, however, not only provides water for Turkey, but it may also give Turkey control of the water from the Euphrates and from the Tigris, the two rivers that flow from Kurdistan to the Arab territories, for example, Syria and Iraq. The Euphrates carries about 31 billion cubic meters of water per year into Syria where it flows into Iraq; the Tigris takes about 17 billion cubic meters of water per year directly into Iraq. The Turkish project will cut the flow of the Tigris by at least one fifth and that of the Euphrates by even more, becoming a powerful political tool. For example in a 1999 incident, when Syria was giving safe haven to the leader of the PKK Abdullah Ocalan, Ankara demanded that he be returned to Turkey. When the Syrian's government denied extradition of Ocalan to Turkey, the government threatened to shut down the water to Syria, introducing the motto during the crisis, "We have water and you need it." Turkey hopes one day to become the regional power in the Middle East by building a "water pipeline" to carry about 2.2 billion cubic meters of water per year from two other rivers farther west, the Siyhan and the Ceyhan, which will go via Syria and Jordan to western Saudi Arabia, eventually via Kuwait to the Gulf States. Even some scholars argue that this water could bring the peace in Middle East. Turkey is planning to pipe the water and sell it to countries where the water for survival is scarce, for example, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the Gulf countries. Further, the oil-rich states of Iraq, Iran, and the Gulf States trade with European markets making Kurdistan a route for the heavy traffic with the potential for significant development in the region.

However, at present each of the Philippines and the Turkish governments has failed to attend to the economic disparity because of its roles in economic development. It must identify and finance the high priority infrastructure projects, and make the needed infrastructure and social services available to the whole population, not just to a select few or to the majority. The government and tribe leaders must create an environment conducive to investment by private business. Further, both Manila and Ankara must make sure that corruption and bribery do not take place as well as secure the safety of the citizenry. When the government fails in any of these tasks leaving huge gaps in the infrastructure, raising corruption to levels that impair economic activities, or failing to ensure internal security and domestic peace, the economy surely will decline and most significantly among the already impoverished. When the various levels of governments are unable to perform the most basic function, state failure occurs and that failure causes an increase in rebellion, violence, and efforts for secession and violence.

To further complicate the economic disparity, gender relations and ethnic or religious divisions result in cultural and gender barriers for economic equity. Even though a government may try to advance its country, the religious environment or cultural and gender barriers may retard economic development. For example, the role of women in the Kurdish and Muslim societies denies women their rights and an education and therefore results in cascading problems. The demographic transition from high fertility to low fertility, present in most modern societies, is delayed or blocked. The .poor household continues to have eight or nine children because the woman‘s role is one of as children-rearing, and her lack of education means that she has few option or no option at all in the labor force. In this setting women often lack basic economic security and legal rights when they are widows; their circumstances become more dramatic and dreadful; they are left completely impoverished without hope. For example, when I visited Muslim families in the southern Philippines, one family had twelve children, and the husband was the only person working at a job, while his wife took care of the household. The mother or father both lacked an education, and they could not afford to send their children to school. Cultural barriers, religious barriers, and social norms prevented Muslim men and women from having access to public schools, as mentioned above, because they think their children will be exposed to western and thus bad culture and will affect their social norms.

Economic development itself does not eliminate the violence, although social and economic development, when properly supported and equally implemented, can inhibit the violence, but development alone cannot eliminate the violence. The causes of the conflict grow in complexity over time. Nevertheless, economic development is a strong and effective tool when it is incorporated into multiple approaches, including integrity of leadership, good governance, participatory of civil society, and stronger political, military, and community relationships.