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New York, September 2, 2010 — The National Council of Churches today reiterated its statement of August 11 condemning plans by a Florida church to burn the Qur’an on September 11.

On the eve of Ramadan, the NCC and its Interfaith Relations Commission called upon Christians and persons of other faiths to express respect for Muslims and Islam. The August 11 statement, which expressed dismay over recent out outbreaks of Islamophobia and anti Muslim sentiments, said, in part,

We also decry the anti-Muslim actions and plans of many church leaders and members, such as those of the Dove World Outreach Center in the U.S.A.  Misguided or confused about the love of neighbor by which Christ calls us to live,  leaders and members of this church and others are engaged in harassment of Muslims, and in the planning of an “International Burn the Qur’an Day,” to be held on September 11th.   Such open acts of hatred are not a witness to Christian faith, but a grave trespass against the ninth commandment, a bearing of false witness against our neighbor.  They contradict the ministry of Christ and the witness of the church in the world.

We ask all Christians to promote respect and love of neighbor, and to speak and work against extremist ideas, working with Muslims as appropriate, in order to live out the commandment to love our neighbor, and to promote peace.

The Rev. Dr. Michael Kinnamon, general secretary of the National Council of Churches, said the council had chosen to repeat its statement in response to “many requests from persons of good will who wish to make it abundantly clear to the international community that millions of Americans reject the anti-Muslim expressions of some communities who seem to be reacting out of fear and a misunderstanding of the true nature of Islam.”

See earlier NCC statements at http://www.ncccusa.org/news/100811ramadanrespect.html and http://www.ncccusa.org/MK.cordobamosque.html

 

On marks out of ten for his speech to the UN on the subject of ending the conflict in and over Palestine that became Israel, I’d give President Obama minus five.

Earlier this month (on 4 September) I wrote a piece with the headline Obama has signalled his coming complete surrender to Zionism and its lobby. That surrender, it seems to me, is now effectively a fait accompli.

“After 60 years in the community of nations, Israel’s existence must not be a subject for debate,” Obama proclaimed. “It should be clear to all that efforts to chip away at Israel’s legitimacy will only be met by the unshakeable opposition of the United States.”

Leaving aside the matter of whether Zionism’s monster child is legitimate or not (I say it’s not), only a complete idiot would deny that Israel exists. The question is – WHICH Israel must not have its existence debated? Israel inside its borders as they were on the eve of the 1967 war or the greater Israel of today? That’s not a question Obama is prepared to ask let alone answer.

In my view the most appropriate response to Obama from the Arab and wider Muslim would be something this: All American presidents who refuse to demand (with the promise of sanctions if necessary) that Israel end its occupation of all Arab land grabbed in 1967 will only be met by the unshakeable opposition of all Arabs and other Muslims everywhere.

We now know what Obama himself expects of those Arabs who “count themselves as friends of the Palestinians”. They “must seize the opportunity for a peace agreement that will lead to a Palestinian state.” They can do that, Obama added, “by supporting the Palestinian Authority financially and politically and by coming to terms with Israel’s existence.”

Again the question – the existence of WHICH Israel must the Arabs come to terms with? To Obama I say, “Mr. President, until you are prepared to answer this question, you will have no credibility whatsoever in the Arab and wider Muslim world, at least far as ‘the street’ (the masses) is concerned.”

Obama’s notion that there is an opportunity for a peace agreement to be seized can only be the product of desperate and deluded wishful thinking on his part unless he believes that he can bribe and bully the discredited Palestinian Authority into accepting crumbs from Zionism’s table. It’s not totally impossible that he might be able to do so, but that would only provoke a Palestinian civil war. Could that be what Zionism really wants, in order to have a pretext for completing the ethnic cleansing of Palestine?

Perhaps most depressing of all was Obama’s statement about the need for an independent Palestinian state. It is required, he said, to provide Israel with “true security”. No mention of it being needed to go some way to righting the terrible wrong done to the Palestinians in Zionism’s name.

Yes, President Obama did call on Israel to continue its moratorium on new settlement activity. The question is – What is he going to do when, in a few days or three months from now, Israel defies him?

We know the answer. Nothing.

By Alan Hart

27 September, 2010

Alanhart.net

Alan Hart is a former ITN and BBC Panorama foreign correspondent. He is author of Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews. He blogs at http://www.alanhart.net and tweets via http://twitter.com/alanauthor

 

28 years after the Massacre at Sabra-Shatila

Shatila Palestinian Refugee Camp, Beirut: The untreated psychic wounds are still open. Accountability, justice and basic civil rights for the survivors are still denied. Scores of horror testimonies have been shared over the past nearly three decades by survivors of the September 1982 Sabra- Shatila massacre.

More come to light only through circumstantial evidence because would be affiants perished during the slaughter. Other eyewitness are just beginning to emerge from deep trauma or self imposed silence. Some testimonies will be shared this month by massacre survivors at Shatila camp. They will sit with the every growing numbers of international visitors who annually come to commemorate one of the most horrific crimes of the 20th century.

There are no average massacre testimonies. Zeina, a handsome bronzed-faced middle-aged woman, an acquaintance of Munir Mohammad’s family, asked a foreigner the other day: “How can it be 28 years? I think it was just last fall that my husband Hussam and our two daughters, Maya, 8 years old, and Sirham, 9 years old, left our two room home to search for food because the Israeli army had sealed Shatila camp nearly two days before and few inside Shatila Camp had any. I still pray and wait for them to return.”

In Shatila Palestinian refugee camp and outside Abu Yassir’s shelter, the bullet marks still cover the lower half of the 11 “walls of death” where some of the dried blood is mixed and feathered in with the thin mortar. An elderly gentleman named Abu Samer still has some souvenirs of the American automatic pistols fitted with silencers and a couple of knives and axes that were strapped to some of the killers belts as they quickly and silently shot, carved and chopped whoever they came upon starting at around 6 p.m. on Thursday September 16, 1982. These weapons were gifted to Israel by the US Congress and subsequently issued along with drugs

and alcohol and other “policing equipment” by Ariel Sharon to the killers in his “most moral army.” Earlier this year, one of the murderers from the Numour al-Ahrar (Tigers of the Liberals) militia, the armed wing of Lebanon’s right-wing National Liberal Party founded by former Lebanese President Camille Chamoun, nonchalantly confessed, “we sometimes used these implements in order to advance silently through the alleys of Shatila so as not to cause unnecessary panic during our work.” The Tigers militia, one of five Christian killer units, was assisted inside Shatila by more than two dozen Israeli Mossad agents, and led in this blitz by none other than Dani Chamoun, son of the former President.

No plaque or sign notes what happened here.

The world learned of the slaughter at Sabra-Shatila on the morning of Sunday September 19, 1982. Photos, many now available on the Internet, taken by witnesses such as Ralph Shoneman, Mya Shone, Ryuichi Hirokawa, Ali Hasan Salman, Ramzi Hardar, Gunther Altenburg, and Gaza and Akka Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) Hospital staff, preserve the gruesome images deeply etched in the survivors memory. The Israeli Kahan Commission, five months later in its February 7, 1983 Report, substantially whitewashed Israeli responsibility referring more than once to the massacre as “a war.” Zeina ushered me down a narrow alley from her house arriving at the 3 by 8 meter wall outside her sister’s home, spraying here and there with an aerosol can as we walked. She apologized for the spray but insisted that she and her neighbors could even now smell the slaughter that happened there three decades earlier.

For readers unfamiliar with the location of Shatila Palestinian Refugee Camp in Beirut, this particular “wall of death” is located across from the PRCS Akka Hospital, such as it is, after years without adequate financial or NGO support. Locating the 11 “walls of death” requires help from the few older Palestinians who still live in this quarter. They are among those still living at the scene and who still vividly recall the details of the massacre. Some provide personal history of some of the butchered, seemingly urging the dead to return by making them seem so alive, often describing a personality trait and the name of their family village in Palestine.

“A sweet boy who adored his older brothers Mutid and Bilal” Zeina recalls that Munir Mohammad was 12 years old on September 16, 1982, a pupil at the Shatila camp school, named Jalil (Galilee). Virtually all of the 75 remaining UNRWA schools in Lebanon, like other Palestinian institutions, are named after villages, towns or cities in occupied Palestine.

Often they are named after villages that no longer actually exist, being among the 531 villages the Zionists colonizers obliterated during and after the 1947-48 Nakba (Catastrophe). Zeina recalls that it was late on a Thursday afternoon, September 16, that the Israeli shelling had grown intense. Designed to drive the camp residents into the shelters, almost all of which Israeli intelligence, arriving the previous day in three white vehicles and posing as “concerned NGO staff” had identified and noted the coordinates on their maps. Some residents, thinking aid workers had come to help the refugees, actually revealed their secret sanctuaries. Other refugees, based on their experience in the crowded shelters during the preceding 75 days of indiscriminate, “Peace for Galilee” Israeli bombing of Shatila, suggested to the “aid workers” that the shelters needed better ventilation and perhaps the visitors would help provide it.

According to Zeina the Israeli agents quickly sketched the shelter locations, marked them with a red circle and returned to their HQ which was located less than 70 meters on the raised terrain at the SE corner of Shatila camp still known as Turf Club Yards. Today, this sandy area still contains three death pits which according to the late American journalist Janet Stevens is where some of the hundreds of still missing bodies of the more than 3,000 slaughtered are likely buried. Janet had theorized that there was a second Sabra-Shatila Massacre that occurred on Sunday morning, September 19th, which piggybacked the first and was conducted on the west side of Shatila inside the second Israeli-Phalange HQ, known as the Cite Sportiff athletic complex. As the Israeli soldiers took custody from the Phalange militia of the surviving refugees, trucks entered Cite Sportiff loaded with hundreds of camp residents on the back to be taken to “holding centers”.

Family members forced to wait outside heard volleys of gunfire and screams from inside the complex. Hours later the same flat beds drove away to unknown locations, tarps covering the unseen mounded cargo. Camp resident, Mrs. Sana Mahmoud Sersawi, one of the 23 complainants in the Belgium case filed against Ariel Sharon on June 16, 2001, (currently but not fatally sidetracked) explained: “The Israelis who were posted in front of the Kuwaiti embassy and at the Rihab benzene station at the entrance to Shatila demanded through loudspeakers that we come to them. That’s how we found ourselves in their hands. They took us to the Cite Sportiff, and the men were marched behind us. But they took the men’s shirts off and started blindfolding them. The Israelis interrogated the young people and the Phalange delivered about 200 more people to the Israelis. And that’s how neither my husband nor my sister’s husband ever came back.” Journalist Robert Fisk and others who studied these events, concur that more slaughter was done during the 24 hour period after 8 a.m. Saturday, the hour the Israeli Kahan Commission, which declined to interview any Palestinians, ruled that the Israelis had stopped all the killing.

Eyewitness testimony also established that the “aid workers” described by Zeina passed the shelter descriptions and locations to Lebanese Forces operatives Elie Hobeika and Fadi Frem, and their ally, Major Saad Haddad of the Israeli-allied South Lebanese Army. Thursday evening, Hobeika, de facto commander since the assassination the week previously of Phalange leader and President-elect Bachir Gemayel, led one of the death squads inside the killing field of the Horst Tabet area near Abu Yassir’s shelter.

It was in 8 of the 11 Israeli-located and marked shelters that the first of the massacre victims were quickly and methodically slaughtered. There being few perfect crimes, even in massacres, the killers failed to find 3 of the shelters. One of the overlooked shelters was just 25 meters from Abu Yassir’s shelter. Apart from these three undiscovered hiding places there were practically no Shatila shelter survivors. American journalist David Lamb wrote about this first night of butchery and the “walls of death”: “Entire families were slain. Groups consisting of 10-20 people were lined up against walls and sprayed with bullets. Mothers died while clutching their babies. All men appeared to be shot in the back.

Five youths of fighting age were tied to a pickup truck and dragged through the streets before being shot.” At around about 8 p.m. on September 18 Munir Mohammad entered the crowded Abu Yassir shelter with his mother Aida and his sisters and brothers Iman, Fadya, Mufid and Mu’in. Keeping the relatively few camp shelters for the woman and children while the men took their chances outside was a common practice as the massacre unfolded. But a few men did enter to help calm their young children.

“If any of you are injured, we’ll take you to the hospital”. Munir later recalled events that night: “The killers arrived at the door of the shelter and yelled for everyone to come out. Men who they found were lined up against the wall outside. They were immediately machine gunned.” As Munir watched, the killers left to kill other groups and then suddenly returned and opened fire on everyone, and all fell to the ground. Munir lay quietly not knowing if his mother and sisters were dead. Then he heard the killers yelling: “If any of you are injured, we’ll take you to the hospital.

Don’t worry. Get up and you’ll see.” A few did try to get up or moaned and they were instantly shot in the head. Munir remembered: “Even though it was light out due to the Israeli flares over Shatila, the killers used bright flash lights to search the darkened corners. The killers were looking in the shadows”. Suddenly Munir’s mother’s body seemed to shift in the mound of corpses next to him. Munir thought she might be going to get up since the killers promised to take anyone still alive to the hospital. Munir whispered to her: “Don’t get up mother, they’re lying”. And Munir stayed motionless all night barely daring to breath, pretending to be dead.

Munir could not block out the killers words. Years later he would repeat to an interviewer as they passed the Shatila Burial ground known as Martyrs Square: “After they shot us, we were all down on the ground, and they were going back and forth, and they were saying: ‘If any of you are still alive, we’ll have mercy and pity and take them to the hospital. Come on, you can tell us.’ If anyone moaned, or believed them and said they needed an ambulance, they would be rescued with shots and finished off there and then. What really disturbed me wasn’t just the death all around me. I didn’t know whether my mother and sisters and brother had died. I knew most of the people around me had died. And it’s true I was afraid of dying myself. But what disturbed me so very much was that they were laughing, getting drunk and enjoying themselves all night long. They threw blankets on us and left us there till morning. All night long [Thursday the 16th) I could hear the voices of the girls crying and screaming, ‘For god’s sake, leave us alone.’

I mean, I can’t remember how many girls they raped. The girl’ voice, with their fear and pain, I can’t ever forget them.” The same kind of dégagé is displayed by the half dozen confessed militia murderers featured in German director Monika Borgmann’s 2005 film Massaker, one of whom opined: “With hanging or shooting you just die, but this is double,” explaining how he took an old Palestinian man and held him back against a wall, slicing him open in the shape of a cross. “You die twice since you also die from the fear,” he said nonchalantly describing white flesh and bone as if in a charcuterie waiting to be served.

The killers also explained how they began a frantic rush to dispose of as many bodies as possible before the media entered Shatila. One testified how the Israeli army gave them large plastic trash bags to dispose of bodies. Another confessed that they forced people into army trucks to ferry them to Cite Sportiff where they were killed. And that they used chemicals to destroy many of the corpses. Several mentioned that Israeli army officers conferred with the militia’s leaders in Beirut on the eve of the massacres.

The venomous hatred persists to this day To this day, the Hurras al-Arz (Guardians of the Cedars) boasts of its role in the carnage. Less than two weeks before the massacre the party issued a call for the confiscation of all Palestinian property in Lebanon, the outlawing of home ownership and the destruction of all refugee camps. The party statement of September 1, 1982 declared: “Action must be taken to reduce the numbers of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, until the day comes when no single Palestinian remains on our soil.”

In 1982 certain political parties referred to Palestinians as “a bacillus which must be exterminated” and graffiti on walls read: ”The duty of every Lebanese is to kill a Palestinian”–the same hatred commonly expressed today in occupied Palestine among colonists, extremist Rabbis and politicians. The ‘Guardians’ call for outlawing Palestinian refugee property ownership was indeed achieved in 2001 by a law drafted by current Minister of Labor, who pledged on September 1, 2010 that “Parliament will never allow Palestinian refugees the right to own property.”

The mentality that allowed the Massacre at Sabra-Shatila 1982 is largely unchanged in 2010, as Lebanon still resists the call of the international community to grant the survivors of the Sabra-Shatila massacre basic civil rights. Some who have studied the Arabic websites and observed gatherings of the political parties represented at the 1982 massacre, claim the hate language is actually worse today and is being used to stir up Parliamentary opposition Palestinian civil rights.

During the month following the 1982 Massacre, British Dr. Paul Morris treated Munir at Gaza Hospital approximately one kilometer north of Abu Yassir’s shelter, and kept the youngster under observation. Dr. Morris reported to researcher Bayan Nuwayhed al Hout (Sabra and Shatila: September 1982, Pluto Press, London, 2004) that Munir “Will smile once in a while, but he doesn’t react spontaneously like others of this age, except just occasionally.” Then the doctor banged on the table, and said: ‘The lad has to be saved. He has to leave the camp, if only for a while, to recover himself.”

When Munir was asked by al Hout if one day when he grew up and would be able to carry a weapon would he consider revenge. The pre-teen replied, replied: “No, No. I’d never think of revenge by killing children. The way they killed us. What did the children do wrong?” Munir’s 15 year old brother Mufid was among the first to enter Abu Yassir’s shelter, but he left and later appeared at Akka Hoppital with a gunshot wound. After being bandaged he left the hospital to seek safety and his family. No one has seen him since and for a long time Munir could not even mention him.

According to camp residents, Munir’s older brother, Nabil, then 19 years old, being of fighting age would have been shot on sight by the killers. Aware of this, Nabil’s cousin and his cousin’s wife fled with him as the Israeli shelling increased and camp residents reported indiscriminate killing. The trio dodged sniper bullets to seek refuge in a nursing home where his aunt worked. Like Munir, Nabil soon learned that his mother and siblings were all dead.

Postscript

Now in America, both Munir and Nabil are leading relatively ‘normal lives’ considering the horror and lost family they experienced while escaping death at Sabra-Shatila. Munir and Nabil have become a credit to Shatila camp, to Palestine and to their adopted country. Residing in the Washington DC area, Munir is married and busy with his career. Nabil is devoting his life to advocacy for peace and justice in the Middle East, working with an NGO.

Both brothers return to Shatila camp regularly. Also apparently living ‘normal lives’ are the six “Christian” militia killers featured in Borgmann’s film Massaker. “They are all living ordinary lives. One of them is a taxi driver,” Borgmann explains. As is well known, the massacres at Sabra-Shatila were undeniable war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. Each killing was a violation of international laws enshrined in the Fourth Geneva Convention, International Customary Law and jus cogens. Similar massive crimes have seen charges brought against Rwandan officials, Chile’s ex-president, General Augusto Pinochet, Chad’s former president, Hissein Habre, former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, Liberia’s Taylor and Sudan’s Bachir.

No one has been punished or even investigated for the Sabra-Shatila massacre. On March 28, 1991 Lebanon’s Parliament retroactively exempted the killers from criminal responsibility. However, this law has no standing in international law and the international community remains legally obligated to punish those responsible. The victims and their families of the Sabra-Shatila massacre as well as virtually all human rights organizations including but not limited to Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Humanitarian Law Project, strenuously oppose blanket amnesty for the killers. They argue that the 1991 violates Lebanon’s constitution, as well as international law and promotes impunity for heinous crimes.

It was precisely to achieve justice for the victims of crimes such as Sabra-Shatila that the International Criminal Court was established. The ICC must begin its work without further delay and all people of goodwill must encourage Lebanon to grant the survivors of the Sabra-Shatila Massacre basic civil rights.

By Franklin Lamb

28 April, 2010

Countercurrents.org

Franklin Lamb is doing research in Lebanon. He can be reached at

fplamb@gmail.com

 

I write to you regarding your programme of 16th August, 2010, about The Freedom Flotilla and particularly the killings of unarmed civilians by Israeli Navy Seals on the ship MV “Mavi Marmara’, on 3lst May, 2010. I have been campaigning for the rights of Palestinians for over ten years. I have visited Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories many times. I was part of the Freedom Flotilla in May on the MV ‘Rachel Corrie’, my third journey on a Free Gaza boat.

I am deeply disappointed at the misrepresentation, lack of truth, and bias displayed by your programme [“Death in the Med”]. This programme had an opportunity to inform and educate the public about the background to the flotilla, the motives of the passengers and crew on board the MV ‘Mavi Marmara’, who (like all of us on the boats trying to get to Gaza) were concerned for the suffering  of the people of Gaza. Over 650 people – from all faiths and none, – from over 40 countries, representing the human family and uniting in nonviolent resistance to break a cruel siege (collective punishment is illegal under International Law) to bring hope and support to the people of Gaza. Before leaving their various ports, as part of the undertaking, all passengers made pledges of nonviolence, all people, and cargoes were searched, and all undertook to go in a spirit of peace to resist (as is our moral right and duty) the breaking of Human Rights and International Law by Israel through its siege of Gaza and occupation of Palestine. This journey of courage and call for justice by people on board the MV ‘Mavi Marmara’ and the flotilla represented the conscience of the world. The boats carried no arms, and were no threat to Israel, but what they did carry were voices of dissent from every corner of the world, (including Jews) saying to Israel ‘no more sieges, occupations, wars and threats of violence’, we refuse to be silent in the face of your ethnic cleansing and persecution of the Palestinian people. Our motives were honourable, we did it for the children of Gaza, knowing that in the end, truth and justice will prevail.

Sadly, the Panorama programme did not see the true significance of this historic journey and missed an opportunity for the media to fulfil its responsibility to ‘tell the truth and nothing but the truth’. They choose instead to try to demonize the passengers on the MV ‘Mavi Marmara’ from the word go by trying to make them out as violent terrorists. They choose to collude with the Israeli propaganda of lies and manipulation of facts thus trying to turn the victims into aggressors. The fact that Israeli commandoes started shooting from the zodiac assault boats and the helicopters from the word go was not stated. The audio and video footage used (provided by Israeli military intelligence) was proven to be doctored, and the IDF have admitted this. Your programme showed audio containing what was purported to be anti-semitic remarks issued over the radio by members on the flotilla, and you showed a clip of a percussion grenade exploding in one of the Israeli zodiac assault boats. These things never happened. There is so much commentary in this documentary that is inaccurate that it does a grave disservice to investigative journalism and the BBC. But the real people hurt by this programme, are the families of the 9 unarmed passengers who were assassinated in this unprovoked, illegal, massacre by the Israeli navy seals. So too the more than 40 unarmed people who were injured on the illegal military assault in International waters, whose only crime was to care about Gaza and its people.

The programme failed totally to cover the real suffering of the Palestinian people, it failed totally to cover the fact that the mass kidnapping of 650 unarmed world citizens and the high-jacking of 7 boats, was in International waters and it failed totally to ask the real questions of Israel ‘why is this Port of Gaza – the only port in the Middle East to be a closed military zone (42 years) – not open for the people of Gaza and Palestine to travel and trade with the world as is their human right? Perhaps, the BBC Panorama will stop taking the propaganda of the Israeli Government (Jane Corbin travelling on Israeli Zodiacs embedded with Israeli military, hardly leads to objective report of facts). These  same zodiacs which boarded all the flotilla ships (including the one I travelled on) kidnapped unarmed citizens, hijacked boats (an act of piracy), confiscated all possessions (which Israel still hold onto), forced all under military arms to go to Israel, detained all, violently assaulted many, imprisoned and repatriated foreigners – all an abuse of our human rights and most of which was not reported by BBC Panorama. The role of the BBC is not to give credibility to the Israeli military but to report facts and allow the public to make up their own minds. By planting doubt in the minds of the public about the events on board the MV ‘Mavi Marmara’. It has done a grave injustice and further injury to the families of all those who were assassinated by Israeli Navy seals, on that terrible morning of 3lst May, 2010. I would like to ask the BBC Panorama Team, ‘what do you intend to do to redress the injustice you have done to the good names of all those who were killed, and injured, and their families on board the MV ‘Mavi Marmara’ on 3lst May, 2010? I await your response.

 

 

Kofi Annan is a respected personality.So when he decided to chair the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), it was expected to draw the attention of the African leadership to bring back the focus on agriculture and food security. Sitting far away in India, the original seat of Green Revolution, I watched with interest the pathway AGRA was taking to ensure food security for all.

Green Revolution has become synonymous with food production. The moment you say there is a need to increase production, the chances are that two of the three people you meet would point to Green Revolution as the way forward. Nothing wrong, you would say. In a way I agree. In my understanding, Green Revolution is only indicative of the importance that needs to be accorded to agriculture, but it should not entail going the same route that India had followed.

Indian agriculture is in terrible crisis, a direct fallout of the Green Revolution technology and the accompanying policies. Over 200,000 farmers have taken their own lives, often drinking the pesticides they had brought for killing insects. Another 40 per cent of the Indian farmers (of the 600 million farming population) want to quit agriculture if given a choice. Productivity is on the decline, environment has been contaminated by chemicals, insect equilibrium has been distorted, water table has gone down drastically, organic matter in soils has disappeared, and farm incomes have dropped. In short, the natural resource base has been destroyed beyond recognition. The only gainers are the companies supplying chemical inputs and machines. Their profits continue to soar.

I don’t think African leaders would like to bring in an unforeseen disaster in the name of food security. But I guess they are so indebted to the international financial institutions that even if they feel that all is not well, they have little choice but to accept the approach being suggested.

Take a look at the recommendations of the ‘concrete outcomes’ emerging from the latest meeting of the African Green Revolution Forum that ended at Accra/Ghana in the first week of September. While it may appear to be all pious intention, but to a discerning eye it become obvious that the real motive is to push unwanted technology and finance/capital to Africa. This will sustain the economies of US/Europe already reeling under recession. In a way, AGRA is basically intended to bailout the multinational companies dealing with seed/technology and agribusiness.

In a press release (Sept 7, 2010), the organisers said: the moderators of breakout panel sessions published a series of concrete outcomes, including:

• Empowerment of women throughout the agricultural value chain by accelerating access to improved technology, finance and markets

• Support for an Impact Investment Fund for African Agriculture to scale up access to finance by farmers and agribusinesses

• Increased investment for science, technology and research for food nutrition security

• Accelerated access to improved seed by promoting the entire value chain, including support for plant breeding, seed companies and seed distribution systems

• Improved fertilizer supply systems and more efficient fertilizer value chains

• More inclusive business models linking agri-business, commercial farms and smallholder farmers

• The need for better management of Africa’s water and natural resources

• Acknowledgement that mixed crop livestock systems are the backbone for Africa’s agriculture

While all this may appear fine, I think even in India there was no need for a Green Revolution. My argument is that when India imported the dwarf high-yielding wheat varieties from CIMMYT/Mexico, it knew that varieties alone would not be able to deliver. What came as a package were two important planks of a policy initiative that I call it as ‘famine-avoidance’ strategies. To ensure that farmers get an incentive to continue farming the same crop, the government set up a mechanism to provide assured prices which became better known as procurement prices. At the same time, it set up a Food Corporation of India (FCI) to mop up the surplus grain that flows into the markets.

Without these two planks, there would have been no Green Revolution.

Just think. If these two strategies were in place prior to the introduction of Green Revolution technology, farmers would have got the necessary support to increase crop production. Crop production did not pick up prior to Green revolution period because there was no assured prices and no assured market.

What is not being realised that the production of wheat and rice (the two most important staples) went up not only because of the high-yielding varieties but because the policy makers had put together the two-planks of the ‘famine-avoidance’ strategy. Assured prices through the instrument of Minimum Support Price (MSP) became an attraction for the farmer who would normally be squeezed out by the trade at the time of the harvest. At the same time, the government set up a procurement system which ensured that whatever flows into the mandis (and is not purchased by the private trade) would be bought by the Food Corporation of India (FCI) and other government agencies.

This means that farmers got an assured price and an assured market. They knew that their efforts would not go abegging. And no wonder, production of mainly four crops — wheat, rice, sugarcane and cotton — has gone up. These are the only four crops where the market is assured, whether through the FCI purchase or by the sugar companies etc., and production of these crops has been on the rise.

Africa actually needs to put these two food security planks into place. It has to be backed by a sustainable farming system (among some of the wonderful initiatives are: http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=47528), which have been demonstrated in several parts of Africa, and provide an assured price and an assured market. Farmers would do the rest. Otherwise, Africa is likely to be destroyed beyond recognition with the kind of 2nd Green Revolution that is being pushed aggressively, and you know by whom.

Kofi Annan is a wise man. I am sure he will have the courage to stand up, and demonstrate that Africa has a viable and sustainable future. Africa needs SAGRA — Sustainable Agriculture for Africa, and not AGRA.

14 September, 2010

Ground Reality

 

September 21st is the International Day of Peace, a day worth marking and a goal worth working to achieve for our beleaguered planet.

On this day, like any other,

soldiers are killing and dying,

arms merchants are selling their wares,

missiles are aimed at your heart,

and peace is a distant dream.

Not just for today, but for each day,

let’s sheathe our swords, save the sky

for clouds, the oceans for mystery,

and the earth for joy.

Let’s stop honoring the war makers,

and start giving medals for peace.

 

On this day, like any other,

there are infinite possibilities to change

our ways.

 

Peace is an apple tree heavy with fruit,

a new way of loving the world

 

David Krieger

David Krieger is a founder of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, and has served as President of the Foundation since 1982.

 

Enormous pressure has been put on the Imam to stop his project. We have to turn this thing around. Are we going to let the bullies and thugs win another one?

I am opposed to the building of the “mosque” two blocks from Ground Zero.

I want it built on Ground Zero.

Why? Because I believe in an America that protects those who are the victims of hate and prejudice. I believe in an America that says you have the right to worship whatever God you have, wherever you want to worship. And I believe in an America that says to the world that we are a loving and generous people and if a bunch of murderers steal your religion from you and use it as their excuse to kill 3,000 souls, then I want to help you get your religion back. And I want to put it at the spot where it was stolen from you.

There’s been so much that’s been said about this manufactured controversy, I really don’t want to waste any time on this day of remembrance talking about it. But I hate bigotry and I hate liars, and so in case you missed any of the truth that’s been lost in this, let me point out a few facts:

1. I love the Burlington Coat Factory. I’ve gotten some great winter coats there at a very reasonable price. Muslims have been holding their daily prayers there since 2009. No one ever complained about that. This is not going to be a “mosque,” it’s going to be a community center. It will have the same prayer room in it that’s already there. But to even have to assure people that “it’s not going to be mosque” is so offensive, I now wish they would just build a 111-story mosque there. That would be better than the lame and disgusting way the developer has left Ground Zero an empty hole until recently. The remains of over 1,100 people still haven’t been found. That site is a sacred graveyard, and to be building another monument to commerce on it is a sacrilege. Why wasn’t the entire site turned into a memorial peace park? People died there, and many of their remains are still strewn about, all these years later.

2. Guess who has helped the Muslims organize their plans for this community center? The JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER of Manhattan! Their rabbi has been advising them since the beginning. It’s been a picture-perfect example of the kind of world we all want to live in. Peter Stuyvessant, New York’s “founder,” tried to expel the first Jews who arrived in Manhattan. Then the Dutch said, no, that’s a bit much. So then Stuyvessant said ok, you can stay, but you cannot build a synagogue anywhere in Manhattan. Do your stupid Friday night thing at home. The first Jewish temple was not allowed to be built until 1730. Then there was a revolution, and the founding fathers said this country has to be secular — no religious nuts or state religions. George Washington (inaugurated around the corner from Ground Zero) wanted to make a statement about this his very first year in office, and wrote this to American Jews:

“The citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy — a policy worthy of imitation. …

“It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights, for, happily, the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens …

“May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants — while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid.”

3. The Imam in charge of this project is the nicest guy you’d ever want to meet. Read about his past here.

4. Around five dozen Muslims died at the World Trade Center on 9/11. Hundreds of members of their families still grieve and suffer. The 19 killers did not care what religion anyone belonged to when they took those lives.

5. I’ve never read a sadder headline in the New York Times than the one on the front page this past Monday: “American Muslims Ask, Will We Ever Belong?” That should make all of us so ashamed that even a single one of our fellow citizens should ever have to worry about if they “belong” here.

6. There is a McDonald’s two blocks from Ground Zero. Trust me, McDonald’s has killed far more people than the terrorists.

7. During an economic depression or a time of war, fascists are extremely skilled at whipping up fear and hate and getting the working class to blame “the other” for their troubles. Lincoln’s enemies told poor Southern whites that he was “a Catholic.” FDR’s opponents said he was Jewish and called him “Jewsevelt.” One in five Americans now believe Obama is a Muslim and 41% of Republicans don’t believe he was born here.

8. Blaming a whole group for the actions of just one of that group is anti-American. Timothy McVeigh was Catholic. Should Oklahoma City prohibit the building of a Catholic Church near the site of the former federal building that McVeigh blew up?

9. Let’s face it, all religions have their whackos. Catholics have O’Reilly, Gingrich, Hannity and Clarence Thomas (in fact all five conservatives who dominate the Supreme Court are Catholic). Protestants have Pat Robertson and too many to list here. The Mormons have Glenn Beck. Jews have Crazy Eddie. But we don’t judge whole religions on just the actions of their whackos. Unless they’re Methodists.

10. If I should ever, God forbid, perish in a terrorist incident, and you or some nutty group uses my death as your justification to attack or discriminate against anyone in my name, I will come back and haunt you worse than Linda Blair marrying Freddy Krueger and moving into your bedroom to spawn Chucky. John Lennon was right when he asked us to imagine a world with “nothing to kill or die for and no religion, too.” I heard Deepak Chopra this week say that “God gave humans the truth, and the devil came and he said, ‘Let’s give it a name and call it religion.’ ” But John Adams said it best when he wrote a sort of letter to the future (which he called “Posterity”): “Posterity! You will never know how much it cost the present Generation to preserve your Freedom! I hope you will make a good use of it. If you do not, I shall repent in Heaven that I ever took half the Pains to preserve it.” I’m guessing ol’ John Adams is up there repenting nonstop right now.

Friends, we all have a responsibility NOW to make sure that Muslim community center gets built. Once again, 70% of the country (the same number that initially supported the Iraq War) is on the wrong side and want the “mosque” moved. Enormous pressure has been put on the Imam to stop his project. We have to turn this thing around. Are we going to let the bullies and thugs win another one? Aren’t you fed up by now? When would be a good time to take our country back from the haters?

I say right now. Let’s each of us make a statement by donating to the building of this community center! It’s a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization and you can donate a dollar or ten dollars (or more) right now through a secure pay pal account by clicking here. I will personally match the first $10,000 raised (forward your PayPal receipt to webguy@michaelmoore.com). If each one of you reading this blog/email donated just a couple of dollars, that would give the center over $6 million, more than what Donald Trump has offered to buy the Imam out. C’mon everyone, let’s pitch in and help those who are being debased for simply wanting to do something good. We could all make a huge statement of love on this solemn day.

I lost a co-worker on 9/11. I write this today in his memory.

By Michael Moore

14 September, 2010

MichaelMoore.com

Michael Moore is an Academy Award-winning filmmaker and author. He directed and produced Roger & Me, Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11, and Sicko. He has also written seven books, most recently, Mike’s Election Guide 2008

 

In July 2005, a coalition of 171 Palestinian Civil Society organizations created the Global BDS movement for “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel Until it Complies with International Law and Universal Principles of Human Rights” for Occupied Palestinians, Israeli Arabs, and Palestinian diaspora refugees.

The Tel Aviv-based Reut Institute (RI) provides “real-time strategic decision-making” support in areas of national security and socioeconomic policy. Its new report titled “The Gaza Flotilla: The Collapse of Israel’s Political Firewall” suggests it’s working. It followed an earlier one on “creating a political firewall” against Israel’s “delegitimization challenge,” recommending sabotage and subterfuge against growing global forces it fears, not an equitable solution it rejects.

Focusing now on the Gaza Flotilla, it called it “the tip of the iceberg” attempt along with the BDS movement and Durban conference against racism to cause “tangible and significant damage to Israel.” Unmentioned was how expert Israel is in self-inflicting it by decades of occupation and crimes of war and against humanity.

Clearly they’re having an effect, RI saying opposition “momentum is gaining,” its aim “to delegitimize Israel in order to precipitate its implosion, inspired by the collapses of” apartheid South Africa and the Soviet Union. Calling the challenge global, systemic and political, RI blames two cooperating forces:

— the Iran/Hamas/Hezbollah “Resistance Network;” and

— the “Delegimization Network” based in cities like London, Brussels and San Francisco.

Their “constantly adapting” strategy requires Israel to adopt “a comprehensive systemic treatment” of the challenge it faces.

RI gave its version of the Gaza Flotilla interdiction, specifically against the Mavi Marmara mother ship, a “grave incident develop(ing) during the takeover (when) Members of the Turkish IHH organization attacked Israeli forces with knives and metal bars, and in some cases with live fire. In the ensuing confrontation, nine Israeli soldiers were injured and nine Turkish activists killed.”

An earlier article discussed the truth, not RI’s revisionism, accessed through the following link:

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/05/brave-israeli-commandos-slaughter-aid.html

Israeli commandos (trained killers), planned and executed a premeditated attack in international waters against nonviolent, unarmed humanitarian activists, trying to deliver essential to life aid to besieged Gazans – to break Israel’s attempt to suffocate and starve them.

RI ignored the crime, focusing instead on world outrage, including anti-Israeli demonstrations in dozens of major cities, increased BDS efforts, international investigations, and the “stronger perception of cooperation between Israel’s Arab citizens and the Resistance and Delegitimization Networks.” Turkey also “exploited” the incident, “deepen(ing) the crisis with Israel.”

Israel followed with two inquiry commissions, an IDF one under reserve Major General Giora Eiland and another under retired Supreme Court Judge Jacob Turkel, both mandated to whitewash the crime, what RI won’t admit, instead saying:

“The mandates of both commissions reflect the mindset that mistakes surrounding the Gaza Flotilla were technical-operational or tactical-political in nature. The commissions are thus focused on the reasonableness of the actions taken by decision-makers on existing laws, regulations, and accepted practices.”

In addition, RI is conducting its own inquiry, “based on a methodology of systemic policy analysis and on its conceptual framework for confronting the delegitimization challenge….to contribute to understanding the strategic significance of the event and to suggest principles for preventing similar occurrences in the future.”

RI, of course, means preventing world outrage from boiling over, followed by actions harming Israeli interests, not its repeated crimes of war, against humanity, and high seas outrages. It worries instead about a new challenge because of two developments:

— Hamas’ “increased sophistication and efficiency and the Resistance Network’s ‘Logic of Implosion.’ ” It aims to precipitate Israel’s collapse from overstretch, benefitting from the unpopular occupation, promoting its delegitimization, and engaging in asymmetric tactics against Israeli civilians; and

— the Delegitimization Network’s evolution, aiming to portray Israeli as a pariah state, gaining support from “the Western liberal progressive elite (through) a variety of means aimed at blurring its true intentions.”

In recent years, the Resistance and Delegitimization Networks have created connections able to accelerate the following dynamics:

— “Promoting the one-state paradigm;” and

— Foiling Israel’s ability to contain or deny legitimacy to Hamas and Hezbollah.

Both lead “a systemic and systematic attack against Israel’s political and economic model, which has already had strategic consequences and may become existential if ignored or inadequately addressed.” In addition, Israel hasn’t developed an effective response to this challenge.

Hamas gained “agility” from 2006 electoral victory. Israeli “rigidity” followed – policies unable to change Hamas’ positions or precipitate its demise. “On the contrary, Hamas went from strength to strength” despite Israel’s imposed siege and Cast Lead. It continually adapts to new circumstances, “demonstrating a relatively clear strategic logic….while strengthening its domestic and international status” and ability to promote Israeli delegitimization.

The Gaza Flotilla and others planned are “the latest manifestation of a systemic and systematic attack” to undermine Israel’s legitimacy with considerable support from the BDS campaign, the “lawfare” war against senior Israeli officials, and effect of the Goldstone Commission.

The Flotilla was “a first-of-its-kind collaboration” between Hamas and the Resistance and Delegitimization Networks. Turkey’s involvement was the “difference that made the difference.” In addition, its organizers’ ability to gain Western progressive elite support turned Israel’s interdiction into a “global and politically explosive event.” RI called it a “clash of brands,” Israel tarnished and defeated in the eyes of world public opinion.

Indeed so but not enough. Still RI concludes that Israel’s firewall is eroding because it’s increasingly viewed as not “genuinely striving for peace, consistently and honestly committed to ending control over the Palestinians, or concerned with alleviating the humanitarian situation in Gaza.”

Israel doesn’t understand the gravity of the delegitimization threat, and hasn’t addressed it effectively. The campaign promoting it will continue, perhaps in new forms. RI urges confronting it strategically by “systematically collect(ing) intelligence (and) identif(ing) key (delegitimization) catalysts,” as well as adopting a:

“consistent and honest….commitment to end….control over the Palestinians, advance human rights (at least rhetorically), and promote greater integration and equality for its Arab citizens….”

“It takes a network to fight” one, says RI. Disrupting it is job one by training Israeli diplomats to work in delegitimization hubs, developing its own network, re-branding itself to promote a new image, and engaging “liberal progressive elite(s).” The objective – delegitimize, isolate and marginalize the delegitimizers and BDS movement.

Its earlier “delegitimize challenge” report recommended sabotage and subterfuge against growing forces it fears. Perhaps now it’s softening but not enough. It omitted the right of return, East Jerusalem as Palestine’s capital, the logic of a one-state solution, the renunciation of conflict, an admission of Israeli crimes of war and against humanity, accountability for those responsible, demilitarization as a show of good faith, legislation granting all Israeli citizens equal rights, an occupation end date, a full commitment to the rule of law, and restitution to compensate victims for decades of crimes and destructive harm for starters.

Short of fundamental change, Israeli delegitimization will prevail over half-hearted measures, more rhetorical than substantive the way they’ve always been for decades.

lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.

 

 

Stephen Lendmen 

 

Note: This imaginary dialogue between Gandhiji and the Prophet of Islam (PBUH) is to clarify many misunderstandings which are being spread about Islam and Muslims. My mission in life is to promote peace and inter-religious understanding and to struggle against religious fanaticism and extremism. As I have deep conviction about teachings of Islam, I am also great admirer of Gandhiji and his philosophy of non-violence. (A.E.)

Gandhiji: I have drawn inspiration from Islam as much as from Christianity. Islam’s emphasis on justice, equality and human dignity has always attracted me as love and forgiveness of Christianity. The Sermon on the Mount specially attracted my attention. As you know I am deeply committed to philosophy of non-violence and it is in this respect that I am approaching you to know more in depth about Islam’s teachings about non-violence. It is necessary as Islam and terrorism are being equated by some anti Islamic forces and it is you who can help dispel these attacks on Islam. Who can be the better person than you, O Prophet of Islam.

Prophet: I am so much pained that Islam is under attack today whereas 21^st century should have been the most appropriate period to appreciate its teachings. Yes, I admit there are all kinds of people in any religion and some may be motivated by their own selfish interests and indulge in violence or other misdeeds but a religion should be judged by its core teachings, not by what some followers do. I hope you will agree with me.

Gandhiji: Yes I do agree with you sir, the great Prophet of Islam.

Prophet: You would agree with me no religion can teach violence and be followed by millions of people. The very purpose of religion is to refine morals and guide its followers to a purposeful and meaningful life with inner peace and deep conviction. Islam is a religion of surrendering to Allah and Allah is Compassionate and Merciful (Rahman and Rahim) and in your devotional song you also mention Ram and Rahim. All Muslims are supposed to invoke Allah, the Compassionate and Merciful before they begin their work (bism Allah al-Rahman al-Rahim). It is very central to Islam. Also one of Allah’s name in Qur’an, you must have noted, is Salam i.e. Peace.

Gandhiji: I understand true meaning of religion and its need for human beings in life. Inner convictions play important role in giving meaning and direction to human life. I have always relied on my own inner convictions before I took any decision. But I want to understand Islam in all its comprehensive way so that there is absolutely no confusion and it would certainly reinforce my own conviction in non-violence.

Prophet: Look when I was chosen by Allah to be His prophet the conditions in Mecca was extremely precarious. There was moral chaos in society, the tribal chiefs were growing wealthier and wealthier as they controlled international trade and were becoming arrogant and neglecting all their moral obligations towards weaker sections of society, the poor, the orphans, the widows, the needy and, in order to achieve greater grip over the minds of people, were promoting all sorts of superstitions and irrational beliefs. All this disturbed me deeply and I retired to the cave of Hira where I received revelation.

The Qur’anic revelation dealt with the situation on two levels: first, it promoted concept of one God – Allah- the creator of all and worship Him alone thus uniting entire human kind and on social level it strongly condemned accumulation of wealth and predicted it will turn into hell fire if the weaker sections of the society are neglected and injustice and oppression prevails. Thirdly, it gave equal rights to women who were denied all rights and treated as mere chattels. Fourthly, it stressed need for knowledge (‘ilm) and compared it with light (noor) and ignorance as darkness.

Gandhiji: How like Upanishads. Upanishad too compares gyan with light and one of its prayers says lead me from darkness to light.

Prophet: Yes indeed, this prayer exists in the Qur’an too. And one other prayer says rabbi zidni ‘ilman (O Sustainer of this Universe increase me in knowledge). Indeed religions (not to be confused with customs, traditions and cultural institutions) do not contradict each other but compliment and stress same values.

Gandhiji: In Hindu tradition we maintain entire humanity is one family (Vasudhaiva kutumbakum).

Prophet: Yes I too have said in one of my hadith al-khalq-u-‘ayalullah (entire creation is Allah’s family.)

Gandhiji: How similar are teachings of two of our great religions. But, Hindus often complain that Muslims call us kafirs. Sir, are we kafirs?

Prophet: No, no. there is great misunderstanding about kufr among Muslims and others. In Qur’an kafir is one who hides truth and actively opposes it. Every religion is embodiment of truth and in every religious tradition Allah or God or Ishwar’s name is Truth, In Qur’an one of Allah’s name is Haq (Truth). So those who hide truth and actively oppose it is a kafir, not one who believes in it and strongly affirms it.

Gandhiji: We Hindus do believe in truth and indeed I always said Truth is God.

Prophet: Yes, yes, how can you be kafir. All those who affirm truth, truth of values and right path cannot be kafirs. Qur’an teaches that every qaum (nation) was given truth through prophets and I have said that Allah has sent 1,24,000 prophets and Qur’an also says “We have sent prophet for every nation.” And some of the Sufis in your country have said Allah must have sent prophets to Hind also to fulfill His promise in the Qur’an. However, I know some Muslims, either out of arrogance or ignorance, call others kafirs. Do not worry about them. Then even one Muslim sect in my ummah, unfortunately call followers of other sects as kafirs. It is nothing but false sense of superiority over others.

Gandhiji: May I request you sir to further throw some light on concept of kafir in Qur’an as there is so much confusion about it among people.

Prophet: When I began to invite people of Mecca to Islam, a religion of truth revealed by Allah to me and it invited the powerful leaders of Mecca too, to accept Islam, their ego as well as their powerful interests were deeply hurt and they began to actively oppose Islam. Firstly they felt how can an orphan, without any wealth and social status could tell us what is the right path and ask us to deviate from the path of our forefathers. Secondly, Qur’an, as I pointed out, attacked accumulation of wealth neglecting weaker sections of society.

This deeply disturbed them as wealth was their main power and there was no state machinery in Mecca to tax them so the Qur’an proposed a voluntary contribution and called it zakat which literally means to purify. The zakat is meant to be distributed among the weaker sections of society, the poor, orphans, widows, needy, travelers and liberating slaves and prisoners. Thus economic justice will prevail and their wealth will be purified. However, so far they had only accumulated wealth and never spared anything for the weaker sections of society. This also created strong resentment among the wealthy of Mecca and they began to actively oppose me and my followers and even using their power persecuted me and my followers, torturing them in most inhuman manner. They even did not allow us to enter Ka’aba, our holy shrine for centuries.

The Qur’an condemned them as kafirs because they actively opposed the truth knowing fully well that I was bearer of truth from Allah. Their arrogance and their pride in their wealth blinded them. It indeed was not their ancestral religion but their arrogance and false pride in wealth which was the problem.

There were those Arabs who did not accept Islam but at the same time did not oppose Islam and hence Qur’an said for them that “O unbelievers for you is your religion and for me is mine”. Thus you will see religion was indeed not the problem, power, wealth and arrogance was. Also, the Qur’an says la ikrah fi’ al-din (i.e. there is no compulsion in matters of religion). No one can be coerced into believing as religion is matter of conscience and deeper conviction. Even an idol worshipper cannot be coerced into abandoning his way of worship. If a kafir (which only means non-believer in Islam) desires to live in peace with Muslims his way of worship has to be respected and protected along with his life and property. Qur’an calls them dhimmis (i.e. those whose responsibility of life and property) is on Muslims and those who harm them amounts to harming me and those who harm me they harm Allah.

Gandhiji: This completely clarifies the meaning of kafir. It is indeed very humane and in keeping with the contemporary world which believes in freedom of worship and freedom of conscience and freedom of religion. Unto me is my religion and unto you is yours. What more one can expect from any religion.

So sir it is not in keeping with the teaching of Islam that one should use sword to preach Islam. This misconcept is so widespread in the world today.

Prophet: This is sheer monstrosity. How can Qur’an which teaches freedom of conscience can teach such a thing. Qur’an says, on the other hand, call people to the path of Allah with wisdom and goodly words. Those who went out with swords were conqueror of territories, not conquerors of hearts for Allah.

Gandhiji: This clears many of my doubts and my countrymen’s doubts. I always thought Qur’an and Prophet of Islam can never allow such things. Religion is a moral force and can never permit coercion, let alone violence, for its acceptance. The conqueror may coerce some to convert but a religious person can never. Those conversions will be more for political than for religious conviction. In India most of the conquerors also hardly ever used coercion to convert Hindus though many of them supported various Muslim rulers militarily and politically. There may have been few instances but generally Hindus and Muslims lived in peace and harmony and evolved a composite culture.

Prophet: Yes indeed you are right and my mission (da’wah) was generally accepted by weaker sections of the society. In Arabia too it is poor, slaves, women, orphans and widows who responded to my mission promptly. In your country also, it is low caste Hindus who suffered indignities who responded readily as Islam stands for social justice, equality and human dignity.

Gandhiji: Now it brings me to the question of non-violence which I have practiced in my life, even for liberation of my own country from the British rulers. Does Islam accept non-violence as a basic doctrine? Or it accepts it only tactically in certain circumstances as many Islamic theologians maintain?

Prophet: Truth, as you know is very basic to the Qur’an as I told you and it is also one of Allah’s names. Another important names of Allah and Qur’an’s fundamental values are compassion and mercy. Now put all of them (truth, compassion and mercy) together and tell me how violence can ever be part of Qur’anic teachings? It is not merely tactical but non-violence is most fundamental to Islam.

You evolved the concept of satyagraha (insistence on truth) for practicing non-violence for liberation of Hind. Truth and non-violence go together and can never be a sundered apart. One who insists on truth, as you tried to do, can never resort to violence. Truth reflects our deeper conviction and is mirror of our pure conscience and you would agree with me conviction and coercion are poles apart.

Also, truth needs certain virtues most of all patience (sabr) and control over ones anger, desire and greed without which one cannot practice it. Qur’an also lays great emphasis on these virtues, as you also do. In one of the chapters of Qur’an it has been said, “By the time! Surely man is in loss, except those who believe and do good, and exhort one another to Truth, and exhort one another to patience.”

Thus it will be seen that truth requires tremendous patience and patience, in turn, curbs anger and desire. Those who have patience cannot be provoked. To practice truth you need these qualities. And hence where there is truth, there will be no violence. Violence is result of impatience, anger, greed and desire.

Gandhiji: You are very right O Prophet of Islam. I also always emphasized truth, non-violence and simple living. Without non-violence truth is not possible and without simple living too, non-violence is not possible. It is greed and desire which leads to more and more violence. In the twentieth and twenty first century more and more consumerism has meant more and more raw materials and western powers in collaboration with the native ruling elite plunder third world countries and for that they have to suppress people and displace them from their ancestral properties resulting in great deal of violence. The naxalite violence in my country is because tribal are being displaced without any dignified rehabilitation in the hunt for minerals.

Prophet: Yes, you are absolutely right. In Mecca when I exhorted the rich and powerful not to neglect the poor and needy and leave life of luxury they turned against me and persecuted me. My emphasis was on simple life and I set a rigorous example of simplicity. I am also known to Islamic historians as kambliwala i.e. one who used rough blanket and often wore patched clothes and used pillows stuffed with just palm leaves.

We have all this in common. But the powerful merchants of Mecca had greed for profit and were used to high life style and accepting my teachings would have meant giving up all this. When finally I left Mecca and migrated to Madina they pursued me and attacked me and first battle of Badr took place. It was the first battle ought by Muslims. It is Meccan merchants who were aggressors. I had to defend.

Absolute non-violence is not possible in the world where injustices abide, inequality and human lust is widespread and powerful are ever ready to exploit and deprive people of their rights and dignity. Violence is not our choice, it is often inflicted on us without we ever desiring it. I, along with my followers left Mecca quietly and yet the Meccan merchants inflicted war on us.

It was in this condition that the Qur’an permitted us to defend ourselves. The permission was granted conditionally that we do not commit aggression. Thus the Qur’an said that fight in the way of Allah against those who fight you and do not be aggressors as Allah does not love aggressors. If we had not defended ourselves we would have been wiped out. Non-violence should essentially mean absence of violence of aggression. And for Qur’an it is matter of basic principle that Muslims should not be first resort to violence..

Gandhiji: I am in perfect agreement with you honourable Prophet. I would also like to know more about the concept of jihad. It is highly misunderstood both among Muslims and non-Muslims. I hope it does not mean war and violence but I want to hear from you.

Prophet: You are right jihad does not even remotely mean war or violence. It means struggle for truth and truth prevails, as we discussed earlier, if we suppress our unjust desires, anger and passion for possession. Thus real jihad means to struggle against ones own selfish desires and this is most difficult struggle. I call it jihad-e-akbar i.e. the greatest jihad. Then I also have said that most meritorious jihad is speaking truth in the face of a tyrant risking ones own life.

People cannot wage such jihad, such struggle as it entails great sacrifices, they wage wars for selfish desires, kill innocent people and exploit the poor and call it jihad to legitimize it. Wars of aggression and territorial possessions can never be called jihad.  Some of my followers in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq and some other places are killing even fellow Muslims through terrorist attacks and call it jihad. Terrorism is terrorism and most condemnable act of cruelty. How can it be called jihad which is very noble act of upholding truth even at the cost of ones life. It entails self sacrifice and not killing innocent people.

Islam opposes violence of aggression in every form and respects life of even enemy and that is why the Qur’an says with great emphasis that if you kill one person without justification it amounts to killing the whole humanity and if you save one life as if you have saved entire humanity. If this principle is universally accepted there will be peace on our earth.

Gandhiji: Indeed the concept of jihad is very noble as explained by you O Prophet. I wish all Muslims and non-Muslims follow this noble principle and instead of attacking others and launching wars of aggression fight against their own selfish desires and greed for consumption and more and more possession. I have always believed that real peace is inner peace, borne by giving rather than taking from others

Prophet: Yes indeed Qur’an also says that give away what is more than what is left after your basic needs are met. Do not accumulate. It is desire to accumulate that leads to war and violence. Accumulation robs you of inner peace. Inner peace and satisfaction is real paradise as Qur’an says enter (paradise) with complete sense of peace and security. It is our desire for wealth which turns into hell.

Gandhiji: I also advised my followers to serve people and not run after power and self. I even advised Congressmen to turn themselves into an organization of serving people after independence rather than fight for crumbs of power. Serving people by sacrificing our own selfish desires is the highest goal of life. It gives you inner joy and makes your life meaningful.

Prophet: But the modern economy isn’t need based but greed based and hence so much violence in modern world despite so much talk of human rights and dignity, peace and security. It will never be realized until we wage real jihad for these noble ideals of human equality, dignity and justice.

Gandhiji: O Prophet of Islam, it was indeed very ennobling to have the honour of having talked to you. In the end I would thank you profusely for enlightening me on all these issues which have been causing so much confusion in minds of several Muslims and non-Muslims. May Allah’s peace be upon you. Your contribution to culture of justice, peace and human dignity has indeed been immense.

Institute of Islamic Studies

Mumbai.

E-mail: csss@mtnl.net.in

Asghar Ali Engineer

(Islam and Modern Age, August, 2010)

 

 

 

 

“It is the people of Fallujah’s cherished right to hold to account the International Community that now has both the mandate and moral responsibility to initiate proceedings to prosecute and hold accountable all those perpetrators, and to seek full restitution and compensations commensurate with the endured suffering and pain throughout the occupation period, continuing till the present day.”

 

Dr. Muhamad Tareq Al-Darraji , President of Conservation Centre of Environment and Reserves in Fallujah – CCERF, Director of Monitoring net of human rights in Iraq – MHRI 

Despite the “end of combat operations”, American forces stepped in with ground troops and air support in three incidents in different parts of Iraq, when their Iraqi counterparts were so-called “threatened by suicide attackers or well-armed gunmen”, according to U.S. and Iraqi military accounts .[1] <#_ftn1>  

One of those” incidents” occurred in Fallujah on Wednesday 15 September, where 7 civilians were killed and 4 injured. Their names will be added to the endless list of victims of the US aggression against this troubled city. May they never be forgotten.  

•      Killed during the raid by US/Iraqi forces on 15 September 2010  

Humadi Jassim Ahmed……….old man  

Manzel Humadi Jassim Ahmed………youngster  

Sameer Humadi Jassim Ahmed……..youngster  

Sadiek Humadi Jassim Ahmed………youngster  

Abid Swissan Ahmed………old man  

Yassein Abid Swissan Ahmed…….youngster  

Yassein Kassar Saad……..Former Iraqi officer in Iraqi army  

•      Injured civilians  

Omar Humadi Jassim…….youngster  

Ibrahim Abid Kassar………youngster  

Hathima Jassim (85 years old)  

Ahmed Humadi Jassim ….youngster  

The raid has raised tensions and angered the city’s inhabitants. On 16 September the city has declared a three-day long mourning. U.S. and Iraqi officials claim that the raid killed a former Iraqi officer linked to al-Qaeda group in the country. But the claim could not be substantiated and eyewitnesses and officials in the city said all the dead and injured were civilians. Schools, offices and shops were closed in Fallujah on Thursday in protest against the attack that was also strongly condemned by provincial officials of Anbar of which the city of Ramadi is the capital. The officials in Anbar have asked Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for an independent investigation of the raid, according to Mohammed Fathi, the governor’s advisor.[2]  

In 2003, after the fall of the capital Baghdad following the US lead invasion, Fallujah[3] remained calm and, contrary to what happened elsewhere, there was no looting. But the policy pursued by the US – UK of indiscriminate killing of civilians and of collective punishment, generated resistance in the whole area. In order to eradicate the resistance in and around Fallujah, the invading forces attacked the city and the crimes committed in the course of these attacks are the subject of a new report of Monitoring Net For Human Rights in Iraq (MHRI) called Testimonies of Crimes Against Humanity in Fallujah, Towards a Fair International Criminal Trial [4], presented at the15th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council[5]. This report gives a grim view of a policy of collective punishment, war crimes and crimes against humanity, committed by the US forces between 2003 en 2010:  

–       The killing of peaceful demonstrators  

–       Provocation and killing of the protection and police forces of Fallujah  

–       Arbitrary arrests and torture  

–       The first assault on Fallujah (April, 2004)  

–       The peace talks that could have prevented the second battle of Fallujah but were undermined by the US  

–       The crimes of the US/UK troops in the course of the second assault on Fallujah (November, 2004)  

–       Environmental pollution, its effects on health and the threat to future generations. 

 

Moreover, the city was totally destroyed. Dr. Hafidh al-Dulaimi, the head of “the Commission for the Compensation of Fallujah citizens” reported the following destruction inflicted on Fallujah as a result of the American attack in November 2004:  

– 7000 houses totally destroyed, or nearly totally destroyed, homes in all districts of Fallujah. – 8400 stores, workshops, clinics, warehouses, etc.. destroyed.  

– 65 mosques and religious sanctuaries have been either totally demolished and leveled to the ground or whose minarets and inner halls have been demolished.  

– 59 kindergartens, primary schools, secondary schools and technical colleges have been destroyed.  

– 13 government buildings leveled to the ground.  

– Destruction of the two electricity substations, the three water purification plants, the two railroad stations and heavy damages to the sewage and rain drainage subsystems throughout the city.  

– The total destruction of a bridge to the West of the city.  

– The death of 100,000 domestic and wild animals due to chemical and/or gaseous munitions.  

– The burning and destruction of four libraries that housed hundreds perhaps thousands of ancient Islamic manuscripts and books.  

– The targeted destruction (which appears to be intentional) of the historical nearby site at Saqlawia and the castle of Abu al-Abbas al-Safah.[6]  

A partial list of people assassinated during the first assault on Fallujah in April 2004 contains 749 names, 580 of which are males and 169 are females.[7] ( Iraq Bodycount lists 26 casualties of this onslaught in its database, many of them different persons! ). The number of civilians assassinated by the US during the 2nd assault on Fallujah in November 2004 is a multitude of the 749 April murders.  

As a cynical token of “good will”, the US helped reconstruct the Fallujah hospital, in which many women now give birth to deformed babies, deformities caused by illegal weaponry used by the occupation forces during the assaults: white phosphorous, depleted uranium, and other chemical and uranium weapons. With a half-life of 4.5 billion years, DU and NDU amount to a permanently available contaminant randomly distributed into the environment. An eternal curse on humanity, inflicted by the “ Champions of the Free World ”.  

The mainstream media has extensively reported how a British woman, Mary Bale, had been filmed dropping a cat into a wheelie bin. The cat was later released unharmed. “Whereas the story of the maltreated cat received heavy coverage for almost one week across the UK media, we (and activist friends in the United States) can find exactly one mention of the Fallujah cancer and infant mortality study in the entire UK and US national press – Patrick Cockburn’s article in the Independent. The story has simply been ignored by every other US-UK national newspaper”, write the editors of Medialens.[8]  

The article by Patrick Cockburn[9] was indeed a rare exception to the mainstream media near-blackout of news about this new scientific study, showing soaring rates of cancer and other indicators of mutagenic disorders in Fallujah[10], the city the U.S. obliterated in 2004. Results of a population-based epidemiological study organized by Malak Hamdan and Chris Busby, published on 03 July 2010 in the International Journal of Environmental Studies and Public Health (IJERPH) based in Basle, Switzerland, show increases in cancer, leukemia and infant mortality and perturbations of the normal human population birth sex ratio significantly greater than those reported for the survivors of the A-Bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.[11]  

As Noam Chomsky has commented, the study’s findings are “vastly more significant” than the Wikileaks Afghan ‘War Diary’ leaks[12]  

The refusal of the mainstream media to write about this report is another proof of cynical negligence.  

On top of that t he city of Fallujah still has no functioning sewage system: Waste pours onto the streets and seeps into drinking water supplies.[13]  

And Fallujah is still under siege. Nahoko Takato, activist and aid worker of the NGO NCCI testifies:  

“When I visited Falluja in 2009, it was very difficult to get permission to enter. It’s surrounded by checkpoints… Basically, only those who have IDs that are provided by the American army can enter. And only cars that get a number from the American army are allowed to enter. The Ramadi citizen can enter Falluja by foot, but he cannot enter Falluja in his own car because he needs special registration that is very difficult to get…Maybe the American army is afraid that an international will collect evidence of the pollution, uranium traces, and so on.”[14] <#_ftn14>  

The demands of the people of Fallujah, formulated in the Testimonies of Crimes Against Humanity in Fallujah, Towards a Fair International Criminal Trial report, are highly justified and should be obligatory advocated and put high on the agenda of all Human Rights Organisations and peace movements worldwide.  

1. The inability of the Iraqi judiciary to undertake any proceedings leading to eventual trials and accountability for the crimes and violations by the U.S.-British soldiers, is clear evidence of the complicity and to the continuation of absolute occupation, thereafter the situation was ratified thereafter with the drafting of the security agreement between U.S. government and the Iraqi government confirming and regularizing this deficiency.  

It is our cherished right to hold to account the International Community who now has both the mandate, and moral responsibility to initiate proceedings to prosecute and hold accountable all those perpetrators and seek full restitution and compensations in appropriate portion and scale, commensurate with the endured suffering and pain throughout the endured periods and continuing till the present day.  

2. We appeal to the international community, to hold the perpetrators of these crimes accountable, and obtain compensation for the victims, including for the suffering and all pain endured.  

3. The establishment of an international criminal court, or at least an independent fact-finding mission to look at all violations happened in Iraq by the United States since 1991.  

4. The reinstitution of the Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iraq is one of the first steps that the international community can take in order to get at the truth regarding the human rights situation in Iraq.  

5. We call on all visual media and audio, which have documented the crimes of Fallujah, to send a copy to the office of the special procedures in the Human Rights Council of the United Nations, to assist victims of Fallujah and help stop these crimes.[15]  

As a final observation I’d like to stress that the people of Fallujah have all the right, according to International law, to defend themselves against the illegal invasion and occupation of their city, their country. Their right to resist should be defended by all.

By Dirk Adriaensens 

22 September, 2010 

Countercurrents.org

(Member of the B Russell s Tribunal executive committee, 21 September 2010)  

[1] http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/09/17/100778/iraqi-forces-struggling-as-us.html  

[2]   http://www.azzaman.com/english/index.asp?fname=news%5C2010-09-16%5Ckurd.htm  

[3] Fallujah is a city rooted in history, located some 45 km  to the west of the capital Baghdad. It has a population of more than 350.000 inhabitants and is at the crossroad of three rural areas that total 300.000 inhabitants, which brings the overall population of the area of Fallujah to 650000 people. The population of Fallujah is conservative as regards social, religious, traditional and tribal issues  

[4] <http://www.brusselstribunal.org/pdf/MHRI-Fallujah160910.pdf  

[5] http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/15session/  

[6] http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=10580&s2=22 

[7] http://www.brusselstribunal.org/pdf/Fallujah.pdf  

[8] http://www.medialens.org/alerts/10/100907_beyond_hiroshima_the.php  

[9] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/toxic-legacy-of-us-assault-on-fallujah-worse-than-hiroshima-2034065.html 

[10] http://www.ufppc.org/us-a-world-news-mainmenu-35/9836/  

[11] http://www.brusselstribunal.org/Fallujah020710.htm  

[12] http://www.zcommunications.org/wikileaks-and-coverage-in-press-by-noam-chomsky 

[13] http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=89829  

[14] http://www.uruknet.de/?s1=1&p=69624&s2=10  

[15] http://www.brusselstribunal.org/pdf/MHRI-Fallujah160910.pdf  

—— Einde van doorgestuurd bericht  

—— Einde van doorgestuurd bericht 

Dirk Adriaensens is member of BRussell s Tribunal Executive Committee