Seumas Milne Guardian/UK 9 April 2015
So relentless has the violence convulsing the Middle East become that an attack on yet another Arab country and its descent into full-scale war barely registers in the rest of the world. That’s how it has been with the onslaught on impoverished Yemen by western-backed Saudi Arabia and a string of other Gulf dictatorships.
Barely two weeks into their bombardment from air and sea, more than 500 have been killed and the Red Cross is warning of a “catastrophe” in the port of Aden. Where half a century ago Yemenis were tortured and killed by British colonial troops, Houthi rebels from the north are now fighting Saudi-backed forces loyal to the ousted President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi. Up to 40 civilians sheltering at a UN refugee camp in the poorest country in the Arab world were killed in a single Saudi air attack last week.
But of course the US and Britain are standing shoulder to shoulder with the Saudi intervention. Britain’s foreign secretary, Phillip Hammond, has promised to “support the Saudi operation in every way we can”. The pretext for the Saudi war is that Yemen’s Houthi fighters are supported by Iran and loyal to a Shia branch of Islam. Hadi, who was installed after a popular uprising as part of a Saudi-orchestrated deal and one-man election in 2012, is said to be the legitimate president with every right to call on international support.
The Houthi uprising, supported by parts of the Army has its roots in poverty and discrimination, and dates back to the time of the US-British invasion of Iraq more than a decade ago. But Yemen, which has a strong al-Qaida presence, has also been the target of hundreds of murderous US drone attacks in recent years. And the combination of civil war and external intervention is giving al-Qaida a new lease of life. For the Saudis, Yemen is about enforcing their control of the Arabian peninsula and their leadership of the Sunni world
The idea that the corrupt tyranny of Saudi Arabia, the sectarian heart of reaction in the Middle East since colonial times, and its fellow Gulf autocracies are going to bring stability, let alone freedom, to the people of Yemen is beyond fantasy. This is the state that crushed the popular uprising in Bahrain in 2011, that funded the overthrow of Egypt’s first elected president in 2013, and has sponsored takfiri jihadi movements for years with disastrous consequences.
For the Saudis, the war in Yemen is about enforcing their control of the Arabian peninsula and their leadership of the Sunni world in the face of Shia and Iranian resurgence. For the western powers that arm them to the hilt, it’s about money, and the pivotal role that Saudi Arabia plays in protecting their interests in the oil and gas El Dorado that is the Middle East.
Since the disasters of Iraq and Afghanistan, the US and its allies are reluctant to risk boots on the ground. But their military interventions are multiplying. Barack Obama has bombed seven mainly Muslim countries since he became US president. There are now four full-scale wars raging in the Arab world (Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen), and every one of them has involved US and wider western military intervention. Saudi Arabia is by far the largest British arms market; US weapons sales to the Gulf have exceeded those racked up by George Bush, and last week Obama resumed US military aid to Egypt.
What has changed is that, in true imperial fashion, the west’s alliances have become more contradictory, playing off one side against the other. In Yemen, it is supporting the Sunni powers against Iran’s Shia allies. In Iraq, it is the opposite: the US and its friends are giving air support to Iranian-backed Shia militias fighting the Sunni takfiri group Isis. In Syria, they are bombing one part of the armed opposition while arming and training another. The nuclear deal with Iran needs to be seen in that context. The US isn’t leaving the Middle East, as some imagine, but looking for a more effective way of controlling it at arm’s length.
So a tilt towards Iran can be offset with war in Yemen or Syria. Something similar can be seen in US policy in Latin America. Only a couple of months after Obama’s historic opening towards Cuba last December, he signed an order declaring Cuba’s closest ally, Venezuela, “an unusual and extraordinary threat to US national security” and imposed sanctions over alleged human rights abuses.
What’s needed is a UN-backed negotiation to end the Yemeni conflict, not another big power-fuelled sectarian proxy war. These calamitous interventions have to be brought to an end. [Abridged]
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/08/us-wars-barack-obama-saudi-arabia-yemen
Tuesday, 14 April 2015
Monday, 6 April 2015
I never fully believed that British Muslims were being victimised, but then I was stopped at Heathrow
Hanna Yusuf Independent/UK 3 April 2015
I've always been aware of the injustices British Muslims face, but I've sometimes doubted the narrative of the "Muslim victim".
Why is it such a big deal if you're singled-out every now and then because of your appearance? If you have nothing to hide, there should be no problem – just cooperate, surely? Security officers would never apply a blanket stop and search; they only stop potential criminals with good reason, right?
Wrong. Just over a month ago, I was about to arrive at border control at London Heathrow, having flown in from Dubai. Suddenly, I was pulled aside and told to hand over my passport. I smiled at the officer as she scrutinised what I was wearing from my headscarf to my sandals. She didn't smile back.
I gave her my passport, naïvely expecting a normal conversation about what I had been up to during my travels. Instead I was greeted with a look that I can only describe as being full of contempt.
She began by asking general questions such as “why are you alone?”. I happily answered as fully as I could. She then began to unpick anything that I said with suspicion. She found it difficult to believe that I had paid for my own ticket and I had to explain how a mere Muslim girl could afford a trip to the Middle East.
She made me feel intimidated by directing me closer to the wall – perhaps to stop the possibility of me getting away – by which time I began to cry. Ignoring my tears, she continued to make me feel like a criminal, without knowing anything about me. It took a long time before she seemed to accept that it's possible for an unmarried young Muslim woman to travel alone without the lure of a male jihadist.
I was so wounded by this incident. I had no problem with being questioned by airport security, but what troubled me was the way the situation was handled. To label someone as guilty until innocent is problematic, but what made the situation worse is that even once she established that I wasn't an extremist, I was still treated with doubt.
This may seem minor, especially if you compare it to other instances of discrimination in the UK. But these small, everyday moments have a cumulative effect, and increasingly undermine the relationship between British Muslims and their home country.
I'm completely aware that our authorities have to take certain measures to protect us. But it's crucial that we draw a line between national security and what can be considered to be the marginalisation of an already marginalised group.
After the incident with the security officer, I made my way to border control. I was referred to a manager, mainly because I could not stop crying. He was kind and very apologetic, but he justified it as a necessary part of the airport's security measures. He assumed that the reason I was stopped was because I am a “young Muslim girl”, and therefore a potential "jihadi bride".
Indeed, I am young and I was wearing a headscarf. However, if we were to substitute the word "Muslim" for another minority group, would that be ok? Would anyone ever say: “You were stopped because you're a young Jewish girl, so we couldn't take any risks”?
It's so disheartening when the people who are supposed to be protecting you treat you like a criminal. To tackle everyday Islamophobia, we must firstly acknowledge its existence. And once we've done this, we can finally start to repair the values of tolerance and diversity that Britain is supposed to be built on.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/i-never-fully-believed-that-british-muslims-were-being-victimised-but-then-i-was-stopped-at-heathrow-10153102.html
I've always been aware of the injustices British Muslims face, but I've sometimes doubted the narrative of the "Muslim victim".
Why is it such a big deal if you're singled-out every now and then because of your appearance? If you have nothing to hide, there should be no problem – just cooperate, surely? Security officers would never apply a blanket stop and search; they only stop potential criminals with good reason, right?
Wrong. Just over a month ago, I was about to arrive at border control at London Heathrow, having flown in from Dubai. Suddenly, I was pulled aside and told to hand over my passport. I smiled at the officer as she scrutinised what I was wearing from my headscarf to my sandals. She didn't smile back.
I gave her my passport, naïvely expecting a normal conversation about what I had been up to during my travels. Instead I was greeted with a look that I can only describe as being full of contempt.
She began by asking general questions such as “why are you alone?”. I happily answered as fully as I could. She then began to unpick anything that I said with suspicion. She found it difficult to believe that I had paid for my own ticket and I had to explain how a mere Muslim girl could afford a trip to the Middle East.
She made me feel intimidated by directing me closer to the wall – perhaps to stop the possibility of me getting away – by which time I began to cry. Ignoring my tears, she continued to make me feel like a criminal, without knowing anything about me. It took a long time before she seemed to accept that it's possible for an unmarried young Muslim woman to travel alone without the lure of a male jihadist.
I was so wounded by this incident. I had no problem with being questioned by airport security, but what troubled me was the way the situation was handled. To label someone as guilty until innocent is problematic, but what made the situation worse is that even once she established that I wasn't an extremist, I was still treated with doubt.
This may seem minor, especially if you compare it to other instances of discrimination in the UK. But these small, everyday moments have a cumulative effect, and increasingly undermine the relationship between British Muslims and their home country.
I'm completely aware that our authorities have to take certain measures to protect us. But it's crucial that we draw a line between national security and what can be considered to be the marginalisation of an already marginalised group.
After the incident with the security officer, I made my way to border control. I was referred to a manager, mainly because I could not stop crying. He was kind and very apologetic, but he justified it as a necessary part of the airport's security measures. He assumed that the reason I was stopped was because I am a “young Muslim girl”, and therefore a potential "jihadi bride".
Indeed, I am young and I was wearing a headscarf. However, if we were to substitute the word "Muslim" for another minority group, would that be ok? Would anyone ever say: “You were stopped because you're a young Jewish girl, so we couldn't take any risks”?
It's so disheartening when the people who are supposed to be protecting you treat you like a criminal. To tackle everyday Islamophobia, we must firstly acknowledge its existence. And once we've done this, we can finally start to repair the values of tolerance and diversity that Britain is supposed to be built on.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/i-never-fully-believed-that-british-muslims-were-being-victimised-but-then-i-was-stopped-at-heathrow-10153102.html
The Christian tragedy in the Middle East did not begin with Isis
Robert Fisk Independent/UK 05 April 2015
One summer's day in 1990, I walked into a beautiful Crusader chapel in Keserwan, a gentle mountainside north of Beirut, where an old Catholic Maronite priest pointed to a Byzantine mosaic of – I think – Saint John. What he wanted to show me was the holy man's eyes. They had been stabbed out of the mosaic by a sword or lance at some point in antiquity. 'The Muslims did this,' the priest said.
His words had added clarity because at that time the Lebanese Christian army General Michel Aoun – who thought he was the president and still, today, dreams of this unlikely investiture – was fighting a hopeless war against Hafez Assad's Syrian army. Daily, I was visiting the homes of dead Christians, killed by Syrian shellfire. The Syrians, in the priest's narrative, were the same ‘Muslims’ who had stabbed out the eyes in the ancient picture.
I remember at the time – and often since – I would say to myself that this was nonsense, that you cannot graft ancient history onto the present. (The Maronites, by the way, had supported the earlier Crusaders. The Orthodox of the time stood with the Muslims.) Christian-Muslim enmity on this scale was a tale to frighten schoolchildren.
And yet only last year, as shells burst above the Syrian town of Yabroud, I walked into the country’s oldest church and found paintings of the saints. All had had their eyes gouged out and been torn into strips. I took one of those strips home to Beirut, the painted eyes of the saints staring at me even as I write this article. This was not the sacrilege of antiquity. It was done by ghoulish men, probably from Iraq, only months ago.
Like 9/11 – long after Hollywood had regularly demonised Muslims as barbarian killers who wish to destroy America – it seems that our worst fears turn into reality. The priest in 1990 cannot have lived long enough to know how the new barbarians would strike at the saints in Yabroud.
Note how I have not mentioned the enslavement of Christian women in Iraq, the Islamic State’s massacre of Christians and Yazidis, the burning of Mosul's ancient churches or the destruction of the great Armenian church of Deir el-Zour that commemorated the genocide of its people in 1915. Nor the kidnapping of Nigerian schoolgirls. Not even the very latest massacre in Kenya where the numbers of Christian dead and the cruelty of their sectarian killers is, indeed, of epic, Hollywood proportions. Nor have I mentioned the ferocious Sunni-Shia wars that now dwarf the tragedy of the Christians.
But the Christian tragedy in the Middle East today needs to be re-thought – as it will be, of course, when Armenians around the world commemorate the 100th anniversary of the genocide of their people by Ottoman Turkey. Perhaps it is time that we acknowledge not only this act of genocide but come to regard it not as just the murder of a minority within the Ottoman Empire, but specifically a Christian minority, killed because they were Armenian but also because they were Christian (many of whom, unfortunately, rather liked the Orthodox, anti-Ottoman Tsar).
And their fate bears some uncommon parallels with the Islamic State murderers of today. The Armenian men were massacred. The women were gang-raped or forced to convert or left to die of hunger. Babies were burned alive – after being stacked in piles. Islamic State cruelty is not new, even if the cult’s technology defeats anything its opponents can achieve.
In Kuwait last week, a good and thoughtful Muslim, an American university graduate – within the al-Sabah family and prominent in the government – shook his head with disbelief when he spoke of Islamic State. ‘I watched the video of them burning the Jordanian pilot alive,’ he told me. ‘I watched it several times. I had to, because I had to understand their technology. Do you know they used seven camera angles to film this atrocity? We could not compete with this media technology. We have to learn.’
And this is true. The West – that amorphous, dangerous expression – has still not understood the use of this technology – especially the use which the cult makes of the internet – nor have the Muslim Arab imams who should be speaking about the fearful acts of Islamic State.
But most are not, any more than they denounced the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, when around a million Muslims killed each other. Because they were on Saddam’s side in that war. And because the Islamic State’s ideology is too obviously of Wahabi inspiration, and thus too close to some of the Gulf Arab states.
The crimes of Islamic State are as brutal as any committed by the German army in the Second World War, but Jews who converted were not spared Hitler’s plan for their extermination. What the Islamic State and the 1915 Ottoman Turks have in common is a cruelty based on ideology – even theology – rather than race hatred, although that is not far away. After the burning of churches and of synagogues, the rubble looks much the same.
The tragedy of the Arab world is now on such a literally Biblical scale that we are all demeaned by it. Yet I also think of Lebanon where the old priest showed me his mosaic with the missing eyes and where the Lebanese Christians and Muslims fought each other – with the help of many foreign nations, including Israel, Syria and America – and killed 150,000 of their own people.
Yet today, Lebanese Muslims and Christians, though still politically deeply divided, are protecting each other amid the gale-force winds around them. Why? Because they are today a much more educated population. It’s because they value education, reading and books and knowledge. And from education comes justice. Which is why, when compared to Lebanon, the Islamic State is a nation of lost souls.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/the-christian-tragedy-in-the-middle-east-did-not-begin-with-isis-10157239.html
One summer's day in 1990, I walked into a beautiful Crusader chapel in Keserwan, a gentle mountainside north of Beirut, where an old Catholic Maronite priest pointed to a Byzantine mosaic of – I think – Saint John. What he wanted to show me was the holy man's eyes. They had been stabbed out of the mosaic by a sword or lance at some point in antiquity. 'The Muslims did this,' the priest said.
His words had added clarity because at that time the Lebanese Christian army General Michel Aoun – who thought he was the president and still, today, dreams of this unlikely investiture – was fighting a hopeless war against Hafez Assad's Syrian army. Daily, I was visiting the homes of dead Christians, killed by Syrian shellfire. The Syrians, in the priest's narrative, were the same ‘Muslims’ who had stabbed out the eyes in the ancient picture.
I remember at the time – and often since – I would say to myself that this was nonsense, that you cannot graft ancient history onto the present. (The Maronites, by the way, had supported the earlier Crusaders. The Orthodox of the time stood with the Muslims.) Christian-Muslim enmity on this scale was a tale to frighten schoolchildren.
And yet only last year, as shells burst above the Syrian town of Yabroud, I walked into the country’s oldest church and found paintings of the saints. All had had their eyes gouged out and been torn into strips. I took one of those strips home to Beirut, the painted eyes of the saints staring at me even as I write this article. This was not the sacrilege of antiquity. It was done by ghoulish men, probably from Iraq, only months ago.
Like 9/11 – long after Hollywood had regularly demonised Muslims as barbarian killers who wish to destroy America – it seems that our worst fears turn into reality. The priest in 1990 cannot have lived long enough to know how the new barbarians would strike at the saints in Yabroud.
Note how I have not mentioned the enslavement of Christian women in Iraq, the Islamic State’s massacre of Christians and Yazidis, the burning of Mosul's ancient churches or the destruction of the great Armenian church of Deir el-Zour that commemorated the genocide of its people in 1915. Nor the kidnapping of Nigerian schoolgirls. Not even the very latest massacre in Kenya where the numbers of Christian dead and the cruelty of their sectarian killers is, indeed, of epic, Hollywood proportions. Nor have I mentioned the ferocious Sunni-Shia wars that now dwarf the tragedy of the Christians.
But the Christian tragedy in the Middle East today needs to be re-thought – as it will be, of course, when Armenians around the world commemorate the 100th anniversary of the genocide of their people by Ottoman Turkey. Perhaps it is time that we acknowledge not only this act of genocide but come to regard it not as just the murder of a minority within the Ottoman Empire, but specifically a Christian minority, killed because they were Armenian but also because they were Christian (many of whom, unfortunately, rather liked the Orthodox, anti-Ottoman Tsar).
And their fate bears some uncommon parallels with the Islamic State murderers of today. The Armenian men were massacred. The women were gang-raped or forced to convert or left to die of hunger. Babies were burned alive – after being stacked in piles. Islamic State cruelty is not new, even if the cult’s technology defeats anything its opponents can achieve.
In Kuwait last week, a good and thoughtful Muslim, an American university graduate – within the al-Sabah family and prominent in the government – shook his head with disbelief when he spoke of Islamic State. ‘I watched the video of them burning the Jordanian pilot alive,’ he told me. ‘I watched it several times. I had to, because I had to understand their technology. Do you know they used seven camera angles to film this atrocity? We could not compete with this media technology. We have to learn.’
And this is true. The West – that amorphous, dangerous expression – has still not understood the use of this technology – especially the use which the cult makes of the internet – nor have the Muslim Arab imams who should be speaking about the fearful acts of Islamic State.
But most are not, any more than they denounced the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, when around a million Muslims killed each other. Because they were on Saddam’s side in that war. And because the Islamic State’s ideology is too obviously of Wahabi inspiration, and thus too close to some of the Gulf Arab states.
The crimes of Islamic State are as brutal as any committed by the German army in the Second World War, but Jews who converted were not spared Hitler’s plan for their extermination. What the Islamic State and the 1915 Ottoman Turks have in common is a cruelty based on ideology – even theology – rather than race hatred, although that is not far away. After the burning of churches and of synagogues, the rubble looks much the same.
The tragedy of the Arab world is now on such a literally Biblical scale that we are all demeaned by it. Yet I also think of Lebanon where the old priest showed me his mosaic with the missing eyes and where the Lebanese Christians and Muslims fought each other – with the help of many foreign nations, including Israel, Syria and America – and killed 150,000 of their own people.
Yet today, Lebanese Muslims and Christians, though still politically deeply divided, are protecting each other amid the gale-force winds around them. Why? Because they are today a much more educated population. It’s because they value education, reading and books and knowledge. And from education comes justice. Which is why, when compared to Lebanon, the Islamic State is a nation of lost souls.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/the-christian-tragedy-in-the-middle-east-did-not-begin-with-isis-10157239.html
Korean activists brave landmines in bid to spread peace message
A group of prominent women will march across the demilitarised zone as a symbolic act of peace
Emily Hodgkin Independent/UK 3 April 2015
For more than 60 years, it has been among the most fearsome stretches of ground on earth: a little over two miles between two heavily fortified fences, littered with more than a million landmines. But now a group of 30 activists, led by Gloria Steinem, intend to walk across the demilitarised zone separating North and South Korea in pursuit of peace. They are calling for a final resolution to the Korean War of 1950 to 1953 and for the peace treaty promised within three years of the ceasefire, which never came.
Officials from South Korea’s Unification Ministry, which handles the country’s affairs with Pyongyang, said they have yet to decide if they will approve the action. Christine Ahn, co-founder of the WomenCrossDMZ group, has now received support to hold a symposium in North Korea on women and peace building. This came after attending meetings in Pyongyang in the past week with officials from the country’s Overseas Korean Committee and Democratic Women’s Union.
She told The Associated Press yesterday: “I wish I knew how the ultimate decision was made, but at this point I’m just relieved that at least we have Pyongyang’s cooperation and support.”
Ms Ahn, who also co-founded the National Campaign to End the Korean War, told The New York Times: “We are walking to imagine a new chapter in Korean history, marked by dialogue, understanding, and – ultimately – forgiveness.”
This year marks the 70th anniversary of the division of the Korean Peninsula, an act that tore many families apart. The ensuing Korean War claimed an estimated four million lives and is, technically, still not over. The long-standing tension between the two countries has been exacerbated by entrenched suspicion and occasional outbreaks of violence along the DMZ since it was established in 1953 have added to the hostility.
The last recorded death in the area took place in September 2013, when South Korean soldiers shot a 47-year-old man who was attempting to swim across the Tanpocheon stream to reach North Korea. Since then, North Korean drones have been found crashed in the DMZ and warning shots have been fired on North Korean soldiers, although no one was injured.
She told The Associated Press yesterday: “I wish I knew how the ultimate decision was made, but at this point I’m just relieved that at least we have Pyongyang’s cooperation and support.”
Ms Ahn, who also co-founded the National Campaign to End the Korean War, told The New York Times: “We are walking to imagine a new chapter in Korean history, marked by dialogue, understanding, and – ultimately – forgiveness.”
This year marks the 70th anniversary of the division of the Korean Peninsula, an act that tore many families apart. The ensuing Korean War claimed an estimated four million lives and is, technically, still not over.
The long-standing tension between the two countries has been exacerbated by entrenched suspicion and occasional outbreaks of violence along the DMZ since it was established in 1953 have added to the hostility.
The last recorded death in the area took place in September 2013, when South Korean soldiers shot a 47-year-old man who was attempting to swim across the Tanpocheon stream to reach North Korea.
Since then, North Korean drones have been found crashed in the DMZ and warning shots have been fired on North Korean soldiers, although no one was injured.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/korean-activists-brave-landmines-in-bid-to-spread-peace-message-10154898.html?origin=internalSearch
Emily Hodgkin Independent/UK 3 April 2015
For more than 60 years, it has been among the most fearsome stretches of ground on earth: a little over two miles between two heavily fortified fences, littered with more than a million landmines. But now a group of 30 activists, led by Gloria Steinem, intend to walk across the demilitarised zone separating North and South Korea in pursuit of peace. They are calling for a final resolution to the Korean War of 1950 to 1953 and for the peace treaty promised within three years of the ceasefire, which never came.
Officials from South Korea’s Unification Ministry, which handles the country’s affairs with Pyongyang, said they have yet to decide if they will approve the action. Christine Ahn, co-founder of the WomenCrossDMZ group, has now received support to hold a symposium in North Korea on women and peace building. This came after attending meetings in Pyongyang in the past week with officials from the country’s Overseas Korean Committee and Democratic Women’s Union.
She told The Associated Press yesterday: “I wish I knew how the ultimate decision was made, but at this point I’m just relieved that at least we have Pyongyang’s cooperation and support.”
Ms Ahn, who also co-founded the National Campaign to End the Korean War, told The New York Times: “We are walking to imagine a new chapter in Korean history, marked by dialogue, understanding, and – ultimately – forgiveness.”
This year marks the 70th anniversary of the division of the Korean Peninsula, an act that tore many families apart. The ensuing Korean War claimed an estimated four million lives and is, technically, still not over. The long-standing tension between the two countries has been exacerbated by entrenched suspicion and occasional outbreaks of violence along the DMZ since it was established in 1953 have added to the hostility.
The last recorded death in the area took place in September 2013, when South Korean soldiers shot a 47-year-old man who was attempting to swim across the Tanpocheon stream to reach North Korea. Since then, North Korean drones have been found crashed in the DMZ and warning shots have been fired on North Korean soldiers, although no one was injured.
She told The Associated Press yesterday: “I wish I knew how the ultimate decision was made, but at this point I’m just relieved that at least we have Pyongyang’s cooperation and support.”
Ms Ahn, who also co-founded the National Campaign to End the Korean War, told The New York Times: “We are walking to imagine a new chapter in Korean history, marked by dialogue, understanding, and – ultimately – forgiveness.”
This year marks the 70th anniversary of the division of the Korean Peninsula, an act that tore many families apart. The ensuing Korean War claimed an estimated four million lives and is, technically, still not over.
The long-standing tension between the two countries has been exacerbated by entrenched suspicion and occasional outbreaks of violence along the DMZ since it was established in 1953 have added to the hostility.
The last recorded death in the area took place in September 2013, when South Korean soldiers shot a 47-year-old man who was attempting to swim across the Tanpocheon stream to reach North Korea.
Since then, North Korean drones have been found crashed in the DMZ and warning shots have been fired on North Korean soldiers, although no one was injured.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/korean-activists-brave-landmines-in-bid-to-spread-peace-message-10154898.html?origin=internalSearch
Jesus the great debt-eliminator
Ross Gittins Sydney Morning Herald 6 April , 2015
At this time of our greatest Christian holy-days, what does the Bible have to say about economics? A lot more than you may think. That's according to the Czech economist Tomas Sedlacek, whose book, Economics of Good and Evil, I'll be heavily relying on in this column.
When God expelled Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden after they had disobeyed him, part of their punishment was that "by the sweat of your brow you will eat your food" – they'd have to work for their living.
But Jesus said, "Man does not live on bread alone". So we have to be concerned about making our living, but we also have to be concerned about more than that. "We were endowed with both body and soul, and we are both spiritual and material beings . . . Without the material, we die; without the spiritual, we stop being people," Sedlacek says. Christianity doesn't condemn the material, but it does condemn materialism. It's not money that's the problem, it's the love of money. Keep too much of it for yourself and you've probably crossed the line.
It's true Jesus chased from the temple "men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money", but he didn't chase them any further. His problem was not with their commerce but with their mixture of the sacred with the profane.
Jesus's teaching is often based on paradox, we're told. Jesus considers more valuable two mites that a poor widow drops on to the collection plate than the golden gifts of the rich. Implicitly, this legitimises the role of money. But, to economists, it also shows Jesus understood the concept of marginal disutility. The widow's mite involved much greater sacrifice than the rich person's gold.
Sedlacek notes the New Testament's extensive use of economic metaphors. Of Jesus's 30 parables, 19 are set in an economic or social context: the parable of the lost coin; of talents (money), where Jesus rebukes a servant who didn't "put my money on deposit with the bankers"; of the unjust steward; of the workers in the vineyard; of the two debtors; of the rich fool, and so forth. But get this: the most central concept in the Easter story of Christ's death and resurrection – redemption – originally had a purely economic meaning. You need to know that, in New Testament Greek, sin and debt were the same word.
People who were unable to pay their debts became debt slaves. Once you fell into slavery, the only escape was for someone to ransom you, to pay your bail. Jesus's role was to redeem us, purchase us at a price, buying us out of our debt of sins. The price was the shedding of his blood on the cross, just as the sacrificial lamb's blood was shed at Passover. "In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace," St Paul said.
Western civilisation has been shaped by Christianity and Christian values, which means Christianity has also shaped economics. Sedlacek says the prayer "forgive us our sins", meaning "cancel our debts", could be heard from the West's leading banks in the global financial crisis. Our modern economy cannot function without institutions that deliver the unfair forgiveness of debt. Bankrupts, for instance, are discharged even though they've paid back only a fraction of what they owe. When a company goes bust owing millions, the liability of its shareholders is limited to the face-value of their shares, paid long before by the original purchaser of the shares. As for the GFC, Sedlacek says, "It would be hard to imagine the financial Armageddon that would follow if the government actually did not pay the ransom and redeem banks and some large companies".
"This, of course, goes against all principles of sound reason and of basic fairness. We also breached many rules of competition on which capitalism is built. Why did the most indebted banks and companies, which did not compete very well, receive the largest forgiveness?" Why? It had to be done, in order to redeem not only these particular troubled and highly indebted companies, but also others that would fail if these few were not saved.
You've heard of "positive discrimination", but Sedlacek says Christian thought emphasises the concept of "positive unfairness": the more you've sinned, the bigger dollop of forgiveness you get. "It doesn't matter how hard you try – everyone gets the same reward" (something the prodigal son's brother had trouble accepting). "Christianity thus largely abolishes the accounting of good and evil. God forgives, which is positively unfair," he concludes.
Twitter: @1RossGittins
http://www.smh.com.au/business/comment-and-analysis/jesus-the-great-debteliminator-20150406-1mdkxq.html
At this time of our greatest Christian holy-days, what does the Bible have to say about economics? A lot more than you may think. That's according to the Czech economist Tomas Sedlacek, whose book, Economics of Good and Evil, I'll be heavily relying on in this column.
When God expelled Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden after they had disobeyed him, part of their punishment was that "by the sweat of your brow you will eat your food" – they'd have to work for their living.
But Jesus said, "Man does not live on bread alone". So we have to be concerned about making our living, but we also have to be concerned about more than that. "We were endowed with both body and soul, and we are both spiritual and material beings . . . Without the material, we die; without the spiritual, we stop being people," Sedlacek says. Christianity doesn't condemn the material, but it does condemn materialism. It's not money that's the problem, it's the love of money. Keep too much of it for yourself and you've probably crossed the line.
It's true Jesus chased from the temple "men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money", but he didn't chase them any further. His problem was not with their commerce but with their mixture of the sacred with the profane.
Jesus's teaching is often based on paradox, we're told. Jesus considers more valuable two mites that a poor widow drops on to the collection plate than the golden gifts of the rich. Implicitly, this legitimises the role of money. But, to economists, it also shows Jesus understood the concept of marginal disutility. The widow's mite involved much greater sacrifice than the rich person's gold.
Sedlacek notes the New Testament's extensive use of economic metaphors. Of Jesus's 30 parables, 19 are set in an economic or social context: the parable of the lost coin; of talents (money), where Jesus rebukes a servant who didn't "put my money on deposit with the bankers"; of the unjust steward; of the workers in the vineyard; of the two debtors; of the rich fool, and so forth. But get this: the most central concept in the Easter story of Christ's death and resurrection – redemption – originally had a purely economic meaning. You need to know that, in New Testament Greek, sin and debt were the same word.
People who were unable to pay their debts became debt slaves. Once you fell into slavery, the only escape was for someone to ransom you, to pay your bail. Jesus's role was to redeem us, purchase us at a price, buying us out of our debt of sins. The price was the shedding of his blood on the cross, just as the sacrificial lamb's blood was shed at Passover. "In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace," St Paul said.
Western civilisation has been shaped by Christianity and Christian values, which means Christianity has also shaped economics. Sedlacek says the prayer "forgive us our sins", meaning "cancel our debts", could be heard from the West's leading banks in the global financial crisis. Our modern economy cannot function without institutions that deliver the unfair forgiveness of debt. Bankrupts, for instance, are discharged even though they've paid back only a fraction of what they owe. When a company goes bust owing millions, the liability of its shareholders is limited to the face-value of their shares, paid long before by the original purchaser of the shares. As for the GFC, Sedlacek says, "It would be hard to imagine the financial Armageddon that would follow if the government actually did not pay the ransom and redeem banks and some large companies".
"This, of course, goes against all principles of sound reason and of basic fairness. We also breached many rules of competition on which capitalism is built. Why did the most indebted banks and companies, which did not compete very well, receive the largest forgiveness?" Why? It had to be done, in order to redeem not only these particular troubled and highly indebted companies, but also others that would fail if these few were not saved.
You've heard of "positive discrimination", but Sedlacek says Christian thought emphasises the concept of "positive unfairness": the more you've sinned, the bigger dollop of forgiveness you get. "It doesn't matter how hard you try – everyone gets the same reward" (something the prodigal son's brother had trouble accepting). "Christianity thus largely abolishes the accounting of good and evil. God forgives, which is positively unfair," he concludes.
Twitter: @1RossGittins
http://www.smh.com.au/business/comment-and-analysis/jesus-the-great-debteliminator-20150406-1mdkxq.html
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