Stevie Wonder Superstition

For all the superstitious minds in this heavy Saturday night, especially in Morocco and Northern France

State of Alert, State of Exception

Two journalists, Mustapha Hormatallah and Abderrahim Ariri, of the Moroccan weekly Alwatan Al-An, were arrested last week (July 17), after the publication of a story about “the Secrets Behind the Enhanced State of Alert in Morocco,” reproducing documents that the Moroccan police described as “classified”.

After 96 hours under police custody, both journalists were charged, and while Ariri was released on bail, Hormatallah was incarcerated in the Okacha Prison.

Morocco has raised his level of alert, recently, because of a perceived terrorist threat. Many road blocks and check points were deployed around the country. Under Moroccan Judiciary (which is highly linked to the political power), and amidst a climate of repression in the name of the struggle against terrorism, the authorities are highly nervous and it’s not unusual to see journalists paying the price of this sensitive mood. It’s not the first time the Moroccan authorities clamped down on journalists for motives ranging from the insult to the sanctity of the throne or religion to the threat for national security.

Both journalists were merely doing the job that any of their colleagues, worldwide, are supposed to do: looking for the truth. That supposes sometimes gaining access to “classified information”.

Hormatallah and Arir risk prison terms of one to up to five years.

Support them here.

(Picture by “Alexbip“)

Logical Illogicality Number#2

Guilty of Honesty, Integrity and Defiance to the British Establishment, George Galloway Got Expelled From the House of C(omm)ons.

The Pro-Zionist, unelected “Commons [double-]standards and privileges committee” suspended the Respect member of Parliament for having brought (as they put it) the House into “DISREPUTE.”
His crime: Political Dissent

He was expelled by a committee composed mainly of pro-war MPs and people who openly described themselves as “friends of Israel”. Thrown out of a House that boasts for being the core institution of the “Mother of All Democracies”

For those who don’t know him yet, George Galloway is the colourful and consistent peace and justice campaigner, the indefatigable and fearless defender of noble causes, great orator and leading anti-war activist.

He stood almost alone in the House against the war on Iraq, while the rest of the British political establishment supported the drive to an illegal and criminal war which caused and still is causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of Iraqis; not to mention the millions who lost their homes and hopes, having to leave their land.

So that’s the price you pay when you have the guts to stand against the warmongers and pro-Israel supporters.

Often vilified and described in the mainstream media in Britain as “controversial”, when real controversial war criminals and liars are offered standing ovations and treated like national heroes at the day of their departure.

George Galloway, in the day of his suspension, was interrupted by the speaker, and was denied the opportunity of making his full speech of defence against the allegations of the so-called committee. “At least the United States Senate gave me an uninterrupted hearing,” reacted Galloway referring to his outstanding performance in front of an American senate committee in May 2005.

“It has come to something,” he added “When the leading anti-war MP could get a fairer hearing in the Republican Senate than in the British House of Commons.

“I was thrown out of Parliament this evening just as I had given one example of the double standards that go to the heart of this matter. Anyone watching this would have seen Parliament plunged into disrepute as it absurdly decided – through agreeing my exclusion – that I am not permitted to point to those double standards or to criticise those who have produced this unjust report about me.

“We now have the absurdity in which the House of Commons has convinced itself, or at rather pretends that it has, that 10 MPs sat in a committee room somehow cease to be what they by definition are – highly political people who together constitute a political tribunal.

“The public know that is so; MPs, if they were being honest, know it; it’s only in the chamber of the House of Commons that you are not allowed to say so.

“I had much, much more to say about the report and the overarching question of who it is in this Iraq affair who has brought Parliament into disrepute. Instead, by voting to throw me out, the MPs present this evening chose to conduct a kangaroo court in my absence.

“They may be happy to close their ears to the truth. Most people in Britain – and abroad – are not.

“They will be outraged at this sham in what is supposed to be the highest court of the land.”

Galloway got an overwhelming support from people within the UK and across the World.

Support George Galloway here.

(GeorgeGalloway.com)
(Pictures respectively by “Fabbio” & “Mickal“)

Logical Illogicality

How to Turn a Brutal Dictator Into a Respectable Statesman & a War Criminal Into a Peace Dove

The release of the Bulgarian nurses and the Palestinian doctor from their Libyan nightmare is undoubtedly good news. The children infected by HIV in the Benghazi hospital and their families payed a heavy price for the lack of basic hygiene and accountability in the Libyan health system. In fact, many international health experts reportedly found that the infections occurred prior to the recruitment of the falsely accused medical staff. But what was the price for this happy outcome?

The French president who clearly upstaged the European commissioners’ team of negotiators, in an apparent move to take the credit for the whole story, is due today under the TENT of Khaddafi. A French MEP, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, warned yesterday on the French Radio that Europe is maybe forgetting what type of regime it is dealing with. That’s a country where nepotism is the rule, opposition is bitterly repressed and where jails are full of political prisoners. Apparently, the Libyan brutal dictator has successfully removed the last hurdle for his regime’s integration into the (so-called) international community. Sarkozy, it is believed, will try to benefit from this overture to position French businesses, especially in the highly sensitive AND lucrative fields of oil and armement. So it’s basically, back to business as usual! Sarkozy is notoriously close to the very powerful circles of the French industry and to wealthy businessmen (many of which are arms dealers), and who openly supported him during his presidential campaign.

Some would argue that that’s Realpolitik, but peoples of the south know only too well what that means: more powerful dictators, more poverty, more alienation, more repression and more radicalization. In short: the ills of today’s World, where Europe has to cope with waves upon waves of “illegal” immigrants and with fighting terrorism which stems mainly from the aforementioned conditions.

It’s astonishing to see the levels of hypocrisy and double standards involved in the dealings of the Western leaders with despicable regimes around the world, but especially with Europe’s southern neighbours: the rulers of the Arab World. Continuing with the same short-sighted approach, will only increase the bitterness and hopelessness of these countries’ populations. All the repeated incantations about Human Rights, the need for the “free World” to “spread democracy…” don’t seem to mean much when despots are whitewashed and labeled “moderates” from the moment they become “business friendly”, docile and complying.

Was it a good thing to deal with Khaddafi to free the medical workers? surely, but now that they are free, the so-called “free world” should think of the millions still trapped.

**

Tony Blair visited Khaddafi incidentally just before he left office. Many have noticed the unusually upbeat tone of Blair when he talked about the “changes” and “reforms” that “Muammar” has implemented. Yes; he called him by his first name. That might suggest some kind of “special” relationship I guess. The former British PM has since been catapulted: the Quartet “PEACE” Envoy to the Middle-East, rather than being sent to the international war crimes tribunal in the Hague.

Blair was of course the partner in crime of George W. Bush in conducting an illegal war of invasion and subsequent occupation of a sovereign country that represented no threat for neither Britain nor the US, and which resulted in the deaths of at least three quarters of a million Iraqis (according to last year’s Johns Hopkins University’s estimates), of thousands of British and American soldiers and which transformed Iraq into a cause-célèbre for global terrorism. All of this of course aggravated by a campaign of lies and misinformation, viciously orchestrated prior to the war.

Blair has now been assigned to the mission of helping to “bring peace” to the middle east. Many observers noted the almost non-existent authority this new role carries. Nevertheless, the former PM appears to take his new job seriously and has already made his first appointment in his office in the occupied Jerusalem: Daniel Levy the son of “Lord” Levy, a wealthy pro-Zionist lobbyist, who became notorious after his involvement in the “Cash for Honors” scandal in Britain.

In the last weeks of Blair’s Prime-ministership, he repeatedly tried to justify his support for Bush’s war and he showed obsessive concern with his legacy. But many would agree that this legacy could be summed up in one four letters word: IRAQ. Let’s hope that neither he, nor his allies will add another victim to this shortlist.

(pictures respectively by “Miles78” & “Sifter“)

The Rise of Muslim-Democracy

Reading my July 21st Post (titled “pretentiously” I have to admit: mini-Manifesto) may suggest that I oppose any religious interference in matters of politics. I wrote that Muslims should be aware of the dangers of conflating religion and politics and that the public should have his say in all matters of public life. The resounding victory of the AK Party or AKP (described as ‘rooted in political Islam’) in turkey yesterday, may sound as a rebuff to the claims from secularists (like me) who want a clear separation between the state and religion; but it is not. I’m delighted by this victory. Secularism, as far as I understand it, is a political system that rejects religious diktat at the level of the institutions; in other words, it rejects Theocracy.

I don’t see any reason why a party, be it rooted in Islam or Christianity or any other system of thought, should be banned from the political game (as some “fundamentalist” secularists -especially here in France- advocate) as long as it abides by the rules of democracy, and as it doesn’t call for violence or hatred against its political opponents.

The AKP has shown during his five years in power, that a Muslim-Democracy type of governance was possible, and successfully so. The government headed by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the popular AK party leader, proved to be economy friendly, pro-European and surprisingly even more progressive than other self proclaimed secularist parties. Despite a campaign of fear mongering fueled by the Turkish establishment and some Western media urging people not to allow a party that they claim had an “Islamist hidden agenda” and which could undermine Turkey’s secularist tradition, the voters decided otherwise and gave almost half of the seats of Parliament to the AKP. This victory, as I see it, is an important milestone, and a great achievement for democracy even beyond Turkey’s borders.

In Morocco, at the Western edge of the Muslim World, will be held in next September, the legislative elections that would probably give the PJD (a party rooted in political Islam) a widely expected victory. If the Makhzen (the Moroccan establishment close to the monarch) doesn’t intervene to rig the elections as it traditionally did, Morocco could become the first Arab country governed by Muslim-Democrats. (PJD for Party of Justice and Development- peculiarly the exact title as the Turkish AKP.)

I wouldn’t describe my self as a conservative nor as adherent to ideas advocated by Muslim-Democratic parties, but I welcome any inclusive political system that allows as many ideas and groups as possible within the framework of democracy and power sharing.

(picture by “Brockodil“)

The Psychology of the Thief

The Hypersensitivity of Israel apologists in reaction to the slightest critique on Israel, betrays a process of rejection from consciousness of all painful or disagreeable ideas, memories, feelings, or impulses of guilt with regards to Israel’s behavior and Palestinians rights. That’s called in Psychoanalysis: Repression. An immature defense mechanism, unconsciously used to avoid confrontation with ones responsibilities and/or consciously unacceptable realities.

This psycho pathological process, can make people go as far as to convincing themselves of the fallibility of what their eyes can really see, what their hands can really touch, or what their senses can genuinely feel.

This mindset can make people go even as further as identifying their own fate with that of (not the victims in that matter, but…) the oppressor. Christian Zionists in America today, are more zealous than the most fundamentalist Orthodox Jew. They have a messianic reading of the Bible. They actively support the Israeli occupation. These are not some lunatic religious rednecks; they are wealthy and powerful businessmen and politicians who have learned to discipline their followers and sympathisers, and knew how to make the American political class, listen and execute their pressing demands, no matter how crazy these demands may sound.

Of course there are those who are perfectly conscious of the reality and the legitimacy of the Palestinian cause. But their defense of Israel’s arguments often stems from purely selfish motives. These are perfectly “sound” but highly opportunistic and unscrupulous people, and for anybody who knows the influence and power of the Israel Lobby in America (and more or less in Europe), would understand the kind of motives behind this army of “professional” apologists.

Finally, this is a quotation which I think, sums up the state of self-deception I tried to define above, cited from Pr. Robert Trivers‘ “The Elements of a Scientific Theory of Self-Deception“:

An evolutionary theory of self-deception-the active misrepresentation of reality to the conscious mind-suggests that there may be multiple sources of self-deception in our own species, with important interactions between them. Self-deception (along with internal conflict and fragmentation) may serve to improve deception of others; this may include denial of ongoing deception, self-inflation, ego-biased social theory, false narratives of intention, and a conscious mind that operates via denial and projection to create a self-serving world. Self-deception may also result from internal representations of the voices of significant others, including parents, and may come from internal genetic conflict, the most important for our species arising from differentially imprinted maternal and paternal genes. Selection also favors suppressing negative phenotypic traits.
Finally, a positive form of self-deception may serve to orient the organism favorably toward the future.

Pr. Robert Trivers. Professor of Anthropology, Rutgers University

(Picture by “PaulCalypse“)

Quotation: Bertrand Russell

“The tragedy of the people of Palestine is that their country was ‘given’ by a foreign power to another people for the creation of a new state.
The result was that many hundreds of thousands of innocent people were made permanently homeless. With every newconflict their numbers increased. How much longer is the world willing to endure this spectacle of wanton cruelty? It is abundantly clear that the refugees have every right to the homeland from which they were driven, and the denial of this right is at the heart of the continuing conflict.
No people anywhere in the world would accept being expelled en masse from their country; how can anyone require the people of Palestine to accept a punishment which nobody else would tolerate? A permanent just settlement of the refugees in their homeland is an essential ingredient of any genuine settlement in the Middle East.”

Bertrand Russell

Speech in Cairo, 1970

(from “Wikiquotes” & “Can’t See the Forest“)

(picture of a palestinian child from “RightofReturn“)

The Need For a Muslim "Copernicus"

A (Mini-)Manifesto

No! we (Muslims) are not the center of the world; far from that.

No! we(Muslims) are not the holders of “Absolute Truth”.

And nothing… absolutely nothing justifies the horrors committed in the name of Islam.

Islam should be first and foremost a vehicle for assimilation and tolerance. It’s a cultural matrix for identity.

The levels of intolerance and violence committed in the name of Islam have reached awful heights. Moreover, this is fuelling racist and irrational attacks on Muslims.

Islam, as any other religion, carries a potential of violence and extremism. There’s an urgent need for a profound reform of the religious institutions and a modern reading of Islam itself. We (Muslims) can not afford anymore watching our intellectuals and the elite of our societies fleeing their home countries because of a suffocating freedom’s environment and the devastating state of Human Rights, caused either by authoritarian despots or by fundamentalist crazies.

We (Muslims) must have the courage and integrity to engage in the painful process of introspection, to identify our religion’s failures (at least in the way it is used and abused) at helping most of Muslims embrace modernity and secularism in the most smooth and healthy way possible.We should have the honesty to recognise the dangers of conflating religion and politics.

We should allow free thinking and freedom of conscience. People should never be forced to believe in a Superior Being for the only reason that they were born Muslims. A critical reading should always be permitted of the so-called “sacred texts”, and the public should have his say in all matters of public life.

Women are and should be considered absolute equals of men (arguably, the Moroccan “Family Code” should be held as a model.)

All forms of corporal punishment or death penalty should be abolished. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights should be a base and a commitment in that matter.

Whilst it is true that many Muslims have their lands occupied, that civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq are killed on a daily basis in the name of the Western civilization (or in the name of Islam), that others are oppressed in their own countries by despots supported, financed and often armed by the West, we (Muslims) should have the intelligence to distinguish on the one hand the Western civilization and its overwhelming benefits on the peoples of the world, and on the other hand, the ill-advised foreign policies of some of the Western leaders often motivated by a neo-imperialistic mindset.

( look at the conversation taking place on BBC’s World Have Your Say’s blog)

(picture by meedapt.org)

Mubarak, the Despot of Cairo Strikes Again

Two Egyptian bloggers, Ahmed El Geizawy and Moataz Adel, were arrested yesterday July 16, while on their way to cover a court session involving activists from the officially outlawed Muslim Brotherhood organisation, according to a Global Voices post based on a report by the “Egyptian Watchman” Blogger.

Latest reports, according to the same sources, talk about the release this morning of Moataz, while (I’ve just learned) Ahmed has been freed later in the day after a lengthy investigation.

The two, were know for their irreverence for the regime and their open criticism of Mubarak, the autocrat of Egypt since 1981.

The Egyptian blogosphere is probably the most active and lively in the Arab World. Bloggers have already been subjected in the past to arrests and police harassment. This is not the first time the Mubarak despotic regime tries to suppress dissent and free speech.

Egypt faces huge economic and human rights problems. The authoritarian regime, which wants to paint itself as a major Western ally in the forefront of the American “war against terror”, has no alternative but to oppress its own people and to stifle opposition, be it secular or religious.

(picture by MadMonk)

Remember the Summer of 1967

Forty years ago, the world was almost in a similar situation as today’s. Except that the “enemy” at the time was: Communism. Vietnam was mourning its deaths as the US invasion continued to cause more and more horrors, while in the Middle East, Israel launched a war that would reverberate durably in the region, attacking its Arab neighbours causing deaths, huge movements of refugees and seizing Palestinian land, it still occupies today.

This climate of fear, deaths and uncertainty, added to hours upon hours of images of war and misery, mainly caused by the American foreign policy and that of its client states, created a growing antiwar feeling and an unprecedented wave of solidarity and peace activism.

In Parallel, the Hippie countercultural ideals of love, freedom, and unity, reached their momentum with an ever growing number of wonderfully talented and popular artists joining the movement.

Hundreds of thousands of young and less younger people from around the world and from all walks of life, converged to the city of San Fransisco. The attempt by the local authorities to stop the flow, added even more media interest.

Although the “experience” was tarnished by incidents of violence, drug abuse and many other problems, it produced a generation of “flower children” with new ideals and new views on the World and it inspired similar experiences in other parts of the world. But most of all, this summer sparked a new movement of worldwide solidarity. The peace movement was born.

What’s more, this was an opportunity for so many unique artists to produce an inspiring new music genre, still influential today.

In the Internet age we’re living in today, with an ever easy interconnection between different people from different parts of the world, the solidarity ideals are even stronger than they were back in 67; but one has to admit that the world has not become a safer place, quite the contrary. Extremists from all sides are fuelling each other’s rhetoric and wars, while “moderates” (which I suppose are the majority) remain mostly ineffective in avoiding illegal wars of occupation and violence in all its forms.