Zoroastrians in Iran once worshiped dogs. Today Iran has dog-walking bans in over 20 cities, adding a layer of hardship for pet owners and their dogs, who face arrests or confiscation for simple acts of companionship. This clampdown, which has nothing to do with the Koran - see more below - stems from some local views of dogs as impure or Western symbols. Iranians surely don't need more suffering, imposed by their own.
Pax Christi Victoria Inc. International Christian Peace Movement invites you to the first Agape of 2015. Sunday February 15 at Kildara, rear 39 Stanhope Street, East Malvern. Shared meal 1 p.m Meeting 2 p.m-4.00 p.m. Speaker will be Noor Huda Ismail, from Central Java, Indonesia, the founder and director of a grass root NGO called Yayasan Prasasti Perdamaian (Institute for International Peace Building in Indonesia). He describes himself " a terrorist's whisperer". His
connection to jihadism world went back to his childhood where he studied for 6 six years with Bali bombers in a pesantren (an Islamic boarding school) in Central Java. One of the founders of the school is Abu Bakar Ba'asyir who is now incarcerated in Nusakambangan (Indonesia's Alcatraz prison) for his involvement in Aceh Military training Camp in 2010.
He will speak on : "The Emergence of Groups of Violence in Indonesia in the Name of Islam and the Effort of Civil Society in Indonesia to Peacefully Fight this Toxic Ideology.”
Please come and bring a friend.
Sunday February 15
at Kildara, rear 39 Stanhope Street, East Malvern.
Shared meal 1 p.m
Meeting 2 p.m-4.00 p.m
Bring food to share. All Welcome!
"Noor Huda Ismail describes himself " a terrorist's whisperer". His connection to jihadism world went back to his childhood where he studied for 6 six years with Bali bombers in a pesantren (an Islamic boarding school) in Central Java. One of the founders of the school is Abu Bakar Ba'asyir who is now incarcerated in Nusakambangan (Indonesia's Alcatraz prison) for his involvement in Aceh Military training Camp in 2010.
Noor Huda worked as a special correspondent for The Washington Post South East Asia Bureau from 2002-2005. He was assigned to cover the story of the Bali Bombings and its aftermath in 2002. He was so shocked when he found out that one of the perpetrators was his roommate during his Islamic boarding school years. This event became a turning point in his life.
The question why some of his friends turned to violence preoccupied him and changed the direction of his life. In 2005 he won the British's Council Scholarship to pursue a master degree in International Security at St Andrews University (a Jesuit-run University) in Scotland. While in Europe he travelled to different countries and visited many terrorist hotspots and met with former members of the terrorist groups (IRA in Northern Ireland, Brigatte Rosse in Italy, ETA in Basque/Spain and Baader Meinhoff in Germany). In 2008 shortly after returning from Europe to Indonesia Huda established Yayasan Prasasti Perdamaian (Institute for International Peace Building in Indonesia) in order to understand why some of his friends got involved in terrorism world. It is through this Institute that he pioneered a controversial approach to help former convicted terrorists to integrate back to society where they can lead a normal and peaceful life.
This is done through his restaurant chain called " Dapoer Bistik Solo" (Solo Beefsteak Kitchen) where he employs some of the former criminals and ex-detainees to raise their self-esteem and dignity. The establishment of his peace institute was inspired by an NGO in Ireland that helps integrate former terrorists back into society.
In 2014 Huda won the Australian Award Scholarship to pursue his PhD in Politics and International Relations at Monash University.” Huda’s writings have been published in The Conversation, The Australian, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Strait Times, The Jakarta Post and others. He is the author of the book, My Friend the Terrorist?, a book about his personal friend and former roommate turned terrorist. Now he is completing the second documentary film on Disenchanted Foreign Fighters. He is also making another documentary film on terrorism in Indonesia called Paradise and Prison.
Huda is a husband and a father of a young son. His wife is also from Central Java.
This article argues that you could probably get away with some nasty cartoons in a truly free press because such a press would freely report all sides to a dispute and not leave whole regions and classes of people with no expression in an international argument mediatized by the very same bunch of pillaging and plundering power elites, corporate and government, who profit from their silence. The article also wonders (but does not profess to know) whether the cold blooded assassinations at Charlie Hebdo were really an act of Islamic terrorism, or another false flag, on the principle of cui bono.
I remember thinking that Charlie Hebdo was overdoing rather unfunny cartoons to demonstrate defiance without seeming to give any thought to how wronged people in the Middle East have a right to feel, due to the effects of continuing colonialism – corporate and national – under the auspices of a US-led NATO. My observations in this 2012 article, “Anti-Islamic film - not so funny,” earned me capitalized insults as a leftist apologist for Islamic terrorism, anti-feminism and censorship. There was so much sound and fury in this correspondence that it left no room for any alternative explanation or dialogue. And that is the dynamic that false flags exploit.
It’s all very well to celebrate a free press, but, since when is the Western mainstream newsmedia actually independent and free? Not only is it heavily biased in its reporting on the Middle East – when so much is at stake – but their barracking for the destruction of US/NATO targets seems actually to incite hatred and thereby encourage some people to join jihads. Let me put it this way, the mainstream newsmedia has a way of presenting the powers it wants to split and topple in the Middle East (and the East) as if they were all variations on Vlad the Impaler, imbuing its reports with quivering outrage and bathos, so that it must seem to many that the only honorable thing to do is to go and fight with the ‘rebels’ whom the press and NATO champion. Hence, it appears, the influx of foreign ‘rebel’ fighters from Australia, France, Britain and elsewhere and the widespread ignorance of the other side.
Charlie Hebdo might have a reputation for being outspoken, but to me it seemed to toe the US/NATO establishment line on illegal wars in the Middle East. For instance it didn’t question virtually baseless Western allegations that Bashar al-Assad is a ‘brutal dictator’, but casually exploited the propaganda in a cartoon showing the Syrian president standing triumphantly in front of a mountain of human bones like a hunter. If Charlie’s objective was largely to lampoon religion of all kinds, then there was another reason not to lampoon Bashar al-Assad, who presides over the last secular Arab state. [1] In other words, modern Charlie Hebdo was not politically subtle, critical, inquiring or a champion of Truth. Perhaps if it had been, it could have built bridges.
It seems to me that if the mainstream news and traditional alternative media really reported fairly, both, all sides of what is happening in the Middle East, then maybe people would not get so bothered about cartoons. Also maybe the cartoons would be a bit funnier and more informed. If the mainstream newsmedia did not constantly support and whitewash the Western military financial and industrial machine, this kind of violent response from the Middle East would have far less support. If the mainstream Western media interviewed, not just ‘rebels’ but government and a wide variety of citizens in Saudi Arabia or in Syria, for instance, those countries would have real voices and we would have ears to hear them. If it had done so in Iraq and Libya those countries might today be intact.
At candobetter.net we have often carried copies of letters to our media, especially SBS and ABC, the Australian state television channels, asking them to report more accurately on Middle Eastern and Eastern affairs because of the danger to peace that reporting propaganda carries. See http://candobetter.net/taxonomy/term/5364 Only on one occasion have we recorded a retraction. See ABC Australia apologises for bias against Russia in reporting MH17 crash. However this was a private apology, not a public statement on television.
I have so far written with the assumption that the Charlie Hebdo assassinations were not a false flag. Because false flags are the other side of the history of aggressive capitalist interference in the Middle East and other oil producing countries of the ‘undeveloped world’, and they are fundamental to the history of war. How else do you get peoples who hardly know each other to try to kill each other? You have to give them a reason that they believe is true.
A truly free Western newsmedia would make false flags a lot harder to fly, but today’s newsmedia actively conveys state propaganda designed to terrify the public into supporting wars and bad laws, whilst presenting it as news and entertainment.
False flags have also been used by the US as methods to goad other countries into supporting it. Europe is too close to comfort to the Middle East to be gung ho about starting wars there. Its support for the US in NATO recently has been bizarre. On one interpretation [3], it could be that, like Russia, it chooses to appease the United States, in the hope of preventing all-out war. The terrorist attacks could have been a warning to Hollande not to take an independent stand vis a vis Russia. Just five days ago he was upbeat about the sanctions being lifted if talks went well. How long is that going to last after this series of terrorist attacks?
One cannot help but ask, if this horrible Charlie Hebdo massacre was really an act of terrorism by Muslims, why would they attack cartoonists and lone journalists, instead of the big media owners and NATO policy-supporting politicians? After all, the US has had no qualms in planning and carrying out or supporting assassinations of leaders, such as of Fidel Castro, Sadadm Husein, Muammar Gaddaffi, and, still in the firing line: Bashar al-Assad. One might say it could be too hard for a bunch of poor Muslims to get to anyone rich and powerful, but poor Muslims are supposed to have flown planes into the World Trade Center and to have carried out numerous other sophisticated acts of terror. In the case of false flags though, the power elite is not going to target its own. That would better explain to me the targeting of politically lesser citizens.
I won’t go into the nuts and bolts of the reporting of the Charlie Hebdo massacre and its sequel, but some aspects immediately seem odd. One is the shooting of a policeman in the head without blood appearing, censored by France2 News because of its graphic nature – except that the real footage, whilst tragic, was strangely ungraphic. See http://www.conspiracyclub.co/2015/01/07/paris-fake-terrorism/. Then there was the identity card left in a vehicle by one of the terrorists, reminiscent of the passport found in the wreckage of the 9-11 towers. After that there was the police chase of two suspected terrorists which culminated in a shoot-out where the terrorists lost their lives, leaving no-one to tell their story. And then there was the second in command detective who shot himself at Lieges, the night of the Charlie Hebdo assassinations. http://www.lepopulaire.fr/limousin/actualite/2015/01/08/un-commissaire-de-police-de-limoges-se-suicide-dans-son-bureau_11283307.htmlHe was deeply involved in the investigation of the Charlie Hebdo cases of Muslim protest, which had been ongoing for years and was the second detective to apparently suicide in the same team in slightly over one year.
The mainstream Western press has a tendency to report the US-NATO view and which ever so-called revolutionary group they support. It does not canvas the opinions of people who do not identify with Western supported revolutionaries; it does not ask government opinion. If the press reporting on the Middle East, notably on Syria, Iran, Iraq and Libya (as well as Russia and Ukraine in Eastern Europe) actually got reports from many sides, then the people in those countries and those who identify with them would be less likely to see the Western Press as an enemy.
The West has been instrumental in bringing down leaders and governments and sowing chaos to an extent in the Middle East that most Western citizens have no inkling of because this chaotic war and looting machine called ‘capitalism and democracy’ is marketed by the Western Press as a positive force, whilst the people it is trampling are portrayed as irrational, bloodthirsty religious maniacs and international terrorists. The mainstream press generally does not make overt fun of Islam and Mohammed, but a wing of the press that identifies itself as revolutionary free press and critical of the status quo, does, purportedly to dramatise and ridicule Islam’s apparent contempt for free speech.
Charlie Hebdooriginally became a fatwa target in 2 November 2011when it published an edition on Islam, with a cover of a a cartoon Muslim saying, “100 lashes if you don’t die laughing!”. In 2012 it followed with a large number of insulting cartoons about Mohammed as a gesture of indignation against moves to censor media critical of Islam.
The context was a film called Innocence of Muslims which parts of which available on you-tube portrayed the founder of Islam in a very bad personal and political light and Muslims as aggressively anti-Christian. Publicity about this film was accompanied by widespread riots by Muslims against foreign embassies, particularly US embassies, including riots in Sydney on 15 September 2012, with police injured. At the same time warships from more than 25 countries, including the United States, Britain, France, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, were together launching a military exercise in the Straits of Hormuz, in response to threats to close it off. There was plenty of reason for Muslims to be angry with and frightened by the West apart from that film. Today the stakes are even higher and the misery of war-torn and subdivided Middle East is even greater than it was.
Maybe therefore Westerners should hold their own governments and media proprietors to greater account if we are to avoid World War Three.
Yes, we do need a really free press in the West. That is worth fighting for. Then maybe we can have cartoons and the truth in all its aspects, with a voice for everyone.
[1]President Bashar al-Assad, although the butt of so much mediatized professionally politicized opprobrium, totally fails to bluster and threaten, but continues doggedly to present Syria’s case.
[2] International and human rights professor of law, Francis Boyle’s Destroying Libya and World Order: The Three-Decade US Campaign to Terminate the Qaddafi Revolution , (Kindle Locations 1787-1841), have suggested this view to me.
Speakers are Susan Day Dirgham, on “Valuing Secularism in Syria” and Fr Bruce Duncan, on “Peacemaking in Islamic traditions”. This is a Social Policy Connections Public Forum at The Study Centre, Yarra Theological Union. Best entry via 34 Bedford Street, Box Hill. The forum will go from 7:30pm - 9pm, Thursday 6 November.
Susan Dirgham has taught English to migrants and refugees at the La Trobe University Language Centre for 25 years. In 2003 she taught at the British Council in Damascus, where she remained for two years and has since visited Syria many times. In 2013 she joined an international peace delegation organised by Mother Agnes Mariam and headed by Mairead
Maguire, an Irish Peace Laureate.
As national co-ordinator of “Australians for Mussalaha (Reconciliation) in Syria" (AMRIS), Susan writes about Syria and speaks at public meetings. She has extensive material on Syria in her blogs: http://australiansforreconciliationinsyria.org/ ; http://socratesandsyria.com/ ; http://taoismandsufis.wordpress.com/ and http://susandirgham.wordpress.com/
Bruce Duncan lectures in history and social ethics, including a unit, ‘Can war be just?’ which compares just war traditions in western and Islamic traditions.
The Study Centre, Yarra Theological Union,
Best entry via 34 Bedford Street, Box Hill
Refreshments available afterwards. An entry donation is welcome.
Sale also for second-hand books in history, philosophy, politics, theology etc. social policy connections
34 Bedford Street (PO Box 505) Box Hill Vic 3128 | 03 9890 1077; 0409 897 971
[email protected] | www.socialpolicyconnections.com.au
ABN 97 387 847 085
The Syrian people have barely been able to come to terms with with their grief at the murder of 35 in an attack with chemical weapons, when the war against them, sponsored by the U.S., it's European NATO allies, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Israel, resumed with a terrorist suicide bombing
Almost two dozen more Syrians including top Sunni cleric Mohammed Saeed Ramadan al-Bouti were killed in a terrorist blast at the al-Eman Mosque in Damascus.
The report has been adapted from the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA).
See also: Suicide bomber kills pro-regime cleric in Syria: TV in PressTV of 21 Mar 2013,
18 Killed Including Top Cleric as Suicidal Blast Rips Apart a Mosque in Damascus of 22 Mar 2013,
Senior cleric, others killed in Syria mosque bombing of 21 Mar 2013,
Syria: Top Sunni preacher among 42 killed in suicide bombing inside mosque of 21 Mar 2013,
Damascus mosque attack kills top cleric: Syria TV of 21 Mar 2013,
Suicide bomber kills pro-regime cleric in Syria: TV of 2 Mar 2013
DAMASCUS, (SANA)-Great Scholar, Dr. Mohammad Said Ramadan a-Bouti was martyred on Thursday after a suicide terrorist blew himself up in al-Eman Mosque in Damascus while the late martyr was giving a religious lesson.
The terrorist act claimed the lives of scores of prayers, while tens others were injured.
An official source told SANA that the suicide terrorist intended to blow himself up among the students who were listening to a religious lesson, leading to the martyrdom and injuries of scores of people and causing big material losses.
A source at the Health Ministry stated that the death toll of the terrorist act rose to 42, while 84 others were injured.
The wounded prayers were admitted to a number of Damascus hospitals.
See original report in SANA for more grim images.
Martyr scholar al-Bouti was born in 1929. He accomplished his Sharia Baccalaureate certificate at the Islamic Tawjih Institute in Damascus.
In 1953, he joined al-Sharea Academy at al-Azhar University and acquired the global certificate in 1955, then he got a diploma in education in the same year.
He was appointed as a teacher in Al-Sharea Academy at Damascus university in 1960, then he was delegated to al-Azhar university to get the doctorate in the Islamic Sharea Originals and got it in 1965.
In 1965, he was nominated as a professor in al-Sharea Academy at Damascus University in 1965, then a dean and chairman of the religions sector at the University.
In 2012 he was nominated as President of the Levant Scholars' Union.
Member of the Higher Council of Oxford Academy.
He wrote more than 40 books in the sciences of Sharea, literature, philosophy, society and civilization.
Ministry of Awkaf ( Religious Endowments ), Syria scholars, intellectuals, teachers and the Levant Scholars' Union announced the death of scholar al-Bouti who was martyred while giving a religious lesson in al-Eman mosque.
"The malicious hands of traitors killed the great Scholar because he was the voice of Syria, the right of Syria and the image of Syria. They targeted his body, but they didn't target his mentality or spirit," Minister of Awkaf Mohammad Abdul-Satar al-Sayyed said in a statement.
Regional leadership of al-Baath Arab Socialist Party condemned the brutal crime in al-Eman mosque in Damascus which claimed the lives of the great scholar and the prayers.
"This massacre adds to the crimes perpetrated by the mercenary terrorists against the Syrians. They target everything including the mosques and houses of worship," the leadership said in statement.
Archbishop Luka al-Khouri, the general vicar of the patriarchate of Antioch and all the East said that the late scholar al-Bouti will remain the word of right that we have learned from. His teachings will remain remembered in the brains of all Syrians.
"We all pray for the rest of our martyr whom we respect..," Archbishop Khouri said in a speech to the Syrian TV.
Perry Cornish writes about a recent book by an Afghan-born New Yorker who felt there had to be more to history than the Western version. The book explores the theory of protestantism as an enabling force of the Enlightenment because it released Christians from the supervision of Church authorities.
I have recently finished reading this book. It was published in 2009, so I'm a bit behind the times and I would like to see it discussed, so here goes.
The full title is Destiny Disrupted - A history of the world through Islamic eyes by Mir Tamim Ansary.
Tamim is a Muslim, born in Afghanistan. He lives in New York. He was frustrated with the Western bias on recorded history of the last 1500 years since Mohammed's birth, so he researched and wrote this historical view.
Its an excellent read.
I reckon its as important a book as Jarad Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel in its discussion of cultural and technological evolution, though covers a much shorter time span.
It makes you realise how strongly biased our understanding of the history of the last 2000 years is, and how that has skewed our thinking such that we consider ourselves more mature and advanced than these Eastern cultures.
The most resonating part for me was his discussion of the Protestant Reformation which he argued was a significant reason for the cultural difference between those cultures that are community based, and those that are based on the individual. He discusses why the apparently free and advanced cultures of Europe, with their advanced technologies and
goods was so appealing to the East, but that they were (are still?) culturally not evolved enough to deal with reproducing the culture required to deal with its ramifications.
The Protestant Reformation, freeing science and the individual from having to consider the
community, allowed for the birth of corporations (East India Companies etc).
He describes their practice of not invading but heavily trading with the East Indies and with their advanced technologies, offering themselves as consultants, manipulating local politics and economies to favour their interests, until they basically ran the country. Basically
the same practices that we are fighting against today [in Australia].
He gives a good understanding of the fundamental difference of these two cultural types and how incompatible they are.
He has no bias as to which culture he considers better, but being Muslim, he certainly paints a favourable picture of Muslim culture, and a rather barbarian picture of European culture, pre 1600/1700.
We are taught that about Europe as well but we paint it as being "the Dark Ages" for Europe. He fills in those Dark Ages with a very detailed history of the Middle East that was happening in significant isolation from Europe.
At the end of the crusades the strong, authoritarian hierarchical structure of Catholic church started to crumble. John Wycliffe attacked the organisation, its righteous, powerful control over individuals. He started printing the Bible in English, advocated that all archbishops should be poor.
Martin Luther, German theology professor, tormented by guilt, tried everything his priest suggested to free himself from guilt, but none of it worked. He then realised he would not be free of guilt until he himself believed he was. Which then begged the question - what was the purpose of the priest.
Part of the crusades was the practice of offering indulgences for those going off to fight the Turk. At the end of the crusades, these indulgences had become a way of giving the church money for a ticket to heaven. The church had become quite corrupt. Luther believed the church were extorting bribes to let people into heaven when they had no right at all (according to his recent revelation).
In 1517 he nailed a 95 theses document on the Wittenberg church door stating that salvation was here and now, achieved by faith alone, no intermediary was needed, the Bible was all they needed. It was an overnight sensation that became the Protestant Reformation (PR).
But unlike Islamic reformations, that sparked a new branch of ideology, with a new religious leader etc, the PR was an attack on the authority of the church, a release from its rule. Tamim argues that Christianity is an individualistic religion, based on salvation of the individual soul. Whereas Islam was a plan for how a community should work. So PR was an empowering of the individual, released from the church.
PR enabled the individual to think about God in their own way, and by extension to think about anything in their own way. It freed the individual from having to consider what they were doing/thinking in terms of faith. It allowed Copernicus (and others) to come up with his theories, without having to have it approved by the church.
So Tamim appears to be saying that it was this PR that enabled the Age of Enlightenment to happen, though he doesnt discuss the Age of Enlightenment from my recollection. But he does continue to explain how this new freedom of thought enabled Europeans to race forward in terms of scientific understanding, social freedoms and technological achievements.
"Russell argues that the enlightenment was ultimately born out of the Protestant reaction against the Catholic counter-reformation, when the philosophical views of the past two centuries crystallized into a coherent world view. He argues that many of the philosophical views, such as affinity for democracy against monarchy, originated among Protestants in the early 16th century to justify their desire to break away from the pope and the Catholic Church. Though many of these philosophical ideals were picked up by Catholics, Russell argues, by the 18th century the Enlightenment was the principal manifestation of the schism that began with Martin Luther"
(This article also looks at related population, immigration and democracy issues in the West.) A film, Innocence of Muslims has been released of which parts available on you-tube portray the founder of Islam in a bad personal and political light, to say the least. A strong theme depicts Muslims as aggressively anti-Christian. Apparently largely as a response to this film, there have been widespread riots by Muslims against foreign embassies, particularly US embassies, including riots in Sydney on 15 September 2012, with police injured. Meanwhile warships from more than 25 countries, including the United States, Britain, France, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, are together launching a military exercise in the Straits of Hormuz, in response to threats to close it off. There is plenty of reason for Muslims to be angry with and frightened by the West apart from that film. And maybe Westerners should hold their own governments to greater account if we are to avoid World War Three.
In this youtube film Syrian Girl Partisan puts forward a thoughtful hypothesis surrounding the timing of the release of the anti-Islamic film.
A Wikipedia article, although incomplete and ongoing, shows that authorship of the film Innocence of Muslims, remains extremely cloudy and confused.[1] Jewish sources have denied involvement but some aggressive marketing of the film by US Christian militants seems well documented.[1]
The President of the United States has apologised to Islam for the film. In Australia some politicians have come out saying that riots by Muslims in response to the film have exposed a 'downside' of multiculturalism, but they seem mute on the contradictions between fighting oil wars in Islamic countries and causing displacement that creates refugees and immigrants seeking homes here. I have received correspondence highlighting that the ability to express views in art and media is preferable to expressing those views via war and that non-censorship is a Western value worth defending. I agree. Reacting to a Muslim demonstrator's sign calling for beheading of critics of Islam, Australian MP, Kelvin Thomson, made a speech in parliament declaring that Australians, including those of migrant origin, are expected to uphold all laws in this country, even those they disagree with. He meant laws against inciting violence. Despite the rightfulness of the need to uphold the law and avoid violence, I can understand why some Muslims are very insulted. Australians are poorly educated in history, or more might be aware of the context of current military interventions and a history of western interference beginning with colonial takeovers in the late 19th century and the fostering of worse and worse governments by British, US, French and other colonial and corporate forces. All countries become basket cases after colonisation, some sooner rather than later. Australia is on the way. In the mean time, making 'the enemy' look ridiculous dehumanises them and makes it easier for them to dehumanise Westerners. Dehumanising by both sides makes war seem excusable, even irresistable, to each side. Although I have heard the argument that Christians do not riot violently in the street every time a work comes out making fun of Christianity (Life of Brian, Piss Christ etc), I think that maybe they would if Muslims rolled into Western states in tanks, put us under curfew, told us how to run our countries and went about privatising our government oil companies. In fact, what the foreign Christian-and secular-backed western governments are doing to the Islamic countries is a hell of a lot nastier than rioting in the streets. [2] Because of these realities, I am reluctant to publish articles that unilaterally mock Muslims who reacted furiously to the film in question, without also mocking the hypocrisy of non-Muslim regimes which create refugees in one place and take them in for safety in another, whilst pushing commercial interests as if they were democracy. There is more to this than a film. The film is just a symbol, but wars are actually in progress and people in the Middle East are terrified, as we all should be. I also don't think it achieves anything for ants to stir up other ants' nests with a stick, especially when Russia and China are the traditional lords of the region and the angry ants are sitting on most of the world's remaining oil reserves. On discussion pages attached to recent SBS programs about the conditions that create asylum seekers, (Re "Go back to where you came from" - what about the NON-asylum seekers?)" someone observed that we have very strong pro-asylum seeker and pro-refugee protests in Australia these days, but almost none against the wars we are participating in, even though those wars coincide with exoduses of people claiming persecution. The comment pointed out that significant refugee streams from such situations consist of people who worked with the invading armies, noting that, in the asylum seeker film, one man stated that he had fought on our side: "I helped you," and presented this as an argument for his being accepted as an asylum seeker. The comment thus raised a number of controversial issues not often discussed in Australia and seems to have been removed. Wars and invasions present citizens or inhabitants in the embattled and invaded country with invidious 'choices' which notably include fighting the invaders or working for them. See Greg Muttitt's Fuel on the fire, Bodley Head, London, 2011, for a brilliant history of oil and politics in Iraq. In a country where most of the population usually have not agreed to have their government taken over by foreigners, anyone apparently working willingly with the invaders, whether or not the invaders see themselves as peace-makers, risks being identified by their compatriots as collaborators with the enemy.[3] For this reason alone a person working with foreigners will incur the wrath of their compatriots. Since 'our' armies [i.e. allies of Australia] and interventions are currently always purportedly in support of minority dissidents and revolutionary armies, perhaps anyone who can show they fought on Australia's side tends to have a well-founded fear of persecution. We never address these illogicalities, these contradictions in our asylum seeker and refugee discussions, where at least some of the people seeking asylum here may be considered heroes by Australians but traitors by their own countrymen. What sort of responsibility do we have for nationals who took positions as salaried workers or occasional assistants for foreign officials in an occupation? Is it not more likely that people who are already on the outer in their own country will take their chances with the occupying army? In a country where food and shelter are luxuries, working for the occupying forces may be the only way of surviving at any particular time, and resisting those forces may verge on suicidal. It may also be necessary to work with the occupying forces in order to save what is left of the country, even though the occupying forces initiated the destruction. This situation is again described superbly in Greg Muttitt's Fuel on the fire, mentioned above. When Australian Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser, brought in Vietnamese refugees, many of these favoured the right wing government and fought against the nationalist wars in Vietnam. Years later the Vietnamese war is largely seen as a war for independence from colonial rule by the French, the Japanese, the British, the French again, then the United States. The Communist Party at the time was probably the largest of several political parties involved in the resistance. This observation should not be taken to label all Australians of Vietnamese origin here as right-wing, but the inference cannot be avoided that people who sided with Australia's allies during the war in Vietnam were not on the side that ultimately won in a war where Australia's participation is now widely seen as unjust.[3] In the Algerian wars of independence against France the Harkis is the term given to those Algerians (mostly muslims) who were working for, either covertly or overtly, the French colonial government and who had an interest in defending that status quo. After the French withdrew - nearly one million of them, many who had been born and bred in Algeria going to live in France - the Harkis faced reprisals from their countrymen, who saw them as traitors. Many Harkis sought asylum in France, but the French government avoided what was seen by many as a responsibility to look after these people. Where do militant religious sects, like the Taliban, or the less 'extreme' Hezbollah fit in? There are two ways that such sects serve a practical need. One is that they provide a cover for political action, organisation and resistance in countries where overt political meetings attract execution (both from national governments and from occupying forces). Another reason is that, in countries disorganised by war and occupation, they often retain some organising capability to meet local needs for food distribution, care for the sick, distribution of inheritances, care of orphans and widows. They also provide work, food and shelter. Some alternatives may present in the form of foreign aid organisations, including non-Muslim religious missionaries as well as the Red Cross or other non-sectarian samaritans. Seeking help from these non-local or alternative organisations may also carry the stigma of perceived collaboration with enemies, outsiders or poorly viewed minorities, and generally weakening local or national solidarity. Therefore seeking help from local organisations is likely to be safer. In Muslim countries, Western economic cultural practices which include banks that lend money with interest, buying, selling and consuming alcohol and incorporation of national assets and resources for private profit all run counter to religious and social philosophy. Siding with forces that market these practices is to accept the unacceptable and undermine your peoples' economic interests. Muslims share these values with many Westerners who do not, however, have the support of their social and religious communities or the local organisation to help them fight these economic ills. As well as Australia having a lot of protest about the need to take in asylum seekers and refugees, but little or no recent protest against involvement in wars in their countries of origin, Australia also lacks concerted protest against an undemocratic and unwanted policy of high immigration. Part of the reason for this is probably that high immigration is dishonestly marketed by government and commercial growth lobbyists as if it consisted largely of refugees and asylum seekers, although the vast majority of immigrants to Australia are wealthy economic migrants. You would think that this situation should still lead to protests against our involvement in unjust wars, but somehow it does not. One explanation could be that our mass media wants to promote both war and mass migration and therefore suppresses publication of contrary views, giving us the false impression that no-one cares about the other side. Another reason that protest is muted seems to be the doctrine of multiculturalism. This ideology is used covertly to engineer massive population growth by growing populations of different ethnic identities, at the same time dividing and conquering democratic input about high immigration. When people protest about the increase in immigration numbers causing inflation, and pressure on the environment and services, they are accused of attacking the ethnicity of those immigrants. Australian and state governments generally side-step the numbers issue and divert talk to how they welcome people from different ethnicities and races, implying that complaints about high immigration are really only about shifts in Australia's cultural center of gravity. In fact the official encouragement of multiple separate ethnic communities in Australia is obviously a source of concern to Australians of all origins. It seems that most people have a sense that after "Divide" comes "Conquer," and Australians feel they are being divided and losing their standard of living, quality of life and security. Housing inflation causing new levels of debt and homelessness is the most obvious example of the cost of population growth. Along with "Divide and Conquer" there is the policy of "Look out for the enemy". The enemy at the moment is identified as Islam. Since 9-11 the presentation of this old traditional enemy of Europe as an imminent threat has been ramped up to fever pitch and offered as a reason to enter Islamic countries - even where they were secular states - and endlessly seek weapons of mass destruction even after it has been shown there were none. At home in the Anglophone and other European states, harsh new anti-democratic policies have been brought in to counter threats of Islamic terrorism, making it possible to accuse people of terrorism without giving public proof. The wars for 'democracy' in the Middle East are eroding democracy in the West. At the same time new streams of Islamic immigrants (and refugees) have been welcomed to the very states making war on their homes. One Islamic state stands out for its exemption from foreign intervention and its collusion with the allies against its Islamic neighbours. That is Saudi Arabia. Saudi royal family members are legion. Jet-setting globe-trotters, they are members of an international power elite, founded on oil-wells. At the same time they are among the most repressive governments in the world, with astounding records of human rights abuse and slavery, crowned by their nation-wide enchattlement of women. These representatives of Islam seem to be the only Middle Eastern Islamic government friends of European governments and immune to revolution or NATO intervention. Should we be surprised that there is now confusion all round, with many Westerners convinced that Islam is out to destroy their way of life, and many Muslims convinced that Westernism is out to destroy their way of life? If you look at what is happening in the world today, the evidence seems to be weighted in favour of the Muslim perception, with a history going back to the 19th century. It is hard to say that Islam is persecuting the West when Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya lie in pieces after foreign 'intervention' and warships from more than 25 countries, including the United States, Britain, France, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, are together launching a military exercise in the Straits of Hormuz as I write. In this context, riots in response to the release of a film, Innocence of Muslims, that seems extremely inflammatory and insulting to Islam and its popularisation by US Christian militants, seem predictable. I have not seen most of the film, but I have seen several minutes on you-tube and I can see what the Muslims are angry about. It may well be that the film makes justifiable criticisms of Islamic culture and beliefs, but, as Jon Faine recently said, "Why poke a stick in an anthill?" Under such circumstances, the launch of Innocence of Muslims looks suspiciously like a politically detonating device, so I am glad that Obama has apologised. The fact remains that, in Australia, as in Canada, the United States and Britain, high immigration and overseas wars are creating political pressures. The power and commercial elites responsible for the high immigration that is depriving incumbent populations of their rights are the same people who are pushing in the Middle East for control of oil production and infrastructure roll-out so as to be able to grow corporate profits and continue their population growth and economic 'growth' agendas at home. Although democracy is a word so often brandished in the Middle East by Western forces, what is more often meant is capitalism, imposed by force, incurring many deaths. Iraq is a sad example of this - see Oil on the Fire and The Shock Doctrine and Saving the Baghdad Zoo: A True Story of Hope and Heroes. Libya's atomization through foreign intervention, purportedly to bring democracy, is a more recent example of the same kind of activity. We are now watching on the world theatre, with our bags of pop-corn, the purported democratization forces gather in the Bay of Hormuz, ready to 'reform'. But the internet has broadened the information we can get about wars now. Syrians who don't like the war there are managing to get its own side out to the world. Syrian Girl Partisan is a notable example, and she has broadened her commentary and explanations now to include an interpretation of what happened in Libya on "US Ambassador Lynched like Gaddafi And Youtube Censors." as well as the later film linked a the top of this article. Several Egyptian demonstrators have confessed that they were paid to protest about the Innocence of Muslims near the US Embassy in Cairo, the Middle East News Agency cites Prime Minister Hesham Kandil as saying. (Source: RT News Anti-US riots grip Muslim world," http://rt.com/news/anti-american-protests-live-updates-053/ On 16 September 2012, in an email, Former US Congresswoman, Cynthia McKinney wrote: "U.S. bombs continue to fall in Somalia, Pakistan, Yemen, and now it is reported that the US drones are flying all over Libya and are bombing from Benghazi to Tripoli. Reports from Libya today are that foreign oil companies have evacuated their employees and stopped operations and that U.S. troops are in various parts of the country. Tragedy continues to unfold in Libya. [...]" "Every loss of life is tragic and that is why I oppose the current US policy of killing. The US is currently regularly killing people in Asia and in Africa. Taken to its extreme, the Obama Administration even claims authority to kill US citizens on US soil! The unfolding situation in Libya is troubling, not only for the bloodletting and carnage that is taking place, but also because of the murkiness that surrounds the events themselves. I have several observations and a few questions: 1. The scenario of an anti-Islamic hate film triggering a protest that leads to violence replicates the events that took place in the initial uprising in Benghazi in early 2011. At that time, the annual protest in Benghazi against the anti-Islamic Danish cartoons was taking place. The march was infiltrated by persons with an agenda, who used the event as an opportunity to seize military equipment from the Jamahiriya government and use it against the Libyan population. If it is known that Muslim protest on the streets can be touched off by attacking the Qur'an, then once again parties with another agenda can spark then infiltrate that protest and use it as cover. It worked before to launch an entire chain of events in Libya, why not again? The reports on who created and financed the film are very muddled. 2. Today, the Libyan/Al Qaeda/US/NATO/Israel government is bombing Sabha and the black Libyan Toubu people who constitute a stronghold of the vibrant Libyan resistance. Interestingly, no R2P is being invoked to do so here, but could this be covertly directed against the Green Resistance (self-described as well financed and ready to fight to the last bullet, the last man, the last dollar)? 3. A video is available of the 12 September attack on the US convoy that killed 2 US citizens and injured 14, indicating Day Two of an uprising/action. 4. There are photos published today of US special ops forces landing in Libya. If true, is this to counter the Green Resistance, or springboard into Egypt if need be, or worse? Foreign troops are in Libya already securing oil platforms. What might this have to do with Iran? Libyan oil was theorized to ensure oil to Europe in the case of a shutoff from Iran. Does this have anything to do with the impending Netanyahu visit to the US?" [1] Excerpt from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innocence_of_Muslims" describes known history of film production. The cast and crew have publicly stated that they were deceived about the purpose and content of the film. In a statement obtained by CNN, the film's 80 cast and crew members disavowed the film, saying: "The entire cast and crew are extremely upset and feel taken advantage of by the producer. We are 100% not behind this film and were grossly misled about its intent and purpose." It further explained, "We are shocked by the drastic re-writes of the script and lies that were told to all involved. We are deeply saddened by the tragedies that have occurred." Cindy Lee Garcia, who played the mother of Muhammad's bride-to-be, said the script was for a movie about life in Egypt 2,000 years ago, called Desert Warrior (and possibly also Desert Storm), and that the character "Muhammad" was referred to as "Master George" on set. According to Garcia, "Bacile" claimed to be an Israeli real estate mogul. Later, however, he told her he was Egyptian and she heard him speaking in Arabic with other men on set. Garcia stated it makes her "sick" that she was involved in the film and that she is considering legal action against "Bacile." Sarah Abdurrahman, a producer for WNYC's On the Media program, watched the trailer and concluded that all of the religious references were overdubbed after filming.[30] The independent film was directed by a person first identified in casting calls as Alan Roberts, whose original cut did not include references to Muhammad or Islam. In September 2012, "Sam Bacile" was initially described as a 56-year-old (52-year-old according to the Wall Street Journal) real estate developer from Israel who spoke by phone with the Associated Press. Israeli authorities found no sign of him being an Israeli citizen, and there was no indication of a 'Sam Bacile' around 50 years old living in California, having a real estate license or participating in Hollywood filmmaking. Though "Bacile" claimed the film had been made for $5 million from more than 100 Jewish donors, Hollywood Reporter described the film's appearance as unprofessional, bringing this claim into doubt. According to a man who identified himself to the Wall Street Journal as Bacile, the film was produced to call attention to what he called the "hypocrisies" of Islam.[40] After further reports suggested that Bacile was neither Israeli nor Jewish, Rabbi Abraham Cooper condemned initial reports that Bacile was Jewish and the movie was financed by "100 Jewish donors," saying that whoever told this to the Associated Press committed a blood libel and said that the media did not thoroughly research this claim. Cooper said that to "catapult what might be a nonexistent Jewish element could lead to violence against Jews," and called on the media to learn from this incident, while investigating who exactly created the film. Later, "Sam Bacile" was identified as Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, a Coptic Christian immigrant from Egypt living in Cerritos, California, near Los Angeles. In 2010, Nakoula, who had served prison time on a 1990s conviction for manufacturing methamphetamine, pleaded no contest to bank fraud and was sentenced to 21 months in prison; he was released on probation from prison in June 2011. Authorities said Nakoula told the police that he had written the movie's script while in prison and, together with his son, Abanob Basseley, raised between $50,000 and $60,000 from his wife's family in Egypt to finance the film. According to CNN, the FBI contacted him because of the potential for threats, but he is not under investigation by the FBI. However, federal officials are investigating whether Nakoula violated the terms of his probation, which barred him from using the Internet for five years. According to The Smoking Gun, Nakoula had planned to produce the film as early as May 2009, when he first took out ads for crew members. However, he was arrested on the bank fraud charges a month later; after his arrest, Nakoula cooperated with prosecution to obtain a reduced sentence. American non-profit Media for Christ obtained film permits to shoot the movie in August 2011, and Nakoula provided his home as a set and paid the actors, according to government officials and those involved in the production. Media for Christ president Joseph Nassralla Abdelmasih reportedly went into hiding after the violent response to the film. Steve Klein, a Vietnam veteran who has been active in opposing Islam and has been associated with paramilitary style "hate groups" at his church according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, was asked by Nakoula to be the spokesman for the film. The movie's self-identified consultant, Klein reportedly told Nakoula: "You're going to be the next Theo van Gogh." Klein later told journalist Jeffrey Goldberg that "Bacile" is not a real person and is neither Israeli nor Jewish, as has been reported, and that the name is a pseudonym for about 15 Copts and Evangelical Christians from Syria, Turkey, Pakistan and Egypt; Goldberg questioned the reliability of Klein. Klein rejected any blame for the violent reaction to the movie, saying, "Do I feel guilty that these people were incited? Guess what? I didn't incite them. They're pre-incited, they're pre-programmed to do this." The film's screening as "Innocence of Bn Laden" was advertised in the "Arab World newspaper" during the months of both May and June. The ad cost $300 to run three times in the paper and was paid by an individual identified only as "Joseph". The ads were noted by the Anti-Defamation League. The Islamic affairs director stated: "When we saw the advertisement in the paper, we were interested in knowing if it was some kind of pro-jihadist movie." Brian Donnelly, a guide for a Los Angeles based tour of famous crime scenes, noticed the poster advertising at the Vine Theatre. "I didn't know if it was a good thing or a bad thing. We didn't know what it was about because we can't read Arabic. The earlier version of the film was screened once at the Vine Theatre in Hollywood California of June 23, 2012 to an audience of only ten people. The film had no subtitles and was presented in English. An employee of the theatre stated: “The film we screened was titled ‘The Innocence of Bin Laden’,” and added that it was a “small viewing.” A second screening was planned for June 30, 2012. A local Hollywood blogger, John Walsh attended a June 29 Los Angeles City Council meeting where he raised his concerns about the film's screening. “There is an alarming event occurring in Hollywood on Saturday,” he stated. “A group has rented the Vine Street theater to show a video entitled ‘Innocence of Bin Laden.’ We have no idea what this group is.” The blog site reported that the June 30 screening had been canceled. A Current TV producer photographed the poster while it was being displayed at the theatre as advertising to later discuss on the program "The Young Turks." According to one attendee, "the acting was of the worst caliber," and he "had no inkling that that movie was anti-Islamic and did not recall the movie referencing the prophet Mohammad," but he did not see the whole film. It was reported on September 14, 2012, that a planned screening by a Hindu organization in Toronto will be coupled with "snippets from other movies that are offensive to Christians and Hindus." Because of security concerns no public venue has been willing to show the film; it will be shown in private for a small audience of 200 people. Siobhán Dowling of the The Guardian reported that "a far-right Islamophobic group in Germany", The Pro Deutschland Citizens' Movement, has uploaded the trailer on their own website and wants to show the entire film but authorities are attempting to prevent it. Two clips were posted on YouTube on July 1 (13'02", title "The Real Life of Muhammad", comment "Part of the movie, "Life of Muhammad"..... ????? ?? ???? ???? ????") and 2nd (13'50", title "Muhammad Movie Trailer", comment "????? ??????? ??????") by user "sam bacile". By September, the film had been dubbed into Arabic and was brought to the attention of the Arabic-speaking world by Coptic blogger Morris Sadek, whose Egyptian citizenship had been revoked for promoting calls for an attack on Egypt. A two-minute excerpt dubbed in Arabic was broadcast on September 8 by Sheikh Khalad Abdalla[65] on Al-Nas, an Egyptian television station, On September 11, "Sam Bacile" YouTube account commented in Egyptian Arabic on a video from Al-Nahar TV uploaded 2 days earlier "??????? ?? ???? ?????? 100%" which means: "Idiots, this is an American film 100%". The film was supported by pastor Terry Jones, whose burning of copies of the Quran previously led to deadly riots around the world. On September 11, 2012, Jones said that he planned to show a 13-minute trailer that night at his church the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida. Jones said in a statement that "it is an American production, not designed to attack Muslims but to show the destructive ideology of Islam. The movie further reveals in a satirical fashion the life of Muhammad." [2] I realise that our governments are currently privatising our resources, encouraging overpopulation and making harsh laws, but so far the Australian government has not taken up arms against citizens, nor have the foreign corporate entities that have taken over Australian resources and assets - yet. [3] An unusual source documenting the problems of survival in an occupied capital it the remarkable book by Babylon's Ark by authors Lawrence Anthony and Graham Spence [3] There is also a view that under the Fraser government they were encouraged to weaken the Australian union movement, notably the Australian Postal and Telecommunications Union in Victoria.Muslim reactions
The film is a symbol - not the main game
How did we get to here in Australia and where is the anti-war movement when you need them?
Refugees from Algerian and Vietnamese wars
Where do militant religious sects fit in?
Australia's silent anti-war movement, vocal pro-immigration lobby - what's the connection?
Divide, conquer and grow
Look out for the enemy
Saudi Arabia - curiously part of the Western club
Confusion from West to East
Real political pressures created by high immigration and wars to fuel big populations
Grass roots democracy on the internet - not so easy to keep us in the dark now
Former Congresswoman, Cynthia McKinney
McKinney: Questions on killings in Libya
NOTES
"Production
Release
"Most of the Iraqi zoo staff who walked to and from work braved a daily gauntlet of bullets, looters, and murderous fedayeen [see definition end paragraph] keen to slit the throats of anyone associating with foreigners. Despite being senior-ranking veterinarians, Dr. Adel and Dr. Husham also trekked the hazardous miles from their homes, taking the same chances as the humblest laborer. We never knew who would pitch up each morning, and we never blamed those who deemed it too dangerous to make it that day." Anthony, Lawrence; Spence, Graham (2007-03-06). Babylon's Ark: The Incredible Wartime Rescue of the Baghdad Zoo (Kindle Locations 1932-1936). Macmillan. Kindle Edition. " "Fedayeen": The Fedayeen was first created by an Iranian from Qom named Hassan-i-Sabbah, who held the main headquarters in Alamut-- modern day Qazvin, Iran. Fedayeen are any of various groups of people known to be volunteers, not connected to an organized government or military, in the Near East. They are usually deployed for a cause where the government has been viewed as failed or non-existent. They are associated with the role of resistance against occupation or tyranny. The name "fedayeen" is used to refer to armed struggle against any form of enslavement with actions based on resistance." Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fedayeen
Republished from PressTV. See also: Saudi Arabia's Princess Sara claims asylum in the UK of 8 July in The Telegraph, Russia should demand regime change in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, ... of 8 July, Kofi Annan: International Community Has Failed Syria of 8 July by Tony Cartalucci in Land Destroyer, Saudi regime forces kill two demonstrators in Eastern Province, Bahrainis rally to support Shia cleric detained in Saudi Arabia, Protesters to gather outside Saudi Embassy in London of 9 July in PressTV.
Editorial comment: The Saudi Arabian monarchy, from which Princess Sara is seeking asylum, is one of the Arab dictatorships which is supplying weapons and funds to the terrorist mass-killers of the so-called "Free Syrian Army". Should these Saudi/Israeli/NATO proxies win in Syria, the conditions from which Princess Sara fled will be the conditions that Syrian women will also have to endure.
Saudi Princess Sara bint Talal bin Abdul Aziz (pictured) is seeking political asylum in Britain, alleging physical and mental abuse at the hands of Saudi authorities.
"I've been physically abused. I've been mentally abused. My assets have been frozen," she said in an interview with The Sunday Telegraph at a secret location in London.
She said that she was assaulted outside the Saudi embassy in London by an official, who tried to grab her arm.
"I am very scared right now," said the princess. "They know I can't go back now. There is a threat. That's a slap in the face of the Kingdom."
The embassy has turned down the princess' extended stay request in coordination with British authorities.
On Friday, her lawyers notified the Home Office of her intention to seek asylum.
Her allegations must be assessed by UK officials so the 38-year-old can be offered a safe haven, in spite of Saudi authorities' insistence on her return.
The princess went to the UK in 2007 after she fell out with her 80-year-old father Prince Talal bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud.
She also claimed that she has been subjected "to a litany of serious crimes, including threats, assault, an attempted kidnapping, and the attempted abduction of my children."
The motives are political, she argued.
"I am a threat because I am a reformer from within. My way is the modern Islamic way," she told the paper.
The political asylum request, which came weeks after the death of her uncle and main supporter Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz, who was an opponent of her father, offers an insight into the tensions within the Saudi royal family.
Political analysts have predicted that the kingdom will experience instability in the near future as the poor health among the aging royal family augments the power vacuum amid a wave of protests over the persisting brutal crackdown on the Saudi people.
The islamist Libyan 'rebels', recognised by Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd as the legitimate government of Libya and who are cheered on by phoney socialist organisations, intend to bring back the Sharia Law that Libyan President Muammar Gadhaffi abolished when he came to power in 1969. The rights enjoyed by women in Libya today, taken for granted by women in any modern western democracy would taken away if the NATO-backed "Transitional National Council" were to become the government of Libya. Gadhaffi's strongest supporters, amongst the overwhelming majority of Libyans who express their support for him every day at popular demonstrations, are the women of Libya who have no wish to return to domestic servitude.
Original article of 27 Jul 11 on Global Research by Susan Lindauer author of Extreme Prejudice: The Terrifying Story of the Patriot Act and the Cover Ups of 9/11 and Iraq.
For European bankers, it's a war for Libya's Gold. For oil corporations, it's a war for Cheap Crude (now threatening to destroy Libya's oil infrastructure, just like Iraq). But for Libya's women, it's a fierce, knock down battle over the Abaya— an Islamic style of dress that critics say deprives women of self-expression and identity.
Hillary Clinton and President Sarkozy might loath to admit it, but the desire to turn back the clock on women rights in Libya constitutes one of the chief goals for NATO Rebels on the Transitional Council.
For NATO Rebels—who are overwhelmingly pro-Islamist, regardless of NATO propaganda (see www.obamaslibya.com) — it's a matter of restoring social obedience to Islamic doctrine. However the abaya is more than a symbol of virtue and womanly modesty. It would usher in a full conservative doctrine, impacting women's rights in marriage and divorce, the rights to delay childbirth to pursue education and employment—all the factors that determine a woman's status of independence.
That makes this one War Libya's women cannot afford to lose. For those of us who support Islamic modernity, there are good arguments that Gadhaffi would be grossly irresponsible to hand over power to a vacuum dominated by NATO Rebels. Given the savagery of their abuses against the Libyan people (www.obamaslibya.com) —and the Rebel's agenda to reinstate Shariah and retract women's rights, Gadhaffi has an obligation to stand strong and block them for the protection of the people.
Indeed, it's somewhat baffling that France or Italy would want to hand power to Rebels, outside of an election scenario. Elections would be a safeguard that would empower Libyan women to launch a leadership alternative that rejects the Abaya. That's exactly what the Rebels fear, and it accounts for their deep, abiding rejection of the election process. Democracy poses a real threat to NATO's vision of the "New Libya."
The abaya carries so much weight in the battle for Islamic modernity that Gadhaffi pretty much banned Islamic dress from the first days of his government. Getting rid of the abaya was part of Gadhaffi's larger reform package supporting women's rights—one of the best and most advanced in the entire Arab world. The transformation of women's status has been so great that the Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran imposed a fatwa against Gadhaffi years ago, declaring his government blasphemous to Islamic traditions.
To gain insider perspective on Gadhaffi's reforms for women, members of a fact-finding delegation in Libya spoke with Najat ElMadani, chairwoman of the Libyan Society for Culture and Sciences, an NGO started in 1994. They also interviewed Sheikh Khaled Tentoush, one the most prominent Imams in Libya. Imam Tentoush has survived two NATO assassination attempts, one that was particularly revealing.
Tentoush said that he and 12 other progressive Imams were traveling to Benghazi to discuss a peaceful end to the conflict. They stopped for tea at a guest house in Brega--- and NATO dropped a bomb right on top of them, killing 11 of the 13 Imams, who had embraced Islamic reforms that empower women's rights and modernity.
There were no military installations or Gadhaffi soldiers anywhere nearby that would have justified NATO bombing. This was a deliberate assassination of Islamic leaders who give religious legitimacy to Gadhaffi's modernist policies, and therefore pose a great threat to the conservative ambitions of Islamic Rebels. NATO killed them off.
What's got radical Islamists so upset in Libya? Here's a primer on women's rights under Gadhaffi:
In Libya, women are allowed to move about the city, go shopping or visit friends without a male escort. Unbelievable as it sounds, throughout most of the Arab world, such freedoms are strictly forbidden. In much of Pakistan, for example, a 5 year old male child would be considered a suitable chaperone for an adult woman in the marketplace. Otherwise she'd better stay home. In Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, women are frequently locked in their apartments while their husbands, brothers or fathers go off to work. Yes, there are exceptions. Some families individually reject these practices. However, before readers protest this characterization, you must be honest and acknowledge that the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Saudis/Kuwaitis aren't the only groups that constrain women's freedoms in the Arab world. This is common social behavior throughout large swaths of Arab society.
In Libya, women are never locked in their homes, while their husbands, fathers and brothers go to work. Gadhaffi forbids restricting women's mobility.
In Libya, women have full legal rights to drive cars—unlike their sisters in Saudi Arabia. In a lot of Arab countries, a woman's husband holds her passport. So she cannot travel outside of the country without his approval.
Tragically, in Kabul, Afghanistan, a young woman can be locked in Prison for rejecting her father's choice of husband. Until she changes her mind, her prospective mother in law visits the prison every day, demanding to know why her son is not "good enough" for this girl. Why does she disobey those who know what's best for her? That poor woman stays locked up in Kabul prison until she changes her mind. And it happens right under the noses of American and NATO soldiers. A NATO Occupation won't protect Libyan women, either.
All over the Arab world—from Yemen to Jordan to Saudi Arabia to Iran— fathers and brothers decide what age a young woman will be given away in marriage, usually as soon as she hits puberty— She has no choice in the most important decision of her life. Frequently a young girl gets married off to one of her father's adult friends or a cousin. Throughout the Arab world, it's socially acceptable for a shopkeeper to ask a young Muslim girl if she has started to menstruate. A good Islamic girl is expected to answer truthfully.
Not in Libya. To his greatest credit, bucking all Islamic traditions—from the first days of government, Gadhaffi said No Way to forced marriages. Libyan woman have the right to choose their own husbands. They are encouraged to seek love marriages. Under strict Libyan law, without exception no person can force a Libyan woman to marry any man for any reason.
Forced marriages have been such a problem throughout the Arab world, that in Libya, an Imam always calls on the woman if there is an impending marriage. The Imam meets with her privately, and asks if any person is forcing her to marry, or if there's any reason she's marrying this person other than her desire to be with this man. Both Najat and Imam Tentoush were very adamant on these points.
In Libya, the Imams are expected to protect the woman from abuse by relatives.
Divorce is brutally difficult for a woman throughout the Arab world. A husband can beat or rape his wife, or commit adultery or lock her in a room like a prison. No matter what a woman suffers, as a wife she has no legal rights to leave that marriage, even for her own protection. When her father negotiates that marriage contract, she's stuck for life. A man can divorce a woman in front of two witnesses by repeating three times: "I divorce you. I divorce you. I divorce you." He can text that message on a cell phone, and it's over. The woman has no reciprocal freedom. She's stuck in that marriage until her husband lets her go.
Not so in Libya. A Libyan woman can leave a marriage anytime she chooses. A woman simply files for divorce and goes on with her life. It is very similar to U.S. laws, in that a man has no power to stop her. It's completely within her control to initiate a divorce.
In Libya, if a woman enters a marriage with her own assets and the marriage ends, her husband cannot touch her assets. The same is true of the man's assets. Joint assets usually go to the woman.
These "abnormal" marriage rights stir deep anger among conservative Libyan men. Rebels particularly hate Gadhaffi's government for granting marriage rights to women. But consider how delaying marriage impacts women's opportunities in society.
Delayed marriage means delayed childbirth, which empowers young women to continue education and gain employment. Not surprisingly then, Libyan women enjoy some of the best opportunities in the Arab world. That might also cause simmering resentments among conservative Libyan men.
In Libya more women take advantage of higher education than men, according to Najat. There are professional women in every walk of life. Many Libyan women are scientists, university professors, lawyers, doctors, government employees, journalists and business women. Najat attributes that freedom and the range of choices to Gadhaffi, and his government's insistence that women must be free to choose their lives and be fully supported in those choices. Najat and Tentoush said that some Imams in Libya would like it to be otherwise—especially those Imams favoring the Rebels— but Gadhaffi has always over ruled them. For example there are many women soldiers, and they are very strong and fully capable of contributing to the military defense of the country.
Women receive education scholarships equal to the men's. All Libyans can go abroad and study if they so desire— paid for by Gadhaffi's government. Single women usually take a brother or male relative with them, and Najat said all expenses are covered for both the woman and her companion.
In Libya, women are not required to seek a husband's permission to hold a job, and any type of job is available to her. In contrast, many employment opportunities are proscribed in many other Arab countries, because work puts women in daily proximity to men who are not their husbands. That eliminates many types of job opportunities.
These are some of the reasons why Rebels consider Gadhaffi an "infidel." They frequently express a desire to reinstate the Shariah. It's an open secret in Arab circles. In ignoring this point, NATO resembles the three monkeys. See no truth. Hear no truth. Speak no truth. But the Arab community understands this dynamic. Rebels are going to pat Hillary Clinton and Sarkozy on the head right up until they capture power. Then they're going to do exactly what they started out to do. Reinstate Islamic law—under the protection of the United States and NATO governments. Conservative social codes will be enforced just like Afghanistan.
Libyans understand this point, even if Americans and Europeans are lost in denial. It should surprise no one, therefore, that some of Gadhaffi's greatest support comes from Libyan women. Nor should it surprise Libya watchers that Gadhaffi's not exactly "clinging to power" as the corporate media likes to suggest. Quite the contrary, Gadhaffi's support has skyrocketed to 80 or 85 percent during this crisis. President Obama, Sarkozy and Bersculoni would be thrilled to enjoy such intense popular support.
NATO bombing has backfired and alienated the Libyan people from the Rebel cause, destroying community infrastructure that Libyans are truly proud of. Rebels are chasing pro-Gaddhaffi families out of Benghazi, a sort of political cleansing. But they have no street credibility that would give them power in negotiations with other Libyans, because losers don't get to dictate the terms. NATO can propagandize until Sarkozy falls over in a fit, but the people have resoundingly rejected these Rebels.
NATO is pushing a political resolution, because Europe wants off the merry-go-round. In truth, the music is getting uglier every day. NATO never should have jumped on this bandwagon in the first place. There's no sense to it. They're fighting Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, and embracing Al Qaeda and conservative Islam in Benghazi.
Those of us who support Islamic modernity should be relieved that Libya's people are smarter and savvier than NATO bureaucrats. And we should all say a prayer that Gadhaffi holds on.
Susan Lindauer covered Libya and Iraq at the United Nations from 1995 to 2003, and started negotiations for the Lockerbie Trial. Lindauer is the author of Extreme Prejudice: The Terrifying Story of the Patriot Act and the Cover Ups of 9/11 and Iraq.
Here is a very topical, historical account by E.J. Hobsbawm of the rise of Islam in the so-called undeveloped world which occurred in reaction to the disruption caused by colonialism. People who are interested in why there is still apparent opposition between Western “democracy” and capitalism and Islam, might find it interesting.
“In purely numerical terms it is evident that all religions, unless actually contracting, were likely to expand with the rise in population. Yet two types showed a particular aptitude for expansion [over the period of the massive colonisation during the British Industrial Revolution]: Islam and sectarian Protestantism. This expansionism was all the more striking as it contrasted with the marked failure of other Christian religions – both Catholic and Protestant – to expand, in spite of a sharp increase in missionary activity outside Europe, increasingly backed by the military, political, and economic force of European penetration. […]
As against this, Islam was continuing that silent, piecemeal and irreversible expansion unbacked by organized missionary endeavour or forcible conversion which is so characteristic of that religion. It expanded both eastwards, in Indonesia and North-western China, and westwards from the Sudan towards Senegal and, to a much smaller extent, from the shores of the Indian Ocean inland. When traditional societies change something so fundamental as their religion, it is clear that they must be facing major new problems. The Moslem traders, who virtually monopolized the commerce of inner Africa with the outside world and multiplied with it, helped to bring Islam to the notice of new peoples. The slave trade, which broke down communal life, made it attractive, for Islam is a powerful means of reintegrating social structures. [2] At the same time the Mohammedan religion appealed to the semi-feudal and military societies of the Sudan, and its sense of independence, militancy, and superiority made it a useful counterweight to slavery. Moslem Negros made bad slaves: the Haussa (and other Sudanese) who had been imported into Bahia (Brazil) revolted nine times between 1807 and the great rising of 1835 until, in effect, they were mostly killed or deported back to Africa. The slavers learned to avoid imports from these areas, which had only recently been opened to the trade.
While the element of resistance to the whites was clearly very small in African Islam (where there were as yet hardly any), it was by tradition crucial in South-east Asia. There Islam – once again pioneered by traders – had long advanced against local cults and the declining Hinduism of the Spice Islands, largely as a means of more effective resistance against the Portuguese and the Dutch, as ‘a kind of pre-nationalism,’ though also as a popular counterweight to the Hinduized princes. As these princes increasingly turned into narrowly circumscribed dependents or agents of the Dutch, Islam sunk its root more deeply into the population. In turn, the Dutch learned that the Indonesian princes could, by allying with the religious teachers, unleash a general popular rising, as in the Java War of the Prince of Djokjakarta (1825-1830). They were consequently time and again driven back to a policy of close alliance with the local rulers, or indirect rule. Meanwhile the growth of the trade and shipping forged closer links between south-east Asian Muslim and Mecca, served to increase the number of pilgrims, to make Indonesian Islam more orthodox, and even to open it to the militant and revivalist influence of Arabian Wahhabism.
Within Islam the movements of reform and revival, which in this period gave the religion much of its penetrative power, can also be seen as reflecting the impact of European expansion and the crisis of the old Mohammedan societies (notably of the Turkish and Persian empires) and perhaps also of the growing crisis of the Chinese empire. The puritanical Wahhabites had arisen in Arabia in the mid-eighteenth century. By 1814 they had conquered Arabia and were ready to conquer Syria, until halted by the combined force of the Westernizing Mohammed Ali of Egypt and Western arms, though their teachings spread eastwards into Persia, Afghanistan and India. Inspired by Wahhabism an Algerian holy man, Sidi Mohammed ben Ali el Senussi, developed a similar movement which from the 1840s spread from Tripoli into the Sahara desert. In Algeria Abd-el-Kader, in the Caucasus Shamyl, developed religio-political movements of resistance to the French and Russians respectively (see chapter 7) and anticipated a pan-Islamism which sought not merely a return to the original purity of the Prophet but also to absorb Western innovations. In Persia, an even more obviously nationalist and revolutionary heterodoxy, the Bab movement of Ali Mohammed, arose in the 1840s. It tended, among other things, to return to certain ancient practices of Persian Zoroastrianism and demanded the unveiling of women.
The ferment and expansion of Islam was such that, in terms of purely religious history, we can perhaps best describe the period form 1789 to 1848 as that of world Islamic revival. …The expansionist movement of Protestant sectarianism differs from that of Islam in that it was almost entirely confined to the countries of developed capitalist civilization. […]
[… ] The reasons for the geographical and social limits of Protestant sectarianism are evident. Roman Catholic countries provided no scope for and tradition of public sects. There the equivalent break with the established church or the dominant religion was more likely to take the form of mass dechristianisation (especially among the men) than of schism. (Conversely, the Protestant anti-clericalism of the Anglo-Saxon countries was often the exact counterpart of the atheist anti-clericalism of continental ones.)”
“Nationalism in the East was thus the eventual product of Western influence and Western conquest. This link is perhaps most evident in the one plainly Oriental country in which the foundations of what was to become the first modern colonial nationalist movement [other than the Irish] were laid: in Egypt. Napoleon’s conquest introduced Western ideas, methods, and techniques, whose value an able and ambitious local soldier, Mohammed Ali (Mehemet Ali), soon recognized. Having seized power and virtual independence from Turkey in the confused period which followed the withdrawal of the French, and with French support, Mohammed Ali set out to establish an efficient and Westernizing despotism with foreign (mainly French) technical aid. European left-wingers in the 1820s and 30s hailed this enlightened autocrat, and put their services at his disposal, when reaction in their own countries looked too dispiriting. The extraordinary sect of the Sain-Simonians, equally suspended between the advocacy of socialism and of industrial development by investment bankers and engineers, temporarily gave him their collective aid and prepared his plans of economic development. […] They thus also laid the foundation for the Suez Canal (built by the Saint-Simonian de Lesseps) and the fatal dependence of Egyptian rulers on vast loans negotiated by competing groups of European swindlers, which turned Egypt into a centre of imperialist rivalry and anti-imperialist rebellion later on. But Mohammed Ali was no more a nationalist than any other Oriental despot. His Westernization, not his or his people’s aspirations, laid the foundations for later nationalism. If Egypt acquired the first nationalist movement in the Islamic world and Morocco one of the last, it was because Mohammed Ali (for perfectly comprehensible geopolitical reasons) was in the main paths of Westernization and the isolated self-sealed Sherifian Empire of the Moslem far west was not, and made no attempts to be. Nationalism, like so many other characteristics of the modern world, is the child of the dual revolution.”[3]
[1] The source of this article is a highly readable and famous book by historian, E.J. Hobsbawm, The Age of Revolution 1789 to 1848, New American Library Publishing, 1962, pp.268-270. This was also the period of the rise of the Industrial Revolution and British imperialism, which won out over other contenders in the European trade and slaving wars that had gone on since the 14th century due to the chance coincidence of huge stores of coal and iron on that island, plus an army of dispossessed workers who could be forced to dig it up and man the foundries.
[2] The writer gives as his reference for this statement, J S Trimmingham, Islam in West Africa, Oxford, 1959, p.30. I am personally not aware of the reasons given there and would welcome comment or articles on why this might be so.
[3] Source, E.J. Hobsbawm, The Age of Revolution 1789 to 1848, New American Library Publishing, 1962, p.177.
Editorial comment prepended on 17 April 2013: Either the analysis contained within this article is fundamentally flawed or circumstances have changed since the occurrence of the events upon which this article is based. In 2013. For all its ongoing formal adherence to a fundamentalist Islamist doctrine, Iran has acted to defend its part of the world, including the secular government of Syria, which protects its Christian minority, against terrorists who uphold a fundamentalist Islamist doctrine which bears superficial resemblance to that of Iran.
Whatever, for all that has been helpfully analysed and understood in the past, with the socialist/Marxist methodology, upon which this article was structured, the dynamic of the developments since the Iranian revolution of 1979 seem inexplicable when that methodology is used. Just possibly other factors, including the spread of the Internet has helped to change the dynamic of world history.
What is not widely known is the role of supposedly Trotskyist left wing parties in propping up the rule of the Mullahs in 1980. Whether this was decisive I cannot say, but in 1980, one of the major Trotskyist Parties, affiliated with the Trotskyist Fourth International, made a surprising turn and, instead of being a left-wing opponent of the government and the mullahs, began to whitewash the mullahs and to smear political opponents of that government, including feminists and left-wing University students at the University of Tehran.
This article started out as a comment in reply to the comment entitled "Stoning of Women in Iran."
This article started out as a comment in reply to the comment entitled "Stoning of Women in Iran."
What is not widely known is the role of supposedly Trotskyist left wing parties in propping up the rule of the Mullahs in 1980. Whether this was decisive I cannot say, but in 1980, one of the major Trotskyist Parties, affiliated with the Trotskyist Fourth International, made a surprising turn and, instead of being a left-wing opponent of the government and the mullahs, began to whitewash the mullahs and to smear political opponents of that government, including feminists and left-wing University students at the University of Tehran.
The Iranian Islamist fundamentalist mullahs, from which the current Iranian government inherited power, won government in 1979, after a prolonged popular struggle against the dictatorship of the Shah of Iran, who was imposed upon the Iranians by a CIA sponsored coup in 1953.
The mullahs were only one of a number of political forces opposed to the rule of the Shah. Others included socialist groups, liberal democratic groups, and groups representing the non-Persian oppressed nations within Iran, including the Kurds, Azeris, Arabs, Baluchis, etc.
The consolidation of the dictatorial power of the mullahs after 1979 was far from inevitable. During the early months after the collapse of the Shah's regime, the dynamic of the Iranian revolution seemed to match that of the dynamic of the Russian revolution, with the transitional bourgeois democratic government of Mehdi Barzagan atop vast rival mass movements vying with each other and with the government for political power.
Eventually the Iranian mullahs overpowered their more left wing rivals as well as the Iranian transitional government with terrible consequences which included the mas-murder of political opponents and the pointless prolongation of the Iraq-Iran war of 1980-1985. Whilst guilt for starting the war can rightly be attributed to the then dictator of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, the prolongation of that war from 1981, when Hussein tried to sue for peace, until 1985, cost the lives of perhaps half a million more on both sides and, indirectly, made possible the even more terrible first and second U.S. wars against Iraq in 1991 and 2003.
What is not widely known is the role of supposedly Trotskyist left wing parties in propping up the rule of the Mullahs in 1980. Whether this was decisive I cannot say, but in 1980, one of the major Trotskyist Parties, affiliated with the Trotskyist Fourth International, made a surprising turn and, instead of being a left-wing opponent of the government and the mullahs, began to whitewash the mullahs and to smear political opponents of that government, including feminists and left-wing University students at the University of Tehran.
The University of Tehran was smashed as strongpoint of political opposition to the Mullah government, when the Mullahs invaded the campus and forcibly dispersed left wing students on the pretext that they were to teach literacy to Iranian peasants. No subsequent reports of the impact of the Mullah's claimed literacy drive were heard which would confirm that the supposed literacy drive was no more than a pretext of the Mullahs to break up and smash an opposition political force.
In 1980 or 1981, Fatima Fallahi, a female member of the abovementioned Trotskyist Party, was arrested by the Mullahs and apparently threatened with execution. (I recommend against googling her name because it seems to return a large number of hits not related to the Fatima Fallahi I am discussing.) Despite remembering her name, other details such as dates, places and other names may be less clear to me after all this time.
At any rate, an energetic and sizable international political campaign apparently succeeded in preventing Fatima's execution and she was released. In 1981, she toured Australia as a guest of the then Socialist Workers Party, which was the fore-runner of today's Democratic Socialist Party which publishes Green Left Weekly.
At the time I was a committed member of the SWP and looked forward to hearing a sophisticated analysis of the Iranian Revolution at Fatima's public meetings in Australia. Fatima Fallahi was a member of the revolutionary left. I hoped to learn from her speeches about the prospects of the revolutionary left establishing a socialist government that would set an example to the rest of the region and to the rest of the world and how we could help them from Australia.
Instead, Fatima's speeches turned out to be shameful and embarrassing apologies for the Mullah's rule. She smeared political oponents of the Iranian mullahs as mentioned above.
Just possibly, Fatima could be excused for her deception, because she may have feared for her own life or for the lives of friends and family still in Iran. But there can be no such excuse for the Socialist Workers Party of Australia, nor its then US equivalent (also known as the Socialist Workers Party) for helping her to spread those lies. In the coming months and years, Socialist Workers Party newspapers essentially peddled justifications for the Iranian Mullah regime. On the Iranian regime's prolongation of the Iraq-Iran war they were silent. Privately they excused it. On one occasion a leading member of the SWP told me that a defeat of the supposedly revolutionary Iranian army then attempting to invade Iraq with waves of sacrificial child soldiers, being thrown across minefields and into barbed wire, would be a defeat for revolutionaries everywhere.
A more objective analysis of the situation would surely have concluded that the accession of such a government to power represented a defeat of the revolution. Excusing that regime's crimes against its own people would surely only compound the consequences of that defeat both in Iran and internationally.
How is it that the successors of those who denied and covered up for the crimes of Iranian Islamic fundamentalists over a generation ago, are now silent about the wrongful blaming of Islamic peoples for the crime of 9/11, 7/7, the Bali bombings, the Madrid train bombings or else actively promote those lies?
Whilst I believe that the United States has committed more evil than any other single country since the end of the Second World War, this doesn't mean that I will defend the indefensible actions of the Iranian government, who are in opposition to the United States. By the way, the reason that I believe that the United States is evil is based on their record in the Vietnam war, their CIA meddling in other countries, what they have done in Europe, such as helping form Nazi collaborators to reestablish their power and influence in Italy and Germany, by failing to fully prosecute war criminals, despite some spectacular show trials. (A lot go off because they were considered reliable enemies of communism.) The CIA also organised the mass murder of at least a hundred thousand members of the communist party of Indonesia in 1965. The death toll of its war against IndoChinese people from 1954-1975 exceeds 3 million (and may be more according to some sources.)
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