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The Shocking Truth About the Crackdown on Occupy
December 1, 2011 by TMO · Leave a Comment
The violent police assaults across the US are no coincidence. Occupy has touched the third rail of our political class's venality
By Naomi Wolf
US citizens of all political persuasions are still reeling from images of unparallelled police brutality in a coordinated crackdown against peaceful OWS protesters in cities across the nation this past week. An elderly woman was pepper-sprayed in the face; the scene of unresisting, supine students at UC Davis being pepper-sprayed by phalanxes of riot police went viral online; images proliferated of young women – targeted seemingly for their gender – screaming, dragged by the hair by police in riot gear; and the pictures of a young man, stunned and bleeding profusely from the head, emerged in the record of the middle-of-the-night clearing of Zuccotti Park.
But just when Americans thought we had the picture – was this crazy police and mayoral overkill, on a municipal level, in many different cities? – the picture darkened. The National Union of Journalists and the Committee to Protect Journalists issued a Freedom of Information Act request to investigate possible federal involvement with law enforcement practices that appeared to target journalists. The New York Times reported that "New York cops have arrested, punched, whacked, shoved to the ground and tossed a barrier at reporters and photographers" covering protests. Reporters were asked by NYPD to raise their hands to prove they had credentials: when many dutifully did so, they were taken, upon threat of arrest, away from the story they were covering, and penned far from the site in which the news was unfolding.
Other reporters wearing press passes were arrested and roughed up by cops, after being – falsely – informed by police that "It is illegal to take pictures on the sidewalk."
In New York, a state supreme court justice and a New York City council member were beaten up; in Berkeley, California, one of our greatest national poets, Robert Hass, was beaten with batons. The picture darkened still further when Wonkette and Washingtonsblog.com reported that the Mayor of Oakland acknowledged that the Department of Homeland Security had participated in an 18-city mayor conference call advising mayors on "how to suppress" Occupy protests.
To Europeans, the enormity of this breach may not be obvious at first.
Our system of government prohibits the creation of a federalised police force, and forbids federal or militarised involvement in municipal peacekeeping.
I noticed that rightwing pundits and politicians on the TV shows on which I was appearing were all on-message against OWS. Journalist Chris Hayes reported on a leaked memo that revealed lobbyists vying for an $850,000 contract to smear Occupy. Message coordination of this kind is impossible without a full-court press at the top. This was clearly not simply a case of a freaked-out mayors', city-by-city municipal overreaction against mess in the parks and cranky campers. As the puzzle pieces fit together, they began to show coordination against OWS at the highest national levels.
Why this massive mobilisation against these not-yet-fully-articulated, unarmed, inchoate people? After all, protesters against the war in Iraq, Tea Party rallies and others have all proceeded without this coordinated crackdown. Is it really the camping? As I write, two hundred young people, with sleeping bags, suitcases and even folding chairs, are still camping out all night and day outside of NBC on public sidewalks – under the benevolent eye of an NYPD cop – awaiting Saturday Night Live tickets, so surely the camping is not the issue. I was still deeply puzzled as to why OWS, this hapless, hopeful band, would call out a violent federal response.
That is, until I found out what it was that OWS actually wanted.
The mainstream media was declaring continually "OWS has no message".
Frustrated, I simply asked them. I began soliciting online "What is it you want?" answers from Occupy. In the first 15 minutes, I received 100 answers. These were truly eye-opening.
The No 1 agenda item: get the money out of politics. Most often cited was legislation to blunt the effect of the Citizens United ruling, which lets boundless sums enter the campaign process. No 2: reform the banking system to prevent fraud and manipulation, with the most frequent item being to restore the Glass-Steagall Act – the Depression-era law, done away with by President Clinton, that separates investment banks from commercial banks. This law would correct the conditions for the recent crisis, as investment banks could not take risks for profit that create kale derivatives out of thin air, and wipe out the commercial and savings banks.
No 3 was the most clarifying: draft laws against the little-known loophole that currently allows members of Congress to pass legislation affecting Delaware-based corporations in which they themselves are investors.
When I saw this list – and especially the last agenda item – the scales fell from my eyes. Of course, these unarmed people would be having the shit kicked out of them.
For the terrible insight to take away from news that the Department of Homeland Security coordinated a violent crackdown is that the DHS does not freelance. The DHS cannot say, on its own initiative, "we are going after these scruffy hippies". Rather, DHS is answerable up a chain of command: first, to New York Representative Peter King, head of the House homeland security subcommittee, who naturally is influenced by his fellow congressmen and women's wishes and interests. And the DHS answers directly, above King, to the president (who was conveniently in Australia at the time).
In other words, for the DHS to be on a call with mayors, the logic of its chain of command and accountability implies that congressional overseers, with the blessing of the White House, told the DHS to authorise mayors to order their police forces – pumped up with millions of dollars of hardware and training from the DHS – to make war on peaceful citizens.
But wait: why on earth would Congress advise violent militarised reactions against its own peaceful constituents? The answer is straightforward: in recent years, members of Congress have started entering the system as members of the middle class (or upper middle class) – but they are leaving DC privy to vast personal wealth, as we see from the "scandal" of presidential contender Newt Gingrich's having been paid $1.8m for a few hours' "consulting" to special interests. The inflated fees to lawmakers who turn lobbyists are common knowledge, but the notion that congressmen and women are legislating their own companies' profitsis less widely known – and if the books were to be opened, they would surely reveal corruption on a Wall Street spectrum.
Indeed, we do already know that congresspeople are massively profiting from trading on non-public information they have on companies about which they are legislating – a form of insider trading that sent Martha Stewart to jail.
Since Occupy is heavily surveilled and infiltrated, it is likely that the DHS and police informers are aware, before Occupy itself is, what its emerging agenda is going to look like. If legislating away lobbyists' privileges to earn boundless fees once they are close to the legislative process, reforming the banks so they can't suck money out of fake derivatives products, and, most critically, opening the books on a system that allowed members of Congress to profit personally – and immensely – from their own legislation, are two beats away from the grasp of an electorally organised Occupy movement … well, you will call out the troops on stopping that advance.
So, when you connect the dots, properly understood, what happened this week is the first battle in a civil war; a civil war in which, for now, only one side is choosing violence. It is a battle in which members of Congress, with the collusion of the American president, sent violent, organised suppression against the people they are supposed to represent. Occupy has touched the third rail: personal congressional profits streams. Even though they are, as yet, unaware of what the implications of their movement are, those threatened by the stirrings of their dreams of reform are not.
Sadly, Americans this week have come one step closer to being true brothers and sisters of the protesters in Tahrir Square. Like them, our own national leaders, who likely see their own personal wealth under threat from transparency and reform, are now making war upon us.
The Guardian (UK)
The Shocking Truth About the Crackdown on Occupy
December 1, 2011 by TMO · Leave a Comment
The violent police assaults across the US are no coincidence. Occupy has touched the third rail of our political class's venality
By Naomi Wolf
US citizens of all political persuasions are still reeling from images of unparallelled police brutality in a coordinated crackdown against peaceful OWS protesters in cities across the nation this past week. An elderly woman was pepper-sprayed in the face; the scene of unresisting, supine students at UC Davis being pepper-sprayed by phalanxes of riot police went viral online; images proliferated of young women – targeted seemingly for their gender – screaming, dragged by the hair by police in riot gear; and the pictures of a young man, stunned and bleeding profusely from the head, emerged in the record of the middle-of-the-night clearing of Zuccotti Park.
But just when Americans thought we had the picture – was this crazy police and mayoral overkill, on a municipal level, in many different cities? – the picture darkened. The National Union of Journalists and the Committee to Protect Journalists issued a Freedom of Information Act request to investigate possible federal involvement with law enforcement practices that appeared to target journalists. The New York Times reported that "New York cops have arrested, punched, whacked, shoved to the ground and tossed a barrier at reporters and photographers" covering protests. Reporters were asked by NYPD to raise their hands to prove they had credentials: when many dutifully did so, they were taken, upon threat of arrest, away from the story they were covering, and penned far from the site in which the news was unfolding.
Other reporters wearing press passes were arrested and roughed up by cops, after being – falsely – informed by police that "It is illegal to take pictures on the sidewalk."
In New York, a state supreme court justice and a New York City council member were beaten up; in Berkeley, California, one of our greatest national poets, Robert Hass, was beaten with batons. The picture darkened still further when Wonkette and Washingtonsblog.com reported that the Mayor of Oakland acknowledged that the Department of Homeland Security had participated in an 18-city mayor conference call advising mayors on "how to suppress" Occupy protests.
To Europeans, the enormity of this breach may not be obvious at first.
Our system of government prohibits the creation of a federalised police force, and forbids federal or militarised involvement in municipal peacekeeping.
I noticed that rightwing pundits and politicians on the TV shows on which I was appearing were all on-message against OWS. Journalist Chris Hayes reported on a leaked memo that revealed lobbyists vying for an $850,000 contract to smear Occupy. Message coordination of this kind is impossible without a full-court press at the top. This was clearly not simply a case of a freaked-out mayors', city-by-city municipal overreaction against mess in the parks and cranky campers. As the puzzle pieces fit together, they began to show coordination against OWS at the highest national levels.
Why this massive mobilisation against these not-yet-fully-articulated, unarmed, inchoate people? After all, protesters against the war in Iraq, Tea Party rallies and others have all proceeded without this coordinated crackdown. Is it really the camping? As I write, two hundred young people, with sleeping bags, suitcases and even folding chairs, are still camping out all night and day outside of NBC on public sidewalks – under the benevolent eye of an NYPD cop – awaiting Saturday Night Live tickets, so surely the camping is not the issue. I was still deeply puzzled as to why OWS, this hapless, hopeful band, would call out a violent federal response.
That is, until I found out what it was that OWS actually wanted.
The mainstream media was declaring continually "OWS has no message".
Frustrated, I simply asked them. I began soliciting online "What is it you want?" answers from Occupy. In the first 15 minutes, I received 100 answers. These were truly eye-opening.
The No 1 agenda item: get the money out of politics. Most often cited was legislation to blunt the effect of the Citizens United ruling, which lets boundless sums enter the campaign process. No 2: reform the banking system to prevent fraud and manipulation, with the most frequent item being to restore the Glass-Steagall Act – the Depression-era law, done away with by President Clinton, that separates investment banks from commercial banks. This law would correct the conditions for the recent crisis, as investment banks could not take risks for profit that create kale derivatives out of thin air, and wipe out the commercial and savings banks.
No 3 was the most clarifying: draft laws against the little-known loophole that currently allows members of Congress to pass legislation affecting Delaware-based corporations in which they themselves are investors.
When I saw this list – and especially the last agenda item – the scales fell from my eyes. Of course, these unarmed people would be having the shit kicked out of them.
For the terrible insight to take away from news that the Department of Homeland Security coordinated a violent crackdown is that the DHS does not freelance. The DHS cannot say, on its own initiative, "we are going after these scruffy hippies". Rather, DHS is answerable up a chain of command: first, to New York Representative Peter King, head of the House homeland security subcommittee, who naturally is influenced by his fellow congressmen and women's wishes and interests. And the DHS answers directly, above King, to the president (who was conveniently in Australia at the time).
In other words, for the DHS to be on a call with mayors, the logic of its chain of command and accountability implies that congressional overseers, with the blessing of the White House, told the DHS to authorise mayors to order their police forces – pumped up with millions of dollars of hardware and training from the DHS – to make war on peaceful citizens.
But wait: why on earth would Congress advise violent militarised reactions against its own peaceful constituents? The answer is straightforward: in recent years, members of Congress have started entering the system as members of the middle class (or upper middle class) – but they are leaving DC privy to vast personal wealth, as we see from the "scandal" of presidential contender Newt Gingrich's having been paid $1.8m for a few hours' "consulting" to special interests. The inflated fees to lawmakers who turn lobbyists are common knowledge, but the notion that congressmen and women are legislating their own companies' profitsis less widely known – and if the books were to be opened, they would surely reveal corruption on a Wall Street spectrum.
Indeed, we do already know that congresspeople are massively profiting from trading on non-public information they have on companies about which they are legislating – a form of insider trading that sent Martha Stewart to jail.
Since Occupy is heavily surveilled and infiltrated, it is likely that the DHS and police informers are aware, before Occupy itself is, what its emerging agenda is going to look like. If legislating away lobbyists' privileges to earn boundless fees once they are close to the legislative process, reforming the banks so they can't suck money out of fake derivatives products, and, most critically, opening the books on a system that allowed members of Congress to profit personally – and immensely – from their own legislation, are two beats away from the grasp of an electorally organised Occupy movement … well, you will call out the troops on stopping that advance.
So, when you connect the dots, properly understood, what happened this week is the first battle in a civil war; a civil war in which, for now, only one side is choosing violence. It is a battle in which members of Congress, with the collusion of the American president, sent violent, organised suppression against the people they are supposed to represent. Occupy has touched the third rail: personal congressional profits streams. Even though they are, as yet, unaware of what the implications of their movement are, those threatened by the stirrings of their dreams of reform are not.
Sadly, Americans this week have come one step closer to being true brothers and sisters of the protesters in Tahrir Square. Like them, our own national leaders, who likely see their own personal wealth under threat from transparency and reform, are now making war upon us.
The Guardian (UK)
The Pakistani (Acting) Consul General For the West Coast of the United States
May 6, 2010 by TMO · Leave a Comment
By Geoffrey Cook, MMNS
Muhammad Khalid Ejaz
Los Angeles–April 10th–My last two articles came out of a discussion with the Indian (former) Ambassador to Afghanistan. I was fortunate to hear a speech of the (Acting) Consul-General of Pakistan to the Western United State at the South Asian Studies Association (S.A.S.A) banquet here at U.S.C. (the University of Southern California). His comments balanced those of Ambassador Maukapadya in Berkeley a month before.
Dr. Ejaz stated that Pakistan was the fifth most populous country in the world, but because of political disruptions over the land, (there has not been an accurate census since 1991, but it is safe to say that in early 1994, the inhabitants of Pakistan were appropriately estimated at 126 million, making it the ninth most populous country in the world although its land area, however, ranks thirty-second among nations. Thus, Pakistan, then, had about 2 percent of the world's population living on less than 0.7 percent of the world's land. The population growth rate is among the world's highest, officially assessed at 3.1 percent per annum, but privately considered to be closer to 3.3 percent for each year. Pakistan is assumed to have reached 150 million citizens ten years ago, and to have contributed to 4 percent of the world's growth which is predicted to double by 2022.) All this past paragraph demonstrates is that the Consul-General's approximation of Pakistan's place in population today in relation to the demographics of the world probably is close to correct.
Strategically, his nation is at the intersection of four vital locales to the U.S. and to the developing world. That is both Central and South Asia, and the Middle East and with China on its border connected by the Karkoram Highway. Several of these regions are either oil/gas rich, or require Pakistan's help to transport this energy to their ever-expanding economies.
During the 1950's and 1960's, Rawapindi was America's most allied of (trusted) allies. Now, NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization) fulfills that function for Washington.
In the 1980s, the two countries joined forces to help defeat the Russians in Afghanistan, but the District of Columbia deserted not only the Pakistanis, (but the Afghani and foreign fighters in the Hindu Kush Mountains. With the retreat of the Russians, and the collapse of their empire [the U.S.S.R, or [the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic], and [the whole "Second World" with it]), a five-way Civil War developed in Afghanistan, and eventually the rise of Taliban.)
Thus, (your author consigns the blame the roots of 9/11 on the Reagan Administration ill-advised policy of not providing development aid and skills to Afghanistan and Pakistan. This, in turn, has lead to our current War in the Pakistani-Afghanistani Mountains. That is why your writer designates Reagan to have been one of the worst of American Presidents instead of one of the best which the vulgar declare him to be in the Metropole [the Center of Empire] here. Besides Washington's airport being named after, there is a movement to put his face on the fifty dollar bill!).
After the ninth of 9th of September 2001 Islamabad was (forced) to become a front line State once again. Ejaz asserted our allied relationship with the U.S.A. should evolve into a more equitable one. We should have a "normalized" relationship with both those in the West, (and with the Taliban)!
We (Pakistan) are, also, under the threat of terrorism whose roots reside along the Durand Line. It is a porous border that dives a subnationality (the Pashtoons) that should have a right to regularly cross that frontier to visit their relatives on the other side! We cannot seal the borderland where the tribes exist in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is true, though, many things that happen on the Afghani side of the border deeply impact the Northwest Frontier Provinces.
With this porous borderland, there are fighters who cross into our country for sanctuary. Thus, despite the West's accusations, Rawalpindi has suffered high casualties! Muhammad Khalid Ejaz called on the U.S.A. to become more involved with development in the Af-Pak territories. There is a serious problem between Pakistan and India, too, over water rights; the great powers could help negotiate this. Still, Pakistan, as a nuclear power, has issues with nuclear India. He affirmed that Kashmir can be settled!
He concluded that the U.S.A. has a role in the Afghan conflict, but the tribes have to have their traditional rights of cross-border movement.
Negotiating with the Taliban?
April 22, 2010 by TMO · Leave a Comment
"Sleeping" with the Enemy"
By Geoffrey Cook, MMNS
Differences Between the U.S., Afghani and Indian Governments
Point Isabel, Point Richmond (Calif.)–Your author is taking his subtitle from a less than notable American film of several years ago to finish up his report on the recent Indian Ambassador to Kabul's comments , Gautam Mukhopadhaya.
At the moment your reporter finds himself at a lovely promontory pointing into San Francisco Bay, and it seems strange to be considering so many matters so far away that I begun two weeks ago from Berkeley. At that time I decided to divide the presentation into two parts because of its length.
Mukhopadhaya continued on how the political position amongst the American voters regarding Afghanistan was shifting away from support to criticism of official military policy in the Hindu Kush. Therefore, the District of Columbia had to change its tactics in response.
Pakistan operates in this War as it perceives to its own interests. Thus, the Ambassador deems that NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's) allies in the Hindu Kush consider Rawalpindi to be unreliable — which is far from the truth in your writer's opinion.
Both the U.S. and Pakistan are targeting the Taliban, (but Islamabad only considers one branch of the Taliban to be hostile to their interests. The other four branches – which are within their territory, too – they do not consider a threat, and all these parties are comparatively accommodating to the other – including Pakistan. Up to 80% of the Pakistani Taliban resides in the federally administered Northwest Provinces.)
The Americans and Pakistani Armies mutually oppose one "clan" of Taliban, and they are fully within Islamabad's Federally Administered Territories. Thus, Peshawar sees no threat to their survival from the Afghani Taliban.
Further, Washington sees no alternative to the Karzai government that the District of Columbia (D.C.) perceives as militarily undependable. At the same time, the U.S. Administration comprehends Kazai's Presidency to be a corruptible one – an uneasy alliance to say the least!
In the London Conference on the Afghani conflict last January (2010), the European and Canadian allies supported the "Afghanization" of the War and the "regularization" (normalization) of our relations with the Taliban! This, hopefully, would lead to meaningful discussions and, eventually, peace within the Mountains! These talks should be mutually respectful between each party – including the Taliban.
At same time, the Indian representative from New Delhi's Department of External Affairs had to take a dig at their traditional competitors: "We need leadership from the Pakistanis!" (This struggle beyond the Khyber is an opportunity to bring these two South Asian nuclear neighbors closer together instead of tearing them further apart to the dangerous detriment to all!) His Excellency accused D.C. of a failure of leadership during this international crisis. To settle the military security, he urged U.S.-Pakistan operations. (Of course, the loss of Islamabad's national sovereignty would be totally unacceptable to its Muslim citizenry, and put the security of Pakistan's topography under question for its Western and regional allies!) Simultaneously, the Saudis close allies to both, are working with Islamabad and Washington to bring their policies closer together.
On the other hand, the Taliban itself is fed-up. The London Conference approved the Taliban's grasp of the countryside while NATO and the Afghani government would occupy the cities. This is not the battle plan of these "Students." They wish to hold the total fasces within the dry, cold hills, and their mindset is far from compromise at this time.
Yet the Americans presume that they have an upper hand, and, correspondingly, are in the position of strength to negotiate with their adversaries. Actually, it is the Pakistanis who are central for negotiating with the problem some Quetta branch of the Talibani. The Pakistani Army has already begun to begin dialogue in Baluchistan. Rawalpindi considers it has made some progress, and the Generals at their Military Headquarters are encouraged by their discourse with the irregular tribesmen.
The U.S.A. has been following a contradictory policy in the Af-Pak itself. While D.C. has been throwing development funds in Southern Afghanistan, it has been shoring up the military on the frontlines in Pakistan.
Ultimately, though, Ambassador Maukapadya does not discern a desire by the Taliban to parley. In the late 1990s, the Taliban regime in Kabul led the U.S. on their intentions. (Your essayist has some questions about this, and that is His Excellency is not separating the goals of a Nationalist Taliban and an Internationalist Al'Quaeda.) Would the Taliban be willing to form a coalition government with Karzai or whoever may succeed him (them)? (Whatever, a re-establishment of the regime of the 1990s is totally unacceptable to International Civil Society without the checks and balances of the partnership of all Afghani peoples and tribes!) The Ambassador is "…not optimistic."
There is preparation for a major NATO assault upon the Taliban stronghold around the southern city of Kandahar, the center of Talibani power. Maukapadya does not feel the battle will turn the War around.
Concurrently, Europe and North America and their regional associates are employing dual strategies against the Taliban who are replying in kind. This War is far from coming to a mutually acceptable denouement.
Negotiations with Taliban? (Part 1)
April 8, 2010 by TMO · Leave a Comment
By Geoffrey Cook, MMNS
Berkeley–March 15th–Gautam Mukhopadhaya is a career diplomat in the Union of India's Department of External Affairs (i.e., Foreign Service). He was their Ambassador Embassy to Kabul for the first time after the Taliban victory during the 1990s. When, after the 200l American onslaught, the Indian federation deemed it safe enough to re-establish a presence in the Hindu Kush. In many ways, New Delhi is more of a negative influence than a positive one in that area, for they have exacerbated the Indo-Pak rivalry as it was slowly cooling down. Succinctly, your essayist sees New Delhi pulling a geopolitical pincher movement. Rawalpindi has moved significant Divisions of their Army into new areas facing India's Western frontier that previously Pakistan did not judge to be essential to their security. This, curiously, has hurt the military their campaign in the Durand borderlands, for the Pak COAS (Commander of the Army Staff) has decided to move a significant numbers of his military to counter the new Indian concentrations. Further, your author's sources have informed him that there is a very secret "War" being waged between the Pakistani ISI (Inner Services Intelligence) and the Indian RAW (Research and Analysis Wing) within Afghanistan itself destabilizing the efforts of foreign forces (NATO [the North Atlantic Treaty Organization] and especially Washington).
Although (Indo-) Bharat is not an Islamic-majority country, it is the second most populous ("culturally") Muslim land in the world. Although he has a Hindu name, (Former) Ambassador Mukhopadhaya was raised in Calcutta, which is within the eastern (Indian) state of West Bengal, and borders the Islamic-majority nation of Bangladesh. Slightly over a quarter of Indian (West) Bengalis are Muslims, which must have given him a great sensitivity for — and knowledge of — the Afghanistani Muslims, for he was the first Indian chief envoy to be appointed there after the fall of the Talibani State in 2002.
He made a notation which your reporter has heard from other knowledgeable people in field: Iraq was/is a War of choice for the U.S.A. while Afghanistan is one of necessity.
Mukhopadhaya observed that President Barrick Obama of the United States of America is beginning the second year of his Afghan Policy. Obama is now considering negotiations with the Taliban! His Excellency America perceives Pakistan as aggravating the War in Afghanistan, for the District of Columbia (D.C.) perceives that the province Peshawar rules has not pursued the Taliban and Al-Qaida with the zeal for which they the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) hoped, (but the causality figures of Pakistani Army in the N.W.P. [the Northwest Provinces] belie the accuracy of his Excellency's analysis.)
The Obama Administration views not only the Pakistanis but the Indians as "spoilers!" Yet, whatever, the U.S. War effort entails, the assistance of Pakistan's COAS, General Ashram Parvez (Kayani) and his staff, the North Americans with their European allies cannot do alone, for the regional nation-states are long-term stakeholders within their topography!
Talal Asad
March 4, 2010 by TMO · Leave a Comment
By Geoffrey Cook, MMNS
Camp Meeker (Calif.)–February 28th–This discussion was observed some time ago in Berkeley, but your essayist is only finding the time to write it up this Sunday afternoon.
Asad's father was an Austrian Jewish convert to Islam and his mother was a Muslim-born woman. The philosophically-oriented Talal was born in the Saudi Kingdom, but raised in India and Pakistan. The younger Asad was trained as an anthropologist, and now is a professor in New York City. Your critic is mainly familiar with his compilations as an historian.
He began the exchange with "…I can give you a…location [of] where I am [stand] today. I was much more confident [of] rational criticism" in the past than now. "Working through certain materialists, [can be]…positive." In this way, he has transformed the Islamic tradition to respond to Western Secularism with an (Islamic) Modernism of its own uniqueness, "…a straight forward approach …" to problem solving ("reality testing") is required according to our philosopher.
"… [cultural] continuity is still relevant…for creativity." The question is "What can be continued and why," but he still has much to work out for a comprehensive "critique…I don't know what we can do…Thinking is good [positive], but what kind of thinking?"
Speaking especially of the Middle East, "Life is…entangled…The scope of the horror has tremendously increased" with the Afghani and Pakistani theaters, "We are in a new type of War…" Unlike President Obama, he disagrees with the Just War theories (both Christian and Islamic). There is a threat of a nuclear holocaust at present. We are following a suicidal logic!
In the Occident, Classic Eighteenth Century "Liberalism has…evolved historically [into Neo-liberalism during our generation]…" Sarcastically, he exclaimed "Let the market rule" although "…the State can intervene…" "The…West… ['s cultural] language'' contains violence…" He, personally, does not hold to a Culture of Death as he describes it.
"…any texts we write can be interpreted in many ways…" Curiously, therefore, he maintains he is not responsible for his writings.
Although he is fully conversant in European and American humanism, "…I am committed to… [the]…values of Islam…" constantly employing his religion within his philosophical doctrines. Towards the end of the dialogue, he noted certain similarities between Eastern Christianity and Islam. In this manner, he has emphasized the commonality between the roots of the West and the Islamic; and, thereby, a space for meeting.
Islam's Challenge to Capitalism
January 21, 2010 by TMO · Leave a Comment
Turkey's "Passive Revolution"
By Geoffrey Cook, MMNS
Berkeley–Although Chihan Tugal is based here in Berkeley, he was asked to talk about his research entitled Passive Revolution: Absorbing the Islamic Challenge to Capitalism, published by Stanford University. It is written from his observations of a district in the above Asia Minor country which is amongst the poorest and most radical on the outskirts of Istanbul. What is so interesting about this quarter is that it is dominated politically by Islamists even though the Central administration's Constitution is that of a Secularist Republic.
Amid the Turkish population, the Islamists have scant support. These Muslims favor a relatively radical type of Islam for a democratic State, and are against the exacting Secularization that Ataturk set in motion during the 1920s. The majority of these people had supported the Fazilet (Virtue) Partisi (Party) and to a lesser extent other Islamist Parties such as Welfare. Their thinking had led them to reject contemporary Capitalism; therefore, the anti-American stance of social and economic-introverted gazing. Turkish Islamism is logical, but a short time ago, 2001, the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Partisi) was formed out of a schism between traditionalists – such as ruled this area — and reformers within the Virtue Party by the current Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Endrogan. On the other hand, the AKP (Justice and Development) program stresses not only democratic reforms but Islamic moral renewal) as well. (Incidentally many of these Muslims came from the radical marginal ethnic groups within Turkiye.) Ethnology is a competent device to comprehend this societal phenomenon.
These individuals became disenchanted when it became apparent that an Islamist State was beyond their reach. Many former adherents of the local Islamist groups, who had become disillusioned, defected to the Neo-Liberal (i.e., Neo-Ricardian) Justice and Development Party which is more broadly Islamic than Islamist, and, hence, more accepting of contemporaneous Capitalism — although they still held onto their antagonism to their former completive Islamist, as well, Welfare Party after they switched their positions outside their former religious ideological political stance.
Those remaining inside the Islamic political organizations are nevertheless not so much anti-capitalistic as anti- markets. (Your critic here considers, of all things, that many of these Islamist groups actually have affinities with European Christian Democrats! Both put their spiritual commitments and moral principles in the forefront of their politics.) Further, those who have stepped over to the Justice and Development Party have accepted some Keynesian theoretics, thus, they have resemblances to the Social Democrats in Europe.
The Islamists of Turkiye Cumhurieyeti are a virtual compilation of the Subaltern (a range of the lower and lower middle classes). Shopkeepers and students are against Capitalism in Istanbul, but the proletariat have sympathy for Corporate Capital, strangely enough, (for they see commerce a source for jobs).
Although the State has become more Islamic, their influence have diminished while that of the bourgeois has risen. This has guaranteed the position of Secularism within the State. The traditional patronage alliance between State actors within the Republic has been restored as has the alliance with the West — although the Secular elite can be Islamized, if a large scale Islamic revival is generated in the event the European Union denies Ankara's entrance into the EU. This (could) lead to a financial emergency that, may perhaps, lead to an economic meltdown in this NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) ally.
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
By Geoffrey Cook, MMNS
Berkeley–Your author takes his title from John LeClare; a popular British spy novel by that new title above for the subject today is a former Central Intelligence (CIA) operative, Robert Baer, who had come in from the "Cold" for the purpose of promoting his book The Devil We Know. Baer was an operative in the Middle East with an expertise with Iran shortly before the Iranian Embassy crisis had begun. His career with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (C.I.A.) spanned twenty-five years before he began to have second thoughts. He had come to the University of California, one of his alumna maters, campus to talk about his book, and to comment on the Obama's Administration's intensely controversial policy relationship with Tehran.
Early in his career he was part of the team to determine who was responsible for the Embassy take over. During this period, Lebanon was to become part of Persia's sphere of influence. "Iran is not so much an opponent to the States than with Israel." After the 2006 War with Hezbollah, both the United States and Israel's influence was driven out of Beirut's territory. Iran, thus, has become hegemonic in the eastern reaches of the Middle East. Essentially, Iran had beaten Israel through proxy (Hezbollah). Effectively, Tel Aviv did not know what "hit it!" They were unable to comprehend their own intelligence — which they had been fundamentally at War which they lost.
Baer considers the Anti-Zionist Shia much more discipled than the Sunni. Robert Baer has a great deal of respect geopolitically for the Iranians. "We need Iran…for a peaceful Middle East!" To come to blows with their million man army, would be suicidal. According to Bob Baer, their armed forces consume up to 2% of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Further, culturally, they are a more culturally sophisticated than us, for Islam is more flexible than the Occident.
As Iran backs Hamas, "Al-Qaida is an ideanot an org" as R. Baer, also, stated on the BBC today (January 5th)." For peace we require Iran! We have to treat them as a power, hegemonic within their region. "We can't use the Bush [Utopian] Doctrine." For one thing, "Tehran is in competition with Saudi Arabia." Further, "Khomeini isn't a true Ayatollah." His support is in the army. Washington respects the Iranians as a dynamic power for a peace between us.
"The greatest threat [to Persia] is demographic." That is, the imbalance between the growth of the younger generations and the middle and senior age groups. We should be looking as a partner with them within the Gulf instead of being competitors. "Iran can become troublesome." Therefore, we should "…talk to our opponents…or fail."
Sir Syed Day 2009 in the San Francisco Bay Area
December 3, 2009 by TMO · Leave a Comment
By Ras Hafiz Siddiqui
The annual Sir Syed Day 2009 gathering in the San Francisco Bay Area once again brought together south-Asian Alumni of this esteemed university and a rainbow of enthusiasts of the Urdu language at the India Community Center in the city of Milpitas on Saturday November 14th. And once again great pains were taken during this two part educational and literary gala to keep the legacy of a great man alive and to highlight the efforts of the Aligarh Muslim University Alumni Association of Northern California (AMUAA-CA) in raising funds to offer educational opportunities to several disadvantaged students to enable them to attend AMU.
Sir Syed Ahmad Khan (1817 to 1898), the founder of the Mohammedan Anglo Oriental (MAO) College which became a full-fledged university in 1920 was a remarkable individual who defied the odds and was able to provide an avenue for Indian Muslims to get a scientific-modern education at a time when the community was shunning progressive ideas. And because of him and the institution he founded this event became possible because Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) is recognized today for its academic and not to forget artistic contributions (e.g. Indian Actor Naseeruddin Shah).
The evening started with fine food from Chandni and some valuable networking opportunities as both the "Old Boys" and now "Old Girls" who have had the privilege of attending this unique institution located in Aligarh, India caught up on their current lives, the past, and speculated on the future. AMU, which started off as a somewhat exclusive Muslim university has now acquired a more religiously diverse student population whose its ethnic diversity has remained legendary. Scions of families from Peshawar to Dacca (Dhaka of the old) and from Kashmir to Hyderabad Deccan all have attended AMU from the early 1900's onwards and some graduates have gone on to lead countries, states and other educational institutions. Today, the university population is global and they including over two hundred in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Sitting at the table with Prof. Munibur Rahman and Prof. Steven Poulos was indeed an honor. We will revisit Prof. Rahman later in the report. His friend Dr. Poulos who has been Director of the South Asia Language Resource Center at UC Berkeley and the University of Chicago and did research at AMU in the late 1960's also shared his feelings on his visit there and where things stand today. The program at the University of Chicago has been instrumental in creating the first online Pashto dictionary and has created a Pashto proficiency test and also offers online courses in elementary Sindhi and intermediate Urdu.
The formal evening proceedings started off with an invocation and Ms. Huma Abidi made the necessary introductions, welcoming back Aligarians to Sir Syed Day and reminiscing about her own past experiences at the historic campus. She then invited AMUAA President Nihal Khan to present his thoughts. Khan Sahib highlighted facts on how the Sir Syed's memory and the Aligarh tradition has been kept alive for the past decade in the San Francisco Bay area but also reminded everyone that there was a dual purpose for the evening which is to raise funds to provide students in need to get an education, making the purpose of this Mushaira (Poetry Recital) broader. He also thanked a list of sponsors for making this gathering possible.
Next, Keynote Speaker Dr. Aslam Abdullah who wears many hats including that of leading both American and Indian Muslims in thought, started by stating that in cities all over the world Aligarh Alumni pay tribute to that giant of a man (Sir Syed). Quoting from poet Allama Iqbal looking through Sir Syed's eyes, Dr. Abdullah explained how Sir Syed's efforts started when the Muslims of India were at their lowest self-defeating point. Modern scientific education was negated by the religious leadership of the time to the point when they defined the poor Muslim conditions post 1857 as a divine scheme to be accepted. "Sir Syed challenged that view," said Dr. Abdullah. He gave the example of how at one time England was debating how many teeth a chicken had. The debate went on and on till Francis Bacon simply asked why don't you open the chicken's mouth and find out? He said that Similarly, Sir Syed promoted analytical thought. "He wanted to inspire the younger generation," he added. He wanted his community in India, especially the young to understand both the Holy Quran and modern thinking. . "He did not want to build an ordinary university," said Dr. Abdullah. This was a revolutionary movement inclusive of others but people mistakenly made it a minority issue, which is not correct. "Today, we need to re-awaken that dream," he said.
After a brief ceremony for a local Aligarh Cricket League where the "Man of the Tournament" and the winning team was presented awards, everyone was reminded of the fundraiser (www.aeef.net) and the first part of the event came to its conclusion with the traditional singing of the university anthem the "Tarana-e-Aligarh" in which many in the audience participated.
The second part of this program was once again the Urdu poetry recital or "Mushaira" which draws on the essence of a culture, which is associated with the Urdu language. Dr. Nausha Asrar from Houston, Texas conducted the proceedings and introduced all the poets and invited Prof. Munibur Rahman to preside as the most senior person present. And from that point started a literary journey of wit, humor, reason, wisdom and in the end emotion moved many listeners.
Starting with local San Francisco resident Engineer Vasmi Abidi who questioned why neighbors who share walls here don't know each other, to India 's Tahir Faraz asking why trees of friendship have little support from even a gentle wind while the trees of hate today are so full of fruit? And then Abbas Tabish from Lahore, Pakistan explained how his own condition has started to reflect the condition of his house and the lament of those who sell their village land and soul to big cities for a song. Nausha Asrar next added both his wisdom and humor while Khalid Irfan from New York was at his satirical best about donkeys in public places and the government and why one more mule would not make a big difference. He was also for the exchange of female Indian Bollywood dancers with extremists from across the border for better Pakistan India ties (We don't believe that the Indians would agree).
Senior poet Meraj Faizabadi from India next brought the audience back down to earth speaking of glass houses and dashed hopes amidst betrayals. On Aligarh he asked what is a flame without its spreading light? On India-Pakistan friendship he explained that he was all ready to reach across the gap that divides the two people, but strangely he was still trying to find where that gap really was?
The other senior poet, Waseem Barelvi also from India requested that other avenues of expressing sadness be found, since his tears are now too old to express his feelings anymore. He spoke about the human relationship with God and the uniqueness of the Aligarh culture or "Tehzeeb". He said that one should try to give up on expecting generosity from others to protect one from painful disappointment but on the other hand, one should be ready to hit a wall if the cause is just. And yes on the topic of love without which the language of Urdu poetry would remain incomplete, if you have lost in love, your loss is painful but in that loss it is still a gain, he said.
Last but not least the President of this Mushaira, Michigan resident Prof. Munibur Rahman, who holds two Masters Degrees from Aligarh, in History (1942) and Persian (1944) and a contemporary of this writer's father, shared his thoughts. Prof. Steven Poulos was quite accurate in describing him earlier as he turned out to be an amazing presenter. Someone who can think in English, Urdu and Farsi simultaneously, he moved us all to an emotional level seldom reached. The pain of old age, the parting of his beloved wife, visiting a relative with Alzheimer's disease, all this reporter can say is "Maan Gayay Sahib" (We knew that we were in the presence of excellence). Several people were moved to tears with his Nazm "Guftugu" (Conversation) written for his late wife in which he tries to bridge a gap between his current life and her death. Down to her "Chabi Ka Guccha" (Key Ring) a stark reminder of her, we found out what true love was. Prof. Rahman also highlighted his trials and tribulations on aging, trying to reach out to busy children and losing one's old friends in a unique and beautiful manner. His standing ovation was certainly well deserved. All this writer can add is that I was humbled in his presence and Prof. Munibur Rahman is one fine example of some of the people who graduated from and taught at Aligarh.
In conclusion, this was possibly one of the finest evenings that the local AMUAA has put together in the past decade or so. Our congratulations to all the local volunteers who put this event together and a word of thanks to Nihal Khan, Dr. Shaheer Khan and their team for continuing to keep us in mind when Sir Syed Day comes around every year. It was almost surreal but this time "Mehfil Ka Mahol Bahot Khoobsoorti Say Ban Giya" (the environment of the event came to a beautiful medium naturally). Bahot Khoob!
Readers are encouraged to contact the AMUAA at http://www.amualumni.org/
ISPU Banquet Grosses $250,000
November 1, 2009 by TMO · Leave a Comment
By Neda Farooqi, MMNS
ISPU annual dinner accentuates issues facing American Muslims; raises $250,000.
"It is not the building that makes us big, it is us, you and I, that make us big," said Imam Hassan al-Qazwini, referring to the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, annual fundraising dinner in the banquet hall of the largest mosque in North America on October 24, 2009. "May Allah bless you all."
The Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU) is a nonprofit think tank organization, originated in Michigan that researches and evaluates US and foreign policy.
"ISPU's mission is to focus on education, research, and analysis with an emphasis on issues effecting the Muslim community," said Dr. Nauman Imami, Director of the Glaucoma Service at the Henry Ford Health System and member of ISPU Board of Directors.
Imami drew an analogy between Google and ISPU. "Google does one thing and it does it very well. It answers any questions posed to it." According to searchenginejournal.com, Google ranks as the number one search site in the United States.
Imami explained that a public policy is created when there is a defined problem, a perceived solution, and political alignment.
Imami posed the question: "How are Muslims in America portrayed?" ISPU's research has impacted many media products, such as the Newsweek cover story titled, "Islam In America," published on July 30, 2007. Other networks such as CNN, BBC, and The Economist compile studies and data from ISPU. Media outlets such as Christian Science Monitor and the Associated Press have referenced several ISPU reports.
"ISPU provides solutions based on evidence and data for American Muslims," said Imami.
"ISPU focuses on topics that are important to the community. Your concerns, your families, and domestic & foreign policy," said Farid Senzai, assistant professor in the political science department at Santa Clara University and Director of Research at ISPU.
ISPU released several policy briefs on foreign topics ranging from the Arab/Israeli conflict to the predicaments taking place in Pakistan. ISPU also examines domestic issues such as divorce in the American Muslim community, Muslim youth and ratification, and health clinics in the US.
ISPU has recently published a brief, "Death by Culture," that centers on domestic abuse. This publication exhibits violence that circulated around the Rihanna/Chris Brown case and Bridges TV case, whose founder decapitated his wife in their television studio.
Senzai informed the audience that ISPU policy briefs have a high impact on US & foreign relations. "Four distinctive ISPU reports on Pakistan translated into very direct impact in Washington," said Senzai. ISPU has also worked on topics of US & Iran relations, hosting a conference that invited scholars from Iran delegations and Egypt Sate Department Delegations. He was also invited to go to Egypt after the release of ISPU's publications on US and foreign policy.
A massive, two-year study on Muslim divorce is yet to be released, soon available to the public.
Apart from fundraising, ISPU recognizes scholars and philanthropists annually for their research and significant impact. The 2009 ISPU Scholar Award was presented to Dr. Juan Cole, Professor of History at the University of Michigan. "I shouldn't be getting an award for speaking the truth," said Cole, upon receiving the award. Dr. Anjum Shariff, a radiologist in St. Louis, was the recipient of the Distinguished Award for Philanthropy. His work entails helping refugee children attending struggling public schools and tutors high school students. Anjum Shariff has also formulated a program for students to shadow physicians at his workplace.
Soon after dinner and the award ceremony, keynote speaker, Shaykh Hamza Yusuf was invited on stage.
"It is nice to see chandeliers in the masjid, MashAllah, instead of lights flickering," said Hamza Yusuf. Hamza Yusuf Hanson is an Islamic scholar who teaches at the Zaytuna College in Berkeley, California.
Yusuf reminded the crowd that Islam is not a monolith. "There is only one Islam," he said. "But, there are multiple versions. Islam has many adjectives."
The religion of Islam consists of different types of Muslims ranging from classical, traditional, Salafi, Sufi, Hanafi, Malaki and many more eclectic backgrounds. "The first and strongest strengths of Islam is Unity among diversity," said Yusuf. "When you try to box people in narrow definitions, you are not acknowledging the depth of human beings."
Yusuf also focuses on the difficulties that loom amongst Muslim Americans. "We are not recognizing that unity is not uniformity. That is the real problem of our community."
Yusuf also spoke about western Muslim family and financial life.
"American Muslims have high levels of educations, with the average Muslim bringing in $70,000 [annually.]"
The Pew Research Center managed more than 55,000 interviews that were conducted in English, Arabic, Farsi, and Urdu. This information allowed the Pew to obtain a national sample of 1,050 Muslims, which assessed Muslim backgrounds, educational levels, and views on the western world. "We have potential to reinvigorate," said Yusuf.
"What is driving us as a community? Where are we going?" Yusuf informs the crowd that the community has a lack of professionalism and strategy. "This is the purpose of think tanks like ISPU- to provide strategy and professionalism."
Lastly, Yusuf directs the audience to avoid getting constricted in plots and conspiracies. Muslims know more about the conspiracies of September 11 than they do about the life of the Prophet Muhammad (s). "The Prophet never complained or played the victim card. The question is what are you doing, not what are they doing."
Yusuf advises the 750 attendees to stick to the truth. "Truth is such an extraordinary rare," he said. In addition, he recommends that American Muslims should not be judgmental and need to take advantage of the opportunities placed for them. "We have our own nutcases. We don't like to be judged, so don't judge others."
"I don't care what the enemy did to us, cause we wont be asked about that. What we will be asked about is how we responded," concluded Yusuf.
Among local residents, dignitaries, such as Charlene Elder, the first Arab-American female judge on Michigan's Third Circuit Court and Dearborn Heights Mayor Dan Paletko were in attendance.
The guests were given the opportunity to meet the speakers and take part in the book signing with Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, Dr. Juan Cole, and Dr. Farid Senzai.
The event raised $250,000, reaching ISPU's goal Saturday night. ISPU tackles social challenges with the support of donations. To learn more about ISPU and its upcoming events, please visit www.ispu.org.
September 24, 2009 by TMO · Leave a Comment
By Geoffrey Cook, Muslim Media News Service (MMNS)
Berkeley–September 10th–The "Season" has begun and authors are trampling through Northern California – Muslims and non-Muslims, knowledgeable about the Ummah and its people – hawking their books. Jonathan Curriel, author of Al'America: Travels Through Arab and Islamic America visited my city the week after Labor Day. Curiel is no scholar, but was trained as a journalist. Although employed by the San Francisco Chronicle, he was partially educated in and reported from the Middle East.
The book under discussion was published by The New Press in November of 2008, and details the historic influence of Arab and Muslim culture on America — from the time of Columbus to 9/11 — with the ramifications of the latter event. This is a book that concentrates on the historical and Pop Cultural aspects of Islamic influence upon America, but it does a great service by exposing the underpinning of Islam at the Grassroots of North American culture. The author too often degenerates into uncomfortable insensitivity to your reviewers' target audience.
Reading the press release composed for his tour, I notice a "slickness" that makes your reporter feel ill at ease. His publishers are not presenting J. Curriel humbly forcing his readers to concentrate on his credentials rather than his work! Still, that did not prevent the book from translation into Arabic by Arab Scientific Publishers, the Beirut print house that, also, has exposed several important European and American writers to an Arabic-speaking audience.
In 2005, his Newspaper was honored by Columbia University (the dominant) U.S. J-School (of Journalism) in New York City for Jonathan Curiel's exceptional articles on race and ethnicity! Your Observer commentator — does not know about bragging rights — but he should be proud of this! This is something that he attempts to bring to this study, but he is honest enough to note where he fails.
For him – even after September 11th 2001 – denying Islamic civilization is not being part of the American fabric is wrong. "Muslims not only belong…but are part of [the American] culture in so many ways!"
In fact, Christopher Columbus reached out to the Muslim "Moors." The Admiral of the Ocean Seas was substantially influenced by the Arabs to the point he could not have reached the New World in 1492 without his North African designed sails. While Arab culture was waning in Southwestern Europe by the late 16th Century (CE), Columbus' voyages notably brought subtle Arab influences to the Spanish colonies and later the Portuguese colony in the Americas – including those parts in the United States that Washington (D.C.) seized in the Mexican-American and the Spanish-American War plus the Louisiana Purchase!
Although Madrid prohibited Muslims from the Americas, the Alamo now in Texas is a classic example of Arabic Architecture! New Orleans was a city shunted back and forth between the Iberians and the French. Finally, President Thomas Jefferson bought it from the Emperor Napoleon. When the Spanish possessed that famous city, they imported Islamic ironwork for which the Metropolis near mouth of the Mississippi — plus the renowned Muslim-styled courtyards within the Big Easy — migrated from the Middle East via the Iberian Peninsula.
The date palm was brought to the Western Hemisphere — including the California of yours truly — from the Middle East, also, via Hispania.
In the United States, a Muslim slave actually wrote a book in Arabic while being held in South Carolina. Until the Twentieth Century most American Muslims came from West Africa (since they were victims of that ugly Slave Trade). Jonathan Curriel, as well as a few eminent musicologists, believe that the American "Blues" musical sub-structure comes from Islam's call to prayer.
No less than the extremely important American thinker of the Nineteenth Century, Ralph Waldo Emerson, was profoundly influenced by Muslim culture. Many important American intellectuals have been influenced by Islam, too, throughout the history of the American Republic (and even before –Thomas Jefferson, of course, comes to your reporter's mind most quickly) up into the contemporary period. There has been a long-standing cultural interaction between the Potomac and the Islamic nations according to Curriel.
Of course, some of this interaction was not fully comprehensible to the Americans; and, thereby, can be considered in bad taste. The Shriners and the Masons adopted pseudo-clothing accoutrement and symbols of the Muslims. At its most forgiving was mere mimicry, but at its worst was insulting and in bad taste. (Your scribe must point out that Jonathan Curriel did make these issues transparent, and did not cringe from describing it for what it was.) Yet, since the immigration reforms under the late President Lyndon Johnson, highly prominent Muslim immigrants have been attracted to, and have joined the aforementioned organizations. They have pressured these groups to give a form of Zakat and to make them even more service-oriented.
The iconic Los Angeles rock(-n-roll) band of the 1960s, the Doors, were highly influenced by Arab music while the ultimate Rock star (of the 1950s), Elvis Presley, was a great admirer of Khalil Gibran, a Christian Lebanese immigrant to America. His best known work was a sequence of inspirational essays, The Prophet. They were pitifully greeted by the critics when they were published in 1923. It definitely belongs to the opus of Arabic-language literature, but not Islamic literature. Having read the book as a young man, when it was still a best-selling "underground" rage, your reviewer considered it to be overly simplistic. How much of it might be based on Mohammed (PUBH) is hard to say because of the elevated ambiguity of its poetic language.
Curriel maintained Presley somehow turned this book into his Bible. Also, along religious lines, the Christian Roman Catholic Pope John Paul II had instructed that his casket placed on a Persian Carpet to demonstrate the unity of all religions.
Back to Pop Culture, the movie cycle and "cult" television series, Stars Wars borrowed motifs respectfully from the religion from Mecca. Jonathan Curriel concluded, "Cultures go back and forth, and always borrow from each other," continuing, "Muslims have contributed from the inception of the American nations," and they are still highly visible and contributing members of our society. Their contributions are no longer seen as insignificant within North American society.
September 17, 2009 by TMO · Leave a Comment
By Geoffrey Cook, Muslim Media News Service (MMNS)
Berkeley–There was an impressive panel held here on Islamicist politics with Nathan Brown of the Carnegie Endowment for Peace and Mohammed Hafez of the (U.S.) Naval Postgraduate School at Monterey. This was a rich late afternoon; thus, I am going to break the encounter into two separate articles. I would like to investigate Hafez' presentation on Islamic excommunication takfir, and the internal debates within Islamic culture itself on Muslim upon Muslim violence.
First, though a few comments from the moderator, Scott Field, who is an Australian. Unknowing to the mainstream American public, Islamicism has a considerable history. With the Global spread of the dominance of "democracies," the "knee jerk" reaction by most Islamicists has been to reject it as a workable form of governance within the various chronological traditions within Islam. Thus, here has been a tendency for these Muslims to engage much of the modern world with distrust. Yet, Islamicist groups are not monolithic. A case in point is one which I have writing a lot on lately, Hamas, who chose to contest an election, and won, but they were totally rejected by those governments encouraging electoral politics in the Middle East because the people's choice was not to their predilection. What Mohammed Hafez spoke about were those groups who took up arms against other Muslim whom they deemed hostile to their values.
Most of the victims of Jihadi and other violence have been fellow Muslims. This has caused a backlash even amongst the radicals themselves. Certain Muslims call other Muslims "kafirs", and considered them as excommunicated from the body of believers. Islamicists are grounded in Islamicist principles. (Pretty self-evident.) Many suicide bombers break the laws of their "classical" religion, but Jihadist work rather on the exceptions to traditional injunctions.
Customarily, the regulations that permit Muslims to struggle against other Muslims are 1.Tyrannical regimes; 2, Apostates 3. Heretics (unfortunately for the Sunni it too often means the Shia); 4. If any of situations rises to "legalize" resistance, True Believers should be spared, but, if it happens accidently it is unfortunate but forgivable.
We have to work on a case-by-case basis, but most of the War-like struggles in the contemporary Islamic World are being waged by Jihadist Movements. "What convince them [to action] are the exceptions within [normative] Islam rather than the rule." That is exceptions to the Law argued over generations by Islamic jurisprudence scholars.
Currently, the violent Jihadis consider themselves to be in a defensive Jihad rather than in an offensive (i.e., conquest, etc.) mode. This turns the tenets around for them. There is the moral problem of (Muslim) human shields that the so-called Salafi (imitators of the pious patristic period of)Islam has employed. Their reasoning is that it is alright to endanger innocent believers for the greater good; that is, to prevent the fall of dar al-Islam.
Mohammed Hafez believes that Islam is neither a religion of hostilities or concord, but "…is a religion of [both] war and peace" (like every other creed on this globe)!
Yet, in the Muslim world the United States and her allies are seen as a "Neo-Colonial force."
KinderUSA Event for Gaza
September 17, 2009 by TMO · Leave a Comment
By Susan Schwartz, Muslim Media News Service (MMNS)
The deteriorating situation in Gaza is of primary concern to humanitarians throughout the world. Unfortunately the Israeli dominated media have done little to present to the public the true picture of present life in Gaza, often and correctly labeled "the world's largest outdoor prison."
A number of charitable organizations have been on the ground in Gaza doing humanitarian work, though such work constitutes only a fraction of what is needed. None of the much vaunted aid pledged to Gaza has been received. KinderUSA (Kids in Need of Development, Education, and Relief) is one such organization.
KinderUSA held a successful Ramadan Iftar and fund raiser at Omar Ibn Al Khattab Mosque in Los Angeles this past weekend.
Titled: "Working Together, Rebuilding Lives", the event filled the mosque's Abu Dawood Hall as attendees listened to KinderUSA Chair, Dr. Laila Al-Marayati, and keynote speaker Dr. Hatem Bazian of UC Berkeley describe the dire situation in Gaza. The scope of the presentations focused on Gaza's continuing deterioration begun by Israel's deliberate isolation of Gaza following the successful election of Hamas and exacerbated by Operation Cast Lead. The latter was a month long siege which began in late December of last year.
Dr. Al-Marayati, speaking in front of a video screen, gave some background on KinderUSA and its accomplishments since its founding in 2002. She emphasized the low overhead – 20% – of most projects. With respect to Ramadan projects, 100% of monies collected is used for charitable work. Contributions to KinderUSA qualify as Zakat.
KinderUSA is unique in that instead of goods and services, vouchers are given. These vouchers give greater choice to the recipients, and they can tailor the purchases to their particular needs. Since purchases are made from local merchants, this system also strengthens local communities.
KinderUSA also supports projects for women who are heads of households. Women who are pregnant are provided with special meals, and baked goods are delivered to impoverished families. More than 80% of Gazans are dependent on outside aid.
During Operation Cast Lead, Israel attacked mosques, residential areas, and schools. The infrastructure was destroyed, and Gaza residents were left to live in tents.
Dr. Al-Marayati introduced Dr. Hatem Bazian. Dr. Bazian is the founder of the Berkeley Center for the Study and Documentation of Islamophobia and a Senior lecturer for Near Eastern and Asian American Studies.
Dr. Bazian expressed his admiration for KinderUSA and told of his support for the organization since its founding. He spoke of the Palestinian Diaspora and mentioned in particular the number of Palestinians in South America. He remarked ironically that "Palestinians have been forced to conduct most of their politicking outside of Palestine."
Dr. Bazian referenced former President and peace activist Jimmy Carter. Mr. Carter has said that there is no question that Israel is responsible for the bloodshed in Gaza.
The audience gasped as Dr. Bazian told of the destruction of Gaza's electrical plant six months before Operation Cast Lead, which destruction has made Gaza totally dependent of Israel for electricity.
"I didn't know that." said one young woman to her table mate. "You don't read that in the newspaper or see it on TV" replied the other woman.
There has been a lack of courage to take Israel to task, Dr. Bazian continued. The Palestinians do not have control in Gaza, the Israelis do. The speaker referenced Israel's dismay over Hamas' electoral victory – their justification for continuing control. He brought laughter from his audience when he postulated an analogous situation vis a vis other nations who may have disapproved of former President George Bush's victory at the polls. But Israel, of course, plays by its own rules.
Israel, the speaker asserted, wants to starve Gaza into submission. Israel has violated numerous codes of International law. Yet they are not called to answer for these violations. He urged people to speak up. Silence will only help Israel retain the status quo.
Successful fundraising took place. The attendees enjoyed an excellent Middle Eastern meal and were actively engaged in discussion at the end of the event.
KinderUSA is a 501 (c) (3) organization. To learn more of KinderUSA's work, please access them at: www.kinderusa.org
"Blood Libel"?
September 3, 2009 by TMO · Leave a Comment
Israeli Organ Harvesting
By Allison Weir
Last week Sweden's largest daily newspaper published an article containing shocking material: testimony and circumstantial evidence indicating that Israelis may have been harvesting internal organs from Palestinian prisoners without consent for many years.
Worse yet, some of the information reported in the article suggests that in some instances Palestinians may have been captured with this macabre purpose in mind.
In the article, "Our sons plundered for their organs," veteran journalist Donald Bostrom writes that Palestinians "harbor strong suspicions against Israel for seizing young men and having them serve as the country's organ reserve – a very serious accusation, with enough question marks to motivate the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to start an investigation about possible war crimes."
An army of Israeli officials and apologists immediately went into high gear, calling both Bostrom and the newspaper's editors "anti-Semitic." The Israeli foreign minister was reportedly "aghast" and termed it "a demonizing piece of blood libel." An Israeli official called it "hate porn."
Commentary magazine wrote that the story was "merely the tip of the iceberg in terms of European funded and promoted anti-Israel hate." Numerous people likened the ar ticle to the medieval "blood libel," (widely refuted stories that Jews killed people to use their blood in religious rituals). Even some pro-Palestinian writers joined in the criticism, expressing skepticism.
The fact is, however, that substantiated evidence of public and private organ trafficking and theft, and allegations of worse, have been widely reported for many years. Given such context, the Swedish charges become far more plausible than might otherwise be the case and suggest that an investigation could well turn up significant information.
Below are a few examples of previous reports on this topic.
Israel's first heart transplant
Israel's very first, historic heart transplant used a heart removed from a living patient without consent or consulting his family.
In December 1968 a man named Avraham Sadegat (the New York Times seems to give his name as A Savgat) (2) died two days after a stroke, even though his family had been told he was "doing well."
After initially refusing to release his body, the Israeli hospital where he was being treated finally turned the man's body over to his family. They discovered that his upper body was wrapped in bandages; an odd situation, they felt, for someone who had suffered a stroke.
When they removed the bandages, they discovered that the chest cavity was stuffed with bandages, and the heart was missing.
During this time, the headline-making Israeli heart transplant had occurred. After their initial shock, the man's wife and brother began to put the two events together and demanded answers.
The hospital at first denied that Sadegat's heart had been used in the headline-making transplant, but the family raised a media storm and eventually applied to three cabinet ministers. Finally, weeks later and after the family had signed a document promising not to sue, the hospital admitted that Sadagat's heart had been used.
The hospital explained that it had abided by Israeli law, which allowed organs to be harvested without the family's consent. (3) (The United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime includes the extraction of organs in its definition of human exploitation.)
Indications that the removal of Sadagat's heart was the actual cause of death went unaddressed.
Director of forensic medicine on missing organs
A 1990 article in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs entitled "Autopsies and Executions" by Mary Barrett reports on the grotesque killings of young Palestinians. It includes an interview with Dr. Hatem Abu Ghazalch, the former chief health official for the West Bank under Jordanian administration and director of forensic medicine and autopsies.
Barrett asks him about "the widespread anxiety over organ thefts which has gripped Gaza and the West Bank since the intifada began in December of 1987."
He responded:
"There are indications that for one reason or another, organs, especially eyes and kidneys, were removed from the bodies during the first year or year and a half. There were just too many reports by credible people for there to be nothing happening. If someone is shot in the head and comes home in a plastic bag without internal organs, what will people assume?" (4)
Mysterious Scottish death
In 1998 a Scot named Alisdair Sinclair died under questionable circumstances while in Israeli custody at Ben Gurion airport.
His family was informed of the death and, according to a report in J Weekly, "…told they had three weeks to come up with about $4,900 to fly Sinclair's corpse home. [Alisdair's brother] says the Israelis seemed to be pushing a different option: burying Sinclair in a Christian cemetery in Israel, at a cost of about $1,300."
The J report states:
"A heart said to be Sinclair's was subsequently repatriated to Britain, free of charge. James wanted the [Israeli] Forensic Institute to pay for a DNA test to confirm that this heart was indeed their brother's, but the Institute's director, Professor Jehuda Hiss refused, citing the prohibitive cost, estimated by some sources at $1,500."
Despite repeated requests from the British Embassy for the Israeli pathologist's and police reports, Israeli officials refused to release either. (5,6,7)
Israeli government officials raise questions
Palestinian journalist Khalid Amayreh reports in an article in CCUN:
"In January, 2002, an Israeli cabinet minister tacitly admitted that organs taken from the bodies of Palestinian victims might have been used for transplants in Jewish patients without the knowledge of the Palestinian victims' families.
"The minister, Nessim Dahan, said in response to a question by an Arab Knesset member that he couldn't deny or confirm that organs of Palestinian youths and children killed by the Israeli army were taken out for transplants or scientific research.
"`I couldn't say for sure that something like that didn't happen.'"
Amayreh writes that the Knesset member who posed the question said that he "had received `credible evidence proving that Israeli doctors at the forensic institute of Abu Kabir extracted such vital organs as the heart, kidneys, and liver from the bodies of Palestinian youth and children killed by the Israeli army in Gaza and the West Bank." (8)
Israel's chief pathologist removed from post for stealing body parts
For a number of years there were allegations that Israel's leading pathologist was stealing body parts. In 2001 the Israeli national news service reported:
"… the parents of soldier Ze'ev Buzgallo who was killed in a Golan Heights military training accident, are filing a petition with the High Court of Justice calling for the immediate suspension of Dr. Yehuda Hiss and that criminal charges be filed against him. Hiss serves as the director of the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute….According to the parents, the body of their son was used for medical experimentation without their consent, experiments authorized by Hiss. (9)
In 2002 the service reported:
"The revelation of illegally stored body parts in the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute has prompted MK Anat Maor, chairman of the Knesset Science Committee, to demand the immediate suspension of the director, Prof. Yehuda Hiss."
Alisdair Sinclair's death had first alerted authorities to Hiss's malfeasance in 1998, though nothing was done for years. The Forward reported:
"In 2001, an Israeli Health Ministry investigation found that Hiss had been involved for years in taking body parts, such as legs, ovaries and testicles, without family permission during autopsies, and selling them to medical schools for use in research and training. He was appointed chief pathologist in 1988. Hiss was never charged with any crime, but in 2004 he was forced to step down from running the state morgue, following years of complaints." (10)
Harvesting kidneys from impoverished communities
According to the Economist, a kidney racket flourished in South Africa between 2001 and 2003. "Donors were recruited in Brazil, Israel and Romania with offers of $5,000-20,000 to visit Durban and forfeit a kidney. The 109 recipients, mainly Israelis, each paid up to $120,000 for a "transplant holiday"; they pretended they were relatives of the donors and that no cash changed hands." (11)
In 2004 a legislative commission in Brazil reported, "At least 30 Brazilians have sold their kidneys to an international human organ trafficking ring for transplants performed in South Africa, with Israel providing most of the funding."
According to an IPS report: "The recipients were mostly Israelis, who receive health insurance reimbursements of 70,000 to 80,000 dollars for life-saving medical procedures performed abroad."
IPS reports:
The Brazilians were recruited in Brazil's most impoverished neighbourhoods and were paid $10,000 per kidney, "but as `supply' increased, the payments fell as low as 3,000 dollars." The trafficking had been organized by a retired Israeli police officer, who said "he did not think he was committing a crime, given that the transaction is considered legal by his country's government."
The Israeli embassy issued a statement denying any participation by the Israeli government in the illegal trade of human organs but said it did recognize that its citizens, in emergency cases, could undergo organ transplants in other countries, "in a legal manner, complying with international norms," and with the financial support of their medical insurance.
However, IPS reports that the commission chair termed the Israeli stance "at the very least `anti-ethical', adding that trafficking can only take place on a major scale if there is a major source of financing, such as the Israeli health system." He went on to state that the resources provided by the Israeli health system "were a determining factor" that allowed the network to function. (12)
Tel Aviv hospital head promotes organ trafficking
IPS goes on to report:
"Nancy Scheper-Hughes, who heads the Organs Watch project at the U.S. University of California, Berkeley, testified to the Pernambuco legislative commission that international trafficking of human organs began some 12 years ago, promoted by Zacki Shapira, former director of a hospital in Tel Aviv.
"Shapira performed more than 300 kidney transplants, sometimes accompanying his patients to other countries, such as Turkey. The recipients are very wealthy or have very good health insurance, and the `donors' are very poor people from Eastern Europe, Philippines and other developing countries, said Scheper-Hughes, who specialises in medical anthropology."
Israel prosecutes organ traffickers
In 2007 Israel's Ha'aretz newspaper reported that two men confessed to persuading "Arabs from the Galilee and central Israel who were developmentally challenged or mentally ill to agree to have a kidney removed for payment." They then would refuse to pay them.
The paper reported that the two were part of a criminal ring that included an Israeli surgeon. According to the indictment, the surgeon sold the kidneys he harvested for between $125,000 and $135,000. (13)
Earlier that year another Israeli newspaper, the Jerusalem Post, reported that ten members of an Israeli organ smuggling ring targeting Ukrainians had been arrested. (14)
In still another 2007 story, the Jerusalem Post reported that "Professor Zaki Shapira, one of Israel's leading transplant surgeons, was arrested in Turkey on Thursday on suspicion of involvement in an organ trafficking ring. According to the report, the transplants were arranged in Turkey and took place at private hospitals in Istanbul."
Israeli organ trafficking comes to the U.S.?
In July of this year even US media reported on the arrest of Levy Izhak Rosenbaum, from Brooklyn, recently arrested by federal officials in a massive corruption sweep in New Jersey that netted mayors, government officials and a number of prominent rabbis. Bostrom opens his article with this incident.
According to the federal complaint, Rosenbaum, who has close ties to Israel, said that he had been involved in the illegal sale of kidneys for 10 years. A US Attorney explained: "His business was to entice vulnerable people to give up a kidney for $10,000 which he would turn around and sell for $160,000." (15)
This is reportedly the first case of international organ trafficking in the U.S.
University of California anthropologist and organ trade expert Nancy Scheper-Hughes, who informed the FBI about Rosenbaum seven years ago, says she heard reports that he had held donors at gunpoint to ensure they followed through on agreements to "donate" their organs. (16)
Israel's organ donor problems
Israel has an extraordinarily small number of willing organ donors. According to the Israeli news service Ynet, "the percentage of organs donated among Je ws is the lowest of all the ethnic groups… In western countries, some 30 per cent of the population have organ donor cards. In Israel, in contrast, four percent of the population holds such cards. (17)
"According to statistics from the Health Ministry's website, in 2001, 88 Israelis died waiting for a transplant because of a lack of donor organs. In the same year, 180 Israelis were brain dead, and their organs could have been used for transplant, but only 80 of their relatives agreed to donate their organs."
According to Ynet, the low incidence of donors is related to "religious reasons." In 2006 there was an uproar when an Israeli hospital known for its compliance with Jewish law performed a transplant operation using an Israeli donor. The week before, "a similar incident occurred, but since the patient was not Jewish it passed silently." (18, 19)
The Swedish article reports that `Israel has repeatedly been under fire for its unethical ways of dealing with organs and transplants. France was among the countries that ceased organ collaboration with Israel in the 1990s. Jerusalem Post wrote that "the rest of the European countries are expected to follow France's example shortly."
"Half of the kidneys transplanted to Israelis since the beginning of the 2000s have been bought illegally from Turkey, Eastern Europe or Latin America. Israeli health authorities have full knowledge of this business but do nothing to stop it. At a conference in 2003 it was shown that Israel is the only western country with a medical profession that doesn't condemn the illegal organ trade. The country takes no legal measures against doctors participating in the illegal business – on the contrary, chief medical officers of Israel's big hospitals are involved in most of the illegal transplants, according to Dagens Nyheter (December 5, 2003)."
To fill this need former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, then health minister of Israel, organized a big donor campaign in the summer of 1992, but while the number of donors skyrocketed, need still greatly surpassed supply.
Palestinian disappearances increase
Bostrom, who earlier wrote of all this in his 2001 book Inshallah, (20) reports in his recent article:
"While the campaign was running, young Palestinian men started to disappear from villages in the West Bank and Gaza. After five days Israeli soldiers would bring them back dead, with their bodies ripped open.
"Talk of the bodies terrified the population of the occupied territories. There were rumors of a dramatic increase of young men disappearing, with ensuing nightly funerals of autopsied bodies."
"I was in the area at the time, working on a book. On several occasions I was approached by UN staff concerned about the developments. The persons contacting me said that organ theft definitely occurred but that they were prevented from doing anything about it. On an assignment from a broadcasting network I then travelled around interviewing a great number of Palestinian families in the West Bank and Gaza – meeting parents who told of how their sons had been deprived of organs before being killed."
He describes the case of 19-year-old Bilal Achmed Ghanan, shot by Israeli forces invading his village.
"The first shot hit him in the chest. According to villagers who witnessed the incident he was subsequently shot with one bullet in each leg. Two soldiers then ran down from the carpentry workshop and shot Bilal once in the stomach. Finally, they grabbed him by his feet and dragged him up the twenty stone steps of the workshop stair… Israeli soldiers loading the badly wounded Bilal in a jeep and driving him to the outskirts of the village, where a military helicopter waited. The boy was flown to a destination unknown to his family."
Five days later he was returned, "dead and wrapped up in green hospital fabric." Bostrom reports that as the body was lowered into the grave, his chest was exposed and onlookers could see that he was stitched up from his stomach to his head. Bostrom writes that this was not the first time people had seen such a thing.
"The families in the West Bank and in Gaza felt that they knew exactly what had happened: "Our sons are used as involuntary organ donors," relatives of Khaled from Nablus told me, as did the mother of Raed from Jenin and the uncles of Machmod and Nafes from Gaza, who had all disappeared for a number of days only to return at night, dead and autopsied."
Why autopsies?
Bostrom describes the questions that families asked:
"Why are they keeping the bodies for up to five days before they let us bury them? What happened to the bodies during that time? Why are they performing autopsy, against our will, when the cause of death is obvious? Why are the bodies returned at night? Why is it done with a military escort? Why is the area closed off during the funeral? Why is the electricity interrupted?"
Israel's answer was that all Palestinians who were killed were routinely autopsied. However, Bostrom points out that of the133 Palestinians who were killed that year, only 69 were autopsied.
He goes on to write:
"We know that Israel has a great need for organs, that there is a vast and illegal trade of organs which has been running for many years now, that the authorities are aware of it and that doctors in managing positions at the big hospitals participate, as well as civil servants at various levels. We also know that young Palestinian men disappeared, that they were brought back after five days, at night, under tremendous secrecy, stitched back together after having been cut from abdomen to chin.
It's time to bring clarity to this macabre business, to shed light on what is going on and what has taken place in the territories occupied by Israel since the Intifada began." (21)
The new "Blood Libel"?
In scanning through the reaction to Bostrom's report, one is struck by the multitude of charges that his article is a new version of the old anti-Semitic "blood libel." Given that fact, it is interesting to examine a 2007 book by Israel's preeminent expert on medieval Jewish history, and what happened to him.
The author is Bar-Ilan professor (and rabbi) Ariel Toaff, son of the former chief rabbi of Rome, a religious leader so famous that an Israeli journalist writes that Toaff's father "is to Italian Jewry as the Eiffel Tower is to Paris." Ariel Toaff, himself, is considered "one of the greatest scholars in his field." (22, 23)
In February 2007 the Israeli and Italian media were abuzz (though most of the U.S. media somehow missed it) with news that Professor Toaff had written a book entitled "Pasque di Sangue" ("Blood Passovers") (24) containing evidence that there "was a factual basis for some of the medieval blood libels against the Jews."
Based on 35 years of research, Toaff had concluded that there were at least a few, possibly many, real incidents.
In an interview with an Italian newspaper (the book was published in Italy), Toaff says:
"My research shows that in the Middle Ages, a group of fundamentalist Jews did not respect the biblical prohibition and used blood for healing. It is just one group of Jews, who belonged to the communities that suffered the severest persecution during the Crusades. From this trauma came a passion for revenge that in some cases led to responses, among them ritual murder of Christian children." (25)
(Incidentally, an earlier book containing similar findings was published some years ago, also by an Israeli professor, Israel Shahak, of whom Noam Chomsky once wrote, "Shahak is an outstanding scholar, with remarkable insight and depth of knowledge. His work is informed and penetrating, a contribution of great value." ) (26)
Professor Toaff was immediately attacked from all sides, including pressure orchestrated by Anti-Defamation League chairman Abe Foxman, but Toaff stood by his 35 years of research, announcing:
"I will not give up my devotion to the truth and academic freedom even if the world crucifies me… One shouldn't be afraid to tell the truth."
Before long, however, under relentless public and private pressure, Toaff had recanted, withdrawn his book, and promised to give all profits that had already accrued (the book had been flying off Italian bookshelves) to Foxman's Anti-Defamation League. A year later he published a "revised version."
Donald Bostrom's experience seems to be a repeat of what Professor Toaff endured: calumny, vituperation, and defamation. Bostrom has received death threats as well, perhaps an experience that Professor Toaff also shared.
If Israel is innocent of organ plundering accusations, or if its culpability is considerably less than Bostrom and others suggest, it should welcome honest investigations that would clear it of wrongdoing. Instead, the government and its advocates are working to suppress all debate and crush those whose questions and conclusions they find threatening.
Prime Minister Benjamin Neta nyahu, rather than responding to calls for an investigation, is demanding that the Swedish government abandon its commitment to a free press and condemn the article. The Israeli press office, apparently in retaliation and to prevent additional investigation, is refusing to give press credentials to reporters from the offending newspaper.
Just as in the case of the rampage against Jenin, the attack on the USS liberty, the massacre of Gaza, the crushing of Rachel Corrie, the torture of American citizens, and a multitude of other examples, Israel is using its considerable, worldwide resources to interfere with the investigative process.
It is difficult to conclude that it has nothing to hide.
Alison Weir is executive director of If Americans Knew. A version of this article containing citations and additional information is available at http://ifamericansknew/cur_sit/sweden.html.
Nathan Brown: Arab Democratic Movements
September 3, 2009 by TMO · Leave a Comment
By Geoffrey Cook, Muslim Media News Service (MMNS)
Today is a hot (unusually muggy day from a hurricane a [thousand miles south] off the Pacific Coast of Mexico). I am looking back to a discussion documented in my notebooks in Berkeley with Nathan Brown and Mohammed Hafez–Brown is not Muslim, but he is a great scholar of Islam. Professor Brown spoke to those present on understanding Islamicist politics and their electoral opposition to the often corrupt parties in power in their nation states.
Islamist Arab Parties – especially in Egypt – have had great successes in elections, but they almost never win.
Mainstream "democracy" is manipulated by Arab leaders. This is why Islamist Parties mostly refuse to take part in elections and often react violently by resisting against their rulers and their pseudo-"Parliaments." On the other hand, examples can be had in the victory of the Islamic Parties in Algeria which the Party in power refused to recognize the results leading to a protracted civil war. Another instance can be found in the Gaza 2006 election that Jimmy Carter and his observation team described as the fairest that they had ever witnessed, but both Israel and the United States and Egypt refused to recognize!
Outside the Islamic world political Islamicism is equated with Nazism, but "It is more like [European] 'Christian' Democracy in that it, too, makes a religious reference to its politics." The slogan of the Muslim Brotherhood is "Be prepared!" which resonates from the Koran itself, and is on the visual crest of the Party. The Brotherhood began as a secular movement to help individuals to become better Muslims, but later its philosophy flowed into politics.
Dr. Brown maintained that "Elections in the Middle East have predicable results, but uncertain rules." For the most part they are designed for the government to win. Those Islamists who contend find it advantageous for them (see my article on Da'wa and Democratic Politics in a back issue of this publication) although they are "not recognized as a full political party" by the establishment. Yet they are able to weather a harsh political climate.
They are "highly ideological, and enforce their principles;" so, that they "will not rupture into discordant fissures although debate and schism has arisen over minute issues."
Hard decisions have to be made over elections. Elections can raise the primacy of politics over religion which is always a concern amongst devout people.
Humanism and Islam
August 13, 2009 by TMO · Leave a Comment
By Geoffrey Cook, Muslim Media News Service (MMNS)
Berkeley–Your author has gone back several times to the marvelous Conference of over a year ago at this city's famous University. Your scribe will converse on some of the comments there as well as his own personal analysis.
Our culture has taken the designation "Semitic" away from the Arab, and transferred it solely to the ethnic Jew. This is incorrect: Both Arabs and Jews come from the Semitic group of peoples, but this denial of the Arab's Semitic roots and the assertion of the Jew's sole determination of such creates the propaganda that the Palestinians are Anti-Semitic. They both share an historical ethnic root that may even be the basis to solve the crisis, but first both groups must acknowledge their common ancestral origins.
Islam dominated Spain for eight hundred years, but loss of its foothold on Southwestern Europe was a great blow to the Ulema, and it is felt to this day. Your writer remembers reading a Nineteenth Century Indian novel that was no more than a lamentation for its loss.
The founder of Christianity, Joshua-Ben Joseph (i.e., Jesus Christus in the Latin) during the two centuries following the (his) death of this second most important Prophet (i.e., Issa in Arabic) of Islam was transformed from a Mediterranean peasant into the Christos (in Greek), "the anointed one" which is close to the Hebrew Messiah. The attempt by early Christians to remake the Subaltern Prophet Issa into a "god" created great problems for the followers of Joshua in the Middle East, and made it easier for the Muslim preachers to convert the predominant Christian population due to the fact that the formulas of the Church Fathers were too confusing to the actual worshippers. On the other hand, the tenants of Islam were simple enough for the common man, but deep enough for the more profound thinkers. Further, horrible schisms had developed in the Primitive Church that had no relevance to the common worshiper.
In the Fifteenth Century, Islam had a presence from the Atlantic to the Pacific that lasted for five hundred years. Unfortunately, for the Ulema, the European "discovery" of the Atlantic (through superior sailing technology) they had developed, had shifted the Center of the World. With it came a Capitalistic society which created a Euro-centric vision.
In the contemporary period, we are leaving the Euro-centric vision. (Even Globalism is now being questioned because of the recent economic crash.) Yet one speaker claimed, as far as the European Union, the traditional nation-State system is breaking down.
The question was poised on how do we deconstruct Islamaphobia that has developed in Western Post-Colonial Europe especially? Although the historical fact is that the Islamic Arab Empire was more modern than Europe's society from the Ninth Century (CE) onward in the terms of their time. Truth during the "Islamic Renaissance," came from the Koran and science (a sort of an itijihad). This openness to enquiry gave the impetus for the great Arab philosophy of the period that had such an impact upon the West. This was a period of enlightenment for especially the Arabic-speaking world!
Curiously, Latin America received its intellectual vigor through the lingering Islamic traditions of Spain! One speaker voiced his opinion that European Islamaphopbia will fade with the shifting demography. There will have to be a dialogue among the various peoples upon this globe.
Amany Jamal On Demoracy in the Arab East
August 6, 2009 by TMO · Leave a Comment
By Geoffrey Cook, Muslim Media News Service (MMNS)
Berkeley–A little over ten months ago, Amany Jamal came to talk to a small group on his work in progress, The Crisis of Political Legitimacy in the Arab World.
It has too often been assumed that the Arab nations do not wish democracy. This is not true, but the majority of the regions monarchies and republics' pre-eminent dominant authorities are distrustful of democratic reforms. The social restructuring towards democratization has not arisen to the same extend as in the second World as yet, and there is a great deal difference to the degree and the liberality that the Arab world desires their democratic forms, and as your author has emphasized before the democracy that develops in any country has to take into account of its traditions, history and the constituencies of the larger geographical zone et al. The error that the Bush and the Neo-Conservatives made in dealing with the Middle East was to shove down the Jeffersonian tradition in the Near and Middle East and other Islamic zones with the democratic values that had evolved in North America!
A Capitalist economy is not conducive to all types of democracy! The State should make its own decisions on its own allocations, and not the individual citizens or corporate entities. Exiting theories to social inequality are emphatically universal. There are pronounced amoralities within almost every Arab State – except Kuwait. In most of the topography under study, restrictive legislation is applied toward propping up authoritative regimes.
"If (a) society is equipped for [democratic] change, it will do so [i.e., change]," further, "…States [do] not necessarily [promote their] society's preferences." Her hypothesis is that "…the elites are worried over jeopardizing their client status with the United States." These privileged rules are more likely to oppose democracy.
The more an Arab country lacks development, the more dependent it is upon Washington. The Arab nations have less bi-lateral ties than they do with the U.S.A.! Thus, North America has a strong military presence there. The Arabs, though, are only subordinate partners within the American Empire.
Today, small Kuwait holds 10 percent of the known world oil reserves, but has one of the highest per capita percentages of militants within the Middle East. The residents in all of the nations are well aware of it potential political weaknesses within the structures of their individual states. If the Islamists would come to power, they would not necessarily sever ties with the D.C., but there are places where "Anti-American forces are of a concern – such as Jordan" where the Islamists could weaken the Monarchy. Jordan is considered the most stable realm in the Middle East because of American buttressing.
There still remains a fear among the Iranians that, if the U.S. deserts Baghdad too fast, Tehran will have to cope with a security risk there again.
Amany Jamal finished her remarks of last fall, "…Anti-Americanism has stifled democratization" throughout the neighborhood; therefore, "…The route [towards] democratization lies in addressing the…increase of Anti-Americanism…" within the locale.
Aurangzeb Khan, CEO, Everspin Technologies
July 23, 2009 by TMO · Leave a Comment
CHANDLER, AZ–Aurangzeb Khan is the CEO and President of Everspin Technologies which is a global leader in integrated magnetic systems.
The Chandler, Ariz.-based company designs magnetic random access memory chips, which use magnets to store data. The company started researching the MRAM technology some years ago as part of Motorola, which then spun out all of its chip operations as Freescale Semiconductor in 2004. Everpspin then spun out of Freescale the middle of last year.
Earlier, co-founded Altius Solutions and managed it through its merger with Simplex Solutions. He then served as executive vice president and general manager of the SoC Foundry business at Simplex through its successful initial public offering (IPO) in May 2001 and later acquisition by Cadence Design Systems in June 2002.
At Cadence, he served as corporate vice president of the Strategic Planning Group and, earlier, as corporate vice president and general manager of the Design Services business.
Khan held several engineering and general management positions at Cirrus Logic, Tandem Computers (now part of HP) and Fairchild. He helped deliver several industry-first systems and SoCs to market, including the Sony Computer Entertainment GS®I-32 and PlayStation®-2 Graphics Synthesizers, the Cirrus Logic 3Ci SoC and the Tandem Computers NonStop Himalaya and Cyclone series of massively-parallel servers. Several of the SoC and systems products achieved $200M to more than $1B in annual revenues.
Khan received a master's in electrical engineering and a master's in engineering management from Stanford University and bachelor's degrees in electrical engineering and computer sciences and nuclear engineering from University of Califonia, Berkeley.
French Secularism and Islam
July 20, 2009 by TMO · Leave a Comment
By Geoffrey Cook, MMNS
Oakland–On these pages of a fortnight ago was a report that the French President Nicolas Sazkozy pronounced a speech to both houses of his "parliament" condemning the use of the Burqa. He denied it was not a religious symbol, but "a sign of debasement" for women. This is a curious statement made by a head of State of a major European power, for women's rights are constantly used as an excuse by Imperial powers while it has been only been within the last hundred years that Western jurisprudence has caught up with Islamic protection of the family and the legal rights of the female! Sarkozy continued in his terribly Islamophobic speech that "The Burqa is not welcomed on French territory." Further, he used the Feminist clichés that are too often engaged to oppress Islam in a Western context, "…we cannot accept that women be prisoners behind a screen…from all social life…all identity."
A small percentage of French civil society has been calling for the ban on the Burqa as happened with the hijab six years back leading to a law banning Islamic woman from wearing it. As your author said in his article on that subject at the time, a potential controversy in America on this (as the Burqa) are non-issues because of these articulations of the Islamic customs are protect by the rights to Freedom of Speech (Expression) and Freedom of Religion in the U.S. first ten Amends to the American Constitution, but ,in France, because of the power of the Church in the ancien regime, the Church (Roman Catholic) buttressed the rule of the hated oppressing aristocracy and the King. Therefore, their post-Revolutionary Constitution (theoretically) banned all religion, and was held up by the early Nineteenth Century Code Napoleon! That means in France, with the largest Islamic population in Europe, external Muslim symbols have become constitutionally questionable even though Muslim lobby groups within that country have urged Paris to refrain from deliberations that would damage the Islamic community there vis-à-vis the mainstream French population. Although the Burqa is a symbol/custom of the minority Salafi faction of Islam, most of them are Wahhabi, a conservative sect of Sunnism, who, produce, incidentally, most of the Jihads, and, thus, are anathema to most of the ummah. Still, seventy-six Franco-Parliamentarians within the French Assembly advocate banning the public display outright. They have called for a sanctified Commission leading for a "legal" basis under France ultra-secular basis for such a prejudicial ban under the support of the President himself! After the law against the much milder Islamic symbol, the hijab, it is doubtful that legal action can be prevented under their Constitutional rulings!
Last fall, in the neighboring city here, Berkeley, Myanthi Fernando came to talk to us about her teaching experiences in a French public school that had majority Islamic children although they had become naturalized French citizens. She taught mainly North African-heritage students in a high school. Since she has gone through the academic training to become an anthropologist, with this new sensitivity, she noted a pronounced conflict between the students and the teachers. "There is a conflict between religions and the authority of the Mosque and the Republic."
Historically, the first generation who became Muslim citizens was recruited from the Colonies to rebuild France after World War II as Germany opened their doors to the Turks to do the same. For their children and grandchildren, a generalized system of difference developed and that dissimilarity was based on religion. Many ordinary Frenchmen believe there is a fundamental conflict between Islam and themselves as an Islamic revival has emerged on Gallic soil at the same time.
As alluded to above, the State banned the hijab in 2004. In essence La France believed that the hijab would re-enforce Islamic patriarchy. In actually, the hijab (as the Burqa) is worn by choice (if it is not, the State should step in, but it is part of the aforementioned Islamic regeneration in the West). Islamic women "believe they decide – not the law or the State!" The hijab (or the Burqa) must be an individual decision, and must not come from outside (either the family or the nation). "It is the believer who decides, but… [It]… has … [its]…textual authority," also. Fernando claimed that secularism and religious submission are not at odds in France," too. Also, political choice and religiosity do not conflict. France's Muslims assert religious choice and accept civic obligation. International law enunciates religious freedom according to conscience. Performing religious duty is a matter of choice.
In 2003 there were demonstrations against proposed bans on Islamic lifestyles. "One person's freedom ends where another begins…" It is (almost) impossible for Muslim women to live in the language of the secular State. On the contrary, the secular State argued it didn't violate [religious] freedom because [religious] adherents could still believe." Paris maintained that there was a difference between internal belief and external expression while the European Commission as a whole do not recognize the hijab as right (and it most definitely will not acknowledge the Burqa as acceptable). On the other hand, most individual Islamic women believe it may be their right and duty as the hijab while the French public considers it no more than obfuscation of civic duty.
There is no argument that Christianity has seeped into European law which is at odds with Islamic customs. Besides, French feminism, which is a very strong force within the Republique, looks at Islamic female dress as perverse with anti-sexuality. La Republique de France's concept of sexuality is challenged on all sides. The hijab is only one such challenge.
Public schools only recently began to enroll new citizens, and the hijab is a particularly troublesome object amongst the traditional educational system there.
With this history of the Islamic hijjib in France, it is doubtful that the Burqa will receive any more cultural sensitivity.
Muslims Count Michael Jackson as One of Our Own
July 16, 2009 by TMO · Leave a Comment
By Iftekhar Hai, San Mateo County Times
THE UNTIMELY death of Michael Jackson became international news, and it has affected many people, including my children and grandchildren.
I dedicate this column to the philosophical and spiritual turmoil I felt when I heard Jackson died June 25 of an apparent cardiac arrest.
He had an extraordinary charisma, absolute innocence and a childlike charm that never left him.
As his music spread all over the world, bringing him wealth and recognition, he slowly transformed his God-given African texture and features into something else.
I could never explain this part of his life to my children.
He appeared to have a genuine concern for children and wanted to offer them a world that was denied to him as a child because of the abuses he claimed to have suffered.
I was very happy for him last year when he reportedly became a Muslim in Bahrain. He had apparently followed the footsteps of his brother Jermaine Jackson, who converted to Islam 20 years ago and found peace when he gave up drinking, drugs and womanizing. Michael Jackson admired this kind of change in him.
So in search of peace, he lived in Bahrain.
For some time, Jackson thought of making an album in Bahrain to promote spirituality and signed a contract. However, when he returned to America, he was too afraid of the consequences of aligning with the Islamic faith.
Islamophobia is a curse in America. He was advised by close associates and sincere friends not to go public with his new found spirituality.
He remained in his own closet of spirituality that few outside his close circle knew.
American pop culture is not about religion but about a world of fantasy — a flamboyant facade. And he sunk deeper and maintained a lifestyle that increased his dependency on drugs.
He lost all peace of mind and self-control to such an extent that his personal doctor said, "I had to wake him up with medication and had to put him to sleep with the help of medication."
Michael Jackson is a trivial pursuit of American popular culture.
In my culture we say, "this was a bud that was cut before it could fully blossom."
Practically, we have powerful people who worship money and power and who are constantly defeating any new ideas that challenge the status quo. Jackson — who was sweet, innocent and talented — fell victim.
I am obsessed with the question, "Why couldn't Elvis and Michael Jackson remain famous, rich and on a musical pedestal and still live a drug-free and spiritual life?"
Ali Akbar Khan of Berkeley was such a musician, who gained great wealth, fame and popularity and left more than 1,000 students who are spiritually elevated musicians.
Michael Jackson's death to all of us is one that is sobering. One can climb to fame, acquire great wealth and riches, but death comes knocking without much fanfare.
Nevertheless, Jackson's very public death is a powerful reminder that no matter how famous, talented or wealthy one is, death comes sometimes sooner than later.
He has now entered a world of extraordinary perception, a world that makes his "Thriller" video seem mundane.
Given Michael's r eported conversion to Islam last year, Muslims count him as one of our own, and we pray that he can finally find the peace he never found in this world and that he is in a place, God willing, of mercy, forgiveness and solace.
Iftekhar Hai is president of United Muslims of America Interfaith Alliance and a resident of South San Francisco.