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By Binoy Kampmark

It was not sufficient for US military authorities to sentence whistleblower Chelsea Manning to the onerous, disproportionate sentence of 35 years imprisonment for conniving with WikiLeaks in releasing classified material. (People have gotten less for gruesome, remorseless murders.) Punishment has a myriad of forms, and even within the carceral system, Manning has discovered that additional methods can be devised.

As with any penal system worth its brutal salt, minor infractions incite strong rebuke and hefty retaliation. Manning has previously been in hot water over the usual violations of the prison code, be they as innocuous as possessing an expired tube of toothpaste, or having inappropriately designated research materials used for the drafting of articles.

The three member disciplinary board at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas claimed that the punishment for Manning, which involves a fourteen day sentence with seven suspended days, was occasioned by an attempt to take her own life in July. A good deal of this gloomy effort was spurred on by official refusals to permit access to treatment for gender dysphoria. Manning has not merely been an aberration to US state security in her actions, but a transgender puzzle within the military establishment.

Left to such devices of desperation, the only form of meagre autonomy left is suicide, that one great act of liberation that throws off the captor and negates the need for their presence. It is the grand act of disruption. “And because liberation is destruction,” suggests Jean Améry, “it finds its most extreme possible confirmation in voluntary death.”[1] With, of course, the questionable point to what extent one remains in a voluntary state when confined in such circumstances.

But not even such a possibility could be permitted in a universe where solitary confinement becomes an excessive form of suicide prevention. There is a macabre institutional irony to this, given the fact that solitary confinement goes some way to provide ample encouragement to inmates to take their own lives.

Manning is therefore being incited without the means of being fulfilled. “It is unconscionable,” stated Justin Mazzola, researcher with Amnesty International USA, “that instead of giving her the medical help she needs, the government has put her in solitary confinement.”[2]

As the American Civil Liberties Union has noted, some 73 percent of suicides in incarceration tended to take place in isolation cells.[3] Adding to this grotesque figure is how many prisoners are held in what has been termed “restricted housing”, including a range of penal restrictions such as “administrative segregation, disciplinary segregation and protective custody”. The one thread that unites all is a heavy emphasis on social isolation.

The effort on the part of Manning to take her own life was not the only gripe the board had. Manning had been reading some supposedly seditious material – in so far as it was Gabriella Coleman’s Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy. Even in prison, Manning’s diet of cerebral consumption has moved into such areas as Coleman’s discussion of Anonymous, though it was always going to sail close to the wind of legality.

A statement from Manning gave some detail about the treatment. Manning was “acquitted of the ‘Resisting the Force Cell Move team’ charge” but found guilty of the “Conduct Which Threatens” charge. “This charge,” she clarifies, “was for the suicide attempt.”[4] Such an attempt, so went the charge, threatened the “orderly running, safety, good order and discipline or security” of the facility.

Having Coleman’s book in her possession amounted to being a breach of the “Prohibited Property” injunction, given that it was an unmarked copy. Even within cells, the threat of literature remains ominous and pressing, necessitating such actions as “disciplinary segregation”.

Manning has engaged in a range of actions that have further transmuted her actions into those of a political dissident. A five day hunger strike, oiled by public indignation managed to yield some health care concessions. But the prevailing weapon used by authorities of solitary confinement suggests that degrading the human spirit remains the acme of the US prison system.

That particular point of degradation is fundamentally spiritual and mental. As the US Supreme Court noted in supposedly less enlightened times in the case of In re Medley, 134 US 160, 168 (1890), such prisoners “fell, after even a short confinement, into a semi-fatuous condition, from which it was next to impossible to arouse them” while others became “violently insane” or took their own lives.

Most strikingly, such solitary punishment could hardly ever be said to reform a person, sabotaging personality and being. It could hardly ever have any relevance for Manning, whose conscience remains unhampered by the assaults. There was, in short, never anything to reform to begin with.

Far from enabling a person to enter a world after such an ordeal, such a cruel state, according to the Supreme Court, would have produced a defective of low “mental activity” incapable of providing service to the community. Manning’s supporters can only hope that such a state of mind has yet to be reached.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Suicide-Discourse-Voluntary-Death/dp/0253335639

[2] http://www.amnestyusa.org/news/press-releases/chelsea-manning-punishment-for-suicide-attempt-is-cruel-and-inhumane

[3] https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/stop_solitary_briefing_paper_updated_august_2014.pdf

[4] http://tumblr.fightforthefuture.org/post/150813426803/breaking-prison-disciplinary-board-decides-to

26 September 2016

 

By Colin Todhunter

There has been an adverse trend in the food and agriculture sector in recent times with the control of seeds and chemical inputs being consolidated through various proposed mergers. If these mergers go through, it would mean that three companies would dominate the commercial agricultural seeds and chemicals sector. Over the past couple of decades, there has already been a restriction of choice with the squeezing out of competitors, resulting in higher costs for farmers, who are increasingly reliant on corporate seeds (and their chemical inputs).

Big agribusiness players like Monsanto rely on massive taxpayer handouts to keep their business models on track; highly profitable models that have immense social, health and environmental costs to be paid for by the public. Across the globe healthy, sustainable agriculture has been uprooted and transformed to suit the profit margins of transnational agribusiness concerns. The major players in the global agribusiness sector fuel a geo-politicised, globalised system of food production that result in numerous negative outcomes for both farmers and consumers alike (listed here: 4th paragraph from the end).

Aside from the domination of the market being a cause for concern, we should also be worried about a food system controlled by companies that have a history (see this and this) of releasing health-damaging, environmentally polluting products onto the market and engaging in activities that might be considered as constituting crimes against humanity. If we continue to hand over the control of society’s most important infrastructure – food and agriculture – to these wealthy private interests, what will the future look like?

There is no need to engage in idle speculation. Foods based on CRISPR (a gene-editing technology for which Monsanto has just acquired a non-exclusive global licensing agreement for use) and synthetic biology are already entering the market without regulation or proper health or environmental assessments. And we can expect many more unregulated GM technologies to influence the nature of our food and flood the commercial market.

Despite nice sounding rhetoric by company spokespersons about the humanitarian motives behind these endeavours, the bottom line is patents and profit. And despite nice sounding rhetoric about the precision of the techniques involved, these technologies pose health and environmental risks. Moreover, CRIPRS technology could be used to create genes drives and terminator seed traits tools could be used for unscrupulous political and commercial ends.

There could well be severe social and economic consequences too. The impacts of synthetic biology (another sector dominated by a handful of private interests) on farmers in the Global South could result in a bio-economy of landlessness and hunger. Readers are urged to read this report which outlines the effects on farming, farmers and rural economies: synthetic biology has the potential to undermine livelihoods and would mean a shift to narrower range of export-oriented mono-cropping to produce biomass for synbio processes that place stress on water resources and food security in the exporting countries.

Aside from these social, health and environmental implications, can we trust private entities like Monsanto (or Bayer) to use these powerful (potentially bio-weapon) technologies responsibly? Given Monsanto’s long history of cover-ups and duplicity, trust took the last train out a long time ago. Moreover, the legalities of existing frameworks appear to mean little to certain companies: see here what Vandana Shiva says about the illegality of Monsanto’s enterprise in India. National laws that exist to protect the public interest are little more than mere hurdles to be got around by lobbyists, lawyers and political pressure. So what can be done?

Agroecology is a force for grass-root rural change that would be independent from the cartel of powerful biotech/agribusiness companies. This model of agriculture is already providing real solutions for sustainable, productive agriculture that prioritises the needs of farmers and consumers. It represents an alternative to corporate-controlled agriculture.

However, as much as people and communities strive to become independent from unscrupulous corporate concerns and as much as localised food systems try to extricate themselves from the impacts of rigged global trade and markets, there also has to be a concerted effort to roll back corporate power and challenge what it is doing to our food. These corporations will not just go away because people eat organic or choose agroecology.

The extremely wealthy interests behind these corporations do their level best to displace or dismantle alternative models of production – whether agroecology, organic, public sector agriculture systems or anything that exists independently from them – and replace them with ones that serve their needs. Look no further than attempts attempts to undermine indigenous edible oils processing in India, for instance. Look no further than the ‘mustard seed crisis‘ in India in 1998. Or look no further than how transnational biotech helped fuel and then benefit from the destruction of Ethiopia’s traditional agrarian economy.

Whether it’s on the back of US-backed coups (Ukraine), military conflicts (Iraq), ‘structural adjustment’ (Africa) or slanted trade deals (India), transnational agribusiness is driving a global agenda to suit its interests and eradicate impediments to profit.

To underline this point, let’s turn to what Michel Chossudovsky says in his 1997 book ‘The Globalization of Poverty’. He argues that economies are:

“opened up through the concurrent displacement of a pre-existing productive system. Small and medium-sized enterprises are pushed into bankruptcy or obliged to produce for a global distributor, state enterprises are privatised or closed down, independent agricultural producers are impoverished.” (p.16)

Increasing profit and shareholder dividends are the bottom line. And it doesn’t matter how much devastation ensues or how unsustainable their business model is, ‘crisis management’ and ‘innovation’ fuel the corporate-controlled treadmill they seek to impose.

As long as the domination of the food system by powerful private interests is regarded as legitimate and as long as their hijack of governments, trade bodies and trade deals, regulatory agencies and universities is deemed normal or is unchallenged in the sham ‘liberal democracies’ they operate within, we are destined for a future of more contaminated food, ill health, degraded environments and an agriculture displaced and uprooted for the benefit of self-interest.

The problems associated with the food system cannot be dealt with on a single-issue basis: it is not just about the labelling of GM foods; it’s not just about the impacts of Monsanto’s Roundup; it’s not just about Monsanto (or Bayer) as a company; and it’s not just about engaging in endless debates with corporate shills about the science of GMOs.

Despite the promise of the Green Revolution, hundreds of millions still go to bed hungry, food has become denutrified, functioning rural economies have been destroyed, diseases have spiked in correlation with the increase in use of pesticides and GMOs, soil has been eroded or degraded, diets are less diverse, global food security has been undermined and access to food is determined by manipulated international markets and speculation – not supply and demand.

Food and agriculture have become wedded to power structures that have created food surplus and food deficit areas and have restructured indigenous agriculture across the world and tied it to an international system of trade based on export-oriented mono-cropping, commodity production for a manipulated and volatile international market and indebtedness to international financial institutions.

The problem is the system of international capitalism that is driving a globalised system of bad food and poor health, the destruction of healthy, sustainable agriculture and systemic, half-baked attack on both groups and individuals who oppose these processes.

At the very least, there should be full public control over all GMO/synthetic biology production and research. And if we are serious about reining in the power of profiteering corporations over food – our most basic and essential infrastructure – they should be placed under democratic ownership and control.

In finishing, let us turn to Ghiselle Karim who at the end of her insightful article says:

“… we demand that it is our basic human right to protect our food supply… [food] would be planned to meet human need, not corporate greed. We have hunger not because there is not enough food, but rather because it is not distributed equally. The core of the problem is not a shortage of food, but capitalism!”

Colin Todhunter is an independent writer

26 September 2016

By Franklin Lamb

Shatila Palestinian Refugee camp, Beirut: The intense summer heat was gone and the evening was breezy and cool that fateful Thursday evening, September 15, 1982, according to survivors of the Sabra-Shatila Massacre who, 34 years later, still remember and recount many details of the slaughter that was soon to follow.

It was following the 9/14/1982 assassination of President-elect BachirGemayel, leader of the Lebanese Forces militia and senior Kataeb Party official, that Israeli forces closed in with their tanks and blockaded the Shatila refugee camp and the adjacent Sabra neighborhood. By prearrangement with their Christian phalange allies, the Israeli invaders led the Kataeb affiliated Phalange militia from Beirut airport north two miles to inside the camp, in violation of their agreement with the US Reagan administration.

The militia’s intent was to slaughter Palestinians but anyone they encountered including some Lebanese among others, became targets. What followed were nearly three days of slaughter , rape and dismemberment of the civilian population, men, women and children as the Christian militia penetrated the camp and conducted a frenzied, partly drug fueled, killing spree slaughtering an estimated 1, 800 to 3,500. The carnage was aided by Israeli forces that surrounded Shatila, lighted the night sky with flares turning the night into day, provided heavy equipment to bury and hide bodies, communicated with the Phalange terrorists and blocked camp residents from fleeing Shatila during the carnage while ushering reinforcement killer militia inside.

Neither the Israeli organizers-facilitators nor their Lebanese designates were ever held accountable. The latter’s amnesty was assured by the political and moral corruption among the increasingly polarized sects in Lebanon. This fact transformed the killers and ‘warlords’ into “political lords”, several of whom still hold political “leadership” positions with a couple vying to be Lebanon’s next President. Their past crimes seemingly long forgotten.

In Lebanon’s 12 camps, among the Shatila Massacre victims family and community who along with international supporters, relive and re-examine the decades old massacre annually at Shatila’s Martyr’s Cemetery, there is increasing Despondency, Cynicism, and Determination.

Palestinian families marching and remembering their loved ones murdered 34 years ago at Shatila camp, Beirut. Photo: Franklin Lamb

Despondency over the fact that Palestinians here in Lebanon and elsewhere are still awaiting justice, as SaebErekat, the Secretary General of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) reminded the UN Security Council last weekend.

Despondency over the fact that the government of Lebanon continues to outlaw the elementary civil rights to work or to own a home. Both fundamental human rights which by international law are granted to refugees in every country, except Lebanon which continues to flaunt its obligations under binding Treaty and Customary International Law.

Sixty eight years after the 1948 Nakba and 49 years after the June 5, 1967 Naksa forced more than 100,000 Palestinians fleeing for their lives to seek refugee across the nearest border to their Zionist targeted homes and to enter Lebanon, despondency deepens. Refugees who crossed over from north Palestine into Syria were immediately granted full refugee rights but no civil rights still for Palestinians in Lebanon.

A monument to the victims of the September 15-18 1982 massacre at Sabra-Shatila. Photo: Franklin Lamb 9/19/2016

Despondency over the fact that in their camps nearly every indicia of social well-being, including but not limited to, health care, social development, education, housing, security, and ability to earn money and care for their families, continue an accelerating downward spiral toward an abyss and with no reversal in sight.

Armed Clashes in Ain el­Hilweh camp, the largest in Lebanon and located 40 miles south of Beirut, between Fatah and an Islamist group led by Bilal Badr are continuing as of 9/22/2016 with other groups also fighting intermittently. One cause of the increased violence is the outlawing of the right to work and other civil rights which continue to be blocked by Lebanon’s Parliament. Despondency over the sounds of machine guns, bombs and rocket propelled grenades near a vegetable market and the camp’s al Fawqani Street where a taxi driver was murdered a few days ago, just as children started the school year. For two days this week, camp residents held a general strike in Ain al Hilweh to protest the recurrent killings. Violence is also on the increase in Lebanon’s other 11 Palestinian camps. Tensions fueled again by being deprived of the civil right to work and to own a home and feelings of general hopelessness over lack of opportunities among the despondent youth.

Nearly three and one half decades since the 1982 Massacre, Cynicism is also widespread and growing among Lebanon’s Palestinians. With good reason. Few if any Palestinians this observer knows in Lebanon or Syria, have much confidence in the current leadership of the PLO. Or in politicians in the region, Arabs, Iranians, Turks or others, who continue to babble “Resistance” rhetoric while they collaborate with right wing anti-Palestinian officials in blocking Palestinian rights in Lebanon. Simultaneously with their varying political posturing while playing the “Palestinian Card.”

Thirty-four years after the Sabra-Shatila Massacre, and ten years after the 2006 “Devine Victory” of the Lebanese “Resistance”, Cynicism is spreading. Hezbollah is now also openly criticized, even among a growing number of Shia, for playing the “Palestinian Card” while doing little if anything for the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon.

One hears in the camps increasingly comments like these chronicled by two Palestinian Arab University students from Burj al Barajneh camp in south Beirut.

“What has the Resistance ever done for Palestinians in Lebanon’s 12 camps?”

“Resistance” begins at home by helping rebuild camp infrastructure not by attacking Yarmouk and other Palestinian camps in Syria or by besieging, starving, blocking humanitarian aid or killing Palestinian in Syria.”

“The road to Al Quds is south and direct, it does not wind all over Syria.”

“After May of 2000 when the Israeli were forced from Lebanon, we were grateful to Hezbollah and Hassan Nasrallah was much admired. Also in 2006 despite 1.300 civilian casualties. That respect and support has eroded due to

“Resistance” projects in Syria.”

“Few Palestinians or Syrians support the “Resistance” as they did before it invaded Syria.”

“The “Resistance” has killed more Palestinians in Syria during the past five years than the Zionists have killed Palestinians over the past 68 years since the Nakba. What kind of “Palestinian Resistance” is this?”

Some of these strong comments may not be agreed to by many, but one way the “Resistance ” can help Palestinians in Lebanon regain confidence is if Hezbollah will take 90 minutes in Parliament, 60 minutes to grant Palestinian refugees in Lebanon the same elementary civil right to work that every other “Resistance” movement and country grants refugees.

Hezbollah can then use the remaining 30 minutes in Parliament to repeal the racist 2001 law that forbids any Palestinian from owning a home outside one of Lebanon’s squalid and deteriorating camps. Resistance actions speak louder than just Resistance words. Ninety minutes and the political will to push Parliament will unblock the elementary civil rights to work and to own a home for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. It is all that Palestinians in Lebanon ask of Hezbollah to be true to their cause.

Against this backdrop of Despondency and Cynicism one feels in the camps also a remarkable Determination to Return to Palestine. This observer observes a similar determination among a newer influx of refugees in Lebanon, those from Syria.

Virtually every Syrian refugee I have encountered in Lebanon or elsewhere wants one thing. For the civil war in their country to end so that they can return to beloved Syria. The Lebanese politicians who regularly bleat about the Palestinian and Syrian refugees taking over this sinking country hide from their supporters the fact that few if any of these refugees-Syrian or Palestinian- want to remain in Lebanon one day longer than absolutely necessary.

As part of a deepening Determination to Return, a third Intifada is increasingly being discussed. But it will likely not be confined to occupied Palestinian territory but rather will involve many of the 4 million Palestinians in the Diaspora and well as their growing number of international supporters. It will be led by Palestinians themselves not the Arabs or international community who have mouthed some slogans and nodded but have done little if anything at all to advance Full Return.

Thirty four years after the 1982 Massacre at Sabra-Shatila, the dream of Return to Palestine endures, and the struggle for Full Return shall never die. Not until the victims of 34 years ago in Beirut, and all Palestinians martyred before and after the 1948 Nakba receive posthumous justice. Determination among Palestinians in Lebanon to Return exceeds their Despondency and Cynicism caused by injustice. And it gives rise to hope for a better future.

Franklin Lamb volunteers with the Lebanon, France, and USA based Meals for Syrian Refugee Children Lebanon (MSRCL) which seeks to provide hot nutritional meals to Syrian and other refugee children in Lebanon.http://mealsforsyrianrefugeechildrenlebanon.com. He is reachable c/o fplamb@gmail.com.

24 September 2016

By Rene Wadlow

On 19 September 2016, the UN General Assembly held a one-day Summit on « Addressing Large Movements o Refugees and Migrants » – a complex of issues which have become important and emotional issues in many countries. Restrictive migration policies deny many migrants the possibility of acquiring a regular migrant status, and as a result, the migrants end up being in an irregular or undocumented situation in the receiving country and can be exposed to exploitation and serious violations of human rights.

Citizens of the world have been actively concerned with the issues of migrants, refugees, the « stateless » and those displaced by armed conflcts within their own country. Thus we welcome the spirit of the Summit Declaration with its emphasis on cooperative action, a humane sense of sharing the responsibilities for refugees and migrants and on seeking root causes of migration and refugee flows. There are three issues mentioned in the Summit Declaration which merit follow up action among the UN Secretariat, world citizens and other non-governmental organizations :

1) The migration of youth ;

2) The strong link between migration, refugee flows, and improving the structures for the resolution of armed conflicts ;

3) Developing furher cooperation among non-governmental organizations for the protection and integration of refugees and migrants.

The Migration of Youth

Youth leave their country of birth to seek a better life and also to escape war, poverty, and misfortune. We should add to an analysis of trans-frontier youth migration a very large numbe of youth who leave their home villages to migrate toward cities within their own country. Without accurate informaion and analysis of both internal and trans-frontier migration of youth, it is difficult to develop appropiate policies for employment, housing, education and health care of young migrants and refugees. It is estimated that there are some 10 million refugee children, and most are not in school.

Studies have noted an increasing feminization of trans-frontier migration in which the female migrant moves abroad as a wage earner, especially as a domestic worker rather than as an accompannying family member. Migrant domestic workers are often exposed to abuse, exploitation and discrimination based on gender, ethnicity and occupation. Domestic workers are often underpaid, their working conditions poor and sometimes dangerous. Their bargaining power is severly limited. Thus, there is a need to develop legally enforeable contracts of employment, setting out minimum wages, maximum hours of work and responsibilities ;

The Association of World Citizens recommends that there be in the follow ups to the Summit, a special focus on youth, their needs as well as possibilities for positive actions by youth.

The strong link between migration, refugee flows, and improving the structures for the resolution of armed conflicts

The United Nations General Assembly which follows immediately the Migration-Refugee Summit is facing the need for action on a large number of armed conflicts in which Member States are involved. In some of these conflicts the United Nations has provided mediators ; in others, UN peace-keepes are present. In nearly all these armed conflicts, there have been internally-displaced persons as well as trans-frontier refugees. Therefore there is an urgent need to review the linkages between armed conflict and refugee flows. There needs to be a realistic examination as to why some of these armed conflicts have lasted as long as they have and why negotiations in good faith have not been undertaken or have not led to the resolution of these armed conflicts. Such reflections must aim at improvements of structures and procedures.

Developing further cooperation among non-governmental organizations for the protection and integration of refugees and migrants

We welcome the emphasis in the Summit Declaratin on the important role that non-governmental organizations play in providing direct services to refugees and migrants. NGOs also lobby government authorities on migration legislation and develop public awareness campaigns. The Summit has stressed the need to focus on future policies taking into account climate change and the growing globalization of trade, finance, and economic activities. Thus, there needs to be strong cooperation among the UN and its Agencies, national governments, and NGOs to deal more adequately with current challenges and to plan for the future. Inclusive structures for such cooperation are needed.

Rene Wadlow is the President of the Association of World Citizens, an international peace organization with consultative status with ECOSOC, the United Nations organ facilitating international cooperation on and problem-solving in economic and social issues.

24 September 2016

By Robert Fisk

What, the Saudis must be asking themselves, has happened to the fawning leaders who would normally grovel to the Kingdom?

The Saudis step deeper into trouble almost by the week. Swamped in their ridiculous war in Yemen, they are now reeling from an extraordinary statement issued by around two hundred Sunni Muslim clerics who effectively referred to the Wahhabi belief – practiced in Saudi Arabia – as “a dangerous deformation” of Sunni Islam. The prelates included Egypt’s Grand Imam, Ahmed el-Tayeb of al-Azhar, the most important centre of theological study in the Islamic world, who only a year ago attacked “corrupt interpretations” of religious texts and who has now signed up to “a return to the schools of great knowledge” outside Saudi Arabia.

This remarkable meeting took place in Grozny and was unaccountably ignored by almost every media in the world – except for the former senior associate at St Antony’s College, Sharmine Narwani, and Le Monde’s Benjamin Barthe – but it may prove to be even more dramatic than the terror of Syria’s civil war. For the statement, obviously approved by Vladimir Putin, is as close as Sunni clerics have got to excommunicating the Saudis.

Although they did not mention the Kingdom by name, the declaration was a stunning affront to a country which spends millions of dollars every year on thousands of Wahhabi mosques, schools and clerics around the world.

Wahhabism’s most dangerous deviation, in the eyes of the Sunnis who met in Chechenya, is that it sanctions violence against non-believers, including Muslims who reject Wahhabi interpretation. Isis, al-Qaeda and the Taliban are the principal foreign adherents to this creed outside Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

The Saudis, needless to say, repeatedly insist that they are against all terrorism. Their reaction to the Grozny declaration has been astonishing. “The world is getting ready to burn us,” Adil Al-Kalbani announced. And as Imam of the King Khaled Bin Abdulaziz mosque in the Saudi capital of Riyadh, he should know.

As Narwani points out, the bad news kept on coming. At the start of the five-day Hajj pilgrimage, the Lebanese daily al-Akhbar published online a database which it said came from the Saudi ministry of health, claiming that up 90,000 pilgrims from around the world have died visiting the Hajj capital of Mecca over a 14-year period. Although this figure is officially denied, it is believed in Shia Muslim Iran, which has lost hundreds of its citizens on the Hajj. Among them was Ghazanfar Roknabadi, a former ambassador and intelligence officer in Lebanon. Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, has just launched an unprecedented attack on the Saudis, accusing them of murder. “The heartless and murderous Saudis locked up the injured with the dead in containers…” he said in his own Hajj message.

A Saudi official said Khameni’s accusations reflected a “new low”. Abdulmohsen Alyas, the Saudi undersecretary for international communications, said they were “unfounded, but also timed to only serve their unethical failing propaganda”.

Yet the Iranians have boycotted the Hajj this year (not surprisingly, one might add) after claiming that they have not received Saudi assurances of basic security for pilgrims. According to Khamenei, Saudi rulers “have plunged the world of Islam into civil wars”.

However exaggerated his words, one thing is clear: for the first time, ever, the Saudis have been assaulted by both Sunni and Shia leaders at almost the same time.

The presence in Grozny of Grand Imam al-Tayeb of Egypt was particularly infuriating for the Saudis who have poured millions of dollars into the Egyptian economy since Brigadier-General-President al-Sissi staged his doleful military coup more than three years ago.

What, the Saudis must be asking themselves, has happened to the fawning leaders who would normally grovel to the Kingdom?

“In 2010, Saudi Arabia was crossing borders peacefully as a power-broker, working with Iran, Syria, Turkey, Qatar and others to troubleshoot in regional hotspots,” Narwani writes. “By 2016, it had buried two kings, shrugged off a measured approach to foreign policy, embraced ‘takfiri’ madness and emptied its coffers.” A “takfiri” is a Sunni who accuses another Muslim (or Christian or Jew) of apostasy.

Kuwait, Libya, Jordan and Sudan were present in Grozny, along with – you guessed it – Ahmed Hassoun, the grand mufti of Syria and a loyal Assad man. Intriguingly, Abu Dhabi played no official role, although its policy of “deradicalisation” is well known throughout the Arab world.

But there are close links between President (and dictator) Ramzan Kadyrov of Chechenya, the official host of the recent conference, and Mohamed Ben Zayed al-Nahyan, the Abu Dhabi Crown Prince. The conference itself was opened by Putin, which shows what he thinks of the Saudis – although, typically, none of the Sunni delegates asked him to stop bombing Syria. But since the very meeting occurred against the backcloth of Isis and its possible defeat, they wouldn’t, would they?

That Chechenya, a country of monstrous bloodletting by Russia and its own Wahhabi rebels, should have been chosen as a venue for such a remarkable conclave was an irony which could not have been lost on the delegates. But the real questions they were discussing must have been equally apparent.

Who are the real representatives of Sunni Muslims if the Saudis are to be shoved aside? And what is the future of Saudi Arabia? Of such questions are revolutions made.

Robert Fisk is the multi-award winning Middle East correspondent of The Independent, based in Beirut.

22 September 2016

By Rajmohan Gandhi

In some ways the game is over in Kashmir Valley. When someone like Tariq Ahmed Karra, one of the PDP founders, resigns from Parliament and party, citing “administratively inhuman and politically unethical blunders”, and likens the government’s repressive methods to those of the Nazis, it is time to realise that rejection of India seems complete in Kashmir.

A de facto plebiscite already seems to have taken place there. Kashmiris appear to have voted with untiring throats, with eyes destroyed or deformed by pellets, and with bodies willing to fall to the ground for what the heart desires. And the vote seems to be for azadi.

At the very least, alienation in Kashmir has reached a new depth. But a de facto plebiscite has also taken place in India, and the vote seems to be against yielding on India’s sovereignty over Kashmir. When leaders of left parties join the rest in insisting that “there can be no compromise” over sovereignty, the door to ambiguity appears closed. As far as Indians are concerned, it would seem that the Tricolour must always fly over Kashmir.

A de facto plebiscite already seems to have taken place there. Kashmiris appear to have voted with untiring throats, with eyes destroyed or deformed by pellets, and with bodies willing to fall to the ground for what the heart desires. And the vote seems to be for azadi. But a de facto plebiscite has also taken place in India, and the vote seems to be against yielding on India’s sovereignty over Kashmir. When leaders of left parties join the rest in insisting that “there can be no compromise” over sovereignty, the door to ambiguity appears closed.

The stalemate will probably continue. Some possibilities can be imagined. Kashmiris may tire. Weeks of closed schools and lost incomes may take their toll. The continuing incarceration of breadwinners may become harder each day to endure. Street demonstrations could peter out. And a new “hero” may emerge who is ready to impose Delhi’s will under a Kashmiri name and declare the return of “normalcy”.

But there is no sign that any return of “normalcy” will last. The probability is that alienation will be nursed quietly until circumstances allow for another round of open defiance. Is it possible that Kashmiris recognise the moral azadi they have won, declare victory and a pause, preserve their livelihoods as also their children’s education, and prepare fresh strategies? In such a case, they might add considerably to their gains.

And if, to the extent possible, Kashmiris conscious of their mental azadi take charge of their villages, localities and institutions — if in running their local institutions, and in protecting their land’s God­given yet greatly endangered environment, they display the solidarity they have shown in defying New Delhi — they would chip away at Indian resistance to their azadi. Is this asking too much of Kashmiris?

Across the Divide

Everyone knows that the number of Indians willing to admit openly that Kashmiris have not themselves chosen to belong to India has been small. But it is growing. Indian voices are finally recognising, perhaps to their shock, that to many Kashmiris, their compatriots ready to be killed for deeds of azadi are heroes in the same way in which Bhagat Singh, Chandra Shekhar Azad and Subhas Chandra Bose are heroes in India.

Very much smaller is the number of Indians willing to say that Kashmiris are entitled, if they so wish, to de jure azadi and a seat at the UN.

And the number of Indians who sincerely think that Kashmiris would lose out under formal azadi is quite large.

But there are other ways in which concerned Indians can help the people of Kashmir. And if at least 80 deaths at the hands of security forces, including of women and children, numerous blindings, a great many serious injuries, and more than 70 continuous shutdown days in the Valley are not enough to stir the Indian conscience, what will?

Concerned Indians can demand an immediate end of pellets as a means of crowd control. They can ask for a detailed, day­to­day updating of civilians and security personnel killed or injured in Kashmir. They can demand the oft-promised but seldom if ever implemented prosecution of military and para­military personnel involved in unwarranted use of lethal arms.

They can ask for at least a beginning of the oft­promoted exercise of demilitarising Kashmir valley. They can circulate as widely as possible reliable reports of nonviolent protests in Kashmir and of excesses in Kashmir by security forces.

And they can underline the folly and unconstitutionality of suppressing freedom of expression and communication, even when the words expressed go against popular or official opinion. As long as they do not commit violence, Kashmiris surely have the freedom, under Indian and international law, to criticise policies, and even to ask for azadi, and and to talk to one another about it. When it disables a population’s phone and internet communications, an administration not only broadcasts its unpopularity; it prevents the flow of discussion and debate that may ultimately lead to solutions. Such blocking measures moreover suggest that a people as a whole, and not merely law-breakers, are the targets of official distrust, a posture that once defined imperial rule. What must never be allowed is the blocking of communication between concerned Kashmiris and concerned Indians. Our economy is single, our lives are interdependent. Kashmiris study, trade and live in different corners of India. Provided it remains honest and mutually respectful, interaction between common people across the divide can only help.

The Article First Appeared In THE ECONOMIC TIMES
19 September 2016

By Martin Wolf

Trade liberalisation has stalled and one can see a steady rise in protectionist measures

Has the tide of globalisation turned? This is a vitally important question. The answer is closely connected to the state of the world economy and the west’s politics.

Migration raises quite specific issues. The era of globalisation was not accompanied by a general commitment to liberalising flows of people. So I will focus here on trade and capital flows. The evidence in these areas seems quite clear. Globalisation has reached a plateau and, in some areas, is in reverse.

An analysis from the Peterson Institute for International Economics argues that ratios of world trade to output have been flat since 2008, making this the longest period of such stagnation since the second world war. According to Global Trade Alert, even the volume of world trade stagnated between January 2015 and March 2016, though the world economy continued to grow. The stock of cross-border financial assets peaked at 57 per cent of global output in 2007, falling to 36 per cent by 2015. Finally, inflows of foreign direct investment have remained well below the 3.3 per cent of world output attained in 2007, though the stock continues to rise, albeit slowly, relative to output.

Thus, the impetus towards further economic integration has stalled and in some respects gone into reverse. Globalisation is no longer driving world growth. If this process is indeed coming to an end, or even going into reverse, it would not be the first time since the industrial revolution, in the early 19th century. Another period of globalisation, in an era of empires, occurred in the late 19th century. The first world war ended this and the Great Depression destroyed it. A principal focus of US economic and foreign policy after 1945 was to recreate the global economy, but this time among sovereign states and guided by international economic institutions. If Donald Trump, who has embraced protectionism and denigrated global institutions, were to be elected president in November, it would be a repudiation of a central thrust of postwar US policy.

Given the historical record and the current politics of trade, notably in the US, it is natural to ask whether the same could happen to the more recent era of globalisation. That requires us to understand the drivers.

Part of the reason for the slowdown is that many opportunities are, if not exhausted, radically diminished. When, for example, the production of essentially all labour-intensive manufactures has moved out of the rich countries, the growth of trade in such products must fall. Similarly, when the biggest investment boom in the history of the world, that in China, slows, so too must the demand for many commodities. That will affect both their prices and their quantities. Again, the end of once-in-a-lifetime global credit boom is sure to lead to a decline in the cross-border holdings of financial assets. Finally, after decades of FDI, a host of companies with something to gain from it will have taken their opportunity and succeeded or, in important cases, failed.

Yet this is not all there is to this story. Trade liberalisation has stalled and one can see a steady rise in protectionist measures. The financial crisis brought with it regulatory measures, many of which are bound to slow cross-border financial flows. The rise of xenophobic sentiment and the slowdown in trade are both likely to reduce the growth of FDI. In brief, policy is less supportive.

The politics are becoming even less so. Again, the US is the central part of the story. Mr Trump is much the most protectionist candidate for US president since the 1930s. But, revealingly, Hillary Clinton, an architect of the US “pivot to Asia” has turned against the Trans-Pacific Partnership of which she was once a keen supporter. The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, being negotiated between the US and the EU, is now in deep trouble. The Doha round of multilateral trade negotiations is moribund. Above all, important segments of the western public no longer believe increased trade benefits them. Evidence on relative real incomes and adjustment to rising imports provides some support for such scepticism.

Globalisation has at best stalled. Could it even go into reverse? Yes. It requires peace among the great powers. Some would also argue it requires a hegemonic power: the UK before 1914 and the US after 1945. At a time of poor economic performance in leading high-income countries, rising inequality and big shifts in the balance of global power, another collapse must be a possibility. Consider the impact of any fighting between the US and China over the South China Sea, though such a calamity would be terrifying for far more than its narrow economic effects.

Does globalisation’s stalling matter? Yes. The era of globalisation has seen the first fall in global inequality of household incomes since the early 19th century. Between 1980 and 2015, average global real income rose by 120 per cent. The opportunities afforded by globalisation are vital. Our future cannot lie in closing ourselves off from one another.

The failure — a profound one — lies in not ensuring that gains were more equally shared, notably within high-income economies. Equally dismal was the failure to cushion those adversely affected. But we cannot stop economic change. Moreover, the impact on jobs and wages of rising productivity and new technologies has far exceeded that of rising imports. Globalisation must not be made a scapegoat for all our ills.

Yet it has now stalled, as have the policies driving it. It might reverse. Yet even a stalling would slow economic progress and reduce opportunities for the world’s poor. Pushing globalisation forward requires different domestic and external policies from those of the past. Globalisation’s future depends on better management. Will that happen? Alas, I am not optimistic.

martin.wolf@ft.com

Time to take our fingers out of our ears on trade / From Richard Stead

20 September 2016

By Gideon Rachman

Rodrigo Duterte, the president of the Philippines, caused shock and sniggers around the world when he called Barack Obama the “son of a whore”. But the Duterte comment that will have really hurt the White House came a few days later. Announcing that he was ending joint naval patrols with the US in the South China Sea, the Philippines’ president stated: “China is now in power and they have military superiority in the region.”

That statement will sting in Washington. Throughout the Obama years, the US has attempted to reassure all its Asian allies that America has both the means and the will to remain the dominant military power in the Asia-Pacific region. President Obama set the tone in a landmark speech in 2011, when he firmly asserted that “the United States is a Pacific power and we are here to stay”. Since then America has transferred more of its navy to the region and Mr Obama has regularly made the long journey from Washington to East Asia.

But Mr Duterte has now directly challenged the idea that America is still the hegemon in the Pacific. If others take his view, power could drain away from Washington, as more countries in the region begin to defer to Beijing.

The Philippines’ president’s assessment of the military balance between the US and China is questionable. The Americans currently have 11 aircraft-carriers, while China has one — with another on the way. But Chinese military spending has been rising fast for decades. And Beijing has also invested in the kinds of equipment, including missiles and submarines, that potentially make America’s aircraft carriers very vulnerable.

Over the past year, China’s new confidence has been reflected in its programme of “island building” in the South China Sea, designed to reinforce Beijing’s controversial claim that roughly 90 per cent of that sea falls within its territorial waters. The Americans have been unable to stop this clear assertion of Chinese power and have restricted themselves to sailing past the disputed and increasingly militarised “islands” to signal that they do not accept China’s claims.

The importance that the US attaches to the South China Sea has been repeatedly emphasised by the Obama administration. In an article on “America’s Pacific century”, published in 2011, Hillary Clinton pointed out that “half the world’s merchant tonnage flows through this water”. The US fears that Beijing intends to turn these crucial waters into a “Chinese lake”.

The Americans have long insisted, reasonably enough, that their position on the South China Sea is about upholding international law rather than engaging in a power struggle with China. The Philippines has been vital to this law-based strategy. In July, Manila won an international legal challenge toBeijing’s claims over the South China Sea, a ruling that was widely seen as a major setback to China’s ambitions. Yet it is rather hard for America to defend the legal rights of the Philippines, when Mr Duterte curses Mr Obama in public and then curtails joint naval patrols.

The US does have other partners in the region. Last week Japan announced that it will carry out naval patrols with the US in the South China Sea. But a partnership with Tokyo, which is locked in a bitter rivalry with Beijing, makes the maritime issue look more like a power struggle with China, rather than a question of international law, particularly since the Russians and Chinese have just completed their own joint exercises in the South China Sea. Under the circumstances, many Southeast Asian countries will be tempted to stand to one side rather than risk being caught up in a clash of regional titans.

The sense that America’s “pivot” to Asia is in trouble is compounded by the growing doubts about the fate of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a trade deal promoted by the US.

The TPP brings together 12 nations, including Japan and the US, but excludes China. The deal is widely seen as a counter to China’s growing economic dominance in the Asia-Pacific region.

Pleading the case for the TPP before the US Congress, Shinzo Abe, Japan’s prime minister, argued: “Long term its strategic value is awesome.”

But the entreaties of Mr Abe and Mr Obama seem unlikely to save the TPP. Donald Trump and Mrs Clinton, the two main candidates for the US presidency, have come out against the deal. Mr Obama may still try to force it through Congress before he leaves office. But the chances of the TPP surviving the current climate of protectionism in America seem small.

If the US fails to pass the TPP, America’s Asian allies will feel badly let down. They have risked antagonising Beijing by signing up to a US-led initiative. Now Washington may jilt them at the altar. On a recent visit to the US capital, Lee Hsien Loong, the Singaporean prime minister, called the TPP a “litmus test of (American) credibility and seriousness of purpose” in Asia. He pointed out that the implications go well beyond trade, extending to the credibility of America’s security guarantees to its Asian allies.

Unfortunately, long-term strategic thinking is almost impossible in the current maelstrom of American politics. As a result, President Obama faces the sad prospect of leaving office with his signature foreign-policy initiative — the pivot to Asia — sinking beneath the Pacific waves.

gideon.rachman@ft.com

20 September 2016

By Mohamad Javad Zarif

Tehran — Public relations firms with no qualms about taking tainted petrodollars are experiencing a bonanza. Their latest project has been to persuade us that the Nusra Front, Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, is no more. As a Nusra spokesman told CNN, the rebranded rebel group, supposedly separated from its parent terrorist organization, has become “moderate.”

Thus is fanaticism from the Dark Ages sold as a bright vision for the 21st century. The problem for the P.R. firms’ wealthy, often Saudi, clients, who have lavishly funded Nusra, is that the evidence of their ruinous policies can’t be photoshopped out of existence. If anyone had any doubt, the recent video images of other “moderates” beheading a 12-year-old boy were a horrifying reality check.

Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, militant Wahhabism has undergone a series of face-lifts, but underneath, the ideology remains the same — whether it’s the Taliban, the various incarnations of Al Qaeda or the so-called Islamic State, which is neither Islamic nor a state. But the millions of people faced with the Nusra Front’s tyranny are not buying the fiction of this disaffiliation. Past experience of such attempts at whitewashing points to the real aim: to enable the covert flow of petrodollars to extremist groups in Syria to become overt, and even to lure Western governments into supporting these “moderates.” The fact that Nusra still dominates the rebel alliance in Aleppo flouts the public relations message.

Saudi Arabia’s effort to persuade its Western patrons to back its shortsighted tactics is based on the false premise that plunging the Arab world into further chaos will somehow damage Iran. The fanciful notions that regional instability will help to “contain” Iran, and that supposed rivalries between Sunni and Shiite Muslims are fueling conflicts, are contradicted by the reality that the worst bloodshed in the region is caused by Wahhabists fighting fellow Arabs and murdering fellow Sunnis.

While these extremists, with the backing of their wealthy sponsors, have targeted Christians, Jews, Yazidis, Shiites and other “heretics,” it is their fellow Sunni Arabs who have been most beleaguered by this exported doctrine of hate. Indeed, it is not the supposed ancient sectarian conflict between Sunnis and Shiites but the contest between Wahhabism and mainstream Islam that will have the most profound consequences for the region and beyond.

While the 2003 American-led invasion of Iraq set in motion the fighting we see today, the key driver of violence has been this extremist ideology promoted by Saudi Arabia — even if it was invisible to Western eyes until the tragedy of 9/11.

The princes in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, have been desperate to revive the regional status quo of the days of Saddam Hussein’s rule in Iraq, when a surrogate repressive despot, eliciting wealth and material support from fellow Arabs and a gullible West, countered the so-called Iranian threat. There is only one problem: Mr. Hussein is long dead, and the clock cannot be turned back.

The sooner Saudi Arabia’s rulers come to terms with this, the better for all. The new realities in our region can accommodate even Riyadh, should the Saudis choose to change their ways.

What would change mean? Over the past three decades, Riyadh has spent tens of billions of dollars exporting Wahhabism through thousands of mosques and madrasas across the world. From Asia to Africa, from Europe to the Americas, this theological perversion has wrought havoc. As one former extremist in Kosovo told The Times, “The Saudis completely changed Islam here with their money.”

Though it has attracted only a minute proportion of Muslims, Wahhabism has been devastating in its impact. Virtually every terrorist group abusing the name of Islam — from Al Qaeda and its offshoots in Syria to Boko Haram in Nigeria — has been inspired by this death cult.

So far, the Saudis have succeeded in inducing their allies to go along with their folly, whether in Syria or Yemen, by playing the “Iran card.” That will surely change, as the realization grows that Riyadh’s persistent sponsorship of extremism repudiates its claim to be a force for stability.

The world cannot afford to sit by and witness Wahhabists targeting not only Christians, Jews and Shiites but also Sunnis. With a large section of the Middle East in turmoil, there is a grave danger that the few remaining pockets of stability will be undermined by this clash of Wahhabism and mainstream Sunni Islam.

There needs to be coordinated action at the United Nations to cut off the funding for ideologies of hate and extremism, and a willingness from the international community to investigate the channels that supply the cash and the arms. In 2013, Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, proposed an initiative called World Against Violent Extremism, or WAVE. The United Nations should build on that framework to foster greater dialogue between religions and sects to counter this dangerous medieval fanaticism.

The attacks in Nice, Paris and Brussels should convince the West that the toxic threat of Wahhabism cannot be ignored. After a year of almost weekly tragic news, the international community needs to do more than express outrage, sorrow and condolences; concrete action against extremism is needed.

Though much of the violence committed in the name of Islam can be traced to Wahhabism, I by no means suggest that Saudi Arabia cannot be part of the solution. Quite the reverse: We invite Saudi rulers to put aside the rhetoric of blame and fear, and join hands with the rest of the community of nations to eliminate the scourge of terrorism and violence that threatens us all.

Mohammad Javad Zarif is the foreign minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

13 September 2016

By Andre Vltchek

In Europe, oppression is never really called by its true ugly name. It is constantly concealed by lofty slogans such as culture, even tolerance. Repression, discrimination and harassment are administered in order for the ‘entire society to be free’.

Or so at least the official narrative goes.

In France, recent and ugly row overso-called burkinis, a swimsuit used by many Muslim women all over the world, has demonstrated how little tolerance there really is in today’s Europe for other cultures and for different ways of life.

Recently, France’s highest administrative court has ruled that “burkini bans” being enforced on the country’s beaches are illegal and a violation of fundamental liberties. Still, more than 90 percent of French people are supporting the ban, which is thoroughly illogical and philosophically as well as ethically indefensible.
What is suddenly so shocking about a woman wearing a wetsuit on some French beach? And let’s face it:burkinisare nothing else but a wetsuit, which is commonly used on countless beaches of California, Australia, and Europe, in fact all over the world, by surfers and other water sport enthusiasts.

Just compare these images and these. Can you really tell much of a difference?

According to Wikipedia, a wetsuit is:

“…A garment, usually made of foamed neoprene, which is worn by surfers, divers, windsurfers, canoeists, and others engaged in water sports, providing thermal insulation, abrasion resistance and buoyancy.”

If courts manage to resurrect the ban (and actually some municipalities have already declared that they will uphold it no matter what), are the French police going to interrogate women on public beaches, while trying to determine whether they are wearing these plastic garments simply because they are planning to go surfing, or because of their religious beliefs? Would the first reason be allowed, while the other one forbidden?

Are we heading towards an era when people will be forced to confess to the authorities, why they are choosing to cover their bellies and shoulders? And is this going to re-define the meaning of ‘freedom’?
Who would be free to cover and who would not? Would the French state be permitted to decide what is the legitimate menace from which a woman should be allowed to protect herself from?

For instance, would the cold be ok? Imagine Paris, in January or February;100 degrees Celsius below zero… Most of the women you pass on the streets (Christian, Muslim and atheist) are “fully covered”, aren’t they? What can you see of them? Nothing, almost nothing! Their entire bodies are covered; their heads are covered, even their feet and hands are covered (unlike the hands and feet of women wearing burkinis). You travel to Grenoble in the winter, and the chances are that women will even be covering their faces with scarves. You know why, right? Because they are cold! Is this reasonOK, or should the French authorities demand that they expose their bellybuttons or shoulders or legs, in order to prove how “European”, how “French” they are?

Fine, so covering yourself up from the cold is most likely admissible; it is not ‘un-European’.

But what about the heat; is it OK to protect yourself from sun? In almost the entire Southeast Asia, but also in some parts of Latin America and the Sub-Continent, women want to be as white as possible. Unlike Western women, they hate suntan. I used to live in Vietnam and in Indonesia, as well as in many parts of Latin America, so I know… In the summer in Hanoi, you spot those (mainly secular, I emphasize it here!) elegant ladies on designer scooters, covered from head to toe: their feet are covered; they wear gloves, long dresses (áodài) or pants, most likely a helmet and underneath one more layer of headwear, plus sun glasses. Sometimes their mouth and nose is ‘protected’ by some fabric as well. While French women are fighting against the cold during the cold winters, hundreds of millions of women all over the world are covering themselves up because they are fighting against the sun. Could that be tolerated in France? Or is it unacceptable; just more evidenceof how badly foreigners are ‘integrating’?

But back to the beach… Would wetsuits or burkinis or whatever they are called by,be out-rightly banned, or only when a woman decides to go into the water? And as we know, when we go diving, we all, men and women, have to ‘cover ourselves up’ fully. So even if a woman would not be allowed to enter the water unless she exposes herself, could she still be covered if she would intend to go diving, surfing, or kayaking? Would there be some‘benevolent set of exceptions’?

And one more question: ‘If all women were to be required to expose themselves (by the new French law), then how much has to be actually shown?’ Could 60% of their skin be covered, or would only 40% be tolerated? Is there going to be some new and precise measuring device supplied to the police, calculating whether the law hasactually been broken?

And what about the punishment? Should women be fined? Should they be arrested, or even deported? Should they be forced to show their legs? Should police simply kick them out of the beaches? I really want to know.

Does it all sound absurd? But of course! But sadly, it is also real. To ban or not to ban burkini is one of the most passionately debated topics in Europe today!
That Europe is a ‘beacon of freedom’ is something that only Europeans (and far from all of them) truly believe. While anti-immigrant bigots are protesting against those relatively few migrants arriving at the EU doors every year, Europe annually literally regurgitates millions of its citizens, those who cannot stand living in what they see as a sad, oppressive and deteriorating continent. Legal and illegal European migrants are heading for North and South America, for Southeast Asia, China, even Sub-Continent and parts of Africa. Annually, they are entering millions of arranged marriages in order to secure local residency permits; others are crisscrossing Asia during their ‘visa runs’.

Many of the European migrants living abroad are very far from being ‘culturally sensitive’.Those who have plenty of money are buying off entire coastal areas of Asia and Africa. Entire nations like Thailand, Cambodia or Kenya are getting culturally ruined.

It is hardly ever debated in Europe:what is actually more damaging to local cultures – thoseMuslim women covering their bodies and hair on the streets and the beaches of Europe, or those literally millions of European potbellied, drunk,and half naked men in their sixties and seventies, promenading themselves publicly with their local teen female or male ‘acquisitions’ all over the Asian and African cities, villages and beaches?

And what about the European women, with their exposed breasts, wearing hardly detectable bikinis on the beaches of the once conservative Muslim communities of Indonesian Lombok or Southern Thailand?

I hate to write about this topic fleetingly, in such a short essay. I have lived, for many years, in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East. The destruction of local cultures and entire communities by European migrants amounts toan extremely disturbing and painful topic, worthy of in-depth analyses. I mainly address these issues in my novels.

But this absurd anti-burkini outburst in France suddenly forced me to react, as it is thoroughly one-sided and hypocritical.
My ability to cope with today’s Europe is quickly evaporating. I still go there, perhaps 4 times a year, to meet my translators and publishers, to show my films, to give a speech here and there, or to see my mother who married a German around a quarter of century ago. I plan to stay for a week, but mostly I escape after 2-3 days.

The continent rubs me up the wrong way. I feel terribly un-free there. I’mforced to eat lunches and dinners at particular designated hours (as if Europe does not have tens of millions of doctors, pilots, writers, sex workers, firefighters, train operators and others who are on totally different schedules). In September I cannot buy a windbreaker that I forgot to pack, as only clothes for cold weather are now available in all department stores. I stopped renting cars in Europe, as even passing the speed limits by 5km/h kept getting me endless (electronically processed) fines. Unlike in China or in Cuba, I am not allowed to film or photograph at European train stations or at some ‘sensitive areas’. I was even stopped and chased away when I filmed the ice skating ring in front of the Municipality building in Paris! Surveillance cameras keep watching me from almost every corner, and the mainstream media feels ridiculously censored and submissive to the regime.A few months ago, when I travelled from Lebanon to Germany on Air France via Paris, both my suitcases were cut open by a saw, and then delivered to the final destination in plastic bags. “For security reasons they were ‘checked’ at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, as your bags were travelling from the Middle East,” I was told.

Of course I have a choice to stay for a while or to leave. And mostly, I leave. I frankly dislike 21st Century Europe, so why should I stay for longer than is necessary.

But many foreigners do not have this luxury. Their countries were raped, plundered and destabilized by the West, by NATO, by the US and by Europe. They are trying to survive, somehow. Surprisingly, only very few come to Europe! Very, very few compared to the millions of Europeans who are annually shutting the door behind their backs and leaving – leaving permanently, for distant shores.

Other ‘foreigners’ were born in Europe, but were never accepted. Were they to be born in Brazil or modern day South Africa, no one would even blink. They are Muslims, so what? They want to cover themselves on the public beaches? Well, it is hot and unusual, but illegal! How could it be illegal?

Europe is not at peace with itself. It robbed all over the world, it became rich because of colonialist and neo-colonialist plunder, but there is no joy behind its walls. Whenever I speak to Greeks, French, Germans, Italians, Czechs or Danes, I clearly feel it. Most Europeans do realize that their continent is in decline.

When one does not like his or her home, why not to re-think its concept, and rebuild it? Why not bring in totally new, even foreign ideas? Why stick to what makes it so oppressive?

But again, European ‘logic’ is quite different! The more dissatisfied people become, the more conservative and inward looking they get. Foreigners irritate them, or they even horrify and infuriate them. Unless they totally ‘adopt’ (abandon their culture), the majority of Europeans want them out.

In reality, Muslim women wearing burkinis is not about burkinis at all. At the beginning of this essay, we already illustrated how absurd the anti-burkini laws and regulations really are.

It is about something else. It is about the globally disliked culture of colonialist oppression and exceptionalism, flexing its muscles once again, at home and abroad. It is actually much more terrible than it looks. The movement to ban burkinis has its roots in a horrible past, when entire nations and cultures were annihilated by European barbaric expansionism.

So read between the lines:

“You can wear any wet suit, but not a burkini. It is exactly the same thing, but the wetsuit is our own invention (and therefore it is right), while the ‘burkini’ was designed by and for ‘the others’ (therefore it is clearly wrong). Remember, only our definitions are allowed on this Planet.

We are not religious or cultural fundamentalists (because only ‘the others’ can be), but we will protect our right and freedom to tell the world what can be believed, thought or even worn. Amen!”

This is the iron, unapologetic logic of the imperialism.

Therefore, poor burkinis should be defended! Let’s all buy them, even us, men. After all, when you look at those old black and white photos depicting European swimming pools and beaches, many dudes were wearing almost identical all-covering stuff, and so were the women. Just see it here!
Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. His latest books are: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire” and “Fighting Against Western Imperialism”. Discussion with Noam Chomsky:On Western Terrorism. Point of No Return is his critically acclaimed political novel. Oceania – a book on Western imperialism in the South Pacific. His provocative book about Indonesia: “Indonesia – The Archipelago of Fear”. Andre is making films for teleSUR and Press TV. After living for many years in Latin America and Oceania, Vltchek presently resides and works in East Asia and the Middle East. He can be reached through his website or his Twitter.

 

(First published by NEO (New Eastern Outlook)

19 September 2016