S. Africa's Public Prosecutor to investigate Israel's 2010 attack on Gaza aid ship

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From: Media Releases <media@bdssouthafrica.com>
Date: Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 5:23 PM
Subject: S. Africa's Public Prosecutor to investigate Israel's 2010 attack on Gaza aid ship
To: ghulammuhammed3@gmail.com

MEDIA STATEMENT: S. Africa's Public Prosecutor to investigate Israel's 2010 attack on Gaza aid ship

14 November 2012

Today's decision by  South Africa's National Directorate of Public Prosecutions to investigate Israel’s 2010 boarding and attack on the Gaza humanitarian aid ship, the Mavi Marmara, has been welcomed by BDS South Africa (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel in South Africa) and the Palestine Solidarity Alliance.

The aid ship was en-route from Turkey to the Gaza Strip when it is was boarded in international waters by Israeli commandos resulting in the deaths of 9 humanitarian workers. The aid ship was carrying one South African passenger, Ms Gadija Davids, a Cape Town based journalist.

At a press conference earlier this morning, lawyers representing Ms Davids explained that the South Africa's Priority Crimes Litigation Unit (PCLU), a Division of South Africa's National Director of Public Prosecutions, as well as the South African Police Services (SAPS) has taken a decision to officially investigate as well as communicate the matter to the International Criminal Court.

Attorney Ziyaad Patel, explained that Ms Davids together with other civilians on the Mavi Marmara aid ship, were subjected to "inhumane treatment" by Israel, which is considered a violation of their rights, crimes against humanity (Schedule 1 of the Rome Statute) and war crimes (Schedule 3 of the Rome Statute). Davids treatment included  being handcuffed with plastic cable ties, being left to sit in the sun for hours, all whilst guarded by "balaclava-clad Israeli naval soldiers". Davids was later incarcerated in an Israeli prison and denied access to South African consular assistance.

On the 27th of September 2010, a fact-finding report into the2009 Israeli attacks on the Mavi Marmara aid ship was published by the United Nations.  The UN report found that Israeli forces had violated international law during and after their lethal attack on the Mavi Marmara aid ship, the report said: "The conduct of the Israeli military and other personnel towards the flotilla passengers was not only disproportionate to the occasion but demonstrated levels of totally unnecessary and incredible violence. It betrayed an unacceptable level of brutality. Such conduct cannot be justified or condoned on security or any other grounds. It constituted grave violations of human rights law and international humanitarian law." Four months later, in January 2011, Davids together with her legal representative requested the South African Police Services and South Africa's National Director of Public Prosecutions to institute a criminal investigation and prosecute those Israelis responsible for international crimes committed during the attack.

Today, in a letter addressed to Davids' legal representative, South Africa's Priority Crimes Litigation Unit, a Division of South Africa's National Directorate of Public Prosecutions, stated that: "After due consultation with the South African Police Services (SAPS)...we are of the opinion that reasonable grounds exist for an investigation into this matter and therefore have opened a case docket...the jurisdictional requirements contained in the Implementation of the Rome Statute of the Criminal Court Act 27 of 2002 and our law in general (especially our criminal procedure) are met".

Ms Davids welcomed today's decision: “[It] instills my faith and credibility in South Africa’s commitment to the protection of human rights".

Davids' legal representative also welcomed the decision: "[It] enforces the rule of law, respect for human rights and South Africa’s responsibility in meeting its international obligations. The South African Police Services and [South Africa's] National Directorate of Public Prosecutions should therefore be commended and supported for this decision.”

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Letter to the Editor: Mushrooming of Muslim outfits - By Ghulam Muhammed

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Letter to the Editor

Mushrooming of Muslim outfits

In the backdrop of withdrawal of support to Congress coalition government in Andhra Pradesh by MIM (Majlise Ittehadul Muslameen), that threatened the state government which has come into minority, the use of the new term for Muslim assertion: Mushrooming of Muslim outfits, by Congress General Secretary, Digvijay Singh, points to a new phase in Muslim politics in India. Not confined to Andhra Pradesh, the movement to float new Muslim led political parties all over the country in different states, poses a grave threat to Congress as a ‘national’ party that could rule in the centre, with support from its own tally of Members of Parliament and from coalition partners, as all such Muslim political parties – derogatorily and contemptuously branded by Digvijay Singh as ‘OUTFITS’, are directly eroding the Congress Muslim vote bank, that had assured Congress continuous supremacy in the pecking order of political parties. Though the trend is still in its infancy, the results, say in Uttar Pradesh, where Muslim parties, had registered an impressive showing, as the formula of inclusiveness, now borrowed by these new comers from Congress itself,  is giving the Muslim outfit across the board support from all communities. These political parties, are fully aware of the power of mixed constituencies, and are ready to offer tickets to other community members, who represent majority vote bank in their local constituencies. Since it is only the beginning, all such Muslim political parties have more flexibility than the two Brahminical bigwigs, who are reluctant to share power with others. Muslim political parties have no such hang-ups. They know the limits of their voting power, and now concentrating on wheeling and dealing first to destruct the vote banks of other parties, and later build up their own distinct identities. Congress and BJP, the two Brahminical outfits that proudly present themselves as natural party of governance to rule India, are now finding a new entrant with some past reference to rule and govern India and that too in a more celebratory secular ethos than that practiced by the both the Brahminical exclusivist outfits.

Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai

<ghulammuhammed3@gmail.com>

India's minority political leaders should emulate Obama - By Javed Sayed, ET Bureau - Economic Times, Mumbai, India

http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-11-08/news/34994176_1_barack-obama-white-house-black-presidency

Poke Me:

India's minority political leaders should emulate Obama

Javed Sayed, ET Bureau Nov 8, 2012, 05.07PM IST

Barack Obama's re-election lacks the sense of history and the drama of his first victory. Five years ago, when Obama announced his intention to run for president, it seemed incredible that an African American could become the resident of the White House. It may still not be the new normal, but what then appeared unbelievable has been the reality of the last four years.
In 2008, Obama built his campaign around the twin pledges of hope and change. His personal history positioned him to be the perfect messenger for these inspiring promises. In stark contrast, he fought a darker, negative, and far more attritional campaign this year. He tore into his opponent and tapped into the fears of his supporters. If his first victory was greeted with unrestrained euphoria, the celebrations were more muted, the second time around.
And yet, it would be a mistake to underestimate the significance of Obama's victory on Tuesday. He has demonstrated that it is not necessary for a minority leader to always tug at the heartstrings of the voter and base his appeal on lofty ideals and soaring rhetoric. Why cant he fight a hard-nosed campaign like a mainstream politician? Why cant his campaign be as tactical as say George Bush or any other politician?
His re-election will also make it impossible for anyone to describe a black presidency as an aberration or a flash-in-the-pan. Not everyone in the US is overjoyed at the prospect of an African-American as president. His opponents tried their best to highlight his 'otherness'. Around 60 per cent of America's white population did not vote for him. But a large number of white women and younger whites did. As did white males in the crucial battleground of Ohio. A coalition of African Americans, Hispanics, women, and young voters may have propelled Obama to victory but older white males, too, will accept him as their president.
For minority leaders, all over the world, and particularly in India, there is much to learn from the US president. Race and colour are probably more divisive than religion and language. If Obama has breached these seemingly insurmountable barriers to become a two-term president of the US, what stops Muslim politicians in India from emulating his example and aspiring for the top job in the country? Why don't they try to forge the kind of coalition that Obama has? Why don't they set their sights higher?
Blacks and Muslims account for 13-14% of America's and India's populations respectively. Muslims have historically not faced the kind of discrimination here that African Americans have in the US, where in the south, until a generation ago, they were not allowed to sit in the front of buses and eat in restaurants with whites. No black movie star has reigned in Hollywood the way the Khans have held sway in the Indian film industry.

India has had no problem accepting Muslims as presidents, chief justices, and senior bureaucrats including cabinet secretaries. To be sure, there will be resistance to the idea of a Muslim aspiring to be a prime minister of India. But, it will not be much different from the resistance that Obama faced in the US.
Yet, in the six-and-a-half decades since independence, no Muslim politician has aspired to be a national leader. While there are several legitimate constraints, it is also true that the Muslim leadership in India, such as it is, has been hobbled by its excessive focus on community specific issues. It has been largely content to espouse 'Muslim' causes and has jockeyed for position and influence within this limited space. It has seen its role as primarily delivering the Muslim vote to a political party. Political parties, too, have viewed these politicians through this prism. Their importance has been judged by the influence they wield in their community.
Ironically, the Muslim voter is aware of this equation and realizes the limitations of his so-called leaders. He realizes that his need for law & order, employment, education, electricity, and an improved standard of living cannot be met by politicians who are solely focused on him and have no clout independent of him. He knows many of his requirements are similar to those of his fellow citizens and he looks for leaders and parties that have the capacity and the scale to fulfill his aspirations. So, he looks to support Mulayam Singh, Mamata Banerjee, Nitish Kumar, the Congress, and others.

Till the time, Muslim politicians take up national causes and broaden their appeal, they will remain bit players feeding of the crumbs that political parties will throw their way. There will never again be a Rafi Ahmed Kidwai or a Maulana Azad. For a strong and viable Muslim leadership to emerge, it has to look beyond the community, find common ground with other social forces, and form alliances and coalitions across communities. It has to embrace national issues with the conviction that what is good for India cant be bad for Indian Muslims.
Obama can prove to be a valuable role model. He has never disowned his roots but has not let race define his politics. When asked to respond to criticism that he not done enough for black business, without batting an eyelid, he replied that he was not the president of Black America. " I want all businesses to succeed. I want all Americans to have the opportunity. I am not the president of Black America. I am the president of the United States of America,'' he said. When his opponents made not so subtle digs about his "otherness'' he refused to take the bait. He knew that his silence would diminish the opposition.

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While the webpage carries the title of the article as Why India's Minority leaders should emulate Obama; Economic Times Saturday issue in print carries the title of the article as India's Minority Leaders should emulate Obama --- dropping the word 'WHY". The subject is politically incorrect in current divided nation, where Brahmin elite rule in the same fashion as Whites in the USA. The divide is so poisonous that even the mention of Muslim name is looked upon as sacrilege or a big taboo..For 65 years of Indian's independence, the Brahmin minority has faked a 'Hindu' majority with the slick propaganda of demonizing Muslims as the other. Even liberals that would be matching America's Democratic Party in ideology and practice, in India, as run by Brahmins, is deeply distrustful of Muslims and pays lip service to Muslim causes, on to counter Hindu Rightist onslaught. They are least interested to do anything positive for Muslim Minority. That makes picking up any analogy from Obama's America, rather wishful, if not difficult or impossible.

Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai
<ghulammuhammed3@gmail.com>

Muslims not safe under SP [Samajwadi Party]: Abu Asim Azmi - Maharashtra SP President and MLA - The Indian Express, Mumbai

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/muslims-not-safe-under-sp-rule-azmi/1029676/0

Muslims not safe under SP rule: Abu Asim Azmi

Faisal Fareed :


Lucknow, Sat Nov 10 2012, 05:52 hrs

After being denied permission to visit the riot-hit areas of Faizabad district on Friday, Samajwadi Party MLA from Maharashtra Abu Asim Azmi accused Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav of ignoring Muslims’ issues.

Azmi, the president of the SP’s Maharashtra unit, stated that Muslims are wrong in their perception that they are safe in the Samajwadi Party rule. “It is a wrong notion. Muslims are at the receiving end. The government is not reacting. No leader from our party cared to visit Faizabad. Ideally Akhilesh himself should go, but I don’t know what is stopping him,” Azmi said.

Azmi, who had planned to visit Faizabad while returning from Azamgarh, was asked by SSP Dharmendra Singh to cancel his visit. “He pleaded that since he took charge only yesterday, it is better to avoid the visit,” Azmi told The Indian Express. “People call me from violence-affected areas. They want me to convey their sufferings to the Chief Minister. But even I cannot meet him. He is so busy that he hardly gives one minute’s time to me in three days.”

He added, “I am not saying this just because I was denied permission to visit Faizabad, there may be a law and order problem. But Akhilesh has failed to fulfil the promises he had made to me. I am disappointed with his working.”

As part of an SP delegation, Azmi had earlier visited Asthan village of Pratapgarh in June after houses of Muslims were burnt after the rape and murder of a Dalit girl. The delegation had submitted a report to the Chief Minister.

Azmi said the CM had promised him that the Goonda Act slapped on four Muslim youths in Pratapgarh would be revoked, but it turned out to be a false assurance. Also, Akhilesh had personally promised him that full compensation would be paid to the victims of Pratapgarh violence for their loss. “Where is Akhilesh and his promise?’’ Azmi said.

He also said the Chief Minister appeared to have lost control over the police force and officials. “His grip seems to be too loose and such incidents are recurring in the state. All our hopes are dashed. Muslims had high expectations from the government. But when even I am not able to get audience with Akhilesh, there is no scope left for Muslims. The community is trusting the SP blindly and living in a fool’s paradise,” Azmi added.

RE: Naipaul v/s Girish Karnad - 'Sustaining the myth of hostility' By Mushirul Hasan - THE HINDU, English Daily, Chennai, India.

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/sustaining-the-myth-of-hostility/article4071475.ece?homepage=true

Opinion » Lead

November 7, 2012

Sustaining the myth of hostility

Mushirul Hasan

 

Share  ·   Comment (14)   ·   print   ·   T+  

To Naipaul, Hindu militancy is a corrective to the past. He therefore rejects the possibility of Islam reconciling with other religions in the subcontinent

“There was in India now what didn’t exist 200 years before: a central will, a central intellect, a national idea,” wrote Vidiadhar S. Naipaul in 1990 in India: A Million Mutinies Now, his third book on the land of his forefathers. Sir Vidia’s construction of the Indian nation, his views on certain major episodes in contemporary history, his interpretation of Islam, and the role of minorities in secular India have always been controversial. Last week, they came under attack again, this time from Girish Karnad. Since then, some have rushed to Naipaul’s defence, others to Karnad’s. As a historian, I too would like to join the debate.

To remind readers, Naipaul’s ancestors left India in the early 1880s as indentured labourers for the sugar estates of Guyana and Trinidad. He returned to India with An Area of Darkness, advertised as ‘tender, lyrical, (and) explosive.’ Thereafter, he chronicled the histories of a wounded civilisation and a million mutinies in India. 

In between, he aimed salvos at Islam not once but twice, in laboured projects.

‘Indigestibility of Muslims’

Naipaul wholly subscribes to the views of Samuel P. Huntington, a controversial American political scientist who earned his reputation by arguing that the New World Order is based on patterns of conflict and cooperation founded on cultural distinctions and identifications. He talked of “the indigestibility of Muslims” and their propensity towards violent conflict, which makes them threatening.

Naipaul too warns readers of Islamic ‘parasitism,’ and endorses the Orientalist belief that Islam as a coherent, transnational, monolithic force has been engaged in a unilinear confrontational relationship with the West. His essentialist reading of history allows him to sustain the myth of an inherent hostility between two antagonistic sides.

I am not qualified to judge Naipaul’s standing in the literary world, but I have no doubt in my mind that he is ignorant of the nuances of Islam and unacquainted with the languages of the people he speaks to. He records and assesses only what he sees and hears from his interpreters. In the most literal sense, he finds the cultures indecipherable, for he cannot transliterate the Arabic alphabet. He had known Muslims all his life in Trinidad, but knew little of Islam. Its doctrine did not interest him; it didn’t seem worth inquiring into; and over the years, in spite of travel, he has added little to the knowledge gathered in his childhood.

He continues to subscribe to the illogical mistrust of Muslims he had been taught as a child: a particular greybeard Muslim, described in An Area of Darkness, has come to embody ‘every sort of threat.’ Much like Nirad Chaudhuri, who was guilty of disregarding common sense to feed his own petty prejudices towards the Muslim communities, Naipaul’s encounters with them “are suffused with a sense of youthful bigotries.”
 
Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey is permeated with the sentiment that Islam sanctifies rage — rage about faith, political rage, and that Muslim societies are rigid, authoritarian, uncreative, and hostile to the West. In Indonesia, he runs into Imamuddin who confirms him in the stereotype. In Iran, Behzad leaves him convinced that, “now in Islamic countries there would be the Behzads who, in an inversion of Islamic passions, would have a vision of society cleansed and purified, a society of believers.” In Pakistan, he reminds us of the power of religion and the hollowness of secular cults in a fragmented country, economically stagnant, despotically ruled, with its gifted people close to hysteria.

In most of the description, otherwise nicely woven into a coherent story, there is hardly any reference to the debilitating legacy of colonial rule. The civilised, innovative, and technologically advanced West stands out as a vibrant symbol of progress and modernity, whereas the Muslim societies Naipaul encounters, despite their varying experiences and trajectories, are destructive, inert, and resentful of the West. With Naipaul relegating colonialism and imperial subjugation of Muslim societies to the background, the West appears an open, generous and universal civilisation.

In fact, it is the West that is consistently portrayed as exploited by lesser societies resentful of its benign, or at worst natural, creativity: “Indeed,” as scholar Rob Nixon points out, “Naipaul is so decided in his distribution of moral and cultural worth between the cultures of anarchic rage and the ‘universal civilization’ that he ends up demonizing Islam as routinely as the most battle-minded of his Islamic interlocutors demonize the West.”
 
Beyond Belief: Islamic Excursions among the Converted People (1998), chooses Islamic bad faith as its theme, portraying “the same primitive, rudimentary, unsatisfactory and reductive thesis” that the Muslims having been converted from Hinduism, must experience the ignominy of all converted people. In India: A Million Mutinies (1990), the 1857 revolt is regarded as the last flare-up of Muslim energy until the agitation for a separate Muslim homeland. So far so good. But when Naipaul finds the Lucknow bazaars expressing the faith of the book and the mosque, for example Aminabad, a crowded marketplace, serving the faith, it becomes too much to swallow.

On Babri Masjid

Two years after A Million Mutinies, Naipaul defends the destruction of the Babri Masjid by calling it “an act of historical balancing.” “Ayodhya,” he reportedly told a small gathering at the BJP office in 2004, “was a sort of passion … Any passion has to be encouraged. I always support actions coming out of passion as these reflect creativity.” Whose passion? Of those Muslims who, despite the bitterness since December 1992, still weave the garlands used in the temple and produce everything necessary for dressing the icons preparatory to worship?

The fraternity of writers to which Naipaul belongs strongly contests not only his reading of the calamitous effect of Islam, but also his virtual justification of vandalism in the name of Islam. Salman Rushdie and others have written with infinitely greater sympathy and comprehension, and cultivated a distinctly secular point of view which had grown out of a reaction against Partition. Many others write convincingly about Islam as a living and changing reality, what Muslims mean by it is constantly changing because of the particular circumstances of time and place. They study it in its historical reality, without value judgments about what it ought to be.

There is however no place for these sentiments in Naipaul’s jaundiced views. To him, Hindu militancy is a necessary corrective to the past, a creative force. He therefore rejects the possibility of Islam, a religion of fixed laws, working out reconciliation with other religions in the subcontinent. This is, in short, the clash of civilisations theory.

Karnad is right

Girish Karnad is right. Naipaul is as ill-informed about India as Huntington was about the world outside the western hemisphere. One more related point. He talks of a fractured past solely in terms of Muslim invasions and conveniently forgets the grinding down of the Buddhist-Jain culture during the period of Brahmanical revival. He fumes and frets even though a fringe element alone celebrates the vandalism of the early Islamists who were driven more by the desire to establish the might of an evangelical Islam than to deface Hindu places of worship. With anger, remorse, and bitterness becoming a substitute for serious study and analysis, Naipaul’s plan for India’s salvation collapses like a pack of cards.

Hence the devastating enunciation of his Beyond Belief by Edward Said: “Somewhere along the way Naipaul, in my opinion, himself suffered a serious intellectual accident. His obsession with Islam caused him somehow to stop thinking, to become instead a kind of mental suicide compelled to repeat the same formula over and over. This is what I’d call an ‘intellectual catastrophe of the first order’.”

In the recent debate over Karnad’s remarks, several analysts have considered Naipaul’s interpretation of Islam as valid. I take issue with them. I believe writers like him widen the existing chasm between the Muslim communities and the followers of other religions. We need writers, poets and publicists who create mutual understanding and interfaith dialogue rather than create distrust and promote intolerance.

Peter Geyl reminded us that the historian should be interested in his subject for its own sake, he should try to get in touch with things as they were, the people and the vicissitudes of their fortunes should mean something to him in themselves. “Let Colour Fill the Flowers, Let Breeze of Early Spring Blow,” wrote the Urdu poet, Faiz Ahmad Faiz.

If ever Naipaul wants to write a travelogue on Muslim countries, the sense of Islam as something more than words in texts, as something living in individual Muslims, must emerge from his pen.
 
(Mushirul Hasan is a historian and Director General of the National Archives of India.)
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Comments:

The author pointed a thousand flaws in Naipaul's books. And he also highlighted something like Hindu militancy? Is there anything like that really? For Hindus, organizing together and accumulating power will never be possible because they don't follow a single book. On the other hand, the western civilizations are much more practical and should not even be compared with arabic and third world countries which are still struggling to project mystic ideologies as holy things.

 

from:  sateesh

Posted on: Nov 7, 2012 at 01:46 IST

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Is Mushirul Hasan claiming that there are no political Islamists in
India or other countries with significant Muslim populations ?

The problem other religions are asking is, where is the moderate
Muslim? When Muslim extremists run riot in the streets, no one from the Muslim community questions them. Contemporary Muslim literature does not dwell in the topic of political Islam, which is a reality.
 
In neighboring Pakistan and Bangladesh, where minorities are
persecuted severely, not just in riots, but throughout to such an
extent, that their populations have dwindled.

Because Muslims are not standing up and questioning, it is left to
others who are outside the Muslim religion to question them.
What worries an average citizen, is that Muslim majority countries and provinces with significant Muslim populations in India, people of other religions are persecuted. But no Muslim questions them.

 

from:  Ganesh

Posted on: Nov 7, 2012 at 03:00 IST

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Mushirul Hasan is right in saying that we need writers who would help build bridges across religious, linguistic and ethinic divides. Whatever the history of each group, we are here now and belong equally to Mother India. India is one of the most diverse societies in the world. We must understand, respect and work with each other if the country is to realize its potential and India is to be an open, prosperous and civilised place for all its citizens.

 

from:  Virendra Gupta

Posted on: Nov 7, 2012 at 03:37 IST

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The writer opines "grinding down of the Buddhist-Jain culture during the period of Brahmanical revival" . What Brahminical revival ? Their population has never been more than 5% to 8% of the sub-continent population.
 
And where was force used to "grind down" Buddhist and Jain schools of thoughts ?

 

from:  Arun Subbu

Posted on: Nov 7, 2012 at 04:44 IST

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“Rimsha Masih, Christian girl, arrested for blasphemy”; “Malala Yousufzai: Pakistani Girl, Nearly Killed by Taliban” for promoting education for girls – these are just two headlines emanating from a self proclaimed Islamic country. The perpetrators insist that they are following their scripture to the letter and spirit, and the religious, government and military leaders – and even the public seem to in agreement, even if reluctantly. The feeble protests to bring the perpetrators to justice seem to be just to mollify the outside world. There is a serious intellectual debate in the Islamic world: if they should resurrect the values of the first millennium or live with the current set. The religious scripture is writ; it is the final and uncompromising arbiter. And it was decidedly written not in this millennium or even the one before it. The scripture propels, and sustains the unflinching enforcers who are sure there is no other way. Naipaul’s work implies this. You be the judge.

 

from:  Anvar Naveed

Posted on: Nov 7, 2012 at 05:21 IST

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Wow! This is such a moving piece. You have dissected the oppressive bigotry of an acclaimed but deeply flawed writer without hostility or rancour. I am not sure as to what can change Mr. Naipaul. Will he go down as another literary accident? Someone flawed walking away with the top accolades which were not so deserved?

 

from:  Anand

Posted on: Nov 7, 2012 at 06:05 IST

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Well written. I do not study religious books. Mine or others. More than intent actions define the world. Actions only creates opinion not intent or content. Activities of various Islamists are against West, so it is a clash of civilizations defined by their actions, whoever may be wrong or whatever their religious book says. One kills people in name of liberty, development and democracy and other killing innocent out of anger, remorse, and bitterness. 

Without changing your actions you cannot claim to be apostle for peace or can claim religion of peace. Thanks

 

from:  H. Prasad

Posted on: Nov 7, 2012 at 08:59 IST

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The hue of the article is dictated by the misunderstanding of the writer that Islam and Muslims are synonyms. Perhaps the book is righteous, but it matters not as long as Muslims parctice it the way they are doing so today. Clearly, his position (added in the end) is a result of the widespread appeasement that muslims enjoy today in India. Because, on one hand he accuses Naipaul of half-baked-knowledge and on the other he makes a stmt about brahmanical tyranny forgetting the public debates (about religion) held during the incident. Will a muslim agree to similar debates on Islam. If stating facts creats "distrust and promote intolerance", then its a pity but nevertheless encouraged. "Understanding and interfaith dialogue" dosent and should not mean hiding hard facts.

 

from:  Vijay

Posted on: Nov 7, 2012 at 10:37 IST

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the views of Naipaul may be largely incorrect with respect to India, but so the defense of Mushirul Hasan. All is not bad with Islamic society, but all is not well also ,outlined by the recent violence in Chennai against the US embassy, the cutting down of the hand of a professor in Kerala some time back , the recent violence in Mumbai and descreation of Amar Jawan ,and last but not least the current state of Pakistan. Both the authors are shooting from their set positions.

 

from:  harish

Posted on: Nov 7, 2012 at 11:04 IST

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Wake up India!
Wake up World!
Life is worth living and we humans(whatsoever be the credo)just cannot afford to waste it hating any particular person or faith or society or nation or whatever it may be.
 
I strongly agree to Mr. Hasan -
"We need writers, poets and publicists who create mutual understanding and interfaith dialogue rather than create distrust and promote intolerance."
 
We, as a human, have got a long way to go ahead!

from:  Avinash Kaur

Posted on: Nov 7, 2012 at 11:34 IST

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What a weak attempt to tarnish Hindus. The point is different Mr .
Author. Budhism Jainism and Sikhism originated in India as Hinduism.
 
They are different ways how people lived in India. While Islam is a religion [ i specifically say religion while other 3 are not so much
religion, may be sikhism], which came from outside and forced itself on India. It was not like India welcomed Islam as an idea or another way of living. It was forced upon India while Budhism and Jainism was not. And would you care to show us an accommodating/democratic Muslim majority country? 

Yes, Arabs give us money, but not a sense of togetherness.
 
I am not saying there is no fault here. But those are politically
motivated radical fringes.
 
The point Naipaul makes is Islam and Christianity[to an extent] was forced upon India/Subcontinent. Both those were not welcomed by the natives here by getting impressed by them. There is a difference.

 

from:  Ramachandra

Posted on: Nov 7, 2012 at 12:01 IST

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The author makes a reference to 'the grinding down of the Buddhist-Jain culture during the period of Brahmanical revival'. Let me state very clearly here that Buddhist-Jainist philosophies and Brahminical(Vedic)philosophies were all sheer interpretations with arguments for and against each other. We had Buddhist monks spreading Buddhism in Vedic India as a consequence of which many people including kings embraced these philosophies(or religions). After a period of time, we had the three main acharyas in the south viz. Sankara, Ramanuja and Madhva who again propagated the path of Vedic religion. Neither the Buddhist monks nor the Hindu saints called for violence as a means to preach their faith. How come the author even
attempts to make a comparison of this ideological clash with the
invasion of the Sultans and their vandalism of temples! Such a
comparison is indeed shocking.

 

from:  raghavan k

Posted on: Nov 7, 2012 at 16:38 IST

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While Mr. Hasan is perfectly right in criticizing V S Naipaul and his view of Islam. One cannot forget the fine distinction between the Islam as religion and tenets of Islam as interpreted by extreme
elements. We are having problem with the latter, as we notice that the extremists in Muslim communities all over the world are not ready to accommodate a view that is different from theirs and they (extremists) are often proclaiming that non-Muslims have no right to live in this world. Unfortunately, the saner elements in Muslim communities every where are being weakened day by day, and that is the reason why Naipaul and those with similar views have become more acceptable. It is also my observation that Muslims with a liberal view are losing their hold on community. There are extreme elements in the Hindu community as well but their influence is limited and liberal views of others are generally more acceptable. Better communication between Muslims and non- Muslims is required.

 

from:  Narendra M Apte

Posted on: Nov 7, 2012 at 17:13 IST

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The writer is suggesting crusades against Buddhism and Jainism in ancient India. This is the first time I am hearing about it. Can someone confirm this? Was there any kind of forceful conversion ? Were Buddhists and Jain shrines destroyed by Hindu kings or mobs? Till now I only know of things like declaring Buddha as ninth Avatar of Vishnu to revive Brahminism among other things. Enlighten me.

 

from:  Suraj Kumar

Posted on: Nov 7, 2012 at 17:37 IST

The Fear of the Fickle Money Traders - By sheikyermami - WINDS OF JIHAD

http://sheikyermami.com/2012/11/04/the-fear-of-the-fickle-money-traders/

The Fear of the Fickle Money Traders

by sheikyermami on November 4, 2012

This election may be more about the surrender of America to Islam than anyone realizes.

“Islam must be fought at every turn.”– Geert Wilders

“We don’t want to have to fight a war with people who would rather die than live…”

“We benefit not from this world, but from the afterlife…”  Pal Arab child

Erik Rush (thanks to Gerald)

The topic? Islam. Contrary to likely presumption, it’s not just the movement of Muslims across Europe from Africa and the Middle East and the mobilization of Islamist factions in these areas – but the vast migration that has begun towards the United States.Fear can freeze a deer in the headlights of a car, cause a grizzly bear to flee at the sound of a loud noise, or cause a consortium of international banking interests to start having heart palpitations. Recent interviews with highly-placed officials in a number of European and South American banking circles indicates a new, almost irrational fear that is beginning to rise among them. It’s not about inflation, depression or recession, but it is so frightening to these individuals that they are being driven to talk about something they typically never talk about.

Whether Obama is in fact a Muslim, an agnostic, or functions as his own deity, he is a Muslim for all operational purposes. This is because he has allowed the infiltration of Islamists across all levels of government in the US. Given his understanding of Islam (he was raised in it), he knew where this would lead, thus we must assume it was his intention. The establishment of even components of Sharia law in America would close the last of the doors to freedom and principled stands based on Biblical truth and values. All would be forced to bend the knee to Islam.


Why, you may ask, would this be of such great concern to the banking communities of the world? Well, despite their varied persuasions and allegiances, they fear the loss of the last great hope for freedom in the world: America. They fear the surrender of America, that bastion of safety and the free market in the world, to Sharia law. They fear that President Barack Obama will be re-elected; presently, there will be nowhere on the planet that the great money launderers and usury artists of the world will be able to ply their dubious trade.

Either a free democratic republican model, or a repressive Marxist or Islamist regime.

These are not the isolated feelings brought on by bespectacled nervous nellies in the accounting departments of international banks. The most powerful executives in the banking world are catching this fear from some of their best customers: Mafia, drug kingpins, illegal traffickers in all sorts of items, money launderers from China, the Middle East and the dictators of nations around the world. They know that this great shrinking globe will ultimately and inevitably gravitate toward the same place America does, either the free democratic republican model, or a repressive Marxist or Islamist regime.

Some of these folks have survived the Marxist hordes and done rather well, but that is not their major concern at present. “We don’t want to have to fight a war with people who would rather die than live,” one banking executive recently divulged. “That becomes a lose-lose proposition for everyone.” In Europe alone, the examples are many of car bombings, suicide bombers, assassins, and regions being taken over by Muslims. These answer to the whim of imams who incite the people to murderous levels of violence. While it is barely known in the American press, entrenched Muslims have established zones in major European cities in which non-Muslims dare not go for fear of being raped, killed, or both. A rumor will upend a city, a wrong word or sentence will have the streets filled with violent attackers bent on avenging some slight against their totalitarian religious system or their sainted child-molesting prophet.

There is no room for “diversity” within this group. There is no flexibility in which a criminal subculture can blossom and grow, as in capitalist and even many Marxist nations. The Islamist paradigm necessitates a complete supplanting of all existing systems. The “new criminals” will use their membership in the death cult as leverage to take over all profitable enterprises, backed by the profits from prostitution, gambling, drugs, alcohol, stock and land value manipulations, con games, and all the old vices that provided the fortunes of the infidels they replace. As we saw in Afghanistan, the “holy” façade used by these bearded thugs is but a sham; entire households of women were routinely raped by the Taliban. A sacrament of some sort, I suppose.

Be afraid; be very afraid

With this turn of events, international bankers see their kingdoms crashing around them. The Sharia bankers and elite members of the new regimes will demand their abeyance to the Muslim way – dhimmitude – or the highway, which is really just a euphemism for death. The bankers of the world see the writing on the wall (mene, mene, tekel, upharsum, anyone?); the fall of America will leave them nowhere safe to go.

And what does that mean for the average American? Be afraid; be very afraid.

If this had been during the days of the great re-organization of the Mafia families that resulted in their dividing up the United States into workable units with rules and regulations that lasted for 50 years, we could use that as an example. But we are now entering into the age that the Founding Fathers foresaw in their wisdom and warned against. The producers are now a smaller group than the non-producers; Obama and his ACORN-like groups have seen to it that the takers will vote their own stomachs. It does not matter to the takers that what they get has to come from somewhere (someone else). In their conditioned ignorance and belligerence, they simply don’t care. As one of Obama’s less articulate followers stated back in 2008, “Obama will take it from his stash.”

It does not much matter if Americans come to widely acknowledge that Obama’s education was partially underwritten by a Saudi billionaire if they do not comprehend the why of it. The Saudis have been subsidizing mosques in the US that instruct in Sharia law for decades, while presenting a capitalist face for American politicians and corporate captains who are clueless as to their objective of establishing a global caliphate.

There are now campaigns going on in Europe to deport Muslims; yes, in Europe, which has always been decades ahead of America in its self-destructive multicultural and socialist pursuits. Now, many there are realizing that it’s a matter of their very survival. Some prominent radical imams have been forced to leave France, and it’s likely that the trend will continue and proliferate. As Muslims engage authorities in anger over this, they will be forced to respond by purging even more Muslims.

China, with all its newfound economic power, has its own difficulties

China, with all its newfound economic power, has its own difficulties. They fear one group of people, and prove it via the almost annual ritual of confrontation with and murder of Islamists in Western China. A few hundred die and things settle down again, but the demographics are setting up an ultimate failure for these regions of what is called the “Hidden Kingdom.” The followers of the crescent moon and black flag will soon overrun their confined areas and move out where the Islamic infection will spread.

The average Muslim woman produces eight children. In China, eight is that perfect, lucky number, but it will also spell the demise of China if Muslims are allowed to have mobility in the country and are continued an exemption from China’s one child policy. To date, there is little mobility in China, but the demand for education is producing something of a diaspora with the rising Muslim population. Under the pretext of education, they are going to school in ever-expanding areas, and with them the growing undercurrent of jihadist sentiment is rising. The Chinese have a different set of survival skills than Westerners; when the Muslim situation reaches critical mass, they will no doubt deal with it in their own inimitable and unique fashion.

When the money men of the world are nervous, and America is selling itself down the river of economic dependency, and a new, malicious threat is being embraced rather than confronted, we all have much to fear. As Geert Wilders warned, “Islam must be fought at every turn.” Far too few Americans yet comprehend that fact. This election may be more about the surrender of America to Islam than anyone realizes.

Why India is still dragging its feet on Islamic Banking

Why India is still dragging its feet on Islamic Banking


http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=541637&version=1&template_id=48&parent_id=28

Bank forecasts six-fold growth for Islamic banking in Sri Lanka

Bloomberg/Colombo   Amana Bank, Sri Lanka’s only full-fledged Islamic lender, plans to double its branches by expanding in rural areas, forecasting a six-fold growth in demand. The company, which started in August 2011, will add five outlets this year to its existing 14 and nine in 2013, Colombo-based chief executive officer Faizal Salieh said in an October 17 interview. Sri Lankan Islamic banking assets could reach $1.5bn from $250mn now, he added, without specifying a timeframe. Amana posted a net profit of 178mn Sri Lankan rupees ($1.4mn) in the nine months through September and had assets of SLR18bn, according to Salieh. Amana is targeting unbanked individuals and the small-to-medium sized enterprises that are driving the nation’s growth, Salieh said. The $59bn economy expanded 8.3% last year, the fastest pace since records began in 1959, as the government boosted spending on roads, ports and power plants following the end of a 26-year civil war in 2009. “Islamic finance is at an infant stage in Sri Lanka but it’s developing,” Suresh Perera, a tax and regulatory principal with KPMG Sri Lanka in Colombo, said in an interview recently. “There’s demand from the Muslim population involved in trade and business and there’s also interest from non-Muslims.” Of the country’s 21.5mn people, about 8% are Muslim, compared with a majority of 69% who are Buddhist, according to the CIA World Factbook. In neighboring India, which has no Islamic finance policies, Muslims account for 13% of the 1.2bn population, the world’s third largest. Five non-Islamic lenders are also offering Shariah-compliant services through booths, according to an e-mailed statement from the department of bank supervision at the central bank. Amana’s website shows it has branches concentrated across central Sri Lanka from the west to east coasts, including the capital Colombo and the cities of Kandy, Kattankudy and Mawanella. Hatton National Bank started its Shariah windows in February to tap the market as about 25% of all businesses in Sri Lanka are owned by Muslims, L A M Hisham, who heads the Islamic finance unit, said in an interview. “This is an alternative and lucrative way of banking,” Colombo-based Hisham said, adding that the bank’s network of 250 branches helps reach out to Muslim customers. “We are looking for more innovative products to offer.” There’s been no progress since the government announced in 2010 it would grant Shariah-compliant financial transactions the same tax treatment as non-Islamic products, Amana’s Salieh said. Hisham said KPMG is leading the lobby to solve those issues, but he doesn’t see them as a hurdle to growth. Demand for Islamic banking products may not be strong enough for Sri Lanka to develop a regulatory framework as the Muslim population is small, according to Singapore-based consulting company Five Pillars. “Their many war-torn years may still be a concern before foreign funds consider Islamic finance opportunities in Sri Lanka,” Raj Mohamad, managing director at Five Pillars, said by e-mail. “It still has some years to go before joining the queue to attract Islamic finance monies.” Drafting new rules would help pave the way for a sale of Shariah-compliant bonds, or sukuk, and provide the nation with an alternative source of financing. China, India and the Manila- based Asian Development Bank are the biggest donors for infrastructure projects in Sri Lanka. The International Monetary Fund has provided $2.6bn to help the nation rebuild foreign-currency reserves since the end of the civil war. “We have supported Islamic finance and will be very supportive,” Ajith Nivard Cabraal, governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, said in an interview recently from Colombo. “Sukuk and other Shariah-compliant instruments would be a source of funding for projects and beneficial to Sri Lanka,” he said. Worldwide sales of sukuk, which pay returns on assets to comply with Islam’s ban on interest, almost doubled this year to a record $39.1bn from the same period last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Average yields on the debt declined six basis points, or 0.06 percentage point, last week to an all-time low of 2.86%, the HSBC/Nasdaq Dubai US Dollar Sukuk Index shows. The difference between the average and the London interbank offered rate, or Libor, narrowed 14 basis points to 181 basis points. Shariah-compliant notes returned 8.5% in 2012, according to the HSBC/Nasdaq index, while debt in developing markets climbed 16.5%, JPMorgan’s EMBI Global Composite Index shows. Amana, whose shareholders include Bank Islam Malaysia and Jeddah-based Islamic Development Bank, plans to expand to overseas markets such as India, the Maldives and Mauritius once its domestic business strengthens, Salieh said. “What would drive the growth of Islamic banking in Sri Lanka is its ability to attract investment from outside such as Middle Eastern and Far Eastern funds,” he added. Islamic banking assets in Sri Lanka are small relative to those in neighboring Pakistan and Bangladesh, who have the world’s second- and fourth-largest Muslim populations. Holdings that comply with religious tenets in Pakistan total $6.8bn and $10bn in Bangladesh, according to central bank data. Indonesia, home to the world’s largest Muslim population, has assets of $16.8bn. Sri Lanka’s economy, which relies on exports of tea, spices and textiles, will probably slow to growth of 6.8% in 2012, as the weaker global outlook hurts demand for its goods, central bank governor Cabraal had said by telephone.  That’s still more than the 3.5% pace in 2009.  The Asian Development Bank on October 3 estimated the island’s economy will expand 6.5% this year and 7% in 2013.  “The main opportunity for Islamic finance in Sri Lanka is growth in the Muslim community,” Sanjeewa Fernando, an analyst at CT Smith Stockbrokers in Colombo, said by e-mail. “Well-organised marketing could be seen as a strategy to overcome challenges such as a lack of awareness.”