Culture clash: European art provokes Muslims

By MICHAEL WEISSENSTEIN, Associated Press Writer

LONDON – With the West locked in conflicts across the Muslim world, why would anyone throw fuel on the fire?

A small group of Europeans have been doing just that — provoking death plots and at least one murder by turning out art that derides the Prophet Muhammad and the Quran in the name of Western values.

Behind the scenes is something bigger: a rising European unease with a rapidly growing Muslim minority, and the spreading sense that the continent has become a front in a clash of civilizations.

Recent events — including surprising electoral success by an anti-Islamic Dutch party, moves to ban veils in France and minarets in Switzerland, and arrests in Ireland and the U.S. this week in an alleged plot to kill a Swedish cartoonist — are signs of the rising tensions.

Pic: Lar Vilks

Swedish artist Lars Vilks says he was defending freedom of speech when he produced a crude black-and-white drawing of Muhammad with a dog's body in 2007. Authorities say that set him in the crosshairs of an assassination plot by extremists including Colleen LaRose, a 46-year-old Muslim convert from Pennsylvania who dubbed herself "Jihad Jane."

"I'm actually not interested in offending the prophet. The point is actually to show that you can," Vilks said in a recent interview with The Associated Press. "There is nothing so holy you can't offend it."

The Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten also said it was defending free speech in 2005 when it printed 12 cartoons of Muhammad, one in a bomb-shaped turban, setting off protests and the torching of Western embassies in several Muslim countries. And bottle-blond Dutch populist politician Geert Wilders said he was promoting European values by producing Fitna, a 15-minute film that lays images of the Sept. 11 attacks alongside verses from the Quran. The film was shown in Britain's House of Lords this month.

The cases are extreme, but millions of moderate Europeans also are re-examining the meaning of the liberal values widely cherished across the continent. How, many are asking, should a liberal society respectfully deal with immigrants who often espouse illiberal values? Should the immigrants adopt the values of their adoptive land — or, to the contrary, should society change to accommodate the newcomers who now form part of it?

France, home to at least five million of the estimated 14 million Muslims in Western Europe, launched a parliament-run dialogue on what to do about full-face veils last year. It ended with a parliamentary panel recommending a ban on the veils in buses, trains, hospitals, post offices and public sector facilities. In December, a large majority of Swiss voters backed a ballot initiative banning the building of any new minarets.

The measures sparked some peaceful protests. But the most incendiary provocations have come from the Dutch and their Nordic neighbors, nations with long histories of homogeneity and less experience with large-scale immigration than former colonial titans like Britain and France.

Jan Hjarpe, a professor emeritus of Islamic studies at Lund University in southern Sweden, near Vilks' home, said the deliberate provocations were helpful to Islamic extremists, who have been hunting for targets that would win them popularity in the Muslim world.

"It has had almost no effect on the Muslim community in Sweden, who regard it as not very interesting," he said. "These threats against him have to do with extremist groups that want something to react to."

Denmark's Prophet Muhammad cartoons emerged from a discussion in 2005 about whether Islam was being treated with special sensitivity among Danish artists for fear of reprisals from extremists. Jyllands-Posten said the project was a way to challenge self-censorhip and show that Muslims, too, must be ready to put up with mockery in a society based on democracy and free speech.

Denmark has an estimated 200,000 Muslims — about 4 percent of the population — while the numbers in Sweden are believed to be somewhat higher.

Islamic law generally opposes any depiction of the prophet, even favorable, for fear it could lead to idolatry. Danish Muslims took the cartoons as an affront, viewing them as symbolic of a backlash against Muslim immigrants in Denmark, manifested by the rise of a nationalist party and sometimes harsh anti-Muslim rhetoric in the Danish press.

An ax-wielding Somali man with suspected al-Qaida links has been jailed since January on preliminary charges of terrorism and attempted murder after breaking into the home of Kurt Westergaard, the 74-year-old Danish artist whose Muhammad-with-bomb-turban cartoon outraged the Muslim world three years ago. The Somali man had won an asylum case and received a residency permit to stay in Denmark, officials said.

Outrage, threats and violence over depictions of Muhammad are nothing new: Salman Rushdie was forced into hiding in England for a decade because the Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran issued a 1989 fatwa, or religious edict, ordering Muslims to kill him because his book, "The Satanic Verses," insulted Islam.

Rushdie has survived, but in 2004, filmmaker Theo Van Gogh was slain on an Amsterdam street by Mohammed Bouyeri, a Dutch Muslim of Moroccan descent incensed by his film "Submission," a fictional study of abused Muslim women. It featured scenes of near-naked women with Quranic texts appearing on their flesh.

Van Gogh was repeatedly shot, and his throat was cut. A letter pinned to his chest with a knife threatened the life of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, an outspoken critic of radical Islam who helped write the film.

The death accelerated the swelling of anti-Islamic populism in the once-tolerant Netherlands, where Muslims now make up some 5 percent of the 16 million population.

In the 1980s and into the 90s, large numbers of immigrants — mainly Turks and Moroccans encouraged to move to the country as cheap labor — barely integrated into mainstream society and instead stuck together in low-rent inner-city neighborhoods.

In light of the abysmal record of the Dutch toward the Jewish population during the Nazi occupation, when some 70 percent were deported and killed, it was considered impolitic to show resentment against another ethnic group. But that didn't mean the resentment wasn't there. It was only in 2002 when the populist politician Pim Fortuyn began speaking openly against immigration and the threat to the Dutch identity that people felt free to voice their anger. Fortuyn's popularity soared, and the party he founded was hugely popular even after Fortuyn himself was assassinated (by an animal rights activist).

Successive governments clamped down on immigration and forced new arrivals to learn about the Dutch language and culture in an attempt to integrate them into mainstream society.

Wilders is derided by his enemies as a neo-fascist but has been able to turn his provocations into political success: his Freedom Party winning in the town of Almere and coming in second in The Hague this month the only two races it ran out of 394 cities and towns that elected local councils.

If the outcome is any indication of the parliamentary vote in June, Wilders could emerge as a king-maker on the national stage with no combination of parties is likely to be able to form a working majority in the next parliament.

One widely praised new book, journalist Christopher Caldwell's "Reflections on the Revolution in Europe" has prompted ongoing discussion of whether Islam can ever truly be integrated into European society. Some see cause for optimism, however faint.

"I wonder whether the liberal order is really quite so weak and inept, whether the story is quite over just yet," Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum wrote in one review.

Associated Press Writers Karl Ritter in Stockholm and Art Max and Mike Corder in Amsterdam contributed to this report.

Read more...

Don’t shoot the messenger

Indians born on the bottom rungs of the social hierarchy suffer a legacy of caste bigotry, rural servitude and class discrimination, Randeep Ramesh wrote in his article. –Photo by AFP

By Irfan Husain
Wednesday, 10 Mar, 2010 | 01:04 AM PST |


Every now and then, I get an email from one irate Indian reader or another, demanding to know why Jawed Naqvi, Dawn’s erudite and irreverent New Delhi correspondent, is so critical of India. Invariably, I reply that they should ask Jawed about his views. I also point out that just as I am often critical about Pakistan, he has every right to point out his country’s shortcomings.

I suspect what upsets these readers is that an Indian should be voicing critical comments about his country in a foreign newspaper. I was subjected to similar censure from expatriate Pakistanis when I wrote for a Gulf daily. Finally, the editor told me politely that my criticism of Musharraf was incompatible with his paper’s policy, and that was the end of the (small) trickle of Dubai dirhams.

The reality is that we are all touchy about seeing our dirty linen washed in public, but somehow, Indians seem super-sensitive to any hint of criticism. While there are many dissenting voices that question Indian claims to having reached Nirvana, they do not find much space in the mainstream media. Although Indian journalists do excellent work in digging up scams and scandals, they do not often question the broad consensus underpinning the ‘India shining’ image the media, politicians and big business work so hard at projecting.

I spent the other evening at the Karachi Boat Club in the company of a European who has spent a long time in the region, and knows South Asia well, having lived in Pakistan and India for several years. When I asked him how it felt to be back in Pakistan after being away for a few years in New Delhi, his answer came as a surprise. As we have known each other for fifteen years, he had no need to be polite: “It feels great to be back,” he replied. “You have no idea how difficult day-to-day life is in New Delhi. Apart from the awful traffic, the pollution, and the expense, you have to put up with the prickliness of most Indians you meet. They are touchy to the point of paranoia. There is a lot of very aggressive poverty in the air. And when the New Delhi airport opens, we’ll have to brace ourselves for yet another self-congratulatory blast. What is truly shocking is how little the well-off Indians care about the poor.”

“Here in Pakistan, people are so much more laid back. Karachi’s traffic flows much faster, and I don’t sense the same kind of anger. While I’m sure there must be slums, I do not see the same level of abject poverty that is ever-present in India. And of course, the food is much better here.”

I suspect this last observation will provoke more ire among my Indian readers than anything else my friend said. The truth is that meat dishes cooked in Pakistan are better than in India, although vegetables there are far tastier than ours. However, this article is not about scoring points, but about the different ways in which we react to criticism. It is also about the myth and the reality underlying the Indian success story.

And before my inbox is flooded with angry emails from across the border and the Indian diaspora, let me say that I am delighted at the huge strides our neighbour has made over the last decade or so. From cricket to technology, the progress has been little short of spectacular. I was thrilled to learn of the discovery of water on the moon by an Indian space mission.

So clearly, Indians have much to be proud of. Nevertheless, there is a dark side to this progress, and one that is ignored by those who react angrily to any criticism. In a recent article reflecting on his recently concluded six-year stint as the Guardian correspondent in India, Randeep Ramesh writes: “Whether I was visiting a rural police station where half-naked men were hung from the ceiling during an interrogation, or talking to the parents of a baby bulldozed to death during a slum clearance, the romance of India’s idealism was undone by its awful daily reality. The venality, mediocrity and indiscipline of its ruling class would be comical but for the fact that politicians appeared incapable of doing anything for the 836 million people who live on 25 pence [33 Pakistani rupees] a day.

“… India is perhaps the most unequal country on the planet, with a tiny elite engorged on the best education, biggest landholdings, and largest incomes. Those born on the bottom rungs of the social hierarchy suffer a legacy of caste bigotry, rural servitude and class discrimination…”

Many of these painful observations apply to Pakistan as well, but by and large, we accept these flaws, and do not react angrily when a foreigner points them out.

The current issue of The Economist carries a searing cover story about the shameful phenomenon of millions of aborted female foetuses, mainly in China and India. This has caused the male-female ratio to be skewed to an alarming extent. The number of male babies in India is now around 108 for 100 girls, raising the possibility of serious social consequences.

Indian civil society is acutely aware of these grave social issues, and many of its members have long been demanding change. However, their voices are often drowned out by the chorus of those shouting ‘India shining’. Many activists have distinguished themselves by their heroic advocacy of the downtrodden, but it is the success stories of dotcom entrepreneurs that are in the spotlight.

India’s soft power is a potent instrument of projecting the country’s image abroad. Its brilliant software engineers, its talented scientists, its outstanding cricketers, and its artists are all wonderful ambassadors for India. Bollywood and India’s appeal to millions of tourists have put the country firmly on the map as a highly desirable destination.

All in all, as I said earlier, Indians have much to be proud of. But by focusing only on their country’s achievements, the danger is that they will lose sight of the huge problems that still exist. Friends who point out these failings do not do so out of a sense of malice, but out of concern. However, as I brace myself for a volley of abuse, I fear that it’s often easier to shoot the messenger than to undertake the hard work needed to address the problems.

Read more...

Toyota and trust: Was the Akio Toyoda apology lost in translation?

By Roland Kelts (Thu Feb 25, 8:20 am ET)

New York – Toyota president Akio Toyoda’s testimony before a US congressional committee Wednesday may have been the most public nonmilitary confrontation between the two radically different cultures since American Commodore Matthew C. Perry first “opened” isolationist Japan to trade in 1854. Perry’s awkward meeting with his foreign hosts is recounted in numerous texts, paintings, and illustrations; Toyoda’s was broadcast worldwide.


I use the quotation marks deliberately. The virtue of openness and transparency in all facets of interaction is very much an American concept – not to mention that more than a century and a half after Perry’s landing, Japan still harbors what many Americans consider archly restrictive and protectionist trade policies.Â

In Japan, indirection, subtlety, and a degree of opacity have been prized for centuries, and to very specific cultural, ethical and geographical ends.

Confucian models of behavior that Japan inherited from China stress an individual’s obligation to others, motivated not by a mortal fear of divine commandments or the letter of the law, but a strong sense of communal duty, and the shame that accrues when one fails to meet it.

This results in a far more group- and community-minded culture of the like-minded than what we tend to prize in America: opinionated, headstrong mavericks who are often lauded for their capacity to stand out from the crowd. In Japan, rather, it is the individual who can facilitate and sustain maximum harmony among group members – the Japanese concept of wa – who achieves praise for leadership in society.

Mr. Toyoda may be the official president of Toyota Motor Corp., but his title denotes a very different role and set of responsibilities.

Hence, despite Japan’s innovations in technology and engineering, and world-beating brands like Sony, Nintendo, and Toyota, there are no equivalents to a Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, or Martha Stewart. Indeed, a surer sign of a successful corporate leader in Japan is that he (they are almost all men) remains virtually invisible to the public eye, while his organization thrives.

It’s not easy, of course. In any culture, keeping a group of human beings operating harmoniously is a tricky balancing act among competing interests. Face saving, allowing others to maintain their dignity even when they have erred, is tantamount to ensuring that all group members feel respected. Openly admitting a mistake, or forcing another to do so, invites embarrassment and disharmony. Far better to indirectly make or exchange concessions; indirection eludes confrontation, thus avoiding conflict.

Toyoda’s testimony on Capitol Hill was beset by trans-cultural misunderstandings before it even began. His initial decision to decline an invitation to testify and instead relegate duties to the US division probably made sense in Japan, where Toyoda lives and works far from his US-based subordinates.

But in the US, his response seemed arrogant and aloof. A subsequent written invitation, sent by committee chairman Rep. Edolphus Towns (D) of New York, effectively allowed Toyoda to save face at home: he reversed his decision as an appropriate response to a respectfully formal request.

To many Americans at the testimony or watching on TV, Toyoda’s answers, delivered in articulate and thoughtful Japanese, sounded unnecessarily obtuse and verbose – much like the language itself, which rarely contains personal pronouns or direct, declarative syntax. In one memorable outburst, Chairman Towns asked Toyoda: “What I’m trying to find out: Is that a yes or a no?”

To Toyoda’s Japanese colleagues, media and viewers, many of the American lawmakers may have seemed impertinent at best, crude, immature, and insulting at worst – openly disrespectful of an invited guest and honorable shacho, or company leader.

Openness of the American kind is often frowned upon not just in Japan’s corporate culture, but in society at large. A direct “no” is hard to utter or obtain in even the most casual interactions. Invitations to social gatherings may be met with a modest response along the lines of “Oh, how nice,” or “I appreciate that, thank you,” – that may really mean “no, thank you.”

The Japanese language contains two distinct words to specify modes of behavior – tatemae, or public etiquette, and honne, or true feeling – that every Japanese by birth is expected to know and understand. On an archipelago slightly smaller than California, roughly 30 percent habitable, and host to a population nearly half that of the United States, getting along in limited public space is a top priority.

But does this aversion to openness mean that most Japanese prefer face-saving lies to honesty and sincerity, echoing the racist stereotype of a two-faced, double-dealing people in World War II propaganda?

Hardly. Displacing American-style openness and transparency in Japan is a virtue that is largely unspoken and meant to transcend both: trust.

When one lawmaker questioned the sincerity of Toyoda’s remorse at yesterday’s hearing, the president seemed stunned. He had come from Japan to express his sincere remorse, he replied, and he would now have to reflect very seriously on her skepticism.

“All the Toyota vehicles bear my name,” he had said in English in his opening statement. “For me, when the cars are damaged, it is as though I am as well.”

Minutes after the hearings, Japanese TV broadcast video of Toyoda addressing a roomful of American dealers and employees. In thanking them for their support and calling for renewed confidence, he suddenly paused, choked up and in tears.

Damaged trust is very hard to restore, of course. And whether you express it openly or suffer in silence, it still hurts.

Roland Kelts is the author of “Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture has Invaded the US,” and a lecturer at the University of Tokyo. He divides his time between New York and Tokyo.

Read more...

Top Defense Contractors Spent $27 Million Lobbying At Time Of Afghan Surge Announcement

Sam Stein
Thu Jan 21, 12:55 pm ET
With Reporting By Julian Hattem

The ten largest defense contractors in the nation spent more than $27 million lobbying the federal government in the last quarter of 2009, according to a review of recently-filed lobbying records.


The massive amount of money used to influence the legislative process came as the White House announced it would ramp up military activity in Afghanistan and Congress considered appropriations bills to pay for that buildup. All told, these ten companies, the largest revenue earners in the industry, spent roughly $7.2 million more lobbying in the fourth quarter of 2009 (October through December) than in the three months prior.

Such an increase in lobbying expenditures is partly a reflection of just how profitable the business of waging war can be. Each of these companies earned billions of dollars in defense contracts this past year. As the U.S. ramps up its military activities overseas, and the army is stretched thin by other ventures, it stands to reason that the contracts won't dry up any time soon.

In mid-December, Congress passed a defense appropriations bill that totaled more than $635 billion. Shortly thereafter, the firm Northrop Grumman moved its corporate office to the Washington D.C. region to be closer to the heart of legislative action. Among the issues on which these ten firms lobbied, "appropriations" was the most frequently cited in lobbying forms.

"We've built Rome," one longtime good-government official said of the symbiosis between contractors and the government.

On a related note, the Congressional Research Service released a report on Thursday, which showed that the number of private security contractors has bulged in the wake of Obama's Afghanistan-surge announcement. Currently, contractors in Afghanistan make up between 22 percent and 30 percent of armed U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

Below is a breakdown of the military contractor, lobbying expenditures and the amount of money the company earned in contracts last year.

Company: Boeing
Lobbying In Fourth Quarter: $6.13 million
Lobbying In Third Quarter: $3.71 million
Federal Contracts in FY08 (according to fedspending.org): $23,547,610,878

Company: United Technologies
Lobbying In Fourth Quarter: $3.66 million
Lobbying In Third Quarter: $1.39 million
Federal Contracts in FY08: $8,973,091,375

Company: Lockheed Martin
Lobbying In Fourth Quarter: $3.16 million
Lobbying In Third Quarter: $3.1 million
Federal Contracts in FY08: $35,729,713,235

Company: Honeywell International
Lobbying In Fourth Quarter: $1.94 million
Lobbying In Third Quarter: $1.66 million
Federal Contracts in FY08: $2,439,634,130

Company: Northrop Grumman
Lobbying In Fourth Quarter: $5.43 million
Lobbying In Third Quarter: $3.62 million
Federal Contracts in FY08: $24,921,637,857

Company: General Dynamics
Lobbying In Fourth Quarter: $3,000,697
Lobbying In Third Quarter: $2,496,308
Federal Contracts in FY08: $14,244,546,441

Company: Raytheon
Lobbying In Fourth Quarter: $2.19 million
Lobbying In Third Quarter: $1.9 million
Federal Contracts in FY08: $14,276,349,843

Company: L3
Lobbying In Fourth Quarter: $1.05 million
Lobbying In Third Quarter: $990,000
Federal Contracts in FY08: $7,464,053,901

Company: Textron
Lobbying In Fourth Quarter: $460,000
Lobbying In Third Quarter: $890,000
Federal Contracts in FY08: $2,858,396,315

Company: Goodrich
Lobbying In Fourth Quarter: $447, 098
Lobbying In Third Quarter: $425,529
Federal Contracts in FY08: $490,224,761

Read more...

Another God That Failed

Pat Buchanan
Fri Jan 8, 3:00 am ET

Creators Syndicate – "America is Losing the Free World," was the arresting headline over the Financial Times column by Gideon Rachman. His thesis:

The largest democracies of South America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia — Brazil, South Africa, Turkey, India — are all moving out of America's orbit. "(T)he assumption that the democracies would stick together is proving unfounded."


President Lula of Brazil has cut a "lucrative oil deal with China, spoken warmly of Hugo Chavez," hailed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on his election "victory" and honored the Iranian president with a state visit.

In the Security Council, South Africa sided with Russia and China in killing human rights resolutions and protecting Zimbabwe and Iran. Turkey has moved to engage Hezbollah, Hamas and Tehran, and spurn Israel. Polls show anti-Americanism surging in Turkey. From trade to sanctions on Iran and Burma, India sides with China against America.

The ruling parties in all four were democratically elected. Yet, in all four, democratic solidarity is being trumped by an older solidarity — of Third World people of color against a "white, rich Western world."

Writing in World Affairs, Geoffrey Wheatcroft quotes author Aaron David Miller ("The Much Too Promised Land") that across the Middle East America is "not liked, not respected and not feared."

What makes this "frightening," says Wheatcroft, "is that many American politicians and commentators ... have yet to grasp this reality. Such ignorance is evident in the bizarre notion — current even before George W. Bush took the oath of office — that America not only can and should spread democracy, but that this would be in the American national interest. Why did anyone think this?"

Asks Wheatcroft, "If the United States is not liked or respected throughout the Arab countries, why on earth would Americans want to democratize them?"

Excellent question. Some of us have been asking it of the democracy-uber-alles neoconservatives for decades. Yet, these democracy worshipers not only converted Bush, they demanded and got free elections in Lebanon, the West Bank, Gaza and Egypt. Big winners — Hezbollah, Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Wheatcroft quotes Eugene Rogan, who has written a history of the Arab peoples, that "in any free and fair election in the Arab world today, the Islamists would win hands down. ... (T)he inconvenient truth about the Arab world today is that in any free election, those parties hostile to the United States are likely to win."

Given free, inclusive elections in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt, there is a likelihood our allies would be dumped and leaders chosen who were committed to kicking us out of the Middle East and throwing the Israelis into the Mediterranean.

What, then, is the rationale for the National Endowment for Democracy to continue tax dollars to promote such elections?

In "World on Fire," Amy Chua writes that in Third World countries there is almost always a "market-dominant minority" — Indians in East Africa, whites in South Africa, overseas Chinese — which, in a free-market, attains higher levels of income and controls a disproportionate share of the wealth.

When democracy arrives, however, the racial, tribal or ethnic majority votes to dispossess these market-dominant minorities.

When colonialism ended in East Africa, Indians were massacred. The Chinese suffered a horrible pogrom in Indonesia in 1965, when the dictator Sukarno fell — and another when Suharto fell. Picked clean, two-thirds of the 250,000 whites in Rhodesia when Robert Mugabe took power are gone. Half the Boers and Brits have fled Jacob Zuma's South Africa. In Bolivia, Evo Morales is dispossessing Europeans to reward the "indigenous people" who voted him into power. Chavez is doing the same in Venezuela.

Query: If democracy, from Latin America to Africa to the Middle East, brings to power parties and politicians who, for reasons religious, racial or historic, detest the "white, rich Western world," why are we pushing democracy in these regions?

Our forefathers were not afflicted with this infantile disorder. John Winthrop, whose "city on a hill" inspired Ronald Reagan, declared that, among civil nations, "a democracy is ... accounted the meanest and worst of all forms of government."

"Remember, democracy never lasts long," said Adams. "It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide."

Added Jefferson, "A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where 51 percent of the people may take away the rights of the other 49." Madison agreed: "Democracy is the most vile form of government."

The questions raised here are crucial.

If racial and religious bonds and ancient animosities against the West trump any democratic solidarity with the West, of what benefit to America is democracy in the Third World? And if one-person, one-vote democracy in multiethnic countries leads to dispossession and persecution of the market-dominant minority, why would we promote democracy there?

Why would we promote a system in an increasingly anti-American world that empowers enemies and imperils friends?

Is democratism our salvation — or an ideology of Western suicide?

Patrick Buchanan is the author of the new book "Churchill, Hitler and 'The Unnecessary War." To find out more about Patrick Buchanan, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

Read more...

Dear Hillary, which Pakistan are you talking about?

By Qalandar Bux Memon
Tuesday, 24 Nov, 2009 | 01:51 PM PST |


‘Osama Bin Laden resides in Pakistan.’
So goes the mantra of the US government. This is followed by the assertion that ‘Mullah Omar’ resides in Pakistan. Both might be true. My cousin, who lives in Sindh province, was given the first name ‘Osama’ and certainly in a country full of mullahs there must be a few hundred conjunctions of Mullah and Omar ... giving us many Mullah Omars in the Islamic Republic.

Another mantra – that of most mainstream western media outlets – is to present Pakistan as a country on the brink of failure and sunk in violence. This is aptly summed up in the Newsweek headline of Pakistan as ‘the most dangerous place in the world’. And there is, again, partial truth in this. Besides the occasional US drone attacks, the US-sponsored renditions, MI5/ISI torture nexuses and Taliban attacks, the gravest danger we face is in crossing the roads – road accidents in our country are among the highest in the world.

It simply is not a safe place to be, nor is Pakistan a state that we Pakistanis can run ... we are corrupt, violent, harbourers of terrorists (in the same way Saddam harboured nuclear bombs) and simply do not understand Islam (which, as the US State Department and the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office via their spokespersons at the Quilliam Foundation will tell you, is a religion of peace and in harmony with Western foreign policy!) In fact, the Quran enjoins us to servitude to the US State Department. So goes the line of these sponsored Muslim spokespersons.

US governments and their aides in the Western media know realpolitik. The image systematically created of Pakistan by these sources has an operative function of furthering US and Nato intervention in this region. The logic is simple but all the premises are false and based on a distortion of facts, history and most conceptions of justice – Christian, Islamic, liberal and Marxist.

It runs thus: America has a right to pre-emptive action against those planning to attack it or its interests. Islamists are planning to attack America or its interests. Pakistan harbours Islamists. Therefore, America has a right to pre-emptive action against the Islamists harboured in Pakistan. I do not believe that the State Department or the FCO care much for Pakistan, its people, or its realities – the US has a long history of murdering the people of the Third World, from the Philippines and Vietnam to Iraq and Pakistan today - for them it’s a market they want for their companies and a region for their ‘war’ in Afghanistan. The image of Pakistan they manufacture, however, does not and can not correspond to the myriad of realities that exist there. It is not meant to.

What then are these realities? Here allow me to throw some of these realities at you by telling you of only a few of the people of this soil.

Let’s take Shah Inayat, a Sufi saint who in the early 1700s set up a commune on theological lines in defiance of the Mughal Empire. He held that the land belonged to God and that only those who worked to grow the crop were entitled to it. ‘Those who sow should eat’ was the commune’s motto. His thoughts convinced peasants far and wide not to pay crop shares as tax to either the Empire or local landlords. Oral history suggests that the commune grew to over 40,000 strong. As it acquired more members so too did it attract the wrath of the Empire. Emperor Farrukh Sayyar sent in troops; upon their arrival they besieged the commune, but it resisted for months. Having failed with force, the Empire turned to cunning. Offering peace terms and swearing on the Quran to guarantee Shah Inayat’s safety, they angled him out of the commune, arrested and then beheaded him. In Pakistan’s Sindh province, Shah Inayat’s name is well known and he continues to inspire calls for social justice.

Or take the poet Shaikh Ayaz, who, for those who know his work, is considered to be the foremost poet of the 20th century, comparable to Pablo Neruda or Nazim Hikmet. Ayaz was born in 1923 in the city of Shikarpur. A firebrand poet, he was imprisoned for his anti-establishment views and his first book was banned by the colonial government upon publication. In 1965 more of Ayaz’s books were seized and banned as his defiant poetry challenged the republic’s pro-war rhetoric against India. He lived and understood a Pakistan that was not confined to Jinnah and Iqbal, the military state’s two symbolic heirlooms, but one nourished by the soil’s deep connection with Hinduism, Buddhism, river gods, Sufi saints and the civilization-giving river ‘Sindhu’ (Indus). Connected to this 5000-year-old history Ayaz was able to defy mullah, general and invader. Listen to the confidence in his civilization in this short poem entitled The Conquering Ant:

After his attack and conquest
Alexander the Great
Took with him

Two philosophers from Sindh

And he asked them on the way,
What is the philosophy of Sindh?

One of them said,
‘An ant in its home in Sindh
has a grasp on matters philosophical
greater than that of Aristotle’.

The other said,
‘An ant going along its way
Is a conqueror greater than Alexander the Great’.

The Americans and their sponsors will not tell you about him – after all, he would not bow to any invader!

Again let’s take David Barkat. David, 55, lives with other Christians in the Kachi abadi (slum) in Lahore, where he migrated in 1991 to make a living. He sells oranges and peanuts from a small stall in the winter, and ice in the summer, working from 6am to 8pm. If he has a good day he makes around 130 rupees (about 94 British pence). From this income he has to support his family and keep up with bills, food and other necessities…to give you an idea of the difficulty involved, twelve bananas in the market were going for 60 rupees today. None of his three children got any formal education: ‘I cannot even dream of getting my children educated’. They had to work to help the family survive from a young age. David survives by his own ingenuity and his community’s. He relies on an informal support network for interest free loans and other help.

The state and NGOs have been absent. ‘I have been waiting 25 years for the government to provide us with help and work effectively… and I will continue to wait’. David knows that neither army commander General Kayani, nor President Zardari, opposition leader Nawaz Sharif, Hillary Clinton or American Viceroy for Pakistan Richard Holbrooke know or care of his needs or the Pakistani Christian community’s – and so he gets on with his life, as he should and as we all do – despite the US bombs and colonisation, despite the Taliban and the intrigues of the elite and intelligence agencies - with ingenuity, wit, and the wisdom of generations.

How ridiculous to us, then, seem the views of Newsweek magazine, CNN, BBC, the UK and US governments and Mrs Clinton’s imperial visits. They know how to cut political deals, but nothing of Pakistan’s realities. What we Pakistanis, home and abroad, must avoid is the internalisation of this propagandist image of Pakistan and Islam – no easy task given that most of our intellectuals, military brass, mullahs, and the political class have auctioned themselves off. We are part of the long chain of civilizations and in our daily lives we live a beat of our ancient soil and its history. It’s the beat, to remind you of Ayaz’s poem, of the self-conquering ant going about its daily routine. It is civilization.

This is an article by Qalandar Bux Memon, editor of Naked Punch, from the www.thesamosa.co.uk, a new UK-based politics, culture and arts journal, campaigning blog and website.

Read more...

Can Obama stand up to Israel?

By Helena Cobban
Tue Nov 24, 4:00 am ET

Washington – President Obama urgently needs to distance Washington from the provocative – and illegal – actions the Israeli government has been undertaking in Jerusalem.

He needs to do this to save the two-state solution that he supports between Israelis and Palestinians. He needs to do it, too, because it will help protect US troops around the world. Jerusalem is a core concern for many of the world's 1.5 billion Muslims, and with US forces now facing tense situations in several majority-Muslim countries, Washington has a stronger need than ever to keep the goodwill of the peoples of those lands.

This is one of the main findings from a study-tour of the region I co-led earlier this month. In Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, and the West Bank, strongly pro-US leaders underlined to us the importance of Jerusalem to their own political fortunes and those of other American allies throughout the Muslim world.

Israel took control of the eastern portion of Jerusalem, including the historic, walled "Old City," in the 1967 war. Since then, Israeli governments have invested heavily in implanting Jewish settlers into East Jerusalem, while squeezing out the area's indigenous Palestinians, both Muslims and Christians.

In recent months this campaign of ethnic transformation has intensified. On Nov. 16, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced plans for the construction of 900 new housing units in the southeast settlement of Gilo. He reportedly did this right after Mr. Obama's special envoy to the region, George Mitchell, had pleaded with him not to. But aside from expressing "dismay," have we seen any visible consequences from Washington? Not yet.

Today, Jerusalem is a tinderbox. If it ignites, American interests will be at risk, because Washington is seen as acquiescing in Israel's harmful actions there.

In decades past, when policy differences arose between Israel and the United States, many of Israel's supporters argued that it was on the front line against terrorism, so Americans should not second-guess its judgments or policies.

That was never a wholly convincing argument. But now, the situation has turned quite around. Today, it is American men and women who are on the front lines and it is their – and our – interests that are most at risk.

By not holding Israel to account, Washington is needlessly – and recklessly – offending hundreds of millions of Muslims on whose goodwill our troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere depend.

While in Jerusalem, we saw Israel's destructive policies firsthand. The Jewish state is:

•Expanding the large Israeli-only settlements that ring the city to the east, north, and south.

•Supporting smaller settler "outposts" in the heart of Jerusalem's remaining Palestinian enclaves.

•Completing the 24-foot-high Separation Wall that encloses many Palestinian portions of the city and slices through the center of others.

•Delegating responsibility for archaeological excavations in sensitive areas to settler organizations that have worked feverishly – and quite unscientifically – to push tunnels right under the historic "Muslim Quarter" of the walled Old City.

•Making it almost impossible for the city's Palestinians to expand their housing stock, and conducting regular demolitions of Palestinian housing it deems "illegal."

All these Israeli actions are themselves illegal under international law, since Israel controls East Jerusalem and the surrounding West Bank only as a military occupying power, not a rightful sovereign government.

Imagine if, when the US military occupied Baghdad after 2003, Washington had taken steps like these! Fortunately, it didn't. Instead, it steadily delegated authority back to Iraqis themselves.

The US is far and away Israel's biggest external supporter. The aid America gives to her allies should not be unconditional but used to uphold US interests. In the Middle East, that means US dollars and diplomacy should support a fair and sustainable peace between Israelis and Palestinians and the rule of law in an otherwise chaotic world.

It's true that over the years many Americans have become persuaded that Greater Jerusalem has been "unified," that it all belongs to Israel, and indeed is "Israel's eternal capital."

The rest of the world – and international law – doesn't agree. What people in other countries see is Israel thumbing its nose at international law as it works to transform the city's ethnic composition.

This is disastrous for Washington's peace diplomacy, which has always been based on the principle that the city's final disposition should be negotiated, rather than unilaterally determined through the creation of new facts on the ground.

In his landmark Cairo speech to Muslims in June, Obama said he would "personally pursue" a two-state solution "with all the patience and dedication that the task requires." Today, Obama may feel that the political price of standing up to Israel – which few US presidents have done – is too high. It is high – but the risk that continued acquiescence to Israel's policies in Jerusalem poses to American lives (and those of Palestinians and Israelis) is now even higher. This is Obama's chance to set a new, just course for the Middle East on a firmly pro-American basis.

He can do this by linking US aid to Israel to its compliance with international law in the city, by supporting action by the UN Security Council to uphold international standards there, and in other ways.

The 250,000 remaining Palestinians of Jerusalem desperately need this action. So does Obama's peace diplomacy.

And so, too, do the 200,000-plus US service members deployed today in tense, majority-Muslim lands.

Helena Cobban, a longtime correspondent and columnist for the Monitor, was recently appointed executive director of the Washington-based Council for the National Interest.


Read more...