Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Quality of Life: India vs. China By Amartya Sen - The New York Review of Books
http://www.nybooks.com/
Quality of Life: India vs. China
May 12, 2011
Amartya Sen
1.
The steadily rising rate of economic growth in India has recently been around 8 percent per year (it is expected to be 9 percent this year), and there is much speculation about whether and when India may catch up with and surpass China’s over 10 percent growth rate. Despite the evident excitement that this subject seems to cause in India and abroad, it is surely rather silly to be obsessed about India’s overtaking China in the rate of growth of GNP, while not comparing India with China in other respects, like education, basic health, or life expectancy. Economic growth can, of course, be enormously helpful in advancing living standards and in battling poverty. But there is little cause for taking the growth of GNP to be an end in itself, rather than seeing it as an important means for achieving things we value.
Dinodia/Stock Connection/Aurora PhotosGirls in a classroom in the Indian model village of Ralegan Siddhi, northeast of Pune, Maharashtra, 2006
It could, however, be asked why this distinction should make much difference, since economic growth does enhance our ability to improve living standards. The central point to appreciate here is that while economic growth is important for enhancing living conditions, its reach and impact depend greatly on what we do with the increased income. The relation between economic growth and the advancement of living standards depends on many factors, including economic and social inequality and, no less importantly, on what the government does with the public revenue that is generated by economic growth.
Some statistics about China and India, drawn mainly from the World Bank and the United Nations, are relevant here. Life expectancy at birth in China is 73.5 years; in India it is 64.4 years. The infant mortality rate is fifty per thousand in India, compared with just seventeen in China; the mortality rate for children under five is sixty-six per thousand for Indians and nineteen for the Chinese; and the maternal mortality rate is 230 per 100,000 live births in India and thirty-eight in China. The mean years of schooling in India were estimated to be 4.4 years, compared with 7.5 years in China. China’s adult literacy rate is 94 percent, compared with India’s 74 percent according to the preliminary tables of the 2011 census.
Comparing India with China according to such standards can be more useful for policy discussions in India than confining the comparison to GNP growth rates only. Those who are fearful that India’s growth performance would suffer if it paid more attention to “social objectives” such as education and health care should seriously consider that notwithstanding these “social” activities and achievements, China’s rate of GNP growth is still clearly higher than India’s.
2.
Higher GNP has certainly helped China to reduce various indicators of poverty and deprivation, and to expand different features of the quality of life. There is every reason to want to encourage sustainable economic growth in India in order to improve living standards today and in the future (including taking care of the environment in which we live). Sustainable economic growth is a very good thing in a way that “growth mania” is not.GNP per capita is, however, not invariably a good predictor of valuable features of our lives, for those features depend also on other things that we do—or fail to do. Compare India with Bangladesh. In income, India has a huge lead over Bangladesh, with a GNP per capita of $1,170, compared with $590 in Bangladesh, in comparable units of purchasing power. This difference has expanded rapidly because of India’s faster rate of recent economic growth, and that, of course, is a point in India’s favor. India’s substantially higher rank than Bangladesh in the UN Human Development Index (HDI) is largely due to this particular achievement. But we must ask how well India’s income advantage is reflected in other things that also matter. I fear the answer is: not well at all.
Life expectancy in Bangladesh is 66.9 years compared with India’s 64.4. The proportion of underweight children in Bangladesh (41.3 percent) is lower than in India (43.5), and its fertility rate (2.3) is also lower than India’s (2.7). Mean years of schooling amount to 4.8 years in Bangladesh compared with India’s 4.4 years. While India is ahead of Bangladesh in the male literacy rate for the age group between fifteen and twenty-four, the female rate in Bangladesh is higher than in India. Interestingly, the female literacy rate among young Bangladeshis is actually higher than the male rate, whereas young women still have substantially lower rates than young males in India. There is much evidence to suggest that Bangladesh’s current progress has a great deal to do with the role that liberated Bangladeshi women are beginning to play in the country.
What about health? The mortality rate of children under five is sixty-six per thousand in India compared with fifty-two in Bangladesh. In infant mortality, Bangladesh has a similar advantage: it is fifty per thousand in India and forty-one in Bangladesh. While 94 percent of Bangladeshi children are immunized with DPT vaccine, only 66 percent of Indian children are. In each of these respects, Bangladesh does better than India, despite having only half of India’s per capita income.
Of course, Bangladesh’s living conditions will benefit greatly from higher economic growth, particularly if the country uses it as a means of doing good things, rather than treating economic growth and high per capita income as ends in themselves. It is to the huge credit of Bangladesh that despite the adversity of low income it has been able to do so much so quickly; the imaginative activism of Bangladeshi NGOs (such as the Grameen Bank, the pioneering microcredit institution, and BRAC, a large-scale initiative aimed at removing poverty) as well as the committed public policies of the government have both contributed to the results. But higher income, including larger public resources, will obviously enhance Bangladesh’s ability to achieve better lives for its people.
3.
One of the positive things about economic growth is that it generates public resources that the government can devote to its priorities. In fact, public resources very often grow faster than the GNP. The gross tax revenue, for example, of the government of India (corrected for price rise) is now more than four times what it was just twenty years ago, in 1990–1991. This is a substantially bigger jump than the price-corrected GNP.Expenditure on what is somewhat misleadingly called the “social sector”—health, education, nutrition, etc.—has certainly gone up in India. And yet India is still well behind China in many of these fields. For example, government expenditure on health care in China is nearly five times that in India. China does, of course, have a larger population and a higher per capita income than India, but even in relative terms, while the Chinese government spends nearly 2 percent of GDP (1.9 percent) on health care, the proportion is only a little above one percent (1.1 percent) in India.
One result of the relatively low allocation of funds to public health care in India is that large numbers of poor people across the country rely on private doctors, many of whom have little medical training. Since health is also a typical example of “asymmetric information,” in which the patients may know very little about what the doctors (or “supposed doctors”) are giving them, even the possibility of fraud and deceit is very large. In a study conducted by the Pratichi Trust—a public interest trust I set up in 1999—we found cases in which the ignorance of poor patients about their condition was exploited so as to make them pay for treatment they didn’t get. This is the result not only of shameful exploitation, but ultimately of the sheer unavailability of public health care in many parts of India. The benefit that we can expect to get from economic growth depends very much on how the public revenue generated by economic growth is expended.
4.
When we consider the impact of economic growth on people’s lives, comparisons favor China over India. However, there are many fields in which a comparison between China and India is not related to economic growth in any obvious way. Most Indians are strongly appreciative of the democratic structure of the country, including its many political parties, systematic free elections, uncensored media, free speech, and the independent standing of the judiciary, among other characteristics of a lively democracy. Those Indians who are critical of serious flaws in these arrangements (and I am certainly one of them) can also take account of what India has already achieved in sustaining democracy, in contrast to many other countries, including China.Not only is access to the Internet and world opinion uncensored and unrestricted in India, a multitude of media present widely different points of view, often very critical of the government in office. India has a larger circulation of newspapers each day than any other country in the world. And the newspapers reflect contrasting political perspectives. Economic growth has helped—and this has certainly been a substantial gain—to expand the availability of radios and televisions across the country, including in rural areas, which very often are shared among many users. There are at least 360 independent television stations (and many are being established right now, judging from the licenses already issued) and their broadcasts reflect a remarkable variety of points of view. More than two hundred of these TV stations concentrate substantially or mainly on news, many of them around the clock. There is a sharp contrast here with the monolithic system of newscasting permitted by the state in China, with little variation of political perspectives on different channels.
Freedom of expression has its own value as a potentially important instrument for democratic politics, but also as something that people enjoy and treasure. Even the poorest parts of the population want to participate in social and political life, and in India they can do so. There is a contrast as well in the use of trial and punishment, including capital punishment. China often executes more people in a week than India has executed since independence in 1947. If our focus is on a comprehensive comparison of the quality of life in India and China, we have to look well beyond the traditional social indicators, and many of these comparisons are not to China’s advantage.
Could it be that India’s democratic system is somehow a barrier to using the benefits of economic growth in order to enhance health, education, and other social conditions? Clearly not, as I shall presently discuss. It is worth recalling that when India had a very low rate of economic growth, as was the case until the 1980s, a common argument was that democracy was hostile to fast economic growth. It was hard to convince those opposed to democracy that fast economic growth depends on an economic climate congenial to development rather than on fierce political control, and that a political system that protects democratic rights need not impede economic growth. That debate has now ended, not least because of the high economic growth rates of democratic India. We can now ask: How should we assess the alleged conflict between democracy and the use of the fruits of economic growth for social advancement?
5.
What a democratic system achieves depends greatly on which social conditions become political issues. Some conditions become politically important issues quickly, such as the calamity of a famine (thus famines tend not to occur at all when there is a functioning democracy), while other problems—less spectacular and less immediate—provide a much harder challenge. It is much more difficult to use democratic politics to remedy undernourishment that is not extreme, or persistent gender inequality, or the absence of regular medical care for all. Success or failure here depends on the range and vigor of democratic practice.1 In recent years Indian democracy has made considerable progress in dealing with some of these conditions, such as gender inequality, lack of schools, and widespread undernourishment. Public protests, court decisions, and the use of the recently passed “Right to Information” Act have had telling effects. But India still has a long way to go in remedying these conditions.In China, by contrast, the process of decision-making depends largely on decisions made by the top Party leaders, with relatively little democratic pressure from below. The Chinese leaders, despite their skepticism about the values of multiparty democracy and personal and political liberty, are strongly committed to eliminating poverty, undernourishment, illiteracy, and lack of health care; and this has greatly helped in China’s advancement. There is, however, a serious fragility in any authoritarian system of governance, since there is little recourse or remedy when the government leaders alter their goals or suppress their failures.
The reality of that danger revealed itself in a catastrophic form in the Chinese famine of 1959–1962, which killed more than 30 million people, when there was no public pressure against the regime’s policies, as would have arisen in a functioning democracy. Mistakes in policy continued for three years while tens of millions died. To take another example, the economic reforms of 1979 greatly improved the working and efficiency of Chinese agriculture and industry; but the Chinese government also eliminated, at the same time, the entitlement of all to public medical care (which was often administered through the communes). Most people were then required to buy their own health insurance, drastically reducing the proportion of the population with guaranteed health care.
In a functioning democracy an established right to social assistance could not have been so easily—and so swiftly—dropped. The change sharply reduced the progress of longevity in China. Its large lead over India in life expectancy dwindled during the following two decades—falling from a fourteen-year lead to one of just seven years.
The Chinese authorities, however, eventually realized what had been lost, and from 2004 they rapidly started reintroducing the right to medical care. China now has a considerably higher proportion of people with guaranteed health care than does India. The gap in life expectancy in China’s favor has been rising again, and it is now around nine years; and the degree of coverage is clearly central to the difference.2 Whether India’s democratic political system can effectively remedy neglected public services such as health care is one of the most urgent questions facing the country.3
6.
For a minority of the Indian population—but still very large in actual numbers—economic growth alone has been very advantageous, since they are already comparatively privileged and need no social assistance to benefit from economic growth. The limited prosperity of recent years has helped to support a remarkable variety of lifestyles as well as globally acclaimed developments of Indian literature, music, cinema, theater, painting, and the culinary arts, among other cultural activities.Yet an exaggerated concentration on the lives of the relatively prosperous, exacerbated by the Indian media, gives an unrealistically rosy picture of the lives of Indians in general. Since the fortunate group includes not only business leaders and the professional classes but also many of the country’s intellectuals, the story of unusual national advancement is widely and persistently heard. More worryingly, relatively privileged Indians can easily fall for the temptation to focus just on economic growth as a grand social benefactor for all.
Some critics of the huge social inequalities in India find something callous and uncouth in the self-centered lives and inward-looking preoccupations of a relatively prosperous minority. My primary concern, however, is that the illusions generated by those distorted perceptions of prosperity may prevent India from bringing social deprivations into political focus, which is essential for achieving what needs to be done for Indians at large through its democratic system. A fuller understanding of the real conditions of the mass of neglected Indians and what can be done to improve their lives through public policy should be a central issue in the politics of India.
This is exactly where the exclusive concentration on the rate of GNP growth has the most damaging effect. Economic growth can make a very large contribution to improving people’s lives; but single-minded emphasis on growth has limitations that need to be clearly understood.
- 1 I have discussed this issue more fully in " How Is India Doing? ," The New York Review , December 16, 1982; in (jointly with Jean Drèze) Hunger and Public Action (Clarendon Press/Oxford University Press, 1989); and in Development as Freedom (Knopf, 1999). ↩
- 2 I discuss this in "The Art of Medicine: Learning from Others," The Lancet , January 15, 2011. ↩
- 3 I am grateful to Lincoln Chen, Jean Drèze, and A.K. Shiva Kumar for helpful discussion of this and related issues. ↩
Monday, May 9, 2011
Does Pak Prime Minister hints in his parliament speech, that the helicopter that was destroyed at Abbotabad, was a knee jerk action by Pak (forces)? - By Ghulam Muhammed
Comments posted on Twitter:
Does Pak Prime Minister hints in his parliament speech, that the helicopter that was destroyed at Abbotabad, was a knee jerk action by Pak (forces)?
-----------
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Comments posted on Washington Post:
Does Pak Prime Minister hints in his parliament speech, that the helicopter that was destroyed at Abbotabad, was a knee jerk action by Pak (forces)? Pak PM riled against unilateralism, apparently referring to US operation. He further added that Pak will respond in the similar fashion, whenever, there is an overt or covert attack on its assets. Does that refer to any imagined proposed attack on Pakistan's nuclear assets by any foreign country? Neither US nor Pakistan is a monolith and both harbor hawks and doves. Both side's hawks seem to be in high gear, without bothering to reason out the consequences of any knee-jerk action. Obama has given in to hawks and even though he has given out a sign of wider concerns, by not releasing Osama Killing pictures to world media, series of haughty moves in the aftermath of US operative shooting down two Pak intelligence agents, shows how much Obama as President is helpless to control his own administration. For the peace of the world, both US and Pak should calm down.
@GhulamMuhammed Ghulam Muhammed
-----------
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Comments posted on Washington Post:
ghulammuhammed3
Does Pak Prime Minister hints in his parliament speech, that the helicopter that was destroyed at Abbotabad, was a knee jerk action by Pak (forces)? Pak PM riled against unilateralism, apparently referring to US operation. He further added that Pak will respond in the similar fashion, whenever, there is an overt or covert attack on its assets. Does that refer to any imagined proposed attack on Pakistan's nuclear assets by any foreign country? Neither US nor Pakistan is a monolith and both harbor hawks and doves. Both side's hawks seem to be in high gear, without bothering to reason out the consequences of any knee-jerk action. Obama has given in to hawks and even though he has given out a sign of wider concerns, by not releasing Osama Killing pictures to world media, series of haughty moves in the aftermath of US operative shooting down two Pak intelligence agents, shows how much Obama as President is helpless to control his own administration. For the peace of the world, both US and Pak should calm down.
5/9/2011 9:57:03 PM GMT+0530
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Osama’s death may end bloom of Arab Spring - By Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar - The Sunday Times of India
Apologies for having to post the most degrading, un-parliamentary and insulting quote by Swaminathan Aiyar, purporting to be from Bertold Brecht using most profane language in his comments on Hitler's fascism, ---- which Aiyar unthinkingly and most brazenly uses the phrase --- bitch in heat -- to refer to Islamic revival.
Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai
-----------------------
http://timesofindia.
I did not celebrate Osama bin Laden's death. Killing an individual is easier than killing an idea. Osama's idea of jihad survives his death.
He was the mastermind of 9/11 and the most iconic jihadi figure. Yet he had long ceased to direct jihadi movements and had run foul of some by killing Muslims opposed to al-Qaida.
Nevertheless, Osama succeeded in popularizing a new version of jihad. In this, suicide attacks and civilian killings—both crimes in traditional Islam—became glorious jihadi tactics that fulfilled Islamic goals and ensured a passport to paradise.
John Brown, US anti-slavery leader, led a slave uprising in 1859, and was hanged for it. Yet his ideal of abolishing slavery triumphed. This inspired the US civil war song "John Brown's body lies a'mouldering in the grave, but his soul goes marching on." So too will Osama's .
His death may encourage the US to withdraw troops quickly from Afghanistan, strike a deal with the Taliban, and play down terrorism directed at India rather than the US. Pakistan will see this as vindication of its two-faced policy of using terrorists against India while playing footsie with the US. Such two-facedness may mean worse violence within Pakistan, with radicals gaining ground from liberal Muslims. India may suffer further 26/11-style attacks, more violence in Kashmir, and more external assistance for domestic jihadi groups. We may even suffer another Kandahar-type hijack.
To scotch this, militant Hindus want to emulate the US by raiding and assassinating targets in Pakistan such as Hafeez Saeed of the Lashkare-Taiba , mastermind of 26/11. This approach will fail. Just look at the ultimate failure of many killing missions of Israel, which is global No.1 in political assassinations and much admired for it by the RSS.
Ronen Bergman, Israeli military analyst, recalls that in 1992, Israel assassinated Hezbollah founder Abbas Mussawi. Far from weakening Hezbollah, this fuelled its anger and led to a retaliatory attack on the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, killing 29. Mussawi's replacement, Hassan Nasrallah, greatly increased Hezbollah's clout using arms supplies from Iran. This helped him wage an inconclusive war against Israel in 2006. Israel inflicted much damage on Lebanon, yet ended by withdrawing, a worse outcome than anything imaginable in Mussawi's time.
In 2004, Israel assassinated Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, hoping to cripple the organization . Instead, Hamas became stronger and more aggressive. Yassin was a devout Sunni who opposed Shia Iran, but after his death, Hamas happily joined hands with Iran and was armed by it, to Israel's utter dismay. So, while India faces a growing threat from jihadis, Israel shows us that assassination is no solution—it looks macho but ends up strengthening your foes. Ultimately, militant Islam will be quelled only by liberal Islam , not by outsiders, and that internal struggle is beyond our power to resolve. Whether we like it or not, we cannot impose a military solution.
Optimists disagree. They claim that jihad as a philosophy has been beaten back by the Arab Spring, and that secular freedom movements in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya have displaced sectarian ones. I would love to believe this is the case, but history suggests otherwise.
Many liberals (including me) hailed the 1979 Iranian revolution that overthrew the Shah. Alas, this brought not democracy but a murderous , oppressive theocracy.
Liberals cheered prospects of democracy when Algeria held its first free elections in 1991. But an Islamist party won the first round. So, with US blessings, democracy was abandoned in favour of continued military rule. Elections in Palestine brought to power Hamas, a radical Islamic party, humiliating the secular PLO.
Why do Islamists so often win free elections in the Middle East? Because local dictators can neuter secular opposition groups but dare not close down the mosques. Hence mosques become natural opposition centres. When autocracy gives way to elections, Islamic parties (like the Muslim Brotherhood) are the best organized, and so best placed to win. In Egypt's referendum on constitutional reform in March, opposition leader El Baradei (who wanted elections put off to help secular parties organize) was prevented from casting his vote by Islamists who pelted stones. Does this portend liberal democracy or Islamist intolerance?
This must stoke fears that the Arab Spring will bring radical Islamists to power in many countries. I would love to be proved wrong. But I have a sinking feeling that we will soon say of Osama what Bertold Brecht said of Hitler.
"Don't rejoice in his defeat, you men.
For though the world stood up and stopped the bastard,
The bitch that bore him is in heat again."
Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai
-----------------------
http://timesofindia.
Osama’s death may end bloom of Arab Spring
Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar | May 8, 2011, 07.09am ISTI did not celebrate Osama bin Laden's death. Killing an individual is easier than killing an idea. Osama's idea of jihad survives his death.
He was the mastermind of 9/11 and the most iconic jihadi figure. Yet he had long ceased to direct jihadi movements and had run foul of some by killing Muslims opposed to al-Qaida.
Nevertheless, Osama succeeded in popularizing a new version of jihad. In this, suicide attacks and civilian killings—both crimes in traditional Islam—became glorious jihadi tactics that fulfilled Islamic goals and ensured a passport to paradise.
John Brown, US anti-slavery leader, led a slave uprising in 1859, and was hanged for it. Yet his ideal of abolishing slavery triumphed. This inspired the US civil war song "John Brown's body lies a'mouldering in the grave, but his soul goes marching on." So too will Osama's .
His death may encourage the US to withdraw troops quickly from Afghanistan, strike a deal with the Taliban, and play down terrorism directed at India rather than the US. Pakistan will see this as vindication of its two-faced policy of using terrorists against India while playing footsie with the US. Such two-facedness may mean worse violence within Pakistan, with radicals gaining ground from liberal Muslims. India may suffer further 26/11-style attacks, more violence in Kashmir, and more external assistance for domestic jihadi groups. We may even suffer another Kandahar-type hijack.
To scotch this, militant Hindus want to emulate the US by raiding and assassinating targets in Pakistan such as Hafeez Saeed of the Lashkare-Taiba , mastermind of 26/11. This approach will fail. Just look at the ultimate failure of many killing missions of Israel, which is global No.1 in political assassinations and much admired for it by the RSS.
Ronen Bergman, Israeli military analyst, recalls that in 1992, Israel assassinated Hezbollah founder Abbas Mussawi. Far from weakening Hezbollah, this fuelled its anger and led to a retaliatory attack on the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, killing 29. Mussawi's replacement, Hassan Nasrallah, greatly increased Hezbollah's clout using arms supplies from Iran. This helped him wage an inconclusive war against Israel in 2006. Israel inflicted much damage on Lebanon, yet ended by withdrawing, a worse outcome than anything imaginable in Mussawi's time.
In 2004, Israel assassinated Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, hoping to cripple the organization . Instead, Hamas became stronger and more aggressive. Yassin was a devout Sunni who opposed Shia Iran, but after his death, Hamas happily joined hands with Iran and was armed by it, to Israel's utter dismay. So, while India faces a growing threat from jihadis, Israel shows us that assassination is no solution—it looks macho but ends up strengthening your foes. Ultimately, militant Islam will be quelled only by liberal Islam , not by outsiders, and that internal struggle is beyond our power to resolve. Whether we like it or not, we cannot impose a military solution.
Optimists disagree. They claim that jihad as a philosophy has been beaten back by the Arab Spring, and that secular freedom movements in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya have displaced sectarian ones. I would love to believe this is the case, but history suggests otherwise.
Many liberals (including me) hailed the 1979 Iranian revolution that overthrew the Shah. Alas, this brought not democracy but a murderous , oppressive theocracy.
Liberals cheered prospects of democracy when Algeria held its first free elections in 1991. But an Islamist party won the first round. So, with US blessings, democracy was abandoned in favour of continued military rule. Elections in Palestine brought to power Hamas, a radical Islamic party, humiliating the secular PLO.
Why do Islamists so often win free elections in the Middle East? Because local dictators can neuter secular opposition groups but dare not close down the mosques. Hence mosques become natural opposition centres. When autocracy gives way to elections, Islamic parties (like the Muslim Brotherhood) are the best organized, and so best placed to win. In Egypt's referendum on constitutional reform in March, opposition leader El Baradei (who wanted elections put off to help secular parties organize) was prevented from casting his vote by Islamists who pelted stones. Does this portend liberal democracy or Islamist intolerance?
This must stoke fears that the Arab Spring will bring radical Islamists to power in many countries. I would love to be proved wrong. But I have a sinking feeling that we will soon say of Osama what Bertold Brecht said of Hitler.
"Don't rejoice in his defeat, you men.
For though the world stood up and stopped the bastard,
The bitch that bore him is in heat again."
Saturday, May 7, 2011
A Scattering of Protests Honoring Bin Laden - By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK - The New York Times
The more America piles up lies after lies in the media, itself confused as how to respond to the challenges from different sections of world's populations, the crime of 9/11 gets more and more fuzzy, raising doubts, if it was not an inside job, most audaciously imposed on Osama, Al Qaida and the rest of Muslim world.
Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/
Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/
The Death of Osama bin Laden
A Scattering of Protests Honoring Bin Laden
Warrick Page for The New York Times
PAKISTAN Members of Jamaat-i-Islami, a banned party, demonstrated Friday in Abbottabad, where Osama bin Laden was killed. By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
Published: May 6, 2011
CAIRO — About 200 demonstrators gathered outside the United States Embassy here on Friday to protest the killing and burial at sea of Osama bin Laden as manifestations of what they called American hostility to Muslims.
Multimedia
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Times Topic: The Death of Osama bin Laden
Sang Tan/Associated Press
BRITAIN The police in London separated a member of the English Defence League, left, from other protesters in Grosvenor Square.
Khalil Hamra/Associated Press
EGYPT About 200 people marched on the United States Embassy in Cairo to vent their anger over American interventions.
Muhamad Ali/European Pressphoto Agency
INDONESIA Muslim activists shouted, “We are ready to die for Osama!” during a rally in Solo, a city in central Java. Like many in Egypt, most in the crowd said they doubted Bin Laden’s responsibility for the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and instead vented pent-up resentment of America for its invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan as well as its support for Israel.
“Until now there is no legal document which charges or accuses Osama or anyone” of orchestrating the terrorist attacks, said Mamdouh Ismail, a speaker at the demonstration, founder of a new Islamic party and a candidate for Parliament — apparently unaware of the legal case in New York, filed in 1998 against Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. (Prosecutors said this week that the charges would be dismissed.) “Let us talk about American injustice, the killing of women and children, the killing of Muslims all over the world at the hands of America.”
Such peaceful demonstrations were prohibited before the Feb. 11 revolution that ousted President Hosni Mubarak, and Egyptians have been relishing their chance to speak out.
The protest began after a sermon at a Cairo mosque by an aging Islamist firebrand, Sheik Hafez Salama. His supporters produced a sign proclaiming Bin Laden “a symbol of Islamic jihad” and saying “America is the terrorist state.” They chanted “Obama, Obama, the terrorist is not Osama,” and called for a march to the embassy.
“They martyred Osama, who was able to stand up to the world’s harshest power,” Mr. Salama said at a stop along the way, where a small crowd had gathered as usual in Tahrir Square, reliving the revolution. “We are all Osama bin Laden.”
The Tahrir Square crowd, however, was more interested in another speaker, who was airing conspiracy theories about the internal security forces. And of the hundreds of people who had emerged from the mosque chanting solidarity with Bin Laden, only about 200 made it to the protest at the American Embassy. They were surrounded every step of the way by an overwhelming number of police officers and soldiers and their equipment, including three armored personnel carriers and a squadron of riot police outside the embassy. But both sides remained peaceful.
Although almost no one seemed to believe that Bin Laden was responsible for the 9/11 attacks, all offered a familiar litany about American military interventions, support for Israel and treatment of Iraqi captives at Abu Ghraib prison.
Many seized on the disposal of Bin Laden’s body, in a burial at sea that they said failed to adhere to Islamic rituals, as a symbol of what they said was American disregard for the Muslim world. “When Obama announced the burial I felt sickened,” said Hassan Ali, 52, one of the few who acknowledged some wrongdoing by Bin Laden. “He was a terrorist. We expected him to be arrested, maybe executed at some point. But we are here because of what they did to his body.”
Most refused to concede his guilt. “We are very against violence,” said Ibrahim Haggag, 45, speaking of Muslims generally. “They could be framing him as an excuse to attack Arabs, an excuse to take their wealth.”
Amina Mohame, 28, added: “The Jews were the ones who planned 9/11. If the U.S. is a civil society, why did they fund Bush’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?”
Similar demonstrations in support of Bin Laden were held in several other cities, including London; Abbottabad, Pakistan, where he was killed; and Solo, Indonesia.
In London, hundreds of protesters gathered outside the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square, in the exclusive Mayfair district. They held placards with slogans like “Islam will dominate the world.” Lines of police officers separated the demonstrators from members of a far-right group, the English Defence League, who held aloft placards highly critical of Bin Laden and other Islamic extremists.
Lara el-Gibaly contributed reporting from Cairo, and Ravi Somaiya from London.
“Until now there is no legal document which charges or accuses Osama or anyone” of orchestrating the terrorist attacks, said Mamdouh Ismail, a speaker at the demonstration, founder of a new Islamic party and a candidate for Parliament — apparently unaware of the legal case in New York, filed in 1998 against Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. (Prosecutors said this week that the charges would be dismissed.) “Let us talk about American injustice, the killing of women and children, the killing of Muslims all over the world at the hands of America.”
Such peaceful demonstrations were prohibited before the Feb. 11 revolution that ousted President Hosni Mubarak, and Egyptians have been relishing their chance to speak out.
The protest began after a sermon at a Cairo mosque by an aging Islamist firebrand, Sheik Hafez Salama. His supporters produced a sign proclaiming Bin Laden “a symbol of Islamic jihad” and saying “America is the terrorist state.” They chanted “Obama, Obama, the terrorist is not Osama,” and called for a march to the embassy.
“They martyred Osama, who was able to stand up to the world’s harshest power,” Mr. Salama said at a stop along the way, where a small crowd had gathered as usual in Tahrir Square, reliving the revolution. “We are all Osama bin Laden.”
The Tahrir Square crowd, however, was more interested in another speaker, who was airing conspiracy theories about the internal security forces. And of the hundreds of people who had emerged from the mosque chanting solidarity with Bin Laden, only about 200 made it to the protest at the American Embassy. They were surrounded every step of the way by an overwhelming number of police officers and soldiers and their equipment, including three armored personnel carriers and a squadron of riot police outside the embassy. But both sides remained peaceful.
Although almost no one seemed to believe that Bin Laden was responsible for the 9/11 attacks, all offered a familiar litany about American military interventions, support for Israel and treatment of Iraqi captives at Abu Ghraib prison.
Many seized on the disposal of Bin Laden’s body, in a burial at sea that they said failed to adhere to Islamic rituals, as a symbol of what they said was American disregard for the Muslim world. “When Obama announced the burial I felt sickened,” said Hassan Ali, 52, one of the few who acknowledged some wrongdoing by Bin Laden. “He was a terrorist. We expected him to be arrested, maybe executed at some point. But we are here because of what they did to his body.”
Most refused to concede his guilt. “We are very against violence,” said Ibrahim Haggag, 45, speaking of Muslims generally. “They could be framing him as an excuse to attack Arabs, an excuse to take their wealth.”
Amina Mohame, 28, added: “The Jews were the ones who planned 9/11. If the U.S. is a civil society, why did they fund Bush’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?”
Similar demonstrations in support of Bin Laden were held in several other cities, including London; Abbottabad, Pakistan, where he was killed; and Solo, Indonesia.
In London, hundreds of protesters gathered outside the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square, in the exclusive Mayfair district. They held placards with slogans like “Islam will dominate the world.” Lines of police officers separated the demonstrators from members of a far-right group, the English Defence League, who held aloft placards highly critical of Bin Laden and other Islamic extremists.
Lara el-Gibaly contributed reporting from Cairo, and Ravi Somaiya from London.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
AMERICA'S NEW SPECTATOR SPORT - KILL SADDAM | KILL OSAMA | KILL QADDAFI - ALL ON LIVE TV SCREEN
AMERICA'S NEW SPECTATOR SPORT
KILL SADDAM
KILL OSAMA
KILL QADDAFI
ALL ON LIVE TV SCREENS
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KILL SADDAM
KILL OSAMA
KILL QADDAFI
ALL ON LIVE TV SCREENS
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US President Barack Obama, Vice-President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and members of the national security team, being updated on the Osama mission in the Situation Room at White House on Sunday, in an image released to AP. A paper in front of Clinton has been digitally obscured. AP
Monday, May 2, 2011
Obama kills TRUTH with Osama By Ghulam Muhammed
Monday, May 02, 2011
Obama kills TRUTH with Osama
By Ghulam Muhammed
In the age of Media overkill, the most gruesome casualty is truth. It dies thousand deaths every second. While Obama delayed his East Room press conference to officially announce the official death of America’s enemy number ONE: the demonic figure of Saudi Arabian national, Osama Bin Laden, the conspiracy theorists were busy making their own theories about how the whole incident could be conjectured. The following are two of the theories; all have some part which is logical, rational and/or factual :
1. Obama may still be alive and Obama have found it convenient to declare him officially dead; so he can whip up hysteria in the anticipation of coming US presidential elections. The entire drama can be stage-managed from full cooperation with the willing ally, Pakistan and its intelligence agencies working with CIA. Though it is put out that Obama’s dead body is in the possession of the US agencies, CIA is expert enough to bring in any dead body from any selected morgue, dress it up as Osama, organize photo sessions, doctor the pictures and videos in convincing the gullible world that Osama is finally, certainly and verifiably dead.
2. Osama being on dialysis, it is quite possible that he might have died of natural causes long back, as medical facilities in the caves of Afghanistan and Pakistan mountain ranges can hardly be efficient enough to sustain a fragile skeleton for so many long years in wilderness. Osama alive was America’s own need to keep using his doctored speeches released on CNN and world electronic media at convenient time, to whip up American people’s emotions so that defence projects and forays could be smoothly sanctioned. Osama alive rather than dead, was hundred times most precious for the US administration to rob billions from American people and from the world creditors, citing the ‘noble’ services that American defense and intelligence agencies were providing to America and the rest of the ‘free world’ to insulate them from the world’s most dangerous terrorist.
With American Presidential electioneering days piling up on his head, and his Republican adversaries hounding him over his lukewarm responses to world revolutions, that is threatening the peace and progress of the world, Obama and his party must have realized that a graphic killing of Osama, with gory details plastering world media’s pages and screen, will be the best way to turn the tide and pave the way to smoother re-election for the second term in White House.
The propaganda blitz that the US and its allies will be mounting over the death of Osama, would carry the entire West over a wave of triumphalism, while covering up its defeat and retreat from Iraq, Afghanistan and the potentially more demanding participation in the Middle East and North African war campaigns. Obama wants to play a double game of appeasing his own party’s anti-war constituency and the Muslim world into accepting him as a man of peace on one hand; while on the other hand getting his Jewish allies to vent their own frustrations by organized limited military operations around the Arab world and Africa.
While Obama was delivering his Historical speech at White House press briefing, perfectly timed to get the world headlines next day, his picking of so many threads of narrative to soften up diverse and different constituents, had enough material woven into the scenario, that not all that was contained was fully, totally, uncontradictably swallowed by his own national audience, much less by the people of the world at large.
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Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai
http://ghulammuhammed.
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