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July 2, 2009

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Muslim India

Interview: Amra Tareen of allvoices

noreply@blogger.com (Muslim India) — Fri, 6 Feb 2009 18:12:00 -0800

By Kamla Bhatt Muslim India

Amra Tareen heads Allvoices, a San Francisco-based citizen media startup. After months of being their beta version, AllVoices released its brand new website a few days ago. Allvoices raised $4.5 million in venture capital funding last year.

Prior to founding Allvoices, Amra was with Sevin Rosen, a venture capital firm and before that she worked with various telecom companies in Silicon Valley.

KB: What does Allvoices do?

AT: Allvoices is a citizen media Web site that is the first to weave together traditional and new media sources to create a forum for sharing news, videos, images and blogs. We aggregate, contextualize and categorize a broad base of breaking stories and individual perspectives through unedited points of view. Using a set of proprietary algorithms, Allvoices has created a technology platform that utilizes more than 3,500 mainstream feeds and online sources of news to provide relevancy and context for user generated news.

KB: How did you come up with the idea for Allvoices?

AT: Allvoices spawned from a trip I took last year to Pakistan where I witnessed the devastation of the 2005 earthquake. I felt her own pictures and experiences were not enough to make a difference back home and decided to create a platform where individuals, no matter where they were in the world, could report on what they know and see first hand, and share their experiences via photos, video and stories. Having lived in three different countries (Pakistan, Australia and America), I used my personal experiences and education to start Allvoices with the idea that in order to solve the world’s problems, we need to appreciate different perspectives.

KB: How are you leveraging technology to gather and distribute news?

AT: With a unique set of algorithms, Allvoices has created a technology platform that searches more than 3,500 mainstream and online sources of news to provide relevancy and context for user generated news. Story rank on the home page is determined by the number and diversity of other sources citing the particular news item and the number of community comments generated by the story.

KB: Right now your service is offered in English. Do you plan to expand that to include different languages like Urdu, Hindi, Mandarin, Arabic or Persian?

AT: Yes, the Allvoices content will soon be available in a number of languages.

KB: You mentioned that there will be no human intervention in the collating and distributing of news. Do you think that could change?

AT: No. One of the core concepts in creating Allvoices was for it to remain unedited by humans and we intend to uphold that mission.

KB: What business will Allvoices disrupt?

AT: Like any social media or online news source, Allvoices will have an effect on the traditional media industry such as newspapers, broadcast, etc. However, our goal is not to continue the diminishment of these industries, but to build them out and merge traditional with digital. We want to revolutionize the media industry by bringing everyone together to share content, create discussion and fill the gaps in global and local news.

KB: How are you different from other players like Associated Content, NowPublic, GlobalVoices or other mainstream media that have citizen news embedded in their programs?

AT: Allvoices distinguishes itself as an unedited forum that offers multiple individual perspectives on a local and global news event. For example, GlobalVoices is a blogger platform for bloggers that get paid to report and all submitted material is summarized and edited by a team of regional editors. Allvoices, on the other hand, provides an unedited platform for anyone wishing to report a story and we validate user generated contributions with professional media sources to create context and relevance. Professional news sources package a story well, but Allvoices gives readers access to broader individual perspectives. Allvoices is revolutionizing media by bringing together traditional and new media. It offers unedited news and community perspective validated through multiple professional news sources and no other Web site is doing that right now.

KB: Which country do you think is able to harness the power of citizen media? I am thinking UK since the news media out there seems to be doing a great job of including citizen media.

AT: Agreed that the UK will be able to harness the power of citizen media, but even more so in countries where there is no freedom of expression. In these countries, there are many people who want to get their voices out, but they have no platform for this. There is a strong need for citizen media, and we have seen that getting voices out into the public can change the course of a country.

KB: You mentioned at the core of Allvoices is this notion of fostering Democracy and ironically you also got the idea when you were in Pakistan about a year ago. How do you think Allvoices will work towards fostering Democracy in Pakistan or other states that do not have a democratic form of government?

AT: We are providing a global platform where everyone has the right to be heard. Making the flow of information easier and showing people’s real emotions can really help to connect the world and have a huge effect on democracy.

KB: How are you prepared to handle a situation where a particular government may block Allvoices during a time of crisis? In the past there have been instances where governments have blocked certain online sites within their country?

AT: When there is a will, there is a way. If people want change badly enough, they will find out a way to make it happen. We witnessed this in Pakistan, where people went around the system and found ways to get content out of the country by passing it to friends and family and having them upload, etc… The government can block the Internet, but again, when there is a will, there is a way and people will find those ways to get their compelling content out to the rest of the world.

KB: What is your revenue model?

AT: At this time, we are operating under venture funding that we received last year from VantagePoint Venture Partners. However, like most Web sites, we plan to move toward an ad-supported model in the near future.

KB: What features or developments can we expect to see from AllVoices for 2008?

AT: If you want to light up the world, you can only do that if you have global reach through phones. Allvoices is the only company that has the infrastructure to report from anywhere in the world, because of its mobile capabilities.

Source: Kamla Bhatt Blog

End the US romance before it destroys us

noreply@blogger.com (Muslim India) — Sun, 1 Feb 2009 10:32:00 -0800

By Dr. Shireen M Mazari* Muslim India

Two drones fired on the same day soon after Obama’s swearing in have made the new US administration’s intentions towards Pakistan clear – there will be no respect for international law in this part of the world. This is the historic duality (recall the Monroe Doctrine) that prevails in the very foundations of the much-touted US values! So it is time for our leaders to accept certain ground realities and shape their policies accordingly.

Accept that Obama has nothing positive to offer Pakistan. On the contrary, following the drone attacks, he moved to name Holbrooke as Special Envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, and to cut off a major chunk of money owed to Pakistan for military services rendered. And what has our reaction been? Without looking at Holbrooke’s record, we have welcomed his appointment, and in response to the cutting of money owed, we have declared that we will appeal to them again–as if this is part of a bargain hunt or a sale! Is this what a nuclear sovereign state does?

For heaven’s sake, our military and civilian ruling elites need to salvage some national dignity. It is time the military stopped acting as a mercenary force for the Americans. The price we are paying is simply too high–not simply in money terms but in social and political terms. This is as good an opportunity as any to reclaim our bases and applaud the US in gaining a new route for NATO supplies (though that is not yet a done deal), which we should stop immediately. This supply route has been a major factor for violence and instability in Peshawar and beyond.

It is not simply the cutting off of payments that is a pointer to the new Obama-Biden policies. Biden, much touted as Pakistan’s friend, has begun sounding a more strident tone vis-a-vis this hapless country with its bunch of servile leaders. This new aggressive tone on Pakistan was all too apparent in his Jan 25 interview on CBS where he reiterated Obama’s election campaign viewpoint that if there is an actionable target in Pakistan the US would send its troops there.

And to clarify any doubts about what the US thinks of Pakistan’s sovereignty, he refused to answer the question whether the US would notify the Pakistan before a potential US troops’ cross-border movement. He also predicted increasing US casualties, which clearly means the US intends to up the military ante and in all probability send troops across the international Pakistani-Afghan border.

As for Holbrooke, it would do well to recall that the much-touted Dayton Accord was only put in place when NATO had replaced the UN in Bosnia, and the Bosnians had been militarily abused so much by the Serbs that they eventually accepted a truncated Bosnian state. I met Holbrooke at a conference in Kazakhstan a few years earlier alongside the arch-neocon Richard Perle. And I was surprised by the similarity of views they both held towards the Muslim world in general, and towards what the US was doing post-9/11 in Afghanistan. Also, if we remember that Holbrooke was Hillary Clinton’s senior policy advisor, we will understand where he is really coming from. After all, Hillary Clinton supported the Iraq war till it became unpopular in the US!

Again, it was Holbrooke, as the US ambassador at the UN, who arranged for Israel to be admitted into a regional grouping of Western European and other nations–to allow Israel access to membership of crucial committees and other privileges. Interestingly, Scott Ritter, a UN Weapons’ Inspector in Iraq (1991-1998), has recalled how, in a television discussion in October 2001, Holbrooke had rejected any form of diplomacy in Afghanistan and had favoured only military action. Hardly the sort of man who will be open to the sensitivities of Pakistan!

The hard reality is that the US is going to become an increasingly hostile state towards Pakistan under Obama. So it is time to alter course. We need to renegotiate the entire cooperation with this new US administration, keeping in mind the now-established Indo-US strategic partnership. We need to find our own means of countering the drone attacks–rather than helplessly waiting for US goodwill.

Our Air Chief had declared we have the technical capability, and we certainly do, including our cruise missiles. So use them to attack the drones in defence of our territory. If the military is too timid for this defence of our national soil, then at least stop the mercenary intelligence sharing, close the clandestine CIA stations and troop actions in FATA and our western border. Reclaim the bases and end access to NATO supplies. All these moves can be done incrementally and we will realise the limitations of US ability to move against us without damaging their own cause. The most painless beginning can be made by recalling our ambassador to the US “for consultations.”

Meanwhile, it would be more relevant if we began focusing on national policies for Swat and FATA. The military needs to be withdrawn from both these areas and paramilitary forces under civilian command need to be put in place within an overarching political framework. We need to differentiate between Swat and FATA also, since the ground realities are different in the two areas. It would appear that in FATA the locals have coalesced with the militants and “foreigners” as a result of the erroneous policies of the Pakistani state, whose military is seen as fighting America’s war, and also as a result of the drone attacks, which have increased the operational space and recruitment of the militants.

In Swat Fazlullah initially got support from the local people. However, with the bloodshed and attacks on schools and the horrific killings and mutilation of bodies, the present relationship between the locals and the militants in Swat is one based primarily on fear and on a distrust of the military. They see the military as having failed to protect them against a Taliban force that primarily comprises outsiders, local criminals, and the unemployed and war-affected–that is, those who have lost family as a result of military action.

Unless we seek truthful answers to some crucial questions, we will not be able to restore peace in Swat. Where is the funding for the militants coming from since it runs into tens of millions? Reports from people on the spot put the daily payment for Taliban fighters anywhere between Rs300 and Rs1,000. Add to this cost of food, arms and ammunition and transport. And if we accept that there are between 5,000-10,000 Taliban, this is a costly enterprise even if we calculate on averages. Secondly, where are the weapons coming from, along which supply routes? Why, when the media can access the militant leaders, the intelligence and military seemingly cannot act against them? Is it inability or unwillingness and, if it is the latter, then the crux question: Why?

The total failure of the state to protect its citizens and assert its writ has led to the present despicable situation where the most vulnerable are being targeted: women and girls in particular, and children in general. While the militants are blowing up schools, the military is using schools as their trenches, and thereby as targets for the militants. If one looks at the casualty figures one will see who is really suffering, who is losing and who is winning. Approximately 12,000 civilians have so far been killed in Swat–again, according to the local viewpoint, mainly by firing from security forces. Around 200 security forces (FC, army and police) have been killed while approximately 75 Taliban have been killed.

The biggest losers are the civilians caught in the middle and the military, which is not only suffering high casualty rates but is being undermined in the long term by a growing chasm between itself and the nation’s civil society. This is what Pakistan’s enemies want; why are we seeking the same?

Tailpiece: The hypocrisy of the BBC is truly legendary. They refuse to broadcast a humanitarian appeal for Gaza but BBC World was broadcasting ads for the Indian army immediately before and after their news services during the Kargil crisis.

* The writer is a defence analyst based in Pakistan

Will Obama Policies Bring Real Change For The Muslim World?

noreply@blogger.com (Muslim India) — Sun, 1 Feb 2009 10:27:00 -0800

Abdus Sattar Ghazali Muslim India

Abdus Sattar Ghazali is the Executive Editor of the online magazine American Muslim Perspective: www.amperspective.com email: asghazali@gmail.com

In a bid to repair relations with the Muslim world that were damaged under the Bush administration, President Barack Obama told the Muslim world Tuesday that “Americans are not your enemy.”

In an interview with Al-Arabiya TV channel, Obama said: “My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy — we sometimes make mistakes — we have not been perfect.”

He spoke about Afghanistan, Iran, the Middle East, Al-Qaeda and Guantanamo Bay Prison. On the Middle East conflict Obama said he believes “that the moment is ripe for both sides to realize that the path that they are on is one that is not going to result in prosperity and security for their people. “Instead, it’s time to return to the negotiating table.”

“If we start the steady progress on these issues, I’m absolutely confident that the United States, working in tandem with the European Union, with Russia, with all the Arab states in the region ... can make significant progress,” Obama told the Al-Arabiya TV network.

The interview is part of the President’s broader outreach to the Muslim world, which includes a promise to make a major address from the capital of a Muslim nation.

There has been mixed reaction to Obama’s interview. While many in the Muslim and Arab world welcomed the interview but some looked at it differently by pointing out that his interview was rich in rhetoric but poor in content. He did not offer any change of policy and failed to mention the Israeli carnage of Gaza while reaffirming America’s support to Israel: “I will continue to believe that Israel's security is paramount.”

This says a lot to the Arabs and Muslims who have fresh memories of the US-backed 22-day Israeli carnage in Gaza that massacred about 1400 Palestinians, of whom 412 were children and a hundred were women. More than 5,000 were injured, 1,855 of whom were children and 795 were women, according to UN sources.

While the tone appears to have changed quite substantially, Obama has yet to make clear that policy changes on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will follow, according to Jim Lobe of IPS.

A reader of Lebanon’s The Star newspaper described the interview a window dressing: “The fact that Obama gave this interview to the house media of Saudi sheiks and the Egyptian dictator (some "moderates"!) shows that he is insincere. The Arab masses watch and believe in Al Jazeera. By choosing to grant the interview to this State Department allied media company he gave an unmistakable message; he talks only to the discredited Arab elites.”

"We have to lower our expectations that he has a magic wand to solve all our problems," Reuters quoted a Mideast analyst, Mustafa Alani, as saying. "The Arab attitude is basically optimistic that Obama will turn a new page and his inaugural speech reached out to Muslims but the devil is in the detail."

"I heard Obama, his tone is different, but I can't believe that any U.S. president can be different when it comes to the Arab-Israeli conflict," Haytham Rafati, in Ramallah told the Associated Press. "I will believe Obama is different in his approach to the Islamic world only when I see him pulling out his forces from Iraq and pressing Israel on the Palestinian rights."

At least 100 comments were listed on Al-Arabiya TV website about Obama’s interview, most of them welcoming his new approach to the Muslim World but many did not see anything new. The following comment perhaps represents the sentiments of those who do not see any change in Obama’s policies:

“So now Obama expected us to believe that the us is not the enemy and thus we should forget about the millions of dead souls and years of death and destruction at the hands of the Americans directly or through proxy. He was saying: Muslims are not the enemy, it is only Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran that we are trying to "isolate". My response to him: America is not the enemy, it is only the US Military, the CIA and their proxies that we are trying to get them off our backs. The most ridiculous item in his speech is that while he was trying to please Israel in every step of the speech, he adds insults to injuries by trying the divide Muslims and splitting hair and telling us whom we should support and whom we should not. To me it is the same old sh*t.”

Obama’s Al-Arabiya TV interview came five days after he singed an executive order to close down the Guantanamo Bay prison within a year. That order was one of three the President signed on that day. Another formally bans torture by U.S. interrogators, and the third establishes an interagency task force to set policies for the “apprehension, detention, trial, transfer or release of detainees.” These orders were signed on the first day of his office (January 22) when he also called President of the Palestinian National Authority Mahmoud 'Abbas first, followed by calls to Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, President Mubarak of Egypt, and Jordan's King Abdullah.

On his second day (January 23), the President named former Senator George Mitchell, an Arab American and the architect of the peace accord in Northern Ireland, as special envoy to the Middle East. He also appointed Richard Holbrooke as special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

George Mitchell

Interestingly, whilst announcing George Mitchell's appointment, the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did not even mention Palestine and stated that Mr. Mitchell would undertake to negotiate between Israel and the Arab States. It was only after Mr. Mitchell clearly mentioned Palestine as being the key to the region, did Hillary refer to the matter.

Appearing with Mitchell, President Obama made his first substantive comments on the Middle East conflict since Israeli massacre of Palestinians in Gaza. He first mentioned his commitment to Israel’s security, without affirming his commitment to Palestinian security. He condemned Palestinian rocket attacks on southern Israeli towns, but didn’t criticize the US-backed Israeli bombings of densely populated Gaza.

In carefully crafted words, President Obama said: “Let me be clear: America is committed to Israel's security. And we will always support Israel's right to defend itself against legitimate threats.” The President concluded his remarks with an endorsement of the Arab peace initiative saying: “the Arab peace initiative contains constructive elements that could help advance these efforts. Now is the time for Arab states to act on the initiative's promise by supporting the Palestinian government under President Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad, taking steps towards normalizing relations with Israel, and by standing up to extremism that threatens us all.”

Obama's remarks warrant examination. To borrow Noam Chomsky: “So the thrust of his remarks, is that Israel has a right to defend itself by force, even though it has peaceful means to defend itself, that the Arabs must—states must move constructively to normalize relations with Israel, very carefully omitting the main part of their proposal was that Israel, which is Israel and the United States, should join the overwhelming international consensus for a two-state settlement. That’s missing.”

In short, both President Obama and Hillary Clinton, to whom Mitchell will report, have made clear their support for the 22-day Israeli onslaught on Gaza.

Deliberate Acquiescence to Israeli Terrorism

noreply@blogger.com (Muslim India) — Sun, 1 Feb 2009 10:11:00 -0800

By Dr. Shireen M Mazari* Muslim India

Even as we in Pakistan are confronted with multiple developments and issues, the slaughter of innocent Palestinians in Gaza at the hands of a murderous Zionist state has focused our emotions of anger, helplessness and frustration alongside similarly displayed emotions across the civil societies of the world. For the Muslims in particular the attempted genocide of the Gaza populace is yet another reminder of the self-imposed helplessness of their rulers. The fact that many Muslim states continue to maintain their diplomatic relations with Israel when a non-Muslim leader in Latin America, Hugo Chavez, has had the moral courage to break these ties, should be a source of shame for Muslim ruling elites everywhere.

What has also come to the fore once again is the total acceptance of this Israeli murderous rampage by the USA. Obama’s silence on the issue speaks louder than any hypocritical statements he made earlier on human rights and anti-terrorism. Clearly, Israel’s state terrorism is as acceptable to him as it is to all other US politicians and the general US public. And the mutterings of the British leadership have once again shown the subservient role they are content to play to the US. Surely at this time it is indecent of Miliband to visit us and talk about extremism and terrorism – when there is a large-scale commission of unabated Israeli terrorism taking place in Gaza. Frankly, if the Zardari government had a modicum of self-respect they would refuse to receive Miliband at this time when we are mourning the daily murders of innocent Palestinians. But then, if we can continue awarding high national awards to the supporters of the murderers of Palestinians, like Biden, how will we have the gumption to stand up to Miliband’s brand of neoimperialism?

But can nothing really be done against these new Israeli killings? Is the Muslim World really so helpless in the face of this brazen display of Israeli state terrorism? No, except in a psychological sense of being unable to stand up to the US. So, what could be done if the will was there within the Muslim ruling elites? There is always the option of the oil-rich states finally taking their assets out of Western institutions, but that does not seem a viable option given the self-interest of the rulers of these states. Then there is another option through the OIC collectivity – that is a military option whereby the high tech military hardware accumulated by many rich Muslim states can be used in defence of the Palestinians. After all, what is to stop the OIC from sending a multinational force to combat this Israeli aggression similar to the Allies effort against Nazism? After all, the OIC itself was formed as a response to the aggression of the Zionist state against Al Quds in the first place so it would be within its international legal mandate.

If the Muslim World is unable to pick up the moral courage to do any of the above, then there is also a way now provided for, ironically, by the UN Security Council itself through Resolution 1373 passed in the aftermath of 9/11. This resolution begins by condemning the acts of terror of 9/11, but then goes beyond to deal with the issue of terrorism in general. The resolution gives its context as the binding chapter VII of the UN charter and the operative paras are 1 and 2 of the resolution. Para I, demands that states “Criminalize the wilful provision or collection, by any means, directly or indirectly, of funds by their nationals or in their territories with the intention that the funds should be used … in order to carry out terrorist acts.” Para 2 demands that states “Refrain from providing any form of support, active or passive, to entities or persons involved in terrorist acts … and eliminating the supply of weapons.” Nowhere does this Resolution declare that it is only with reference to non-state actors and the reference to entities can also be applied to states. Clearly, under these paras the US stands guilty of abetting terrorism because it has allowed Jewish groups in the US to raise money for Israel and has itself supplied weapons to Israel. Now, if Pakistan is expected to deal with non-state actors or face international consequences under this resolution, surely OIC states can also hold the US to these provisions? Or we should simply declare this UNSC resolution as having been breached by a permanent member the US, and thus having lost its credibility as so many other UNSC resolutions.

As for the issue of state terrorism – just like any form of terrorism, it has also been defined to some extent in UNSC Resolution 1566 (2004), para 3, which states, inter alia, that “criminal acts, including against civilians, committed with the intent to cause death or serious bodily injury … with the purpose to provoke a state of terror in the general public or in a group of persons or particular persons, intimidate a population …are under no circumstances justifiable by considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or other similar nature….” Surely this describes Israel’s massacre of the Palestinians perfectly and therefore Israel stands guilty of state terrorism and should be subject to the same penalties that other perpetrators of terrorism are to be subjected to.

So why is no Muslim state moving against Israel within the wide scope now offered by the anti-terrorism UNSC resolutions. Also, there is the whole gamut of international humanitarian law codified in the four Geneva conventions and its two additional protocols, which Israel has breached with this aggression against the whole Palestinian population of Gaza – with even UN schools and medical assistance teams being targeted. So that is another tool available for dealing with the latest Zionist aggression. And, finally, it may be worth reminding our psychologically paralysed Muslim leaders that the International Criminal Court had put out a warrant for the Sudanese president despite the fact that Sudan is not a party to the ICC, citing Darfur and other incidents involving human rights abuse and killings in Sudan. Surely the attempted genocide of the Gaza Palestinians is a crime against humanity; so why has the ICC failed to issue warrants against the Israeli leadership? Or are there two standards: One for Muslims and another for non-Muslims?

It is indeed a supreme irony that those that Hitler massacred have turned to do the same to the Palestinians! In fact there are haunting similarities between the Nazis and the Zionist state. After all, if the Zionists can refer to the UN as a source of their state’s legitimacy – although nowhere did the UN seek to throw out Palestinians from their lands and have them periodically butchered at the hands of the Zionist entity – Hitler had even a greater claim to political legitimacy since he had elections to cite as his claim to power! And just as the Jewish holocaust (unless we accept revisionist history that it never took place) was part of his agenda, clearly Israel’s agenda is the Palestinian holocaust, albeit in stages. Just as British prime minister Chamberlain followed a policy of appeasement towards the Nazis till it was too late, so the US and its allies have been following a similar appeasement policy towards Israel as it becomes ever more ruthless in its violence against the Palestinians.

From the continuous killings of Palestinians by the Israeli military to Sharon’s acts of terrorism unleashed on the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps to the present state terrorism in Gaza, the killings have become more audacious and we now know that Israel is using chemical weapons (white phosphorous bombs) as well as other inhumane weapons as described by two Norwegian doctors against which there are international conventions. Yet the US, including its president-elect Obama, continues to allow this holocaust of the Palestinians.

And Muslim governments continue to maintain a deadly silence – beyond a few whimperings and mutterings – even as their people rise in protest. Is it any wonder the Muslim street is becoming increasingly radicalised? They said the League of Nations was too discredited to provide an international response to Hitler, but the UNSC is now armed with powerful anti-terror resolutions and mechanisms for their implementation. So why is the international community mute on Israel? Or are these resolutions only for Muslims while the rest of the world is free to commit all manner of acts of terror unhindered?

* The writer is a defence analyst.

A Pulverised Muslim Leadership

noreply@blogger.com (Muslim India) — Sun, 1 Feb 2009 10:06:00 -0800

By Dr. Shireen M Mazari* Muslim India

Once again the tragic pulverization of the Muslim leadership has revealed itself in the mumblings and fumblings that have followed the launch of the new Israeli military campaign to annihilate the Palestinian people that dare to seek an end to Israel’s illegal occupation of their lands – or even those that simply dare to exist with a modicum of self-respecting defiance of Israeli fascism. Over 400 people killed so far by Israel’s military machine, so carefully aided and abetted by the US and its European allies. So where are the voices of the Muslim world? Where is some action to show that they will not allow Israel to commit genocide of the Palestinians? A few muted declaratory protests are all that have come so far. Is the Muslim World really so helpless in the face of Israeli abuse backed by the US?

No. The helplessness of the Muslim world is a myth. The reality is that the Muslim leadership – primarily Arab in the context of Palestine – has chosen to be pulverized into submission to the US and its more belligerent western allies. After all, despite numerous incidents of aggression and abuse at the hands of the US and Israel, the Arab leadership – barring some exceptions like Syria – continues to rely financially and militarily on the US and Europe. Their weapon systems are from these parts and their financial assets continue to lie primarily in the banking systems of the west. Both these facts could, of course, be used as a source of pressure also but that would require a strong and defiant Arab leadership and that does not seem to be on the horizon. Yet just imagine what a withdrawal of financial assets from the west would do! And just imagine how many arms industries would feel the pinch, and maybe even go under, if the Arab states did not buy their weapon systems! And one has not even begun to see the already-demonstrated-in-the-seventies power of oil.

But none of these elements of defiance will come into play so the Israelis will have a free hand in killing Palestinians by the hundreds – unless some western states with a genuine conscience and commitment to human rights, like some of the Nordic states or Canada, move forcefully but their power is limited partly by politics and partly by their still existing guilt over the Jewish Holocaust at the hands of the European monster of Nazism. It is indeed a supreme irony that the belated rejection of this European crime is allowing states to accept attempted genocides today – be it of the Bosnian Muslims, the Palestinians or the Muslims of Gujarat.

Perhaps an even greater tragedy is that the Muslim leadership has lost its will to stand up against all this abuse. If the Arabs would have taken their resources out of the west and invest it effectively in the Muslim World, especially the poorer but more technically competent Muslim states, the global picture would have been different today. If the Arab world would have stopped hosting US armed forces, so many murderous global designs of this unilateralist imperial power would have been undermined. For those Arab states that have security fears from their neighbourhood, surely dialogue and security pacts with strong Muslim states could have been a more viable alternative. As for purchasing of western weapon systems, if they are truly needed and alternatives are not considered viable, the dependency works both ways and could be exploited by the purchaser also.

But all this is mere day dreaming or wishful thinking. Or is it? After all the uplifting example of Hezbollah’s success against Israel; the Iranian nation’s steadfastness against US bullying; and even Syria’s dignified and assertive reaction to one US bombing attack on its territory that should put a militarily much stronger Pakistan to shame. At another plane, there is the Mahatir economic miracle and political assertiveness. Again, at a time when Pakistan’s leadership continues to bow ever lower to the US, a look in the easterly direction of Malaysia would not be amiss. Of course, if we could only have learnt some lessons from our long standing Chinese friends, we would have perhaps traversed less tumultuous paths.

But today we have reduced the country into a place where the rich and influential break all rules; where their children defy any institutional standards or procedures for jobs; and where repression and power grabbing are the norms, with rulers wanting absolute power – be they in uniform or in civvies. Is it any wonder then that there is no spirit left to defend against external or internal threats to our existence? The powerful grab all and move back to their nests abroad while the rest turn in despair to prayer and the life hereafter in their pillaged state.

Coming back to the self-created helplessness of the Muslim world in the face of the incessant abuse and violence unleashed by Israel and the US, one may well ask where the UN is today. Clearly it’s Security Council has been reduced to an organization that is here to defend only the US and its allies and their agendas. That is why Secretary General Ban Ki Moon has been reduced to whimpering a protest against the latest Israeli attempt at genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza. First they starved them of all amenities including basic health, food and water and now they are moving in with military attacks while the US prevents any international condemnation through the UNSC.

But the UNSC has become a highly contentious political body for some time now – especially in the face of the demise of bipolarity. After all, look at its absurdities on the terrorism issue. While the UNSC’s Committee on Taliban and Al Qaeda is Muslim-specific, the Counter Terrorism Committee is not. Yet one has seen no efforts to put the Hindu RSS and VHP violent extremist groups on the terrorist list. Nor has any thought even been given to state terrorism that the US is perpetrating in Iraq and Pakistan; that Israel is carrying out in Palestine; and that India is continuing in Occupied Kashmir. It is no wonder then that the UN feels under siege and has to barricade itself behind concrete in countries like Pakistan despite the fact that our soldiers die for the UN in the largest numbers and we continue to pay our UN contribution which helps pay the fattened salaries of the UN personnel that seem to regard Pakistan as a hostile land! Even the windows have been bricked up. What a farce! The UN may as well leave Islamabad since at the moment it is merely adding to our already many miseries. If it distrusts the people of Pakistan so much it should also look elsewhere for Blue Berets in the future.

But which Pakistani leader will have the national dignity to stand up for Pakistan? Where is the voice of protest on these counts by affected states like Pakistan? Our official voice is too busy seeking subjugation before the US grand design. That is why when US Secretary of State Rice calls India she calls her equivalent external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee (who seems to have discovered the true spirit of Islam suddenly); but when she calls Pakistan she calls the president directly!

Yes, like so many of the resource-rich and financially powerful Muslim states, the militarily powerful and potentially resource-laden Pakistan has also been pulverized psychologically into a state with a muted and whimpering voice. Despite the military capability, our leaders are not prepared to defend their people against the daily US drone attacks, that are shrinking the space for moderation in the country (the frivolities of our leaders was so clearly laid out by Farrukh Saleem in his last column, but even that was simply one part of a much wider absurdity gripping our leaders). How are we expected to effectively raise our voice for the Palestinians then? And is it any wonder that Muslim people are being massacred with impunity today?

* The writer is a defence analyst based in Pakistan.

Why Do Vice-Chancellors Fail At Aligarh Muslim University?

noreply@blogger.com (Muslim India) — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 12:39:00 -0800

By KALEEM KAWAJA Muslim India

Kaleem Kawaja, lives in Washington DC where he is an engineering manager at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Goddard Space Flight Center. He led the formation of the Association of Indian Muslims of America (AIM), a Non Government Organization that continues to be focused on uplifting India’s Muslim community. For the last twelve years Mr Kawaja has been in the Board of the Muslim Community Center, the largest Islamic Center in metropolitan Washington DC, where he was president for a few years and where he is a trustee now.

If we look at the tenures of Vice Chancellors (VCs) at Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) in the last couple of decades we find that most of them, even though they were distinguished and competent managers, ran into substantial problems of indiscipline, students’ strikes, violence, arson, forced shutdown of university, indifferent academic achievement, lack of pursuit of excellence and discontent in the community that AMU serves. That brings up the question as to why VCs fail at AMU.

CRITERIA FOR SUCCESS

The basic expectation from a VC at AMU is that he solve the problems of the students and teachers, improve the quality of education, quality of research, quality of relationship between teachers and students, campus discipline, and ensure that most of the grants and funds allocated to AMU by the Government and Foundations are actually expended within the stipulated time period and for the intended purpose. Today AMU has a vast and sprawling campus, a variety of professional colleges, teaching faculties and departments, with about 26,000 students living in hostels at the campus. Overcrowding in hostels and classrooms and competition among students and teachers for the scarce resources is a gnawing reality. A variety of factors prevent AMU from achieving pursuit of academic excellence and be ranked among the nation’s top universities. Thus while expansion of AMU academic programs is a laudable goal, upgrading the existing infrastructure and learning systems in order to improve the functioning of AMU is a primary need of the community that AMU serves.

THE STRING OF FAILURES

All of the last four Vice chancellors, Mr Naseem Ahmad IAS, Mr Hamid Ansari IFS, Mr Mahmoodur Rahman IAS, Prof MN Farooqi, faced much campus violence, personal threats to their physical well-being, repeated student strikes, cancellation/postponement of examinations, major disturbances in the residential hostels, non-cooperation from the teachers and arson/murders at the campus. Why did the handpicked, distinguished Prof MN Farooqi, former Chairman of the Electronics Department at the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, despite his innovations, face unending disturbances, serious problems in the enrollment to the university’s professional colleges, strikes, turmoil at the campus that forced him to finally resign well before the end of his term?

Why did the politically savvy and tough guy IAS officer Mahmoodur Rahman face so much campus violence, threats from the students and the campus shopkeeper community, and become an unacceptable official at AMU, despite his hard work and penchant for discipline and scores of new initiatives?

The sophisticated and suave diplomat, IFS officer Hamid Ansari had to leave after serving only 2 years upon reaching the mandatory retirement age of 65. That saved him from further troubles at the campus. In the short period of his 2 year tenure he faced violence and police raids against the then well entrenched SIMI elements at the University campus which threatened the shutdown of the university.

Why did the politically efficient and very personable IAS officer Naseem Ahmad, who even experimented with writing Urdu poetry to help bond with the AMU ethos, face not only murder of students at the campus but also threats on his life, and finally had to leave in a hurry?

The above four VCs were capable and experienced managers who brought a diversity of strengths and qualities to manage AMU. Some of them were very experienced government administrators and others were very experienced academic managers. Yet, all of them were unable to meet the basic expectation from them of trouble free operation of the university, orderly semesters, admissions, classes, examinations and some growth and improvement. Why the failures?

Some of the factors that bedeviled all of these otherwise capable VCs are:

a. The expectation of the North Indian Muslim community and the Central and UP governments is that the Aligarh Muslim University VC be an ex-officio leader of the Indian Muslim community, a sort of central minister for the Muslim community’s higher education. That in addition to managing AMU he should manage the expectations and issues in the area of higher education of the 150 million strong Muslim community. The VC is given a signal that his next assignment after AMU may be a Central Cabinet Minister or Ambassador to a Muslim country or Governor of a state. Everyone is reminded of Dr Zakir Hussain Khan who after AMU ascended to the offices of governor of Bihar, Vice-President and President of India. 

b. Thus after about a year as VC at AMU, the gentlemen start spending considerable time, effort and strategy with the top politicians and political parties in New Delhi and in international political circles. The Indian government itself propels the AMU VC in that slot. Thus the administration of the sprawling AMU campus, discipline at the campus and in the departments, the struggles of the students and teachers etc get much smaller time and attention from the VC. Most AMU VCs feel that they are not like the VCs of other big universities, because they are expected to carry the heavy burden of leadership of the Muslim community, which they think is their unofficial assignment. That results in the compounding of AMU’s core problems and periodic blowups.

c. Being short of time due to his pre-occupation with external functions the VC typically does not go beyond the department chairmen in the management of the various teaching departments. That transforms the department chairmen into sort of czars of the affairs of teachers, students, research scholars and research programs in their departments. Many a lecturers, readers, research scholars and research programs sometimes suffer from the whims of the chairmen and the VC remains blissfully disconnected from it. The department chairmen and senior professors start to control the hiring of new teachers to candidates from their ethnic sub-communities or extended clans leading to significant in-breeding. The net result is frequent frustration among the students and junior teachers and stagnation of the quality of academic output and pursuit of excellence.

d. The students, many of whom have high expectations of a bright new beginning in their lives, most of whom have just left their homes for the first time and who are trying to survive in the badly overcrowded AMU hostels, find that there is no official at AMU whom they can approach to get their many problems looked at. I recall that a few years ago a niece of mine, upon joining one of the AMU hostels, found herself living with five other girls in a crowded room in the girls’ hostel. She had just one bed and no desk, to spend her days and nights including studying daily and for tests and examinations. Often the food in the dining halls is not satisfactory, the instructions in the classrooms are indifferent and the teachers do not pay attention to students. As I said earlier many students suffer at the hands of the feudal attitude of senior professors but have no real recourse.

The VC, busy with his pursuit of high level educational problems of the Muslim community and making visits to New Delhi, has little time for the mundane daily issues of the students, and gets disconnected from the masses of students. Thus when some leaders of the students’ union sometimes politicize the core grievances of the students, the VC looses patience and reacts. This cycle which has so often caused indiscipline, turmoil and violence at AMU repeats itself every few years. Unfortunately successive VCs have continued to downplay this issue and it has come back to blow up in their face.

e. Many a retired Muslim government officials and extended family members of AMU teachers, who have settled down in Aligarh, some of whom have business interests with the university, have vested interests in AMU and they expect the VC to pay attention to their needs. Also they want to have a role in the management of the affairs of AMU. In recent past some of them have taken undue advantage of the AMU land and properties. Efforts of some VCs to stop this abuse has resulted in some of these folks’ instigating turmoil and violence at the campus. Many a VCs have overlooked this problem which got compounded with some nefarious elements taking residence in the university’s hostels, operating unauthorized businesses and muscling the students and teachers. The lesson is that the VC should give enough attention to these issues, unpalatable as they may be.

f. The many alumni of AMU and their vast global network often want to have a role in the management of the affairs of AMU, yet they provide limited resource support for the development of AMU. The Alumni with either excessive praise or excessive criticism, but either way a significant demand on the time and attention of the VC, make the VC’s life complicated. The VC has to manage the role of the AMU alumni with a proper perspective.

g. To cope with all these expectations from the AMU community, the government and the nation’s Muslim community, the VC starts to juggle a large number of balls in the air and fights with lots of fires simultaneously. At the same time the possibility of the next assignment as a senior political leader representing the Muslim community distracts the VC’s attention away from the university’s routine issues.

Unlike the VC of any other university in India, who is not burdened with such diverse expectations, instead of being a good academic administrator of AMU who spends time improving across-the-board quality of education, the VC becomes a semi-political leader who practices the politics of expediency and gives too many promises that he has no chance to keep. Most of the time the core issues of students and teachers get short shrift and low priority from the VC , and finally they come back to harm AMU and bite the VC himself. The end result is that as the VC steps into the last year of his term he notices that most of the visions and goals that he had set for AMU in his first year have either not survived the many controversies and political in fights that erupted, or he compromised them so much that he can not recognize them any more. One reason is that the VC detaches himself from the two communities that matter most for the welfare of AMU– the students and the teachers.

WHAT CAN BE DONE?

For instance with the current HRD minister’s encouragement AMU VC Prof Abdul Azis has launched an ambitious program to build five AMU extension centers remote from Aligarh. By itself it is a visionary program to improve college level education in the Muslim community. But managing this program is going to be a full time job in itself. It will take a lot of the VCs time, resources and attention, that will necessarily come out of the time that he needs to spend on the issues and programs of AMU itself. That may very well result in intensified problems at AMU. If the HRD ministry wants this program implemented it should first look at the constitution and charter of AMU that does not allow AMU to be a multi campus educational entity.

If the Government really wants to make AMU a multi campus university it should first implement proper legislation to revise the charter of AMU to give it the legal authority to be a multi-campus university, and change the office of VC into an “AMU System Director General”. The legislation should ensure that AMU’s minority status is not compromised by non-minority colleges in Aligarh district or elsewhere demanding affiliation with AMU. Failing to do that first will land AMU in lawsuits and much waste of AMU’s resources. Furthermore, the task of expanding AMU into a multi-campus higher education entity should be assigned to someone other than VC. May be to some top Muslim educationist or some former VC, or IAS official, so that the AMU VC is not sidetracked from his main responsibility of running AMU and is over-burdened. All of us should realize that with its massive student body and many colleges, AMU needs a dedicated full time VC to manage and improve AMU into a superior academic institution; not a part time VC who is also a part time leader of the Muslim community.

The VC’s job being a heavy burden he should delegate many of his responsibilities by appointing a set of Pro-Vice Chancellors (PVCs) and Officers on Special Duty (OSD). The system will work much better if people for these positions are recruited from the IAS or IPS cadres on term appointments and given sufficient responsibility to carry out their functions. In the past recruiting these positions from among the AMU teachers has led to instances of influence peddling and politicking within the community of AMU teachers.

It can not be over-emphasized that the VC has to not only pay enough attention to the teachers and students, he also has to ensure that the relationship between these two sub communities is good. In view of the failures of several successive AMU VCs in the last two decades it is time that the Indian Muslim community, the Government and the AMU community introspect on the situation and makes suitable adjustments in the role of the AMU VC.

Source: KHABREIN.INFO

Democracy & Former Islamic Colonies in Asia

noreply@blogger.com (Muslim India) — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 05:44:00 -0800

Prof. Michael Brenner Muslim India

Dr. Michael Brenner is a Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations. He publishes and teaches in the fields of American foreign policy, Euro-American relations, and the European Union. He is also Professor of International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh. Brenner is the author of numerous books, and over 60 articles and published papers on a broad range of topics.

The common experience of British dependencies in Asia was direct, custodial rule over a prolonged period. I believe that this is the principal reason why constitutional democracy has fared better there than in the Arab Middle East.

That experience was shared by the two largely Islamic states that had formed part of colonial India: Pakistan and Bangladesh. Deviations from the democratic standard have occurred in both – repeatedly so. But there never has been an outright rejection of the system bequeathed by the British or the propagation of anti-democratic political ideologies. Where autocratic powers have been taken by military governments or civilian strongmen, authoritarianism has been justified in terms of exigent circumstances and accompanied by an affirmation to restore democratic rule. However delayed, that indeed has occurred – albeit often under popular pressure.

In Pakistan, the military takeover led by General Pervez Musharraf in 1999 was the latest in a series of military governments that in the past had seen a reversion to free elections and the restoration of civilian rule. The arrogation of exceptional powers, and the emasculation of the legislature, is accompanied by a continuation of local elections, in keeping with what has become established practice. The suppression of political dissent is far from total. The press and other media remain unmuzzled and feisty, although at times intermittently censored. Witness the success of anti-Musharraf Islamist parties in the Northwest Frontier Province and Baluchistan on the Afghan border in the regional elections of fall 2002 at the very time when Musharraf was expanding his extra-constitutional authority at the federal level. This pattern is qualitatively different from the autocratic regimes in the Middle East where political power has been concentrated in dictatorial hands, democratic governance has never occurred, the abuse of human rights is widespread (in some places, systematic), and the commitment to democracy is purely rhetorical or non-existent.

Pakistan introduced Shari’a, traditional Islamic law, in the early 1990s. The move was punctuated by the declaration of the country as an Islamic republic. That did not stand in the way of the return to civilian rule. Free elections, an accountable government, respect of political pluralism, an open press, and tolerance for religious minorities existed within an avowedly Islamic state. Pakistani politics during this period were dominated by two political parties, bitter rivals for power, neither of which had distinct Muslim identity. Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistani People’s Party (PPP) alternated in office with Pakistan Muslim League (PML) party led by Nawaz Sharif. Avowedly Islamist parties garnered less than 10% of the vote in the last open, nation-wide elections. The Islamists relative success in 2002 owed much to the Musharraf government’s volte-face in transforming itself from a patron of the Taliban in Afghanistan to a close ally of the United States in an unpopular war on so-called terrorists in the Tribal Areas and Northwest Frontier province. Islamist opinion was further inflamed by his public promises to rein in the Pakistan backed insurrection against Indian rule in Kashmir. Their fortunes reversed in the national elections of February 2008. The coalition of Islamist parties lost control of the regional government of the Northwest Frontier and were also-rans at the national level. Traditions of a less militant brand of Islam and a politics of accommodation reasserted themselves. The Islamists were thrashed at the polls. Radical Islamist groups today do remain a force in Pakistani politics, but more through their acts of violence than by their appeal to the populace.

The resilience of democratic norms recently has been demonstrated in Pakistan where Pervez Musharraf’s move toward autocracy, punctuated by the imposition of martial law, was thwarted by a stubborn judiciary, manifestations of popular opposition and Musharraf’s own inhibitions about taking actions that could spark a civil war. The brake on Musharraf’s ambition was Chief Justice of the Pakistani Supreme Court Iftikar Mohammed Choudry. His implacable resistance to the General’s attempts to rule by decree led his ouster. That arbitrary action itself made Chaudry the pivot of an aroused opposition led by fellow jurists and the National Lawyer’s Guild. Musharraf’s loss of credibility obliged him to move ahead with the scheduled legislative elections that proved his downfall. That bow to democratic norms proved his downfall. His coalition was thumped by the PPP, benefiting from the assassination of Bhutto, and the PML led by Nawaz Sharif who had been exiled for eight years by Musharraf.

Three features of the recent Pakistani drama underscore the crucial importance of an ingrained, inherited liberal political culture: an intractable autonomous judiciary; a vivid ‘civil society’ composed of professional associations, independent press and party organizations; and a military officer corps restrained by its own convictions from pushing for a true revolution. Further confirmation was provided by the new governing coalition’s decision not to oust Musharraf from the Presidency to which he had been elected, albeit in a tainted contest.

Bangladesh provides yet another example of a former British dependency, overwhelmingly Muslim, that has managed to maintain its democratic constitution and Bangladesh has experienced periods of authoritarian government as both military and civilian leaders have at times declared states of emergency which involved the suspension of elections and the imposition of martial law. The country went through periods of military rule in the 1970s and 1980s, triggered on two occasions by the assassination of elected prime ministers by maverick officers. Since 1990, threats to constitutional rule have receded. Democratic norms of electoral competition were reinforced. The country has observed three multi-party parliamentary elections (1991, 1996, and 2001). Domestic and international observers widely recognized them a mostly free and fair.

Two external factors played a role in ending military rule. For one thing, the United States lost its liking for strongmen devoted to keeping under control an unruly politics. For another, international donors pressed for a restoration of free elections as a condition for badly needed economic assistance. The military retreated to their barracks in a period of fierce partisanship marked by corruption and violence. The main protagonists have been the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) led by Begum Khaleda Zia, the widow of the murdered General Ziaur Rahman, and the Awami League headed by the Sheikh Hasina, herself a daughter of Sheikh Mujib who led Bangladesh to independence. Each of these two women was placed under house arrest on grounds of endemic corruption in January 2007. Each had her political rights restored and returned to partisan combat when the caretaker government cleared the way for fresh elections in February 2008.

The threat of a military coup will continue to hang over whatever civilian government emerges. The Bangladesh military has issued statements touting its “own brand of Democracy” and calling for changes in the constitution to allow military participation in politics. They play on the discontent with the woeful record of the civilian politicians to promote the idea of a unitary, ‘clean’ working only for the national welfare. This, of course, is the theme of men in uniform everywhere who are seeking political power. In Bangladesh, as in Pakistan, there is no talking of abandoning wholesale the country’s political inheritance. For the most part, the country has become an imperfect working democracy.
Bangladesh has felt the reverberations from the fundamentalism movement sweeping the Islamic world. Bengali mujahideen, veterans of Afghanistan, introduced an element of political militancy and religious fundamentalism. That effect has been reinforced by expatriates returning from jobs in the Gulf where they absorbed, to varying degrees, the strictures of Wahabi-ism. In an attempt to wellsprings of discontent and aspiration that feed it, the government introduced elements of Shari’ a law to govern domestic affairs such as marriage and inheritance. When Prime Minister in 2001, Begum Zia avidly deployed the symbols of an Islamic republic, as in Pakistan. She went as far as to place in the constitution a clause to the effect that the country’s rule would conform to “the sovereignty of Allah.” For the most part, though, Bangladesh has kept in place civil codes based on English common law. They protect civil liberties and rights of political expression. Despite manifest signs of militant jihadist sects working underground to bring down the government, there have been no draconian restrictions on rights of assembly, speech and privacy. The Bangladeshi political establishment was badly shaken by a wave of orchestrated suicide attacks in August 2005, but it refrained from imposing severe restrictions. Indeed, constitutional reforms by the Caretaker government of 2007 were designed to strengthen the independence of the civil judiciary, which has been weaker than its Pakistani counterpart, as part of a general overhaul of a criminal justice system seen to have been politicized and corrupted. The main imperative was to crackdown on corruption in all its forms. The Caretaker government sought to ”cleanse” politics by taking a criminal justice approach to dealing with the mainstream political parties’ chronic habits of self-enrichment. Domestic NGOs, international donors, and national media all gave support to the military-backed interim government.

BNP has formed alliances of convenience with two relatively new Islamist parties, Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh and Islami Oikya Jot. That has gone some way toward giving Islamists a stake in the party system. For its part, the Awami League at first shunned the Islamist movement in preference for an alignment with small leftish and secularist parties. That changed in 2007, when the party invited avowed Islamists to run under its banner. Simultaneously, they formed a tacit electoral alliance with the small Islamist party, the Bangladesh Khelefat. Still, it is noteworthy that there has been no upsurge in support for the latter, despite the countries chronic economic woes, tarnished political establishment, and the movement’s extra-parliamentary actions. Moreover, the Caretaker government took a tough stance on radical Islamist elements. Several high profile terrorists were arrested, prosecuted, and even a few death sentences were handed down.

As the December 2008 deadline for the national election approached, the interim administration released most of the high-ranking political leaders imprisoned on corruption charges, tied to an understanding that members of the Caretaker government would not be targeted by a newly elected government. The electoral outcome was a blow to the Islamist political movement and a tribute to Bangladeshi democracy.

Sheikh Hasina Awami League party won an overwhelming victory, gaining 230 of 300 seats in parliament (if only 48% of the raw vote) in a largely peaceful poll. Moreover, it did so in a campaign that contrasted its secular character with the Islamist Jamaat-e-Islama party which was aligned with the rival Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) of Begum Kheleda Zia. The Jamaat-e-Islama’s tally of seats dropped from 17 to 2. Its uncompromisingly fundamentalist line on issues of social policy and orthodoxy cost it, and the coalition, a significant slice of support among the electorate. The interim government largely delivered on its promise of laying down the conditions for a fair, neutral election that stood in sharp contrast to the country’s past experiences. The three most senior ministerial positions in the new government are held by women. Despite recent extra-constitutional developments, Bangladesh’s liberal democratic institutions have not been deformed. The country appears back on the track toward a multi-party parliamentary democracy.

Malaysia offers a striking example of the resistance to autocratic tendencies and radical Islam alike. Malaysia has experienced uninterrupted rule by the dominant United Malay National Organization (UMNO) party which has been the political embodiment of Malay nationalism. The party followed a pragmatic course in forming ties with the small CHH party that represents the country’s substantial, and economically powerful, Chinese community. Under the strong-willed leadership of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed, state powers were used to consolidate its domination – primarily by the soft means of deploying government resources to secure the allegiance of supporters and to punish opponents. However, there are no curbs on opposition political parties, the press is not bridled (although tending to be deferential to the government), and constitutional provisions observed. In the one notorious deviation from this norm, Mahathir in 2002 jailed UMNO Vice-president and possible rival for power, Anwar Ibraham, who was convicted on trumped up charges. Ibrahim, a popular leader of the Islamist opposition, had been co-opted by an invitation to join the government. That conformed to Mahatir’s strategy of neutralizing potential opposition rather than suppressing it. His readiness to attack Ibraham also was an indication of the government’s confidence in its ability to handle nascent Islamist forces.

Malaysian democracy is strengthened by the emergence of a civil society, including groups promoting women’s rights. They are noteworthy in a country where Islamist influence has been steadily growing, inspired by the Iranian example and the wave of Sunni fundamentalism originating in the Middle East. In reaction, Mahathir gave a pronounced Islamist cast to the Malaysian government. That policy has entailed the calculated use of Islamic symbols and rhetoric in identifying Malaysian nationalism with its Islamic roots. More concretely, beginning in the 1980s Sharia law was introduced in a number of the country’s constituent states. (Mahathir formally established it at the federal level as the basis for adjudicating domestic matters, displacing the civil codes inherited from the British.
Muslims are obliged to follow the decisions of Shari’a courts when it comes to matters of Faith and Obligations as a Muslim, i.e. marriage, inheritance and custody others. Other criminal or civil offences come under the authority of secular courts, as in Pakistan and Bangladesh. As a rule, the Civil Courts cannot overrule any decision made by the Sharia Courts in their stipulated areas of jurisdiction. This introduction of Shari’a courts has two noteworthy qualifications. The scope of the Shari’a courts’ authority is circumscribed; they have no authority over political matters or criminal acts beyond the domain of traditional social mores. Moreover, only Muslims are subject to Sharia law. Malaysia is a multi-ethnic, multi-religious society. Chinese and non-Muslim Indians represent between 35 and 40 percent of the population. Concern for maintaining the domestic peace, which has been disturbed on several occasions since independence by bloody inter-ethnic violence, has induced the government to accord non-Muslims the right to have their domestic affairs overseen by secular courts. Eagerness to keep Malaysia a hospitable place for the heavy foreign investment that has fueled the country’s economic boom points in the same direction. Characteristically, as John Esposito has pointed out, Islamic values are “equated with hard work, discipline and progress.” The Malaya version of the Islamic revival seems more associated with creating a counterpart to the Confucian ethic than the fundamentalist creed that has taken root to the West.

Malaysian democracy’s resilience was shown when Mahatir stepped down in 2003. He passed the baton to Abdullah Ahmad Bawari who succeeded as Prime minister. Bawari continued to cultivate the multi-racial National Front (Barisa Nasional – BS) political coalition as his electoral instrument. He maintained the ONUM’s alliance with the Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC), which represents Hindus, and a small Chinese counterpart. The coalition won a landslide electoral victory in 2004 that increased its parliamentary majority to over 80% of the seats. His administration was marked by perpetuation of the political status quo, sustained economic growth and signs of growing political discontent both among minorities over the government’s aggressive pro-Malay affirmative action programs and Malays of Islamist orientation in the poorer provinces of the country’s north.

A stern test – for the government and for Malay democracy – came with the national elections of March 2008. In a shock result, the BN lost five of thirteen governorates (including the industrial center Penang) and its two-thirds majority in Parliament. The opposition coalition was composed of the Chinese based Democratic Action Party (PAS), the People’s Justice Party of Anwar Ibrahim (Parti Keadilan Rakyat – PKR), and the Parti Islam se-Malaysia (PIM). It also has the support of disaffected Hindus. The coalition’s de facto head was Ibrahim, despite his still being denied his full political rights under the Internal Security Act. Prime Minister Badari reconstituted a diminished government. It was further weakened when a federal court indicted, and then convicted Anwer Ibrahim on charges of sodomy in July which were widely seen as a politically motivated fabrication. Despite his being under a legal cloud, Anwer won a seat in parliament by a wide margin in a by-election held in August. He immediately vowed to directly challenge the ruling government by forging a majority composed of his supporters and dissent elements of the BS. Were he to succeed, Malaysia will experience its first change of power since independence.

Three features of this seismic political event stand out. The results were accepted by the ruling party without protest after a fair and open election. Opposition politicians followed the pragmatic course of putting aside potentially divisive ethnic interests for the sake of electoral success. In doing so, the coalition mirrored the multi-ethnic politics of the long dominant OMUN. Finally, heightened Islamic sentiment among segments of the Malay community was channeled mainly through a party, the PIM, that was ready to play the game of democratic electoral politics.

Placed in perspective, the post-colonial history of the largely Muslim countries that emerged from the British empire in Asia supports the judgments that: (1) colonial experience is an important factor that offers a partial explanation for the divergence between the autocratic path followed by some former Muslim dependencies and the relative resilience of democratic institutions in others despite severe stresses internal and external; 2) democratic political forms can co-exist with a relatively strong Islamic self-identity, e.g. Malaysia; and 3) public authorities can enforce a policy of respect for adherents to other faiths even while acknowledging, and lending a measure of official recognition to the preponderantly Islamic nature of the society it governs. Witness Hindus in Bangladesh; Chinese, Hindus and Sikhs in Malaysia. Indeed, Bangladesh’s national anthem is based on a song composed by a Hindu – Rabindranath Tagore, the Nobel Prize winning poet and author who is viewed by all Bengalis as the fountainhead of their remarkable twentieth century renaissance.

Maulana Waris Mazhari: Countering Pakistani Terrorists' Anti-India Propaganda (On the Ghazwat ul-Hind)

noreply@blogger.com (Muslim India) — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 05:00:00 -0800

By Maulana Waris Mazhari Muslim India

(Translated from Urdu by Yoginder Sikand)

For almost two decades now, self-styled jihadist outfits based in Pakistan have been engaged in a war against India in Kashmir. This war of theirs has no sanction in Islam, which does not allow for proxy war, and that too one declared by non-state actors. It is an explicit violation of all Islamic principles. These outfits, which have considerable support inside Pakistan, see the conflict between India and Pakistan over Kashmir as a religious struggle, and they wrongly describe it as a jihad. They regard their role in Kashmir as but the first step in a grand, though completely fanciful, plan to annex India into Pakistan and convert it into what they style as dar- ul-islam, the Abode of Islam. But what they finally dream of establishing, or so they boast, is Muslim hegemony throughout the entire world.

I have used the term 'hegemony' here deliberately, for radical Muslim groups in Pakistan and in the Arab world have been indelibly influenced and shaped by the hegemonic designs of European colonialism in the past and Western imperialism today, and, in some senses, are a reaction to this hegemonic project. They seek to counter Western political supremacy and replace it by what they conceive of as Islamic political supremacy. In my view, this approach is in sharp contradistinction to Islamic teachings. The term ghalba-e islam, the establishment of the supremacy of Islam, used in the context of the Quran and the sayings of the Prophet (Hadith), refers not to any political project of Muslim domination, but, rather, to the establishment of the superiority of Islam's ideological and spiritual message. This, in fact, was the basic crux of the mission of the Prophet Muhammad. However, the term has been distorted at the hands of the self-styled jihadists, who present it as a project to establish Muslim or Islamic political domination over the entire world.

War against India

Today, as the case of the Pakistani self-styled jihadists so tragically illustrates, many of those who claim to be struggling in the cause of Islam themselves work against Islamic teachings by deliberately or otherwise misinterpreting them. This is the case with their misuse of the term jihad in the context of Kashmir in order to win mass support for themselves. Needless to add, this is a major cause for growing anti-Islamic sentiments among many non-Muslims.

The dispute between India and Pakistan over Kashmir has been lingering for more than half a century. A major hurdle in the resolution of this conflict is the self-styled jihadists based in Pakistan, who insist that the conflict over Kashmir is an Islamic jihad and that, therefore, war is the only solution. They claim that participation in this so-called jihad has become a farz-e ayn, a duty binding on all Muslims, and some of them, most prominently the dreaded Lashkar-e Tayyeba, even go so far as to claim that the war in Kashmir is nothing but the ghazwat ul-hind, the 'war against India' which is mentioned in a saying attributed to the Prophet Muhammad. By this they want to suggest that waging war against India is an Islamic duty, something prophesied by the Prophet Muhammad himself.

What is the actual meaning and implication of the statement attributed to the Prophet regarding the ghazwat ul-hind, which the Pakistan-based self-styled jihadists regularly refer to, and grossly misinterpret, in order to whip up anti-Indian sentiments and seek what they wrongly claim is Islamic sanction for their deadly terror attacks against India, in Kashmir and beyond? Before I discuss that, I must point out that the statement attributed to the Prophet regarding the ghazwat ul-hind is found in only one of the sihah sitta, the six collections of Hadith reports of the Sunni Muslims—in the collection by al-Nasai. This statement was narrated by Abu Hurairah, a companion of the Prophet. According to him, the Prophet prophesied a battle against India. If he (Abu Hurairah) got the chance to participate in this battle, Abu Hurairah said, he would do so, sacrificing his wealth and life. If he died in this battle, he said, he would be counted among the exalted martyrs. According to another narration, related by the Prophet's freed slave Thoban, the Prophet once declared that there were two groups among the Muslims whom God had saved from the fires of Hell. The first would be a group that invaded India. The other group would be those Muslims who accompanied Jesus (after he returned to the world). A similar narration is contained in the collections of Hadith by Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Baihaqi and Tabrani.

Explanation

Because this hadith about the ghazwat ul-hind mentions India, and is marshaled by self-styled Pakistan-based jihadists active in Kashmir, it marks the Kashmir conflict out as clearly distinct from other conflicts elsewhere in the world between Muslims and others. These self-styled jihadists regularly invoke this hadith, trapping people in their net by claiming that if they were to die fighting the Indians in Kashmir they would be saved from hell and would earn a place in heaven. This claim, false though it is, is regularly and constantly repeated, as is evident from a host of Pakistani websites and periodicals.

Let me quote a revealing instance in this regard. Recently, I came across the August 2003 issue of 'Muhaddith', an Urdu magazine published from Lahore, Pakistan. It contains a 20-page article on the ghazwat ul-hind, written by a certain Dr. Asmatullah, Assistant Professor at the Islamic Research Academy of the International Islamic University, Islamabad. The article represents a pathetic effort to project the ongoing conflict in Kashmir as precisely the same ghazwat ul-hind that the Prophet is said to have predicted. And it is on the basis of this reported hadith of the Prophet that ultra-radical Islamists in Pakistan talk about unleashing a so-called jihad, extending out of Kashmir and to consume the whole of India. This is no longer limited to just fiery rhetoric alone, but, in fact, is also now accompanied by deadly terror attacks in different parts of India, which Pakistan-based radicals wrongly style as a jihad or even as the ghawzat ul-hind reportedly prophesied by the Prophet. It is striking to note in this connection that in the above-mentioned article, the editors of 'Muhadith' disagree with the views of the author, expressing their differences in the form of a footnote. Yet, this counter-view, as expressed by the editors of the magazine, is hardly ever discussed or even referred to in Pakistani so-called jihadist literature, indicating, therefore, that the rhetoric of the self-styled jihadists is based less on proper scholarly analysis of the Islamic textual tradition than on strident, heated emotionalism and a deep-rooted hatred and feeling of revenge. This applies not just in the Pakistani case. Rather, is a phenomenon common to almost all so-called jihadist movements throughout the rest of the world.

The Pakistani self-styled jihadists, it would appear, have made the hadith about the ghazwat ul-hind into a plaything in their hands in order to entrap innocent people. It is quite possible that the Pakistani youth who were involved in the recent deadly terrorist attack on Mumbai were fed on this sort of poisonous propaganda and led into believing that they might go straight to heaven if they waged war against India. In India, the banned Students Islamic Movement of India appeared to have backed the same wholly erroneous and unwarranted interpretation of the hadith about the ghazwat ul-hind, following in the footsteps of Pakistani radical groups. Mercifully, as far as I know, no other Indian Muslim group or scholar worthy of mention has adopted the 'Pakistani interpretation' of this particular hadith report.

Tragically, the concept of jihad has been subjected to considerable abuse and made to serve extremist ends by self-styled jihadists. This started in the very first century of Islam itself, when intra-Muslim
wars were sought to be christened by competing groups as jihads. And because of the distorted understanding of jihad championed by many Muslims themselves, they labeled any and every controversy and conflict with non-Muslims, even if it had nothing at all to do with religion but everything to do with politics, as a jihad, as the case of Kashmir well exemplifies. Another facet of the distorted understanding of jihad by some Muslims are suicide-bombings, in which innocent civilians are killed. Yet another is proxy war by non-state actors, such as armed self-styled jihadist groups, which actually has no legitimacy in Islam at all.

Scrutiny

Coming back to the question of the hadith about the ghazwat ul-hind, some aspects of the report deserve particular scrutiny. Firstly, as mentioned earlier, this report is mentioned only in the collection of al-Nasai from among the six collections of Hadith which most Sunnis regard, to varying degrees, as canonical. However, considering the merits or rewards of the ghazwat ul-hind that it talks about, it ought, one might think, to have been narrated by many more companions of the Prophet. But that, as it curiously happens, is not the case.

Secondly, and this follows from above, it is possible that this hadith report is not genuine and that it might have been manufactured in the period of the Ummayad Caliphs to suit and justify their own political purposes and expansionist deigns. On the other hand, if this hadith report is indeed genuine—which it might well be—in my view, the battle against India that it predicted was fulfilled in the early Islamic period itself, and is not something that will happen in the future. This, in fact, is the opinion of the majority of the ulema, qualified Islamic scholars. And this view accords with reason as well. It is quite likely that the ghazwat ul-hind that this report predicted took the form of the attack by an Arab Muslim force on Thana and Bharuch,

In coastal western India, in the 15th year of the Islamic calendar in the reign of the Caliph Umar. Equally possibly, it could have been fulfilled in the form of the missionary efforts of some of the Prophet's companions soon after, in the reign of the Caliphs Uthman and Ali, in Sindh and Gujarat. Some other ulema consider this hadith to have been fulfilled in the form of the attack and occupation of Sindh by Arab Muslims led by Muhammad bin Qasim in the 93rd year of the Islamic calendar, which then facilitated the spread of Islam in the country. This might well be the case, for the hadith report about the ghazwat ul-hind contained in the Masnad of Ahmad ibn Hanbal, a well-known collection of Hadith narratives attributed to the Prophet, mentions that the Muslim army that would attack India would be sent in the direction of Sindh and Hind.

Thirdly, this hadith mentions only a single or particular battle (ghazwa), and not a series of continuing battles, unlike what the author of the article in the 'Muhaddith', referred to above, echoing the arguments of Pakistani self-styled jihadists, claims.

Fourthly, one must raise the very pertinent question of how it is at possible that, in the face of the numerous attacks on India by Arab and other Muslims over the last one thousand years, the more than six hundred rule of Muslim dynasties that controlled most of India and the rapid spread of Islam in the country in the period when they ruled, any scope could be left to consider India a target of jihad in the future. Furthermore, today India and Pakistan have diplomatic relations and are bound by treaty relations. Hence, the proxy war engaged in by Kashmir by powerful forces in Pakistan in the guise of a so-called jihad is nothing but deceit, which is a complete contravention of, indeed a revolt against, accepted Islamic teachings.

Fifthly, it must be remembered that it would have been very easy for Muslim conquerors of India in the past, men like Mahmud of Ghazni, Shihabuddin Ghori, Timur, Nadir Shah and so on, to present the hadith about the ghazwat ul-hind and wield it as a weapon to justify their attacks on the country. The corrupt ulema associated with their courts could well have suggested this to them had they wished.

However, no such mention is made about this in history books. In the eighteenth century, the well-known Islamic scholar Shah Waliullah of Delhi invited the Afghan warlord Ahmad Shah Abdali to invade India and dispel the Marathas, which he accepted, but yet Shah Waliullah, too, did not use this hadith as a pretext for this.

Indian ulema

It is also pertinent to examine how some well-known contemporary Indian ulema look at this hadith report. Maulana Abdul Hamid Numani, a leading figure of the Jamiat ul-Ulema-i Hind, opines that this hadith was fulfilled at the time of the 'Four Righteous Caliphs' of the Sunnis, soon after the demise of the Prophet Muhammad, when several companions of the Prophet came to India, mainly in order to spread Islam. Mufti Sajid Qasmi, who teaches at the Dar ul-Uloom in Deoband, is also of the same opinion, although he believes that it might also refer to the invasion of Sindh by the Arabs under Muhammad bin Qasim in the eighth century. On the other hand, Maulana Mufti Mushtaq Tijarvi of the Jamaat-i Islami Hind believes that it is possible that this hadith report is not genuine at all and that it might have been fabricated at the time of Muhammad bin Qasim's invasion of Sindh in order to justify it.

Whatever the case might be, the misuse by radical groups of this hadith report to spearhead war in Kashmir in the name of so-called jihad and to foment conflict between India and Pakistan is tragic, to say the least. It is nothing sort of a crime against God and the Prophet. In their worldviews and in their actions as well, the self-styled jihadist outfits seem to have gone the way of the Khawarij, a group that emerged in the early period of Islam and who were rejected by other Muslims. The Khawarij believed that they alone were Muslims and that all others, including those who called themselves Muslims, were infidels and fit to be killed. With reference to the Khawarij, the Prophet predicted that they would depart from Islam in the same way as an arrow flies out of a bow. About the Khawarij the Caliph Ali mentioned that they take the word of truth and turn it into falsehood (kalimatu haqqin urida beha al-batil). This he said in the context of the Khawarij misinterpreting the Quran and claiming that Ali and his followers were infidels who deserved to be killed.

It is imperative, and extremely urgent, for Muslim scholars, particularly the ulema, to take strict notice of, and stridently oppose the radical self-styled jihadists, who are distorting and misunderstandings Islamic teachings, following in the footsteps of the Khawarij of the past, and spreading death and destruction in the name of Islam. Jihad, properly understood, is a struggle to put an end to strife and conflict, not to create or foment it, as is being done today. The general public, particularly Muslims themselves, should be made aware of the dangerous deviation of the self-styled jihadists and the horrendous implications of their acts and views. In this regard, a major responsibility rests with the ulema of India and Pakistan. These days, ulema groups in India are very actively involved in organizing conferences and holding rallies seeking to defend themselves and Islam from the charges terrorism leveled against them. This is a very welcome thing. However, they must also stridently speak out against and clearly and unambiguously expose and denounce the self-styled soldiers of Islam who are promoting terrorism in the name of Islam. At the same time, it is also urgent to promote re-thinking of some medieval notions of jihad, such as that of offensive jihad, which does not actually have any Islamic legitimacy. This is essential for Muslims to live in today's times and to come to terms with democracy and pluralism. Simply verbally defending Muslims and Islam from the charges of terrorism is, clearly, not enough. Nor is it adequate to simply condemn terrorism in very general terms. The truth is, and this cannot be disputed, that today there is also a pressing need to unleash a 'jihad' against the self-styled jihadist outfits themselves. And in this jihad, undoubtedly, the ulema and Muslim intellectuals have a central role to play and a major responsibility to shoulder.
______________________________________________________________
Maulana Waris Mazhari, a graduate of the Dar ul-Uloom at Deoband, is the editor of the Delhi-based 'Tarjuman Dar ul-Uloom', the official organ of the Deoband Graduates' Association. He can be contacted on w.mazhari@gmail.com

Hindutva Terror in Karnataka: Malegaon in Hubli

noreply@blogger.com (Muslim India) — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 04:24:00 -0800

By Subhash Gatade Muslim India

(A Karnataka dacoit with links to a radical Hindu rightwing group has confessed to having carried out the Hubli district court bombing of May10, 2008. The blast took place as the first phase of polling for the Karnataka Assembly elections was on - in a magistrate's courtroom where cases against top SIMI leaders including Safdar Nagori were scheduled to be heard two days later.

- Dacoit with Hindu Outfit links behind Hubli blast, Indian Express, January 13, 2009)
Does anybody remember the bomb blasts in Hubli (Karnataka, May 2008) courts last year when preparations were on for the coming state assembly elections ? These blasts which took place on a holiday did not witness any casuality although they extensively damaged the court premises. But the most important part played by these blasts was the atmosphere it created in favour of the BJP.

As it always happens after any such mysterious sounding blasts, many innocents belonging to minority community were illegally detained and quite a few among them also were booked for their 'role' in the blasts. The police had promptly claimed that 'sleeper cells belonging to LeT and SIMI' had executed the blasts.

One still remembers the manner in which Sangh Parivar had tried to exploit the bomb blasts in its favour. The former Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, had even used the bomb blasts case to attack the Congress led UPA government at the centre for 'soft-pedalling the issue concerning terror' and accusing it of responsibility' for the increase in terrorist activities in the country'.

The Hubli bar association had followed many other bar associations in different parts of the country to immediately pass a 'unanimous' resolution that they would not defend any 'terrorists' supposed to be involved in the blasts. And when a conscientous lawyer named Ibrahim Jalagir tried to file bail application on behalf of the detained he came under organised attack. His office was vandalised and he alongwith his colleague were badly beaten up by these hoodlums.

Now when the BJP government is firmly in the saddle and the accused in the bomb blasts case have already spent months together behind jails, has come a news which is definitely not soothing to the ears of the the saffron commanders.The IGP of North Karnataka Ragavendera Auradhkar recently addressed a press conference telling the media that the mysterious bomb blasts which had struck the Hubli courts last year were the handiwork of a criminal gang led by one Nagraj Jambagi .

According to the IGP it was the same team which had planted a bomb on the Belgaum-Hubli highway last year.However, this bomb failed to explode as it was raining heavily. After high drama, the bomb squad had finally retrieved the bomb.In fact Nagraj had led the gang which was also involved in seven murder cases in North Karnataka and several cases of abduction also. Interestingly the police had stumbled upon this gang while investigating the murder of a Bagalkot businessman.
Reporting about the incident, Mailtoday writes (13 Jan 2009)

'Hindutva terror has struck Karnataka. The Karnataka police arrested nine persons with Sangh Parivar links for allegedly setting off a bomb in the court of the junior first class magistrate in Hubli May 2008. They were also accused of planting a live bomb on the Dharwad-Belgaum road. This points to the presence of Hindutva terror suspects in the state.'

The police had initially blamed SIMI for both the Hubli court blast and the planting ofthe live bomb.
Police have also seized live bombs, gun powder, lethal weapons, Rs 11.08 lakh in cash, gold, silver and two motorbikes from them. Apart from Nagaraj Jambagi (24), a resident of Heggur Plot in Bilagi taluk; the arrested persons include Ramesh Pawar (24), Basavaraj Diggi (22), Manjunath Binjawadagi (19), Deepak Govindakar (28), Lingaraj Jalgar (24) - all from Bagalkot; Basavaraj Rugi (20) of Honakuppi village in Gokak taluk; Hanamanth Sainasakali (22), and Channabasappa Hunasagi (35) of Indi taluk in Bijapur.

Ofcourse although the police do not seem to be forthcoming on divulging the political connections of the group and sharing the important information about its alleged Sri Ram Sena connections anyone familiar with the Hubli-Dharwad region would have many other details about the gang of criminals, their political affiliations and their other deeds.

Many residents of Bagalkot have been witness to the Trishul Deekshe ceremony in the area wherein many of the arrested had wholeheartedly participated. For the uninitiated it may be told that VHP international secretary Praveen Togadia had popularised this trident-wielding programme as part of mobilising Hindus. Nagaraj Hollbasappa Jambagi, the gang's leader has also been closely associated with Sri Ram Sene,(SRS) a 'saffron front'.

A social worker from Hubli told 'Mailtoday' (Jan 13, 2009) that the '[b]ombings were part of an effort to set up a militant Hindutva organisation.' "Jambagi is the right hand man of SRS chief Pramod Mutalik (known as Karnataka's Togadia), who is setting up a Rashtra Raksha Army. He does not believe in the police or the armed forces. His people are given weapon's training. There are several such groups here. They had a five-day training camp in Koodala Sangama recently."

It may be known that Pramod Mutalik happened to be the former Convener of the South India Unit of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and of the Bajrang Dal. He was dismissed 2005-06 following inflammatory speeches made by him on the Baba Budan Giri issue and is presently the founder and National President of the Rashtriya Hindu Sena and of the Shreerama Sene, active in Karnataka. Mutalik had recently affiliated with the Shiv Sena of Bal Thackeray.

Few months back when Karnataka witnessed anti-Christian violence.Shreerama Sene had publicly claimed credit for the attacks and desecrations of Christian churches, schools and convents and thereafter for the attacks on protesting Christian youth, women and children by invading Christian properties.This open violence had forced Christians taking to blocking the streets in protest against police complicity and inaction against the fanatics.

The fact that the Karnataka happens to be a BJP ruled state where the police allegedly face political pressure and were unwilling to go on record about the Sangh Parivar links of the accused, the establishment would not be too willing to expose the real connections of the criminal-terrorists. Taking into consideration this dilly-dallying on part of the government organisations who had been fighting for communal harmony have raised a strong demand 'to arrest the National President of SRS Pramod Mutalik'.(Hubli court blast: Demand to arrest Shri Ram Sena chief, S.O. News service, Tuesday, 13 January 2009)

Koppal: There was a strong demand in Koppal by All Progressive confederation (Pragati Sanghatana) demanding the state to arrest the National president of Shri Ram Sena Pramod Mutalik immediately whose organisation is responsible for the blasts carried out in Hubli court.

Speaking on the occasion, the State president of Karnataka Sauharda Vedike Basavraj Suli bhavi said that Pramod Mutalik is responsible for creating an atmosphere of disharmony and hatred in the state. He is a liability in a peaceful and his organization can cause a lot of harm in the society. His organization is involved in Hubli court blast and a failed attempt to blast the NH Bridge in Dharward. It is very much possible that the Shri Ram sena is positively involved in this. ..

He also expressed his anger that only the activists are arrested and not the chief of the Shri Ram Sena. It should be noted that Pramod Mutalik was an active activist of Bajarang dal earlier, later he left that organisation to form Shri Ram Sena. He also had declared that he will form a suicide bomber for which he already has enrolled many of them.

With pressure building up for his arrest, Pramod Mutalik has flatly denied any knowledge of Jambagi and his gang. Much on the lines of his Sangh veterans who were put on the defensive when their links with Sadhvi Pragya and others in the Malegaon bomb blast case became apparent, he declared that they do not hold SRS membership, although he promised legal aid to the accused. . It is a different matter that none from the Sangh Parivar network maintains any membership register which suits them in dissociating the 'parent organisation' from any wrongdoing of its associates. Inadvertently or so Pramod Mutalik was imitating his other Sangh Parivar veterans especially BJP leadership which had denied any knowledge of the Malegaon accused but had readily agreed to defend them.He was even ready to 'start an agitation to defend them.'

Indian Express (13 Jan 2009) further adds that according to IGP Auradkar Jambagi had procured the bombs from one Hanumant Sainsakali. a 22 year old technical diploma student from Indi on the Maharashtra border. It is worth noting that investigations in the aftermath of the bomb blasts in the Hubli courts had shown that the bomb was similar to the one used in the May 18, 2007 blast at Hyderabad's Mecca Masjid.

One needs to remember that when the Malegaon investigations had started involvement of Hindutva terrorists in similar incidents had also come under scanner. The Mecca Masjid blasts as well as blasts in Samjhauta Express which had remaind unsolved were further investigated. Although initially the ATS Maharashtra had not deciphered any connection with Karnataka with the Malegaon blasts as of now there seems to be a qualitative change in the picture.Karnataka connection to the Malegaon blast is also being explored.

As we go to the press a team from ATS, Maharashtra is camping in Karnataka to hunt for one Pravin Mutalik. A report filed by a reporter of the Times of India tells us that ( TOI, Jan 18, 2009, ATS team in K'taka to nab suspect) Mutalik could be 'one of the three bomb planters in the Malegaon case.' "As per our investigation Mutalik was very much present in Malegaon alongwith wanted accused Ramji Kalangasara and Sandeep Dange.' Mutalik has been termed as a technical expert.

There is no denying the fact that Hubli, which happens to be a small town situated 425 km northwest of Bangalore, and which had remained more famous for many stalwarts of Hindustani and Karnataka classical music living in its environs, is a pale image of itself today. No lover of classical music would have ever imagined in their wildest dreams that a day would arise when it would be witness to a music of a different kind.

But as things stand today Huballi (Hubli's new name, the name Hubballi literally means "Hu" - flower and "Balli" - creeper in Kannada.) seems to be metamorphosing into 'birthplace' of Hindutva terror in Karnataka and a strong link in the emerging pan Indian network of Hindutva terror.

Cut out the middlemen!

noreply@blogger.com (Muslim India) — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 13:52:00 -0800

Amit Baruah, Hindustan Times

‘It looks like a students’ union is running Pakistan,’ a friend in Islamabad told me over the phone the other day. It wasn’t a flippant comment. He was dead serious. Between the two of them (and ably aided by the military establishment), President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani have reduced governance to a joke.

Pakistan’s National Security Advisor Mahmud Ali Durrani was ‘sacked’ for telling the media that Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, the 26/11 terrorist, was a Pakistani. Okay, so he was sacked. But actually, as the Pakistani media reported, he is yet to be removed from the job formally. Durrani may have the support of the Pakistani President, but where does it leave the Pakistani State? Nowhere.

In the wake of 26/11, a hoax call was made to Zardari, ostensibly by External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, threatening Pakistan with dire consequences. Mukherjee made no such call. But Zardari was scared out of his skin by Pakistan’s intelligence establishment, which wanted to ensure that Zardari abandoned his pro-India policies double-quick. And the ruse worked. Zardari called many capitals across the world in a bid to secure support against India’s imminent aggression after the hoax call.

Remember that before 26/11 punctured relations with New Delhi, Zardari was making comments on the lines of India never being a threat to Pakistan and that Islamabad wouldn’t be the first country to use nuclear weapons. Army chief Parvez Kayani wanted all this pro-India sentiment put down, as did the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba, which must have viewed with alarm the extent of Zardari’s pro-India comments.

With the benefit of hindsight, one can only wish that Zardari had been more restrained in his choice of words. But that’s now a peripheral issue. The central question today is: how does India deal with Pakistan’s weakest ‘civilian’ government ever? Who should one believe when it comes to Pakistan’s post-Mumbai actions? It’s a confusing scenario in which a divided civilian leadership seems to be bumbling along. At a time of tension with New Delhi, no one in Pakistan, including the civilian leadership, can survive by being soft on India.

After ensuring Pervez Musharraf’s ouster from the presidency in 2007, the Pakistani army has quickly distanced itself from its last chief. In fact, the country’s sole institution that actually functions is once again poised to play the role of ‘saviour-from-India’ that it has played so well. Nothing unites Pakistan more than a heavy dose of ‘anti-India’ emotion.

It looks as if Gilani is being propped up by the army to take on Zardari, who after all the tall promises of returning Pakistan to democracy, has taken on the role of an executive president, much like Musharraf. This is unconstitutional. But when has that ever bothered Pakistan’s long line of rulers, be they uniformed or otherwise? For India, which has no direct access to Kayani, the emergence of three (or two-and-a-half) power centres in Pakistan is ominous. Judging who is doing what, or even the authority of public statements, is a big job in itself.

It’s easy to say that India will deal with the government of the day. But unlike Western nations that talk of strengthening democracy in Pakistan and continue dealing with the generals to get their job done, New Delhi has no direct channel to Kayani. In the event of hostilities between India and Pakistan, the civilian leadership will be irrelevant. Only the army will matter. “For Pakistan, there is no concept of ‘limited war’. Any war with India is seen as a total war for survival. It risks losing everything the moment India crosses its border… As the battles escalate, India’s numerical and weapon superiority will become critical. If no external intervention takes place quickly, Pakistan will then be left with the ‘poison pill’ defence of its nuclear weapons,” argued Shuja Nawaz, author of Crossed Swords: Pakistan, its Army, and the Wars Within, in The Huffington Post recently.

We have moved away from the path of war-mongering. But dealing with the problem of Pakistan is likely to occupy India full-time. A middle path between resorting to military strikes and no-business-as-usual is the only option open to India.

Across the board, political opinion in India wants Pakistan to deliver. Purge the country of jihadi terrorists who have realised that the rest of India is a far better target than Kashmir. India can no longer bear the costs of an imperfect State structure in Pakistan. If Pakistan wants business as usual, then it must prosecute and convict all those behind 26/11. And nip any more terrorist strikes on India in the bud.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print.aspx?Id=9fff52c3-ba51-486c-b8e4-b8640e6f07d9

Jon Favreau: The man behind Obama's speeches!

noreply@blogger.com (Muslim India) — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 13:40:00 -0800

The inspiring words in Obama's speech that stirred thousand across the US were actually written by a baby-faced wonderkid.

Jon Favreau, 27, has spent the last two months working for up to 16 hours a day on the speech in locations all over Washington, from a Starbucks cafe to his new, still-unfurnished apartment.

Favreau found himself writing until 2 or 3am, fuelled by double espresso shots. A team of assistants was on hand to furnish him with material, from research on key moments of crisis in American history to the collected speeches of former presidents.

In fact, a cult has grown up around new the chief presidential speechwriter since he penned the Iowa victory speech that launched Obama towards the White House. His boyish good looks have not hurt, nor has the emergence of an unfortunate online photograph showing him drunkenly groping a cardboard cut-out of Hillary Clinton, at a Thanksgiving party.

What also has Washingtonians swooning is his way with words, his effortless blending of his master's voice with his own almost musical ear. He wrote the catchphrase "Yes We Can", and he will be relied upon to come up with the most apposite, least-expected Lincoln quotation to frame Obama's hopes for America's future.

Favreau — or "Favs" as he is known to friends — was barely out of college and working for John Kerry when he met Obama at the 2004 Democratic Convention. The senator was running over his lines when Favreau impudently interrupted him to suggest a rhythmical rewrite. Obama was astonished — and hooked.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/Man_behind_Obamas_speech/articleshow/4014160.cms

Democracy Promotion and Islam — Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Muslim India) — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 05:16:00 -0800

By Michael Brenner 19/01/2009 Muslim India

The moment is propitious to take a hard look at the efficacy of strategies designed to promote liberal political values in Islamic societies. The metaphoric democratic wave that gained impetus from the Soviet Union’s breakup has registered successes in most of the world. The Islamic world, the Arab Middle East in particular, still stands out among the regions resistant to democratization. Its unique strategic importance highlights the analytical and policy issues we place under the heading: Democracy & Islam. For Middle Eastern politics is at the heart of concerns about energy security, international terrorist movements, nuclear proliferation and the toxic effects of inflammatory crises in Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon. The absence of accountable, representative governments is commonly cited as cause and reinforced effect of these turbulent conditions. In truth, the seeming correlation of authoritarian leadership and endemic conflict does not necessarily mean a strong causal connection. The objective reality, though, is that such a connection is assumed in the West – by intellectuals, politicians, policy-makers and publics. The saliency of the Middle East in their interest calculations and threat perceptions has reinforced the conviction that outside parties have reason and opportunity to inflect the course of political development there. Exigencies have and do intrude to force tactical qualification of this commitment to democracy. Yet, it continues to bulk large in thinking about the region’s stability.

Since 2001, the United States has spearheaded a multiform campaign of democracy promotion. Democracy at the point of a gun, democracy through tutelage, democracy through suasion and exhortation. The results range from the baneful to the discouraging. As Barack Obama prepares to enter the Oval office, he will have neither a viable program in place nor a clear line of retreat. A root-and-branch reappraisal of the premises ends and means of the campaign is an essential requisite for making needed adjustments. European governments should be part of that process. They have been junior partners in this historic enterprise, until now. Their efforts, for the most part, have been in parallel, occasionally in tandem, and in exceptional cases have followed different interpretations of the same score. This paper takes the convergence of strategic interest and political principles as a given even as it contrasts divergences between the American and a generalized European perspective.

The United States

Democracy promotion as a strategy is animated by American idealism. Idealism in the United States is exceptional in a number of respects. It expresses the belief in progress guided by reason that lies at the heart of the United States’ civic religion. America was born in a condition of ‘original virtue.’ America is seen as having a mission to serve as agent of a teleology in the world’s affairs that points to the global triumph of enlightened liberal principles. That mission is unique to the United States; yet the truth it embodies is taken to be universal. Hence, American tends to be inattentive to cultural differences even as it is ‘culture-blind’ in the positive sense of the term. History, too, is seen as yielding to the will of the well-intended. Therein lies the optimistic conviction that the United States can successfully sponsor what looks audaciously improbable to others. Therein lies as well the basis for the unquestioned assumption of its good intentions – and their power to succeed.

Those convictions were reinvigorated by victory in the Cold War and further reinforced by democracy’s implantation in the newly liberated countries of East and Central Europe. A program to foster a liberal form of politics in the Islamic world was a natural extension. Dedication to doing so received impetus from the so-called ‘war on terror’ launched with a vengeance after the horrific events of 9/11.

Afghanistan was the immediate target. Unseating the Taliban and installing an accountable government under Western patronage bolstered confidence in Washington and heightened ambitions. The Bush administration then set itself the objective of toppling Saddam Hussein in Iraq. The President’s men were persuaded that the elimination of a leader supposedly bent on acquiring unconventional weapons was crucial to attenuating the latent dangers represented by virulently anti-Western Islam. However, his mere replacement by another autocratic leader, Ba’athist or military, did not satisfy American interest in a risk-free Iraq; nor did it serve the larger ends of the emerging strategy for a political transformation of the Middle East as a whole.

It followed inexorably that regime change was essential. In the abstract, various types of regimes were imaginable. In the thinking of American leaders, only the building of a constitutional democracy made sense. This was true for three perceived reasons. First, a democracy where the exercise of power is based on the consent of the governed is the sole political arrangement that provides assurance against reckless state actions. This judgment is predicated on the doctrinal belief that the citizenry at large has no appetite for war; and that it harbors no grandiose dreams of national or religious glory through demonstrated prowess on the battlefield. Indeed, the citizenry at large sees war as squandering scarce economic resources and putting in jeopardy their safety. This essentialist Kantian postulate thrives in official Washington, by no means only within neo-conservative circles. The downfall of a rogue regime in Baghdad meant an end to an incubator, refuge or collaborator of terrorists of all stripes.

Washington saw itself as having a critical catalytic role to play in that reform process. It could encourage elites, cajole current officeholders, and propagate a vision of a better future to the Muslim street. Such initiative, it was argued, will not be taken as alien or intrusive since it coincides with the interests, proclivities and aspirations of the large majority. Crucial to the success of this enterprise is the living model of a liberalized Arab country, one that functions as a working democracy, that allocates economic resources to the welfare of its populace and that nurtures a vibrant yet positive mode of Islam. Iraq was nominated for this role. Iraq thereby became the centerpiece of a far-reaching plan to reconfigure the political landscape of the Middle East. Europe opinion, official and otherwise, has been skeptical of this radical enterprise – for the most part. Skepticism stems from quite different historical experiences and sense of identity.

Morality & The American ‘Calling’

Americans and European leaders alike freely use the language of morality in proclaiming the ideals that inspire them. They also use moral values as well as hard interests as benchmarks for evaluating the probity of their actions and those of other governments. Yet the common language does not mean that they have the same moral sensibilities or apply them in the same way. Nor do they draw their moral principles from religious and secular sources in the same measure.

The United States’ keen sense of being destiny’s child preordained to lead the world into the light of freedom and democracy has oriented its thinking about its external relations. It is an article of faith to Americans that the country was imbued with political virtue at its founding. That idea has secular roots and religious ones. The United States is at once the embodiment of Enlightenment ideals and an expression of Providential will. American singularity can take one or another form, or combine them. Presidents as varied in their religious and intellectual persona as Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush have proclaimed as given truth the nation’s mission to ‘improve’ the world. This theme of America as the ‘chosen nation’ resonates from Abraham Lincoln’s declaring America to be “the last, best hope on earth” to Woodrow Wilson’s offering American leadership for “the redemption of the world” to John F. Kennedy’s conjuring of “a rendezvous with destiny” to Ronald Reagan’s vision of America as the Biblical “city on a hill.’ George W. Bush has been exceptional in casting the American purpose in eschatological terms. His public remarks are suffused with evangelical references to the US being “called” by the “Maker of Heaven” who has imparted to the United States “a visible direction set by liberty and the Author of Liberty.” But the tradition harks back to the very beginning. Here is Thomas Paine: “America is its own mistress and can do what it pleases….America is a new character in the universe. She started with a cause divinely right….The cause of America is in great measure the cause of all mankind.”

[i]: None of this rhetoric strikes most Americans as odd or strained. American civic religion easily shades into a civic millennialism.

[ii]. The missionary version of America’s pre-destined role as world savior acquires a righteous dimension from being suffused with religious belief. But its more secular counterparts, which lacked explicit religious imagery, were no less zealous. Surely, American foreign policy during the Cold War did not suffer from a shortage of zeal or righteous passion inspired by a sense of mission in performing its fated task. Where Barack Obama’s thinking lies on the secular-divine continuum of American exceptionality will have some bearing on how he approaches the issues associated with being in the democracy promotion business. What is not in doubt is that he shares his predecessors’ core beliefs in what America is and what it should be in the world.

The American drive to judge, to pronounce and to instruct, exemplified by Condoleezza Rice’s school mistress-like sermons, is unsettling to many Europeans, and to most Middle Easterners, on two counts. First, it implicitly devalues the moral convictions of other nations while routinely implying that they have baser motives. Second, it is seen as simplistic in its facile assessments of right and wrong, the good and the bad. Finally, American unilateralism of moral judgment is precursor to the imposition of American views in identifying malefactors and meting out punishment. Belief in its more finely honed moral instincts reinforces the claim to superior political judgment. The absence of agreement from allies on interpretation or prescription gives pause only insofar are it has practical consequences. The absence of overt dissent is read as confirmation of America’s unique competencies.

The Greater Middle East Initiative

The grandiose Greater Middle East Initiative inaugurated in 2004 was designated as the omnibus vehicle for effecting a political transformation of the region in line with America’s higher mission. The Bush administration’s’ launch of its signature program for the region met with a frosty response from governments in the region and quiet doubts from most European governments.. The latter were taken aback by what they saw as the latest display of Washington’s audacity in mounting a campaign for radical, speedy political change. Europeans also were peeved by the lack of prior consultation. Most, democrats in Europe and in the Middle East, worried about a backlash that could stiffen resistance to the calls for liberalization from within Arab societies while exposing indigenous reformers to charges that they were agents of the United States. Too, the European Union members were distressed by Washington’s disregard of their own, low-key efforts, via the Barcelona Process, to open a dialogue on moves toward more open societies and accessible politics.

The original version of the plan leaked in February 2004, provoking sharp reactions. A modified set of proposals for the Bush administration’s strategy, renamed the Broader Middle East and North Africa initiative (BMENA), was presented to the G-8 governments at their summit in Sea Island, Georgia in June where it won general acceptance. The outcome of extensive discussions, and strenuous efforts to overcome recalcitrance in Berlin and Paris, the new plan was presented as a common enterprise. Its inspiration and motor force was American, as was its brand name.

Europe

Europeans have had to reflect on how and why they should align themselves with the United States, and where they must part company. As one European analyst summed it up, “if opposition is impossible, unconditional support is inconceivable.”[iii] Europeans could not decline to associate themselves with the goal. After all, to allow themselves to appear blasé about autocratic rule and its malign effects would be to deny their own political birthright. All the same, they were more sensitive to the unwanted consequences of setting in motion forces that could destabilize strategic partners while opening the way for virulently anti-Western elements to gain power via the ballot box, e.g. in Saudi Arabia where fundamentalists would be the odds-on favorite in any fair and open election.

Therefore, they counseled flexibility to Washington and made flexibility a leitmotif of their own approach. Flexibility might help to advance the purposes of democracy promotion in terms of sensitivity both to local political circumstances and to timing. There are moments of greater and lesser susceptibility to external influences and well meant symbolic acts. No ideal time is identifiable – especially since the Europeans were imagining a long-term process, not a specific action. That said, some moments are more conducive than others to a publicized initiative. What is to be avoided above all, in stimulating a reflexive negative reaction because passions evoked by the region’s multiple conflicts, the American invasion of Iraq foremost among them, were running high.

The EU already had an established program of encouraging reform minded groups in the region. It came under the heading of the afore-mentioned Barcelona Process, so named for the initiative launched in the Catalan city in 1995. The Euro-Mediterranean Partnership christened at that Conference has as its stated purpose strengthening the EU’s relations with the countries of the Mashriq and Magreb through an array of cultural, economic and political activities. Tutoring in the principles and workings of a liberal democratic polity had been one of its most prominent objective. Against this background, the question Europeans posed for themselves was: would their low-key efforts be energized by association with the United States’ enterprise or might they be jeopardized in the highly charged atmosphere created by heavy-handed American actions?

A discomforting reality that the multiple American interventions, direct and indirect, in the Middle East had ‘queered the pitch’ against all and any Western intrusions into the region. Washington’s collaboration with Israel in its 2006 assault against Hezbollah (and Lebanon generally), its insensitivity to civilian casualties, and then the American-led embargo/boycott of the elected Hamas government in Palestine, all stoked anger across the region. Those events, punctuated by the continuing traumas of Iraq, has meant that the Europeans’ own human rights credentials have become hostage to the moral vagaries of American behavior, to some unknowable degree. That line of analysis strengthened the case for a parallel European strategy for encouraging democratization in the Middle East rather than one integrated with the United States. Europeans do not feel they must observe a categorical imperative to judge and to guide others in campaigns of moral uplift. That is America, not Europe.

Post-modern Europe’s moral sensibility is humanistic. It is uneasy with grand formulations. Too, it is leery that impulsive, premature exercises in democracy building can open the way to rabid sectarian forces whose commitment to democratic forms is opportunistic. Most Europeans find unpersuasive this American belief in the pliability of societies and, therefore, the swiftness with which they can be transformed. History has instilled in them the conviction that the past casts its shadow over the present in ways that set bounds on how far and how fast enduring change can be made, however desirable it may be. The United States, in a sense, was “born against history.” Its founding as a democratic republic was a break from all past experience on a virgin territory distant from the old centers of civilization. Europeans have lived enveloped by their all too eventful history.

Self-identities, therefore, remain different. Whereas Americans see themselves mandated the mission to light the path for the rest of the world, Europe lacks an analogous sense of mission. It was not anointed by Providence or Destiny to do good in the world. Their community was created arduously by pragmatic men inspired as much by dread of repeating the past as realizing a dream. Its focus has been wholly introspective.

The meaning of the EU’s ‘Good Neighbour’ policy for the Mediterranean, embodied in the Barcelona process, was underscored by President Nicolas Sarkozy’s much heralded plan for a Union of the Mediterranean in2007-08. This French conception was vague on substance. It striking innovation was a proposed restriction on the European membership to those countries bordering the Mediterranean. Funding would be provided by all the EU 27 members. Predictably, Sarkozy’s brainchild met with a lukewarm response from northern European states, Germany’s Angela Merkel leading the critics. A classic community compromise was reached at a Ministerial meeting on March 13, 2008. The Barcelona process was slated to be “upgraded,” and “revitalized” in a relaunch by the European Union as a single entity.[iv] With the amalgamated title of ‘The Barcelona Process – Union for the Mediterranean,” the program is slated to have a small secretariat to help coordinate projects. The Commission moved quickly to take hold of the reins, thereby blunting France’s ambition to head a new, autonomous structure. The new model was unveiled in Paris on July 13 amidst much fanfare. However, significant enhancement of European influence on Middle Eastern political developments looks unrealistic. Nothing basic in the equation has changed. Rhetoric stands in contrast to the limited capacity of Europeans, whether acting singly or together, to make an appreciable difference so long as they defer to the United States’ jealous control the field of action., and so long as democracy promotion is hostage to American conduct. A challenge to that state of affairs requires a measure of self-confidence that they lack.

Together In Democracy Promotion?

Most Europeans do not share the confidence that clever constitutional architecture in itself can ensure against the victors abusing that power; nor can it prevent the rise to power of fiercely sectarian or militant fundamentalist elements. The outcome of elections in Algeria, Palestine, Iraq, Egypt and Iran feeds that skepticism. If this European skepticism is well-founded, then a number of conclusions follow. One, time frames lengthen. Therefore, ways need to be found for well-wishers to provide sustained encouragement and engagement. Two, tutelage can be a valuable assist. How though can it be provided without trespassing on the autonomy of existing state authority? Regime change, after all, is the objective. But by what measure is it decided what the appropriate and effective means are, with what deference to the wishes of local rulers? in collaboration will local liberal forces? Is it the ‘West,’ the constellation of working democracies, the world community that does the deciding? Who directs a modulated set of programs at once congenial to the local culture and with the promise of being efficacious – democratic governments, their multilateral organizations, non-governmental organizations? Finally, if entrenching a truly democratic polity is a long-term project, how can outsiders make these contributions without trying the patience of those it implicitly is tutoring and, thereby, compromising the very enterprise of democracy-building? The answers to these questions given by the United States and European governments are not likely to be identical. It remains to be seen whether they will prove to be compatible.

State of the Debate

Participants in the debate over democracy promotion in the GME now agree on the axiom that the fostering of democratic institutions and practices can succeed only if the process is sensitive to cultural and social circumstances. Those circumstances include past experiences with diverse modes of political life. Considerable discussion has addressed the issue of whether all societies are equally accommodating to democracy. When posed in the abstract, the proposition defies validation or invalidation. There are too many intervening variables, the empirical data too varied, to allow for confident conclusions.

Democracy itself is composed of multiple elements. One needs to separate to them and then use each as a benchmark against which to gauge a given country’s approximation to it. They include: the legitimization of rulers through open, competitive elections; the representation of the populace through their elected officials; legal limits on how the holders of governmental office exercise state powers; and the protection of individual human rights against abuse by political authorities. Differentiation among these components enhances the analytical value of an approach that is historically informed and culturally sensitive.

(To be continued)

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Dr. Michael Brenner is a Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations. He publishes and teaches in the fields of American foreign policy, Euro-American relations, and the European Union. He is also Professor of International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh. Brenner is the author of numerous books, and over 60 articles and published papers on a broad range of topics.

Democracy Promotion and Islam — Part II

noreply@blogger.com (Muslim India) — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 04:55:00 -0800

Political ‘Maturity’ & Democratic Modalities

By Michael Brenner 19/01/2009 Muslim India

One broadly pertinent factor to be taken into account in the assaying of democratic futures is a society’s ‘political maturity’. I use the term “maturity” advisedly in the sense of acquired knowledge through experience. This is unconventional. On reflection, though, it seems quite natural for a society’s experience with the conduct of its public affairs should have a bearing on its capability for sustaining a political system as singular as liberal democracy. In regard to the Arab Middle East, the salient fact is that for 400 years these societies did not govern themselves. Ruling power was in the hands of the Ottoman Empire for most of the period, followed by European colonialism. The brevity of self governance has implications for democracy.

There are features of a democratic polity are particularly difficult for a politically “immature” or “inexperienced” society to adopt.[i] First, liberal democracy (representative, constitutionally grounded democracy) is the only political system that has the individual as its cornerstone. The legitimized holders of power positions are chosen by individual voters, who are the only legally recognized sources of popular sovereignty. In addition, the securing of individual liberties is a primary objective of formal provisions limiting what government authorities can do. An individual focused polity corresponds to the prominence of the individual as a social construct, i.e. society is constituted around the individual. This may not be exclusively so, but at the very least the individual is not entirely subsumed within social groupings. The correspondence between society and polity in this respect is a necessary condition for a liberal democracy to take root. This is not the state of affairs in nearly all of the Middle East. The strength of kinship structures is one reason. Political history is another.

Egalitarianism is companion to individualism. Liberal democracies are egalitarian in the granting of political rights, and in the legal standing accorded individuals. This notion holds regardless of the degree of economic equality or social status. On that score, wealth distribution and social stratification vary markedly among established liberal democracies. Western societies do not have a monopoly on the idea of egalitarianism. It lies at the core of Islam as well. The concept of all being equal in the eyes of Allah is as pronounced in Muslim scripture as it is in the Judea-Christian tradition. Arguably, it has been more of a living precept in the Islamic tradition than in the former. It remains a reference mark in the collective discourse despite egregious deviations from the abstract ideal in practice.

Subordination to imperial rulers has stifled any possible move toward reifying the egalitarian principle in governance. For obvious reasons. Political egalitarianism cannot be reconciled with governing arrangements predicated on a basic inequality between the dominant ruling power and all members of the subordinate society. Furthermore, the emphasis on ascriptive groups as the building blocks of the public order assumes a differentiation both horizontal and hierarchical. Therefore, egalitarianism per se – like individualism – is a secondary consideration in the prevailing political discourse of the Middle East. Many people throughout the region do feel economically discontented, and deprived in the sense that the powerful take too large a part of society’s wealth for themselves. The latter is unearned and corruptly distributed; therefore, it is unjust. The notion of justice, in the Koranic tradition, refers primarily to individual virtue but it has a social aspect, too. ‘Right’ behavior in all matters, including economic dealing, is strongly enjoined. Thus, there exists a powerful impulse toward a purification of society, rather than its remaking, i.e. reform of public institutions along liberal democratic lines.

Democracy means limited government. That is true in the fundamental sense that the crucial role of legal stipulations in setting the powers enjoyed by office holders, along with prohibited actions, restricts the latitude of rulers. A polity so constituted is radical in the way that it places limits on what they can do. It is conservative insofar as it explicitly excludes some modes of political action by both ruler and ruled. Their formal legitimizes political institutions and practices, thereby transforming power into authority and obedience into citizen duty. In sharp contrast, imperial systems and the autocracies that succeeded them retain for the rulers significant discretionary powers as may be employed to maintain their position of dominance. Recognition of certain customary norms does represent the acceptance of some loose limits, as well as obligations. Yet such a polity leaves rulers with far wider prerogatives than they have in a formal, rule bound constitutional system – and it leaves subjects with few formal rights of citizenship. Most important, in the context of our thinking about democracy promotion, the legacy of imperial rule is the stunting of any earlier impulses that pointed away from authoritarian, highly arbitrary, forms of governance.

Moreover, the powerful lesson of the imperial experience is that a dominant/subordinate relationship is the essence of political life. It is natural and normal that an elite commands and the people obey. The derivative postulates are: (1) power differentials dictate who commands; (2) control itself legitimates rule over time; and (3) political virtue resides in the beneficent use of paternalist state power. Of Lincoln’s formulation of the democratic creed – government Of the people, By the people, For the people – only the last has been pertinent in the political history of the region.

Finally, liberal democracy is unique in producing a discontinuity of leadership. The selection of office-holders through periodic election means that there will be a turnover among those who exercise power. Under some constitutions, term limits are specified. Leaders will always be contested. Perforce, they necessarily will be attentive to how their policies and actions affect their political fortunes. As a result, some measure of policy discontinuity accompanies discontinuity of leadership – independent of shifting judgments among rulers as to what courses of action best serve the society’s needs. Here again, we detect a mismatch between the standard modus operandi of an imperial polity and a core feature of a democracy. The logic and outlook of the former has impressed itself on political leaders. So it has on the populace at large, too. Heirs to an imperial frame of reference, rulers feel instinctively that there is a congruence between democratic practice, on the one hand, and the uncertainties they seek to avoid as to who is in charge and what the populace can expect from their governors, on the other. These sentiments are integral to an Islamist tradition places emphasis on the unity of the community of believers while ever on guard against anything, anyone or any idea that can lead to disorder (fitna).

The four core components of a democratic polity are inter-related. They also are mutually dependent, but not entirely so. Or, to put it somewhat differently, one could imagine discrepancies and asymmetries. In many countries, generally free elections co-exist with the retention and use of extra-legal powers by a powerful executive. The intervening variables are: majorities responsive to minority rights; and, above all, an independent judiciary with the authority to weigh on the political process while protecting individuals’ civil liberties from abuse. That was vividly on display in Pakistan over the past year. In the Pakistani case, widespread commitment to the principle of legality embodied in the courts is partially a political cultural inheritance from the British Raj, one reinforced over the ensuing 60 years by practice.

Too, there is the affinity between a law-based system of rule and Islamic traditions. First, the Koranic affirmation that all are equal in the eyes of Allah is universally accepted if not necessarily followed. More than a vague ideal, it has greater saliency in Islamic culture than does its Christian counterpart. Second, the Law and its learned interpreters (the ulama) have always been honored. Indeed, one of Islam’s attractions in its spread beyond the Middle East was that it promised an ordered, just framework for conducting the affairs of society.

An additional consideration, pointing in the same direction, is that the conservative effect of law redounds to the advantage of an established ruler or regime. That is to say, every legal system as a buttress of the status quo in that it stipulates what types of political action are precluded as well as those that are permitted. Violent acts, in particular, are stigmatized as beyond the pale and prohibited. Moreover, their restriction is a Koranic admonition insofar as the Book set clear conditions in which violence is permitted as well as those in which it is prohibited. Other extra-legal actions are, too. Consequently, to the degree that the law thereby hardens political norms as to what is acceptable and unacceptable, a secure government leadership gains protection even as it may have its powers curtailed.

INTERIM ASSESSMENT

At the time of this writing in late 2008, the record of the West’s heightened campaign to promote democracy in the greater Middle East had become legible. More than six years of concentrated effort since the reconstitution of Afghanistan began in earnest, the contours of accomplishment and failure are clear enough for a preliminary assay. The several country specific initiatives of the strategy form a tapestry too rich in its particulars to be examined in detail. Still, certain broad conclusions can be drawn.

Imposing democracy from the barrel of a gun is an improbable undertaking-

Violence is the enemy of democracy. For democracy’s essence is wide agreement on the norms for conducting public life. That agreement is the basis for politics that excludes resort to coercive means. So doing presumes a basic accord that the status quo is minimally satisfactory in terms of both the condition of society and the methods for handling differences. Moreover, violence inflames passions in ways inimical to the restraint on ambition and action on which democracy relies. It propels the drive to power among victors; it stokes resentment and hopes for vengeance among losers. From a democratic perspective, each is a casualty of war.

If war is the enemy of democracy, civil strife is its nemesis. Foes - winners, vanquished, innocent victims - must live together. They cannot escape themselves, each other and the past. The deleterious effects for putting in place structures for peaceable intercourse are all the more severe where there is no previous experience of concord to look back on. In the cases of Afghanistan and Iraq, earlier periods of domestic peace were marked by autocracy or tenuous co-existence among semi-autonomous sectarian groups. The latter is true as well of Lebanon.

Democracy is an organic product-

That lapidary statement has two implications. First, it should be adapted to a local environment. Second, it fares best when cultivated by natives of that locale. These are banal truths. Yet, they are too often elided by aggressive external promoters of democracy. This is especially true in the Middle East. Understandably so. A light touch and an appreciation of socio-cultural distance mean uncertainty as to outcome and, most surely, a longish time frame. That is unacceptable when the stakes of foreign parties, the West, are high; when they see an immediate threat, i.e. transnational terrorism; and when democracy now has been posited as the sine qua non for ensuring a satisfactory state of affairs in the near future. Thus, we have the problem of American hyper-activism. Thus, we have the quandary of European hesitancy about what is the correct course and ambivalence about being forced by dint of circumstances to follow in the wake of America. Left to their own devices, most European leaders would concentrate on stability in the near term while making restrained attempts to encourage the lineaments of democracy, thinking and institutions.

These are attitudes and sentiments that few Europeans share given their keener awareness of rationality’s limits, of hopes dashed, of all that can go wrong in human enterprises, of the evolutionary character of social construction.

There are a number of concrete implications. One, the physical presence of a foreign power that has taken the liberty of casting itself as the benevolent tutor in democracy tarnishes both message and messenger. No people like being dictated to by others. This is doubly so when the tutor carries with it so much negative baggage as the United States does in the Middle East.

Displays of military prowess by external parties have the additional adverse effect of strengthening the conviction that only the powerful dictate policies and control the future. Unable to match the sheer force of the West, the United States and Israel especially, feelings of impotence nurture the dream of a savior - that is to say, the heroic figure whose steely will and inspiring mien can mobilize Muslims to thwart the foreign enemy. The keen sense of historical grievance, of the mythical past, and the lack of confidence in Islamic societies of their ability to build power through sustained effort a la China contribute to the living dream of the man on a white stallion. The point is not just to regain respect and righteousness for their own worth, but rather to regain the might that can give these aspirations tangible meaning. That calls for a hero. It is a yearning that too readily opens the way for a demagogue. Democracy offers but a pale substitute.

Democracy promotion is not a laboratory experiment that can be run, and rerun, as strikes one’s fancy-

A second implication of the “organic” proposition is that outside parties should avoid meddling in local politics once a constitution is in place. Elections must be free of interference by the tutelary power (where there is one) if they are to be true expressions of the popular will and seen as such. This rule has been routinely violated by the United States in Iraq. Washington provided money and technical advice to its favorites, especially the secular coalition led by Aliya Alawi. To no avail. The American Ambassadors, Khalilazad and Crocker, have been constant players in the innermost councils so as to broker leadership deals congenial to the United States. Those efforts are punctuated by the hortatory visits of senior officials from Washington. They undercut the principle of free and equal access to the polls. Moreover, those wielding governmental power lose authority and legitimacy. As a result, the underlying tension between security aims and democracy promotion is exacerbated.

In short, power politics and democracy promotion do not mix-

Finally, the ‘organic’ imperative of democracy development dictates that election results be accepted as authoritative, however unpalatable the winners may be. Democracy at the polls is not a principle you can discard when inconvenient. For an external party to do so means delegitimizing the very process one has lauded as the key to self representation and accountable government. This is what the United States has done in the Middle East, repeatedly. – with European Backing in Palestine and Lebanon. In Iraq, it has played favorites in the various ways just indicated. In Lebanon, it strives to depict Hezbollah as a non-Lebanese tool of Syria while backing Israeli and Lebanese attempts to suppress or to curb it. In Algeria in the early 1990s, it gave tacit support to the government’s cancellation of scheduled elections in expectation of a victory by Islamist parties. More recently, it lifted the pressure on President Mubarak of Egypt when the Muslim Brotherhood’s popularity became evident. Most egregious, is its attitude toward the electoral success of Hamas in the occupied Palestinian territories. Washington has been complicit with the Israeli government to annul the results of the free elections that gave Hamas a surprise victory over Fatah. Going well beyond withholding formal recognition, the United States actively has cooperated in a multifaceted campaign to topple the government. The European Union and constituent member governments have hewed to the American line. The strategy has included imprisonment of legislators and ministers, the draconian blockade of Gaza that punishes civilians, and the arming of Fatah militias for an armed challenge that failed when preempted by Hamas fighters. In Palestine, both American interests and the idea of democracy have fallen victim to ill-conceived, seemingly expedient actions.

To entangle support for democratic process with outcome preferences is to distort the very meaning of the political ideas supposedly being advocated. Perhaps the gravest risk is to reinforce already rampant impressions that elections are appealing only because they open an avenue to gaining power for oneself, one’s clan, one’s sect, one’s associates. It is a zero-sum contest – winner take as much as he can.

External parties should recognize that cultural distance is a serious handicap-

Societies differ in some fundamental attributes. Cognitive maps of how the world, and important segments of it, work are not the same. Nor are belief systems, historical experience, stratification systems and religious affiliations the same. That is why the saga of democracy is marked by a diversity of trajectories. That is why democracy of today in any given country is not what it was yesterday or may be tomorrow. That also is why the forms and modalities of what we call constitutional or liberal democracies do not match exactly. Prudence, therefore, is called for. It is a mistake to think in terms of templates; even worse to think of force feeding a country’s populace with a one size fits all model.

An extreme form of the last is visible in Iraq. The evidence to date is that for a foreign country volitionally to take custody of an ancient, complex society that is part of a distant and alien civilization is a recipe for failure. It is self-delusion to believe that America in Iraq, or in any power roughly analogous situation, can mold it to the former’s specifications.

Democratic development presumes a coherent society and a competent state-

That hard lesson should have been learned from experience in much of the post-colonial world, by no means in the Middle East alone. So, too, it is instructive to review the history of established democracies where we have a long record of the interplay among nationalism, state building and democracy. In all cases except the United States, a central state apparatus antedated moves toward democracy. Looking at current cases, it is doubtful that Afghanistan ever has had such, even during the period of communist rule and Soviet occupation. The closest approximation, ironically, was the Taliban regime that existed for six years. Iraq had a fragmented, weak state headed by a British imposed monarch from Arabia until it fell under Ba’athist dictatorship. The structures of governance they built were dismantled by the American occupation. The term ‘IRAQ’ itself should be read as a pronoun with multiple antecedent nouns. The consequence is that the West finds itself committed to constructing viable democracies where the cards are stacked against it, on this count alone. Viable states do exist elsewhere in the Middle East. All are under authoritarian rule with the exception of Lebanon. State building per se is an accomplished fact. It is the transformation of non-democratic polities that is the challenge.

By a coherent society I mean a society wherein the primary allegiance is to the country, i.e. the comprehensive social unit within its political boundaries. Plural identities and allegiances are compatible with working democracies. A casual survey confirms that proposition. Sects, clans, tribes, associations of all kinds are not in themselves antithetical to social cohesion, as witness India. It is where they compete with the larger collectivity in terms of loyalty, obligation - and are resistant to the setting/observance of common rules essential to a reasonably integrated socio-politico-economic entity - that particularisms militate against political coherence. On this score, there is great variation in the Middle East. It ranges from the tight bonds of national cohesion that characterize Tunisia and Egypt to a fractured Lebanon. It is largely a coincidence that the two places where the West in engaged in hands-on democracy installation, Afghanistan and Iraq, are close to the ‘incoherent’ end of the spectrum.[ii]

Obama Prospects

The candidate of hope’s electoral victory has lifted spirits of Europeans dreaming of a new era in transatlantic relations This promising vision has two foci: a renewed commitment to multilateralism as the standard modus vivendi in American diplomacy; and an end to America’s penchant for military action. The new administration’s actions will be watched most eagerly in the Middle East. The stakes there are as high as are Europeans’ expectations. They very well may be disappointed.

Obama will enter the White House with wide popular support and goodwill. He will have no specific mandate, though. His popularity will be based mainly on his personality and his being non-Bush. On foreign policy, the dispositions of public opinion are clear: do something to end the Iraq imbroglio but don’t do anything that embarrasses the U.S.; pursue a more multilateral tack but don’t forget American exceptionalism and safeguard our right to take action as we see fit; steer clear of open-ended nation-building projects, except where they create bulwarks against terrorists – e.g. Afghanistan; spent less money abroad, we need it at home; make us popular in the world again. Not much guidance there on how to untangle multiple, intersecting dilemmas in the Greater Middle East.

Obama will be handicapped further by the absence of a serious debate about Middle East issues that was strategic rather than tactical, and the consonant inability of the American public to understand the truly significant choices and trade-offs to be made. Neither he nor his advisors have any compelling fresh ideas; they have not rethought the premises of the American engagement in Mesopotamia or linked it a strategic plan for the region. Were civil strife in Iraq to grow, he would be at a loss to know what to do. On Afghanistan, here too he will follow the Bush line of increasing markedly American troop levels while attacking Taliban/al-Qaeda elements across the border in Pakistan. Were the situation to deteriorate within the country and/or in relations with Pakistan, he would be at sea. Getting out of Iraq with pride and interests more or less intact depends on regional agreements/understandings which will take time to mature – especially in terms of a modus vivendi with Iran. Engaging Iran will be his number 1 priority and his most demanding challenge. It is not self-evident, though, that he will move quickly unless forced to do so by dint of circumstance.

What can Europeans do? The short answer is: ‘not much.’ The United States is too big and too insular to be moved by the well-intentioned thoughts and actions of others. Still, there is room for influence at the margins. This is especially so with a foreign affairs neophyte who is inclined to favor change from the Bush stasis, and who is truly interested in working with other countries. What could count is helping to create circumstances conducive to Obama’s taking steps in the direction he already is inclined to go, above all in regard to Iran. That is to say, to move faster and further than cautionary instincts and constraints will incline him to do.

As to democracy promotion specifically, the tension between principle and pragmatic realities remains. Obama is drawn to the rhetoric of idealism, abroad as well as at home. At the same time, he is an instinctively cautious person who is conservative in thought and deed. Under Bush, the United States lost its balance in trying to reconcile the two. An inexperienced President Obama will be no more agile. Preserving the moral authority and credibility that remains to America, and the Western democracies generally, points to a strategy of restraint. Speaking sotto voce, keeping as low a profile as possible, encouraging local initiative, being sensitive to cultural differences, staying aware of the contradictions between those objectives served by stability and those served by pressing the democratic agenda – pose a formidable challenge to statecraft and to the persons conducting it. A congenitally pro-active America, an idealist America that still feels most comfortable with absolutes, will find it hard to meet that challenge. Here is where Europe potentially can exercise a healthy influence in line with its own acquired wisdom and predilections. Realizing that potential will demand a concentrated effort, and an independence of mind, that has yet to be seen.

[1]. Thomas Paine 1778, 1782, 1776. Quoted in Michael Scheuer Marching Toward Hell: America And Islam After Iraq (New York: Frees Press, 2008) pg.99. Scheuer also quotes Thomas Jefferson, “Paine thought more than he read.”

[1]. The term ‘civic millenialism’ was coined by Nathan O. Hatch The Sacred Cause Of Liberty (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977).

[1]. Guillaume Parmentier, “Europe and the Bush Doctrine,” Financial Times, March 10, 2005.

[1]. “EU leaders agree to weakened Mediterranean Union plan” euobserver 14.03.2008; “Brussels to keep control of ‘Mediterranean Union” euobserver 21.5.08.

[1]. The Arab Reform Initiative, a multinational consortium of institutes, is the prime source of empirical and analytical work on current conditions and developments. See, for example, “The Role of the West in Internal Political Developments of the Arab Region” by Osama Al-Ghazdi Harb May, 2007. A broad global perspective on the democratic wave is provided by John Markoff Waves of Democracy: Social Movements and Political Change. (Newbury Park, CA: Pine Forge Press, 1966). Also valuable are the contributions to: Rex Brynen, Bahgat Korany and Paul Noble, eds., Political

[i]. The Arab Reform Initiative, a multinational consortium of institutes, is the prime source of empirical and analytical work on current conditions and developments. See, for example, “The Role of the West in Internal Political Developments of the Arab Region” by Osama Al-Ghazdi Harb May, 2007. A broad global perspective on the democratic wave is provided by John Markoff Waves of Democracy: Social Movements and Political Change. (Newbury Park, CA: Pine Forge Press, 1966). Also valuable are the contributions to: Rex Brynen, Bahgat Korany and Paul Noble, eds., Political Liberalization and Democratization in the Arab World. V. 1: Theoretical Perspectives. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner; see especially contributions by Lisa Andersen and Michael C. Hudson.

[i]. An incisive appraisal of the skewed understandings that underpird the ‘war on terror’ is provided by Francois Burgat Islamism in the Shadow of al-Qaeda (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2008 translation from the French original).

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Vibrant Gujarat: Lies, Half Truths and Illusions

noreply@blogger.com (Muslim India) — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 08:17:00 -0800

The Gujarat Reality Today

By Fr. Cedric Prakash sj 18 January 2009 Muslim India
sacw.net

It is January 14th 2009.....Makarsakranti, the only feast of the Indian calendar which is not observed on a particular day of the Lunar month. It is generally believed that on this day, the sun enters the constellation of Makar (crocodile) and begins to move towards the north. In Gujarat, it is known as Uttarayan, the day on which thousands of kites dot the skies in order to propitiate the Sun-God. The newspapers today (as those of yesterday) are filled with stories of ‘Vibrant Gujarat’... of how the biggest industrialists of the country have “promised” to invest thousands of crores (millions of dollars !) in Gujarat. Overnight, the problems of the State seem to have been solved !! Some have decided that Gujarat can now take on China and a couple of industrialists have even anointed the CM of the State as the next Prime Minister of India !!!

Visitors and dignitaries who came to Ahmedabad were welcomed by posters and banners, by floodlights and illuminations, with newly paved roads and a city which was cosmetically spruced up for the “mother of all events” to flaunt what is termed in Government propaganda, as “Vibrant Gujarat”.

The local (and some national) media went “gaga”.....showcasing how Gujarat is more than India, how the “whole world” had come to invest in this one State during the two-day affair know as ‘Vibrant Gujarat Investors’ Summit’. The Government and their cronies flag-waved all over.....it’s the Number One State in the Country ! The hype put forward by the well oiled propaganda machinery was so compelling that even the most diehard critics of Gujarat fell into the trap, and joined the chorus that “all is well”.

Very few dare ask uncomfortable questions. Everybody knows the truth about who is doing the “flag-waving !”. There are voices who say that ‘ the “emperor” has no clothes on ! ’, but at this moment, there are not too many listening. The plain truth is that the cosmetic has stifled the reality. If one scratches the surface a little, the bubble of euphoria will surely burst. Let’s look into how “Vibrant”, is Gujarat.

Violent :

For a State that should have had ‘Ahimsa’ as its cornerstone, violence has in fact become institutionalized. The State presided over the killing of hundreds of Muslims during the Carnage of 2002. Trigger-happy policemen have eliminated several Muslim youth in ‘encounters’. (One high-ranking police officer is now in jail for such an ‘encounter’.) Innocent boys are killed in an ashram of a well known Guru, and, no one can do anything about it ! Young girls studying to be teachers are raped in Government Hostels by their teachers for the sake of better grades. Female foeticide is rampant. One only has to skim through the daily newspapers to realize how violence has become a perfected art in the State.

Intolerant :

There is a sophistication in the way intolerance has been mainstreamed. One can experience it in the chaotic traffic on the roads. If one is a Muslim, one is denied to right to buy a house or a shop in the up-market areas of Ahmedabad, Surat and other cities. One is forced to live on the periphery of many villages. The Freedom of Religion Law prevents any one from embracing another religion, without permission from the civil authority. Couples in love, are forcibly prevented from marrying if the partner belongs to a different religion or caste. Movies like “Parzania” and “Fanaa” are not allowed to be screened in the State – one, because it exposes the Truth, and the other, because the lead actor asks that the tribals who were dispossessed because of the Narmada Dam, to be justly rehabilitated.

Bluffing :

The art of lying seems to have taken a new meaning in Gujarat. This is obvious when even a sheer Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) is regarded as “Mission accomplished !”. This bluff was called, when recently, under an RTI query, the Government of Gujarat admitted that just about 25% of the MoUs of the last three years were actually in the pipeline !! The waters of the Narmada Dam is being utilized by the rich and powerful of Ahmedabad. The parched lands of North Gujarat, Saurashtra and Kutch still harbour illusions of the water reaching them !!! State Government advertisements highlight projects and programmes which are in fact undertaken and executed by the Central Government, like the expressway, the airport, the railway system and the 108 ambulance service.

Revengeful :

In Gujarat today, anyone standing up for Truth and Justice is at the receiving end. The Government pulls out all stops (to stop School Grants, to impound Passports) to ensure that voices of dissent are silenced. A few months ago, when the Times of India did an expose on the Police Commissioner of Ahmedabad, sedition charges were filed against some of those who ran the newspaper. Honest and objective police officials and bureaucrats are transferred to insignificant postings; Government agencies like the Collectorate, the Police, the Charity Commissioner are used to intimidate and harass individuals and groups that work for the betterment of the poor, the vulnerable and marginalized. Prominent citizens are kept under constant surveillance and many live under the veil of fear.

Arrogant :

A sense of arrogance seems to have puffed up the chests of a few who try to control the lives and destinies of others. Such arrogance was very visible in the hey day of Nazism when Hitler brutally trampled on those who were “not like him”. Key people in the State roam about with immunity and impunity and are also elected to positions of power. The underlying message that is conveyed is that “no one can touch them”. One needs to look at the judgments that are given from the Lower Courts and the High Court of Gujarat, in order to experience the subjectivity and partiality that has permeated the system.

Negligent :

Large sections of society in Gujarat are totally neglected. Systematic efforts are made to snatch the forests from the hands of the adivasis. A recent study says that more than thirty-five thousand families will be displaced from the banks of the River Sabarmati because of the Sabarmati River Front Development Project. Development-induced displacement is also the lot of several poor and marginalized farmers and others. Fisher-folk along Gujarat’s vast coastline, continue to be marginalized. Dalits are at the receiving end and many of them continue to live in inhuman conditions. The status of women in Gujarat is way down in comparison to several other States of the country. Children are denied their rights: a large percentage of them constitute the labour force; the textbooks dished out by the Gujarat State Secondary School Board is a clear violation of the rights of children – full of errors, inaccuracies, myths and distortions; only about 59.6% of the rural children of Gujarat can read Std. I text as against the All-India average of 66.6%. The Indian Express of December 21st 2008, has this to say : According to International Food Policy Research Institute’s 2008 Global Hunger Index, Gujarat is ranked 69th alongwith Haiti, the nation infamous for food riots. The State is placed in the ‘alarming’ category.

Terror-filled :

Gujarat State is truly terror-filled ! For almost seven years now, the principles of democracy have been thrown to the wind. Right-wing Hindu groups can put up bill boards almost anywhere proclaiming a “Hindu Rashtra”. Places of worship have sprung up on public space and they are given full protection by the law and order mechanism. The Constitutional rights and freedoms of an ordinary citizen are not safeguarded. In fact, in several cases, when a victim approaches the system for help, he / she is made the perpetrator of the crime !!! The diversity which has been characteristic of this State, has been totally decimated as communities are forced into ghettoization. There is palpable fear all over.

What “Vibrant Gujarat” then, does one talk about ? The truth is that Gujarat as a State is

“Violent”, “Intolerant”, “Bluffing”, “Revengeful”, “Arrogant”, “Negligent” and “Terror-filled”.

Let’s not live in lies, half-truths and illusions.

Gujarat, wake up, before it is too late !! Satyameva Jayate !

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Fr. Cedric Prakash sj / Fr. Cedric Prakash sj is the Director of “Prashant”, the Ahmedabad based Jesuit Centre for Human Rights, Justice and Peace)
PRASHANT:A Centre for Human Rights, Justice and Peace,
Near Kamdhenu Hall. Drive-in Road,
Ahmedabad 380 052, Gujarat, India Tel: 79 66522333 /27455913 Fax: 79 27489018

Deoband's Deputy Rector Rebuffs Terror Charges (Interview with Maulana Abdul Khaliq madrasi)

noreply@blogger.com (Muslim India) — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 07:32:00 -0800

By Yoginder Sikand 18/01/ 2009 Muslim India

The Dar ul-Uloom at Deoband, which played a leading role in the struggle for India's freedom from the British, has, in recent years, been targeted by certain forces that have sought to link it with terrorism. In this regard, Shahid Zaidi, correspondent for the Urdu Alami Sahara, recently interviewed Maulana Abdul Khaliq Madrasi, the Deputy Rector of the Dar ul-Uloom, to elicit his reactions. It appeared in the 17^th January, 2009 issue of the paper. Below are excerpts of the interview, translated from Urdu by Yoginder Sikand.

Q: For some years now, charges have been levelled against the Dar ul-Uloom Deoband of being allegedly associated with terrorism. Why is this so?

A: This requires a detailed explanation, but I will be brief. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the West, principally America, required an enemy to sustain itself, and this it conjured up in the form of Islam. In this project, the Jewish lobby had a key and leading role to play. Following the attacks of 9/11, the Western powers invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, and, at the same time, also launched a sustained attack against Islam itself. Hence began a well-planned conspiracy to defame Islamic institutions and to seek to link Islam and Muslims with terrorism. In such a situation, how could one expect that the anti-Islamic forces would not make the Dar ul-Uloom an object of their attack? However, not only has the Dar ul-Uloom effectively rebutted this malicious and false propaganda against it, but it has also unleashed a jihad against terrorism. And, besides tearing off the veil behind which American global terrorism masquerades, it has also sought to expose the growing terrorism within India itself, and this struggle continues.

Q: But why is it that within India some forces are seeking to present a very negative image of the Dar ul-Uloom Deoband?

A: This is not limited just to the Dar ul-Uloom Deoband. Islam and Muslims themselves are being sought to be projected in the same light. Behind this, too, is the hand of Israel and America, who are being helped by the Sangh Parivar in India. I believe that this game started ever since our country's relations with America and Israel became increasingly close. Muslim intellectuals, ulema and also the leaders of the Dar ul-Uloom Deoband have consistently been stressing the point that this unholy and dangerous game of terrorism is being jointly played by the Israeli secret service agency Mossad, the American intelligence agencies and the Sangh Parivar, acting together, who have sought to place the blame for this squarely on the Dar ul-Uloom and on Muslims in general. This is clearly evident from the terror links of some people associated with the Sangh Parivar that were unearthed by the chief of the Mumbai Anti-Terror Squad, the late Hemant Karkare, a brave officer who was recently martyred. Had he survived a few more days he would have brought to light much more evidence. The circumstances surrounding his death have raised numerous doubts and questions.

Q: The report of the Second Administrative Commission, headed by Veerappa Moily that was commissioned by the present UPA Government, has, in its section on countering terrorism, claimed that the chief of the Jaish-e Mohammad, Masood Azhar, paid a secret visit to India in 1996, where he met with leaders of the Dar ul-Uloom at Deoband. On the basis of this report, Vinay Katiyar, a senior BJP leader, has accused the Dar ul-Uloom of harbouring terrorists. What do you have to say about this?

A: If it is true that the report of the Commission has said this, it must present whatever proof or evidence that it has to substantiate the claim. The allegation that Vinay Katiyar has leveled against the Dar ul-Uloom, based on the report, is serious, and it is the duty of the Government to establish its veracity or otherwise. We have earlier also firmly rebutted allegations leveled by Katiyar and Praveen Togadia. Even the rector of the Dar ul-Uloom, Maulana Marghub ur-Rahman, has done so, and has said that the Government must respond to and answer the specific reference that Katiyar has made with regard to the Moily Commission Report, and that the Government must take notice of Katiyar's false and baseless allegation.

Q: But why has the Dar ul-Uloom not taken any legal action against people like Vinay Katiyar?

A: All major decisions of the Dar ul-Uloom are taken on the basis of collective consultation (shura). As far as I know, the shura committee of the Dar ul-Uloom has not deliberated on this issue. We also believe that, in contrast to the communal forces, the secular and fair-minded people of our country do not believe in these false allegations. The elders of the Dar ul-Uloom have very forcefully rebutted these hollow charges. This is for the first time that communal forces have made a reference like this to the report of a Government-appointed Commission as a basis, and that is why the Dar ul-Uloom has been demanding that the Government should make the truth about the report public, otherwise it would stain the Government's image.

As far as Masood Azhar is concerned, he was never a student of the Dar ul-Uloom. He was released from jail by the NDA government. Top BJP leader and the then Foreign Minister, Jaswant Singh, arranged for him to be sent to Afghanistan, and Singh claimed that this was backed by the then Home Minister, Lal Krishan Advani, and on the instructions of the then NDA Cabinet.

Q: It is said that the then NDA Government took the help of an important person associated with the Dar ul-Uloom to deliver Masood Azhar to Afghanistan and to have some 200 passengers aboard a hijacked Indian airplane released, and that, following this, the Sangh Parivar launched a propaganda campaign seeking to tarnish the image of the Dar ul-Uloom by alleging that it was associated with terror. What do you say?

A: The important person you are referring to has left this world. I do not know exactly what help the then Government took from him in this regard, but I believe this cannot be the basis [of the allegations leveled against the Dar ul-Uloom]. If the Government takes the help of an important person for the sake of the country and to get innocent citizens released, how can it be used as an argument to claim that this person or the institution that he was associated with had links with terrorists […]

As I said before, this entire drama that is being enacted seeking to associate the Dar ul-Uloom with terrorism is the handiwork of America, Israel and the Sangh Parivar.

Q: On 19 December, 2008, Pakistan's Permanent Representative to the UN Security Council, Abdullah Husain Haroon, made a statement claiming that only the Dar ul-Uloom Deoband, can reign in the terrorists active in the tribal areas of North-West Pakistan because these terrorists are associated with the Deobandi school of thought. What do you have to say about this?

A: The Dar ul-Uloom strongly condemned this statement of the Pakistani Representative and demanded that Pakistan should question him and make him withdraw what he had said. This statement is also a reflection of the Pakistani Government's consternation in the wake of the pressure that is mounting on it in the wake of the Mumbai attacks. It has tried to wriggle out of this by wrongly seeking to blame the Dar ul-Uloom, but in this has been unsuccessful. At the same time [through this wrong allegation], it has tried to mislead international opinion to believe [its claim] that it is India that is responsible for this terrorism. However, the benefit of this baseless allegation was reaped not by Pakistan but by the Sangh Parivar. Further, behind this fallacious claim of the Pakistani Representative is the long-standing resentment that Pakistan nurtures because of [the Dar ul-Uloom's] opposition to the creation of Pakistan and the 'two nation theory'.

Q; What do you have to say about the recent controversy that erupted in the Dar ul-Uloom surrounding the arrest of two Bangladeshi students?

A: Till date, not a single terrorist has been apprehended from the Dar ul-Uloom Deoband, contrary to the misleading propaganda of some Hindi newspapers […] At present, there are just two students from Bangladesh studying in the Dar ul-Uloom, and both have come on visas. We do not have any student studying illegally. Ever since the NDA Government placed a strict control on visas to students wishing to study in religious institutions in India, foreign students have stopped coming to the Dar ul-Uloom. In the past, students would come to Deoband from various Muslim countries and even from England and South Africa, and here they would not only gain religious knowledge but would also go back to their countries with a wealth of knowledge about India's composite culture and our democratic and secular system. But this has stopped ever since the Ministry of External Affairs introduced strict controls on foreign students wanting to study in religious institutions in the country. If, however, the earlier policy were to be restored, the Dar ul-Uloom Deoband could serve as an effective ambassador for India in the Muslim world and even beyond, and could be a means to inform others about India's composite culture and religiously-plural society. Leaders of the Dar ul-Uloom have repeatedly drawn the attention of the UPA Government in this regard […]

Q; Do you have any other message for readers of this interview?

A: Terrorism and communalism, I wish to tell them, are grave threats to the prosperity and peace of our country and to harmonious, brotherly relations among the different communities. We must be aware of this. Communalism and terrorism are inextricably interlinked and both are inveterate enemies of our country.

2 Reviews of New Urdu Book on Caste Among Indian Muslims

noreply@blogger.com (Muslim India) — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 06:54:00 -0800

By Yoginder Sikand 17/01/2009 Muslim India

1. Book: Hindustan Me Zaat Paat Aur Musalmaan (Caste System In India And The Muslims)

Author: Masud Alam Falahi

Year: 2007

Pages: 640

Publisher: Al Qazi, New Delhi.

Review: Arshad Amanullah

"Bhai saheb! My village is completely Pakistan which is surrounded by India". "What do you mean by India and Pakistan?", I asked. Only Sheikhs and Syeds live in the village and on the periphery, there are settlements of Kunjras (Green-grocers), Qasais (Butchers), Jolhas (Weavers), Dhuniyas (Cotton-carders), Nais (Barbers),etc", he replied.

(An excerpt from the book, p: 453).

The discourse (secular/ religious/ both) on the South Asian Muslims has been so ashraf-driven that either it hardly engages, in a pragmatic fashion, the issues of social equality as a tool to put an end to economic and cultural exclusions, or whenever it tries to address them(the issues of social equality), it does so with great rhetoric. Mohammad Iqbal's verse "Ek Hi Saf Me KharHe Ho Gaye Mahmud-o-Ayaz / Na Koi Banda Raha Na Koi Banda Nawaz" very aptly exemplifies the extent of simplicity and rhetoric the ulama and the Islamists have reduced such a complicated question to. Another limitation which categorizes their narratives on the theme is that they do it to woo the ummat-i-da'wah to embrace Islam, not to radicalize the behavioural aspect of the concept of equality among the believers. Being a narrative of an Islamist alim, though the book under-review also carries some of these limitations and biases, it offers fresh information on the theme and throws a host of questions to ruminate on.

In the light of the insights obtained from years of ethnography on the caste demography of the Indian Muslims, the present volume problematizes the social equality project of textual Islam, especially when the latter negotiates with the strong local societal institutions. That process of theology manufacturing is marked by a constant reproduction of the local societal institutions and hence their perpetuations, is another motif of the book. What enhances its complexity is the academic and ideological location of the author and his approach to the politics of jurisprudence production. To put the book in perspective, one needs to explain briefly the dominant discourse about discrimination and forms of social exclusion among Indian Muslims, before delving into the genealogy of the volume and the saga of its several rejections from the publishers.

Apart from social intercourse, the caste-based discriminatory praxis among Muslims find expressions in at least five forms: khilafat, imamat, kufu/kafa'at, employment and education. Majority of the ulama consider khilafat a prerogative of the descendents of the Prophet while it is only ashrafs who jurisprudentially qualify for the imamat (to lead the prayer in the mosque). Further, the ulama deem the observance of 'Kufu" mandatory for the islamicality of a marital alliance. Literally meaning eligible/suitable/equal, the kufu in its hermeneutical sense, stands for the following: four castes of the ashrafs (Syeds, Sheikhs, Mughals and Pathans) are generally considered suitable marriage partners for each other, making it a complete endogamous affair while the ajlaf (communities based on professions) can marry only among themselves, not the ashrafs. The arzals (the untouchables) form the socially and physically excluded lot of the Muslim society. Moreover, no Jadidul Islam (new converts to Islam) can marry a Qadeemul Islam (a person whose family has been within the pale of Islam for more than a generation), due to the temporal distance which comes to characterize their association with Islam. The textual Islam (the Qur'an and the Hadiths) does not conceive social organisation of the Muslims in terms of these stratifications however majority of the Indian ulama have been justifying the same in the jurisprudence, through interpretations of the Qur'anic verses which serve their purpose and also with the help of concocted ahadith.

Due to several factors like socio-democratic programmes of the Constitution, secular character of the Indian polity, industrialization-led-intense process of urbanisation, etc, have reduced the occurrence of other discriminatory praxis, however, the institution of Kufu is still violently in practice. It has, thus, continued to come under criticism from the backward caste ulama time and again. In this regard, among others, Mufti Habibur Rahman Azmi's monograph Ansaab Wa Kafa'at Ki Shar'i Haisiyat and Maualana Abdul Hamid Nomani's tract Masla-i-Kufu Aur Isha'at-i-Islam as critiques of the dominant narrative of the Kufu deserve mentioning here. Though Masud Falahi's book comes to signify the most recent effort in this series of protest writings, it marks a departure from its predecessors in several ways.

A graduate of Jamiatul Falah, Azamgarh, the central madrasa of Jama'at-i-Islami Hind, Masud's has an insider's take on Jama'at's realpolitik and work-culture. In fact, one of the important reasons which prompted him to write the book is the casteist behaviour of the cadres and office-bearers of the Jama'at. (P373). In addition to engaging the issue in normative fashion, he quotes instances from real life of the predominantly ashraf leadership of the Jama'at. "Personal histories, interviews, observations and incidents which the author has been a witness to"(P27-28), thus, constitute a major chunk of the book. On a much larger plane, he applies the same strategy of data-collection to the outstanding ulama of all denominations and prominent religious bodies of Indian Muslims. That is why potential of his book to critique the agenda and vision of the present Muslim religious establishment and Islamist leadership is simply unmatched.

It is against this backdrop, one needs to understand why Jama'at-i-Islami Hind, after three years of dilly-dallying discovered that it could not publish Masud's monograph and why an Ahl-i-Hadith publisher from the city of Maunath Bhanjan, Uttar Pradesh demanded to remove those portions of the book which offered insights about the caste-driven writings of the Ahl-i-Hadith ulama and practical politics of the present establishment of Markazi Jami'at Ahl-i-Hadith Hind. Interestingly enough, before he found his publisher, Jamia Asaria Darul Hadith, an Ahl-i-Hadith madrasa of Maunath Bhanjan, had started a serial reproduction of some portions from the book in each issue of its monthly magazine Aasar-i-Jadid (from February 2007).

Divided into ten chapters, the timeline of Masud's narrative starts with the Aryan invasion on India and comes down to the current period. His hypotheses is that the Muslim intellectuals (religious/secular), instead of discouraging the caste-based discrimination among the Indian Muslims, have consciously or unconsciously projected it as an Islamic concept and tinkered with the classical Islamic texts to lend it a jurisprudential sanction. Consequently, it has caused an irreparable damage to the process of Proselytization of Islam in the country. Having realised the gravity of circumstances, some contemporary ulama and intellectuals, in their individual capacity, tried to challenge the islamicality of the caste discrimination. India has yet to witness a movement which has had at the core of its programme: struggle against Caste-discriminations among Muslims.

Masud sees the caste-system of the Muslims as a Brahmanical Conspiracy to indianise Islam (Islam Ka Bharatiyakaran) (P109). This formulation presupposes an egalitarian Muslim society without any element of social exclusion. It also assumes that all of the Indian Muslims at a certain point of history came from outside to this land. Moreover, this reading of the nature and genealogy of the caste praxis among Muslims relegates its association with the power politics within the Muslims to the oblivion. This is a fallacious argument to say the least.

As a logical extension of the Brahmanical Conspiracy Theory, comes Masud's fascination with the Pollution Theory. The latter posits a binary opposition of the Arabs vs Ajams (Non-Arabs) where Arabs get credit for all merits of Islam/Muslims while Ajams stand convicted for all demerits that crept in the Muslim society. For example, he considers all those Arab invaders who came to India and established their government in the coastal regions of Sindh, as Khalis Musalman (Pure Muslims) and personification of "Islamic egalitarianism".(P114). This formulation runs contrary to the Veblen's Theory of the Leisure Class. Moreover, it is well documented that Arab society was highly stratified along the lines of tribes, some of which were considered superior to others. The correspondence between Abu Ja'far Mansur, the Abbasid Caliph and Muhammad bin Abdullah Nafs Zakiya (one of the descendants of Ali) which Masud cited in the book (P 133-134), demonstrates how Arabs had used paternal and maternal lineages to justify their claim to the political power.

One can easily discern from the works of medieval historians like Ziauddin Barney, Qasim Farishta, etc that caste discriminations were widespread during the reign of the early Muslim rulers of India. Masud has reproduced a couple of them to show the role of ulama in providing theological sanction to various forms of exclusion. Interestingly, Fatawa Alamgiri does not offer any critique of the popular understanding of Kufu, despite the fact that it has a detailed discussion on the issue and was compiled at behest of Aurangzeb, the darling of the ulama and Islamists. Likewise, a decree of Bahadur Shah Zafar to recruit 500 men in the Mughal army, clearly specifies that the soldiers should be from only ashraf castes of Sheikh, Syed, Mughal and Pathan ". (P226).

As the book progresses on the timeline, the reader comes to know about Abdul Haq Dehlaviislamicality of the concept of dishonour related to professions (manual), perhaps for the first time in the history of Hanafite Islam in India. He painstakingly researched asaneed (chains of verbal transmission) of the ahadith which were prevalent in disrespect of certain professions and castes, especially Julahas (weavers) and found them concocted. He was followed by several ulama who, though, rose to prominence at different points in the 18^th and 19^th centuries, they were against the concept of popular Kufu and other forms of caste discrimination. (1551-1645) who interrogated

It is interesting to note that Shah Waliullah (1703-1762) was an ardent advocate of the popular Kufu. He, in his magnum opus Hujjatullahil Baligha, resorted to an athar (a saying of a companion of the Prophet) of Umar, the second caliphate, to substantiate his position and offered a weird interpretation of a Hadith to avoid the latter's clash with his take on the issue. In a situation like this, it is the hadithathar. The Deobandi ulama and some of the Ahl-i-Hadith ulama subscribed to the Shah Waliullah's views on the caste-discrimination as he is supposed to have inspired these two of three denominations of the modern South Asian Muslims. which gets preference, rather than an

Nihayatul Arab Fi Ghayaatin Nasab by Mufti Muhammad.Shafi Usmani and Risala Tabligh by Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanawi are two works which caused a lot of controversy in the early 20^th century due to their derogatory remarks against the non-ashraf castes. They, especially Ansaris and Qureshis, staged demonstrations and organised a host of meetings in 1932 in the length and breadth of the country, to register their resistance against creation and publication of the theology of discrimination and hatred. Interestingly enough, classical anthologies of the Hadith like Kanzul Ummal (by Allauddin Muttaqi) from where Thanawi and Shafi have extensively quoted, are replete with ahadith which are all praise for professional groups/communities. The selective amnesia theory alone may furnish the best explanation of this phenomenon.

Masud has shown that efforts to lend theological legitimacy to discriminatory praxis like Kufu have not been monopoly of the Deobandis. The fatawa of Ahmad Raza Khan Barelwi (1850-1920) exude sheer biases against the non-ashraf demography of the Muslim community. Ahl-i-Hadith ulama like Syed Nazir Husain, Siddiq Hasan Khan, Syed Abdul Samee Jafari, etc. have been no different from their counterparts from other two denominations in reinforcing caste-discrimination through their praxis and writings. One wonders that even the backward caste ulama like Mohammad Amjad Ali Ansari, Mufti Kifayatullah Salmani (the first President of Jamiatul Ulama-i-Hind), etc. have issued fatwas in support of the enforcement of Kufu!

What may really come as a shocking discovery to a reader of the book is the following line by Khwaja Syed Hasan Nizami: "Though there is a provision for equality within Islam, Allah has created Julahas to serve the higher caste groups". Sufism is regarded as the most liberal expression of the proselytizing Islam which has done its best to accommodate local traditions, with due respect to their autonomy, within the master-narrative of Islam. Sufism in India thus, due to its accommodative character, does not only reproduces the social biases but reinforces them as well, as is evident from the advocacy of a form of social exclusion by one of the doyens of the Sufi traditions in India.

In Masud's narrative-design, theological insights enrich the findings of social scientists so that a wider picture of the dynamics of the caste praxis in the Muslim society can emerge. His borrowings from Ali Anwar, Imtiaz Ahmad, Aijaz Ali, V.T.Rajashekhar, etc, are not just reproductions or paraphrasings, he differed from them or critiqued them on several occasions. Moreover, he also shows occasionally the upfront confrontation between the ulama and the secular intelligentsia. For example, Hasan Ali has studied in his paper "Elements of Caste among the Muslims in Districts in Southern Bihar" the dynamics of caste discrimination in two Muslim-majority localities of Ranchi, Jharkhand. Masud has quoted a statement of Qazi Mujahidul Islam Qasmi, a veteran Deobandi alim, who, differing from findings of Hasan Ali, observed: "The village is familiar to me. I know that so-called backward castes are not discriminated against there while serving the food, making them to sit in different rows". (P 446-47).

Some ulama question the popular concept of Kufu while they consider the caste location as a deciding factor for other rituals/praxis like imamat, etc. Masud has considered it as a criterion also to understand the casteist undercurrents of the jurisprudence creation. Another interesting theme the book indirectly deals with is the relationship between the caste, the denomination and the region. One can easily discern from the incidents he has mentioned that the caste identity supersedes when it negotiates with denominational and regional identities during the process of forging matrimonial alliances. However, the institution of marriage in the Muslim community as a site for contestations among three levels of social exclusion is an area which needs proper sociological exploration. Another area which calls for the attention of social scientists is the extent to which the observance of Kufu can push the boundary of endogamy. It is doctrinally permissible in Islam to marry first/second cousins however frequency to tie nuptial knots among the first cousins tends to be higher among the ashrafs. The empirical information regarding the dynamics of this aspect of Kufu and its variations across castes, denominations and regions is really thin.

While surveying a couple of apex Muslim organisations of the contemporary India, Masud finds out that despite their claim to be "Islamic" in their social behaviour, the caste has come to categorize their practical politics in a very overt style. As an insider to the Jama'at-i-Islami Hind, he informs that it has been a hostage in the hands of some ashrafs who are extremely castiest in their social outlook (P392). Likewise, content of "Compendium of Islamic Laws", a volume compiled and published by All India Muslim Personal Law Board recently, betrays an effort on its part to project Kufu and other manifestations of the caste discrimination as intrinsic sections of Muslim theology. The other side of the coin is that this volume is full of passages and references of jurisprudential sources but it does not have citations from the classical texts of Islam (P410).

In short, Masud's first book makes an interesting reading on the issue of the caste discriminations. One may differ from him on several points he makes and conclusions he draws but the disagreement neither undermines the utility of the tons of information he provides for the future scholars nor does it overshadow the relevance of the questions he raises in the book.

(The review-article appeared in Contemporary Perspectives, Volume 2, No.2, July-December 2008, pp 374-381.).

2. Book Review: The Problem of Caste among Indian Muslims

Hindustan Mein Zaat-Paat Aur Musalman (Urdu)

Author: Masood Alam Falahi

Pages: 640

Year of Publication: 2007

Publisher: Al-Qazi, F-A/86, Abul Fazl Enclave, New Delhi 110025

Price:Rs.250/-

Reviewed By: Mr. Ayub Khan -A freelance journalist based in Toronto, Canada. He is a keen observer of political and social trends in India and abroad. His articles have appeared in The Muslim Observer, IslamOnline, Meantime, The News and other newspapers & journals.

E-mail: ayubpathan@hotmail.com, muslimindia2020@yahoo.ca]

The problem of caste among Indian Muslims is gaining increased scrutiny after a series of political and judicial events–the most recent being the Supreme Court's notice to the Union government on the status of 'low-caste' Muslims of Maharashtra.

The traditional response of the Muslim community has been to shove the issue under the rug and charge those who dare to challenge the status-quo as indulging in anti-Islamic activity.

In the past decade, however, attempts have been made to shine the light on this uncomfortable aspect of India 's Muslim society. Masood Alam Falahi's 'Hindustan Mein Zaat-Paat Aur Musalman' is arguably the most successful of those attempts in providing a comprehensive survey of the problem.

The author has a unique academic background having completed his Alimiat degree from Jamiatul Falah in Azamgarh and his undergraduate degrees in arts and education from Aligarh Muslim University . He is at present pursuing his M.Phil from Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi . It is perhaps because of this background that Falahi adopts a multi-disciplinary approach for this book; he approaches it from disciplines as varied as history, Islamic jurisprudence, sociology, anthropology, and politics.

Tracing the origins of casteism to the Aryan invasions in India, Falahi begins with a discussion of its conception in Hindu religion and how it managed to keep a whole swathe of masses under its yoke. So forceful and assimilative was the Brahminical social order that it even scuttled efforts towards reform by egalitarian movements like Buddhism and Jainism. Under such an unjust order Muslim traders brought the liberating force of Islam to shores of India which led to incremental rise in the 'low-castes' adopting Islam. The author contends that the Arab invaders who first came were completely free from casteism and believed in complete equality of mankind as clearly elaborated by Islamic teachings. It was only after the non-Arab rulers took over in 995 CE that proponents of the Brahminical social order were able to smuggle their concept of Varn Ashram into the Muslim society. The inroads were made through a sophisticated manipulation of the concept of Kafa'a (suitability and compatibility in marriage) to the extent that it became synonymous with the Varna Ashram.

Some of the early proponents of this new conception were scholars and mystics attached to the court. The once unitary Islamic society now came to be divided into the Ashraaf (Syed, Shaikh, Mughal, and Pathan) and Ajlaaf (Kunjda, Qasai, Nai, Julaha, etc). Those non-Muslims who came from the 'upper castes' were classified in the Ashraaf category and those from 'low castes' to the Ajlaaf. Among the Ashraaf, Syeds gained the sacrosanct status similar to the ones of the Brahmans. High positions in the government were reserved for them and their writ ran large especially under the reigns of Iltumish and Balban. It was not until 1325 CE when Sultan Muhammad Tughlaq took over that the Syed supremacy was challenged. He brought in reforms by dismissing the old guard and bringing in a group of scholars and administrators associated with the Sufi Shaikh Nizamuddin Awliya. His fairness, justice, and large-heartedness towards all led a large number of natives to convert to Islam.

Muhammad Tughlaq proved to be a thorn in the eye of the Ashraaf and a group among them conspired to eventually oust and kill him thus bringing an end to his reforms. One of his most vocal critics was Maulana Syed Ziauddin Barani who claimed that it was against God's commandments to appoint the Arzaals to governmental positions and called on the Sultan to consider his religious duty to deny the ajlaf access to knowledge. Branding them as 'mean' and 'despicable' he urged that anyone found to be teaching them should be punished and even exiled. He also prohibited marriage between the two groups.

The rulers who followed Muhammad Tughlaq revived the concept of Kafa'at in its various formations. It was Shari'ah minded Sufis like Shaikh Abdul Has Muhaddis Dehlawi who fought casteism tooth and nail which again led to the rise in conversions to Islam. It is the contention of Falahi that it was to counter this threat posed to the Brahminical social order that movements like Bhakti, Vaishno, and Sikkhism were introduced. Despite the best efforts of anti-caste Ulema and Sufis the Muslim society was stratified on the basis of caste especially with regards to marriage.

Falahi provides exhaustive quotes from those ulema, Sufis, and movements which supported casteism, the ones which did not, and others who adopted a dualistic approach. Thus, for instance Shah Waliullah Farooqui Dehlavi supported the by then well entrenched concept of 'Kufu' eventhough he had no hesitation in inviting a Hindu ox-cart driver to share a meal with him. The driver was impressed by this brotherly treatment and adopted Islam.

Mufti Muhammad Shafi, of Deobandi school who later on became the Grand Mufti of Pakistan, wrote a book titled Nihayat al Arab fi Ghayat al Nasb in which he made several statements which pointed towards the supposed glory and magnificence of Ashraaf and ruled that customary concept of Kufu doesn't violate any of the Islamic principles. Maulana Ashraf Ali Farooqui Thanwi, Maulana Syed Mehmood Madani, and Maulana Qari Muhammad Tayyab Siddiqui Qasmi approved of Mufti Shafi's stance and dismissed the critics as those influenced by the West's God-less ideologies. There was a disturbance in Deoband when this book came out and Mufti Shafi had to take refuge at Darul Uloom from the hostile crowd.

Maulana Ahmad Raza Khan Barelwi was so respectful towards the Syeds that he wrote that even if a charge of theft and fornication is proven against a Syed, the Qazi shouldn't have the Niyyah of applying the 'Hadd.' He claimed that even though Mughal and Pathan are Ashraaf they are not the Kufu of Syeds. He went on to write, "The original good (communities) have good qualities (and manners) and it is the opposite among the razeel. It was due to this that rulers of the past did not allow the Razeel to get too much education. Now see how the barbers and manhars have spread the various forms of fitna by acquiring education…"

Not only the ulema but also the proponents of modern education were not immune from the claws of casteism. Falahi proves with unimpeachable evidence that Sir Syed had only the Ashraaf interests in mind when he started his educational movement. In an address at the foundation laying ceremony of 'Madrasa Anjuman-e-Islamia' in Bareli where children from the so-called 'low-caste' communities used to study, he said that he finds no use in teaching English to them. "It is better and in the interests of the community that they are engaged in the old form of study… It appears appropriate if you teach them some writing and math. They should also be taught small tracts on everyday affairs and through which they know basic beliefs and practices of the Islamic faith," he told them.

Masood Alam Falahi's meticulous pen doesn't spare anyone and he has discussed the views of almost all religious and ideological schools of thought present in the sub-continent including the Deobandis, Barelwis, Jamaat-e-Islami, Ahle Hadith, and views of high officials of umbrella organizations like the All India Muslim Personal Law Board. He also provides a list of series of instances of caste based discrimination in 21st century India which include not allowing the 'Ajlaf' from attending mosques, denying burials in the graveyard, not respecting the honor of their women, etc. There is also a an elaborate discussion on the reservations for the backward Muslim communities.

For all his attention to detail, however, Falahi doesn't define 'caste.' It would have been helpful if the difference between class and caste would have been clearly elaborated. In his discussion he casts a net which is too wide which fails to take into consideration that there are regional differences among the Muslims of India. In South India, for instance, caste is not the main criteria in marriage as is evident from a survey of matrimonial columns.

Some of Falahi's criticism and leveling of charges need further investigation. His treatment of quite a few historical sources indicates a casual approach. For example, he claims that Nasiruddin Chiragh-e-Dilli was involved in the killing of Muhammad Tughlaq without any evidence. Similarly, he categorizes some ulema in the casteist class without offering substantial evidence. He places Mufti Taqi Usmani in this category based on a solitary reference where he joking refered to a 'julaha.'

His recommendations to wipe out casteism while generally helpful also advocate a radical approach. For example, his absolute insistence on marriage between different communities, abandoning of last names, are impractical and some like the first one might even aggravate the situation.

Despite the drawbacks and irrevent tone Hindustan Mein Zaat-paat aur Musalman should be read by anyone who is interested in removing the un-Islamic concept of casteism among Indian Muslims. The criticism of the revered religious and social leaders should be taken in the right spirit. It is only through a critical self analysis that the community can rise itself out of its current morass.

Israel’s devastating attack on Gaza: What India and the International Community Should Do ?

noreply@blogger.com (Muslim India) — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 06:48:00 -0800

Kamal Mitra Chenoy/South Asia Citizens Web 17/01/2009 Muslim India

Israel’s devastating attack on Gaza is not about the makeshift rocket attacks against it by Hamas but about the ongoing Israeli occupation of Palestinian land and seizure of valuable Palestinian resources like water which is in short supply in the region. That's why the Israelis are one state that has no permanent borders but constantly expanding ones.

It should be remembered that under the UN Plan for the Partition of Palestine in 1948, that India and many Third World countries voted against, 55% of Palestine was awarded to Israel and only 45% to Palestine. Israel did not accept the UN Plan and captured more land in the 1948 war. In the June 1967 war it captured up to 78% of historic Palestine.

Several UN Security Council resolutions followed including Resolution 242, which mandated Israel to return to its earlier borders, that backed by its mentor the US it refused to do so. Now the Palestinians have much less than the 22% land of the UN mandated it [less than half of the UN Plan]. Further Israeli occupation has taken place including through the Separation Wall, that the International Court of Justice has found illegal under international law. Typically the Israelis refused to accept that judgement.

Now there is no contiguous unified Palestine, but enclaves surrounded by illegal and growing Israeli settlements, military outposts, checkpoints through which Palestinians must pass, reflecting the growing fragmentation of Palestine. No one talks of the ill fated and one sided Oslo Accord now, highlighting the desperate straits the Palestinians find themselves. Not to speak of the Israeli siege of the unquestioned Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in Ramallah about which the international community did very little.

After the first free elections in Palestine in 2006 which Hamas overwhelmingly won, the Israelis successfully isolated Hamas and Fatah took over the West Bank, while Hamas retained the Gaza Strip. Since then the Israelis have tried their utmost to weaken and discredit the Hamas regime. Despite being a democratically elected regime Hamas have been dubbed terrorists by Israel and the US. The use of the term terrorist is ironic. The Israeli armed groups including the Irgun and the Stern gang dubbed terrorists by the mainstream Israelis themselves committed atrocities against the Palestinians along with the underground Israeli army the Hagganah creating the atmosphere of the Nakba, the forcible expulsion of millions of Palestinians from their homeland. The Hagganah blew up the King David hotel killing the UN envoy Count Bernadotte. This apart from scores of British soldiers who were then in control of Palestine who were also killed.

The Security Council resolution calling for the return of Palestinian refugees has been ignored by Israel and its backers. As an illegitimate state, Israel wantonly practices state terrorism against the Palestinians. In targeted killings, mainly from the air, hundreds of Palestinians have been killed, in recent years particularly in Gaza. Those killed in targeted assassinations have not been found guilty in any court. Their association with Hamas or Islamic Jihad is sufficient reason. Many more Palestinian activists and civilians have been killed in targeted assassinations than Israelis killed by Hamas’ makeshift rockets that have been fired in retaliation. Though all civilian killings are a tragedy, it is demonstrably false that the Hamas rocket attacks took place without provocation. Yet sections of the international community, whether dubbing Hamas as terrorist or not, ignore Israeli state terrorism as the prime reason , for the Hamas rocket attacks.

The Palestinians have no answer to the Israeli military behemoth. No advanced fighter planes, no tanks, no artillery, no commandos, and above all no superpower to arm them and to justify their military actions. What else will they fight with but makeshift rockets, small arms, and even most tragically suicide bombers that are against the rules of war? And every Israeli war is marked by new strategic objectives inimical to Palestinian interests. The present Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has stated that their goal is to liquidate Hamas. His foremost rival former Prime Minister Netanyahu who is widely tipped to win the February elections, has said he is for regime change in Gaza. Many argue that the timing of this offensive is to improve Kadima’s electoral prospects against a formidable rival. So the goal and timing had more to do with Israel’s domestic politics rather than the feeble threat offered by Hamas. The object is not a ceasefire in terms of mutual accommodation like an end to mutual hostilities.

The ferocity of the Israeli attack is extreme even by its own ruthless standards. 600* Palestinians have died including women, children and babies. Mosques, universities, colleagues and a UN school have been bombed. All this is against the rules of war. But few have condemned the Israelis for this cynical and murderous onslaught. For an army whose designation the Israeli Defense Force, is a misnomer, since there is little defensive about the Israeli Army. The Army has banned the press from Gaza, scarcely the sign of a democratic state. But the UN staff there have testified to the massive destruction of civilian infrastructure.

After sustained intervention by the international community esp. the Egypt-France plan there is a daily three hour ceasefire. But the this period according to the UN staff is not sufficient to distribute essential goods or repair essential infrastructure like drinking water and sanitation. The goal of the liquidation of Hamas is clear from the nature of the bombing. Israel has some of the most advanced aircraft and experienced pilots. Its precision bombing in targeting Palestinians it considers terrorists is testimony to its skills. When such an Air Force kills hundreds of civilians and attacks clearly civilian targets there is obviously a motive. Apart from causing terror and weakening the morale of Palestinians to fight, it is also trying to discredit Hamas among its own people. The Israeli message is: withdraw your democratic support to Hamas or face such consequences. Netanyahu has been outspoken in calling for regime change as a consequence of this brutal attack.

The goal is not just to stop the makeshift rocket attacks which are a response to Israeli attacks, but to make clear to the Palestinians what sort of democratic politics is acceptable and what is not. Opposing the Oslo Accord which was sharply criticized by Jews like Noam Chomsky, Ilan Pappe and leading Palestinian intellectuals like Edward Said, is not acceptable, even though Oslo is virtually dead, as are other later frameworks like the US sponsored attempts like the Mitchell plan.

What should India, an old friend of the Palestinians whose recent support has been lukewarm, and the international community do to help move this one sided strife towards a democratic solution? In the first place they must insist on the systematic implementation of the relevant Security Council resolutions relating to Palestine esp. Resolutions 242, 339, et.al. These are essential for creating a two state solution within boundaries accepted by the UN. Some would prefer a single bi-national state, but for that much more work including assuring the Israelis of their security and identity remains to be done. But for either solution, Israel cannot be permitted to continue as a lawless state. There must be a complete ceasefire in Gaza, and Israel must pay reparations for the severe damage it has done and for the great loss of life.

The Palestinian movement has long been a beacon of the national liberation struggle. It is an international commitment to strive to make the Palestinians free.

* According to Palestinian medical sources, in 21 days 1133 Palestinians killed by Israel including 346 children & 105 women, 5200 injured.

Obama's Deadly Silence

noreply@blogger.com (Muslim India) — Sun, 4 Jan 2009 08:56:00 -0800

By Ali Abunimah 04 January, 2009 Muslim India
The Electronic Intifada

"I would like to ask President-elect Obama to say something please about the humanitarian crisis that is being experienced right now by the people of Gaza." Former Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney made her plea after disembarking from the badly damaged SS Dignity that had limped to the Lebanese port of Tyre while taking on water.

The small boat, carrying McKinney, the Green Party's recent presidential candidate, other volunteers, and several tons of donated medical supplies, had been trying to reach the coast of Gaza when it was rammed by an Israeli gunboat in international waters.

But as more than 2,400 Palestinians have been killed or injured -- the majority civilians -- since Israel began its savage bombardment of Gaza on 27 December, Obama has maintained his silence. "There is only one president at a time," his spokesmen tell the media. This convenient excuse has not applied, say, to Obama's detailed interventions on the economy, or his condemnation of the "coordinated attacks on innocent civilians" in Mumbai in November.

The Mumbai attacks were a clear-cut case of innocent people being slaughtered. The situation in the Middle East however is seen as more "complicated" and so polite opinion accepts Obama's silence not as the approval for Israel's actions that it certainly is, but as responsible statesmanship.

It ought not to be difficult to condemn Israel's murder of civilians and bombing of civilian infrastructure including hundreds of private homes, universities, schools, mosques, civil police stations and ministries, and the building housing the only freely-elected Arab parliament.

It ought not to be risky or disruptive to US foreign policy to say that Israel has an unconditional obligation under the Fourth Geneva Convention to lift its lethal, months-old blockade preventing adequate food, fuel, surgical supplies, medications and other basic necessities from reaching Gaza.

But in the looking-glass world of American politics, Israel, with its powerful first-world army, is the victim, and Gaza -- the besieged and blockaded home to 1.5 million immiserated people, half of them children and eighty percent refugees -- is the aggressor against whom no cruelty is apparently too extreme.

While feigning restraint, Obama has telegraphed where he really stands; senior adviser David Axelrod told CBS on 28 December that Obama understood Israel's urge to "respond" to attacks on its citizens. Axelrod claimed that "this situation has become even more complicated in the last couple of days and weeks as Hamas began its shelling [and] Israel responded."

The truce Hamas had meticulously upheld was shattered when Israel attacked Gaza, killing six Palestinians, as The Guardian reported on 5 November. A blatant disregard for the facts, it seems, will not leave the White House with George W. Bush on 20 January.

Axelrod also recalled Obama's visit to Israel last July when he ignored Palestinians and visited the Israeli town of Sderot. There, Obama declared: "If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I'm going to do everything in my power to stop that. I would expect Israelis to do the same thing."

This should not surprise anyone. Despite pervasive wishful thinking that Obama would abandon America's pro-Israel bias, his approach has been almost indistinguishable from the Bush administration's.

Along with Tony Blair and George W. Bush, Obama staunchly supported Israel's war against Lebanon in July-August 2006, where it used cluster bombs on civilian areas, killing more than 1,000 people.

Obama's comments in Sderot echoed what he said in a speech to the powerful pro-Israel lobby, AIPAC, in March 2007. He recalled an earlier visit to the Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona near the border with Lebanon which he said reminded him of an American suburb. There, he could imagine the sounds of Israeli children at "joyful play just like my own daughters." He saw a home the Israelis told him was damaged by a Hizballah rocket (no one had been hurt in the incident).

Obama has identified his daughters repeatedly with Israeli children, while never having uttered a word about the thousands -- thousands -- of Palestinian and Lebanese children killed and permanently maimed by Israeli attacks just since 2006. This allegedly post-racial president appears fully invested in the racist worldview that considers Arab lives to be worth less than those of Israelis and in which Arabs are always "terrorists."

The problem is much wider than Obama: American liberals in general see no contradiction in espousing positions supporting Israel that they would deem extremist and racist in any other context. The cream of America's allegedly "progressive" Democratic party vanguard -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Howard Berman, New York Senator Charles Schumer, among others -- have all offered unequivocal support for Israel's massacres in Gaza, describing them as "self-defense."

And then there's Hillary Clinton, the incoming secretary of state and self-styled champion of women and the working classes, who won't let anyone outbid her anti-Palestinian positions.

Democrats are not simply indifferent to Palestinians. In the recent presidential election, their efforts to win swing states like Florida often involved espousing positions dehumanizing to Palestinians in particular and Arabs and Muslims in general. Many liberals know this is wrong but tolerate it silently as a price worth paying (though not to be paid by them) to see a Democrat in office.

Even those further to the left implicitly accept Israel's logic. Matthew Rothschild, editor of The Progressive, criticized Israel's attacks on Gaza as a "reckless" and "disproportionate response" to Hamas rocket attacks that he deemed "immoral." There are many others who do nothing to support nonviolent resistance to Israeli occupation and colonization, such as boycott, divestment and sanctions but who are quick to condemn any desperate Palestinian effort -- no matter how ineffectual and symbolic -- to resist Israel's relentless aggression.

Similarly, we can expect that the American university professors who have publicly opposed the academic boycott of Israel on grounds of protecting "academic freedom" will remain just as silent about Israel's bombing of the Islamic University of Gaza as they have about Israel's other attacks on Palestinian academic institutions.

There is no silver lining to Israel's slaughter in Gaza, but the reactions to it should at least serve as a wake-up call: when it comes to the struggle for peace and justice in Palestine, the American liberal elites who are about to assume power present as formidable an obstacle as the outgoing Bush administration and its neoconservative backers.

___________________________________________________________________
Co-founder of The Electronic Intifada, Ali Abunimah is author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse (Metropolitan Books, 2006).

Is The UN Complicit In Israel's Massacre In Gaza?

noreply@blogger.com (Muslim India) — Sun, 4 Jan 2009 08:37:00 -0800

By Omar Barghouti 04 January, 2009 Muslim India

The Electronic Intifada

A friend forwarded to me the most original greeting for the New Year: "I wish in 2009 a horrible year for all war criminals and their accomplices." I could not but think of whether some United Nations officials can be counted among such "accomplices."

Over the last two days, various UN officials stated that the percentage of civilians among those Palestinians killed in the current Israeli war of aggression on Gaza is about "25 percent" and is "likely to increase." Assuming the best of intentions, stating such a painfully low figure reflects shabby research or scandalous incompetence. At worst, it reveals intentional deception and misinformation that can only benefit the already massive and well-oiled Israeli public relations machine.

The UN's complicity in Israel's propaganda war is the latest, albeit hardly ever mentioned, dimension of the international organization's utter failure in defending its principles, foremost among which are the prevention of war and the promotion of peace, when performing such a duty is expected to stir the wrath of the US master and the uniquely influential Israel lobby. Not only has the UN Secretary-General betrayed the very Charter of the UN and all relevant international law principles by failing to even condemn Israel's massacre of civilians and targeting of civilian institutions and residential neighborhoods; the entire UN system has so far dealt with it as a "war" between two relatively symmetric forces, where the mightier side has sufficient justification to "defend itself," but should do so more proportionately, while the weaker side is chiefly responsible for triggering the "armed conflict."

Now, senior UN officials, excluding the particularly courageous and principled UN Special Rapporteur for human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, Richard Falk, and a few others, are only focusing on "women and children" victims of the massacre, implying, even if unintentionally, that all Palestinian men in Gaza are fair game for the Israeli killing machine. The tens of Palestinian civilian policemen that were butchered in the opening hours of the massive Israeli attack by dozens of fighter jets were, thus, conveniently dismissed by such irresponsible UN figures of casualties as Hamas "fighters," more or less, that may be targeted with impunity. This is not to mention the scores of male teachers, doctors, workers, farmers and unemployed who were killed by Israel's indiscriminate bombing in their workplaces, public offices, homes or streets and were not accounted for as civilian victims of Israel's belligerent murder spree.

Above everything else, this UN discourse not only reduces close to half a million Palestinian men in that wretched, tormented and occupied coastal strip to "militants," radical "fighters," or whatever other nouns in currency nowadays in the astoundingly, but characteristically, biased western media coverage of the Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, as some international law experts have described them; it also treats them as already condemned criminals that deserve the capital punishment Israel has meted out on them. I am not an expert on the history of the UN, but I suspect this sets a new low, a precedent in dehumanizing an entire adult male population in a region of "conflict," thereby justifying their fatal targeting or, at least, silently condoning it. But this should surprise no one as the same UN leaders have for 18 months watched in eerie silence or even indirectly justified, one way or another, Israel's siege of Gaza which was described by Falk as a "prelude to genocide" and compared by him to Nazi crimes.

If one wants to be truly magnanimous and give those UN officials the benefit of the doubt -- not something I would recommend at all, given the scale of the massacre and their verifiable complicity -- one has to assume that they are quite confused as to how best to categorize the thousands of Palestinian victims of Israel's war on Gaza, whether those injured or killed. A casual overview of Israeli army press statements and human rights organizations' reports, however, will immediately dismiss the possibility that the UN figure of 25 percent was the product of clinical incompetence or technical ineptness, widely recognized trademarks of the organization.

A recent article published in The Washington Post, for instance, quoted a senior Israeli military official saying: "There are many aspects to Hamas, and we are trying to hit the whole spectrum, because everything is connected and everything supports terrorism against Israel." An Israeli army spokeswoman went further, stating "Anything affiliated with Hamas is a legitimate target." Given that, in the ghetto of Gaza, Hamas is effectively the "ruling" party -- it was democratically elected, after all -- and its network of social and charitable organizations are the largest provider of social services to the impoverished and besieged population, all of Gaza's civilian infrastructure, public schools, hospitals, universities, law and order organs, traffic police, sewage treatment and water purification stations, ministries providing vital services to the public, mosques, public theaters and many non-governmental institutions can technically be considered "affiliated" with Hamas.

Lest the reader feel that this is an exaggeration, today, in the first hours of the first day of the new year, the Israeli air force already bombed the following "targets" in Gaza: the Palestinian Legislative Council, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Justice. Earlier, several mosques were pulverized to the ground. So were main buildings in the Islamic University of Gaza, which serves 20,000 students. Ambulances and private homes were not spared either.

Even B'Tselem, Israel's leading human rights organization that often issues sanitized, "balanced" or selective reports focusing on Israel's less criminal behavior in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, was compelled to conclude that the Israeli army was intentionally targeting "what appear to be clear civilian objects" that are not "engaged in military action against Israel," without making the distinction between male and female civilians. A statement from the organization on 31 December said:

For example, the military bombed the main police building in Gaza and killed, according to reports, 42 Palestinians who were in a training course and were standing in formation at the time of the bombing. Participants in the course study first-aid, handling of public disturbances, human rights, public-safety exercises, and so forth. Following the course, the police officers are assigned to various arms of the police force in Gaza responsible for maintaining public order.

Another example is yesterday's bombing of the government offices. These offices included the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Labor, Construction and Housing. An announcement made by the [Israeli army] Spokesperson's Office regarding this attack stated that, 'the attack was carried out in response to the ongoing rocket and mortar-shell fire carried out by Hamas over Israeli territory, and in the framework of [Israeli army] operations to strike at Hamas governmental infrastructure and members active in the organization.'

Just to drive the point closer to home for an average western reader who may have internalized over the years a perception of Israelis -- inaccurately and quite deliberately depicted by Israeli and western propaganda as part of the "west" -- as full humans and Palestinians, along with almost all global southerners, as relative humans, perhaps the following mirroring exercise is necessary.

Imagine if the Palestinian resistance, in exercising its otherwise perfectly legitimate, UN-sanctioned right to fight Israel's occupation and apartheid, were to regard all institutions "affiliated" with the Israeli government as legitimate targets, justifying the bombing of universities, hospitals, civilian ministries, publicly-run synagogues, neighborhoods where government or army officials live or work, and other civilian "targets," killing in five days only 1,600 Israelis and wounding 8,000 (four times the current toll in Gaza, given that Israel's population is four times as large). What would the UN do? Would UN officials only count Israeli women and children victims? Would they call on both parties to "exercise restraint" or to end "the violence"? Morally, and even legally, this is not even a fair reversal of roles, for Israel, no matter what, remains the occupier and settler-colonial oppressor, while the indigenous Palestinians remain the colonized and oppressed.

The truth is the UN leadership, in the unipolar world that we are still living in and is perhaps on its way to be transformed to more multipolar space, has effectively turned into a rubber stamp bureau for US dictates. Ban Ki-moon will go down in history as the most subservient and morally unqualified Secretary-General to ever lead the international organization. The only question remaining is whether one day he and his senior staff will stand trial for being accomplices in Israel's war crimes, together with leaders of the US, the EU and many Arab regimes. In a more just world, governed by the rule of law, not the US-dominated rule of the jungle, they should.
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Source: COUNTERCURRENTS.ORG

Omar Barghouti is a Palestinian human rights activist and commentator.

Who is Barack Obama? And How To Deal With Him

noreply@blogger.com (Muslim India) — Sat, 3 Jan 2009 07:47:00 -0800

By Prof. Michael Brenner 3rd January 2009 Muslim India

The Obama administration’s foreign policy promises to be little changed from that of its predecessor. This holds for its underlying conceptions of American interests and the country’s place in the world. Modes of address toward other governments may be less peremptory, tactics less aggressive. All indications suggest, however, point to more continuity than change in the fundamentals. Those who excepted a shift in thinking about the intersecting, combustible crises in the Greater Middle East from Palestine to Afghanistan are to be disappointed. The grievous implications will register as well in South Asia. What is the basis for this pessimistic assessment? Barack Obama’s appointments to senior cabinet positions is one sources of clues. The President-elect’s public statements, dating back to the campaign, provide the other. Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, Robert Gates as continuing Secretary of State, and General Jones as National Security Adviser share one critical trait: none has ever questioned the strategic premises for the United States’ aggressive interventions or for unqualified backing of Israel’s hard-line policies. The same can be said in regard to Washington’s confrontational approach toward Iran. The last is the key to the region’s future, as I discuss below. What are these strategic premises? They can be summarized as follows:

1. The United States faces grave threats, originating in the Greater Middle East, that endanger core security and economic interests, e.g. transnational terrorist groups, the acquisition of nuclear weapons by hostile regimes, rogue states and the prospect of regional conflicts.

2. These threats can only be dealt with through assertive American actions, political or military. The involvement of others is only meaningful when oriented and orchestrated by Washington.

3. The long-term solution is the fostering of prosperous democracies responsive to their citizens needs. Here, too, American leadership is indispensable.

4. The American engagements in Afghanistan, in Iraq and in the Persian Gulf must be maintained until a resolution – as defined by the United States – is achieved.

All the principals who form the new foreign policy team, including President Obama and Vice-President Biden ascribe to these postulates. Criticisms of current policies that were voiced during the campaign by Obama, Biden and Clinton focused on execution. Execution referred to excessive unilateralism as well as the occupation of Iraq. The record shows that only Obama opposed the decision to go to war. There is even a caveat on that point, since the opposition consisted only of public remarks made while an Illinois state senator in Springfield. As a U.S. Senate candidate running in the fall of 2004, he stated that overall the war was being managed as best as reasonably could be expected. On Iran, much is made of Obama’s declaration in March of this year that we should not be afraid to engage Tehran in direct negotiations or set onerous preconditions. It has not been repeated with such specificity since then. We should note that the person most forceful in pushing a revision of Iran policy, as well as redirection of thinking about Palestine, was Zbigniew Brzezinski who is no longer a confidant of Obama. We should also remind ourselves that Robert Gates has been unfailing hawkish on dealing with Iran. Just a few weeks ago, he explicitly stated that Iran’s leaders were not credible negotiating partners since their unalleviated hostility toward the United States had been demonstrated by the rejection of several American overtures over the years. This distortion that conveniently omits the serious Iranian demarche of April 2003 made through the Swiss Ambassador to Iran suggests that Mr. Gates will not be an advocate of any major policy reversal under a new president.*

Other qualified persons were available had Obama seen a need for a root-and-branch reassessment of the country’s strategic frame of reference for the Greater Middle East. Senator Chuck Hagel, a Republican from the heartland state of Nebraska, is the outstanding individual. He has been a consistent skeptic of the Iraq adventure, a sophisticated analyst of the region’s intersecting problems, and an advocate of diplomacy as the means to deal with Iran. Hagel is known as a thoughtful, intellectually rigorous man whose discourses on American foreign policy receive close, respectful attention. Yet, he has never seriously considered for a senior post in the Obama administration. That speaks volumes about the president-elects high degree of comfort with the prevailing conventional wisdom and its proponents.

At the end of the day, any reformulation of American policy depends on President Obama. Yet, there is no sign that he has a different understanding of America’s role in the Greater Middle East from that of the Washington foreign policy establishment generally that has been supportive of the Bush strategy. Nor is it clear where such an understanding might come from given the unanimity of views among his foreign policy team. There is always the hope that new circumstances and new pressures, domestic and international, may crystallize innovative thinking in the future. But Obama does not enjoy the luxury of time since Iran’s refusal to mothball its nuclear facilities under strict international monitoring will force a decision of some kind.

Barack Obama and his appointees live in intellectual echo chamber where no one dares utter discomforting truths. Witness to universal failure to recognize the definitive strategic defeat that the United States has suffered in Iraq as embodied in the agreed Status Of Forces Treaty. Washington got nothing in the way of operational autonomy that it had demanded. In effect, the Iraqi leadership is showing the United States the door. Regionally, the big winner is Iran which will have intimate relations with any future Iraqi government. Its greatly strengthened hand makes Tehran less inclined to yield to Western demands or American intimidation. These cardinal facts of strategic life in the Gulf go unremarked in the American media, foreign policy circles or most certainly among Obama’s foreign policy team.

How do we explain so little change from a man who made change the leitmotif of his candidacy and who is inheriting a set of failed policies? We must bear in mind who Barack Obama actually is. 

Who is Barack Obama? – And How To Deal With Him:- The question is simpler to answer than it seems. There is nothing of the exotic about him, contrary to the popular discourse, except for a childhood background that he assiduously has relegated to an outgrown past. A Kenyan father and the Jakarta sojourn in childhood have left few visible marks on his character or attitudes. More fruitful for understanding who he is and what he is about is the portrait of a highly ambitious politician with the self-assurance that stems from a stellar Ivy League record, a wife to match and early electoral successes. His ‘blackness’ is not part of his core identity. The only apparent residue of his experience as a black is strong penchant for ironing out all ascriptive differences in his field of vision, e.g. ‘partisanship.’

Obama’s autobiography is easily misread. He did not visit his father’s family in Kenya in search of his roots. There are no signs that he sought to integrate Africa into his persona.

Similarly, he has maintained few ties to Indonesia and takes little interest in the country, except for a close relationship with his half-sister long resident in the United States. In truth, he is not a cosmopolitan person. His travels overseas have been limited, before or since entering the Senate. Since his Jakarta days, he has not lived abroad. His knowledge of foreign affairs is correspondingly limited despite having chaired the Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Europe. Superior intelligence along with legal training makes him a ‘quick study’ who can readily absorb the main points of a situation without much knowledge or understanding in depth. Facile speaking skills and social ease are complementary traits that help create an impression of urbane worldliness. Obama is conservative, in the traditional sense of the term We should bear in mind that the strongest influences on him during his formative years were a mother and maternal grandparents who were sliced white bread Kansans. Obama’s ambition is not inspired by any cause or purpose. The themes he enunciates are ones of national unity – as a desirable end in itself as well as a precondition to meeting collective challenges. None in this category stand out in his writings or speeches. Little if anything in the roiled public life of America seems to anger him or even irk him. At a time of multiple crises – constitutional, economic, and in the nation’s foreign dealings – he keeps his emotional distance. It is hard to imagine him getting worked up about any of the developments in American society or attacks on the body politic that so deeply dismay some others  In all respects, Obama is very much a man of his times. Weak or absent convictions, dispassion even about grievous wrongs, incapacity for moral outrage, quiet acceptance of the precept to put self first – if not quite the measure of all things, a natural egoism – all the hallmarks of contemporary American society. In short, Obama is a messiah without mission or message.

Implications :- What would Obama as President of the United States look like? Certain traits seem highly likely to be on display:

1. Obama is, and will continue to be a deliberate decision-maker and policymaker.

2. That has been a trademark of his campaign. There is nothing impetuous about the man.

3. Improvisation is not in his nature. He prefers to follow a script, however relaxed he is in inter-personal dealings. When presented with an unexpected event, he tends to react with mild irritation. The apropos comment does not spring to mind. That was evident in his reaction to the financial crisis – a bland call for a bipartisan declaration with John McCain

4. Temperamentally, Obama is better suited to formulating policy and orchestrating its execution than he is to crisis management. In the latter instance, his instinct will be to slow down the clock to whatever extent he can.

5. He will be deliberate in making up his mind, but stubborn in holding to a position once he does. Obama’s numerous reversals of policy statements in the weeks after the primaries, and since his election, is not indicative of indecisiveness. He simply was playing campaign politics by offering views with little conviction behind them – even though the matters were consequential, e.g. Iraq, FISA. Commitments as President will be of a different order. In contrast to a narcissistic Bill Clinton, he does not expect the world to give him endless ‘do-overs.’

6. His acute, superior intelligence coupled to a desire to be in intellectual control will make him a hands-on President – once he overcomes an initial period of disorientation. Obama is stubborn in defending those policies in which he has invested something of himself; witness the belief that ‘winning’ in Afghanistan is a crucial national interest. It follows that the time when others, including other governments, may be able to shape his thinking is before his policy preferences crystallize.

7. Obama enters the White House with wide popular support and goodwill. His trademark elevated, above the fray rhetoric is one reason. He will have no specific mandate, though, apart from doing something about health care. His popularity will be based mainly on his personality and his being non-Bush. On foreign policy, the dispositions of public opinion are clear: do something to end the Iraq imbroglio but don’t do anything that embarrasses the U.S.; pursue a more multilateral tack but don’t forget American exceptionalism and safeguard our right to take action as we see fit; steer clear of open-ended nation-building projects, except where they create bulwarks against terrorists – e.g. Afghanistan; spent less money abroad, we need it at home; make us popular in the world again. Not much guidance there on how to untangle our multiple, intersecting dilemmas in the Greater Middle East.

8. Failure to raise the fundamental issues of interest and capability embedded in America’s Middle East engagements in the public discourse means digging a deeper hole. Obama is anything but a heroic figure; he instinctively avoids doing anything contentious. He will be handicapped further by: (1) the absence of an Iraq debate that gets beyond calendars; (2) the utter lack of strategic perspective; (3) the consonant inability of the American public to understand the truly significant choices and trade-offs to be made; and (4) a diplomacy hamstrung by the precipitous loss of American credibility and moral authority.

9. An Obama administration is unprepared for any crisis that might arise from the United States’ multiple engagements in the region - unprepared intellectually, politically and diplomatically. His selection of advisers who cluster around the conventional wisdom is a primary reason. Obama’s superficial understanding of regional matters, manifest in the former, is the other reason.

10. Obama will move slowly on Iraq where he will follow the current Bush policy line. That includes: a slow steady drawdown of troops, pressuring the Iraqis to permit a continued large American military presence; and ignoring the real prospect of renewed civil war as the al-Maliki government moves to suppress the Sunni Awakening Councils and to curb Kurdish independence. Neither he nor his advisors have any compelling fresh ideas; they have not rethought the premises of the American engagement in Mesopotamia or linked it a strategic plan for the region. They believe that the ‘surge’ was a great strategic success, not just a tactical move whose marginal effects were inflated by change in other factors in the equation. Were civil strife in Iraq to grow, he would be at a loss to know what to do. The superficiality of Obama’s thinking about Iraq was evident the first week in September by his reply to a FOX NEWS interviewer about ‘the surge.’ B.O.: “It’s been successful beyond our wildest dreams” – no Awakening Councils, no Iran-induced Mahdi Army stand-down, no unresolved simmering sectarian political conflicts, no $1 trillion investment in a war without cause, no terrorist invigorated, no ‘what are we still doing there?’ and what strategic ends are served by our staying the course?

11. On Afghanistan, here too he will follow the Bush line of increasing markedly American troop levels while attacking Taliban/al-Qaeda elements across the border in Pakistan. He already has pronounced his intention to shift forces from Iraq to Afghanistan – as was revealed on December 20. Obama genuinely believes that vital national interests are at stake in the piedmont of the Hindu Kush and, by implication, in adjacent Pakistan. Were the situation to deteriorate within the country and/or in relations with Pakistan, he would be at sea.

12. Obama he will be feeling his way on foreign policy generally. Most important, getting out of Iraq with pride and interests more or less intact depends on regional agreements/understandings which will take time to mature – especially in terms of a modus vivendi with Iran. Iran should be his number 1 priority and his most demanding challenge. It is not self-evident, though, that he will move quickly unless forced to do so by dint of circumstance.

13. Orchestrated opposition to a serious diplomatic initiative is mounting. None of Obama’s close advisors are known to favor it. A grand bargain with Iran is the precondition for containing the effects of whatever happens in Iraq - none of which will be great, and could get pretty nasty. Were there a strategic understanding about the Gulf among the U.S., Iran, Saudi Arabia, et al., it wouldn’t make much difference what mess Iraq is in. In other words, Iraq is now the dependent variable and Iran the independent variable. This is one of the critical ideas the Obama people have to get in their heads in order to make sense of the intricate linkages there, and above all to engage Iran quickly so as not to get pushed into a corner by the next round of reports about its nuclear progress. There are no signs that they have done so.

* As to Pakistan/India, the Obama administration views it through two optics: its strategy for victory in Afghanistan; and its worry about a war between nuclear powers. Hence the incentive to mediate a settlement on Kashmir. It is unclear what he is ready to invest in that effort – even less the chances of success. In the wider context of the emerging global strategy, a cooling of passions via a prolonged diplomatic process would suffice since it would be seen as freeing Pakistan’s military and political resources for deployment against the forces of Islamic extremism.

* Nothing will change vis a vis Israel/Palestine – except, perhaps, for some cosmetics.

* On Russia, Obama will do some huffing-and-puffing in order to buffer himself from Republican charges of being weak on America’s enemies. Obama will avoid serious confrontation, though, and seek ways to work with Moscow.

What Can Other Governments Do?

The short answer is: ‘not much.’ The United States is too big and too insular to be moved by the well-intentioned thoughts and actions of others.

Still, there is room for influence at the margins. This is especially so with a foreign affairs neophyte who is inclined to favor change from the Bush stasis, and who is truly interested in working with other countries. What could count is helping to create circumstances conducive to Obama’s taking the steps in the direction he already is inclined to go re Iran. That is to say, to move faster and further than cautionary instincts and constraints will incline him to do.

General Suggestions:-

Speak candidly and openly about how ‘you’ interpret problems, what the past mistakes were – by the US and regional states, what your threat assessments and priorities are, AND what ‘you’ are able and willing to do.

Remember that while Obama will be ‘reachable’ through his trusted senior advisers, he will make all the decisions based on his own understanding. Now, that understanding is nebulous. In order to have any influence on shaping it, it is essential to engage him before those dispositions crystallize into doctrines and strategies.

Policy-making positions will be staffed by the usual combination of experienced professionals and upwardly mobile newcomers Diplomatic experience in particular will vary greatly. Some officials will be very competent, some fumblers. Some will be comfortable dealing with foreigners based upon extensive relations while others will mask their uneasiness by assertiveness and a self-important manner. All this is predictable from recent history. Recent history also says that a key is gaining access to those policy-makers who understand ‘you’ and the issues - without neglecting, obviously, those with official dossiers.

Michele Obama will be a powerful influence. Unlike Hillary, she does not want to run things. She wants her husband to succeed. The essence of her advice always will be: be true to your self and convictions. In truth, though, there is not much ‘self’ and convictions there when it comes to foreign policy. Still, she will urge honesty, directness and ideals.

Bear in mind that the United States government is a two-headed creature; it is essential to ‘work’ Congress – even when both branches are controlled by Democrats. There will be no repeat of the ‘Supreme Soviet’ phenomenon seen under the Republicans.

Never lose sight of the fact that ‘your’ ultimate audience is American opinion. It is also Obama’s ultimate point of reference.

Michael BRENNER
December 20, 2008

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Dr. Michael Brenner is a Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations. He publishes and teaches in the fields of American foreign policy, Euro-American relations, and the European Union. He is also Professor of International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh. Brenner is the author of numerous books, and over 60 articles and published papers on a broad range of topics.

Next Terror Strike: Endgame for India and Pakistan

noreply@blogger.com (Muslim India) — Sat, 3 Jan 2009 07:21:00 -0800

By Mazher Hussain 3 January, 2009 Muslim India

www.sacw.net

Cries of war are once again vitiating the atmosphere in both India and Pakistan. The governments, the media and the opinion makers are contributing to the hype and increasing the hysteria by the day.

There is also silence. But this silence is from the peace activists on both sides of the border- an unfortunate silence and inaction from that very same section of society that should have been the most vocal and proactive in these times of madness and mayhem.

In fact, many people, especially in India, who are known votaries of conflict mitigation and have dedicated most of their lives to promote peace are also talking of keeping "all options" open! That they are disappointed enough to support cries for action that could also lead to a war between India and Pakistan is just a sign of the very difficult times that we have come to be in. If even activists working in the areas of peace and harmony have become so pessimistic and see strong and unilateral actions alone as the way out, what could be the thinking and the mindset of the common people who are being battered by the constant hate hype in the media and in such circumstances could war be far behind?

Of course the response of the Pakistan establishment post Mumbai terror attack leaves much to be desired. Any person, especially in India, is aghast and extremely exasperated by the constant flip flop and the denial mode of the Pakistan establishment in all matters regarding the Mumbai terror attack and the acceptance of the presence of terror groups and suspects on the Pakistan territory. Even more frustrating is the apparent unwillingness or inability of Pakistan government to stop or deal with such terror groups. This seems to be resulting in a growing sense of public outrage in India - propelling the Indian government to adopt a hard and aggressive stance, especially in view of the forthcoming general elections scheduled in April 2009.

It is also true that there are more terror attacks and suicide bombings taking place in Pakistan then in India. And most of the times, it is the very same forces that are behind the terror attacks both in Pakistan and in India. The people of India know this. The people of Pakistan know this. Even if the Pakistani establishment keeps denying this to the point of absurdity and the government of India drives itself into a frenzy trying to make Pakistan Government "accept and confess".

History proves that people can be swayed and misled by political jingoism and media hype to welcome wars at their own eventual peril. Two examples: Germany under Hitler and US under Bush - where "advanced civilizations" were led into wars that ultimately proved disastrous for every one and more so for these very same countries. One can never find solutions through war or conflicts. The challenge is to find solutions to wars and conflicts.

Given the traumatic experience of partition, three and a half wars fought in the last 60 years, the festering Kashmir problem and allegations by both countries that the other side is supporting civil strife, insurgencies and terror strikes in their country have succeeded in making people of both India and Pakistan suspicious and antagonistic towards each other. In such a situation, neither the politicians nor the media will have to work over time to take both the countries to war. But when media and politicians in both the countries have started creating hype and hysteria, then it will not be long before war would be accepted by all – including responsible citizens and civil society groups - as an option for consideration.

War Scenarios:

Indian government could engage in precision strikes to destroy terror camps within Pakistan territory. US is already doing this and is only succeeding in generating more sympathy for the terror groups and hatred for itself. Even though the Pakistan Government is making some cosmetic protests it has not confronted or countered any of the intrusions into its territory by US. If India is to undertake similar intrusions into Pakistani territory, then no Pakistan government can last beyond a day if it does not retaliate to the Indian intrusion. And any retaliation in the present situation could only conclude in a full scale war.

If there is a full scale war between India and Pakistan there appear to be four possible scenarios:

a) Scenario I: The conflict ends in a nuclear holocaust destroying most of the sub-continent and long term consequences for planet earth.

b) Scenario II: Some how the Indian government prevents a nuclear holocaust, wins the war and takes control of Pakistan- just like America took control of Afghanistan or Iraq. Terrorism will not disappear but will acquire additional support from resistance that will naturally spring up against the occupying forces. And the legitimacy of resistance will make the entire population stand against the occupier. Threat of violence will no longer be from isolated fanatic groups but from the entire populace. Lessons from the ongoing American misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq are too obvious to be ignored.

c) Scenario III: India causes considerable damage to Pakistan, does not occupy any territory but succeeds in over throwing the government that is unable to contain terror groups. Pakistan is already a very weak state with a democratic government just about in place. After a war, Pakistan would become weaker with an even weaker government - taking the country into a downward spiral of lawlessness and emergence of many more groups espousing terror and violence. In such a scenario, whether the threat of violence to India from terror groups will increase or decrease is for any one to see.

d) Scenario IV: The Governments of India and Pakistan start a fight but international pressure forces them to disengage. There are no winners but certainly both would pay a price and being smaller of the two, Pakistan would stand to suffer more damage economically and politically, resulting in a weakening of the state and strengthening of lawless and terror groups with long term and disastrous consequences for India also.

Other Possibilities:

The international community, including India, knows that apart from the elected government there are multiple power centers in Pakistan. They also know that the elected government is weak and despite its best intensions lacks sovereign control over its own military, intelligence outfits and large parts of its very own territory that seems to be under the sway of fanatic groups and terror outfits. The only effective and long term solution in such a scenario would be to strengthen the elected government to improve and increase its authority to a level that would make the government of Pakistan willing and capable of controlling all other players to effectively usher in a law abiding environment and violence free society.

The best pressure and support for action for any government could be from its own people. If the people of Pakistan could assert their will and express their disapproval for the terror outfits with as much consistency and fervor as they did to bring about the ouster of the regime of General Musharaf, then this would strengthen the government and provide legitimacy to its actions and all other centers of power that seem to be operating autonomously will have to eventually fall in line. Actions by any government purely from external pressures could make it look like a puppet regime and undermine its legitimacy and become counter productive.

But the will of the people of Pakistan has been suppressed and violated for most of the last 60 years (with active support and connivance of the international community) and it cannot be expected to find its voice and its force within 60 days. It may require careful nurturing and long support before it can come into its own and the sooner this fact is recognized, the better it will be for all concerned.

Of course, the strengthening of the democratic will of the people of Pakistan should also be accompanied with pressure, along with support, from the international community on the Pakistan establishment. But international pressure does not mean and should not degenerate into immediate threats of war.

The Immanent Threat

But given the war frenzy into which both India and Pakistan seem to have propelled themselves within weeks of the Mumbai terror attack, imagine what would happen if another terrorist attack is unleashed on India in the immediate future and before both the countries are able to scale down the prevailing war hysteria and return back to non combative positions? Will the government of India be able to still continue with benign war rhetoric even in this election year and after so much extreme posturing from both sides or will it be compelled to launch at least some retaliatory strikes that could develop into a full scale war.

We have already seen that any conflict between India and Pakistan at this juncture could only mean advantage terrorism. In such a situation one should not be surprised if there is another terror strike on India in the very near future- that could actually trigger a war that nobody really wants… except of course the terrorists.

Just one more terror strike by 5 to 10 deranged fanatics and two nations- both products of the most ancient and glorious civilization – could be destroyed. What a comment on the wisdom and sagacity of the human race of the 21st Century!

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Source: South Asia Citizens Web

Bangladesh's New Beginning

noreply@blogger.com (Muslim India) — Sat, 3 Jan 2009 06:56:00 -0800

By Dhrubajyoti Bhattacharjee 03 January, 2008 Muslim India
Countercurrents.org

The present electoral victory of Sheikh Hasina Wajed, ushering in another period of democracy in Bangladesh after a gap of seven years brings back hopes and aspirations for the young nation.

Bangladesh in the last thirty seven years after establishing itself as an independent nation has already experienced multiple political assassinations, military takeovers and political instability that has been characterised by constant change of leaderships in the national political arena. Sheikh Hasina’s coming back to power, though brings back democracy to the nation after a long interlude, but fails to bring confidence about the nature of stability that the present Awami League government will establish along with a fourteen party Mohajot or Grand Alliance where the principal coalition partners are the Jatiya Party under General Ershad, Workers Party under Rashed Khan Menon and Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal under Hasanul Haq Inu along with other minor parties. The number of voters opting for not casting their votes to any specific political party while exercising their political rights, an option of casting ‘NO vote’, which was introduced for the first time by the Bangladesh election commission, shows the political apathy of a significant portion of the masses towards both the Awami League as well as the BNP and their respective leaderships and coalition partners.

The Indian government from the very beginning has been overtly optimistic about Hasina’s comeback to power after 2001, because her period of governance has seen lessening of tensions between the two South Asian neighbours, especially in 1996, when under her Prime Ministership the controversial water-sharing treaty was ratified between the two nations. She is also considered to be a secular leader in comparison to former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, due to the latter’s closeness with the Islamic radical political parties. The Indian media has considered the present victory of Sheikh Hasina as a ‘major landmark in democratic politics in South Asia’. The Indian foreign ministry has also positively commented on the percentage of voter’s turnout in the ninth parliamentary elections, where the Bangladesh election commission has recorded a turnout of more than eighty five percent voters, which has been the highest in Bangladesh’s electoral history and has been more than ten percent than the nation’s previous election records. Some are even considering these elections at par with that of the elections in 1973 which was swept by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s Awami League. Over 500 foreign observers and around 2 lakh local monitors watched the election process considering these elections to be more or less free of malpractises that usually remains synonymous with the Bangladeshi political scenario till date, though the BNP has complained about gross irregularities in the different polling centres of several constituencies across the country.

The corruption charges that was grafted against Sheikh Hasina by the incumbent caretaker government, her shocking election results in 2001 where her party was only able to win 62 seats out of the 300 seats of the National Assembly of the unicameral legislature after remaining in power from 1996 and the rise of the pro-Islamist extremist factions during her regime, are scars that still remain gory in Awami League’s political history. Still, the dreams of Awami League was woven out of the sacrifices of Sheikh Mujibur’s assassination and the manner in which Sheikh Hasina survived the entire attempt of wiping out the entire family lineage by the then successful attempt of Bangladeshi military coup d’état. The masses easily identifies and sympathises with Hasina on this perspective and along with the other options that was available chose the Awami League under the leadership of Sheikh Hasina, who won 258 out of the 300 seats in the Jatiya Sangsad. The BNP and the four pary alliance in comparison was able to secure only 31 seats of the parliament.

Most political analysts of Bangladesh regard both sides to be equally corrupt, but Hasina’s vibrant comeback and the defeat of BNP can be due to the misrule of Zia during 1991 till 1996 and from 2001 till 2006. The past political history has seen the changing role of the opposition, where after any such political defeats they have taken the step of blocking normal day to day activities, work stoppages and violent demonstrations forcing governments to take up extreme suppressive measures vitiating the democratic environment of the state.

The present outcome of the elections brings significant responsibilities on the shoulders of the Mohajot, who has been given the time of ten days for forming the government. Bringing immediate political, economic and social stability in the lives of the commoners remains primary for the government, curbing religious extremists and communalisation of the society, taking stock of the energy crisis that the nation faces and taking positive steps without sacrificing their own national interest, curbing corruption, the rate of unemployment and improving the standard of health and education in the rural areas and many more actions that has to be decided on by the forthcoming government. The manner in which Awami League and its coalition partners have been voted to power, it is easy to deduce the amount of expectations that the voters will be having on the government, which could easily turn violent if such changes are not brought forth by the government expeditiously, either bringing in more political instability or can even find the non-elected governmental elements playing a decisive role in forging Bangldesh’s political future.
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Dhrubajyoti Bhattacharjee is a Lecturer in Department of Political Science, Siliguri College, Darjeeling, West Bengal

Gaza Genocide: Blaming The Victims - The Dominant Media Vilify Hamas

noreply@blogger.com (Muslim India) — Sat, 3 Jan 2009 06:29:00 -0800

By Stephen Lendman 03 January, 2009 Muslim India

Countercurrents.org

The blame game - no one plays it better than the dominant media, and they're at it again over Gaza. Expect no comments below in their spaces, yet honest journalism would headline them.

After Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Franklin Roosevelt addressed Congress - with an appropriating updating for Gaza:

December 27 "will live in infamy." The people of Gaza were "suddenly and deliberately attacked by....air forces of the" State of Israel. The "attack was deliberately planned many (months) ago. During the intervening time (Israel) deliberately sought to deceive (Palestinians) by false statements and expressions of hope for" the peace process.

"The (weekend and continued) attack(s) caused severe damage to" property throughout Gaza. In addition, "many (Palestinian) lives have been lost. The facts (on the ground) speak for themselves....this "unprovoked and dastardly attack" must not go unanswered.

Note the contrast. Japan in the 1940s sought accord, not conflict. Not America. FDR goaded them to attack through numerous harassments and provocations - selling arms to Tokyo's enemies, denying Japan strategic resources and port access, as well as imposing a damaging embargo.

For its part, Hamas has been conciliatory and sought peace. It's willing to recognize Israel in return for a sovereign Palestinian state inside pre-1967 borders - just 22% of it original homeland. In 2008 and earlier, it agreed to unilateral ceasefires in spite of repeated Israeli violations and Gaza in duress under siege. It responds only in self-defense when attacked as international law allows, yet Washington, Israel, and the West call it "terrorism."

The dominant media also in their customary role - guarding the powerful and suppressing uncomfortable truths in lieu of full and accurate reporting. They're in high gear over Gaza. They vilify Hamas, stay silent about Gazan suffering, are mute on the crippling blockade, its devastating human toll, and practically champion Israel's call for "all-out war" and the slaughter of defenseless men, women, children and infants.

"The more damage to Hamas, the better the chances for peace" says the Wall Street Journal in a lead December 28 editorial headlined "Israel's Gaza Defense." The Journal rewrites history this way:

"The chronology of this latest violence is important to understand. Israel withdrew both its soldiers and all of its settlers from Gaza in August 2005. Hamas won its internal power struggle with Mr. Abbas' Fatah organization to control Gaza in 2006. Since 2005 Hamas has fired some 6300 rockets at Israeli civilians from Gaza, killing 10 and wounding 780."

"Hamas did agree to a six-month ceasefire earlier this year, during which the rocket attacks declined in number but never stopped. But Hamas refused to extend the truce past December 19, and the group has since resumed attacks...." Israelis in the south "live under constant threat, often in bomb shelters, and the economy has suffered. Yet the world's media (only pays) attention when Israel responds to that Hamas barrage."

The Journal's op-ed page standard fare twists facts into a fabric of misinformation and agitprop, and when vilifying Hamas it's vicious. A few corrections:

-- Israel never disengaged from Gaza;

-- it relocated its settlers to seized West Bank land to strengthen its hold on the Territory;

-- it redeployed to new positions; re-enters Gaza at will; controls its airspace and coastline; movement within and between Gaza and the West Bank; virtually all other aspects of Palestinians' lives; and since Hamas' January 2006 electoral victory, falsely called it a terrorist organization; cut off all outside aid; imposed a crippling economic embargo; imprisoned 1.5 million Gazans in isolation; inflicted devastating human suffering; and stepped up oppression in an all too familiar pattern: repeated incursions, killings, targeted assassinations, mass arrests, incarcerations, torture, and all the rest;

-- then, after mid-June 2007, collaboratively and at the behest of Washington and Israel, president Mahmoud Abbas declared a "state of emergency" (when there was none); he dismissed Hamas' prime minister; appointed an "emergency" cabinet; split Palestinian authority between Gaza and the West Bank; incited internal conflict to divide and conquer; and acceded to Israel blockading Gaza - closing all border crossings; cutting off most essential to life supplies; creating critical shortages of everything; devastating local production and agriculture; sending poverty and unemployment soaring; and grievously harming the health and welfare of the population;

-- no Journal op-eds condemn this; they call Israel the region's "only democracy" and a model for others to emulate;

-- no op-eds mention thousands of Palestinians killed, many more wounded, even greater numbers imprisoned, many uncharged, torture as official policy, and no chance for redress in Israeli courts;

-- none mention previous Hamas unilateral ceasefires, one lasting 18 months despite repeated Israeli violations and continued other failures to observe international law;

-- none explain that rocket fire from Gaza during Hamas' ceasefire came from other elements in the Territory, not its own members;

-- none say that Hamas uses crude, homemade rockets and light arms against the world's fourth most powerful military, a nuclear power, with the latest home-produced and US supplied technology and weapons;

-- nothing gets reported about over 60 years of Israeli state terror; the unimaginable harm it's done; the continued theft of Palestinian lands; the destruction of their homes, crops and other property; the ethnic cleansing of its people; and Israel's slow-motion genocide against a population too isolated and weak to contest it;

-- no op-eds about one-sided media reporting; suppressing uncomfortable truths; defending the indefensible; ignoring Israeli crimes; vilifying Hamas without cause; Palestinians for being Arabs; and Arab Israeli citizens because they're not Jews;

-- no mention that the ratio of Arabs to Jews killed and harmed is disproportionately one-sided; or

-- that Palestinians have endured a brutal, illegal 41-year occupation in violation of international law; Journal editors find those facts uncomfortable, unimportant so they ignore them.

Instead the Journal supports the Gaza siege, and says "If Hamas wants its people to have freer movement, it can stop sponsoring terror killings." Even Arab leaders were "urged to demand that Hamas maintain the truce....so we could have avoided what happened."

In the aftermath, Journal editors hold Hamas responsible as does Washington. Arab leaders "understand that (Hamas' leaders), like Hezbollah, (are) increasingly allied with Iran and its goals for fomenting regional instability."

In fact, despite pro-forma criticism and anger on Arab streets, leaders in the region's capitals offered little support for Gazans for fear of antagonizing Washington and their powerful Israeli neighbor.

The Arab League won't discuss a common response until a January 2 Doha summit, and when it does expect little more than from the UN. As for Arab foreign ministers, they postponed an "emergency" meeting until December 31, so the killing continues while they attend to more pressing business.

Journal editors have a message for Obama. He's "about to discover that the terrorists of the Middle East (won't) change their radical ambitions merely because America has a new president." For their part, Palestinians will learn that the new one is no friendlier than the incumbent and may turn out even worse. White House occupants, key congressional members, and the entire Senate pledge unswerving support for Israel. At the same time, blaming their victims (and ours) is one of Washington's favorite spectator sports.

On December 28, the Journal gave two noted Israeli flacks prominent space - Michael Oren of Jerusalem's Shalem Center and Yossi Klein Halevi of the Shalem Center's Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies for their op-ed headlined: "Palestinians Need Israel to Win."

They claim that while Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni "implore(d) Egyptian leaders (on December 19) to urge restraint on Hamas....prime minister Ehud Olmert told viewers of Al-Arabiyah Television that Israel had no interest in a military confrontation" at the very time it was long-planned and about to be unleashed.

"If Israel was guilty of acting disproportionately, it was in its willingness to seek any means, even at the risk of its citizens' lives, to resolve the (brewing) crisis diplomatically." The writers blame the UN for not condemning Hamas and for "growing media criticism of Israel."

Israeli security comes first, and "Gaza is the test case. Much more is at stake than merely the military outcome." It's about Israel's "deterrence power and uphold(ing) the principle that its citizens cannot be targeted with impunity." They're not unless Palestinians are attacked first and even then have little to fear beyond their government's own rhetoric.

Syria is an issue as well...."triggering the Gaza conflict only deepens Israeli mistrust. The Damascus office of Hamas, which operates under the aegis of the regime of Bashar al Assad, vetoed the efforts of Hamas leaders to extend the ceasefire and insisted on escalated rocket attacks."

The Gaza conflict may "intensify with a possible incursion of Israeli ground forces. Israel must be allowed to conclude this operation with a decisive victory over Hamas....This is an opportunity to redress Israel's failure to humble Hezbollah (in 2006), and to deal a substantial setback to another jihadist proxy of Iran....without Hamas' defeat, there can be no serious progress toward a treaty that both satisfies Palestinian aspirations and allays Israel's fears. At stake in Gaza is nothing less than the future of the peace process."

Their rhetoric defies comment. It's breathtaking, mirror opposite of the truth, and credible only to the truest of true believers of the most dubious analysis the two writers lay out.

New York Times Press Handout-Style Journalism

The Times' 1997 proxy statement calls itself "an independent newspaper, entirely fearless, free of ulterior influence and unselfishly devoted to the public welfare" in reporting "all the news fit to print." No media source anywhere has more clout. None more effectively influences world opinion, and none show more one-sided support for Israel, disdain for Palestinian rights, and justifying the unjustifiable when they're so grievously harmed.

It's December 29 Ethan Bronner/Taghreed El-Khodary "No Early End Seen to 'All-Out-War on Hamas in Gaza" article is typical. It highlights Israel's aim "to cripple Hamas' ability to fire rockets into Israel," never mentioning they're for legitimate self-defense and never preemptively fired. It calls Hamas a "terrorist organization" when, in fact, it's Palestine's legitimate government. It respects the rule of law, and it fearlessly defends the rights of its people. It reports nothing about its democratic election, its seeking peace and rapprochement, its unilateral ceasefires, its support by the great majority of Gazans, and the efforts it makes for them in spite of overwhelming challenges under siege.

Instead it states that "Hamas killed four Israelis on (December 28) after firing more than 70 rockets, including a long-range one into the booming city of Ashdod some 18 miles from Gaza, where it hit a bus stop, killing a woman and injuring two other people. Earlier a rocket hit nearby Ashkelon, killing an Israeli-Arab construction worker and wounding three others. The other dead Israelis....were a civilian in the Negev desert and a soldier."

"Thousands of Israelis huddled in shelters as the long-range rockets hit streets or open areas in....the most serious display of Hamas' arsenal since the Israeli assault began." It referred to "Hamas gunmen," reported that "Israel would widen and deepen the attack if necessary....until Hamas no longer had the ability to fire rockets into Israel." It said that Israel has "nothing against the citizens of Gaza and that it had more than once offered its hand in peace to the Palestinian nation."

"Israel sent in some 40 trucks of humanitarian relief, including blood from Jordan and medicine. Egypt opened its border with Gaza to some similar aid and to allow some of the wounded through." No mention of the Gaza siege, the devastating pre-conflict humanitarian crisis, or that Egypt's president Hosni Mubarak initially ordered his soldiers to shoot Gazans breaching border barriers, then only reluctantly allowed in some of the seriously wounded for medical treatment.

"Meanwhile in Israel, sirens wailed over mostly empty streets in the seaside city of Ashkelon. Storefronts were battered shut. Families clustered inside the city's stretches of towering white apartment blocks and single-family houses. Weary of venturing too far outside, they scurried into protected rooms when sirens sounded, listening for the sound of another rocket crashing somewhere in their city. 'It's frightening, but what can we do?' asked a high school senior."

Plenty The Times won't report. Ask your government to stop attacking Gazans so they won't respond in self-defense. Demand that Palestinian rights be respected, the illegal siege ended, the IDF aggression stopped, and the occupation of the West Bank. Insist Israeli laws apply equally to Arab citizens, that Palestinians no longer will be persecuted, that peace will take precedence of war, that Israel will engage its neighbors, not attack them, and that real democracy will replace the sham kind now practiced.

Make it impossible for The (outrageous December 29) New York Times' "War Over Gaza" editorial to be written. It begins:

"Israel must defend itself. And Hamas must bear responsibility for ending a six-month cease-fire this month with a barrage of rocket attacks into Israeli territory. Still we fear that Israel's response....is unlikely to weaken the militant Palestinian group substantially or move things any closer to what all Israelis and Palestinians need: a durable peace agreement and a two-state solution."

"Hamas' leaders, especially those safely ensconced in Damascus, are unconcerned about their people's suffering - and (are) masters at capitalizing on it." The writer urges other Arab leaders "to cajole or more likely threaten Hamas (or its patrons in Syria and Iran) to accept a new cease-fire (read "surrender")."

The editorial claims most casualties were "Hamas security forces" when, in fact, the great majority are civilian men, women and children, including police with no military connection. It stresses Ehud Barak's promised "war to the bitter end."

It says there's "no justification for Hamas' attacks or its virulent rejectionism," but turns a blind eye to Israel's culpability. It refers to the failure of the never was and never will be "peace process" but won't report that Washington and Tel Aviv won't tolerate one. That they choose dominance over peace, violence over reconciliation, and conquest above the rule of law.

It claims Condoleezza Rice sought Middle East peace, and it's up to Barack Obama to accomplish it himself - when, in fact, Democrats and Republicans one-sidedly support Israel, seek dominance over Middle East states, want a subservient Hamas like Fatah, back the Gaza conflict to weaken its effective rule, and are for the illegal occupation of Palestine to continue.

Times' articles reveal more about what they don't report than what they do. They:

-- leave Israeli brutality unexplained; its vicious 41 year occupation;

-- let Gaza images inciting world outrage go unpublished;

-- suppress Israel's continued waging of the bloodiest, most unjustifiable war on Palestine since 1967;

-- won't report how its current air strikes hit civilian targets (including residential neighborhoods, homes, workshops, medical warehouses, a sewage lagoon, a plastics factory, a TV broadcasting center, universities and mosques) while claiming only military ones are attacked;

-- don't explain the terror on ordinary Gazans; the traumatizing effects on children and how psychologically damaged they are;

-- the night phone calls Israeli intelligence personnel make to families, ordering them out of homes to be bombed;

-- Gaza's humanitarian crisis compounded by Israel's "war to the bitter end;"

-- the immensity of Israel's crimes of war and against humanity; its mockery of the rule of law; its worse than apartheid South African practices according to observers who know.

-- the near-silence and inaction of the international community; the compliance of regional Arab states;

-- the Palestinians' total isolation; Gaza's tighter than ever siege; the media mostly barred from entering and when allowed are few in number, carefully screened, and greatly circumscribed; reports are from Gazans on the ground; they include much higher death and injury totals; hundreds still alive but clinically dead and will perish; surgeries performed without anesthesia because little to none is available; and the impossibility of proper medical care because of Israel's imposed blockade.

The Gaza-based Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) reports that "its field workers have faced extreme difficulties in documenting crimes due to the dangers of getting close to" bombed areas and the chaos throughout the Territory as war rages round the clock. Yet they do what they can throughout Gaza and in horrific pictures they take and publish - images suppressed in America.

It urgently asked the UN Human Rights Council to act under its ("Uniting for Peace") UN Resolution 377 authority. It permits the General Assembly to address peace and security matters when the Security Council doesn't do it. General Assembly President Miguel D'Escoto said: "the time has come to take firm action if the UN does not want to be rightly accused of complicity by omission."

As of New Year's day, Ma'an News reported 428 known killed (other reports are higher) and over 2000 injured, many too seriously to survive.

On December 28, the US vetoed a Security Council draft resolution to end Israel's "disproportionate use of force" on Gazans. The vote was 11 ayes, three abstentions (Britain, Germany and Bulgaria), and one nay - America. John Negroponte did the dishonor following a long-standing practice of blocking any UN condemnation of Israel, regardless of how justified.

The Security Council held an emergency meeting on New Year's eve at which Negroponte again rejected a legally binding resolution condemning Israel and demanding its attacks stop. At the same time, Israel rejected pressures for a 48-hour ceasefire to allow in humanitarian aid. According to The New York Times, "The government said it would push ahead with its air, sea, and ultimately ground operation, which one senior military official described as 'making Hamas lose their will or lose their weapons.' "

Earlier on December 30 at 5:00AM, Israeli gunboats (without warning) attacked the humanitarian boat Dignity (in international waters 90 miles from Gaza) bringing three tons of medical supplies. It was rammed three times, heavily damaged, and took on water. Israelis also threatened to shoot its occupants and fired machine guns overhead and around it attempting to head it off. It managed to get to the Lebanese port of Tyre in the afternoon. Luckily no one was injured. The Free Gaza Movement founder, Paul Laurdee, said 11 Israeli vessels surrounded Dignity, ordered it to stop, but it refused.

The New York Times was silent on the incident. However, on December 29, it gave pro-genocide historian Benny Morris space for his "Why Israel Feels Threatened" op-ed - a disturbing justification of Israel's attacks and warning of much more to come. This by an advocate of attacking Iran with nuclear weapons and a believer in ethnic cleansing who once described Palestinians as "wild animal(s who have) to be locked up in one way or another....When the choice is between destroying or being destroyed, it's better to destroy."

He paints a totally disingenuous picture of isolated Israel surrounded by hostile neighbors and losing support from the West. "To the east, Iran....to the north, the Lebanese fundamentalist Hezbollah....to the south...the Islamist Hamas movement (controlling) the Gaza Strip."
These "dire threats" make Israel "feel that the walls - and history - are closing in on their 60-year-old state."

Israel threatened? Syria, Lebanon and Iran should worry based on past and current provocations. No country attacked Israel since the 1973 Yom Kippur war, and none today would dare - given its military strength, nuclear arsenal, and close ties to America and the West.

Morris cites another threat - demography. The 1.3 million Israeli Arabs "offer the recipe (for the) dissolution of the Jewish state." They've become "radicalized, embrac(e) Palestinian national aims," Jews see them as a "potential fifth column," and, with their higher birthrate, will outnumber Israeli Jews by 2040. Within five years, Arabs may become the majority in pre-1948 Palestine.

According to Morris, Israel is endangered because of its commitment to "Western democratic and liberal norms." Violence in Gaza resulted, and "it would not be surprising if more powerful explosions were to follow" - a clear assessment that slaughter is OK in the name of "self-defense" and an indication that The Times agrees.

The Los Angeles Times' Misinformation "primer on Gaza, Israel, and some key factors behind the current violence."

On December 30, Michael Muskal wrote it asking:

-- "Why is Israel attacking Hamas? To curb rocket attacks he maintains, when, in fact, neutralizing the government is the real aim, destroying its ability to rule effectively, weakening its support on the ground, and, in the end, co-opt it like Fatah and the PLO under Arafat; rocket attacks are just pretext.

-- "What is Hamas?" An Islamist group founded to destroy Israel and refuses to accept its right to exist, he claims. In fact, after its establishment during the First Intifada (in 1987), Israel supported it against the PLO (as it now backs Fatah against Hamas). Ever since, it's been an effective resistance movement. Its goal - ending Israel's illegal occupation through negotiation and international consensus, not terrorism, war, or denying Israel's right to exist. However, its charter states that it wants peace, equity and justice for all Palestinians; supports the weak; defends the oppressed; and will fight for its rights if Israel won't grant them peacefully. Hamas is clear on its willingness to recognize Israel in return for a Palestinian state inside pre-1967 borders - a nonstarter for Israel.

-- "Does Hamas speak for all Palestinians? No. Hamas gunmen took full control of Gaza in the summer of 2007. The West would prefer to deal with (Fatah's) Abbas, who has shown a willingness to negotiate with Israel, and it tried to topple Hamas with economic and political sanctions." No is right as well as the West going along with Washington and Israel trying to topple Hamas, but unmentioned is the crippling siege. Hamas is a legitimate political group with a military wing for defense, not offense. They're not "gunmen" or militants. Abbas' subservience endears him to America and Tel Aviv. Hamas is independent. It champions Palestinians' rights, and therein lies the conflict.

-- "If Hamas is so opposed to Israel, why did it agree to a truce? Hamas had hoped to end the blockade, but the cease-fire collapsed in November and expired Dec. 19. Abbas blamed Hamas for prompting the Israeli attack by refusing to extend the cease-fire." True on the first point. False or misleading on the rest. Hamas declared a ceasefire unilaterally. Israel never respected it and killed over two dozen Gazans while it was in force. Abbas blamed the victims and absolved the aggressor in deference to Tel Aviv and Washington - in betrayal of his people for his own political aims.

-- "What has been the response to the Israeli attacks in the Arab world?" Saying that anti-Israeli demonstrations have been held in several countries greatly understates how many, their size and where. They're large and growing and are being held across America, throughout the Middle East, and in many other countries worldwide.

"What about Egypt? (It) opposes Islamic radical groups, including its own Muslim Brotherhood, which helped give birth to Hamas. Egypt has a difficult relationship because they share a border (and) clashes have been reported between Palestinians and Egyptian security forces at border crossings?" Half truths and misleading. Egypt is allied to Washington and Israel. It opposes the Muslim Brotherhood and all independent opposition to president Hosni Mubarak's dictatorship. Egyptian forces initiated border clashes by firing on Gazans trying to escape the violence.

-- "What about the US?" A "power vacuum" suggests Muskal until Obama takes office. Unexplained is a continuity of policy that unswervingly supports Israel, its right to wage aggressive war, violate international law, slaughter Gazan civilians, maintain its illegal occupation, and deny Palestinians their right to self-determination.

-- "What has the Bush administration done?" Saying it blamed Hamas and asked Israel publicly to avoid civilian casualties is right but misleading. For eight years, George Bush disdained Palestinian rights, supplies Israel with billions of dollars in aid, the latest weapons and technology, and full support for its occupation, oppression and aggressive wars.

-- "What about the Obama administration?" Repeating his saying the US has only one president at a time is right. So is affirming his strong support for Israel. Unmentioned is his indifference to Palestinian issues and that chances for regional peace will be no greater than under George Bush so expect little hopeful change.

-- "How do Israeli politics figure in the equation? Muskal is right in relating the current conflict to Israel's February 10 elections. A new prime minister and Knesset will be chosen and polls show a large majority of Israelis back its government's attacks. Acting tough could prove a winning strategy even at the expense of human lives and less security than without conflict.

Misinformation like the above is de rigueur throughout the dominant media, especially when it comes to Israel. Tel Aviv can do no wrong even when it inflicts vast amounts of destruction, massacres hundreds of civilians, and injures tens of hundreds more, defenseless against its onslaught.

Profiting from Human Slaughter

On December 27, the London Guardian reported that the "Israeli far right gains ground as Gaza rockets fuel tension." Jerusalem-based Toni O'Loughlin wrote that pre-conflict polls showed "the Israeli public calling for harsher military strikes in Gaza." It's been a boon for former Likud member Avigdor Lieberman's extremist Yisrael Beiteinu. It advocates ethnic cleansing by revoking Israeli Arabs' citizenship and transferring Palestinian towns in Israel to PA control.

Likud leader, Binyamin Netanyahu also stands to gain because he states: "In the long run, we have no choice but to topple Hamas rule....we have to go from passive response to active assault." That got Kadima's foreign minister Tzipi Livni saying: "Israel must topple the Hamas rule in Gaza and a government under my command will do just that." Campaigning is in high gear for the upcoming February elections with all sides vying to look toughest.

War rages as a result, and according to Alternative Information Center in Jerusalem founder Michael Warschawski: "all Israeli leaders are competing over who is the toughest and who is ready to kill more." Mass slaughter makes good campaign politics, and whoever looks the meanest may become Israel's next prime minister. Follow the body count for clues. Watch TV clips of Tzipi Livni disheveled with no makeup to show machismo, and as Tariq Ali puts it: "dead Palestinians are little more than election fodder" and may help Kadima retain power.

Justifying the Unjustifiable

On December 28, O'Loughlin in the Guardian headlined: "Israel mounts PR campaign to blame Hamas for Gaza destruction" as Kadima put positive spin on mass murder and destruction.

Israeli media suggested the following preceded the attack:

-- six months of intelligence-gathering to pinpoint bases, weapons silos, supplies, training camps, senior officials' homes, and other strategic targets, including civilian ones; the attack also began exactly at 11:30AM Saturday when children just finished morning classes, were in the streets, and others were en route to school;

-- disinformation and deception were used to keep the media and public uninformed and off guard;

-- Hamas was lulled momentarily into a false sense of security to give the initial onslaught maximum tactical effectiveness;

-- on December 26, food, fuel and other humanitarian supplies were let into Gaza as part of the deception; and

-- when the assault came, officials justified it saying "patience ran out" to hide their real motives.

Ahead of the attack, Britain, the EU, Egypt and Saudi Arabia were briefed, and Israel coordinated everything with Washington the way it's always done at least since the 1967 war. According to the Jerusalem Post, the Bush administration also supplied the Israeli Air Force with "a new bunker-buster missile" called GBU-39 - a small-diameter bomb for low-cost, high-precision, minimal collateral damage strikes.

Congress authorized 1000 of them in September, and defense officials said the first shipment arrived in early December for use in penetrating underground Gaza Kassam launcher sites and bombing Egyptian border tunnels in Rafah through which emergency supplies were funneled.

Israel's PR spin began before the assault. According to the Guardian, "the foreign ministry honed its message and amassed its staff....Israeli diplomats were recalled from holidays and ordered back to work, and in" Sderot, a multilingual media center was opened to brief foreign journalists.

Everything was orchestrated. At the right moment, Tzipi Livni called foreign ministers in Washington, London, Russia, China, France and Germany as well as EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. She also briefed around 80 international representatives and dignitaries in the Sderot media center. World leaders spread her message, blamed Hamas for "breaking" the ceasefire, and claimed Israel had to respond.

Israeli envoys around the world did the same, and Livni vowed to end Hamas rule if elected. She told Kadima party members and the media that "The State of Israel, and a government under me, will make it a strategic objective to topple the Hamas regime. The means....should be military, economic and diplomatic."

As war rages, Israel is in full spin mode. According to Haaretz, even Fatah loyalists say Gaza is "Allah's revenge" - referring to the 2007 clashes that secured Gaza for Hamas and left Fatah, under Abbas, in control of the West Bank. For his part, prime minister Ehud Olmert said the bombardment is "the first of several stages approved by the security cabinet" - a clear signal of more to follow and Israel's intent to destroy Hamas' effectiveness and render it as weak as possible.

Livni also released a document to the Israeli and world press spreading deceit, disinformation, exaggeration, and agitprop. Examples included:

-- "Israeli citizens have been under the threat of daily attack from Gaza for years;

-- Only this week hundreds of missiles and mortar shells were fired at Israeli civilian communities;

-- Until now we have shown restraint; but today there is no other option than a military operation;

-- We need to protect our citizens from attack through a military response against the terror infrastructure in Gaza;

-- Israel left Gaza in order to create an opportunity for peace;

-- In return, the Hamas terror organization took control of Gaza and is using its citizens as cover while it deliberately targets Israeli communities and denies any chance for peace;

-- We have tried everything to reach calm without using force; we agreed to a truce through Egypt that was violated by Hamas, which continued to target Israel, hold Gilat Shalit, and build up its arms;

-- Israel continues to act to prevent a humanitarian crisis and to minimize harm to Palestinian civilians."

These and other statements blame Hamas for the violence; accuse it of being a terrorist organization backed by Iran; has a radical Islamic agenda; is the enemy of all Palestinians seeking peace; is criminal under international law, and seeks Israel's destruction.

These comments are from Israel's foreign minister and a leading candidate for prime minister; someone representing a state founded on terrorism by massacring and ethnically cleansing Palestinians from their land; that disdains international law; illegally occupies Palestine; collectively punishes its people; denies them self-determination; their right of return; seizes their land; demolishes their homes; imprisons and tortures their people, impoverishes them; denies them free movement, essential services, employment and enough food and clean water; destroys their crops and factories; and grants them no judicial redress because they're Arabs in a Jewish state or under occupation.

On December 31, Livni was in Paris meeting with president Nicolas Sarkozy, foreign minister Bernard Kouchner and other officials. In response to a French two-day truce proposal, she rejected the idea saying: "there is no humanitarian crisis in the Strip, and therefore there is no need for a humanitarian truce."

Protests Worldwide Over Gaza

Carnage and destruction trump spin, and it shows worldwide on city streets - across the Arab world, in America, the EU, London, and even parts of Asia, Latin America and Africa.

The New York Times reported that "After four days of Israeli airstrikes on Gaza, an outpouring of popular anger is putting pressure on American allies in the Arab world and appears to be worsening divisions in the region." Egypt has been especially pressured because it's a close US and Israeli ally. But "demonstrations continued....from North Africa to Yemen."

Al Jazeera reports that protests spread across the Middle East, and in the West Bank Israeli troops opened fire, killed one Palestinian, and critically injured two others. One was declared brain damaged from a bullet to his head. In Yemen, "tens of thousands of people gathered in and around a stadium in the capital, Sanaa, chanting anti-Israeli slogans and criticizing Arab leaders for failing to act."

It's been much the same in Cairo, Beirut, Baghdad, and dozens of other world capitals. In Tehran, students broke into the British Embassy's residential compound, vandalized buildings, and replaced the British flag with a Palestinian one.

Al Jazeera added that several members of Jordan's parliament burned the Israeli flag in protest and called for the expulsion of Kadima's ambassador. In Lebanon, hundreds of Lebanese and Palestinian refugees staged a sit-in near the Beirut UN office. Hezbollah condemned the attacks as a "war crime and a genocide that requires immediate action from the international community and its institutions."

Its statement called on Arab countries to "take a firm stand and exert its utmost efforts against the Israeli barbarism - which is (endorsed) by the US - and the international community (must) stop this ongoing massacre."

In Damascus, thousands were in Yusif al-Azmeh square shouting slogans and displaying flags of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Hezbollah, Syria, Iraq and Palestine. From loudspeakers, calls were for "jihad" against Israel and for continuing the "struggle in the name of God."

Protests across Iraq took place - in Baghdad with messages supporting Gaza, anti-Israeli slogans, and the Palestinian ambassador, Dalil al-Qasoos, saying: "Gaza will remain steadfast in the face of Americans and Zionists whatever the plots and conspiracies hatched by tyrants and arrogant enemies."

Across Britain as well in Belfast and London where hundreds demonstrated in front of the Israeli embassy and outside the BBC.

In Washington, 5000 gathered at the State Department and marched to the White House. In San Francisco, over 10,000 protested in front of the Israeli consulate. In Los Angeles, around 5000 did the same, and in New York thousands more were at the Israeli consulate waving Palestinian flags and chanting "Free Palestine." Similar demonstrations were held in dozens more US cities, including Chicago, Boston, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Portland, Houston, Dallas, Seattle and in Hawaii in front of Obama's vacation compound where he remains indifferent.

On January 2, the ANSWER Coalition, Muslim American Society Freedom, and National Council of Arab Americans plan a major protest at the Israeli embassy in Washington and at the Egyptian embassy as well.

Expressions of World Outrage

On December 29, a National Lawyer's Guild (NLG) press release condemned the Israeli massacre, called for a ceasefire and urged participation in New York protests. NLG president and Thomas Jefferson School of Law professor Marjorie Cohn stated:

"The Human Rights and Security Assistance Act mandates that the United States cease all military aid to Israel, which has engaged in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights." America, like Israel, disdains international law and has supplied Tel Aviv governments with tens of billions of aid, weapons and technology for decades, and as explained above, with special bunker-buster bombs to attack Gaza. It also partners in Israeli aggression, assists all aspects of it, and provides cover through vocal support and UN resolution vetoes for it to continue.

On December 29, the Arab Association for Human Rights (HRA) condemned Israel's Gaza attack, its slaughter of civilians and "violation of all international laws and treaties," and its crippling siege as "another crime and collective punishment against (over 1.5 million Gazans) living in an atmosphere of continued terror and intimidation."

HRA also denounced world leaders for failing to speak out or act and thus effectively give "a green light for Israel to escalate its siege, topped with the barbaric bombardment" of Gaza and its people. "The Security Council's non-binding statement (calling for "an immediate halt to all violence" and for both sides "to stop immediately all military activities") is evidence of (the UN's) incompetence (and impotence) in implementing its primary duty in maintaining world peace and security."

In his "Dachau to Gaza" article, law professor, international law expert, and former PLO legal advisor Francis Boyle compared Washington and Israel's aims to Hitler's Munich Pact for Germany to occupy and annex the Sudetenland. Today it's to seize Palestinians' land and deny them "self-determination and a real independent state of their own." As a result, he fears a "high probability that history will repeat itself" in more conflict.

In 1986, he visited the US Embassy in Tel Aviv, complained about "criminal Israeli occupation practices," its violations of international law, and that America "has an absolute obligation to use its enormous political, military and economic leverage over Israel to terminate (these) practices immediately."

Yet since Israel's establishment in 1948 and its post-1967 occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, Washington has one-sidedly supported Israel and denied Palestinians their "freedom, justice, dignity, respect and independence." One day, America must end this policy and "order Israel out of Palestine." Until then, no Middle East peace is possible and the possibility of greater conflict exists.

Like others wanting war crimes to be punished, Boyle also advocates "An International Criminal Tribunal for Israel (ICTI) as "the Only (possible) Deterrent to a Global War." He urges the General Assembly to establish one as a "subsidiary organ" under Article 22 of the UN Charter. It would be similar to those for Yugoslavia (ICTY) and Rwanda (ICTR) to:

"investigate and prosecute Israeli war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide against the People of Lebanon and Palestine." It would "provide some small degree of justice to the victims" of decades of Israeli crimes, thus far committed with impunity. "It would also have a deterrent effect" on current Israeli leaders and generals and force future ones to obey international laws or face similar prosecution.

Without legal restraints, Boyle, like others, fears possible new Middle East conflict that could "degenerate into World War III," not by intent but by accident, much like WW I developed. He urges General Assembly action to prevent it at a time attacks on Gaza persist, the Arab street is enraged, and the longer fighting continues, the greater the risk of something far greater.

Israel is a serial aggressor. Its lawlessness can no longer be tolerated. Mass outrage and world pressure must build for a global campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions until its human rights abuses stop, its war crimes are punished, its occupation and colonization end, Palestinian refugees have the right to return, and the people of Gaza and the West Bank achieve their long-denied self-determination rights in an internationally recognized sovereign state, free from Israeli oppression. For people of conscience, that's Resolution One for the new year.
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Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Monday through Friday at 10AM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on world and national issues. All programs are archived for easy listening.

In Gaza, Targeting A Nation

noreply@blogger.com (Muslim India) — Sat, 3 Jan 2009 06:04:00 -0800

By Rami Almeghari 03 January, 2009 Muslim India

Electronic Intifada

Unidentified Palestinians are being victimized for the sake of unidentifies objectives. Israel claims it is targeting Hamas, while in fact, it is targeting whoever and whatever in Gaza

Gaza Strip: At al-Shifa hospital, Gaza's largest, an unidentified injured man is laying at the hospital's intensive care unit. He was hit by shrapnel from an Israeli missile that struck a target at the Samer crossroad in the Omar al-Mukhtar street in Gaza City at noon yesterday.

"This wounded patient has sustained critical injuries and his condition is unstable, but we don't yet know his identity, he is still unknown," Dr. Omar Manasra, the on-duty doctor of the intensive care unit (ICU) said.

Manasra added, "Since the Israeli strikes began on Saturday, we have received at least 30 unidentified wounded at the ICU; most of them were later identified, but this took some time. We just labeled them with figures like, unknown number 1, number 2, etc."

Manasra explained the challenges faced by the ICU with the mounting number of wounded: "We suffer a severe lack of medicines, equipment and beds at our unit. In the first day of the air strikes alone, we received almost 50 cases, and that has overloaded our capacity.

"We have only 12 beds, so we have been forced to open new emergency ICUs in other sections like the cardiac, the orthopedic and the maternity wards. Also, I would like to add that we lack basic ICU medicines like antibiotics ... In addition we are in need for equipment like ventilators and monitors."

In the Gaza Strip, home to 1.5 million residents, there are seven main hospitals. According to Hammam Nasman, spokesperson of the Hamas-run health ministry, such an emergency situation in Gaza cannot be dealt with by the hospitals.

"The health situation in Gaza is still miserable as Gaza's [medical professionals] try relentlessly to cope with this unprecedented emergency situation. Our field crews are at risk and four medics have been killed and a few others injured during rescue operations," Nasman explained.

Nasman added that there are 1,534 physicians at all the main hospitals and they cannot serve the needs of all of those requiring treatment during this emergency situation. As a result, many cases have been transferred to other private hospitals or clinics.

Nasman pointed out that so far, his ministry has been coordinating with concerned Egyptian and other Palestinian bodies in order to distribute some Arab-provided assistance. He alluded to the need for more assistance as the hospitals lack 230 medical needs including alcohol, Bludine and stitching thread.

He also confirmed that most of the power generators at the hospitals have been depleted of their fuel stocks and that many of them have broken down and need spare parts, the import of which Israel denies. Gaza has been experiencing electricity blackouts for more than 70 percent of the time, on a daily basis, since Israel severely restricted the import of fuel to Gaza's power plant in November of last year, when a six-month Egyptian-brokered truce collapsed following an Israeli attack on Gaza.

Dr. Moawiya Abu Hassanein, chief of the emergency and ambulance department at the health ministry, said that the ambulances run by the ministry are operating at less than 50 percent of their actual capacity, as Israeli air raids have so far damaged five ambulances and three fire trucks. Two ambulance crew members are reported to have lost their lives while responding to the scenes of Israeli strikes.

The Israeli attacks from air, sea and ground that began last Saturday on the pretext of halting the firing of rockets from the coastal enclave have so far claimed the lives of more than 400 Palestinians and wounded at least 2,000. Most of the casualties are civilians and non-combatants, like the unidentified patient lying in al-Shifa hospital.

Unidentified Palestinians are being victimized for the sake of unidentified objectives. Israel claims it is targeting Hamas, while in fact, it is targeting whoever and whatever in Gaza. For the past seven days, Israeli air raids completely devastated scores of civilian ministerial buildings, municipal premises, charities, universities, schools, homes and mosques.

Israeli pilots in fighter jets do not see or care about the identities of those who receive their bombs as it is not just Hamas but the whole of the Palestinian people who are their targets. Meanwhile, Gaza doctors struggle to find the identities of what is left of the victims after those bombs are delivered.
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Rami Almeghari is contributor to The Electronic Intifada, IMEMC.org and Free Speech Radio News and is a part-time lecturer on media and political translation at the Islamic University of Gaza. Rami is also a former senior English translator at and editor-in-chief of the international press center of the Gaza-based Palestinian Information Service. He can be contacted at rami_almeghari @hotmail .com