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30 Jan 2011

On Sunday 30 January Rashid Al-Ghannouchi, the 69 year old leader of the Tunisian Islamic movement, returned home after a long exile in London. The international media has interpreted Al-Ghannouchi’s return as the most potent symbol yet of the dramatic changes that have taken place in Tunisia in recent weeks.

Al-Ghannouchi is widely regarded to represent the most liberal and progressive strand in Arab Islamist politics. Born in 1941 in Qabis province (southern Tunisia) he received higher education in Cairo, Damascus and the Sorbonne in Paris. In 1981 Al-Ghannouchi founded the Al-Ittijah al-Islami (Islamic Tendency) which was renamed Hizb al-Nahda (aka Hizb Ennahda) or the Renaissance Party in 1989.

Al-Ghannouchi has been at the forefront to resistance against authoritarian regimes in Tunisia from the early 1980s. His return to Tunisia looks set to bring about important changes not only in his native country but North Africa more broadly and perhaps even further afield. Coupled with wider developments in the region (notably the unrest in Egypt) it may mark the point at which Islamists are gradually allowed to fully participate in the politics and governance of North African states.

Mahan Abedin conducted this interview in London on Thursday 27 January 2011.

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Mahan Abedin – Were you surprised by the speed of the apparent revolution in Tunisia?

Rashid Al-Ghannouchi – I expected a revolution to occur in Tunisia, but not of the speed that we witnessed.

Mahan Abedin – You were expecting change for a long time?

Rashid Al-Ghannouchi – There have been uprisings in parts of Tunisia in the past two to three years, especially in Gafsa and Ben Gardan in the south. Several months ago I wrote on Al-Jazeera net that this chain of dissent will eventually cohere and erupt in the capital city. I have argued for a long time that the Tunisian regime can’t reform from within; it has to be changed from without.

Mahan Abedin – On that note, it appears that the old guard is pulling out all the stops to cling to power. Are we witnessing a true revolutionary moment or a carefully managed and contrived change?

Rashid Al-Ghannouchi – It is a revolutionary moment. When you talk to people in Tunisia you feel that a real revolution has occurred. The people are ready to sacrifice their lives to safeguard the achievements of recent weeks. The people want to see an end to all the symbols of the RCD [Constitutional Democratic Rally] party and the former regime.

Mahan Abedin – Given the complex dynamics at play – for example the role of the army and the security forces and the external dimension namely the desire by the Western powers to contrive reforms under the existing regime rather than risk the emergence of a new system – are you hopeful that meaningful change can come as quickly as you would wish?

Rashid Al-Ghannouchi – The Tunisian street can’t be appeased with small and half-hearted gestures. The Tunisian street is active and is keeping the elites under intense pressure. Until now the Tunisian elites have failed to reflect the people’s will, namely to construct a democratic regime without the RCD apparatus. Another problem is that the international order has intervened on behalf of continuity in Tunisia. They want to change the appearance of the regime and not its essence.

Mahan Abedin – What is your personal situation; have you been granted an amnesty to return?

Rashid Al-Ghannouchi – Yesterday [Wednesday 26 January] I went to the Tunisian Embassy in London to collect my passport. For 22 years I have been protesting outside the Tunisian Embassy, it was only yesterday that I was allowed inside. The people in charge of the embassy received us warmly but in the evening they phoned my son to say that my amnesty hasn’t been approved. They said that if I go back to Tunisia I’ll be doing so at my own risk.

Mahan Abedin – You haven’t visited Tunisia for 22 years?

Rashid Al-Ghannouchi – Yes.

Mahan Abedin – The fact that they are implying that you may be arrested upon your return indicates that the old security clique is still powerful, don’t you agree?

Rashid Al-Ghannouchi – I don’t think they will arrest me. They are very weak and need legitimacy from the people. It is the people who are on the offensive. Even if they do arrest me it won’t advance their cause.

Mahan Abedin – Why haven’t you gone back already?

Rashid Al-Ghannouchi – I have been obliged to go into exile by the dictatorial regimes. Now that the regime in Tunisia has collapsed or is on the verge of collapsing I am going back.

Mahan Abedin – Are you making preparations to go back?

Rashid Al-Ghannouchi – I am going back on Sunday [30 January]. My flight leaves at 8.30 in the morning.

Mahan Abedin – Why haven’t Islamists played a prominent role in the street protests? The people on the streets appeared to be of the trendy variety; left-wing beards and fancy veils dominated the scenes.

Rashid Al-Ghannouchi – Islamists can be trendy too! The Tunisian Islamists are different to Islamists in other parts of the Arab world. They have been fiercely harassed and repressed for decades and as a consequence they are reluctant to show themselves or to adopt an Islamist appearance. For the past 22 years they have kept their Islamic identity in their hearts as opposed to wearing it on their sleeves in the form of headscarves and beards.

Mahan Abedin – On a more serious note, you are adamant that Islamists played a leading role in the street protests that forced Zine El Abidine Ben Ali from power?

Rashid Al-Ghannouchi – No one can pretend that this revolution has been led by Islamists or Communists or any other group for that matter. This is a popular revolution and all the trends in Tunisian political society are present on the scene. At the same time it is clear that the Islamists are the biggest political force in Tunisia. The former regime suppressed all groups and in this transitional period all the groups are concentrating on rebuilding themselves.

Mahan Abedin – You are widely regarded as a reformist in the international Islamist current. In your interview with Al-Jazeera on 22 January you appeared to categorically reject the Islamic Caliphate in favour of democracy. Is this the culmination of your reformist Islamist thought?

Rashid Al-Ghannouchi – This is the authentic and realistic position. The notion of Khilafah (Caliphate) is not a religious one as some groups claim. It reflects a period of time.

Mahan Abedin – Is your embrace of democracy strategic or tactical?

Rashid Al-Ghannouchi – It is strategic. Democracy is crucial to dealing with and reconciling different and even conflicting interests in society. Islam has a strong democratic spirit inasmuch as it respects religious, social and political differences. Islam has never favoured a monolithic state. Throughout their history Muslims have objected to the imposition of a single all-powerful interpretation of Islam. Any attempt to impose a single interpretation has always proven inherently unstable and temporary.

Mahan Abedin – Of late Islamism has been more focussed on moral issues and identity politics, as opposed to taking concrete steps towards securing social justice. I refer to staple social justice demands, like affordable housing, cheap food and job security. Is Al-Nahda in a position to address these issues both at a theoretical and practical level?

Rashid Al-Ghannouchi – The origin of most Nahdawis [supporters of Al-Nahda] is in the rural areas of Tunisia. We understand social justice very well.

Mahan Abedin – You used to have a left-wing outlook and rhetoric in your earlier days, especially the 1970s and early 1980s. Is that still the case?

Rashid Al-Ghannouchi – In my youth I was a Nasserist. Islam is against injustice and the monopoly of wealth and resources. The notion of Brotherhood in Islam has profound socio-economic implications in so far as it points to the equitable distribution of economic resources. In the economic sphere Islam is closer to the left-wing outlook, without violating the right to private property. The Scandinavian socio-economic model is closest to the Islamic vision.

Mahan Abedin with Rashid Al-Ghannoushi during the interview conducted in London on 27 january 2011.

Mahan Abedin – Is there any tension between the internal wing of Al-Nahda and the exiled leadership?

Rashid Al-Ghannouchi – No. There are differences of views but you can’t describe it as a clash between those inside and those outside the country.

Mahan Abedin – What is your current position in this movement?

Rashid Al-Ghannouchi – At the Al-Nahda conference of 2001 I was elected by a majority of 53% of the delegates. At the last conference in 2007 I was elected to the position of President of Al-Nahda by a majority of 63% of the delegates. Back in 2007 I declared that this would be the last time I stand for the leadership of the movement.

Mahan Abedin – What is Al-Nahda’s vision for the future of Tunisia?

Rashid Al-Ghannouchi – Tunisia needs a coalition government. No single group can rule on its own. The former regime destroyed or severely undermined the organisational capacity of all political groups and we all need time to rebuild our strength.

Mahan Abedin – That is the short-term scenario but in terms of the long-term what is your vision for the country? Do you envisage Western-style Liberal Democracy or a more indigenous form of democracy?

Rashid Al-Ghannouchi – The best model I can think of is the one adopted by the [ruling] AKP [Justice and Development Party] in Turkey.

Mahan Abedin – From a constitutional point of view, do you aspire to a Presidential system or a Parliamentary one?

Rashid Al-Ghannouchi – Tunisia needs a Parliamentary system where power is more directly invested in the people. A Presidential system risks inviting authoritarianism as occurred under Bourghiba and Ben Ali. We need a system that distributes power across the country at all levels.

Mahan Abedin – How do you position Al-Nahda in the wider global Islamist experience?

Rashid Al-Ghannouchi- Al-Nahda represents the mainstream of the Islamic movement in so far as we struggle to overcome a range of religious, ideological, political and institutional obstacles to bring about democracy to the Muslim world. The movement is at the forefront of this trend not only in the Arab world but also in the broader Muslim world. An-Nahda has devoted a lot of effort to developing Islamic political theory. We stand for Islamic democratic thought, Islamic democracy if you will.

Mahan Abedin – In that case you are an ideological ally of religious intellectuals like the former Iranian President Seyed Mohammad Khatami who expended a lot of effort to popularise the theme of Islamic democracy at the highest level of international politics.

Rashid Al-Ghannouchi – Yes I belong to that trend but unlike Khatami I don’t believe in Velayat-e-Faqih [Rule of the Jurisconsult].

Mahan Abedin – Islamic Democracy sounds appealing in theory but the trouble is we don’t know what it looks like in practice. Let’s focus on one important aspect of political theory, namely the perennial quest for social justice. Traditionally Islamists have understood social justice in a narrow sense as a form of charity and not in a deep and contextual sense that takes into account all the prevailing dimensions and dynamics. Do you envisage Al-Nahda and other Islamists making a historic breakthrough in this field?

Rashid Al-Ghannouchi – Al-Nahda hasn’t had the opportunity to develop and explain its views. Since 1981 the movement has struggled to survive in the face of fierce repression. Nevertheless, if you review our literature from the past three decades you’ll notice that the topic of social justice comes up again and again. We have worked closely with the trade unions in Tunisia even though these bodies were under strong secular left-wing influence, especially in the 1970s and 1980s. By working with the trade unions we realised how close our views on social justice were to theirs. It was amid this process of interaction that we came to the conclusion that Islam – at least in the public sphere – is synonymous with justice and the quest for justice. Consequently we encouraged our people to join the trade unions.

Mahan Abedin – You mentioned the Turkish AKP example earlier. What has been the impact of the AKP experience on Islamists worldwide, but particularly in the Arab world?

Rashid Al-Ghannouch – I believe my thoughts have influenced the AKP. My books and articles have been widely translated into Turkish. A few months ago when I visited Istanbul I was approached by many people on the streets, so much so that I joked why should I go back to Tunisia when I can start a political campaign here! The successful AKP experience has influenced Islamists everywhere. The other examples of Islamists in power, for example in Iran, Afghanistan and Sudan, are not associated with success.

Mahan Abedin – On that note, what is your critique of the Muslim Brotherhood?

Rashid Al-Ghannouchi – The Muslim Brotherhood is a very big body and it is not easy to change or develop such big organisations, especially when they are assailed and oppressed by repressive regimes. Nevertheless, the Brotherhood has undertaken reform; they have accepted the multi-party system and they play a pivotal role in the trade unions. These days their leaders emerge from inside the trade union movement not from the Al-Azhar [Seminary]. This is very important.

However, the Muslim Brother’s last party programme contained some points which I openly criticised. For example, I criticised their statement that Copts and women should be barred from running for the presidency. I also criticised their idea that a body of Ulama should oversee the parliament. But after the attack on the Coptic Church in Cairo the Secretary-General of the Muslim Brotherhood, Ibrahim Mounir, agreed to review the Brotherhood’s policy towards the Copts. It appears that the Muslim Brotherhood now accepts the notion of citizenship as the basis of running all political affairs, including election to the highest office.

Mahan Abedin – Are you worried by the rise of apolitical and regime-sponsored Salafism in Tunisia and further afield?

Rashid Al-Ghannouchi – There are many categories of Salafis, some of whom are in the service of the dictatorship regimes. They would like to be on friendly terms with all the regimes, even the overthrown regime of Ben Ali. These groups are exploited by sections of the Mukhaberat [intelligence services].

Mahan Abedin – Are you worried by this trend?

Rashid Al-Ghannouchi – No. This trend has no popularity because they are aligned with the regimes. The Muslim and Arab peoples are in revolt against these regimes. The only category of Salafism which may have a social base is Jihadi Salafism. The Jihadi Salafis’ relative popularity is based on their opposition to the ruling regimes. There isn’t necessarily a popular base for their views on religion and politics.

Mahan Abedin – Do you envisage the Tunisian example sweeping across the proverbial Arab street?

Rashid Al-Ghannouchi – The Arab regimes face implosion from within and change from without. This isn’t necessarily a consequence of the Tunisian Revolution but a natural outgrowth of decades of oppression and misrule. There is a similar set of socio-economic and political conditions in all the Arab countries and the dynamic of change appears unstoppable.

Mahan Abedin – On that note, what are the key political lessons of the Tunisian Revolution for Islamists?

Rashid Al-Ghannouchi – The main lesson is that Islamists have to work with others. They should totally abandon the view that they can rule on their own. Furthermore, Islamists should relinquish the ambition to monopolise Islam and appear as the only voice of Islam.

Mahan Abedin – But does your view resonate in situations where Islamists have come into armed confrontation with the ruling regimes thus triggering a vicious cycle of polarisation, radicalisation and repression? I refer specifically to neighbouring Algeria.

Rashid Al-Ghannouchi – Even in Algeria Islamists are increasingly coming to the conclusion that violence isn’t the answer. Violence entrenches the security state and dims the prospect for the type of reforms envisaged by Islamists.

Mahan Abedin is an academic and journalist specialising in Islamic affairs.

 

 

 

 

www.truth-out.org

 

| Saturday 29 January 2011

In the last year of his life, Martin Luther King Jr. questioned US military interventions against progressive movements in the Third World by invoking a JFK quote: “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”

Were he alive to witness the last three decades of US foreign policy, King might update that quote by noting: “Those who make secular revolution impossible will make extreme Islamist revolution inevitable.”

For decades beginning during the Cold War, US policy in the Islamic world has been aimed at suppressing secular reformist and leftist movements. Beginning with the CIA-engineered coup against a secular democratic reform government in Iran in 1953 (it was about oil), Washington has propped up dictators, coaching these regimes in the black arts of torture and mayhem against secular liberals and the left.

In these dictatorships, often the only places where people had freedom to meet and organize were mosques – and out of these mosques sometimes grew extreme Islamist movements. The Shah’s torture state in Iran was brilliant at cleansing and murdering the left – a process that helped the rise of the Khomeini movement and ultimately Iran’s Islamic Republic.

In a pattern growing out of what King called Washington’s “irrational, obsessive anti-communism,” US foreign policy also backed extreme Islamists over secular movements or government that were either Soviet-allied or feared to be.

In Afghanistan, beginning BEFORE the Soviet invasion and evolving into the biggest CIA covert operation of the 1980s, the US armed and trained native mujahedeen fighters – some of whom went on to form the Taliban. To aid the mujahedeen, the US recruited and brought to Afghanistan religious fanatics from the Arab world – some of whom went on to form Al Qaeda. (Like these Washington geniuses, Israeli intelligence – in a divide-and-conquer scheme aimed at combating secular leftist Palestinians – covertly funded Islamist militants in the occupied territories who we now know as Hamas.)

This is hardly obscure history.

Except in US mainstream media.

One of the mantras on US television news all day Friday was: Be fearful of the democratic uprisings against US allies in Egypt (and Tunisia and elsewhere). After all, we were told by Fox News and CNN and Chris Matthews on MSNBC, it could end up as bad as when “our ally” in Iran was overthrown and the extremists came to power in 1979.

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Such talk comes easy in US media where Egyptian victims of rape and torture in Mubarak’s jails are never seen. Where it’s rarely emphasized that weapons of repression used against Egyptian demonstrators are paid for by US taxpayers. Where Mubarak is almost always called “president” and almost never “dictator” (unlike the elected president of Venezuela).

When US media glibly talk about the Egyptian and Tunisian “presidents” being valued “allies in the war on terror,” it’s no surprise that they offer no details about the prisoners the US has renditioned to these “pro-Western” countries for torture.

The truth is that no one knows how these uprisings will end.

But revolution of some kind, as King said, seems inevitable. Washington’s corrupt Arab dictators will come down as surely (yet more organically) as that statue of Saddam, another former US ally.

If Washington took its heel off the Arab people and ended its embrace of the dictators, that could help secularists and democrats win hearts and minds against extreme Islamists.

Democracy is a great idea. Too bad it plays almost no role in US foreign policy.

 

Back when Abdullah Hussein’s Interlok was first published in 1971, Malaysia was a different place. 

In the ensuing 4 decades, we have become much more multi-racist. This entrenched communalism has been, to a large extent, caused by the implementation (rather than original aims) of the New Economic Policy. In the 1980s, the racist rhetoric of ‘Malay supremacy’ also started to be bandied about, further alienating non-Malays. The Malays were never intended to be ‘supreme’. The assistance given to this group was meant to be (to quote former DPM Tun Dr. Ismail) akin to a golf handicap. But when you have an Establishment dominated by a coalition of mainly ethnic-based parties, each party will be called upon to champion only ‘its’ people, against the ‘other’ people. (Lest we forget, Barisan Nasional started in 1971, too).

The National Cultural Policy, also implemented in 1971, further helped turn what should be national institutions into very Malay ones instead. Hence, organisations like Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka and even the national education system became identified as mainly ‘Malay/Muslim’ rather than ‘Malaysian’, as can be seen not only in their staff ratio but their actions, such as having long doa sessions before the start of each event.

I think Interlok is a worthwhile novel. There are many stereotypes (both good and bad), and at times it feels like a more benevolent (though, unfortunately, less humorous) version of The Malayan Trilogy. The fact that the first three Parts of the book are divided into ‘Malay family-Chinese family-Indian family’ also recalls the introduction to P. Ramlee’s 1968 film Sesudah Subuh. (The two men were friends; one of the books I read during the research of 120 Malay Movies was Abdullah’s P. Ramlee: Kisah Hidup Seniman Agung, 1973).

It is sadly indicative of our sorry intellectual climate that most of the rhetoric about Interlok has been led by people who have not read the whole novel. (For proof, check out this statement: “I have instructed my researcher to read the book and find passages that may have degraded the Malays and point it out.” This is by someone who held a press conference to explain why he found the book ‘degrading’!) 

It’s easy for people with an axe to grind to read certain sentences and try to make those sentences fit their political agenda. Hey, you can even try it for Huckleberry Finn or To Kill a Mockingbird, not to mention The Merchant of Venice (a work whose racial politics is far more problematic than Interlok‘s.) A good teaching system for this book would be a wonderful chance for students to relearn some of the basic empathy that we have lost over the past four decades. In other words, it is the opposite of a racist book. It is even earnest.  I will just pick three scenes that I really like.

In one scene, Cing Huat as a boy had just left his village in China with his father; they are flat broke and as they pass a town market, they are enticed by the food they cannot afford: 

Ada bakul-bakul besar yang berisi beras (beras putih, beras gandum merah, hitam dan mas muda), kacang keledai yang kuning, kacang hijau yang besar, jelai. Daging babi bergantungan di lehernya, dibelah sepanjang-panjang tubuhnya yang merah, lapis-lapis lemaknya, kulitnya yang putih, tebal dan lembut. Itik bergantung berjajar-jajar, itik merah yang sudah dibakar di atas pemanggang, itik putih, angsa yang dipotong berjurai-jurai.

This is very evocative prose; and the pork becomes a crucial part of the scene in a totally non-judgemental way that you wouldn’t expect from a stereotypically songkok-wearing sasterawan.

Another is when Maniam first catches sight of the land that would become his new home:

Waktu kapal itu mendekati pantai Pulau Pinang, Maniam terasa negeri yang didatanginya itu sama seperti negerinya sendiri. Pohon kelapa melambai-lambai di tepi pantai dan warna hijau menutupi sebahagian besar daratan pulau itu. Negerinya juga begitu. Lereng Gunung Nilgiris hijau dengan pokok-pokok kayu putih yang tinggi-tinggi mewangi. Maniam sedikit pun tidak berasa bahawa dia datang ke negeri asing.

Lovely. An enlightened school syllabus would have the teacher discussing with her students the extent to which Indian and Southeast Asian histories have been entwined for centuries. In fact, the early kingdoms of the Malay peninsula were all Hindu-Buddhist.  

Take this bit where Maniam’s wife (unlike the men around her) dares to confront the white tuan of the estate, in order to defend the truth about her husband:

Malini membesarkan anak matanya. Dia tidak takut pada orang putih itu lagi. Mem itu juga dia tidak takut … Sekali lagi Perumal menjeling. Dia menyumpah-nyumpah anaknya, kerana berani bercakap dengan orang putih begitu … Orang putih itu rasa kagum juga pada perempuan yang kurus ini.

What a great chance for students to then discuss gender roles in society; why was it surprising that she would speak up, and what would be the consequence if women always kept mute?

The book was written in the late 1960s for a contest commemorating the 10th anniversary of Malayan Independence. As such, there are elements that are contrived in order to fit this theme. There is a lot of emphasis on the suffering that the individual characters go through, so that the redemptive unity at the end would seem more glowingly optimistic. Hence, the (at times melodramatic) insistence on ‘negative traits’ in the first three sections of the book, which need to be transcended and therefore ‘cured’ by the time the novel reaches its muhibbah end. The way the book is structured therefore emphasis certain ethnicised ‘negative traits’ (such as the Hindu caste system, which is referenced twice). The ‘Malay part’ alone has: laziness (Seman’s father would rather pawn his land than work harder at the fields), superstition (the same man, when deathly ill, is treated by an unreliable bomoh rather than a doctor)  and hostility to education (Seman is kept illiterate because his parents don’t see the point of school).

Interlok is one of the few Malay novels to have prominent non-Malay characters. The utter shame is that it should really have been the first of many more local novels that did the same. If this had been the case, we would be spoiled for choice for a ‘1Malaysia novel’ to fit the literature syllabus. But as it is, the cultural politics of 1971 onwards made more novels of this kind very difficult: ‘Malay’ writers started to write ‘Malay’ books; ‘Chinese educationists’ started to develop the ‘Chinese school system’ (which was not nearly as robust in 1971 as it is now); and so on.

Because supposedly national institutions now seemed more ‘Malay/Muslim’ than ‘Malaysian’, there came a corresponding lack of faith on just how neutral these institutions could be. Hence, the automatic cynicism that greeted the Prime Minister’s 1Malaysia slogan. How to believe it, when the Establishment had been thriving on divide-and-rule for decades? (And when even his Deputy said he is ‘Malay first‘?)

In the last four decades, how many writers have had a national appeal? I think only Lat, and to a certain extent Usman Awang (but do kids read Usman Awang nowadays?). Even in the more accessible realm of showbiz, the names of entertainers who have had pan-national appeal are few and far between: Sudirman, Alleycats, Yasmin Ahmad. Almost everyone else becomes ‘Malay’ rather than ‘Malaysian’. (Now, there is also a parallel ‘Chinese’ star system, as seen in the success of movies like Tiger Woohoo (2010) onwards). 

In the brouhaha over Interlok, we have heard from ‘Indian NGOs’ and ‘Malay NGOs’. Why are there so few ‘Malaysian NGOs’ or indeed Malaysians? (Except from the admirable statement from Chandra Muzaffar, with which I agree.) It’s also a bit rich for associations like Gapena and Perkasa (which are both more ‘Malay’ than ‘Malaysian’) to suddenly champion freedom of expression. If they were consistent, they would do the same with Namewee, whose right to create and share his work I defend.

I am appalled that people who have not bothered to read the novel are being so loud and even pyrotechnic in their protests. If taught properly, Interlok will be a fascinating chance for our students to find ways in which they can build upon the essentialist (but not racist) worldview it depicts. But, at the same time, I think I understand how we have come to this. Each community is now addicted to what in America was once called, by an Australian critic, “the culture of complaint“. Our wounds are our badges of honour. We have been made so aware of what countries our ancestors came from that we have lost sight of what country we are creating for our descendants. 

Interlok, the novel, is innocent. It is we, as Malaysians, who have allowed ourselves to become guilty.

 

 

26 January, 2011

Activist Teacher Blog

“This is the kind of obviousness that a child can see—though the child may, later in life, become browbeaten into believing that the obvious problems are “non-problems”, to be argued into nonexistence by careful reasoning and clever choices of definition.”

— Roger Penrose

“… so obvious that it takes really impressive discipline to miss it …”

— Noam Chomsky

Here we have Israel as an internationally recognized thug, keeper of the largest open-air prison on earth, regularly practicing war crimes against civilians, targeting civilian infrastructure and continuously disregarding the Geneva Conventions – virtually unanimously denounced by the international community, by every human rights watch group on the globe, and by international civil society for the last many decades [1] – and how do Canadian politicians and parliamentarians respond?

Israel, the modern sate that shamelessly uses the Nazi holocaust to justify overtly racist domestic and foreign national policies, stock piles nuclear weapons, incites wars on its neighbours, overtly funds propaganda in foreign countries, routinely practices international pirating, kidnappings and murders, openly performs political assassinations [1]… and how do Canadian politicians and parliamentarians respond?

Israel has no significant economic exchanges with Canada and performs no significant geopolitical service of benefit to Canada; a Canada with virtually no economic ties with the Middle East and a Canada that is a net exporter of oil and gas.

Yet, apart from the independent-thinking Bloc Quebecois, it seems that half the time that English Canadian politicians open their mouths it’s to denounce a “new anti-Semitism” that social scientists and statisticians tell us is a media fabrication or to express Israel’s “right to defend itself” or to declare Canada’s “unwavering support for Israel.” Not to mention Israel’s “right to exist”! [2]

What about unwavering support for human rights and international law?

And I count the NDP (New Democratic Party) establishment prepared to sacrifice one of its own for stating a historic fact and happy to stand silent in the face of Zio-zeal.

The Canadian Zionism Question is: Why?

Why has Zio-zeal become English Canada’s new political religion? If Canada is Israel’s friend why doesn’t Canada help Israel abandon violence as its main diplomatic tool and facilitate Israel’s integration into the community of nations that denounce violence and racism? Why doesn’t Canada help Israel and its people?

How do English Canada politicians benefit from being subservient to US geopolitical doctrine? Or how would they suffer from not trading away Canada’s sovereignty; and how are most Quebec politicians immune?

Would it be so difficult for English Canada politicians to not so enthusiastically kiss the ass of the Middle East tyrant? And not adopt unanimous parliamentary resolutions to suppress criticism of Israel on university campuses? And not spend valuable parliamentary resources “investigating” imagined new anti-Semitism in Canada?

How in God’s name can we understand this new madness?

What happened? Sure there was CanWest but it died, despite the government’s best efforts to covertly bail it out.

What is going on?

Some prominent cover-up artists have suggested that English Canada politicians are overly preoccupied with pleasing Jewish voters. But there just aren’t enough Jewish voters to explain transforming the Parliament into the embarrassing Zio-zeal fest that it has become, in the face of an opposing world consensus view. In addition there are growing numbers of Jewish Canadians who are critical of Israel and of Canada’s uncritical support for Israel and its policies. [3]

No there has to be more to it than Jewish voters. Not to mention that 56% of Canadians have a “mainly negative view of Israel”. [4] (The average global opinion for “mainly positive view of Israel” is 17%. [4])

Given the overwhelming evidence for the Zio-zeal phenomenon and given its obvious sovereignty implications, it seems fair to ask the Canadian Zionism Question: Why?

There are at least two categories of possible answers: One that involves the obedience of service intellectuals and political caretakers and a related one that involves “following the money”. There is also of course the always useful appeal to mythology:

“And then, you know, there’s the obvious one – you love someone so much that you would do anything to spend all of eternity with them.”

— The Vampire Diaries (TV series)

Is not the Zionism Question a worthy research question – brimming with societal implications – for tenured university professors? Or is everyone afraid of Stanley Fish and his crasser cohorts? Hey, those goons are in the US – remember?

References

[1] See the work of Norman Finkelstein: http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/

[2] “On Israel’s ‘Right to Exist’ and on Racism” by Denis G. Rancourt, Palestine Chronicle, June 30, 2010: http://palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=16096

[3] e.g. Independent Jewish Voices (Canada): http://www.independentjewishvoices.ca/

[4] 2007 global opinion survey, as reported in “For Israel, every traveller is an ambassador” by Patrick Martin, Globe and Mail, February 23, 2010.

New terms

Zionism Question – Why all the unconditional support for Israel and its crimes from Western politicians?

Zio-zeal – Western politicians’ beyond-the-call-of-duty enthusiasm to publicly support Israel and its crimes.

Denis G. Rancourt was a tenured and full professor of physics at the University of Ottawa in Canada. He practiced several areas of science which were funded by a national agency and ran an internationally recognized laboratory. He published over 100 articles in leading scientific journals. He developed popular activism courses and was an outspoken critic of the university administration and a defender of student and Palestinian rights. He was fired for his dissidence in 2009 by a president who is a staunch supporter of Israeli policy. [See rancourt.academicfreedom.ca]

 

 

 

 

 

28 January, 2011

Foreign Policy Journal

Because my blog prompted by the Arizona shootings has attracted many comments pro and con, and more recently has been the object of a more selective public attack on me personally, I thought it appropriate to post a supplementary blog with the purpose of clarifying my actual position and re-focusing attention on the plight and suffering of the Palestinian people being held in captivity. In the background, are crucial issues of free speech, fairness in public discourse, and responsible media treatment of sensitive and controversial affairs of state.

Both the UN Secretary General and the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations harshly criticized some remarks in my personal blog that mentioned the 9/11 attacks. They referred to the views expressed there as ‘despicable and deeply offensive,’ ‘noxious, ‘inflammatory,’ and ‘preposterous.’ Their comments were apparently made in response to a letter written to the UN Secretary General by the head of UN Monitor, a Geneva-based highly partisan NGO, that called misleading attention to this passage in the blog. Ambassador Rice called for my dismissal from my unpaid post as an independent Special Rapporteur of the UN Human Rights Council with a mandate to report upon the Israeli observance of “human rights in Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.”

For anyone who read the blog post in its entirety, it should be plain that the reference to the 9/11 issues is both restrained and tangential. What is stressed in the blog is the importance of carefully examining evidence before drawing conclusions about political and legal responsibility for highly sensitive public acts, and the importance for the serenity of the society of achieving closure in a responsible manner. I never endorsed doubts about the official version of 9/11 beyond indicating what anyone who has objectively examined the controversy knows — that there remain certain gaps in the official explanation that give rise to an array of conspiratorial explanations, and that the 9/11 Commission unfortunately did not put these concerns to rest. My plea was intended to encourage addressing these gaps in a credible manner, nothing more, nothing less. I certainly meant no disrespect toward the collective memory of 9/11 in the country and elsewhere. On the contrary, my intention was to encourage an investigation that might finally achieve closure with respect to doubts that remain prevalent among important sectors of the public, including among some 9/11 families.

What seems apparent from this incident, which is itself disturbing, is that any acknowledgement of doubt about the validity of the official version of the 9/11 events, while enjoying the legal protection of free speech, is denied the political and moral protection that are essential if an atmosphere of free speech worthy of a democracy is to be maintained. When high officials can brand someone who raises some doubts in the most cautious language as ‘an enemy of the people,’ then there are either things to hide or a defensive fury that is out of all proportion to the provocation. To seek further inquiry into the unanswered questions about 9/11 is surely not an unreasonable position

What is dismaying to me is that neither the office of the Secretary General nor the U.S. Mission to the United Nation made any effort to contact me to seek clarification of my remarks on these issues that are not connected with my UN role prior to making their insulting criticisms damaging to my reputation. I would think that as a representative of the UN and a citizen of the United States, I am at least entitled to this minimal courtesy, and more substantially, that whatever criticisms are made are based on what I said rather than on a manifestly inflammatory letter written by the UN Monitor, that has made a habit of publicly attacking me in consistently irresponsible and untruthful ways, presumably with the intention of diverting attention from my criticisms of Israel’s occupation policies in the Palestinian territories. It is always more tempting to shoot the messenger than heed the message. A similar tactic, what I call ‘the politics of deflection’ was deployed over a year ago in a shabby attempt to discredit the distinguished South African jurist, Richard Goldstone, a person of impeccable credentials as an international public servant. The intention was again to avoid a proper focus upon the devastating findings and recommendations of the Goldstone Report submitted to the United Nations after conducting a scrupulous inquiry into the allegations of violation of law associated with the Israeli attacks on Gaza between December 27, 2008 and January 18, 2009.

I remain determined to report as fully and honestly as possible about the massive human rights violations confronting Palestinians who have now lived without rights under occupation for more than 43 years, and to do my best not to let such personal attacks impair my capacity to carry out the assignment that I was invited to perform by the UN.

What the United States Government, the Secretary-General and the media should be focused on is the ongoing, widespread and systematic violation of Palestinians’ human rights by Israel. Only since the beginning of 2011, at least four Palestinian civilians have been killed by Israeli forces and more than 33 others have been injured. This is in addition to the expansion of settlements, home demolitions, forced evictions and displacement of Palestinian families, revocation of residency permits and forced transfers, particularly devastating in East Jerusalem, detention and mistreatment of over 6000 Palestinians, including children, as well as the illegal blockade of Gaza. My forthcoming report to the Human Rights Council addresses these and other severe ongoing violations of Palestinian rights by Israel.

– Richard Falk is an international law and international relations scholar who taught at Princeton University for forty years. Since 2002 he has lived in Santa Barbara, California, and taught at the local campus of the University of California in Global and International Studies and since 2005 chaired the Board of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

http://richardfalk.wordpress.com

 

 

 

 

28 January, 2011

Foreign Policy Journal

Bizarre call to arms against UN rapporteur Richard Falk for alluding to gaps in the 9/11 official story

A former Princeton international law professor has been condemned by the UN Secretary General and the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations for alluding to “an apparent cover-up” of the events of September 11th, 2001. On January 11, 2011, UN Special Envoy to Palestine Richard Falk posted on his personal blog an article entitled “Interrogating the Arizona Killings from a Safe Distance.”[1]

Dr. Falk made a tangential point in his blog-post that governments too often abuse their authority by treating “awkward knowledge as a matter of state secrets”.

To illustrate the point, he referred to gaps and contradictions in the official account of the 9/11 attacks, which have been documented in the scholarly works of Dr. David Ray Griffin, a professor emeritus of philosophy of religion and theology.

“What seems most disturbing about the 9/11 controversy is the widespread aversion by government and media to the evidence that suggests, at the very least, the need for an independent investigation that proceeds with no holds barred,” wrote Falk.

On January 20th, executive director Hillel Neuer of UN Watch, a European NGO, called upon UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to condemn the remarks made by Falk, and to fire him, claiming that Falk had “endorsed the conspiracy theory that the 9/11 terrorist attacks were orchestrated by the U.S. government and not Al Qaeda terrorists.” [2]

On January 24th, in a reply to Hillel Neuer, Vijay Nambiar, Ban Ki-moon’s Chief of Staff, responded that the Secretary-General “condemns these remarks. He has repeatedly stated his view that any such suggestion is preposterous — and an affront to the memory of the more than 3,000 people who died in the attack.”[3]

The US Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, called for Falk’s removal, stating that “Mr. Falk’s comments are despicable and deeply offensive, and I condemn them in the strongest terms.” [4]

Surely, in light of what Falk actually said, these indignant cries on behalf of the victims seem more than a little apoplectic.

If Falk’s suggestions were so “preposterous” and “offensive”, they might have been dismissed as the ravings of a madman.

So why did officials bring out their cannons to shoot at a sparrow?

Well, turning to the work of Professor Griffin we find that there were 115 omissions and distortions in the 9/11 Commission Report, though Falk did not, in his brief remarks, provide details. [5]

A search of the Internet reveals 12 professional organizations calling for a new investigation, including Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth (with over 1,400 professional members), Firefighters for 9/11 Truth, Intelligence Officers for 9/11 Truth, Lawyers for 9/11 Truth, Medical Professionals for 9/11 Truth, Pilots for 9/11 Truth, Political Leaders for 9/11 Truth, Military Officers for 9/11 Truth, and Scientists for 9/11 Truth.

In August, 2005, the New York Times printed the oral testimonies of 118 firefighters and emergency workers who reported stunning, graphic evidence of enormous explosions, including mysterious blasts in the deep sub-basements of the buildings long before the towers fell.[6]

More recently, a nine-author peer-reviewed study, which showed that the World Trade Center dust appeared to contain residue of explosive material (nanothermite), made headlines for the first week of February 2010 in major Danish newspapers. [7]

This news never reached the North American media.

Blackout in America

A December 2010 poll by the prestigious Emnid Institute showed that 89.5% of Germans doubt the US official story about the September 11th attacks.[8]

The 9/11 commissioners themselves, in a 2008 op-ed piece to the New York Times, bemoaned the withholding of witness evidence to the 9/11 Commission by the CIA: “What we do know is that government officials decided not to inform a lawfully constituted body, created by Congress and the president, to investigate one the greatest tragedies to confront this country. We call that obstruction.” [9]

Perhaps this sparrow is worth a cannon or two.

In other words, was Falk attacked so strongly to try to make people fear suggesting in public even the possibility that the official story is problematic?

– Elizabeth Woodworth is a writer and retired medical librarian. The current focus of her writing is social justice issues, and she has extensively researched the evidence presented on both sides of the 9/11 controversy. Read more articles by Elizabeth Woodworth.

Notes

[1] Richard Falk. “Interrogating the Arizona Killings from a Safe Distance.” http://richardfalk.wordpress.com/2011/01/11/interrogating-the-arizona-killings-from-a-safe-distance/

[2] “U.N. Chief Urged to Fire Official for Promoting 9/11 Conspiracy Theory” http://www.unwatch.org/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=bdKKISNqEmG&b=1316871&ct=9039887

[3] Letter to Mr. Neuer, January 24, 2011, http://blog.unwatch.org/index.php/2011/01/25/ngo-says-richard-falk-has-zero-credibility-urges-un-chief-to-fire-him/

[4] Rice calls for removal of U.N.’s Palestine rapporteur, JTA, January 26, 2011, http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/01/26/2742718/rice-calls-for-removal-of-uns-palestine-rapporteur

[5] David Ray Griffin. The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions, Olive Branch Press, 2004.

[6] “The September 11 Records,” New York Times, August 12, 2005, http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/html/nyregion/20050812_

WTC_GRAPHIC/met_WTC_histories_full_01.html

[7] Niels H. Harrit, Jeffrey Farrer, Steven E. Jones, et al., “Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe,” Open Chemical Physics Journal, Vol. 2 (April 3, 2009): 7-31 http://www.bentham.org/open/tocpj/articles/V002/7TOCPJ.pdf.

[8] “Exklusiv-Umfrage des Wissensmagazins Welt der Wunder: Wem glauben die Deutschen noch?” December 22, 2010, http://www.bauermedia.de/weltderwunder.html?&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=

750&tx_ttnews[backPid]=4&cHash=6e15318bbc#content

[9] Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton, “Stonewalled by the C.I.A.,” New York Times, January 2, 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/02/opinion/02kean.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

28 January, 2011

Latimes.com

The leaked papers published by Al Jazeera show how craven Palestinian leaders are and how willing they were to sell out their people’s rights. Yet all they had to offer wasn’t enough for Israel

A massive archive of documents leaked to Al Jazeera and Britain’s Guardian newspaper offers irrefutable proof that years of negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians have been an empty sham. The papers make clear that the time has come for Palestinians and anyone interested in the cause of justice to abandon the charade of official diplomacy and pursue other, more creative and nonviolent paths toward the realization of a genuine, just peace.

The leaked documents, assuming they are genuine — and both Al Jazeera and the Guardian say they have authenticated them — are behind-the-scenes notes from a decade of negotiations between the Palestinians and Israel. On issue after issue, they show Palestinian negotiators eager to concede ground, offering to give up much of Jerusalem, to accept Israel’s illegal settlements in the West Bank, to collaborate with Israeli occupation forces in suppressing dissent in the occupied territories — including killing fellow Palestinians — and even to forgo the right of return for most Palestinians driven from their homes by Israel in 1948

The papers give the lie to Israel’s claim that it yearns for peace but lacks a Palestinian “partner.” And they reinforce the sense that Israel has gone along with these negotiations only to buy time to expropriate more Palestinian land, demolish more Palestinian homes, expel more Palestinian families and build more colonies for the exclusive use of Jewish settlers in militarily occupied territory, thereby cementing new realities on the ground that would make a Palestinian state a geophysical impossibility.

Anyone who doubts this has only to skim through the leaked papers, which show Israel spurning one gaping Palestinian concession after another. And this was Israel not under Benjamin Netanyahu but under the supposedly more liberal Ehud Olmert and his foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, who claimed they were committed to the peace process. In shameless abjection, the Palestinian negotiators prostrated themselves and surrendered essentially every major objective for which their people have struggled and sacrificed for 60 years, only for the imperious Israelis to say again and again, no, no, no.

Clearly, all that the Palestinians have to offer is not enough for Israel.

The major revelation from the documents, indeed, is the illustration they furnish of just how far the Palestinian negotiators were willing to go to placate Israel.

Men like Saeb Erekat, Mahmoud Abbas and Ahmed Qurei — the lead Palestinian negotiators in all these years — are of a type that has come forth in every colonial conflict of the modern age. Faced with the overwhelming brute power with which colonial states have always sought to break the will of indigenous peoples, they inhabit the craven weakness that the situation seems to dictate. Convinced that colonialism cannot be defeated, they seek to carve out some petty managerial role within it from which they might benefit, even if at the expense of their people.

These men, we must remember, were not elected to negotiate an agreement with Israel. They have no legitimacy, offer zero credibility and can make no real claim to represent the views of Palestinians.

And yet they were apparently willing to bargain away the right that stands at the very heart of the Palestinian struggle, a right that is not theirs to surrender — the right of return of Palestinians to the homes from which they were forced during the creation of Israel in 1948 — by accepting Israel’s insistence that only a token few thousand refugees should be allowed to return, and that the millions of others should simply go away (or, as we now learn that the U.S. suggested, accept being shipped away like so much lost chattel to South America).

The documents also show Palestinian negotiators willing to betray the Palestinians inside Israel by agreeing to Israel’s definition of itself as a Jewish state, knowing that that would doom Israel’s non-Jewish Palestinian minority — the reviled “Israeli Arabs” who constitute 20% of the state’s population — not merely to the institutionalized racism they already face but to the prospect of further ethnic cleansing (the papers reveal that Livni repeatedly raised the idea that land inhabited by portions of Israel’s Palestinian population should be “transferred” to a future Palestinian state).

All this was offered in pursuit of a “state” that would exist in bits and pieces, with no true sovereignty, no control over its own borders or water or airspace — albeit a “state” that it would, naturally, be their job to run.

And all this was contemptuously turned down by the allegedly peace-seeking Israeli government, with the connivance of the United States, to whom the Palestinians kept plaintively appealing as an honest broker, even as it became clearer than ever that it is anything but.

What these documents prove is that diplomatic negotiations between abject Palestinians and recalcitrant Israelis enjoying the unlimited and unquestioning support of the U.S. will never yield peace. No agreement these callow men sign would be accepted by the Palestinian people.

Fortunately, most Palestinians are not as broken and hopeless as these so-called leaders. Every single day, millions of ordinary Palestinian men, women and children resist the dictates of Israeli power, if only by refusing to give up and go away — by going to school, by farming their crops, by tending their olive groves.

Refusing the dictates of brute power and realpolitik to which their so-called leaders have surrendered, the Palestinian people have already developed a new strategy that, turning the tables on Israel, transmutes every Israeli strength into a form of weakness. Faced with tanks, they turn to symbolic forms of protest that cannot be destroyed; faced with brutality, they demand justice; faced with apartheid, they demand equality. The Palestinians have learned the lessons of Soweto, and they have unleashed a simultaneously local and global campaign of protests and calls for boycotts and sanctions that offers the only hope of bringing Israelis — like their Afrikaner predecessors — to their senses.

Saree Makdisi is a professor of English and comparative literature at UCLA. He is the author of, among other books, “Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation.”

 

 

 

29 January, 2011

The Daily Beast

When Egypt had parliamentary elections only two months ago, they were completely rigged. The party of President Hosni Mubarak left the opposition with only 3 percent of the seats. Imagine that. And the American government said that it was “dismayed.” Well, frankly, I was dismayed that all it could say is that it was dismayed. The word was hardly adequate to express the way the Egyptian people felt.

Then, as protests built in the streets of Egypt following the overthrow of Tunisia’s dictator, I heard Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s assessment that the government in Egypt is “stable” and “looking for ways to respond to the legitimate needs and interests of the Egyptian people”. I was flabbergasted—and I was puzzled. What did she mean by stable, and at what price? Is it the stability of 29 years of “emergency” laws, a president with imperial power for 30 years, a parliament that is almost a mockery, a judiciary that is not independent? Is that what you call stability? I am sure not. And I am positive that it is not the standard you apply to other countries. What we see in Egypt is pseudo-stability, because real stability only comes with a democratically elected government.

If you would like to know why the United States does not have credibility in the Middle East, that is precisely the answer. People were absolutely disappointed in the way you reacted to Egypt’s last election. You reaffirmed their belief that you are applying a double standard for your friends, and siding with an authoritarian regime just because you think it represents your interests. We are staring at social disintegration, economic stagnation, political repression, and we do not hear anything from you, the Americans, or for that matter from the Europeans.

So when you say the Egyptian government is looking for ways to respond to the needs of the Egyptian people, I feel like saying, “Well, it’s too late!” This isn’t even good realpolitik. We have seen what happened in Tunisia, and before that in Iran. That should teach people there is no stability except when you have government freely chosen by its own people.

Of course, you in the West have been sold the idea that the only options in the Arab world are between authoritarian regimes and Islamic jihadists. That’s obviously bogus. If we are talking about Egypt, there is a whole rainbow variety of people who are secular, liberal, market-oriented, and if you give them a chance they will organize themselves to elect a government that is modern and moderate. They want desperately to catch up with the rest of the world.

Instead of equating political Islam with al Qaeda all the time, take a closer look. Historically, Islam was hijacked about 20 or 30 years after the Prophet and interpreted in such a way that the ruler has absolute power and is accountable only to God. That, of course, was a very convenient interpretation for whoever was the ruler. Only a few weeks ago, the leader of a group of ultra-conservative Muslims in Egypt issued a fatwa, or religious edict, calling for me to “repent” for inciting public opposition to President Hosni Mubarak, and declaring the ruler has a right to kill me, if I do not desist. This sort of thing moves us toward the dark ages. But did we hear a single word of protest or denunciation from the Egyptian government? No.

Despite all of this, I have hoped to find a way toward change through peaceful means. In a country like Egypt, it’s not easy to get people to put down their names and government ID numbers on a document calling for fundamental democratic reforms, yet a million people have done just that. The regime, like the monkey that sees nothing and hears nothing, simply ignored us.

As a result, the young people of Egypt have lost patience, and what you’ve seen in the streets these last few days has all been organized by them. I have been out of Egypt because that is the only way I can be heard. I have been totally cut off from the local media when I am there. But I am going back to Cairo, and back onto the streets because, really, there is no choice. You go out there with this massive number of people, and you hope things will not turn ugly, but so far, the regime does not seem to have gotten that message.

Each day it gets harder to work with Mubarak’s government, even for a transition, and for many of the people you talk to in Egypt, that is no longer an option. They think he has been there 30 years, he is 83 years old, and it is time for a change. For them, the only option is a new beginning.

How long this can go on, I don’t know. In Egypt, as in Tunisia, there are other forces than just the president and the people. The army has been quite neutral so far, and I would expect it to remain that way. The soldiers and officers are part of the Egyptian people. They know the frustrations. They want to protect the nation.

But this week the Egyptian people broke the barrier of fear, and once that is broken, there is no stopping them.

Mohamed ElBaradei was awarded the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize along with the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency, which he headed at the time. Since his retirement at the end of 2009, he has emerged as a political force in his native Egypt.