Just International

Off The Agenda: The Unresolved Question Of Egypt’s Economy

One issue that requires urgent attention in the current discussion is that of Egypt’s shattered economy. In the first round of elections on May 23, Egypt’s presidential candidates appeared to hold vastly different ideas regarding their vision for the future. With the elimination of independent candidate Hamdeen Sabahy before the final round on June 16-17, the economic program for the two remaining candidates seemed oddly similar and suspiciously familiar.

The oddity stems from the fact that the two contenders – Freedom and Justice Party candidate Mohamed Mursi and former Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq – are supposed to represent the two extremes defining Egypt after the 2011 revolution. Mursi is a Muslim Brotherhood figure, long oppressed by the very regime that Shafiq dutifully served.

The “run-off in Egypt’s presidential elections between the two most polarizing candidates has escalated investor concerns of renewed unrest,” claimed Arabia Monitor, a market research company. However, both candidates are united by their advocacy of the same free market economy, the guiding model for the discredited Mubarak regime. The news is hardly shocking in the case of Shafiq, an establishment man who would not be expected to challenge Egypt’s chronic inequality; Mursi’s position is bewildering.

While “rivals portray the Brotherhood as a nebulous organization obsessed with religion,” according to Patrick Werr, “its wide-ranging plan, details of which were revealed during the buildup to last month’s first-round presidential vote, projects a pragmatism that puts rapid economic growth ahead of ideology.” The Brotherhood ‘pragmatism’ is only commended here because it promotes “a strongly free-market economic plan” and a pledge to move quickly to secure a loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Some estimates put Egypt’s current debt at close to $190 billion. The Egyptian revolution, which in part sought economic justice and equitable distribution of wealth, is yet to produce a new economic reality. Under Mubarak, the economy operated through a selective interpretation of free market economy marred by extreme corruption in favor of the ruling elite. Over 15 months of haggling between the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), angry masses, a new elected parliament and other forces have now wreaked havoc on an already struggling economy. The Egyptian pound is facing the prospect of ‘disorderly devaluation.’ The IMF’s original loan offer of $3.2 billion, rejected by Egypt at the time, would not be enough to rectify the damage. Per Egyptian government and IMF estimates, the country requires $10-12 billion to secure the pound.

Currency devaluation is only a small aspect of Egypt’s current economic woes. The Economist (May 19-25) reported that Egypt’s foreign exchange reserve is now down to third of its value of 15 months ago and the budget deficit has surged to 10 percent of GDP. “The budget shortfall could be resolved by a stroke of scrapping energy subsidies, but in a country where 40% of people live in poverty; this is a sizzling political potato.”

It is actually much more than a ‘sizzling political potato’. The handling of the economy will ultimately make or break the relationship between Egypt’s new rulers and its people – most of whom are not only politically disfranchised, but economically marginalized as well.

Although most Egyptians now frown at Mubarak’s legacy, the country’s economic indicators were for years perceived favorably by Western financial institutions. After all Egypt recorded steady growth. Its ‘economic reforms’ post 1991 were largely celebrated for further liberalizing trade and investment, cutting subsidies (thus forcing the poor to continue teetering at the edge of poverty and utter desolation) and dismantling the public sector.. The IMF and other Western lending institutions do not settle for anything but more austerity measures – regardless of whether Egypt’s new president is a bearded Muslim or an avowed liberal. The only ideology that matters for the IMF is the free market economy.

So what must be done for the almost 14.2 million people who live on less than one US dollar a day? 1.5 million Egyptian currently live in a large graveyard at the outskirts of Cairo. Austerity and further cuts could only lead to the kind of misery that instigated last year’s revolution.

Egypt’s remaining candidates promise to revive the economy while keeping social justice on the agenda. While Shafiq has promised an abundance of perks to various sectors of society, the Brotherhood has been promoting a detailed program called Al-Nahda, or The Renaissance. Enlisting the help of internationally renowned economists such as Peru’s Hernando de Soto Polar, Al-Nahda is reportedly a study of many economic models around the world, including Turkey, Malaysia and South Africa.

The Brotherhood’s initial presidential candidate, Khairat al-Shater was the “driving force behind the project,” according to the Daily Beast (June 7). In an interview last April, he laid down the basic premise of his plan: “The Egyptian economy must rely to a very, very large degree on the private sector. The priority is for Egyptian investors, then Arab then foreign.”

It is expected that Egypt’s intense public discussions in the current phase will be fixed on foundational issues such as the formation of a constitutional assembly and a redefinition of the rule of SCAF. But Egypt’s economy is deeply flawed. An IMF-style free market economy is of no use to millions of Egyptians when they lack proper education and the most basic rights and opportunities. For an Egyptian day laborer to have a better life in a country with a huge and growing income gap between rich and poor, something fundamental needs to take place.

Referencing ‘social justice’ while negotiating IMF loans suggests a precarious start for any truly fundamental economic reforms. While Hamdeen Sabahy is no longer in the race to challenge the free market wisdom of his contenders, the debate must not end here.

By Ramzy Baroud

14 June, 2012

@ Countercurrents.org

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an internationally-syndicated columnist and the editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story (Pluto Press, London).

 

The “N” Word FromThe Champs Elysée To Avenue Of The Americas

The latest Hollywood brouhaha over Gwyneth Paltrow’s decision to tweet the caption “ni**as in Paris for real” to accompany a picture of her with friends Jay-Z and Beyoncé while in Paris doesn’t compare to the new evidence of “fraud upon the Court” that has emerged in a largely unnoticed civil rights case that very well should be reopened after being unfairly dismissed six years ago. How about Hollywood executives regularly referring to their own clients, and Blacks in general, as “niggers,” “niggas,” “coons,” “spooks,” and “monkeys” while they intentionally discriminated against Black concert promoters, putting them out of business? It is the contention of Leonard Rowe, perhaps the best-known and most successful of all Black concert promoters, that the regular use of these words by powerful Hollywood executives is a telling indicator of Hollywood’s pervasively racist attitudes toward Blacks, an attitude that produced illegal trust-like business practices that essentially made Black concert promoters extinct.

How could these particular Hollywood executives do that?

According to music industry veterans, once a Black entertainer “crossed over” to a White audience, Black concert promoters were almost never allowed to promote that entertainer again. Moreover, according to Rowe, not once was a Black concert promoter allowed to promote a White entertainer. According to Rowe, this collusion to fix profits effectively denied the Black community the spin-off economy associated with concerts and concert promotions, and the multiplier effect of dollars turning over in the Black community. Someone presented evidence to me that was just presented to District Judge Robert P. Patterson and Chief Judge Loretta A. Preska of the Southern District of New York: a summary of the racially-charged words that were regularly used by these particular Hollywood executives: “nigger,” “spade,” “colored,” “monkey,” “nigga,” “uncle tom,” “spook,” and “coon.” It makes for depressing reading: page after page after page after page, the evidence provided to me shows the last name of the particular executive and the number of times that person used one of the above words in e-mail traffic. It is 18 pages, with two pages mysteriously missing, of heartbreak where specifically the word “nigger” is used hundreds of times. Even more to the point of “fraud upon the Court,” decisions were made in Rowe’s previous case without even a mention of the e-mail evidence. In fact, Rowe was never given the e-mails that produced the 18-page summary sheet although he paid for them. Rowe’s case was dismissed by the Court at Summary Judgment.

To think that this is the way these Hollywood executives view their African-American clients is not only appalling, but represents more than a virtual throwback to the ignominious days of a Southern Plantation. According to Marcus Washington who worked at William Morris, that company client list has included Bill Cosby, Whoopi Goldberg, Lauryn Hill, Rihanna, Outkast, Trya Banks, Serena Williams, LeBron James, Whitney Houston, Maxwell, Jill Scott, Erykah Badu, Spike Lee, Janet Jackson, Tyler Perry, Kanye West, Jay-Z, Usher, Halle Berry, Alicia Keys, Jennifer Hudson, Queen Latifah, and Denzel Washington to name a few.

The evidence of how particular Hollywood executives referred to their own clients is available for anyone interested in seeing it. Just click here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/93697362/Rowe-Entertainment-Inc-v-William-Morris-Agency-et-al-98-8272-Breakdown-of-Racial-Epithets-Including-Nigger-Used-By-Execs-Email-Search-Re

And who exactly are these particular Hollywood executives? Rowe’s lawsuit is against The William Morris Agency (now known as William Morris Endeavor) and Creative Artists Agency, the biggest and the baddest of the bunch. (And adding political muscle to this tawdry script, William Morris Endeavor is currently headed by Ari Emanuel, brother to the former Chief of Staff of President Obama and now Mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel.) For many aspiring Black entertainers, signing with these agencies represents a dream come true. Too bad that this new evidence brought forward in the Leonard Rowe case shows how these agencies truly feel about African Americans when they think no one is watching.

Sadly, Leonard Rowe is not the only witness to Hollywood’s institutional racism. Marcus Washington, with whom I have spoken, has his own sordid tale of life while employed at Hollywood’s titan–The William Morris Agency. In published reports on the internet, Marcus, acting as his own lawyer, filed a $25 million lawsuit alleging racial discrimination in December 2010. Among the many details in his 80-page complaint, Washington said that upon his entry into William Morris’ New York office in September of 2008, there were zero Black, zero Latino, and only one Asian-American Agent employed out of an executive staff of 50. Washington wrote that he was the only Black hired into the Agent Trainee program and while he had recently graduated from the University of Miami with his Masters in Music Business and Entertainment Industries and helped co-manage the career of J Records singer/songwriter and now eight-time GRAMMY® nominated artist Jazmine Sullivan, all of his White counterparts advanced above him having considerably fewer academic achievements and less professional work experience.

According to Washington, William Morris immediately sought to have Washington’s case compelled into arbitration because of an arbitration agreement Washington signed as a condition of employment. Washington argued that the provision which stated that “any issue” including ones of “discrimination” and “retaliation” were to be arbitrated was “unconscionable, tainted with illegality and malum in se” given the historical evidence presented to the Court showing the company’s 113-year history of systemic disparate treatment towards Blacks. In July 2011, Washington’s judge ruled in favor of William Morris. In September 2011, Washington appealed to the Second Circuit that his lawsuit against William Morris was erroneously compelled into arbitration, and over the last nine months, Washington has attempted three times to have this decision reversed so that his case can be impartially decided in a public forum by a jury that reflects the diversity of New York City. Each time, the Court has denied his appeal without providing a judicial opinion. Sadly, this industry has been successful at keeping this type of racial discrimination away from the eyes of a jury. But now, after acquiring the new evidence discovered in the Rowe case, Washington filed a motion in the Court to introduce evidence that various attorneys at Loeb & Loeb LLP–the law firm representing William Morris in both the Rowe and Washington cases–as well as judges, have been involved in a corrupt conspiracy to collude and commit “fraud upon the Court.”

Because of what Rowe felt were unreliable lawyers colluding and conspiring with his opponents’ lawyers, Rowe has joined Washington as a pro se litigant in the Southern District of New York. They both have refiled their cases and they are awaiting decisions from the Court. This time around, the Southern District Court of New York has the opportunity to do the right thing. Both Rowe and Washington are involved in litigation that could produce landmark Civil Rights decisions. Both of them are willing to share the evidence unearthed in the Rowe case that could deal a devastating blow to “business as usual” in the entertainment industry.

By Cynthia McKinney

14 June, 2012

@ Countercurrents.org

Leonard Rowe and Marcus Washington are available, together or individually, for interviews to explain their firsthand experiences with Hollywood, racism, or corruption in the U.S. justice system.

Leonard Rowe can be reached at roweentertain@aol.com

Marcus Washington can be reached at humanrights.areamust@gmail.com

For news from, by and about Cynthia McKinney, former Georgia congresswoman and Green Party presidential candidate, subscribe to her Updates at http://lists.allthingscynthiamckinney.com/listinfo.cgi/updates-allthingscynthiamckinney.com. She can be reached at Cynthia@runcynthiarun.org

Exploding the four myths about intervention in Syria

Military intervention will only intensify the violence, not reduce it. There is another way.

First, do no harm. That should be engraved on the foreheads of all those who breezily call for intervention in Syria.

“Intervention”: is there a more overused, abused or ill-defined term? It’s thrown around by politicians, journalists, soldiers and human rights activists alike. But what does it actually mean to “intervene” in Syria? Supplying arms to unknown and unaccountable rebel groups with dodgy human rights records? Carving out chunks of sovereign Syrian territory for “safe havens” that may not be very safe (think Sre­brenica)? Dropping bombs from 15,000 feet on crowded cities (think Fallujah)?

It doesn’t matter to some. On 10 June, for instance, the Observer’s Nick Cohen made a forceful case for intervention, without deigning to spell out to his readers what his favoured intervention would be. Details are for doves.

And who would the interveners be? Just neighbouring Turkey? Or Turkey plus the US? How about the autocrats of the Gulf? Or the anti-Assad members of al-Qaeda? Do they get to join in the bloodletting, too?

The brutal and loathsome Bashar al-Assad may be responsible for most of the horrific killings in Syria but that doesn’t excuse the terror spread by some of his opponents. Last month, 55 people were killed when two car bombs – attributed by the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, to al-Qaeda – exploded in Damascus. Who mourns these Syrian victims of violence? Who intervenes on their behalf?

Cycle of violence

The truth is that the case for foreign military intervention in Syria, however noble the motives may be, is based on four myths.

The first is that foreign military interventions always save lives. It’s a romantic idea – but it isn’t borne out by the evidence. After Nato’s air assault on Yugoslavia kicked off in March 1999, the number of civilian casualties and refugees in Kosovo went up, not down. In Iraq and Afghanistan, tens of thousands of innocents lost their lives at the hands of western troops as well as home-grown terrorists.

Violence begets violence. Ten months on from the fall of Colonel Gaddafi, hundreds of armed militias are now vying for control of big Libyan cities such as Benghazi and Misurata. “People are turning up dead in detention at an alarming rate,” a Human Rights Watch official announced this year. “If this was happening under any Arab dictatorship, there would be an outcry.” Yes, a potential massacre in Benghazi was averted; on the other hand, the town of Tawergha has since been ethnically cleansed of its black population by rebels who were armed by the west. But we’ve moved on from Libya, just as we moved on from Kosovo.

Myth number two is that the Syrian opposition is united in its demand for foreign intervention. Yet there is no single “opposition”: it’s fractured and disunited. The oft-mentioned Syrian National Council (SNC), a coalition of seven opposition groups formed in Istanbul last September, is in disarray. Last month, three high-profile members of the SNC – the former judge Haitham al-Maleh, the physician Kamal al-Labwani and the human rights lawyer Catherine al-Talli – quit the organisation in disgust. “The [SNC] members are not revolutionaries, [they] haven’t any history in politics, haven’t any history inside Syria,” said an angry al-Labwani. “They bring somebody from outside Syria to represent those who live inside Syria.”

The SNC has been described by former members as a front group for the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood – but that hasn’t stopped the BBC and other western media outlets from presenting it as the sole, authentic, pro-intervention voice of the Syrian people.

Meanwhile, the anti-interventionist National Co-ordination Committee (NCC), another anti-Assad faction, consisting of a dozen or so leftist political parties, doesn’t get a look-in. “We are the ‘other opposition’,” the NCC’s Paris-based spokesman Haytham al-Manna tells me. “But we can’t call on Reuters or al-Jazeera [for support].” Manna, whose brother was killed by the Assad regime, says: “We are against any foreign intervention in Syria.” And he adds: “We want democracy and sovereignty.”

The third myth is that non-violent resistance isn’t an option in Syria – even though the Syrian revolution began as a non-violent mass movement. “When we were non-violent, we had three million people with us,” says Manna. “Now, with the armed resistance, we don’t have more than 50,000 people in the streets.”

In their book Why Civil Resistance Works, the US academics Erica Chenoweth and Maria J Stephan challenge the conventional wisdom that the use of force against heavily armed opponents is the most effective way for resistance groups to achieve their aims. They discovered that the historical record – between 1900 and 2006 – shows non-violent campaigns were more than twice as effective (53 per cent compared to 26 per cent) at securing change – even against repressive dictators.

Diplomacy works

The fourth myth is that there is no diplomatic solution in Syria. Diplomacy, it seems, is a form of appeasement – and it has become fashionable to dismiss Kofi Annan’s peace plan, which rightly calls for an “inclusive Syrian-led poli­tical process” and a complete “cessation” of armed violence “by all parties”, as a complete failure. Yet, as Manna argues, “The only solution in Syria is to rebuild the Annan plan, make sure it is respected [by all sides] and triple the number of international observers.”

And, despite the massacres allegedly committed by militias loyal to the Assad regime, a recent report by the London-based Syrian Network for Human Rights showed that violence in the country is down by 36 per cent from its peak in March, and has declined in every month since Annan’s plan was agreed.

Military intervention will only intensify the violence, not reduce it. There is another way.

As the veteran foreign correspondent and Syria expert Patrick Seale has written: “The only way to prevent a full-scale civil war in Syria . . . is to demilitarise the conflict and bring maximum pressure on both sides to negotiate.”

This should be the focus. We are dealing with a complex conflict in a complex country; simplistic solutions by armchair generals won’t solve it. So remember: first, do no harm.

By Mehdi Hasan

13 June 2012

@ News Statement

 

The Next Revolution: Islamists In Tunisia Take Their Jihad To Syria

A trip to Tunis’s slums finds young Salafi Islamists who were at the vanguard of the Arab Spring, and are now set to take the fight to Syria to take down the ruling secularist regime.

TUNIS – Just a few blocks from the hotels, the restaurants, and the government offices, Balancine is a labyrinth filled with piles of garbage and stray dogs. Teenage boys are lying around, laughing, some of them drunk.

We came here to find the new radical Islam which has become so popular since the Arab Spring. This is the house we are looking for. Going up a dark and slippery staircase, which smells of urine, sawdust and ammonia, we arrive at the third floor. We enter a darkened room, lit by a single dim light bulb hanging from the ceiling. A curtain is barely hiding the dirty toilet. A big couch, which also serves as a bed, occupies almost all the room.  A 22-year-old man, Yusef, is sitting cross-legged on the couch.

We have come to meet him before he leaves for Jihad in Syria. He is a Salafi Islamist, part of a movement that is fast becoming a major player in the region. This is not the pragmatic secularized Islam, nor the social democracy of the Muslim Brotherhood or of the moderate Ennahda movement (the Renaissance Party) whom the Western world found so reassuring after the Arab revolutions.

Yusef is set to leave for Syria to fight Bashir al-Assad’s unholy regime. Other young Tunisians have already joined the jihad, recruited in the city’s most radical mosques, and given a ticket to Turkey, along with directions on how to reach the army of rebels. “There are many other brothers: Egyptian, Libyan, Algerian,” says Yusef. Similar international Muslim brigades fought in Afghanistan, Iraq and Bosnia.

Yusef doesn’t look at us as he lays out his life story: poverty, the school, petty crimes to survive — and finally the revolution.

He is one among many other “ street thugs” from the slums who have kept the revolution alive in the streets, under the blows and tear gas. When asked if he is scared of a war which, at the end of the day is not his own, the boy suddenly comes to life: “ You don’t know anything,” he says. “Fear, courage… My strength is not in weapons. It is inside. I am an instrument. Muslims had become dependent on the things that you gave and taught us. This is our rebirth. How can we be afraid of a tyrant’s army? Don’t you see that God is helping us? God moved the Americans’ minds. The Americans are helping, arming and funding us. They are an instrument of the holy cause.”

I wonder if Yusef knows that a few days ago two other young Tunisian men were captured with explosives and weapons and paraded on Syrian television. Maybe he does, but it does not matter.

On May 20, more than 20,000 Salafi Islamists gathered in the Tunisian city of Kairouan. There are rumors about them, almost certainly false, that they are training an army. But what’s true is that Salafis in combat gear are patrolling Tunis’ “park of love,” where young couples meet up, behind a luxury hotel that Gadhafi’s son was building. The Salafis sometimes raid the park to stop acts they consider to be impure.

In Jendouba and Sidi Bouzid, the Salafis attacked and burned down bars that sold alcoholic drinks.

Islam, united

Ihmed Zouhari, another young man, is one of the heads of the Hezb el Tahrir, a radical party that is run like a sect. They hate the Muslim Brotherhood and don’t believe democracy has its place in Islamic society.

“We’ve tried everything: liberalism, dictatorships, nationalism, socialism. What did we get? Poverty and corruption. The only thing that stayed pure is Islam,” believes Zouhari. “We need a radical change, a new system based on the Islamic doctrine and the Koran, and then we will unite all the Arab and Muslim countries under the same flag.”

Asked how a doctrine that was born centuries ago can work in the modern world, he has no doubts: “You don’t understand. Your democracy works for you because you live in a world where people can’t decide on a political model, where ideology serves only to seize power and changes according to what is needed. Here, we don’t have political parties, only Islam. You say that this is the Middle Ages. I ask you: have men really changed since then?”

By Domenico Quirico

16 June 2012

@ World Crunch

BBC World News Editor: Houla Massacre Coverage Based On Opposition Propaganda

As quietly as possible, BBC world news editor Jon Williams has admitted that the coverage of last month’s Houla massacre in Syria by the world’s media and his own employers was a compendium of lies.

Datelined 16:23, June 7, Williams chose a personal blog to make a series of fairly frank statements explaining that there was no evidence whatsoever to identify either the Syrian Army or Alawite militias as the perpetrators of the May 25 massacre of 100 people.

By implication, Williams also suggests strongly that such allegations are the product of the propaganda department of the Sunni insurgents seeking to overthrow Bashar al-Assad.

After preparatory statements of self-justification noting the “complexity of the situation on the ground in Syria, and the need to try to separate fact from fiction,” and Syria’s long “history of rumours passing for fact,” Williams writes:

“In the aftermath of the massacre at Houla last month, initial reports said some of the 49 children and 34 women killed had their throats cut. In Damascus, Western officials told me the subsequent investigation revealed none of those found dead had been killed in such a brutal manner. Moreover, while Syrian forces had shelled the area shortly before the massacre, the details of exactly who carried out the attacks, how and why were still unclear.”

For this reason, he concludes somewhat belatedly, “In such circumstances, it’s more important than ever that we report what we don’t know, not merely what we do.”

“In Houla, and now in Qubair, the finger has been pointed at the Shabiha, pro-government militia. But tragic death toll aside, the facts are few: it’s not clear who ordered the killings—or why.”

No trace of such a restrained approach can be found at the time on the BBC, or most anywhere else.

Instead the BBC offered itself as a sounding board for the statements of feigned outrage emanating from London, Washington and the United Nations headquarters—all blaming the atrocity on either the Syrian Army or Shabiha militias acting under their protection.

Typical was the May 28 report, “Syria Houla massacre: Survivors recount horror”, in which unidentified “Survivors of the massacre … have told the BBC of their shock and fear as regime forces entered their homes and killed their families.” Nowhere was the question even posed that in such a conflict these alleged witnesses could be politically aligned with the opposition and acting under its instruction.

Only now does Williams state:

“Given the difficulties of reporting inside Syria, video filed by the opposition on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube may provide some insight into the story on the ground. But stories are never black and white—often shades of grey. Those opposed to President Assad have an agenda. One senior Western official went as far as to describe their YouTube communications strategy as ‘brilliant’. But he also likened it to so-called ‘psy-ops’, brainwashing techniques used by the US and other military to convince people of things that may not necessarily be true.”

Williams is in a position to know of what he speaks.

On May 27, the BBC ran a report on Houla under a photo purporting to show “the bodies of children in Houla awaiting burial.”

In reality this was an example of opposition propaganda that was anything but “brilliant”. The photograph of dozens of shrouded corpses was actually taken by Marco di Lauro in Iraq on March 27, 2003 and was of white body bags containing skeletons found in a desert south of Baghdad.

Di Lauro commented, “What I am really astonished by is that a news organization like the BBC doesn’t check the sources and it’s willing to publish any picture sent it by anyone: activist, citizen journalist or whatever… Someone is using someone else’s picture for propaganda on purpose.”

The BBC again acted as a vehicle for such propaganda, despite knowing that the photo had been supplied by an “activist” and that it could not be independently verified.

Williams concludes with the advice to his colleagues: “A healthy scepticism is one of the essential qualities of any journalist—never more so than in reporting conflict. The stakes are high—all may not always be as it seems.”

Given its track record, the appeal to exercise a healthy skepticism should more correctly be directed towards the BBC’s readers and viewers—and towards the entire official media apparatus.

It may well be the case that Williams’ mea culpa is motivated by a personal concern at the role he and his colleagues are being asked to play as mouthpieces for the campaign for regime change in Syria. But with his comments buried away on his blog, elsewhere on the BBC everything proceeds according to script.

The BBC’s coverage of the alleged June 6 massacre in the village of Qubair once again features uncritical coverage of allegations by the opposition that it was the work of Shabiha militias that were being protected by Syrian troops. BBC correspondent Paul Danahar, accompanying UN monitors, writes of buildings gutted and burnt and states that it is “unclear” what happened to the bodies of dozens of reported victims. He writes of a house “gutted by fire,” the “smell of burnt flesh,” blood and pieces of flesh. He writes that “butchering the people did not satisfy the blood lust of the attackers. They shot the livestock too.”

This is accompanied by a picture of a dead donkey, but aside from this there is absolutely nothing of substance to indicate what happened in the village.

And at one point, Danahar tweets: “A man called Ahmed has come up from the village who says he witnessed the killings. He has says dozens were killed… He has a badly bruised face but his story is conflicted & the UN say they are not sure he’s honest as they think he followed the convoy” (emphasis added).

This does not stop Danahar from concluding, from tracks supposedly made by military vehicles, that “attempts to cover up the details of the atrocity are calculated & clear.”

So much for healthy scepticism!

It must also be pointed out that the BBC has not written a word regarding the June 7 report by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that the Free Syrian Army carried out the Houla massacre, according to interviews with local residents by opposition forces opposed to the Western-backed militia.

By Chris Marsden

15 June, 2012

@ WSWS.org

The Land of the Pure and True – Muslims in China Feature

Muslim China boasts a population of 20 million. From the Hui to the Uyghurs, Islam in China is distinctive and diverse – intertwining authentic Chinese culture, with Islamic practice.

I get into a rickshaw in Beijing and my 65 year old wrinkled driver immediately whizzes me through the hutongs – old, narrow alleyways. He looks at me and talks in Chinese. I turn to my guide. “He’s asking where you are from.” “Aygee,” I reply in my broken Chinese – Egypt . He points at my headscarf, “Are you Hindu?”

“No, Muslim.” He smiles and points to himself, “Moosleeman.” For many people it comes as a shock to learn that officially there are at least 20 million Muslims in China , that’s a third of the UK ’s total population. Unofficially, the number is even higher, some saying 65.3 million and even 100 million Muslims in China – up to 7.5% of the population.

Regardless of the real figure, the reality is that Islam in China is almost as old as the revelation of Islam to the Prophet Muhammad S.A.W.W. Twenty years after the Prophet’s death, diplomatic relations were established in China by the Caliph Uthman. Trade was followed by settlement, until eighty years after the hijrah pagoda style masjid appeared in China . A century later, in 755, it became common for Chinese emperors to employ Muslim soldiers in their armies and also as government officials.

Today, the population of China includes 56 ethnic groups, 10 of which are Muslim. Out of these 10 minority groups, the Hui (short for Huizhou) are the largest group at 9.8m, making up 48% of China ’s Muslim population. The second largest group is the Uyghurs at 8.4m, or 41% of the Chinese Muslim population. The Hui speak Chinese, unlike the Uyghurs and five other Muslim ethnic groups which speak Turkic languages. Overwhelmingly Sunni in belief and practice, the Hui are ethnically and culturally Chinese, virtually indistinguishable from the Han, who make up China ’s billion-strong community. If my rickshaw driver hadn’t told me he was Muslim, I would have never guessed.

For over a millennium, and across five major imperial dynasties the Hui have lived in China peacefully, spread in every province and contributing to every aspect of Chinese life, from the military and the economy to the arts and sciences. Thriving in a non-Muslim civilisation, the Hui managed to create an indigenous Islamic culture that is uniquely and simultaneously Chinese and Muslim. Their experience, as Dru Gladney, author of Dislocating China puts it, is a “standing refutation of Samuel Huntington’s clash of civilisations.” No identity crisis whatsoever.

1,400 years of History

Muslims in China began as traders and soldiers in the seventh century, therefore instilling in the early Muslim settlers a sense of belonging and legitimacy; they were not a burden on the country, but valuable contributors. It was only in the thirteenth century however, after the Mongols conquered China, that these Muslims who were classified as ‘foreign guests’ were allowed to live wherever they chose and granted citizenship. This started the development of a fully indigenous Chinese Muslim culture. The Mongols, a minority themselves, encouraged Muslim migration to China , and forcibly relocated millions of Muslim immigrants, employing them as government officials and dispersing them throughout China . In the Ming dynasty Hui became the standard title for Chinese Muslims, and they flourished.

Centuries later, during the Manchurian (Qing) dynasty in 1780, communal violence between the Han and Hui began, and continued for 150 years. It began with the Manchurian’s discriminatory policies towards the Muslims: forbidding them from building mosques or slaughtering animals, paradoxically at a time when then Hui had become an integral part of Chinese culture. One of the worst bloodbaths took place between 1862 and 1878 in the province of Gansu , where the population of 15 millions were slaughtered to one million, two-thirds of which were Hui.

The Manchurian dynasty was overthrown in 1912, although violence against the Hui continued until 1930. But then less than 20 years later, communist party Chairman Mao Zedong established the People’s Republic of China, a Marxist state that was antagonistic to all religions. The Hui, with other religious minorities, were prosecuted, killed, and had their places of worship destroyed. It was only after Mao’s death that things started to settle down. Realising the economic potential of the Hui, the government sought to make amends and offered them special accommodations.

Imam Ali Noor-Elhuda, Chairman of the Islamic Association in Beijing , and Imam of the gorgeous 1,000-year-old Niujie mosque tells me, “The government is no longer repressing faith and allows everyone to practice their religion. It emphasises respect to everyone. And although in our history there was fighting with the Han, it is mostly peaceful now. And for the most part there is no ideological conflict between Muslims; we believe in one God and one Book. The differences are only in language, food and tradition.” Although Chinese Muslims are currently disfranchised from political involvement (the Chinese communist party only admits atheists, I’m told by some students), the political stability of modern China is hopefully a good omen for the future of the Hui.

Harmony

Islam began in an Arab region. On the surface, it seemed to be at complete odds with Chinese traditions and Confucianism, which at the time was the official religion of China . The ancient Chinese people saw their civilisation as the epitome of human development, and had Islam been presented as an alien faith, they would have rejected it completely and seen it as unworthy, with no place in their world. Islam in China would have become isolated, and perhaps as fleeting as Christianity was.

“But this was unacceptable,” says the Imam of the Grand Mosque of Xian, the first mosque to be built in China almost 1,400 years ago. Sitting in front of him, trying not to gawp at the incredible architecture surrounding me, I ask him why. “Chinese Muslims love their country and its people. We are Chinese. We cannot not be part of China . There is even a hadith that says, ‘Love of your country is part of faith.’”

The Hui scholars therefore searched to find the common ground between Islam and the main faiths of China : Confucianism, Daoism (Taoism), and Buddhism. They became experts in Islamic and Chinese texts, traditions and practices, and without their efforts Chinese Muslim culture would have remained alien and foreign, isolated and far removed from the community.

In Western discourse, Dr. Umar Abd-Allah of the Nawawi Foundation tells me, many scholars argue that in order to integrate into the country, Chinese Islam Sinicised, which means orthodox Islamic faith and practice was made Chinese. The most evident example of how Chinese Muslims created their own unique forms of cultural expressions are their mosques, of which 45,000 exist in China. Stunningly beautiful, the mosques are quintessentially both Chinese and Muslim. My first sight of a Chinese mosque literally took my breath away. On the outside, they are built in traditional Chinese style, with pagoda-like roofs, Chinese calligraphy and Chinese archways. On the inside, however the Islamic influences are crystal clear : beautiful Chinese Arabic calligraphy, an octagonal minaret, a mihrab, a Chinese Imam lecturing in Mandarin and making supplication in perfect Arabic. Examples of the fusion of Chinese and Islamic traditions are everywhere. In Xian, where an estimated 90,000 Muslims live, whilst wandering through a noisy souvenir market I came across traditional wall hangings with Arabic hadith written in calligraphy; porcelain tea sets with Qur’anic verses inscribed on them; popular red amulets with an attribute of Allah at the center rather than the traditional Chinese zodiac animal; rosaries with a name of Allah printed on each bead in Chinese characters; Qur’ans printed in both Chinese and Arabic.

When it comes to language, rather than transliterate Arabic terms into words that might be mispronounced and misunderstood – since the Chinese writing system is not phonetic – the early Hui scholars decided to choose words that best reflected the meaning of the Arabic terms, and at the same time were meaningful in Chinese tradition. Their purpose in doing this was twofold: they showed the Chinese community that they respected, believed and honoured the Chinese tradition, and that Islamic concepts, which in Arabic might have seemed inconceivable, were not only relatable, but similar. The Qur’an, for example, was referred to as the Classic: the sacred books of China were called the Classics, and as such the Qur’an was psychologically put in the same category. Islam was translated as Qing Zhen Jiao, “The religion of the Pure and the Real”. At the great Mosque of Xian, Chinese characters proclaim, “May the religion of the Pure and the Real spread wisdom throughout the land.”

Haroun Khanmir, a 24-year-old Islamic Studies student at the Xiguian masjid in Lingxia, has studied Arabic for four years. “Being fluent in Chinese and Arabic allows me to appreciate the brilliance of the terms chosen. They have so many nuances that instantly explain the true essence of Islam using main Chinese values.”

When comparing Islamic and Chinese traditions, the Hui scholars searched for  common ground, coming up with five main principles that both traditions shared. And although they were clear about where Islamic belief deviated from Chinese thought, they did not set out to reject Chinese tradition and prove why it was wrong. Instead, they showed how Islam added to it. By not painting Islamic and Chinese tradition in binary opposition where belief in the former meant rejection of the latter, they avoided distressing Muslims who were very much Chinese.

“I consider myself 100% Chinese,” says a smiling 18 year old Ahmed Dong, dressed in a white thobe and turban. “And I don’t see why, even with different politics and languages and beliefs, we can’t be so; we share the same language, customs, and culture. Our country is so diverse, and yet unity is a value we all wish to have, rather than living separately.” One of the hundreds of students at the Xiguian masjid who come from a number of different ethnic backgrounds and study Qur’aan, hadith, Arabic, English, as well as computer skills, Dong hopes to continue his studies in an Arabic country, and then come back and do da’wa in China, raising awareness of Islam.

Today

Thirty four years after the Cultural Revolution, Muslims – and indeed, followers of other religions – are in a much better position. Islamic associations, schools and colleges are being created, mosques are being built, and there is a small but visible Islamic revival. After years of repression, Chinese Muslims are flourishing, organizing inter-ethnic activities amongst themselves and international activities with Muslims abroad.

China’s one-child policy applies to the Hui, even though minority groups are allowed to have two or even three children, simply because the Hui’s numbers are so substantial. The majority of the other Chinese Muslim minority groups, however, are allowed to have two children, and Chinese Muslim numbers are increasing.. “There is also a very small number of converts,” says the Imam of the Xiguian masjid after a heartfelt du’a under the shade of a 500 year old tree, the only original thing left in the masjid complex which was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. “But what is more interesting is that many people who would not admit to being Muslims before out of fear of harming their livelihoods, like doctors, are now openly saying they are Muslims.”

Depending on the city you are in, the practice of Islam is different. In rural areas such as Little Makkah, where Muslims make up almost 60% of the population, Islam is evident in the number of mosques, halal restaurants and women in headscarves. It felt wonderful and yet so strange to walk and hear a dozen assalamu alaikums; to hear the adhan. In cosmopolitan cities like Beijing , however, as in every country of the world, globalisation and consumerism affects spirituality. Abdul Rahman Haroun, Imam of the 300-year old Nan Dou Mosque, one of Beijing ’s 72 masjids, elaborates: “Here in the big cities Muslims have to conform to the dress code.

Women do not wear head scarves because they are inconvenient and would be incomprehensible. In the south western parts of China it is different.” Deea’ El Din, Imam at the 85 year old masjid in Shanghai smiles when I tell him I am from Egypt, and says that the years he spent at Al-Azhar university in Cairo were some of the best in his life. “Unfortunately, the environment here is not conducive to being religious, and most masjid-goers are older men and women.” He excuses himself to call the adhan for maghrib, and leads us in prayers; there were only half a dozen Chinese worshippers.

Muslim minorities around the world have much to learn from the experience of the Hui in China , even though many Muslim minorities today in the West have a millennium long history of contributing to their country. By delving deep into the heart of Islamic beliefs and becoming just as knowledgeable of Chinese beliefs, the Hui scholars found common ground with faiths and traditions that on the surface seemed very different to Islam – but they found the human values that bind us.

The Islamic scholars of today have to do the same with Western traditions, which are much more similar to Islam than Chinese traditions: they share the same Abrahamic values and beliefs, and the two civilisations have histories that were often intertwined.

There are 10 Muslim minority groups in China , but never in the history of the world has there ever been such an ethnically diverse group of Muslims in non-Muslim countries as there are in the world today. From the example of China we learn the importance of cross-cultural communication.

The Hui experience also demonstrates that it is very possible that Muslims can live in harmony with very different civilisations, and at the same time create a viable and unique indigenous culture. The fusion of things Chinese and Islamic is unparalleled, whether it is in thought or cultural expression. By expressing their spirituality through architecture, works of literature, calligraphy and more, the Hui demonstrate to all minority Muslim groups that creating an authentic and genuine culture that is both Muslim and indigenous is not only possible, but beautiful. My fondest memory of the entire trip is reading Qur’aan in a Chinese masjid, only to have an old Chinese woman, dressed all in white sit next to me, smile hugely and point at the Qur’aan. I look at her askance, and she starts pointing to the letters and at me. I start reading from surah Ya Sin and she reads with me. And for the next fifteen minutes we read together. Islam is truly a universal religion.

I get into a rickshaw in Beijing and my 65 year old wrinkled driver immediately whizzes me through the hutongs – old, narrow alleyways. He looks at me and talks in Chinese. I turn to my guide. “He’s asking where you are from.” “Aygee,” I reply in my broken Chinese – Egypt . He points at my headscarf, “Are you Hindu?”

“No, Muslim.” He smiles and points to himself, “Moosleeman.” For many people it comes as a shock to learn that officially there are at least 20 million Muslims in China , that’s a third of the UK ’s total population. Unofficially, the number is even higher, some saying 65.3 million and even 100 million Muslims in China – up to 7.5% of the population.

Regardless of the real figure, the reality is that Islam in China is almost as old as the revelation of Islam to the Prophet Muhammad S.A.W.W. Twenty years after the Prophet’s death, diplomatic relations were established in China by the Caliph Uthman. Trade was followed by settlement, until eighty years after the hijrah pagoda style masjid appeared in China . A century later, in 755, it became common for Chinese emperors to employ Muslim soldiers in their armies and also as government officials.

Today, the population of China includes 56 ethnic groups, 10 of which are Muslim. Out of these 10 minority groups, the Hui (short for Huizhou) are the largest group at 9.8m, making up 48% of China ’s Muslim population. The second largest group is the Uyghurs at 8.4m, or 41% of the Chinese Muslim population. The Hui speak Chinese, unlike the Uyghurs and five other Muslim ethnic groups which speak Turkic languages. Overwhelmingly Sunni in belief and practice, the Hui are ethnically and culturally Chinese, virtually indistinguishable from the Han, who make up China ’s billion-strong community. If my rickshaw driver hadn’t told me he was Muslim, I would have never guessed.

For over a millennium, and across five major imperial dynasties the Hui have lived in China peacefully, spread in every province and contributing to every aspect of Chinese life, from the military and the economy to the arts and sciences. Thriving in a non-Muslim civilisation, the Hui managed to create an indigenous Islamic culture that is uniquely and simultaneously Chinese and Muslim. Their experience, as Dru Gladney, author of Dislocating China puts it, is a “standing refutation of Samuel Huntington’s clash of civilisations.” No identity crisis whatsoever.

1,400 years of History

Muslims in China began as traders and soldiers in the seventh century, therefore instilling in the early Muslim settlers a sense of belonging and legitimacy; they were not a burden on the country, but valuable contributors. It was only in the thirteenth century however, after the Mongols conquered China, that these Muslims who were classified as ‘foreign guests’ were allowed to live wherever they chose and granted citizenship. This started the development of a fully indigenous Chinese Muslim culture. The Mongols, a minority themselves, encouraged Muslim migration to China , and forcibly relocated millions of Muslim immigrants, employing them as government officials and dispersing them throughout China . In the Ming dynasty Hui became the standard title for Chinese Muslims, and they flourished.

Centuries later, during the Manchurian (Qing) dynasty in 1780, communal violence between the Han and Hui began, and continued for 150 years. It began with the Manchurian’s discriminatory policies towards the Muslims: forbidding them from building mosques or slaughtering animals, paradoxically at a time when then Hui had become an integral part of Chinese culture. One of the worst bloodbaths took place between 1862 and 1878 in the province of Gansu , where the population of 15 millions were slaughtered to one million, two-thirds of which were Hui.

The Manchurian dynasty was overthrown in 1912, although violence against the Hui continued until 1930. But then less than 20 years later, communist party Chairman Mao Zedong established the People’s Republic of China, a Marxist state that was antagonistic to all religions. The Hui, with other religious minorities, were prosecuted, killed, and had their places of worship destroyed. It was only after Mao’s death that things started to settle down. Realising the economic potential of the Hui, the government sought to make amends and offered them special accommodations.

Imam Ali Noor-Elhuda, Chairman of the Islamic Association in Beijing , and Imam of the gorgeous 1,000-year-old Niujie mosque tells me, “The government is no longer repressing faith and allows everyone to practice their religion. It emphasises respect to everyone. And although in our history there was fighting with the Han, it is mostly peaceful now. And for the most part there is no ideological conflict between Muslims; we believe in one God and one Book. The differences are only in language, food and tradition.” Although Chinese Muslims are currently disfranchised from political involvement (the Chinese communist party only admits atheists, I’m told by some students), the political stability of modern China is hopefully a good omen for the future of the Hui.

Harmony

Islam began in an Arab region. On the surface, it seemed to be at complete odds with Chinese traditions and Confucianism, which at the time was the official religion of China . The ancient Chinese people saw their civilisation as the epitome of human development, and had Islam been presented as an alien faith, they would have rejected it completely and seen it as unworthy, with no place in their world. Islam in China would have become isolated, and perhaps as fleeting as Christianity was.

“But this was unacceptable,” says the Imam of the Grand Mosque of Xian, the first mosque to be built in China almost 1,400 years ago. Sitting in front of him, trying not to gawp at the incredible architecture surrounding me, I ask him why. “Chinese Muslims love their country and its people. We are Chinese. We cannot not be part of China . There is even a hadith that says, ‘Love of your country is part of faith.’”

The Hui scholars therefore searched to find the common ground between Islam and the main faiths of China : Confucianism, Daoism (Taoism), and Buddhism. They became experts in Islamic and Chinese texts, traditions and practices, and without their efforts Chinese Muslim culture would have remained alien and foreign, isolated and far removed from the community.

In Western discourse, Dr. Umar Abd-Allah of the Nawawi Foundation tells me, many scholars argue that in order to integrate into the country, Chinese Islam Sinicised, which means orthodox Islamic faith and practice was made Chinese. The most evident example of how Chinese Muslims created their own unique forms of cultural expressions are their mosques, of which 45,000 exist in China. Stunningly beautiful, the mosques are quintessentially both Chinese and Muslim. My first sight of a Chinese mosque literally took my breath away. On the outside, they are built in traditional Chinese style, with pagoda-like roofs, Chinese calligraphy and Chinese archways. On the inside, however the Islamic influences are crystal clear : beautiful Chinese Arabic calligraphy, an octagonal minaret, a mihrab, a Chinese Imam lecturing in Mandarin and making supplication in perfect Arabic. Examples of the fusion of Chinese and Islamic traditions are everywhere. In Xian, where an estimated 90,000 Muslims live, whilst wandering through a noisy souvenir market I came across traditional wall hangings with Arabic hadith written in calligraphy; porcelain tea sets with Qur’anic verses inscribed on them; popular red amulets with an attribute of Allah at the center rather than the traditional Chinese zodiac animal; rosaries with a name of Allah printed on each bead in Chinese characters; Qur’ans printed in both Chinese and Arabic.

When it comes to language, rather than transliterate Arabic terms into words that might be mispronounced and misunderstood – since the Chinese writing system is not phonetic – the early Hui scholars decided to choose words that best reflected the meaning of the Arabic terms, and at the same time were meaningful in Chinese tradition. Their purpose in doing this was twofold: they showed the Chinese community that they respected, believed and honoured the Chinese tradition, and that Islamic concepts, which in Arabic might have seemed inconceivable, were not only relatable, but similar. The Qur’an, for example, was referred to as the Classic: the sacred books of China were called the Classics, and as such the Qur’an was psychologically put in the same category. Islam was translated as Qing Zhen Jiao, “The religion of the Pure and the Real”. At the great Mosque of Xian, Chinese characters proclaim, “May the religion of the Pure and the Real spread wisdom throughout the land.”

Haroun Khanmir, a 24-year-old Islamic Studies student at the Xiguian masjid in Lingxia, has studied Arabic for four years. “Being fluent in Chinese and Arabic allows me to appreciate the brilliance of the terms chosen. They have so many nuances that instantly explain the true essence of Islam using main Chinese values.”

When comparing Islamic and Chinese traditions, the Hui scholars searched for  common ground, coming up with five main principles that both traditions shared. And although they were clear about where Islamic belief deviated from Chinese thought, they did not set out to reject Chinese tradition and prove why it was wrong. Instead, they showed how Islam added to it. By not painting Islamic and Chinese tradition in binary opposition where belief in the former meant rejection of the latter, they avoided distressing Muslims who were very much Chinese.

“I consider myself 100% Chinese,” says a smiling 18 year old Ahmed Dong, dressed in a white thobe and turban. “And I don’t see why, even with different politics and languages and beliefs, we can’t be so; we share the same language, customs, and culture. Our country is so diverse, and yet unity is a value we all wish to have, rather than living separately.” One of the hundreds of students at the Xiguian masjid who come from a number of different ethnic backgrounds and study Qur’aan, hadith, Arabic, English, as well as computer skills, Dong hopes to continue his studies in an Arabic country, and then come back and do da’wa in China, raising awareness of Islam.

Today

Thirty four years after the Cultural Revolution, Muslims – and indeed, followers of other religions – are in a much better position. Islamic associations, schools and colleges are being created, mosques are being built, and there is a small but visible Islamic revival. After years of repression, Chinese Muslims are flourishing, organizing inter-ethnic activities amongst themselves and international activities with Muslims abroad.

China’s one-child policy applies to the Hui, even though minority groups are allowed to have two or even three children, simply because the Hui’s numbers are so substantial. The majority of the other Chinese Muslim minority groups, however, are allowed to have two children, and Chinese Muslim numbers are increasing.. “There is also a very small number of converts,” says the Imam of the Xiguian masjid after a heartfelt du’a under the shade of a 500 year old tree, the only original thing left in the masjid complex which was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. “But what is more interesting is that many people who would not admit to being Muslims before out of fear of harming their livelihoods, like doctors, are now openly saying they are Muslims.”

Depending on the city you are in, the practice of Islam is different. In rural areas such as Little Makkah, where Muslims make up almost 60% of the population, Islam is evident in the number of mosques, halal restaurants and women in headscarves. It felt wonderful and yet so strange to walk and hear a dozen assalamu alaikums; to hear the adhan. In cosmopolitan cities like Beijing , however, as in every country of the world, globalisation and consumerism affects spirituality. Abdul Rahman Haroun, Imam of the 300-year old Nan Dou Mosque, one of Beijing ’s 72 masjids, elaborates: “Here in the big cities Muslims have to conform to the dress code.

Women do not wear head scarves because they are inconvenient and would be incomprehensible. In the south western parts of China it is different.” Deea’ El Din, Imam at the 85 year old masjid in Shanghai smiles when I tell him I am from Egypt, and says that the years he spent at Al-Azhar university in Cairo were some of the best in his life. “Unfortunately, the environment here is not conducive to being religious, and most masjid-goers are older men and women.” He excuses himself to call the adhan for maghrib, and leads us in prayers; there were only half a dozen Chinese worshippers.

Muslim minorities around the world have much to learn from the experience of the Hui in China , even though many Muslim minorities today in the West have a millennium long history of contributing to their country. By delving deep into the heart of Islamic beliefs and becoming just as knowledgeable of Chinese beliefs, the Hui scholars found common ground with faiths and traditions that on the surface seemed very different to Islam – but they found the human values that bind us.

The Islamic scholars of today have to do the same with Western traditions, which are much more similar to Islam than Chinese traditions: they share the same Abrahamic values and beliefs, and the two civilisations have histories that were often intertwined.

There are 10 Muslim minority groups in China , but never in the history of the world has there ever been such an ethnically diverse group of Muslims in non-Muslim countries as there are in the world today. From the example of China we learn the importance of cross-cultural communication.

The Hui experience also demonstrates that it is very possible that Muslims can live in harmony with very different civilisations, and at the same time create a viable and unique indigenous culture. The fusion of things Chinese and Islamic is unparalleled, whether it is in thought or cultural expression. By expressing their spirituality through architecture, works of literature, calligraphy and more, the Hui demonstrate to all minority Muslim groups that creating an authentic and genuine culture that is both Muslim and indigenous is not only possible, but beautiful. My fondest memory of the entire trip is reading Qur’aan in a Chinese masjid, only to have an old Chinese woman, dressed all in white sit next to me, smile hugely and point at the Qur’aan. I look at her askance, and she starts pointing to the letters and at me. I start reading from surah Ya Sin and she reads with me. And for the next fifteen minutes we read together. Islam is truly a universal religion.

By Ethar El-Katatney

 

Syrian News on June 20, 2012

President al-Assad Decrees Establishing Veterinary Medicine Faculty affiliated with Damascus University in Daraa City

DAMASCUS, (SANA) – President Bashar al-Assad issued on Tuesday decree No. 205 for 2012.

The decree stipulates for establishing a veterinary medicine faculty affiliated with Damascus University in Daraa city.

Sixteen Army and Law-enforcement Martyrs Laid to Rest

PROVINCES, (SANA)- On the music of the ‘Martyr’ and the ‘Farewell’, the bodies of 16 army and the law enforcement martyrs on Tuesdaywere escorted from Tishreen, Aleppo and Zahi Azraq Military Hospitals and Sweida National Hospital to their final resting place.

Solemn funeral processions were held for the martyrs who were targeted by armed terrorist groups while they were in line of duty in Damascus Countryside, Homs, Daraa and Aleppo.

The martyrs are:

  • Lieutenant Colonel Ma’an Ahmad Shakkouf, from Homs.
  • Aspirant Mazen Bader Hussam-Eddin, from Lattakia.
  • Warrant officer Ya’el Hamed Wannous, from Hama.
  • Sergeant Major Alaa mohammad Suleiman, from Tartous.
  • Sergeant Suleiman Hamad Seif, from Sweida.
  • Sergeant Youssef Khalil al-Jasem, from Raqaa.
  • Corporal Ayham Diyab al-Saleh, from Hama.
  • Corporal Hussam-Eddin Abu Mudirah, from Damascus Countryside.
  • Conscript Abed Ali Ali, from Aleppo.
  • Conscript Assad Mamed Bakko, from Aleppo.
  • Conscript Mohammad Dib Hussein Sarraj, from Aleppo.
  • Conscript Abdul-Rahman al-Ghabani, from Hama.
  • Conscript Ahmad Mohammad al-Jaber, from Raqaa.
  • Conscript Najm-Eddin Diyab, from Raqaa.
  • Conscript Mohammad Zakariya Barakat, from Lattakia.
  • Policeman Ghandi Mohammad Maryam, from Hama.

The families of the martyrs expressed confidence in the Syrian people’s ability to overcome the crisis through adhering to the national unity, asserting that the blood of the martyrs is the guarantee for fortifying Syria in the face of the challenges.

They expressed rejection of all forms of foreign interference in Syria’s internal affairs, calling for confronting the armed terrorist groups and striking with an iron fist those who try to tamper with the homeland’s security and stability.

§Two Military Engineering Members Martyred in Aleppo… Terrorists Attack Oil Pipelines in Deir Ezzor and Homs,  Kill Two Children,   Assassinate a Nurse in Damascus

PROVINCE, (SANA)_ Two members from the military engineering units were martyred, one was injured and a law-enforcement member was injured on Tuesday as an explosive device was detonated by an armed terrorist group in Al Azizieh neighborhood in Aleppo.

SANA reporter quoted a source in the province as saying that the military engineering units had just dismantled an explosive device when the armed terrorist group detonated another one in the same area.

The source added the explosion led to the martyrdom of Sergeant Ali Hassan Marouf, Bishing Abdo Alik, adding that Sergeant Maher al-Hakim and Warrant Officer Rami Qashqa’ from the law-enforcement forces were wounded.

Oil Pipelines in Deir Ezzour and Homs Attacked

An armed terrorist group on Tuesday detonated with an explosive device oil derivatives pipeline extending from Homs to Damascus and the Southern region at al-Sultaniya area in Homs causing fire to erupt at the site of the blast.

Earlier, an armed terrorist group detonated with an explosive device an oil transfer pipeline between Eyin Ali area south of al-Quriya city in Deir Ezzour causing fire to erupt at the site of the blast.

A source at the Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources told SANA reporter that the 24-inch diameter oil pipeline,which belongs to al-Furat Oil Company, transfers crude oil from al-Omar field to T2 station.

The source added that pumping operations were halted after the explosion, adding that the maintenance workshops will start repair works soon to restore pumping oil in the next few days.

The same pipeline has been targeted twice during the past two weeks as an armed terrorist group detonated the pipeline near Abu Hamam area.

Terrorist Infiltration Attempts from Lebanon to Syria Thwarted

The competent authorities on Monday confronted two infiltration attempts by armed terrorist groups near al-Jousieh crossing in al-Qseir city and near Qumar Bridge in Talkalakh countryside.

A source at Homs Governorate told SANA reporter that the clash between the authorities and the armed groups resulted in the killing of a number of terrorists and the injury of others at the aforementioned sites and the destruction of a war that an armed group was driving at al-Jousieh crossing.

The source added that the rest of the terrorists fled towards the Lebanese territories.

An armed terrorist group exploded Tuesday morning a gasoline pipeline  – Homs-Adra Pipline at Babamro-al-Sultaniah in Homs Governorate.

According to an official source at the Ministry of Oil and Petroleum, the competent authorities are taking the necessary measures to extinguish the fire caused by the explosion and repair the pipeline as to re-start pumping operations.

Another armed terrorist group launched a similar attack yesterday against an oil pipeline affiliated to al-Furat Company at al-quoria village in Deir Azzour Governorate.

Meantime, in Damascus Governorate, competent authorities clashed with armed terrorists at Douma outskirts killing the terrorists who were in Dushka machinegun –equipped  four cars.

Other four terrorists were killed and four others injured, some of them captured, in the clashes with terrorists between Rankous and Azzabadani in Damascus Countryside.

Car Bomb Kills Two Terrorists in Idleb Countryside

A car bomb killed two terrorists on Tuesday in Jisr Hileh in Idleb countryside.

SANA reporter quoted a source in the province as saying that the two terrorists were in the car when it exploded causing damage in the area.

Meanwhile in Hama province, competent authorities clashed with an armed terrorist group in al-Qusour neighborhood.

SANA reporter said that the clashes resulted in killing many terrorists, arresting others and seizing their weapons which included machineguns, RPG launchers, night-vision goggles, remote-control devices and a large amount of ammunition.

Authorities Uncover Workshop for Manufacturing  Explosives in Douma

The authorities raided a terrorist hideout in Douma, Damascus Countryside, and clashed with a number of terrorists hiding in it, killing some of them and arresting the rest.

An official source told SANA’s correspondent that inspection of the hideout uncovered a workshop for manufacturing explosives devices and rigging car bombs.

Terrorists Storm Citizen’s House in Qudsaya and Kill His Sons, Assassinate a Nurse in Rukn Eddin

An armed terrorist group stormed the house of citizen Ammar Shamiyeh, behind al-Badr Hospital in Qudsaya in Damascus Countryside.

A source at the Police Command told SANA reporter that the terrorists opened fire on Shamiyeh’s sons Murhaf (19 years old) and Yazan (15 years old), causing their immediate death.

In Rukn Eddin area in Damascus, two terrorists assassinated the nurse Jamileh Aziz Ahmad.

A source at the Police Command in the province told SANA that the two terrorists intercepted the way of the 40-year-old nurse and shot her while she was walking in the street.

Engineering units explode a number of explosives planted by armed terrorist groups in different areas of Idleb

The Engineering units today exploded a number of explosives planted by armed terrorist groups in different areas of Idleb that were prepared to target the citizens and law enforcement personnel.

A source in Idleb told SANA reporter that the engineering units blew up explosives with 100 KG at the southern entrance of  Maarat al-Numan and two others with 75 KG each on Ariha- Jisr al-Shoughour road.

It added that the explosives were put by terrorists within the populated areas.

§Shaaban and Bogdanov Discuss Latest Developments on Events in Syria

MOSCOW, (SANA)- Presidential Political and Media Advisor, Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban, discussed on Monday with Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Mikhail Bogdanov, the latest developments regarding the events in Syria and the Russian efforts to consolidate stability in Syria and help launch the dialogue in it.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Dr. Shaaban expressed thanks over Russia’s stance of rejecting foreign interference in the Syrian affair and its role seeking to create the conditions for a diplomatic political settlement and prevent the supply of money and weapons to the gunmen in Syria.

Lavrov Stresses Importance of Unifying Efforts of External Players to Reach Peaceful Settlement

The Russian Foreign Ministry on Tuesday said the Russia-proposed international conference on Syria would provide appropriate conditions for starting a political dialogue among the Syrian parties.

The Ministry was quoted by Russia Today website as saying that Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, having discussed the crisis in Syria on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Los Cabos in Mexico, stressed the importance of unifying the efforts of external players to reach peaceful settlement to the situation in Syria.

The Ministry added that Lavrov drew attention to the necessity of creating appropriate conditions to start political dialogue among the Syrian parties, through which they themselves are to solve the issues of “overhauling the political system in the country”.

It pointed out that the Russian initiative on an international dialogue on Syria is particularly aimed at achieving this end.

§Al-Hamwi Denounces Biased and Subjective Statements Issued by Pillay Based on Provocative Media Reports

GENEVA, (SANA) – Syria’s Permanent Representative to the UN Office at Geneva (UNOG), Dr. Fayssal al-Hamwi, stressed that the armed terrorist groups are still violating the plan of UN Envoy to Syria, Kofi Annan, with the support of some regional countries and the United States of America.

Dr. al-Hamwi’s remarks came in response to the High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay’s allegations and some states’ representatives that support the armed terrorist groups in Syria during the 20th  meeting of the Human Rights Council held in Geneva on Monday.

Dr. al-Hamwi expressed the Syrian delegation’s disapproval of the biased and subjective statements made by the High Commissioner based on some provocative media reports.

On Pillay’s allegations that the UN Supervision Mission in Syria (UNSMIS) did not manage to reach some areas in Syria, Dr. al-Hamwi pointed out that the good standing cooperation between the international observers and the Syrian Government was certified by the head of the mission who affirmed that his team was moving freely in the country.

Dr. al-Hamwi also refuted the allegations of the representatives of Qatar, Libya and the USA about the casualties in Syria, pointing out that these countries are supplying the armed gangs with weapons and money.

For his part, Russia’s representative stressed the importance of solving the crisis in Syria through peaceful means, calling for supporting Annan’s plan.

 §Homs Governorate: Armed Terrorist Groups Thwarted Efforts to Evacuate Civilians

 HOMS, (SANA) – Homs Governorate said on Tuesday that its efforts to rescue civilians trapped in neighborhoods where armed terrorist groups are located have failed, and that mediators dealing with other sides informed the Governorate that the terrorists refused to allow any citizen to leave these areas.

In a statement, the Governorate said that this situation endangers the lives of innocent civilians, especially children, women, elderly and individuals with special needs, and that it shows that the terrorist continue to threaten and terrorize civilians and refuse to comply with the efforts being exerted for around a week to evacuate these citizens.

The Governorate called upon all those who sincerely want to help to participate in rescuing the citizens trapped in these neighborhoods and help end this tragic situation, affirming that the terrorist groups are accountable for the lives of these citizens due to their refusal to let them leave.

The statement concluded by affirming that the Government took all necessary steps to evacuate these citizens without any restrictions or conditions, and that it complied fully with the UN observer mission and prepared all possible necessities that citizens will need when they leave the neighborhoods afflicted by terrorist groups.

§State Ministry for Environmental Affairs Denounces Terrorists’ Infringements upon Forests

 DAMASCUS, (SANA) – The  State Ministry for Environmental Affairs denounced the infringements carried out by armed terrorist groups and those who support them upon forests in Syria, primarily in the northern and northwestern areas on the borders with Turkey.

In a statement, the State Ministry said terrorists have been using Syrian forests in the aforementioned border areas as a convenient hiding place and starting fires in them to facilitate and cover their entry from Turkey to Syria, noting that these infringements are taking place because of the logistic support and weapons supplied to terrorists by Turkey and its providing them with a temporary haven and allowing them to use Turkey’s forests to pass into Syria.

The statement noted that the Turkish sides’ readiness to douse the forest fires started by terrorists indicates prior knowledge of where and when they will occur.

§Russian Defense Ministry Denies News on Preparations for Military Exercises in Syria

MOSCOW, (SANA)- The Russian Defense Ministry denied news on preparations to conduct large-scale military exercises on the Syrian territories with Russia’s participation, a statement by the Ministry said on Tuesday.

It added that the recurrence of such media misinformation recently by influential media based on various intelligence and satellite data aims at further intensifying the situation in Syria and do not reflect the reality on the ground.

The Russian Defense Ministry also dismissed news that the Russian Baltic Fleet large landing ship, Kaliningrad, is soon to set sail to the Mediterranean and enter Tartous Port in Syria.

The Ministry’s statement said that the only correct piece in this news is that Kaliningrad ship is indeed part of the Russia Baltic Fleet.

§Four Parliament Committees on Public Freedoms and Human Rights, Youths, Women’s Rights and Press Approved

 DAMASCUS, (SANA) – The People’s Assembly on Tuesday agreed on establishing four new permanent committees on public freedoms and human rights, youths, family, children and women’s rights and the press, printing and publishing.

During a session chaired by Speaker Jihad al-Laham, a number of MPs said that this logical reform step came in line with the new constitution as it also reflects keenness on the people’s interests and enhancing freedoms, rights, social justice, national unity and cultural diversity.

They stressed the need for specifying the tasks assigned to the committees to ensure better performance.

They indicated the importance of following up on the requirements of youth and meeting their needs as they are the future of the country through the youth committee, particularly providing job opportunities and establishing a ministry for youth issues.

The members highlighted the role of the family, children and women’s rights committee in empowering women and preserving their rights as they are the main pillar of the society, in addition to drawing special attention to child labor.

They stressed the importance of the freedoms and human rights’ committee in the current stage since freedom is a holy right guaranteed by the constitution, in addition to enhancing the values of justice and trust between the citizens and the state so that Syria would remain an example of unity, amity and fraternity.

They called for changing the name of the press, printing and publishing committee to become media, printing, press and publishing and to task it with supervising the performance of the Ministry of Information, stressing the importance of having a media institution that is able to direct the public opinion in the interest of the homeland and reform process.

The members called for forming committees for combating unemployment, strategic studies and scientific research and care provision for the martyrs’ families.

A committee for accountability and corruption fighting was also called for to be in charge with following up on the affairs of the Central Commission for Control and Inspection and the Central Apparatus for Financial Control, the two bodies charged with corruption issues.

The members also called for forming a committee to supervise the work of civil society organizations and syndicates and another for education, higher education and Arabic language empowerment.

They stressed the need for forming a special temporary committee to study the situation of the affected and displaced citizens due to the current events in the country and the families of civilian and military martyrs to ease their suffering. The committee is to include all the Assembly’s members and operate all over the Syrian provinces.

Stress was also placed on forming a committee to follow up on the implementation of the ministries’ work and projects and presenting monthly reports on any faults.

The members suggested forming a committee for small and medium-sized project development to provide job opportunities for the youths and support their civil initiatives, in addition to establishing a committee for universities and institutes and forming offices at the universities for dialogue with the students.

They underscored the importance of establishing a committee for taking care of and attracting the Syrians expatriate innovators.

They called for a special committee for relief and another temporary one for embarking on the national reconciliation.

Another suggestion focused on forming a social committee to consolidate national unity and rebuilding trust among the homeland’s citizens, and another for preserving national heritage and folklore.

The Assembly’s members stressed the importance of launching the comprehensive national dialogue and find the best means to activate the Assembly’s role in this regard.

They called for combating monopoly which led to a rise in the prices and activating the role of judiciary and monitoring its performance.

They also called for amending the statute of the People’s Assembly so as to enable its members to practice their role of scrutiny, monitoring and accountability as soon as possible to keep pace with the ongoing reform process.

A number of the members also called for re-imposing the state of emergency for a temporary and renewable period due to the prevailing security situation with the aim of protecting the citizens against the violations and criminal acts of the terrorist groups.

The discussions also focused on tackling the problem of the shortage of gas and gas oil and following up on the issue of gas oil smuggling and black market to help supply the citizens and peasants with these two materials.

§Fire at Aleppo Petrol Station Destroys 4 Fuel Tankers

 ALEPPO, (SANA) – 4 gasoline and fuel tankers and 10 oil pumps were completely destroyed when a fire broke out in Aleppo Petrol Station in Bustan al-Basha area without human losses.

 Governor of Aleppo, Mwafaq Khallouf told SANA reporter that the fire spark was triggered by a friction between two private cars at the entrance of the Station while draining the fuel tankers which caused fire to erupt and extend to other tankers. He estimated the damage at SYP 50 million.

 §Putin and Obama: Need for Reaching a Halt of violence in Syria

Los Cabos, Mexico, (SANA)-Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that he and his USA counterpart Barack Obama found common denominators about a lot of international problems, including the Syrian crisis

Putin said at a press conference Monday with Obama in Los Cabos, Mexico ” We held talks about international problems including the Syrian crisis.. we will continue our contacts on all issues.”

Obama, for his part said “We have agreed on the necessity of reaching a halt for violence in Syria and the need for running a political process to avoid a civil war.”

” In order to stop bloodshed in Syria, we call for an immediate halt to any form of violence… we support efforts of the UN Envoy to Syria Kofi Annan including the political shift into democracy, party pluralism and the political system which the Syrians select in the framework of Syrian sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity,” a statement by the two presidents stated.

§Fourteen Citizens Involved in Recent Events Turn Themselves In

DAMASCUS COUNTRYSIDE/ HOMS, (SANA) – 14 citizens who were misled and got involved in the recent events in the country and whose hands are clean of Syrian blood turned themselves in and surrendered their weapons in to the authorities in Damascus Countryside and Homs Provinces.

The citizens were released after pledging not to take up arms again or take part in vandalism or any act that affect Syria’s security and stability in the future.

 

 

 

”Israel”And Despotic Arab Regimes Shake As Revolution Sweeps Through The Middle East

 

 

28 January, 2011

Countercurrents.org

Either we live in dignity or die in dignity

A young Arab blogger

Palestinian scholar Azmi Bshara recently wrote that the whole Arab region is heading quickly towards “Tunisization;” a new term used by Arabs these days to refer to the folk revolution in Tunis.

From Mauretania in the west to Yemen in the east, demonstrations and sit ins are being seen throughout the Middle East. The kings, princes, presidents, the one-man ruler, the one-party, the one- family, the one-tribe ruling system, and naturally the Zionist state are trembling with fear.

The familiar slogan from the Tunisian revolution of (Bread, Freedom, Dignity) are now heard almost everywhere in the Arab world. That region is suffering from major social, political and economic turmoil due to corruption, lack of freedom and absence of hope among the youth. This is confirmed by the United Nations report about the human development in the Arab region.

The report outlines offers a critique and highlights the source for the problems in the area including: corruption, low investment in human resources, absence of freedom and transparency, increasing poverty, and decreasing of middle class and increasing of dissertation and pollution, which threatening agriculture and water sources.

Israel has been worried that the revolution might spread to other parts which will consolidate the democratic forces which naturally are anti-Zionism. This concern was expressed by Sylvan Shalom. Shalom has become even more concerned since the current Egyptian uprising. Egypt is the first country to sign a peace treaty with the Zionist state which it did in 1979. This has, according to Arabs, weakened the Arab struggle against Zionism.

Both Israel and Arab leaders have reasons to be worried about: despotic Arab regimes have turned their countries into private business for themselves and their families, and “Israel” has been occupying Palestine, murdering and humiliating three generations of Arabs since its forceful plantation by the imperial power in Palestine in the black year of 1948.The Us worried too about the situation in Egypt. Obama said that he advised Mubarak to listen to the demands of the people. But now most observers think that the current Egyptian uprising might continue until ending the corrupted regime of Mubarak.

Even before the Tunisian president fled under pressure of the revolution, some Arab countries began to take preventive measures to obstruct the spirit of revolution from spreading their nations. In Jordan, the government tried to bribe the masses by increasing the salaries of the public employees and by allowing the opposition parties to speak up on state TV. The police even distributed water and juice to the demonstrators. In Kuwait, the prince decided to grant each citizen approximately $ 5,000 as a gift. In Syria, Algeria and Yemen, steps were taken to subsidize the cost of food staples. Furthermore, reflecting the increasing concern of the Arab ruling elite, the king of Bahrain called for an emergency meeting for Arab leaders to address grievances of their citizenry. Of course nobody is sure if any serious results would ever come out of such calls because Aspirin cannot cure the old deep wounds, to borrow the words of Jordanian writer Ureib al Rintawi.

The Tunisian revolution has provided Arabs with an example that change is possible, and ordinary people are capable of doing much in this regard.

An elderly Tunisian man addressed a younger Tunisian saying: we have gotten old; it is your time to take responsibility. The events of the revolution proved that Tunisian young men did not fail him. In fact, the Tunisian revolution, as most sources agree was not led by the traditional opposition parties but rather by the young people who were using the net to communicate and to organize their work.

And today as we are following the uprising in Egypt, it is obvious the large role modern communication technology is playing in the uprising. This is why the state cut off the net for several hours, to obstruct the uprising.

While writing this article I looked at one of these sites called (Kuluna Khalid Said) and found out that there are about half million young men communicating on this site. Khalid Said was a young man murdered by the Egyptian police few months ago in Alexandria.

The Egyptian opposition declared today (Friday) as the day of anger and the Egyptian government said that it is ready to face the situation which spread to most Egyptian cities in the last days. Egypt after the 25 of January is not the same after, declared Egyptian opposition politicians.

In the mean time the young Egyptian and Arabs are continuing to express their thoughts on the face book and the twitter preparing themselves to the 28 of January declared as (the day of anger) which many observers believe it might be the decisive day in the conflict between the demonstrators and the government.

“We are tired of being humiliated in our country” a young Arab wrote in his blog. Another young man wrote “either we live in dignity or we die in dignity. “Another blogger refereeing to the young Arab died, drowned in the boats while they trying to come to Europe or Australia by saying “we are dead any way, we have no other choice either to die in the oceans or to die at home in the struggle for change.”

The writer is a Palestinian Norwegian historian in the Middle East.

The Aljazeera Scandal

 

29/01/11

 

I ALWAYS thought this a specifically Israeli trait: whenever a scandal of national proportions breaks out, we ignore the crucial issues and focus our attention on some secondary detail. This spares us having to face the real problems and making painful decisions.

There are examples galore. The classic one centered on the question: “Who Gave the Order?” When it became known that in 1954 an Israeli spy ring had been ordered to plant bombs in US and British institutions in Egypt, in order to sabotage the effort to improve relations between the West and Gamal Abd-al-Nasser, a huge crisis rocked Israel. Almost nobody asked whether the idea itself had been wise or stupid. Almost nobody asked whether it was really in the best interest of Israel to challenge the new and vigorous Egyptian leader, who was fast becoming the idol of the entire Arab world (and who had already secretly indicated that he could possibly make peace with Israel).

No, the question was solely: Who had given the order? The Minister of Defense, Pinhas Lavon, or the chief of military intelligence, Binyamin Gibli? This question rocked the nation, brought down the government and induced David Ben-Gurion to leave the Labor Party.

Recently, the Turkish flotilla scandal centered around the question: was it a good idea for commandos to slide down ropes onto the ship, or should another form of attack have been adopted? Almost nobody asked: should Gaza have been blockaded in the first place? Wasn’t it smarter to start talking with Hamas? Was it a good idea to attack a Turkish ship on the high sees?

It seems that this particular Israeli way of dealing with problems is infectious. In this respect (too), our neighbors are starting to resemble us.

THE ALJAZEERA TV network followed WikiLeaks’ example this week by publishing a pile of secret Palestinian documents. They paint a detailed picture of the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, especially during the time of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, when the gap between the parties became much smaller.

In the Arab world, this caused a huge stir. Even while the “Jasmine Revolution” in Tunisia was still in full swing, and masses of people in Egypt were confronting the Mubarak regime, the Aljazeera leaks stirred up an intense controversy.

But what was the clash about? Not about the position of the Palestinian negotiators, not about the strategy of Mahmoud Abbas and his colleagues, its basic assumptions, its pros and cons.

No, in the Israeli way, the main question was: who leaked the documents? Who is lurking in the shadows behind the whistle-blowers? The CIA? The Mossad? What were their sinister motives?

On Aljazeera, the Palestinian leaders were accused of treason and worse. In Ramallah, the Aljazeera offices were attacked by pro-Abbas crowds. Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian chief negotiator, declared that Aljazeera was actually calling for his murder. He and others denied that they had ever made the concessions indicated in the documents. They seemed to be saying in public that such concessions would amount to betrayal – though they agreed to them in secret.

All this is nonsense. Now that the Palestinian and Israeli negotiating positions have been made public – and nobody seriously denied their authenticity – the real discussion should be about their substance.

FOR ANYONE involved in any way with Israeli-Palestinian peace-making, there was nothing really surprising in these disclosures.

On the contrary, they showed that the Palestinian negotiators are adhering strictly to the guidelines laid down by Yasser Arafat.

I know this firsthand, because I had the opportunity to discuss them with Arafat himself. That was in 1992, after the election of Yitzhak Rabin. Rachel and I went to Tunis to meet “Abu Amar”, as he liked to be called. The high point of the visit was a meeting in which, besides Arafat himself, several Palestinian leaders took part – among them Mahmoud Abbas and Yasser Abed-Rabbo.

All were intensely curious about the personality of Rabin, whom I knew well, and questioned me closely about him. My remark that “Rabin is as honest as a politician can be” was greeted with general laughter, most of all from Arafat.

But the main part of the meeting was devoted to a review of the key problems of Israeli-Palestinian peace. The borders, Jerusalem, security, the refugees etc, which are now generally referred to as the “core issues”.

Arafat and the others discussed it from the Palestinian point of view. I tried to convey what – in my opinion – Rabin could possible agree to. What emerged was a kind of skeleton peace agreement.

Back in Israel, I met with Rabin at his private home on a Shabbat, in the presence of his assistant Eitan Haber, and tried to tell him what had transpired. Rather to my surprise, Rabin evaded all serious discussion. He was already thinking about Oslo.

A few years later, Gush Shalom published a detailed draft peace agreement. It was based on knowledge of the Palestinian position as disclosed in Tunis. As anyone can see on our website, it was very similar to the recent proposals of the Palestinian side as disclosed in the Aljazeera papers.

THESE ARE roughly as follows:

The borders will be based on the 1967 lines, with some minimal swaps of territory which would join to Israel the big settlements immediately adjacent to the Green Line. These do not include the big settlements that cut deep into the West Bank, cutting the territory into pieces, such as Ma’aleh Adumim and Ariel.

All the settlements in what will become the State of Palestine will have to be evacuated. According to the papers, one of the Palestinians opened another option: that the settlers remain where they are and become Palestinian citizens. Tzipi Livni – then Foreign Minister – immediately objected, saying bluntly that all of them would be murdered. I agree that it would not be a good idea – it would cause endless friction, since these settlers sit on Palestinian land, either Palestinian private property or the land reserves of the towns and villages.

About Jerusalem, the solution would be as phrased by President Bill Clinton: What is Arab will go to Palestine, what is Jewish will be joined to Israel. This is a huge Palestinian concession, but a wise one. I was glad that they did not agree to apply this rule to Har Homa, the monstrous settlement built on what was once a beautiful wooded hill, where I spent many days and nights (and almost lost my life) in protests against its construction.

About the refugees, it is clear to any reasonable person that there will not be a mass return of millions, which would turn Israel into something else. This is a very bitter (and unjust) pill for the Palestinians to swallow – but which any Palestinian who really desires a two-state solution must accept. The question is: how many refugees will be allowed back to Israel as a healing gesture? The Palestinians proposed 100,000. Olmert proposed 5,000. That’s a big difference – but once we start to haggle about numbers, a solution can be found.

The Palestinians want an international force to be stationed in the West Bank, safeguarding their own and Israel’s security. I don’t remember if Arafat mentioned this to me, but I am sure that he would have agreed.

This, then, is the Palestinian peace plan – and it has not changed since Arafat came, in late 1973, to the conclusion that the two-state solution was the only viable one. The fact that Olmert and Co. did not jump to accept these terms, instead launching the deadly Cast Lead operation, speaks for itself.

THE ALJAZEERA disclosures are inopportune. Such delicate negotiations are better conducted in secret. The idea that “the people should be part of the negotiations” is naïve. The people should certainly be consulted, but not before a draft agreement lies on the table and they can decide whether they like the whole bundle or not. Before that, disclosures will only whip up a demagogic cacophony of accusations of treason (on both sides), like what is happening now.

For the Israeli peace camp, the disclosures are a blessing. They prove, as Gush Shalom put it yesterday in its weekly statement, that “We have a partner for peace. The Palestinians have no partner for peace.”

 

More to religious (in)tolerance in Indonesia than meets the eye

 

 

Jakarta – At the end of 2010, two Indonesian civil society organisations that work to promote tolerance and understanding in Indonesia, the Moderate Muslim Society (MMS) and the Wahid Institute (WI), separately released the results of research they had conducted on religious life in Indonesia. Both showed significant increases in the number of religiously motivated attacks and discrimination against minority religious groups.

Over the last year, MMS recorded 81 cases of religious intolerance, up 30 per cent from 2009, while WI recorded 193 instances of religious discrimination and 133 cases of non-violent religious intolerance, up approximately 50 per cent from the previous year. Among these instances, forced church closures and disruptions of worship services were the most commonly reported complaints, which also included the firebombing of an Ahmadi mosque and violent attacks on congregants.

At first glance, this paints a frightening portrait of religious life in Indonesia, especially as these are the most common stories to be reported in Western media.

Articles that focus solely on violence against religious minorities depict Indonesian Muslims as angry and destructive individuals who restrict the religious freedom of others, even though the Indonesian Constitution formally guarantees the right to believe and practice one’s religion.

While highlighting real problems in Indonesia, the picture painted of Indonesians is misleading: most Indonesians are accepting of other faiths, and most parts of Indonesia are currently experiencing peace.

For example, in Jakarta, the Istiqlal Mosque and Cathedral Church stand across from one another, facing each other in harmony. In Yogyakarta, Muslims and Christians worked together to help the victims of the recent Merapi volcano eruption which forced many Indonesians to flee their homes. And in many parts of Indonesia with large minority religious groups, such as North Sumatra, North Sulawesi and Bali, inter-religious harmony is the norm.

We cannot close our eyes to acts of religious intolerance. Instead, with the vast majority of Indonesians supporting peaceful coexistence, these acts have provided impetus for Indonesians working in this space to continue to develop programmes and initiatives for peacebuilding.

For example, the Paramadina Foundation – founded by a Muslim reformer, the late Nurcholish Madjid – recently published an Indonesian translation of Mohammad Abu Nimer’s 2003 book, Non-violence and Peace Building in Islam: Theory and Practice. The author is a professor-cum-peacebuilding activist at American University in Washington, DC.

Abu Nimer counters the stereotype in Western media that the Muslim world is intolerant and warlike, and that Islam as a religion and culture is contrary to the principles of peace. According to him, the main problem is that many analysts are obsessed with acts of violence and terrorism committed in the name of Islam, and thus Islamic values and practices of peacebuilding go unnoticed.

By translating this book into Indonesian, Paramadina aims to promote Islamic perspectives and principles of peacebuilding for Indonesian readers, sharing a model of non-violence, like the ones successfully employed in Poso, Aceh and other places in Indonesia, to resolve the violence that had been occurring along religious lines.

True, Indonesia today is in a state of democratic transition. Nevertheless, it is recognised as the third-largest democratic country in the world, after the United States and India, and the most democratic Muslim-majority country.

In the authoritarian New Order period (1966-1998), Indonesia was rated by Freedom House as a “half-free” state, free from violence only because people were afraid to voice their opinions. But since 2005 Indonesia has entered the ranks of “fully free” states in which people feel free to express their opinions. Unfortunately, this sometimes means that individuals violate others’ freedoms – for example, by expressing an opinion that goes against the right of others to build a house of worship.

The critical issue now is to help foster a healthy debate on religion and how Indonesians can best promote pluralism and respect for others’ beliefs, without infringing on others’ freedoms.

The democratic transition that has been taking place since 1998 still leaves a large amount of work to be done yet in law enforcement, including protecting the right to freely practice one’s religion. This is a responsibility that must be tackled by government, religious leaders, civil society activists, as well as all lovers of peace and freedom.

History shows that Indonesians are up for the challenge. Hopefully, as greater numbers of individuals and groups join the ranks of those already working to promote pluralism and religious tolerance, we will see a marked improvement in religious tolerance reports in 2011.

* Testriono is a researcher at the Center for the Study of Islam and Society (PPIM) at the State Islamic University (UIN) Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta. This article was written for the Common Ground News Service (CGNews).

Source: Common Ground News Service (CGNews), 25 January 2011, www.commongroundnews.org