Honour killing is residual of the tribal culture of jahilia or the benighted society that existed in Arabia before the advent of Islam as well as elsewhere before the dawn of civilized life.. As a matter of fact the prophet is credited with giving women equal status with men. That also stopped the otherwise widespread practice of girls being buried alive at birth. It is indeed a modest claim that Islam did deter this abominable practice. It also stopped the intra tribal fights which claimed a heavy toll on humanity. So as an organized attempt of a newly emerged religion this was a wonderful achievement. Many were drawn to it because of these humanitarian blessings. However, bestial nature and instinctive behaviour cannot be an excuse to blame Islam or any religion. Religions have come in the world to improve social and individual life of the people. No religion should be blamed for a practice which it avowedly tried to abolish through preaching and practice.
A majority of the people who reacted to the murder of Rand Abdel Qader 17 year old Iraqi by her father did not mention Islam. Their primary concern was humanitarian. Her love for the British soldier is a human quality. For that she should not have been killed. Many are dismayed that the British soldiers should have had more civilizing effect on the people to have prevented such an incident. This pious feeling is paralleled by the concern of the prophet at the birth of Islam. Then why did this aberration take place. It could be that the father felt that his family’s respect was compromised by her truant behaviour. What would others think about him and his progeny must have driven him to outrage. But as a person true to his faith he could have abided by observing patience in the time of tribulation. That could have healed what he believed outrage until a better day when his daughter could have proved to be more obedient and observant of certain practices which would have redeemed her. She could still have lived a life of piety and become the sources of forgiveness for the family as a whole. May be she could have won over her outsider husband to her faith. This interpretation of the complex situation would have been far more honourable than the fate she met. This would also have carried with it the injunction of keeping patience where you can’t help for Allah does see what you otherwise cannot see.
A second reason could be political. Iraq is under occupation. Since 2003 hardliners have taken over the society which under Saddam Hussein was the most educated and tolerant in the whole Middle East in matters relating to women. The hardliners take a stricter and punitive view of women. Why not an ameliorative view as is often the practice laid down by the prophet himself and those who lived around his time. But the people now fail to understand that the women alone should not be expected to carry the badge of honour of the culture they live in. A male Iraqi in love with an American soldier would have gone on without any furor and certainly no stigma. Perhaps they could marry later when the hubbub settles down. So, is Rand Abdel Qader another casualty of the war in Iraq?
Why has the transition from Jahilia to Islam and to this wonderful world of today where human rights predominate everything failed to root out honour killing? Talking of the faith it is positive aspect that a rainbow of choices is available in matters of faith. Some verge on extremism and others on sobriety. The much discussed jihad for example is noblest when one soberly controls himself or does not allow his self to override other things. The other options range in extreme passions.
Such extreme passions were the undoing of the father, Abdel Qader Ali. Someone told him that his daughter was talking with the 22 year old British, Paul. He rushed home and strangulated her. He stood on her throat like a colossus until she breathed her last. He shouted that he was cleansing the honour of his family. His terrified wife rushed out and since then is in hiding. Then with his sword he stabbed her repeatedly even when there was no life left in her. Each of the thing he did and said permanently damns him because his insane rage stifled out reason which the prophet had praised and wanted others to emulate. How could the father forget the sober counsel in despair of inallahe maasaberin, Allah is with those who keep patience? This Ali bears the name of the son in law of the prophet. That Ali was the most powerful of his time. Once a man spat on him. In his anger he could have finished the other by a single blow. He practiced the noble jihad of controlling himself and then forgiving the other.
That Rand was not given normal burial and that her uncle spat on her body speak of the raw passions which in fact Islam arose to check. This is tragically ironic that the infantry soldier Paul had had no physical contact with her, no holding of hands, or kissing let alone anything beyond this. "She never did anything more than talk to him," said Zeinab, her friend and confidant. "She was proud to be a virgin and had a dream to give herself to the man she loved only after her marriage."
Rand was a student of English and had worked for charity for displaced families. She was charmed by the blond appearance of the soldier. He gave her small gifts, like cuddly toys. Caring is loving. That turned out to be his fault if not an outright crime. Her friend Zeinab would tell her of the difficulty of an alliance with a Christian. This failed to dent her resolve.
What is most agonizing is the attitude of the relatives as well as the authorities. Rand’s mother Leila Hussein reportedly told that she had called out for her two brothers so they could get their father away. But when he told them the reason, instead of saving her they helped him end her life. The father was of course arrested and then released within a short time, within two ours. His wife has got divorced and fears reprisal because a man divorced by his own wife is looked down upon in that country. But what about Rand who could not bear to “hurt a petal on rose”!
A week that saw another bizarre incident in which a man in Austria kept his daughter under his thralldom for 24 years as his mistress and fathered seven children upon her speaks volumes of how man is still in the dark ages in his treatment of woman. Which society is more evolved and which is less evolved is unclear. How many messengers of god have come to inform and reform human beings! But the condition of woman has not changed much.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Disentangling Terror
It is becoming eerie by the day that innuendoes abound in the west and in the east dealing with terrorism. SIMI [Students’ Islamic Movement of India] was in the news for quite sometimes thanks to the confessional statements of the alleged plotters. Now Jamaat-e-Islami is dragged in by association. The Jammat has no record of harbouring any illusion of terrorism let alone terrorists. But once you associate it with what is undesirable target in a charged situation enough harm is done. Hillary Clinton showed utter disregard of the values of her own Democratic party by reviving the threat of Osama bin Laden during the Pennsylvania primary. The name of the terrorist rhymed with Obama and that is the message her people applauded her for. But is that fighting terror? Really? It is for nothing that the other camp shot back: Stop the drama. Vote Obama.
All kinds of politicking go on sub rosa in the name of fighting terror. The letter of President Bush to the Israeli PM Ariel Sharon in April 2004 is worth reviving for how US has been bending much backward to accommodate the Jewish state for whatever it wanted. One even wonders if the Israelis run the world affair through their clients in Washington. Their agents have sold weapons against the declared policy of US to countries which did not enjoy friendly relations with Washington. American Jewish citizens Jonathan Pollard and Ben Ami Kadish have spied for Israel. They may of may not serve a term in jail. The state of Israel is always there to welcome them. The CIA boss Mr Tenet had threatened to resign if Pollard was shown any leniency. But he is succeeded by Robert Gates and a new person in the job can be pliant in the case of the octogenarian Kadish. That letter of President Bush amounts to conceding more development of Jewish settlement for the sake of placating Israel to withdraw from the Gaza strip at that time! No talk with Hamas! They are terrorists!
Thus by keeping out Hamas or Hezbollah from having any contact, Israel has been able to have its cake and also eat it, from time to time.
Set against this is the Pennsylvania primary when towards the fag end Hillary Clinton said that were Iran to attack Israel and she in the White House she would obliterate Iran from the surface of the earth. And she would do it! If George Bush can start a war because he suspected that Iraq was building weapons of mass destruction (which was a ruse for controlling and misappropriating oil), a nuclear strike is many times more. But no WMD was found. So Bush shifted to removing Saddam Hussein. The Iraqi leader was not only removed and captured but contrary to Bush’s own admission that he would not be executed, he was executed. Given this kind of ground reality the nefarious theory of preemption is the prerogative of the US unless the world unites in the face of this atrocious hegemony and says no to bullying.
In the same way the alleged enrichment of plutonium by Syria with help from North Korea is another hot spot. The Israelis have reportedly destroyed the enrichment site with their air strike indicates how the Jewish state is working in tandem with the Americans. Who is holding the other on leash is academic moot point. But what is sure for you to remember is that US will not tolerate any Muslim state to have nuclear power not even Pakistan which already has. American has sent a permanent officer in its embassy in Islamabad to actively interact in all matters pertaining to nuclear programme and any activity associated with it. The obvious reason is clear. The Americans are terribly obsessed by terrorism and are not in any mood to tolerate any friend or foe to do anything that they think is against their interest. They would strike Pakistan as easily as Syria. As Arindham Chuadhari and Dilip Heero have shown there was neither al Qaida nor WMD in Iraq. It was a far more precious thing, there: oil. To get oil is by all means more important than fighting even terror. The enormous increase in the earnings of the American corporations matters more. It is here that vice President Dick Cheney comes in picture. Hillary Clinton has earned ten million dollars in the aftermath of the Pennsylvania primary. Not because of her consistency but because of up fronting Osama and Iran.
Jumping on to the bandwagon of antiterrorism is the obvious officious wish of some. This is what Jaswant Singh did when he talked with the American officials and still went on to Kandahar to get Maula Masood released in exchange of the hostages.
The charged atmosphere around the world has created what is called world view or weltanschauung on terror. For understanding problems facing many nations of the world this does not help much in having a dialogue between nations or civilizations to settle problems. All kinds of slander are allowed currency even without checking on facts. Thus a reporter of The Times of India, N.D. Shiva Kumar, in the February 28, 2008 issue of the paper wrote in a feature article titled "New network of terror techies comes to light", that the police were hunting for IT legend K.M.Sherif and that his forum for the uplift of the minority community was linked to terrorists. Perhaps here what is unsafe is Sherif’s charitable concern to integrate his community into the mainstream so that they can come out of their indigence. Barack Obama’s Muslim ancestry and race is something that the white voters feel unsafe about. It is unfamiliar. The subterranean scare is maneuvered into a cognizable shape by the deft association of Obama and Osama. If the syllabic jingle can do that there the acronymic jingle of JeM, SIMI and JeI does the same here.
How do we disentangle terror? Among other things, by being steadfast in unearthing truth and shutting off politicking. But more by putting oneself in the shoes of others. That imaginative pity is ever in surplus in the Middle East. You can begin by imagining what is isolation, oppression and suppression, occupation of your land, dispossession, exile within your native land, angst of misfit in society, outrage, discrimination, humiliation, injustice, patriotism( real and sham),etc. Then your fight against terror will not be fight against a technique as former American National Security advisor Zbigniew Brezeznski believes correctly.
All kinds of politicking go on sub rosa in the name of fighting terror. The letter of President Bush to the Israeli PM Ariel Sharon in April 2004 is worth reviving for how US has been bending much backward to accommodate the Jewish state for whatever it wanted. One even wonders if the Israelis run the world affair through their clients in Washington. Their agents have sold weapons against the declared policy of US to countries which did not enjoy friendly relations with Washington. American Jewish citizens Jonathan Pollard and Ben Ami Kadish have spied for Israel. They may of may not serve a term in jail. The state of Israel is always there to welcome them. The CIA boss Mr Tenet had threatened to resign if Pollard was shown any leniency. But he is succeeded by Robert Gates and a new person in the job can be pliant in the case of the octogenarian Kadish. That letter of President Bush amounts to conceding more development of Jewish settlement for the sake of placating Israel to withdraw from the Gaza strip at that time! No talk with Hamas! They are terrorists!
Thus by keeping out Hamas or Hezbollah from having any contact, Israel has been able to have its cake and also eat it, from time to time.
Set against this is the Pennsylvania primary when towards the fag end Hillary Clinton said that were Iran to attack Israel and she in the White House she would obliterate Iran from the surface of the earth. And she would do it! If George Bush can start a war because he suspected that Iraq was building weapons of mass destruction (which was a ruse for controlling and misappropriating oil), a nuclear strike is many times more. But no WMD was found. So Bush shifted to removing Saddam Hussein. The Iraqi leader was not only removed and captured but contrary to Bush’s own admission that he would not be executed, he was executed. Given this kind of ground reality the nefarious theory of preemption is the prerogative of the US unless the world unites in the face of this atrocious hegemony and says no to bullying.
In the same way the alleged enrichment of plutonium by Syria with help from North Korea is another hot spot. The Israelis have reportedly destroyed the enrichment site with their air strike indicates how the Jewish state is working in tandem with the Americans. Who is holding the other on leash is academic moot point. But what is sure for you to remember is that US will not tolerate any Muslim state to have nuclear power not even Pakistan which already has. American has sent a permanent officer in its embassy in Islamabad to actively interact in all matters pertaining to nuclear programme and any activity associated with it. The obvious reason is clear. The Americans are terribly obsessed by terrorism and are not in any mood to tolerate any friend or foe to do anything that they think is against their interest. They would strike Pakistan as easily as Syria. As Arindham Chuadhari and Dilip Heero have shown there was neither al Qaida nor WMD in Iraq. It was a far more precious thing, there: oil. To get oil is by all means more important than fighting even terror. The enormous increase in the earnings of the American corporations matters more. It is here that vice President Dick Cheney comes in picture. Hillary Clinton has earned ten million dollars in the aftermath of the Pennsylvania primary. Not because of her consistency but because of up fronting Osama and Iran.
Jumping on to the bandwagon of antiterrorism is the obvious officious wish of some. This is what Jaswant Singh did when he talked with the American officials and still went on to Kandahar to get Maula Masood released in exchange of the hostages.
The charged atmosphere around the world has created what is called world view or weltanschauung on terror. For understanding problems facing many nations of the world this does not help much in having a dialogue between nations or civilizations to settle problems. All kinds of slander are allowed currency even without checking on facts. Thus a reporter of The Times of India, N.D. Shiva Kumar, in the February 28, 2008 issue of the paper wrote in a feature article titled "New network of terror techies comes to light", that the police were hunting for IT legend K.M.Sherif and that his forum for the uplift of the minority community was linked to terrorists. Perhaps here what is unsafe is Sherif’s charitable concern to integrate his community into the mainstream so that they can come out of their indigence. Barack Obama’s Muslim ancestry and race is something that the white voters feel unsafe about. It is unfamiliar. The subterranean scare is maneuvered into a cognizable shape by the deft association of Obama and Osama. If the syllabic jingle can do that there the acronymic jingle of JeM, SIMI and JeI does the same here.
How do we disentangle terror? Among other things, by being steadfast in unearthing truth and shutting off politicking. But more by putting oneself in the shoes of others. That imaginative pity is ever in surplus in the Middle East. You can begin by imagining what is isolation, oppression and suppression, occupation of your land, dispossession, exile within your native land, angst of misfit in society, outrage, discrimination, humiliation, injustice, patriotism( real and sham),etc. Then your fight against terror will not be fight against a technique as former American National Security advisor Zbigniew Brezeznski believes correctly.
Monday, April 21, 2008
The Pope and the President: the Dictatorship of Relativism
In a land where a doctor performing abortion runs the risk of elimination cannot taunt other nations for cultural relativism. A nation that does not feel shy over the use of water boarding( read, drowning torture) and extraordinary rendition cannot set examples of universality of human rights of man let alone of what is right and what is wrong. A man who can cause a war involving mammoth proportion of human suffering on the pretext of what is certainly a canard cannot point out the cultural relativism when his own is so flimsy. A chief of the armed forces of his country who can seduce people having served time in prison to join war to get permanent citizenship does not know cultural relativism of individual’s morals, or the public morality either.
But President George Bush chose words that are unmistakably barbed with familiar weltanchauung or world view of the west and thus no basis for a dialogue of civilizations, of mutual understanding and peace. He was still harping on April 16, 2008 as he welcomed Pope Benedict XVI, to the white house, what most in the world have already refused to believe. “In a world where some invoke the name of God to justify acts of terror and murder and hate, we need your message that "God is love." And embracing this love is the surest way to save men from "falling prey to the teaching of fanaticism and terrorism." …
“In a world where some no longer believe that we can distinguish between simple right and wrong, we need your message to reject this "dictatorship of relativism," and embrace a culture of justice and truth.”
But President George Bush chose words that are unmistakably barbed with familiar weltanchauung or world view of the west and thus no basis for a dialogue of civilizations, of mutual understanding and peace. He was still harping on April 16, 2008 as he welcomed Pope Benedict XVI, to the white house, what most in the world have already refused to believe. “In a world where some invoke the name of God to justify acts of terror and murder and hate, we need your message that "God is love." And embracing this love is the surest way to save men from "falling prey to the teaching of fanaticism and terrorism." …
“In a world where some no longer believe that we can distinguish between simple right and wrong, we need your message to reject this "dictatorship of relativism," and embrace a culture of justice and truth.”
The truth has emerged in the six years of war on Iraq that the people of Iraq had not fallen prey to the teachings of fanaticism and terrorism till the allied forces invaded it.
What simple right or wrong was there, say, in Iraq, that Bush invaded that unfortunate country which his father’s and then his own defence secretary Mr Donald Rumfeld had armed with deadly gas to confront the Shia insurgents in the South. Where did the notorious ‘Chemical’ Ali get the nerve gas and other deadly gases?
In response to President Bush, Pope Benedict quoted Pope Paul II that "in a world without truth, freedom loses its foundation." There are enough people in the United States who feel strongly that their foundation of freedom is shaken by a web of lies Bush and Blair had woven in their argument for going to war on Iraq. Universality of truth will prevail despite what the president castigated as the cultural relativism of others. Some lies are so often told that the golden opportunity of having the Holy Father around for confession goes in vain for the inveterate liar does not realize what truth is.
Debasing and discarding life in the view of the president is part of cultural relativism. “ In a world where some treat life as something to be debased and discarded, we need your message that all human life is sacred, and that "each of us is willed, each of us is loved" and your message that "each of us is willed, each of us is loved, and each of us is necessary." Thus the President addressed the Pope.
Who debased the human life through sanctions on Iraq where millions of children died of malnutrition and starvation because food and medicine were not allowed for the children and the sick? If at all, cultural specificity of this kind is the hallmark of the West as in the present day set up of the unipolar world. Who has made the prisoners of Abu Gharib jail stand naked with wire tapped to their sex, wear clothes with which they have wiped their feces and that of others, of being kept on leash with terrific dogs threatening to bite off their flesh any time? The night mare of Guatanaymo has become the symbol of human depravity. Is pedophilia the only crime the Americans recognize?
.
.
What simple right or wrong was there, say, in Iraq, that Bush invaded that unfortunate country which his father’s and then his own defence secretary Mr Donald Rumfeld had armed with deadly gas to confront the Shia insurgents in the South. Where did the notorious ‘Chemical’ Ali get the nerve gas and other deadly gases?
In response to President Bush, Pope Benedict quoted Pope Paul II that "in a world without truth, freedom loses its foundation." There are enough people in the United States who feel strongly that their foundation of freedom is shaken by a web of lies Bush and Blair had woven in their argument for going to war on Iraq. Universality of truth will prevail despite what the president castigated as the cultural relativism of others. Some lies are so often told that the golden opportunity of having the Holy Father around for confession goes in vain for the inveterate liar does not realize what truth is.
Debasing and discarding life in the view of the president is part of cultural relativism. “ In a world where some treat life as something to be debased and discarded, we need your message that all human life is sacred, and that "each of us is willed, each of us is loved" and your message that "each of us is willed, each of us is loved, and each of us is necessary." Thus the President addressed the Pope.
Who debased the human life through sanctions on Iraq where millions of children died of malnutrition and starvation because food and medicine were not allowed for the children and the sick? If at all, cultural specificity of this kind is the hallmark of the West as in the present day set up of the unipolar world. Who has made the prisoners of Abu Gharib jail stand naked with wire tapped to their sex, wear clothes with which they have wiped their feces and that of others, of being kept on leash with terrific dogs threatening to bite off their flesh any time? The night mare of Guatanaymo has become the symbol of human depravity. Is pedophilia the only crime the Americans recognize?
.
.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Jimmy Carter in Gaza, but not eyeless
King David Hotel destroyed in 1946
The last shot in the slain Reuter’s cameraman Fadel Shana’s video is that of launching of a shell of an invading Israeli tank in his direction. If situation anywhere can be so dangerous it is just there. Most of the cameramen on ground in Gaza are the deprived and dispossessed Palestinians who work for foreign news agencies to eke out existence. They know too well that there is no chance of survival when caught in a fight. That is why Shana had declined to give lift to a free lance photographer Ashraf Abu Amra “No, I won't take you with me today. It's too dangerous."
But was the situation there any better for any one else. Scores of reporters and activists, including British and American, have been mercilessly struck down by bulldozers or cut down by bullets by the Israeli soldiers with impunity. An American woman protesting against the Israeli drive to demolish Palestinian houses came before the bulldozer and was killed. The scene was caught live on camera. No one felt any remorse even in the US whose citizen she was. Former Prime Minister Golda Meir of Israel called the Arabs as rodent that deserved extermination. The former secretary of state Madam Albright described the killing of innocents Palestinian civilians as price worth paying.
But was the situation there any better for any one else. Scores of reporters and activists, including British and American, have been mercilessly struck down by bulldozers or cut down by bullets by the Israeli soldiers with impunity. An American woman protesting against the Israeli drive to demolish Palestinian houses came before the bulldozer and was killed. The scene was caught live on camera. No one felt any remorse even in the US whose citizen she was. Former Prime Minister Golda Meir of Israel called the Arabs as rodent that deserved extermination. The former secretary of state Madam Albright described the killing of innocents Palestinian civilians as price worth paying.
President Carter in a documentaryIt is puzzling that the Americans who vaunt their love for their own nation so much can swallow all this. It could be that the media is so tightly controlled by the Zionists that they do not allow truth to come out or they have thoroughly brainwashed the American public. It could also be lack of knowledge of the ‘other’ people. But how could it be so when the Americans win the highest number of Nobel Prizes and have the most advanced college and university system. That Palestinians fire rockets in Israeli settlements is deplorable but their argument is that the Israelis have occupied their land and are systematically destroying their houses and resources. That is against the international laws of occupation of a country. It is called slow genocide taking place routinely. Amidst people who have gone through the Holocaust and squirm and wince if someone denies it can be so indifferent!
But there is something amiss here. The former President Jimmy Carter was visiting Middle East. He was talking to Khaled Meshaal the Hamas leader when violence was actually taking place in Gaza. He did a remarkable diplomacy there and yet there are American congressmen who have asked their government to revoke President Carter’s passport! President Carter won Nobel Prize for his work in bringing peace to the Middle East and he is a proven practicing Christian for all his life. He was currently getting the Hamas fighters to stop firing rockets into the Jewish settlements and the release of Gilat Shalit, the Israeli solder kidnapped by Hamas two years ago. Israel chose to fight a war with Hezbollah in the Southern Lebanon to get Shalit back. President Carter was dealing with his contact on both the sides to get hundreds of Palestinians released from Israeli jail in exchange for Shalit and hence preventing another future war.
All that seems to be remote now that on Saturday 19 April there was another eruption. Three Palestinians were gunned down at Karem Shalom crossing and 13 Israeli soldiers wounded. This happened hours before the Jewish week long festival of Passover.
All that seems to be remote now that on Saturday 19 April there was another eruption. Three Palestinians were gunned down at Karem Shalom crossing and 13 Israeli soldiers wounded. This happened hours before the Jewish week long festival of Passover.
The furor over President Carter meeting Khaled Meshaal is a conundrum viewed historically. Former Prime Minister Menachem Begin was a member of a known terrorist organization responsible for the killing of many British during Britain’s mandate over Palestine. President Jimmy Carter had invited him to the White House for peace talk. How come terrorists of one hue are untouchable and of another touchable! The terrorist organization Irgun was the most dreaded one. Palestinians and the British feared them more than the Israelis fearing Hamas today. Begin was assigned by Moshe Sneh (chief of the Haganah General Headquarters) with instructions to blow up the King David
Hotel of Jersalem on July 21, 1946. His team of terrorists dressed as Arab porters carried out the attack. The chief was disguised as a Sudanese. When the debris was cleared on 31 July it was officially announced that 91 people had been killed in the explosion: 28 Britons, 41 Arabs, 17 Jews and 5 others. The British who were targeted condemned the terrorist attack and expressed "their feelings of horror at the base and unparalleled act perpetrated today by a gang of criminals." The man who would become the first President of Israel, David Ben-Gurion, who was then in Paris, joined the chorus of condemnation, and in an interview to the French newspaper 'France Soir', declared that the Irgun was "the enemy of the Jewish people".
Hotel of Jersalem on July 21, 1946. His team of terrorists dressed as Arab porters carried out the attack. The chief was disguised as a Sudanese. When the debris was cleared on 31 July it was officially announced that 91 people had been killed in the explosion: 28 Britons, 41 Arabs, 17 Jews and 5 others. The British who were targeted condemned the terrorist attack and expressed "their feelings of horror at the base and unparalleled act perpetrated today by a gang of criminals." The man who would become the first President of Israel, David Ben-Gurion, who was then in Paris, joined the chorus of condemnation, and in an interview to the French newspaper 'France Soir', declared that the Irgun was "the enemy of the Jewish people".
Do the Israelis really fear anyone, even the Americans? There can be no deterrence here. They easily destroyed the Osirik nuclear plant in Iraq and yet they along with their American friends created such a hype over the nonexistent weapon of mass destruction of Saddam Hussein that the Iraqis are still paying with their life and limbs on daily basis as the world watches it helplessly.
Meanwhile the humanitarian disaster is looming larger and larger in the Gaza strip. As occupying power Israel is indifferent to world opinion. It is turning the screw on the Palestinians almost every week.
Friday, April 18, 2008
Death of a Cameraman
Fadel Shana
Civilians killed and wounded along with Shana In a rather bizzare incident on Wednesday April 16, 2008 three Israelis soldiers and four Palestinians died in a flare up during Israelis incursion into the Gaza strip. Then came the swift revengeful attack in which 20 Palestinians lost their lives, among them five children and the Reuters news agency cameraman Fadal Shana. A short while ago a freelance photographer Ashraf Abu Amra wanted a lift in his van Shana told him “No, I won't take you with me today. It's too dangerous." How true was his premonition! He had been filming an Israelis tank moving towards him when a fiery missile attack put an end to his coverage. His press car was clearly and prominently marked on the bonnet and sides with TV. His colleagues and others picked up the injured and were rushing them to hospital when within two minutes the Israelis helicopter fired another missile on the car and blew it up. This leaves no room for any doubt as to who was the target of killing. But the 19 others killed included children and civilians are what the Israelis and the Americans always call collateral damage. This disproportionate killing and use of power is always justified in the name of the security of the Jewish state.
All these gory events including the three Israelis soldiers killed came as a sequel to Israelis killing nine Palestinians of which six were civilians in a direct attack on houses and a mosque.
Riders in the Agence France-Presse armoured car watched the events of the targeted killing of Shana. The Israelis as is their wont refused to acknowledge the missile attack. As usual the US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice is rushing to the Middle East. Her sudden but forced visits after every flare up indicate that the next terrorist strike against the United States of America may not be precisely predictable in terms of place and timing. But its provenance is loud and clear. Choosing time and place is not the prerogative of the terrorists but the Israelis have shown that they have absolute confidence in that. Last war with Hezbolla had no immediate provocation from the side of the Palestinians. Their rocketing targets in Israel or their kidnapping of victims was going in the usual way. The Israelis chose the time and place to retaliate and thus to initiate the war in Southern Lebanon at will.
The unipolar world is as impotent as was the bipolar world of yore. A visiting professor from Israel remarked in Mumbai only last week that the American and Israeli missile air defence system is 100 percent foolproof. The Iranian nuclear programme is to make bombs that would target only Arab countries. This is the degree of cussedness that permeates into the mindset of the Americans and Israelis that they are there to do what they like and care a tuppence for the world opinion. Thus the desire of the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that there should be a conference on the present crisis in Moscow has no real basis except the reminiscence that the Russians used to support the Palestinians.
Why should a future terrorist attack originate in the Middle East? As the price of per square foot is the highest at the Nariman Point in Mumbai only the fabulously rich would buy there so is the concentration of human suffering in the narrow strip of Gaza. Only the God in heaven can buy this suffering. The highest number of people concentrated anywhere in the world but denied water, electricity, food, petrol see day in and day out their near relatives killed and wounded. The flagrant violation of their right to life and land of their birth is fully financed by the rich Jewish lobby in Washington and New York and American veto power in the UN. The week also saw the cutting off of petrol supply to Gaza. It multiplied misery manifold in a land surrounded by oil rich states.
Why target a journalist or cameraman? He it is who lets the world see what the Israeli military with American weapons is doing to the people and land they have occupied. The water they have a right to is pumped out of their land to make the kibbutz lawns green. Power and fuel is denied to them while more and more settlements are built up and they get the power and fuel uninterrupted. Nowhere is the media focus so much intense as in the Middle East. Foreign news agencies hire local photographers for graphic report of on the sport coverage. The irony of the western concern for free expression is such that a Daniel Pearl executed by terrorists produces more demonstration of solidarity than the pot shot at a Fadel Shana.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Fighting terror: riding hobby horses
The locution of fighting terrorism is showing signs of exhaustion. Getting into the ruts of conventions and ideology and antipathy has telling effect not only on the agencies in collecting intelligence and fighting terror but on the patience of the public at large. No other than an important Afghanistan minister blamed the American soldiers of dropping arms and ammunition to the Talibans and hence arming them. That is second week of April 2008, full seven years into war on terror! The mujahideens fighting the Soviet occupation in the earlier decades would receive arms dropped to them. Has the preoccupation revived?
At the home front the murder of ACP of Delhi Special Operation Squad police Rajbir Singh allegedly by realtor Vijay Bhardwaj is a conundrum. This ACP got several promotion and pats from Prime Minister AB Vajpayee and Deputy PM and Home Minister LK Advani for catching Afzal Guru for the 13 December attack on the Parliament. He seemed to have achieved this feat within two days. He is said to have given 50 lakh to Bhardwaj to invest. Bhardwaj feared that the cop would liquidate him. “For the last six months, Singh Bhaisahab (Rajbir ) was putting pressure on me to pay his dues. I was not able to collect the money. Bhaisahab told me that he would kill me. So I killed him... because I was afraid,” Bhardwaj said. However it is far from clear why the cop should have given his gun to Bhradwaj and how come Bhardwaj should kill the cop with his own gun. How much wealth he still had at his disposal and from where did he get all this. If these are uncomfortable questions to ask they have one truth underlying that you cannot dodge. Such ace cops are carrying on the monumental work of hoarding wealth. The flip side of the monumental work is of course: patriotism. The Iliol house of DG Vanzara where the wife of Sohrabbudin, Kauserbi was cremated is Xanadu which Narendra Modis and LKAdvanis have allowed to come up, with a premium, of course.
These super cops, including APS Gill who wanted to force AGP Sreekuma to toe the Gujarat government line, are knights in shining armour out to grab the booty on the pretext of hunting the proverbial damsel in distress (read, modern day version, terrorism). Vanzara had reportedly accepted two crore to bump off Sohrabbudin. How much ACP Rajbir must have accepted is any body’s guess. All this in the name of the juggernaut of the war on terror! Is there any American still in the hearing distance who can use them!
One must not forget that Rajbir had used the unmentionable word ‘chootya’ about Afzal Guru. First the ACP had denied that he had given interview on a TV channel and when the channel replayed the footage he accepted. That un -parliamentary word he had used would imply a man of utter naiveté. The Special Task Force in Kashmir which had sent Afzal to escort one of the attackers on the Parliament, must have believed in the utter naiveté of Guru that he would do exactly what he was paid for to do. This pharmaceutical agent had allegedly paid two lakh to get the informant’s job with the police.
The obvious question is are these people really fighting terror or are they busy making fast buck as the sun of terrorism is shining, ala their political masters.
We cannot divide the haves and the have-nots when it comes to fighting terror or ours and others’, Naxalits and judwa salam when identifying the terrorists. Naxalists, deshi variety, are as much terrorists as anyone else, then why treat them separately? Shashi Tharoor would like education to fight terror by having better educational institutes or : “The alternative will be to see Indian companies recruiting abroad because the talent isn't available to them at home, and the ranks of frustrated unemployed swelling across India, easy prey for the blandishments of terrorists and (emphasis added) Maoists. If we are to avoid an apocalyptic fate, we must give them a better chance of employment through more and improved educational possibilities.” Tharoor is not alone in this, Bal Thackeray also calls the Naxalists as ours.
There is another quandary the eight accused in the liquid explosives with which they wanted to blow up aircraft from Britain in August 2006 are not frustrated unemployed. Abdulla Ahmed Ali, aka Ahmed Ali Khan, 27, of Walthamstow, Assad Sarwar, 24, of High Wycombe, Tanvir Hussain, 27, of no fixed address, and Mohammed Gulzar, 26, of Barking Ibrahim Savant, 27, of Walthamstow, Arafat Waheed Khan, 26, of Walthamstow, Waheed Zaman, 23, of Walthamstow, and Umar Islam, aka Brian Young, 29, of High Wycombe are well educated and well settled. They cannot be called have-nots of videshi variety.
Their misfortune is not that they belong to any judwa salam. It is their inability to read a variant albeit a tolerant reading of the religious book. There is no compulsion in religion, even in the matter of jihad. It can be fought at different levels, many nuances between jihad al akbar and jihad al asghar. Not far fetched to say that there is hobby horse of extremism that these would like to ride habitually because of the circumstances they are placed in.
At the home front the murder of ACP of Delhi Special Operation Squad police Rajbir Singh allegedly by realtor Vijay Bhardwaj is a conundrum. This ACP got several promotion and pats from Prime Minister AB Vajpayee and Deputy PM and Home Minister LK Advani for catching Afzal Guru for the 13 December attack on the Parliament. He seemed to have achieved this feat within two days. He is said to have given 50 lakh to Bhardwaj to invest. Bhardwaj feared that the cop would liquidate him. “For the last six months, Singh Bhaisahab (Rajbir ) was putting pressure on me to pay his dues. I was not able to collect the money. Bhaisahab told me that he would kill me. So I killed him... because I was afraid,” Bhardwaj said. However it is far from clear why the cop should have given his gun to Bhradwaj and how come Bhardwaj should kill the cop with his own gun. How much wealth he still had at his disposal and from where did he get all this. If these are uncomfortable questions to ask they have one truth underlying that you cannot dodge. Such ace cops are carrying on the monumental work of hoarding wealth. The flip side of the monumental work is of course: patriotism. The Iliol house of DG Vanzara where the wife of Sohrabbudin, Kauserbi was cremated is Xanadu which Narendra Modis and LKAdvanis have allowed to come up, with a premium, of course.
These super cops, including APS Gill who wanted to force AGP Sreekuma to toe the Gujarat government line, are knights in shining armour out to grab the booty on the pretext of hunting the proverbial damsel in distress (read, modern day version, terrorism). Vanzara had reportedly accepted two crore to bump off Sohrabbudin. How much ACP Rajbir must have accepted is any body’s guess. All this in the name of the juggernaut of the war on terror! Is there any American still in the hearing distance who can use them!
One must not forget that Rajbir had used the unmentionable word ‘chootya’ about Afzal Guru. First the ACP had denied that he had given interview on a TV channel and when the channel replayed the footage he accepted. That un -parliamentary word he had used would imply a man of utter naiveté. The Special Task Force in Kashmir which had sent Afzal to escort one of the attackers on the Parliament, must have believed in the utter naiveté of Guru that he would do exactly what he was paid for to do. This pharmaceutical agent had allegedly paid two lakh to get the informant’s job with the police.
The obvious question is are these people really fighting terror or are they busy making fast buck as the sun of terrorism is shining, ala their political masters.
We cannot divide the haves and the have-nots when it comes to fighting terror or ours and others’, Naxalits and judwa salam when identifying the terrorists. Naxalists, deshi variety, are as much terrorists as anyone else, then why treat them separately? Shashi Tharoor would like education to fight terror by having better educational institutes or : “The alternative will be to see Indian companies recruiting abroad because the talent isn't available to them at home, and the ranks of frustrated unemployed swelling across India, easy prey for the blandishments of terrorists and (emphasis added) Maoists. If we are to avoid an apocalyptic fate, we must give them a better chance of employment through more and improved educational possibilities.” Tharoor is not alone in this, Bal Thackeray also calls the Naxalists as ours.
There is another quandary the eight accused in the liquid explosives with which they wanted to blow up aircraft from Britain in August 2006 are not frustrated unemployed. Abdulla Ahmed Ali, aka Ahmed Ali Khan, 27, of Walthamstow, Assad Sarwar, 24, of High Wycombe, Tanvir Hussain, 27, of no fixed address, and Mohammed Gulzar, 26, of Barking Ibrahim Savant, 27, of Walthamstow, Arafat Waheed Khan, 26, of Walthamstow, Waheed Zaman, 23, of Walthamstow, and Umar Islam, aka Brian Young, 29, of High Wycombe are well educated and well settled. They cannot be called have-nots of videshi variety.
Their misfortune is not that they belong to any judwa salam. It is their inability to read a variant albeit a tolerant reading of the religious book. There is no compulsion in religion, even in the matter of jihad. It can be fought at different levels, many nuances between jihad al akbar and jihad al asghar. Not far fetched to say that there is hobby horse of extremism that these would like to ride habitually because of the circumstances they are placed in.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
By Scalpel and not by Sword: New Dialogue of Civilizations
A sign of coexistence A sense of tolerance A scene of transformation
Mubbashi Javed Akbar and Mubbashir Mustak at Manipal, ManglorIt was in 1998 that that President Khatami of Iran proposed ‘a dialogue among civilizations’. He was speaking at the United Nations. Two years later at the same forum he elaborated that the proposed dialogue should be based on cultural and religions matters. At times such matters have played havoc with civil society driving many like Irshad Manji to talk of restoring humanity and reason to Islam.
The desire of many including believers is that a heart to heart talk even when you do not see eye to eye is necessary. There is no need to use the sword to perpetuate violence and no need to live under the shadow of the sword. If at all and at the most we can use the thin blade that the surgeon uses to perform a healing operation on a festering wound. And that of course is a metaphor for revealing the truth with the aim of reconciling people of different faiths. It is a revelatory process, be it journalism or a dialogue, aiming at the maxim: to know is to forgive.
MJ Akbar uses the image of the scalpel in his mission statement issued from Manipal, Manglor, this weekend. After his unceremonious removal from the post of editor of Asian Age he is launching Covert as a biweekly journal. ‘Democracy demands media that reveals the covert, and sifts the overt to peel off propaganda.’ Some in their mistaken belief have relied on the sword for too long to realize that the pen (now the bytes) can be more effective in focusing on truth.
Akbar figures here because Samuel Huntington quoted him in his book ‘Clash of Civilization’. The sword is mistakenly associated with religion as the means of propagating faith though the truth is a different matter altogether. This has been borne out by the events in Brussels. In the pagan time before the ascent of Christianity there stood a heathen temple to Venus. In the centre of the city stood the church of the Minimes. It was built upon what the Christians called ‘a place of low repute’. Recently the Muslims bought the chapel and changed it into a mosque.
The scalpel should work on ‘a place of low repute’. No place be it heathen, Christian, Hindu or Muslim, can be ‘low’. Worldly ‘repute’ cannot match heavenly bliss. Inheriting a place of worship from another people of a different faith from your own need not be a matter of pride or crowing or boasting. The journalists as well as the believers must endeavour for the global sanity that is crying need of the hour. Lest the heavenly father commiserate with us over our sibling rivalry we must try to coexist. That can come only through reaching out to each other through dialogue and understanding. What is covert in the holy books must be made overt through the verbal scalpel that is dialogue.
Venus, Mother Mary and Allah occupy the highest pedestal of their own; humans must not forget that their station in life is humble.
There is sermon in the stones of the churches and mosques of Brussels. Humans must not misappropriate the divine in claimant-ship. On no other issue have human beings shed so much blood as on that. Saladin was a Kurd who recovered Jerusalem for the Muslims in the crusades. The Kurds in Belgium who occupy the churches are much more tolerant as they have hidden under clothes the images but pray in their different way. The church authorities no longer dispute the ownership of the inherited places of worship. They both exist in a spirit of tolerance.
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The desire of many including believers is that a heart to heart talk even when you do not see eye to eye is necessary. There is no need to use the sword to perpetuate violence and no need to live under the shadow of the sword. If at all and at the most we can use the thin blade that the surgeon uses to perform a healing operation on a festering wound. And that of course is a metaphor for revealing the truth with the aim of reconciling people of different faiths. It is a revelatory process, be it journalism or a dialogue, aiming at the maxim: to know is to forgive.
MJ Akbar uses the image of the scalpel in his mission statement issued from Manipal, Manglor, this weekend. After his unceremonious removal from the post of editor of Asian Age he is launching Covert as a biweekly journal. ‘Democracy demands media that reveals the covert, and sifts the overt to peel off propaganda.’ Some in their mistaken belief have relied on the sword for too long to realize that the pen (now the bytes) can be more effective in focusing on truth.
Akbar figures here because Samuel Huntington quoted him in his book ‘Clash of Civilization’. The sword is mistakenly associated with religion as the means of propagating faith though the truth is a different matter altogether. This has been borne out by the events in Brussels. In the pagan time before the ascent of Christianity there stood a heathen temple to Venus. In the centre of the city stood the church of the Minimes. It was built upon what the Christians called ‘a place of low repute’. Recently the Muslims bought the chapel and changed it into a mosque.
The scalpel should work on ‘a place of low repute’. No place be it heathen, Christian, Hindu or Muslim, can be ‘low’. Worldly ‘repute’ cannot match heavenly bliss. Inheriting a place of worship from another people of a different faith from your own need not be a matter of pride or crowing or boasting. The journalists as well as the believers must endeavour for the global sanity that is crying need of the hour. Lest the heavenly father commiserate with us over our sibling rivalry we must try to coexist. That can come only through reaching out to each other through dialogue and understanding. What is covert in the holy books must be made overt through the verbal scalpel that is dialogue.
Venus, Mother Mary and Allah occupy the highest pedestal of their own; humans must not forget that their station in life is humble.
There is sermon in the stones of the churches and mosques of Brussels. Humans must not misappropriate the divine in claimant-ship. On no other issue have human beings shed so much blood as on that. Saladin was a Kurd who recovered Jerusalem for the Muslims in the crusades. The Kurds in Belgium who occupy the churches are much more tolerant as they have hidden under clothes the images but pray in their different way. The church authorities no longer dispute the ownership of the inherited places of worship. They both exist in a spirit of tolerance.
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