Sunday, August 14, 2011

Who is Rupert Murdoch? By Gordon Duff, Senior Editor, Veterans Today

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/07/16/murdoch-notes-by-gordon-duff-the-video/







Who is Rupert Murdoch?
A Word Or Two on What Isn’t Being Said

Today the British papers not owned by Rupert Murdoch “rumored” that he might be jailed.  Americans, even Brits, have little or no idea what is at risk here.  There is simply no one who can report it when the individual who, not only controls the world’s largest news organization turns out to be, well, what?

Who is Rupert Murdoch?
Media mogul Rupert Murdoch has played a significant role in the elections of three U.S. presidents, as well as some of the events that have happened during their administrations including the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the economic meltdown,  Gordon Duff, senior editor and writer for Veterans Today told Press TV.
What he is not is an Australian “right wing” billionaire. Murdoch, though born in Australia is an Israeli citizen and Jewish.  Why is this important?
Murdoch is now admitted to have controlled the political systems in Britain and America for two decades.  He has had the power to choose national leaders, make policy, pass laws at will.  Where did the power come from?
We now know it came from spying, blackmail, bribery and propaganda.
What is his agenda?  Ah, there’s the rub.

Was it about selling newspapers using scandals or spying in the name of Israel to push Britain and the United States into wars for Israel?  There is a simple answer.
Murdoch’s primary motivation isn’t even that he is “for Israel.”  Murdoch is, perhaps, the most influential Israeli, more powerful than Netanyahu.  The problem with that is that his beliefs are what we call “ultra-nationalist.”

This makes him a threat.  Ultra-nationalists are known to support wars, plan terrorist acts, manipulate populations into strife and racism, foster fear and panic, even financial ruin.
What are we describing here?

If you aren’t totally brain dead, you realize I am describing Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Fox News.
Murdoch owns Fox News and so much else you may not have a time to look at the list.  If he doesn’t own it he doesn’t want it.
Fox is a network and Murdoch, owning so many newspapers across America and being a foreigner shouldn't be able to control such a thing.  How did he do it?

Reagan “appointed” Murdoch an American citizen.  Murdoch promised to have Fox News support Republicans and say whatever was needed, no matter how false, how stupid or, as we  have seen now for decades, how genuinely evil.

What he really did, however, was use Fox as a base to allow Israel to run spy operations.
These went two ways:
1.  Israel got lots of military technology and secrets they could sell to America’s enemies for money.  This is good “Murdoch” business sense, as we all see now.
2.  Murdoch helped Israel gain control of congress.  They literally run the United States.  The tools?  As in Britain, bribery and blackmail, police, military and congress.

No surprises for anyone.

Murdoch has, in fact, engineered the last 20 plus years of American history, picking politicians, throwing elections, establishing policies.  Were the decisions his own?

I don’t think so.  I think Murdoch represents a group, mostly financial, making up the Rothschild family, the Federal Reserve Banks and organized crime.

There is an Israeli or Jewish aspect to some of this but not in the sense of being “pro” or “anti” Semitic.  The Murdoch empire, married to the “lily white”“no Jews allowed” Republican Party simply put their own very powerful spin on the good old “New World Order,” pushing it into drug running, arms and human trafficking, manipulated international currencies and debt on a massive scale, ran America and the European Union into economic collapse, worked with oil companies to set up price fixing schemes…

This is what Murdoch and his friends have done, all the while pointing their fingers at Osama bin Laden and the evil “liberals.”

They divided Britain, starting at first as 'conservatives' and then changed to “liberals.”  What they did in Britain is undermine legal government, destroy the nation and the public’s trust in the government, Blair, Cameron, it doesn’t matter, Murdoch chose both and ran and runs both like hand puppets as he did with Bush and his friends.

The ideas are simple.  Bilk the countries out of every last cent, use a portion to bribe or blackmail politicians, buy police and get even more money.
Then you lie to the people, give them enemies to hate, arrange wars for them to fight and stand back and watch them destroy themselves.
Are there people really this evil?

Yes there are, Murdoch, the gang at his companies, the gang at Fox News, the folks in the US called “neo-cons,” the Israeli lobby in the US, the ADL, AIPAC and the Likudist faction in Israel run by Netanyahu.

These folks hate the United States.
A similar group hate Britain.  Australia has their own, he runs that place entirely, right into the ground.  He also runs Germany, Canada, he runs much of what was once the “free world.”

Am I describing Satan?

Pretty much.

His strongest advocates, those who have stood with his thieves and liars against all that is decent, all that is good, all that is right is the Evangelical and “Zionist” communities in the United States.  They were and are the “fertile ground” for his message of hate and deceit.

Who does Murdoch claim to hate?

Muslims for sure, they are all bad.  Everything he touches in his hundreds of publications and TV shows or the phony news his gang of cutthroats create, hate of Muslims is always on top.  This pleases his Israeli friends.  If things keep going as they are, he may need to hide out there and Israel will always protect him, maybe plow down a few Palestinian homes to give him a grand estate.  After all, Muslims are an easy target, living in petty dictatorships run by thieves who we have now learned have always run to Washington and Tel Aviv for orders.

Take out a second.  Think the word “Palestinian.”  Do you also think “terrorist?”  Do you see a child being killed by an Israeli helicopter or innocent people killed by a TV villain, almost invariably played by Jewish actors, perhaps a sick “inside joke” of Murdoch’s.

Even the “revolutionary types” did the same.  The Islamic people of the world have been played, exploited and crushed since 1919."History will show it carefully planned and financed by a certain European banking family, one that 6 years earlier had established an illegal banking system in the US.
Learn about the real Balfour Declaration and how it was gotten through blackmail, learn who wrote it and to whom it was sent.
The story reads exactly like the things that are coming out in Britain day after day.

Murdoch tells his followers to hate “smart people.”  There has to be fear of the educated, the “elites.”  You can’t have rampant racism and blind ignorance until you destroy public trust in the natural leaders, until you destroy real culture and replace it with mechanized music, scandal mongering, dirty sex and endless conspiracies.

Murdoch is the real king of conspiracy theories.

Look at the endless list of wild accusations that came from Fox alone.  Then look at the others, the accusations, the wild and insane things that were written into history but likely planned by Murdoch.

9/11 probably had Murdoch’s hand in it as did the London bombings on 7/7.

There could be no great conspiracy without control of the news.

Now we find the news itself controlled the governments and may well have written the scripts to the wars, the rigged elections, the acts of terror and the misdirection that sent America into a decade of cruel and useless bloodletting after terror groups that never existed in the first place.
Now, today, as our British cousins are reeling in the revelations that their government for decades has not been their own, a diseased hybrid of crazy old man, Israeli spies and the paid stooges that the people thought were serving them….

And it goes on in America, full blast, Murdoch and his creatures, planning the future of America.

One of his creatures is Boehner.
Another is Palin.
Then there is Gingrich.
There was the entire Bush administration.
But, to get to the dark heart of evil, first you look at Fox News.

Friday, August 12, 2011

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/08/201181210928899563.html



Muslims tackle looters and bigots
British Muslims' reaction to the riots should dispel any continued demonisation in the media.

Robert Lambert
Last Modified: 12 Aug 2011 12:02
British Muslims played an important role in helping prevent the riots from being even worse than they were [GALLO/GETTY]

There is a lively debate taking place in the UK media between left and right wing commentators as to the causes of the English riots, in which hundreds of shops and businesses have been looted. However, both sides agree that the looting has been inexcusable. I hope both sides will also agree with me that Muslims have played an important role in helping to tackle the looting and preserve public safety. This would be an especially important acknowledgment if it came from those Islamophobic commentators who consistently denigrate Muslims.

"When accused of terrorism we are Muslims, when killed by looters, we become Asian", a Muslim student explained to me. He was commenting on the media reportingof the death of three young Muslims in Birmingham on Tuesday night. Like many other Muslims, they were bravely defending shops and communities as rioters went on a violent rampage of looting.

In recent days Muslim Londoners, Muslims from Birmingham, and Muslims in towns and cities around England have been at the forefront of protecting small businesses and vulnerable communities from looting. Having worked closely with Muslim Londoners, first as a police officer and more recently as a researcher, for the last ten years this commendable bravery comes as no surprise to me. But their example of outstanding civic duty in support of neighbours is worth highlighting - especially when sections of the UK media are so quick to print negative headlines about Muslims on the flimsiest of pretexts.
Pro-active response

On Monday evening when London suffered its worst looting in living memory I watched as a well marshaled team of volunteers wearing green fluorescent security vests marked 'East London Mosque' took to the streets of Tower Hamlets to help protect shops and communities from gangs of looters. This was the most visible manifestation of their pro-active response to fast moving and well co-ordinated teams of looters. Less visible was the superb work of Muslim youth workers from Islamic Forum Europewho used the same communication tools as the looters to outwit and pre-empt them on the streets.

While senior Westminster politicians started to pack and rush back to London from foreign holidays I watched Lutfur Rahman, the Muslim mayor of Tower Hamlets, offering calm leadership and support in the street as gangs of looters were intercepted and prevented from stealing goods in his presence.

Most important to emphasise is the extent to which everyone in Tower Hamlets was a beneficiary of streetwise, smart Muslims acting swiftly to protect shops, businesses and communities against looters. It is often wrongly alleged that Muslims lack any sense of civic duty towards non-Muslims and especially towards the LGBTcommunity. I wish peddlers of that negative anti-Muslim message had been present to see how all citizens in Tower Hamlets were beneficiaries of Muslim civic spirit and bravery on Monday night.

I am not sure if the Telegraph's Andrew Gilligan was robbed of his bike by looters in Tower Hamlets or in another part of London as he cycled home from Hackney to Greenwich on Monday night, but even his incessant negative reporting of Muslims associated with the East London Mosque would not have excluded him from their neighbourly support had they been in the immediate vicinity to help him.

Gilligan reports that police were unable to offer him any advice other than to go home when he finally received an answer to his 999 call as a victim of a violent street robbery. London policing on Monday night was stretched as never before and Gilligan was one amongst hundreds of victims who had to fend for themselves as looters ran amok around the capital city. In these unique circumstances the street skills of Muslim youth workers, who are routinely helping police to tackle violent gang crime and anti-social behaviour in Tower Hamlets, Walthamstow, Brixton and in other deprived neighbourhoods, were a key ingredient in filling the vacuum created by insufficient police numbers.

I first saw East London Mosque and Islamic Forum Europe street skills in action in 2005 when they robustly dispatched extremists from Al Muhajiroun who were in Whitechapel attempting to recruit youngsters into their hate filled group. I saw the same skills in action in the same year when volunteers from the Muslim Association of Britain and Muslim Welfare House ousted violent supporters of Abu Hamza from the Finsbury Park Mosque. More recently, Muslim bravery has been seen in Brixton when extremists spouting the latest manifestation of Al Muhajroun hatred were sent packing out of town. In all these instances, and so many more, the brave Muslims involved have received no praise for their outstanding bravery and good citizenship, and instead faced a never ending barrage of denigration from journalists such as Gilligan, Melanie Phillips, Martin Bright.... sorry I won't go on, it's a long list!

Sadly, many of the brave Muslims helping to keep their cities safe have not only grown used to denigration from media pundits but also faced cuts in government funding for their youth outreach work with violent gangs. This is not as a result of widespread economic cuts caused by the recession, but because the government adopts the media view that they are 'extremist'. Street in Brixton is a case in point. Yesterday Dr Abdul Haqq Baker director of Street was forced to close a Street youth centre in Brixton as his reduced team of youth of workers struggled to keep pace with the task of tackling gang violence and its role in rioting and looting.
Confronting extremism

Significantly, the same potent mixture of Muslim street skills and bravery was evident last summer when the Islamophobic English Defence League (EDL) began to prepare for a violent demonstration in Whitechapel. On that occasion police commended the skills of Muslim youth workers who helped reduce tension and manage anger towards the EDL.

Two weeks ago, under the banner United East End neighbours of all faiths and none gathered at the London Muslim Centre in Whitechapel to express solidarity with their Muslim neighbours who are the target of another provocative English Defence League demonstration planned for 3 September. It is no co-incidence that Anders Breivik found common cause with the EDL.

The EDL regards the East London Mosque as the hub of the Muslim extremism it purports to oppose. Regrettably, EDL's hate-filled analysis of Muslims is based on the work of mainstream media commentators who should now reflect on the unintended if not unforeseeable consequences of their Islamophobic discourse.

It is also worthy of comment that Muslim bravery during this outbreak of looting has taken place during Ramadan when Muslims are fasting – without food or water – from sunrise to sunset. This is a hard enough regime when relaxing, but when taking part in dangerous operations against looters, it is worthy of special reward – no doubt something their religion caters for.

Today, as Muslims in Tower Hamlets and around the country continue to work with their neighbours to repair damaged shops and to restore public safety, it is important I conclude this article by paying special tribute to Haroon Jahan, Shahzad Ali and Abdul Musavir, the three typically brave Birmingham Muslims who were killed while defending their neighbourhood on Tuesday night. I pray their legacy will be a wider appreciation of good Muslim citizenship, a reduction of media anti-Muslim denigration, and the elimination of EDL anti-Muslim intimidation and violence.    

Robert Lambert is the co-director of the European Muslim Research Centre and is a member of the EC Expert Panel on Radicalisation. Prior to retiring from the Metropolitan Police in 2007, Robert was co-founder and head of the Muslim Contact Unit.

The opinions expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.



Al Jazeera is not responsible for the content of external websites.

'I tried to revive my son. My hands were covered in blood' - By Justin Davenport, Crime Editor, London Evening Standard

'I tried to revive my son. My hands were covered in blood' - By Justin Davenport, Crime Editor, London Evening Standard

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23977208-i-tried-to-revive-my-son-my-hands-were-covered-in-blood.do



LONDON EVENING STANDARD

News

Tariq Jahan
A good lad: Tariq Jahan holds a school picture of his son Haroon

'I tried to revive my son. My hands were covered in blood'

Justin Davenport, Crime Editor
10 Aug 2011


The father of a man killed by a speeding car as he tried to protect his community from looters has told how he desperately tried to revive his son.

Haroon Jahan, 21, was one of three men killed in Birmingham last night when a car ploughed into them as they stood guard outside shops.

Today his father, Tariq Jahan, who lives about 40 yards from the scene, said: "I didn't see the incident with my own eyes. I was round the corner ... I heard the car coming at high speed.

"Then we heard the bang and I heard the commotion. I ran towards the commotion and the first guy I found was someone I didn't know.
"I started giving him CPR until somebody pointed out that the guy behind me was my son on the floor. Then I swapped positions and started giving him CPR.

"My face was covered in blood, my hands were covered in blood."
Asked to describe his son, a mechanic and keen amateur boxer, Mr Jahan said: "He was a good lad. He was very, very intelligent, very smart. He was a good, gifted kid."


Mr Jahan went on: "You can't explain losing a son. It's going to be hard for me now."

The grieving father also appealed for there to be no revenge for his son's death and for the law to be allowed to take its course.
"Tensions are already high in the area. It's already bad enough what we are seeing on the streets now without other people taking the law into their own hands," he said.

Clutching a school photograph of his son, Mr Jahan told reporters gathered outside his home that Haroon was a popular figure.

Mr Jahan, who has two other children, said: "He was trying to help his community and he has been killed.

"He was a very well-liked kid - I can't describe to anybody what it feels like to lose a son.

"He was the youngest, and anything I ever wanted done, I would always ask Haroon to sort it out for me."

Saying that "everybody loved him", Mr Jahan said people would forget once the riots had ended: "A day from now, maybe two days from now, the whole world will forget and nobody will care."

He added that he did not blame anyone and it was his son's fate: "I don't blame the Government, I don't blame the police, I don't blame nobody.

"I'm a Muslim, I believe in divine fate and destiny, and it was his destiny and his fate, and now he's gone. And may Allah forgive him and bless him."

Thursday, August 11, 2011

The deafening din of wolf cry by extreme rightists over Islam and Muslims taking over the West, is hardly believed and addressed by the Muslim World with any conviction.

However, when sober THINK TANKS like The Economist, who are known to go for longer term analysis, come out with an assessment that appears to assume some degree of acceptance and concession in the West to the idea of a co-existence with a pragmatic Muslim World Order, by merely discussing the real or imagined flaws in the philosophy of Islam, gives Muslims some hope that world would at last come around to the reality and relevance of Islam in the modern world, completely deranged of moral values that sustains humanity.


Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai

--------

http://www.economist.com/node/21525400



Islam’s philosophical divide

Dreaming of a caliphate

Though conflict between God’s law and man’s continues to puzzle the Islamic world, Muslim thinkers have been imaginative in seeking reasonable compromise

Aug 6th 2011 | from the print edition

THE statistics do not look very encouraging. Of the 50-plus countries where Muslims are in the majority, only two (Indonesia and Mali) enjoy political liberty as defined by Freedom House, a New York-based monitor of human rights and democracy. The Democracy Index, run by the Economist Intelligence Unit, adds Malaysia to that shortlist, rating the three countries as “flawed democracies”; other Muslim lands are put in a lower category.

With every year that has passed since al-Qaeda’s attacks on America in September 2001, it has become more fashionable to argue that something about Islam makes it hard to reconcile with full-blown liberal democracy—in the sense of a political system where all citizens have an equal right to vote, and are equal in other basic ways. And with equal vehemence, Muslims have retorted: there is nothing in their faith which precludes a liberal democracy, and much which works in its favour.

For the Islamosceptics, there are several lines of argument. First of all, they say, devout Muslims will always, in their hearts, see a global caliphate—a seat of religious-cum-political authority, holding sway over the whole Islamic world—as the ideal form of governance. If that is the case, liberal democracy, in which authority flows from the people regardless of faith, will always be regarded as a compromise at most.
In this section

Related topics

It is true that the dream of a caliphate is held dear by several categories of Muslim. They include followers of al-Qaeda, bent on war with the “Jews and crusaders” of the Western world; many supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, who believe in active participation in politics but still see Islamic governance as a long-term goal; and Hizb ut-Tahrir (Party of Liberation) which, in places that range from British universities to Uzbek slums, propagates the idea that secular elections are sacrilege.

But is the caliphate a religious doctrine—something central to Islam—or just a detail, however important, of history? In all readings of Islam, especially the ones that now dominate in the Middle East, there is huge reverence for the first four caliphs who succeeded Muhammad as leaders of the emerging Muslim community. All subsequent Muslim empires had caliphs and the abolition of the last caliphate—by Turkey’s new rulers in 1924—sent shock waves through the world of Islam.

But as Mustafa Akyol, a Turkish writer, notes in a new book, “Islam Without Extremes”, the appointment of the first four caliphs is ultimately seen—at least in Sunni Islam—as a political decision, albeit a very wise one, and not a theological one. Though Mr Akyol empathises with global Islam’s dismay over the caliphate’s abolition 13 centuries later, that too, he says, is a political matter, not a theological one. Even in Shia Islam, where succession to Muhammad is seen as a sacred mandate, the authority handed down was spiritual, not temporal; in that sense the power now held by Iran’s clergy is an anomaly.

A second line of argument about Islam and democracy concerns law. More than most other religions, the founding texts of Islam include very specific injunctions about crime, punishment and family law. By modern standards these commands are anything but liberal. The Koran mandates flogging for unlawful sex, and a strongly held tradition ascribes to Muhammad the view that adulterers should be stoned to death. Over inheritance, the Koran is also specific—a daughter is entitled to have half as much as a son—and the various legal schools of Islam are even more so, setting out with absolute precision the entitlement of each distant relative.
In most understandings of liberal democracy, penal and civil codes are a matter for the people’s freely elected representatives to decide, within the confines of a humanly drafted constitution. How can that possibly be reconciled with the notion that such questions have been settled for ever by divine revelation?



Contemporary Muslims acknowledge that the issue is a tricky one. If the Koran is a revelation of God, then its prescriptions cannot simply be dismissed as irrelevant or outdated. Some believers (see chart) would still like to apply Islamic penalties to the letter. But a distinction can be made between commands that were given in a certain context, and those which hold good for all time. And modern Muslims, including rather conservative ones, have been quite imaginative in rereading some of Islam’s legal and penal traditions.

Tariq Ramadan, an influential figure among Western Muslims, has suggested that it may sometimes be right for families to opt out of Koranic rules on inheritance—unless men are prepared to shoulder all the obligations that go with their privileged rights. Maulana Maudoodi, the father of Pakistani Islamism, said amputation should not be practised on those who are driven to steal by poverty or famine; in other words, a just society was more important than harsh punishment.

Beyond the legal details, some still see a deeper problem, concerning the very nature of political authority, and the ability of different ideas on this subject to coexist. John Rawls, an American theorist of liberal democracy, showed how people who differ over metaphysics—say Catholics and atheists—can coexist politically on the basis of a deep compromise, on certain conditions. They must believe in reason, and see the political system as reasonable in their own terms.

Mohammad Fadel, an Egyptian-born political scientist at the University of Toronto, has argued that Islam—even in conservative readings—can find a happy place in a Rawls-style democracy. In medieval times, he recalls, Islamic thought divided between the Mutazilites, who stressed human reason, and the ultimately victorious Asharites who thought that God alone could adjudicate right and wrong. But even within the latter school, there is some place for human reason—enough to make it possible for conservative Muslims to live quite comfortably in a Rawlsian world.

That will only happen if Muslims want it to and see an interest in doing so. Will they? Vali Nasr, an American political scientist, thinks Western Islam-watchers put too much stress on philosophy and not enough on social and economic factors. In his view, wherever the middle class is strong (as in Turkey), it will re-emphasise the moral rules of Islam—over honest trading, say—and downgrade Islam’s real or imagined prescriptions for politics and law. In many Muslim countries that moment still seems a long way off.

from the print edition | Briefing
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http://www.economist.com/node/21525408

The Turkish model

A hard act to follow

In many ways Turkey’s Islamists seem to have got things right. But it took them a long time to emerge from the country’s army-guided secularism

Aug 6th 2011 | from the print edition


 
Advice from Erdogan (right) for Mustafa Abdul Jalil, chairman of Libya’s rebel council

PALE, bespectacled and polite, Bekir Berat Ozipek, a young professor at Istanbul’s Commerce University, is no street-fighter. But he was excited by the heady atmosphere he experienced on a recent trip to Egypt. He and two fellow Turkish scholars went to a conference at the University of Cairo where their ideas on civil-military relations were keenly gobbled up.

Then late one night, on the eve of a big protest, they went to Tahrir Square, the heart of Egypt’s uprising. They loved what they found: young people directing traffic, exuberant songs and slogans, a joker imitating ex-President Hosni Mubarak. Then they dived into a restaurant, where their chat about Egypt’s political system was joined by youngsters at the next table, as well as the waiter. Mr Ozipek thought he was living in the era of Voltaire.

A few days earlier another Turkish-Arab encounter took place. Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkey’s foreign minister, was winding up a visit to rebel-controlled Libya when he decided, to his minders’ alarm, to go to the central square of Benghazi, which like its Cairene counterpart is called Tahrir, or Liberation. As the crowd chanted “Erdogan, Turkey, Muslim”, he brought greetings from his prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and told them: “We have a common future and a history.”



From North Africa to the Gulf, the region seems to be going through a Turkish moment. In years past Turkey’s spotty democracy was often cited to prove a negative: the Turkish case (along with Indonesia’s and Malaysia’s, also with reservations) showed that Islam did not pose an insuperable barrier to multiparty democracy. But nothing much flowed from that observation—until the Arab spring. Turkey is now being studied by Arabs as a unique phenomenon: a movement of moderate Islamists, the Justice and Development (AK) party, has overseen an economic boom, boosted the country’s standing and shown that the coming to power of pious people need not mean a dramatic rupture in ties with the West.

Whatever the flaws of the Turkish experiment, it is clearly true that Turkey under the AK party presents a more benign picture than many other versions—real and hypothetical—of Islamist rule. The country has gained influence in the Middle East by keeping cordial ties with Iran and standing up for the Palestinians. But there is no suggestion that it will leave NATO or cut diplomatic links, however strained, with Israel. Life has been made easier for pious Muslims in ways that secular Turks dislike; but so far, at least, Turkey is a long way from any Iranian-style enforcement of female dress, let alone a clerical class that has the final say in all big decisions.
For Western observers of the Middle East, an evolution in a Turkish direction—towards relative political and economic freedom—would be a happier outcome than many others. So is there any reason why the Arab countries, having passed through their current upheavals, should not live happily, and Turkishly, ever after?
In fact, there are many reasons to be cautious about expecting Arabs to follow Turks. Turkey’s moderate Islamism did not evolve overnight. Its emergence, and taming, took a long time; it depended on many countervailing forces, including an army which was firm in its defence of a secular constitution, and was strong enough, at least until recently, to deter any imposition of Islamic rule (see article).

Both in Turkey and Egypt veterans of political Islam have seen a mixture of repression and limited participation in politics—but in Egypt the repression was harsher and the opportunities to practise democracy fewer. Albeit with fits and starts, Turkey’s Islamists had already learned some political lessons when they took power in 2002. And compared with many other politically active armies, Turkey’s has played a disinterested role. After taking power in 1980, the army moved fairly soon to restart multiparty politics and launch a free-market experiment. It did give a sop to Islam by introducing religion in schools; but that was a modest concession, made from a position of strength.

Compared with its Arab counterparts, Turkey’s secular order has deep roots, going back to the creation of a republic by Mustafa Kemal in 1923. Modern Turkey’s defining event—the defeat of a Greek expeditionary force dispatched with Western backing—was also the starting-point of a ruthless reform effort whose declared aims included “fighting religion” and ending the theocratic backwardness of the Ottomans. For decades afterwards, memory of this victorious moment was enough to fill secular nationalists with confidence, and put pious forces on the defensive.

As a largely devout Muslim nation, Turkey never ceased to produce charismatic religious leaders, but they had to adapt to the realities of a secular republic or else face prison or exile. To this day Turkey’s political and legal system bears the marks of years of army-guided secularism. Even Turkey’s Islamists remain “children of the republic”, says Berna Turam, a scholar at Boston’s Northeastern University.

Guidance from Fethullah Gulen

These days the religious teacher who wields most influence over the Turks is Fethullah Gulen, who lives in America and forms the apex of a huge conglomerate that includes NGOs, firms, newspapers and college dormitories in Turkey, plus schools across the world. Whatever the ultimate aim of Mr Gulen, his talk is Western-friendly: he mixes the vocabulary of Sufism with language that is broadly pro-business and pro-democracy.

In contrast to many Arab Islamists he tries to please Christians and Jews. Turkish sceptics say the Gulen movement is more fundamentalist, and less liberal, at its hard core than its benign external face would suggest. The fate of several journalists who have tried probing it, and found themselves prosecuted or jailed, lends weight to that belief. People who criticise the movement can face nasty smear campaigns.

But followers of Mr Gulen claim that meetings they held in the 1990s had a huge influence on Mr Erdogan, persuading him to abandon the idea of an Islamic state. Mr Gulen made an unusual break with the government after last year’s killing of nine Turks by Israeli commandos who swooped on a ship taking supplies to Gaza. He said it was partly the Turkish side’s fault: the flotilla should not have defied Israel. Thus, when Mr Erdogan faces pressure from pious mentors, it is not to be more radical but rather the opposite.

Another feature of Turkish Islamism is the number of thriving businesses with ties to the Gulen movement. Among the drivers of Turkey’s expansion—the country’s GDP per head is three times that of Egypt, with a similar population—are provincial entrepreneurs. It is now commonplace to stress the AK party’s roots in the new Anatolian bourgeoisie, and its appeal to the consumers of the country’s new-found wealth: people who mix Muslim piety with a taste for expensive cars. These groups set limits to the AK party’s ambitions; like most rich folk they favour stability. In the Arab world there are middle-class Muslims who look with envy at the confidence of their Turkish counterparts.

Ibrahim Kalin, an adviser to Mr Erdogan, posits another difference between AK and political Islam as it emerged in Egypt and Pakistan in the 20th century. Even when pretending not to, the latter movements always dreamed of a powerful Islamic government, using the tools of modern statehood, like universal education, to impose a Muslim order. AK, by contrast, lives comfortably in a world of “lighter” states, where other agencies, including NGOs, the private sector and academia can play a bigger role.

In AK circles it is common to hear such postmodern talk mixed with nostalgia for the Ottoman era, when each faith ran its own system of education and personal law. Ali Bulac, a columnist, argues that citizens with civil disputes should consider Muslim arbitration: he says that could be combined with retaining the secular penal code, a cornerstone of the republic. Muslim democracy alla turca is already an unusual creature, and is still mutating.

from the print edition | Briefing

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Arab spring & U.K. debate on Islam - By Hasab Suroor - THE HINDU

Comments posted on The Hindu website over Hasan Suroor's article: Arab spring & U.K. debate on Islam :

"
In the backdrop of UK riots, one picture of a Muslim father, Tariq Jahan, stands out as representative of a mainstream British Muslim that showed exemplary calm and forgiveness, sending a message of peace to the rioters. 

Tariq Jahan lost his 21-year old son, Haroon Jahan to a rioter that deliberately run down 3 Muslim youths, who were trying to protect their neighborhood of mixed community, from the looters.

Isn't is remarkable that in this round of British rioting, Muslims remained completely out of the picture, while other 'extremists' -- from both black and white communities presented a face of Britons, that was never stereotyped and highlighted.

The pecking order in British society was firmly established during the riots, relegating Muslims to a lowest level in violently confronting British Establishment.

Hasan Suroor is not prematurely optimist in as much as the Muslim societies are basically peaceful and their demonizing was political than factual.

Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai

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Arab spring & U.K. debate on Islam

Hasan Suroor
 
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File photo shows protestors in Yemen demanding the resignation of President Ali Abdullah Saleh in Sanaa.
AP File photo shows protestors in Yemen demanding the resignation of President Ali Abdullah Saleh in Sanaa. 
It is not that prejudice has vanished in the glow of the “Arab spring.” But the liberal discourse on Islam which too hardened, especially after the London bombings, has become less blinkered.

The “Arab spring” might have started losing its lustre but it has created a legacy that is changing the tone of the depressing post-9/11 debate on Islam in Britain. Images of western friendly, articulate, English-speaking, Twittering Muslim youth leading pro-democracy campaigns have exposed the old notions about Islam (a religion inherently incompatible with democracy) and its followers to fresh scrutiny.

Britons are emerging blinking into daylight, acknowledging that women can wear the ‘hijab' and still be progressive; that all men in beards are not necessarily terrorists; and that mosques, once perceived only as hotbeds of extremism and sources of alarmist stories, can also serve as revolutionary command centres. Muslim voices, featured in the media these days, are now more likely to be liberal than before, a refreshing break with the tendency, until very recently, to wheel out the most rabid extremists to represent the “Muslim viewpoint.”

Not that prejudice has magically vanished in the glow of the “Arab spring.” There is still talk of “Islamification” of Britain and Muslim “hordes” knocking at the door, but the mood is less confrontational. And, at least the liberal discourse which too had hardened, especially after the 2005 London bombings, has become less blinkered. “At least it is now possible to have a rational discussion about Islam without being seen as an apologist for Muslim extremists,” a Muslim academic points out.

The debate has moved on from whether Islam and democracy can coexist. Prior to the Arab uprising, the only answer you ever got to the question whether democracy was possible under an Islamic dispensation was a resounding “no.” And the only definition of democracy was the western, Westminster model; or what The Economist described as “full-blown liberal democracy — in the sense of a political system where all citizens have an equal right to vote, and are equal in other basic ways.”

According to this “purist” and one-size-fits-all notion, even those — admittedly few — Muslim-majority countries that have a democracy are not regarded as “fully” democratic. They are defined as “flawed democracies.” But at last, there is a grudging acknowledgement that like “socialism with Chinese characteristics,” there can be democracy with “Islamic characteristics” as Turkey has shown.

Although assumptions about the superiority of British/western “values” over Islamic/Third World practices remain too deeply ingrained, the acknowledgement of the “Turkish moment” is a significant advance on what had until now been the default British/western perception of Muslims: a people completely devoid of any democratic impulses and incapable of standing up for free speech and individual rights. That, to some degree, Muslims have fuelled this perception by often over-reacting to any perceived provocation is another debate and has been done to death to bear repetition here.

Returning to the Arab “awakening” and its effect on British attitudes, it has created a new interest in Islam. This is reflected in a spurt in cultural and academic activities around it. Nowhere is it more evident than in publishing where there has been a mini explosion of Islamic literature. One leading multinational British publisher alone has released nearly a dozen titles in recent months on issues like political Islam, Islam and human rights, Islam and women, Islamic radicalism and multicultural politics — a much more eclectic fare compared to the crop of “Islamist” terror literature that, after 9/11, became the staple diet for anyone wanting to “know” about Islam. Old titles are being re-issued with books like Karen Armstrong's Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time in great demand. Last month, the BBC scored a broadcasting hit with The Life Of Muhammad, a ground-breaking three-part series, claimed to be the first full account of the Prophet's life ever shown on western television.


While telling the extraordinary story of the Prophet's life, it also raised some difficult questions about Islam's role in the world today in terms of its attitude towards women, social equality, money, democracy and freedom of speech.

The first episode alone was watched by nearly two million viewers. Even those not normally enamoured of anything to do with Islam were impressed with its candid warts-and-all approach. The Telegraph described it as an “excellent primer” which did not shy away from discussing “disputed areas.”

“We felt we had to look at all the big issues, all the controversies with Muhammad's life, of which there are many, and deal with them like we would any others,” said executive producer David Batty.

Aaqil Ahmed, Commissioning Editor, Religion and Head of Religion & Ethics at the BBC, said the aim was to introduce Islam and its founder to people for whom “Muhammad is just a name” and admitted that it was not easy dealing with some of the difficult issues. “You put yourself on the line when you do something like this,” he said, “I hope this series will go some way to explaining who he was, how he lived, what his prophetic message was, and how all of this compares to his legacy today.”

The series coincided with the publication of a new interpretation of the Qur'an, Reading the Qur'an: The Contemporary Relevance of the Sacred Text of Islam, by Ziauddin Sardar, one of Europe's foremost Muslim intellectuals and an outspoken critic of regressive Muslim tendencies and the “ghetto mentality” that, he believes, many of his co-religionists suffer from. The book, which started life as a blog on The Guardian newspaper's website, has generated a huge buzz with its argumentative and lively approach to how the Qur'an should be read and interpreted.

“Even though it is one of the most read books of all time, what the Qur'an really says is shrouded in veils of assumptions and received opinions,” he says pointing out the importance of reading the Qur'anic verses in the context in which they were revealed.

For the first time, London recently hosted a three-week long festival looking at Arabic art and culture not through Orientalist perspective but through the eyes of Arabs. “Shubbak: A Window on Contemporary Arab Culture,” hailed by Mayor Boris Johnson as London's first ever celebration of contemporary Arab culture, brought together more than 100 Arab artists, authors, journalists and academics to share their visions of what it meant to be an Arab. Predictably, one of the most popular events proved to be “A Night in Tahrir Square” featuring many of the artists who performed for protesters in Cairo's famous square.

“At a time of remarkable political and social change, Shubbak marks an exciting moment between artists in the capital and across the Arab world. I have no doubt that it will stimulate, delight and surprise audiences,” Mr. Johnson said.

An Arab commentator said that in the past, western curators “tended to put forth a well-intended, yet somewhat paternalistic image of the Arab art world,” but Shubbak “tried to change all that.”

The fact that projects such as these are happening and being debated in a rational manner is a sign of improved climate. Arab writers, academics and commentators are the flavour of the season. The same “Middle Eastern” sounding names that once aroused suspicion and had their owners often off-loaded from planes as potential security risks open doors for them these days. This is not without risk, though. Remember the case of the fake Syrian blogger who ran rings round the western media for weeks masquerading as a gay Syrian-American woman documenting the “state repression” in Damascus with a daily blow-by-blow account of life in the Syrian capital as young “revolutionaries” fought to change the system? British newspapers devoted acres of space to “Amina Araf,” the supposedly “outspoken lesbian blogger.”

One newspaper even carried a telephone interview with “her.” There was much all-round embarrassment when it turned out that “Amina Araf” was actually a failed American novelist (neither gay, nor woman; nor even living in Syria) having some fun at the cost of western media's infatuation with Arab dissidents.

But, then, as one humorist, recycling former U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's famous observation after the post-war chaos in Iraq, put it: “Stuff happens.”

The big question, meanwhile, is: does the new mood really reflect a better understanding of Muslim societies? Or is just a passing political fashion? What if the Arab revolution peters out or is hijacked by radical groups like the Muslim Brotherhood? Will the British perception of Muslims, then, revert to pre-“spring” type — namely that they are inherently incapable of democratic reforms?

Many suspect it will, arguing that between them Islam and the West simply carry too much baggage to understand each other. So, savour the moment while it lasts.
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Tuesday, July 5, 2011

TIME FOR BJP TO RUN FOR COVER ON ARTICLE 370 (ON JUMMU AND KASHMIR) - THE FREE PRESS JOURNAL - MUMBAI - INDIA

http://www.fpj.co.in/news/7491-time-for-bjp-to-run-for-cover-on-article-370.html

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Time for BJP to run for cover on Article 370
India, July 05, 2011


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  • Legal luminary A. G. Noorani has cited documentary evidence to establish that the late Shyama Prasad Mukerjee had fully approved J amp Ks special status
     
    OUR BUREAU

    NEW DELHI The BJP will have to run for cover as a new book cites documentary evidence to show that Article 370, which accords a special status to Jammu and Kashmir, had the full approval of the late Shyama Prasad Mukerjee.

    The BJP invariably invokes Mukerjee while voicing its opposition to Article 370.
    The book says this constitutional provision also had complete approval of then Home Minister Sardar Patel whom also the BJP cites as a strong opponent of Jawaharlal Nehrus move to grant special status to Jammu & Kashmir. Myths and delusions that have cropped up over the years about Jammu and Kashmirs special status within the Indian Union are busted by noted Constitution expert and legal luminary A. G. Noorani in his forthcoming book Article 370: A Constitutional History of Jammu and Kashmir to be released next week.

    The book published by Oxford University Press makes out a case for restoring full autonomy to Jammu and Kashmir. It produces a wide range of documents to underscore politics behind the gradual erosion of Article 370, which was negotiated between Prime Ministers Jawaharlal Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah and had a stamp of approval from Sardar Patel and Shyama Prasad Mukerjee.

    While all the provisions of Indian Constitution were debated in the Constituent Assembly after deliberations in its Drafting Committee, the Article 370 was discussed for five months by Nehru and his colleagues with Sheikh Abdullah, then Prime Minister of Jamp K, from May to October 1949.

    The State of Jammu and Kashmir is the only State in the Union of India which negotiated the terms of its membership with the Union, says Noorani.

    He believes that Article 370 was a solemn compact with neither side mandated to amend or abrogate it unilaterally, except in accordance with the terms of that provision.

    Analysing the reality of the special statusof Jammu and Kashmir, Noorani quotes then Home Minister Gulzari Lal Nanda in the Lok Sabha on December 4, 1964.

    With regard to rest of India, if a states powers are to be curbed, and correspondingly those of the Union enlarged, the elaborate procedure laid down in Article 368 will have to be followed, argued Nanda. However, in the case of Jamp K, a mere executive order by the President under Article 370 would suffice, he added.

    His successors in office accepted this interpretation.

    Nanda concluded, What happens is that only the shell is there. Article 370, whether you keep it or not, has been completely emptied of its contents.

    Nothing has been left in it. Noorani mentions an unfortunate breach by N. Gopalaswamy Ayyanger on October 16, 1949, in unilaterally altering the draft agreed with Sheikh Abdullah, who along with Mirza Afzal Beg were in the lobby. When they learnt of changes, they rushed to the House, but the changes had been passed.
     
    If the original agreed draft had been approved, the ouster of Sheikh later in 1953 would have been impossible. It was an unfortunate breach that created distrust, says the author.
    Mentioning the cases of abuse of this Article 370, he refers to a Presidential order extending to Kashmir Article 249 of the Constitution empowering Parliament to legislate even on matter in the State List on the strength of a Rajya Sabha resolution. Concurrence was given by the Centres own appointee Governor Jagmohan. The manipulation was done in a single day against Law Secretarys advice and in absence of a council of ministers.

    The author believes that given the political will, sincerity of purpose, and a spirit of compromise, it is not difficult to retrieve from the wreckage of Article 370 a Constitutional Settlement which satisfies the aspirations of the people of Jammu and Kashmir. The book has also presented rare material, letters memoranda, white papers, proclamations and amendments

Saturday, July 2, 2011

The Powers of Manipulation: Islam as a Geopolitical Tool to Control the Middle East By Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya -GLOBAL RESEARCH


The Powers of Manipulation: Islam as a Geopolitical Tool to Control the Middle East

Global Research, July 2, 2011

As Washington and its cohorts march towards the Eurasian Heartland, they have tried to manipulate Islam as a geo-political tool. They have created political and social chaos in the process. Along the way they have tried to redefine Islam and to subordinate it to the interests of global capital by ushering in a new generation of so-called Islamists, chiefly amongst the Arabs. 

The Project to Redefine Islam: Turkey as the New Model and
“Calvinist Islam”
Turkey in its present form is now being presented as the democratic model for the rebelling Arab masses to follow. It is true that Ankara has progressed since the days it used to ban Kurdish from being spoken in public, but Turkey is not a functional democracy and is very much a kleptocracy with fascist tendencies.

The military still plays a huge role in the affairs of the state and government. The term “deep state,” which denotes a state run secretly from the top-down by unaccountable bodies and individuals, in fact originates from Turkey. Civil rights are still not respected in Turkey and candidates for public office have to be approved by the state apparatus and the groups controlling them, which try to filter out anyone that would go against the status quo in Turkey.

Turkey is not being presented as a model for the Arabs due to its democratic qualifications. It is being presented as the political model for the Arabs, because of a project of political and socio-economic “bida” (innovation) involving the manipulation of Islam.

Although very popular, the Turkish Justice and Development Party or JDP (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi or AKP) was allowed to come into power in 2002, without opposition by the Turkish military and the Turkish courts. Before this there was little tolerance for political Islam in Turkey. The JDP/AKP was founded in 2001 and the timing of their founding and their electoral win in 2002 was also tied to the objective of redrawing Southwest Asia and North Africa.

This project to manipulate and redefine Islam seeks to subordinate Islam to dominant World Order capitalist interests through a new wave of "political Islamism", such as the JDP/AKP. A new strand of Islam is thereby being fashioned through what has come to be called “Calvinist Islam” or a “Muslim version of the Protestant work ethic.” It is this model that is been nurtured in Turkey and now being presented to Egypt and the Arabs by Washington and Brussels.

This “Calvinist Islam” also has no problem with the “reba” or interest system, which is prohibited under Islam. It is this system that is used to enslave individuals and societies with the chains of debt to global capitalism. It is in this context that the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is calling for so-called “democratic reforms” in the Arab World.

The ruling families of Sauda Arabia and the Arab petro-sheikhdoms are also partners in the enslavement of the Arab world through debt. In this regard Qatar and the Arab sheikhdoms of the Persian Gulf are in the process of creating a Middle East Development Bank that is intended to give loans to Arab countries to support their "transition towards democracy". The democracy promotion mission of the Middle East Development Bank is ironic because the countries forming it are all staunch dictatorships.

It is also this subordination of Islam to global capitalism that is causing internal friction in Iran.



Opening the Door for a New Generation of Islamists
The hope in Washington is that this “Calvinist Islam” will take root with a new generation of Islamists under the banner of new democratic states. These governments will effectively enslave their countries by placing them further into debt and selling national assets. They will help subvert the region extending from North Africa to Southwest and Central Asia as the area is being balkanized and restructured in the image of Israel under ethnocratic systems.

Tel Aviv will also wield wide influence amongst these new states. Hand-in-hand with this project, different forms of ethno-linguistic nationalism and religious intolerance are also being promoted to divide the region. Turkey also plays an important, because it is one of the cradle for this new generation of Islamists. Saudi Arabia too plays a role in supporting the militant wing of these Islamists.
Washington's Restructuring of the Geo-Strategic Chessboard
Targeting Iran and Syria is part of the larger strategy of controlling Eurasia. Chinese interests have been attacked everywhere on the global map. Sudan has been balkanized and both North Sudan and South Sudan are headed towards conflict. Libya has been attacked and is in the process of being balkanized. Syria is being pressured to surrender and fall into line. The U.S. and Britain are now integrating their national security councils, which parallels Anglo-American bodies from the Second World War.

Targeting Pakistan is also connected to neutralizing Iran and attacking Chinese interests and any future unity in Eurasia. In this regard, the U.S. and NATO have militarized the waters around Yemen. At the same time in Eastern Europe, the U.S. is building its fortifications in Poland, Bulgaria, and Romania to neutralize Russia and the former Soviet republics. Belarus and Ukraine are being put under increasing pressure too. All these steps are part of a military strategy to encircle Eurasia and to either control its energy supplies or the flow of energy towards China. Even Cuba and Venezuela are under increasing threat. The military noose is globally being tightened by Washington.

It appears that new Islamist parties are being formed and groomed by the Al-Sauds with the help of Turkey to take power in Arab capitals. Such governments will work to subordinate their respective states. The Pentagon, NATO, and Israel may even select some of these new governments to justify new wars.

It has to be mentioned that Norman Podhoretz, a original member of the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), in 2008 suggest an apocalyptic future scenario in which Israel launches a nuclear war against Iran, Syria, and Egypt amongst its other neighbouring countries. This would include Lebanon and Jordan. Podhoretz described an expansionist Israel and even suggested that the Israelis would militarily occupy the oil fields of the Persian Gulf.

What came across as odd in 2008 was the suggestion by Podhoretz, which was influenced by the strategic analysis of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), that Tel Aviv would launch a nuclear attack on its staunch Egyptian allies ruling Cairo under President Mubarak. Despite the fact that the old regime still remains, Mubarak is no longer in power in Cairo. The Egyptian military still gives orders, but Islamists may come to power. This is occuring despite the fact that Islam continues to be demonized by the U.S. and most of its NATO allies.

Unknown Future: What Next?


The U.S., the E.U., and Israel are trying to use the upheavals in the Turko-Arabo-Iranic World to further their own objectives including the war on Libya and the support of an Islamic insurrection in Syria. Along with the Al-Sauds, they are attempting to spread “fitna” or division amongst the peoples of Southwest Asia and North Africa. The Israeli-Khaliji strategic alliance, formed by Tel Aviv and the ruling Arab families in the Persian Gulf, is crucial in this regard.  

In Egypt the social upheaval is far from over and the people are become more radical. This is resulting in concessions by the military junta in Cairo. The protest movement is now starting to address the role of Israel and its relationship to the military junta.  In Tunisia too, the popular stream is headed towards radicalization.

Washington and its cohorts are playing with fire. They may think that this period of chaos presents an excellent opportunity for confrontation with Iran and Syria. The upheaval that has taken root in the Turko-Arabo-Iranic World will have unpredictable results. The resilience of the peoples in Bahrain and Yemen under the threats of increased state-sponsored violence indicates the articulation of more cohesive anti-US and Anti-Zionist protest movement.


Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya specializes in the Middle East and Central Asia. He is a Research Associate of the the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

 Global Research Articles by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya