A unique historical moment to look at global health, with a special look at Iraq after more than twenty years of war
By Claudia Lefko Common Dreams November 10, 2014
War destroys countless lives immediately, but it also destroys health systems and key social structures, turning societies once able to nurture health and save lives, into societies stripped of that ability. "It's basic and obvious, hidden in plain sight," writes Lefko.
One of the most serious problems Iraqis have been living with as a result of war and western imperialism is the disatrous decline of health and health care capacity. It has become one of those long-standing crisis that are so familiar they've become ordinary, like poverty and food insecurity. These situations, lives lived in these circumstances, become normalized—"normal" in the public view and public discourse. Even, it may seem, normal to the people directly affected. But the situation in Iraq is not normal, there is very little about life in Baghdad in the last decades that can be seen as normal.
One aspect of the health crisis is the ever-increasing cancer rate in Iraq. It has become the norm; normal is not newsworthy. Newsworthy events—ongoing violence and sectarian struggles—push cancer and health out of the headlines and out of the news altogether. And so the crisis is missing from the media and generally speaking, missing from the agenda of activists and international health organizations.
Enter ISIS and Ebola, putting health and Iraq and crisis back into the news, creating a unique opportunity to look at Iraq and Iraqis beyond the headline-grabbing topics of war and western imperialism to one that concerns daily life and impacts the very future of life in that country and in every country suffering from a natural disaster such as an epidemic or from human-made disasters such as war: health.
For some years now, prominent doctors, medical organizations and institutions such as Partners in Health (PIH) have been talking about the critical importance of "life on the ground" factors that influence health. And even more importantly, they have been initiating and implementing projects based on a holistic, human rights approach and encouraging others to do the same. PIH has been promoting support for international covenants that guarantee health as a human right, understanding that the health of individuals and communities is directly impacted by other guaranteed rights: adequate housing, education, food, social security, decent work, and "the right to the highest standard of physical and mental health."
In the background of the Ebola crisis, quietly day by day, the US and others are bombing in Iraq and Syria; no one is talking about how this will impact health or the health care system in those countries. In the case of Iraq, the question is how it will further exacerbate the already disastrous and ever-deteriorating health situation that has been developing over the last twenty four years, since the First Gulf War and UN Sanctions in 1990.
The country once had the best medical care in the Middle East. It was a modern country, with modern facilities and infrastructure. Social and economic policies supported other aspects of life that contributed to a healthy population: free and mandatory education through university, affordable housing, ample food availability and high employment, guaranteed by government subsidized jobs. Most, if not all of this is long gone. It shouldn't surprise anyone. As the famous poster said, back in the 60s, War is not Healthy for Children and Other Living Things. Another obvious truth gathering dust in closets all over the USA.
Ebola is a serious disease that demands our best attentions at this moment. But, war is also a serious disease that has been taking a toll on millions of people. In places too numerous and painful to list... Iraq, Syria, Palestine, and the Democratic Republic of Congo to name a few. It also demands our best attentions. "...the present global health crisis is not primarily one of disease, but of governance," writes global health consultant Ilona Kickbush.
I am heartened by the critical work of these medical professionals and organizations. It gives us, as activists and agitated citizens, a powerful platform to stand on. Collectively, this is an important moment. In the aftermath of the huge climate change actions across the globe, we have an opportunity to create new alliances, with new possibilities. Our job is to find, maintain and maximize the connections that will aggregate our struggles in support of healthy people living on a healthy planet.
[Abridged] http://www.commondreams.org/views/2014/11/10/modern-war-true-global-health-emergency
Monday, 10 November 2014
Is ISIS Coming?
By Uri Avnery Gush Shalom Nov 10, 2014
IF ISIS had approached the borders of Israel this week, nobody in the country would have noticed. Israel was riveted to a court-room drama. There, in the Jerusalem Court, former PM Ehud Olmert faced his erstwhile secretary, Shula Zaken. No one could take his or her eyes off them. It was the stuff soap operas are made of.
SHULA WAS a 17-year old Jerusalem girl when she first met Ehud. He was a fledgling advocate, she was a new secretary in the same office. Since then, for more than 40 years, Shula was the shadow of Ehud, a fiercely loyal secretary who followed her ambitious boss from station to station - mayor of Jerusalem, then Minister of Trade, and finally Prime Minister. She was his closest associate, his confidante, everything.
And then it all blew up. Olmert was accused of several big corruption affairs and was forced to resign. For years now he has been a fixture in the court rooms and TV court reports. Shula Zaken, now a 57-year old matron, is his co-defendant. She supported him through thick and thin, until in his testimony he put all the blame on her. Shula was sent to prison for 11 months. Ehud was (again) acquitted. That was the turning point. It appeared that for years the devout secretary had recorded her boss's private conversations with her. According to her, because she could not live without being able to listen to his voice at any time. Others saw in it as a kind of life insurance.
And indeed, this week, after Shula made a deal with the prosecution, the court listened to a whole stack of recordings, which may well send Olmert to prison for many years. The drama between the two was irresistible. It headed the news, pushing almost everything else off the table. Few dealt with the real importance of the affair.
The recordings showed an all-pervading atmosphere of corruption at the highest level of government. Large bribes moved around as a matter of course. The relationship between the tycoons and the prime minister was so intimate, that the leader could request any tycoon by phone to transfer tens of thousands of dollars to his secretary to pay for his personal life in luxury and then for her silence.
It seems that the same symbiosis between top politicians and the "wealthy" (the American synonym for stinking rich) prevails in the US. In this respect, too, the similarity between the two countries is growing. We have indeed common values - the values of the tiny group of plutocrats who employ the top politicians in both countries.
WHILE EVERYBODY stares at the court scenes, who is there to watch what is happening beyond our borders?
Some 2400 years ago, the Gauls were about to mount a night time surprise attack on Rome. The city was saved by the geese of a temple on Capitol Hill, which raised such a ruckus that the inhabitants woke up in time. We have no temple and no geese to warn us, only some intelligence agencies with a consistent record of failure.
ISIS is far away. We have enemies galore, who are much nearer: Hamas, Mahmoud Abbas, "the Palestinians", "the Arabs", Hizbollah, and -somewhere beyond - "the Bomb" (a.k.a. Iran). To my mind, none of these are an existential danger for us. ISIS is. As I have said before, ISIS ("the Islamic State") poses no military danger. The present and former generals who shape Israel's policy can only smile when this “danger” is mentioned. A few tens of thousands of lightly armed fighters against the huge Israeli military establishment? Ridiculous.
As indeed it is. In military terms. Israelis, like Americans, are practical people. They don't appreciate the power of ideas. They think like Stalin who, when warned of the Pope, asked: "How many divisions does he have?"
It is ideas that change the world. Like those of the legendary Moses. Of Jesus of Nazareth. Of Muhammad. Of Karl Marx. How many divisions did Lenin have, when he crossed Germany in the sealed train?
ISIS has an idea that can sweep the region: to do what Muhammad did, to restore the Caliphate which ruled from Spain to India, to wipe away the artificial borders that divide the Islamic world, to drive away the pitiful and corrupt Arab rulers, to destroy the infidels (including us). For millions upon millions of young Muslims in their impotent and impoverished failed states, this is an idea that straightens their back and swells their breast.
Ideas cannot be detected by spy drones. They cannot be blown out of existence by heavy bombers. The American conviction that you can solve historical problems by bombing from the air is a primitive illusion.
IT IS an old Israeli complaint that whenever something goes wrong in our region, Israel is always blamed. Take Sabra and Shatila. As our then Chief of Staff exclaimed: "Goyim kill goyim and the Jews are blamed."
Once more. ISIS has nothing to do with us. It is a purely Islamic affair. Yet many people blame Israel.
However, this time the blame is not without reason. Israel considers itself an island in the region, the famous "villa in the jungle". But that is wishful thinking. Israel is located in the middle of the region, and whether we accept it or not, everything that we do or do not do has a huge impact on all the countries around us.
ISIS' astonishing successes are a direct outcome of the general frustration and humiliation felt by a new Arab generation faced with our military superiority. The oppression of the Palestinians is felt by everyone in the Arab world. IF ISRAEL did not exist, ISIS would have had to invent it.
Indeed, somebody with a taste for conspiracy theories could well arrive at the conviction that Binyamin Netanyahu and his minions are secret ISIS agents. Is there any other reasonable explanation for their doings? It is one of the main tenets of ISIS that the struggle against Israel is a religious war, at the center of which is the Noble Sanctuary in Jerusalem.
For months now, a group of Jewish zealots has been kicking up a storm in Jerusalem by advocating the building of the Third Jewish Temple on the sites of the two Islamic shrines - the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa mosque. This group is tolerated and even promoted by the police and the government, and makes news daily.
The Noble Sanctuary (or "Temple Mount") is one of the most sensitive spots in the world. Who in his right mind would upset the status quo and allow Jews to pray there, turning the political conflict into a religious one, just as ISIS desires? These days, violent protests in annexed East Jerusalem are daily occurrences. The government has just passed a law that allows stone-throwing Palestinian teenagers to be imprisoned for nine years. That's not a typo: years, not months.
The recent Gaza war has stirred sentiments throughout the Arab world. The human and material losses suffered by the Palestinian population remain immense, as does the rage throughout the region. Who gains? ISIS.
And so forth. A constant stream of deeds and misdeeds designed to upset the Palestinians, all Arabs and the entire Muslim world. Food for ISIS propaganda.
WHY, FOR God's sake, are our politicians doing this? Because they are just politicians. Their sole interest is in winning the next elections, which may come sooner than the law requires. Keeping the Arabs down is popular. And the traditional contempt for all things Arab is blinding them to the serious dangers ahead.
ISIS may be the beginning of a new era in our region. A new era necessitates a re-evaluation of reality. Yesterday's enemies may become today's friends and tomorrow's allies. And vice versa.
If ISIS is now the paramount existential danger for us, we must reassess our policies comprehensively. Take the Arab Peace Initiative. For years now it has been lying around, like a discarded sandwich paper. It says that the entire Arab world is ready to recognize Israel and establish normal relations with it, in return for the end of the occupation and a comprehensive Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement. Our government has not even responded. The occupation and the settlements are more important. Does this make sense?
Peace with Palestine on the basis of the pan-Arab initiative would take much of the wind out of ISIS' sails. If ISIS is now our main enemy, yesteryear's enemies become potential allies. Even the abominable Bashar al-Assad. Definitely Iran, Hizbollah and Hamas. Israel must reconsider its attitude to all of them.
ONLY AN Israel that makes peace with Palestine can join a new regional alignment to face ISIS, before it engulfs the entire region. This is a matter of survival. A great Israeli statesman would recognize the historic challenge and the historic opportunity - and seize it. Unfortunately, there is no great Israeli statesman in sight. Only the little Netanyahus, who are now riveted to the story of Ehud and Shula.
[Abbreviated] http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1415375647/
IF ISIS had approached the borders of Israel this week, nobody in the country would have noticed. Israel was riveted to a court-room drama. There, in the Jerusalem Court, former PM Ehud Olmert faced his erstwhile secretary, Shula Zaken. No one could take his or her eyes off them. It was the stuff soap operas are made of.
SHULA WAS a 17-year old Jerusalem girl when she first met Ehud. He was a fledgling advocate, she was a new secretary in the same office. Since then, for more than 40 years, Shula was the shadow of Ehud, a fiercely loyal secretary who followed her ambitious boss from station to station - mayor of Jerusalem, then Minister of Trade, and finally Prime Minister. She was his closest associate, his confidante, everything.
And then it all blew up. Olmert was accused of several big corruption affairs and was forced to resign. For years now he has been a fixture in the court rooms and TV court reports. Shula Zaken, now a 57-year old matron, is his co-defendant. She supported him through thick and thin, until in his testimony he put all the blame on her. Shula was sent to prison for 11 months. Ehud was (again) acquitted. That was the turning point. It appeared that for years the devout secretary had recorded her boss's private conversations with her. According to her, because she could not live without being able to listen to his voice at any time. Others saw in it as a kind of life insurance.
And indeed, this week, after Shula made a deal with the prosecution, the court listened to a whole stack of recordings, which may well send Olmert to prison for many years. The drama between the two was irresistible. It headed the news, pushing almost everything else off the table. Few dealt with the real importance of the affair.
The recordings showed an all-pervading atmosphere of corruption at the highest level of government. Large bribes moved around as a matter of course. The relationship between the tycoons and the prime minister was so intimate, that the leader could request any tycoon by phone to transfer tens of thousands of dollars to his secretary to pay for his personal life in luxury and then for her silence.
It seems that the same symbiosis between top politicians and the "wealthy" (the American synonym for stinking rich) prevails in the US. In this respect, too, the similarity between the two countries is growing. We have indeed common values - the values of the tiny group of plutocrats who employ the top politicians in both countries.
WHILE EVERYBODY stares at the court scenes, who is there to watch what is happening beyond our borders?
Some 2400 years ago, the Gauls were about to mount a night time surprise attack on Rome. The city was saved by the geese of a temple on Capitol Hill, which raised such a ruckus that the inhabitants woke up in time. We have no temple and no geese to warn us, only some intelligence agencies with a consistent record of failure.
ISIS is far away. We have enemies galore, who are much nearer: Hamas, Mahmoud Abbas, "the Palestinians", "the Arabs", Hizbollah, and -somewhere beyond - "the Bomb" (a.k.a. Iran). To my mind, none of these are an existential danger for us. ISIS is. As I have said before, ISIS ("the Islamic State") poses no military danger. The present and former generals who shape Israel's policy can only smile when this “danger” is mentioned. A few tens of thousands of lightly armed fighters against the huge Israeli military establishment? Ridiculous.
As indeed it is. In military terms. Israelis, like Americans, are practical people. They don't appreciate the power of ideas. They think like Stalin who, when warned of the Pope, asked: "How many divisions does he have?"
It is ideas that change the world. Like those of the legendary Moses. Of Jesus of Nazareth. Of Muhammad. Of Karl Marx. How many divisions did Lenin have, when he crossed Germany in the sealed train?
ISIS has an idea that can sweep the region: to do what Muhammad did, to restore the Caliphate which ruled from Spain to India, to wipe away the artificial borders that divide the Islamic world, to drive away the pitiful and corrupt Arab rulers, to destroy the infidels (including us). For millions upon millions of young Muslims in their impotent and impoverished failed states, this is an idea that straightens their back and swells their breast.
Ideas cannot be detected by spy drones. They cannot be blown out of existence by heavy bombers. The American conviction that you can solve historical problems by bombing from the air is a primitive illusion.
IT IS an old Israeli complaint that whenever something goes wrong in our region, Israel is always blamed. Take Sabra and Shatila. As our then Chief of Staff exclaimed: "Goyim kill goyim and the Jews are blamed."
Once more. ISIS has nothing to do with us. It is a purely Islamic affair. Yet many people blame Israel.
However, this time the blame is not without reason. Israel considers itself an island in the region, the famous "villa in the jungle". But that is wishful thinking. Israel is located in the middle of the region, and whether we accept it or not, everything that we do or do not do has a huge impact on all the countries around us.
ISIS' astonishing successes are a direct outcome of the general frustration and humiliation felt by a new Arab generation faced with our military superiority. The oppression of the Palestinians is felt by everyone in the Arab world. IF ISRAEL did not exist, ISIS would have had to invent it.
Indeed, somebody with a taste for conspiracy theories could well arrive at the conviction that Binyamin Netanyahu and his minions are secret ISIS agents. Is there any other reasonable explanation for their doings? It is one of the main tenets of ISIS that the struggle against Israel is a religious war, at the center of which is the Noble Sanctuary in Jerusalem.
For months now, a group of Jewish zealots has been kicking up a storm in Jerusalem by advocating the building of the Third Jewish Temple on the sites of the two Islamic shrines - the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa mosque. This group is tolerated and even promoted by the police and the government, and makes news daily.
The Noble Sanctuary (or "Temple Mount") is one of the most sensitive spots in the world. Who in his right mind would upset the status quo and allow Jews to pray there, turning the political conflict into a religious one, just as ISIS desires? These days, violent protests in annexed East Jerusalem are daily occurrences. The government has just passed a law that allows stone-throwing Palestinian teenagers to be imprisoned for nine years. That's not a typo: years, not months.
The recent Gaza war has stirred sentiments throughout the Arab world. The human and material losses suffered by the Palestinian population remain immense, as does the rage throughout the region. Who gains? ISIS.
And so forth. A constant stream of deeds and misdeeds designed to upset the Palestinians, all Arabs and the entire Muslim world. Food for ISIS propaganda.
WHY, FOR God's sake, are our politicians doing this? Because they are just politicians. Their sole interest is in winning the next elections, which may come sooner than the law requires. Keeping the Arabs down is popular. And the traditional contempt for all things Arab is blinding them to the serious dangers ahead.
ISIS may be the beginning of a new era in our region. A new era necessitates a re-evaluation of reality. Yesterday's enemies may become today's friends and tomorrow's allies. And vice versa.
If ISIS is now the paramount existential danger for us, we must reassess our policies comprehensively. Take the Arab Peace Initiative. For years now it has been lying around, like a discarded sandwich paper. It says that the entire Arab world is ready to recognize Israel and establish normal relations with it, in return for the end of the occupation and a comprehensive Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement. Our government has not even responded. The occupation and the settlements are more important. Does this make sense?
Peace with Palestine on the basis of the pan-Arab initiative would take much of the wind out of ISIS' sails. If ISIS is now our main enemy, yesteryear's enemies become potential allies. Even the abominable Bashar al-Assad. Definitely Iran, Hizbollah and Hamas. Israel must reconsider its attitude to all of them.
ONLY AN Israel that makes peace with Palestine can join a new regional alignment to face ISIS, before it engulfs the entire region. This is a matter of survival. A great Israeli statesman would recognize the historic challenge and the historic opportunity - and seize it. Unfortunately, there is no great Israeli statesman in sight. Only the little Netanyahus, who are now riveted to the story of Ehud and Shula.
[Abbreviated] http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1415375647/
Monday, 3 November 2014
For a Moment, the World Embraces the Cuba Model – and Slaps the Empire
Glen Ford Black Agenda Report November 02, 2014
This week, the nations of the world – with two savage exceptions – instructed their emissaries at the UN General Assembly to tell the world’s self-designated “indispensable” country to end its 54-year-long trade embargo against Cuba. The virtually unanimous global rebuke to the American superpower tells us that it is Cuba, not the U.S. that is the truly “exceptional” nation on the planet. It was the 23rd time that the UN has rejected the embargo.
Despite having suffered cumulative economic damages of more than $1 trillion at U.S. hands over the last half-century, the island nation of 11 million people has made itself a medical superpower that shares its life-saving resources with the world. No country or combination of nations and NGOs comes close to the speed, size and quality of Cuba’s response to the Ebola crisis in West Africa. With 461 doctors, nurses and other health professionals either already on site or soon to be sent to Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, Cuba sets the standard for international first-response. The Cuban contingent of medical professionals providing direct treatment to sick people outnumbers that of all individual countries and private organizations, including the Red Cross.
Doctors Without Borders is second to Cuba in terms of health professionals. But the French NGO is a swiftly revolving door, churning doctors and nurses in and out every six weeks because of the extreme work and safety conditions. Cuba’s health brigades are different. Every volunteer is expected to remain on duty in the Ebola zone for six months. Moreover, if any of the Cubans contract Ebola or any other disease, they will be treated at the hospitals where they work, alongside their African patients, rather than sent home. (One Cuban died of cerebral malaria, in Guinea, last Sunday.)
In sheer numbers, the Cuban medical posture in Africa is surpassed in scope only by the armed presence of AFRICOM, the U.S. military command, which has relationships with every country on the continent except Eritrea, Zimbabwe and Sudan. The governments of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone collaborate militarily with AFRICOM, but the heavily-armed Americans were of no use when Ebola hit. Indeed, the Euro-American legacy in Africa that starved public health systems, is the root reason Liberia and Guinea have only one doctor for every 100,000 people, and Sierra Leone has just two.
When the call went out, 15,000 Cubans competed for the honor to battle Ebola in Africa. As reported in The Guardian, doctors like Leonardo Fernandez were eager to fulfill their moral and professional mission. “We know that we are fighting against something that we don’t totally understand,” he said. “We know what can happen. We know we’re going to a hostile environment. But it is our duty. That’s how we’ve been educated.”
For the United States, military adventure and the imperative to seize other countries’ natural resources or strangle their economies, are defining national characteristics – in complete contrast to Cuba. The U.S. embargo of its island neighbor is among the world’s longest-running morality plays, with Washington as villain. On this issue, the world’s biggest economic and military power could neither buy nor bully a single ally other than the Zionist state.
Cuba’s neighbors in CARICOM, the Caribbean Economic Community, were represented by Saint Kitts and Nevis, whose ambassador pointed to Cuban-built hospitals and clinics throughout the region; the hundreds of Cuban doctors that have provided the only medical services available to many of Haiti’s poor before, during and after the catastrophic earthquake of 2010; and the thousands of Caribbean students that have benefited from free university education in Cuba.
Cuba’s exemplary conduct in the world has made the yearly UN vote on the U.S. embargo a singular opportunity for all the world body’s members, except one, to chastise the superpower that seeks full spectrum domination of the planet. It is the rarest of occasions, a time of virtual global unanimity on an evil in which the Empire is currently engaged. Once a year, the world – in both effect and intent – salutes the Cuban model. For a moment, humanity’s potential to organize itself for the common good illuminates the global forum.
This year, the model glows brightly in the darkness of microbial pestilence. When 15,000 Cuban health care workers do not hesitate to step into the Ebola pit, the New Man and Woman may already exist – and there is hope for the rest of us. [Abridged]
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2014/11/02/moment-world-embraces-cuba-model-and-slaps-empire
This week, the nations of the world – with two savage exceptions – instructed their emissaries at the UN General Assembly to tell the world’s self-designated “indispensable” country to end its 54-year-long trade embargo against Cuba. The virtually unanimous global rebuke to the American superpower tells us that it is Cuba, not the U.S. that is the truly “exceptional” nation on the planet. It was the 23rd time that the UN has rejected the embargo.
Despite having suffered cumulative economic damages of more than $1 trillion at U.S. hands over the last half-century, the island nation of 11 million people has made itself a medical superpower that shares its life-saving resources with the world. No country or combination of nations and NGOs comes close to the speed, size and quality of Cuba’s response to the Ebola crisis in West Africa. With 461 doctors, nurses and other health professionals either already on site or soon to be sent to Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, Cuba sets the standard for international first-response. The Cuban contingent of medical professionals providing direct treatment to sick people outnumbers that of all individual countries and private organizations, including the Red Cross.
Doctors Without Borders is second to Cuba in terms of health professionals. But the French NGO is a swiftly revolving door, churning doctors and nurses in and out every six weeks because of the extreme work and safety conditions. Cuba’s health brigades are different. Every volunteer is expected to remain on duty in the Ebola zone for six months. Moreover, if any of the Cubans contract Ebola or any other disease, they will be treated at the hospitals where they work, alongside their African patients, rather than sent home. (One Cuban died of cerebral malaria, in Guinea, last Sunday.)
In sheer numbers, the Cuban medical posture in Africa is surpassed in scope only by the armed presence of AFRICOM, the U.S. military command, which has relationships with every country on the continent except Eritrea, Zimbabwe and Sudan. The governments of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone collaborate militarily with AFRICOM, but the heavily-armed Americans were of no use when Ebola hit. Indeed, the Euro-American legacy in Africa that starved public health systems, is the root reason Liberia and Guinea have only one doctor for every 100,000 people, and Sierra Leone has just two.
When the call went out, 15,000 Cubans competed for the honor to battle Ebola in Africa. As reported in The Guardian, doctors like Leonardo Fernandez were eager to fulfill their moral and professional mission. “We know that we are fighting against something that we don’t totally understand,” he said. “We know what can happen. We know we’re going to a hostile environment. But it is our duty. That’s how we’ve been educated.”
For the United States, military adventure and the imperative to seize other countries’ natural resources or strangle their economies, are defining national characteristics – in complete contrast to Cuba. The U.S. embargo of its island neighbor is among the world’s longest-running morality plays, with Washington as villain. On this issue, the world’s biggest economic and military power could neither buy nor bully a single ally other than the Zionist state.
Cuba’s neighbors in CARICOM, the Caribbean Economic Community, were represented by Saint Kitts and Nevis, whose ambassador pointed to Cuban-built hospitals and clinics throughout the region; the hundreds of Cuban doctors that have provided the only medical services available to many of Haiti’s poor before, during and after the catastrophic earthquake of 2010; and the thousands of Caribbean students that have benefited from free university education in Cuba.
Cuba’s exemplary conduct in the world has made the yearly UN vote on the U.S. embargo a singular opportunity for all the world body’s members, except one, to chastise the superpower that seeks full spectrum domination of the planet. It is the rarest of occasions, a time of virtual global unanimity on an evil in which the Empire is currently engaged. Once a year, the world – in both effect and intent – salutes the Cuban model. For a moment, humanity’s potential to organize itself for the common good illuminates the global forum.
This year, the model glows brightly in the darkness of microbial pestilence. When 15,000 Cuban health care workers do not hesitate to step into the Ebola pit, the New Man and Woman may already exist – and there is hope for the rest of us. [Abridged]
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2014/11/02/moment-world-embraces-cuba-model-and-slaps-empire
Monday, 27 October 2014
Islamic State
by Ian Harris Otago Daily Times October 24, 2014
A globalising world draws its peoples closer together. It also complicates things. So when a far-off band of Muslim insurgents scythes to itself a swathe of Syria and Iraq, western governments tighten laws to neutralise any threat of terrorism from their own Muslim immigrants, and unleash warplanes against the extremists abroad. With new responsibilities looming on the UN Security Council, New Zealand will soon be caught up more directly in the vortex.
I have wondered why those best placed to respond to the religious ideology of the Islamic State have been so silent. Surely Muslims elsewhere have a view on the horrors being inflicted on innocent people in the name of their religion?
They do. In a 16-page letter to IS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi and his followers, 126 leading Muslim scholars from 41 countries last month issued a scathing denunciation of IS, accusing it of violating fundamental principles of Islam and committing heinous war crimes. Signatories come from countries as diverse as Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Sudan, Nigeria, Pakistan, Indonesia and the United States.
The letter condemns the establishment of a caliphate in Syria: “Who gave you authority over the ummah (the total Muslim community)? Was it your group? If so, then a group of no more than several thousand has appointed itself the ruler of over a billion-and-a-half Muslims.
“This attitude is based upon a corrupt circular logic that says: ‘Only we are Muslims, and we decide who the caliph is, we have chosen one and so whoever does not accept our caliph is not a Muslim . . . In truth, the caliphate must emerge from a consensus of Muslim countries, organizations of Islamic scholars and Muslims across the globe.” The scholars reject the right of IS to call the faithful to jihad (holy war). “There is no such thing as offensive, aggressive jihad just because people have different religions or opinions,” they say.
And they condemn the war’s conduct: “You have killed many innocents who were neither combatants not armed, just because they do not agree with your opinion . . . You have killed many prisoners,” citing thousands dead in mass executions. “Your fighters are not satisfied with mere killing, they add humiliation, debasement and mockery to it.” Their barbaric acts had given the world a stick with which to beat Islam, whereas Islam was completely innocent of these acts and prohibited them.
IS had not even spared children: “You have made children engage in war and killing. Some are taking up arms and others are playing with the severed heads of your victims. Some children have been thrown into the fray of combat and are killing and being killed. In your schools some children are tortured and coerced into doing your bidding and others are being executed.”
Though Al-Baghdadi cites Muslim scriptures to justify his cause, the scholars dismiss his reasoning as illegitimate and perverse. “It is not permissible to quote a verse, or part of a verse, without thoroughly considering and comprehending everything that the Quran and Hadith (the sayings and traditions of Mohammed) relate about that point,” nor to cherry-pick Quranic verses for legal arguments without considering the entire Quran and Hadith.
The letter lists a raft of IS practices which Islam explicitly forbids. Among them are forced conversions, torture, denying women and children their rights, disfiguring the dead, and killing emissaries – “hence it is forbidden to kill journalists and aid workers.” Journalists are emissaries of truth, they say, and aid workers are emissaries of mercy and kindness. It was also forbidden to harm or mistreat Christians and any “people of the scripture” in any way, and obligatory to consider Yazidis (a Kurdish community overrun in August) as people of the scripture.
Slavery gets special condemnation. “After a century of Muslim consensus on the prohibition of slavery, you have violated this: you have taken women as concubines and thus revived strife and sedition, and corruption and lewdness, on the earth.”
In a blistering conclusion the scholars declare: “You have misinterpreted Islam into a religion of harshness, brutality, torture and murder. As elucidated, this is a great wrong and an offence to Islam, to Muslims and to the entire world. “Reconsider all your actions; desist from them; repent from them; cease harming others and return to the religion of mercy.”
Al-Baghdadi will no doubt ignore this plea, but non-Muslims will join Muslims of good will in applauding it. Especially welcome is the scholars’ rejection of the misuse of scripture for evil purposes. Where there is no humanity, it is rotten religion.
A globalising world draws its peoples closer together. It also complicates things. So when a far-off band of Muslim insurgents scythes to itself a swathe of Syria and Iraq, western governments tighten laws to neutralise any threat of terrorism from their own Muslim immigrants, and unleash warplanes against the extremists abroad. With new responsibilities looming on the UN Security Council, New Zealand will soon be caught up more directly in the vortex.
I have wondered why those best placed to respond to the religious ideology of the Islamic State have been so silent. Surely Muslims elsewhere have a view on the horrors being inflicted on innocent people in the name of their religion?
They do. In a 16-page letter to IS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi and his followers, 126 leading Muslim scholars from 41 countries last month issued a scathing denunciation of IS, accusing it of violating fundamental principles of Islam and committing heinous war crimes. Signatories come from countries as diverse as Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Sudan, Nigeria, Pakistan, Indonesia and the United States.
The letter condemns the establishment of a caliphate in Syria: “Who gave you authority over the ummah (the total Muslim community)? Was it your group? If so, then a group of no more than several thousand has appointed itself the ruler of over a billion-and-a-half Muslims.
“This attitude is based upon a corrupt circular logic that says: ‘Only we are Muslims, and we decide who the caliph is, we have chosen one and so whoever does not accept our caliph is not a Muslim . . . In truth, the caliphate must emerge from a consensus of Muslim countries, organizations of Islamic scholars and Muslims across the globe.” The scholars reject the right of IS to call the faithful to jihad (holy war). “There is no such thing as offensive, aggressive jihad just because people have different religions or opinions,” they say.
And they condemn the war’s conduct: “You have killed many innocents who were neither combatants not armed, just because they do not agree with your opinion . . . You have killed many prisoners,” citing thousands dead in mass executions. “Your fighters are not satisfied with mere killing, they add humiliation, debasement and mockery to it.” Their barbaric acts had given the world a stick with which to beat Islam, whereas Islam was completely innocent of these acts and prohibited them.
IS had not even spared children: “You have made children engage in war and killing. Some are taking up arms and others are playing with the severed heads of your victims. Some children have been thrown into the fray of combat and are killing and being killed. In your schools some children are tortured and coerced into doing your bidding and others are being executed.”
Though Al-Baghdadi cites Muslim scriptures to justify his cause, the scholars dismiss his reasoning as illegitimate and perverse. “It is not permissible to quote a verse, or part of a verse, without thoroughly considering and comprehending everything that the Quran and Hadith (the sayings and traditions of Mohammed) relate about that point,” nor to cherry-pick Quranic verses for legal arguments without considering the entire Quran and Hadith.
The letter lists a raft of IS practices which Islam explicitly forbids. Among them are forced conversions, torture, denying women and children their rights, disfiguring the dead, and killing emissaries – “hence it is forbidden to kill journalists and aid workers.” Journalists are emissaries of truth, they say, and aid workers are emissaries of mercy and kindness. It was also forbidden to harm or mistreat Christians and any “people of the scripture” in any way, and obligatory to consider Yazidis (a Kurdish community overrun in August) as people of the scripture.
Slavery gets special condemnation. “After a century of Muslim consensus on the prohibition of slavery, you have violated this: you have taken women as concubines and thus revived strife and sedition, and corruption and lewdness, on the earth.”
In a blistering conclusion the scholars declare: “You have misinterpreted Islam into a religion of harshness, brutality, torture and murder. As elucidated, this is a great wrong and an offence to Islam, to Muslims and to the entire world. “Reconsider all your actions; desist from them; repent from them; cease harming others and return to the religion of mercy.”
Al-Baghdadi will no doubt ignore this plea, but non-Muslims will join Muslims of good will in applauding it. Especially welcome is the scholars’ rejection of the misuse of scripture for evil purposes. Where there is no humanity, it is rotten religion.
My brother wanted to be a jihadi – and society is creating many more like him
Extremism of any kind is a symptom of an unhealthy society and, in order to eradicate it, we should look to treat its cause
Robb Leech Guardian/UK 22 October 2014
As Isis continues to dominate our collective consciousness, most recently with the crucifixion of a 17-year-old boy, the government appears to be fumbling in the dark for new ways of stemming the blood from an old wound which refuses to heal; only they seem to be thinking about bigger plasters, which probably won’t do the trick. Meanwhile, somewhere in the UK, another jihadist is born.
I documented the birth of one particular jihadist in my BBC3 film My Brother the Islamist. The film charted my attempts to reconnect with Rich, who happened to be my stepbrother, to try to understand the new world he had become a part of. Ultimately the shared journey drew us closer together, but a year later he would be arrested for attempting to join the Taliban in Pakistan.
Only two weeks before he vanished from the streets of Ealing we talked about our family, football, and albeit fleetingly, the future. I left the meeting with a smile on my face. Six months later he would plead guilty to terrorism charges, and I began making a second film, My Brother the Terrorist.
From the moment he converted, Rich was talking about fighting western oppression and dying a martyr. In a sense, the writing was on the wall. Violent jihad was something he and his “brothers” constantly talked about. When Rich pleaded guilty to preparing to commit acts of terror in 2012, he had been planning to travel to Afghanistan to cross the border and join the Pakistani Taliban.
But I never saw Rich as a terrorist, and didn’t see any of the people he surrounded himself with as terrorists either. What I saw were, and I hate to say it – vulnerable young men – with great chips on their shoulders. With their radical new status they felt empowered, superior and perhaps most annoyingly for me, righteous.
In a former life, the world they had been brought up in had wronged them. Perhaps they had family troubles, or maybe society shunned them, whatever it was, they resented it – they were lost, empty and had no stake in the western world. Becoming a radical Muslim reversed the polarity.
It’s a cliquey club from which everything beyond is viewed as imperfect at best, or evil at worst. And it’s the evils that these guys saturate their perceptions of the world with. Horrific, graphic and brutal images of the suffering, pain and death of Muslims at the hands of the west, played out alongside a powerful narrative of oppression and injustice – a narrative that is difficult to dismantle. The powerful human response to violence becomes nullified, and they become blind to the evil they themselves help to perpetrate.
People like my stepbrother justify fighting violent jihad out of a sense of responsibility and powerlessness at the plight of fellow Muslims. Yes, fighting on a foreign battlefield and owning your own AK-47 is pretty exciting too (and let’s not forget that dying a martyr is like hitting the afterlife jackpot), but crucially their motivation isn’t to kill innocent people, or to do bad. They’re not thinking about blowing themselves up at a tube station, the story they’re telling themselves is, as confounding as it sounds – one of saving humanity.
In hindsight, Rich’s arrest and subsequent conviction shouldn’t have come as a surprise to me: he set out to do what he had always talked of. As I stood in the public gallery and heard the evidence put forward by the prosecution, I looked into the dock to see Rich’s stony face and felt let down and sad, but also unexpectedly stupid. The inherent problem in attempting to tackle radicalisation is that often it is too late. By the time its signs begin to show, the scene is already set. Extremism of any kind is a symptom of an unhealthy society and, like any illness, in order to eradicate it, we should look to treat its cause.
Yes, charismatic ideologues play a part in the radicalisation process. But deep down, for those who are vulnerable, it’s not really about religious conviction or saving the world from oppression or defeating the evil west – these are just emotional vents; justifications for appeasing the deep lonely spaces of the human condition. It’s about feeling important, valued and ultimately, having a stake in the world surrounding them. [Abbrev.]
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/22/brother-jihadi-terrorist-society-extremism
Robb Leech Guardian/UK 22 October 2014
As Isis continues to dominate our collective consciousness, most recently with the crucifixion of a 17-year-old boy, the government appears to be fumbling in the dark for new ways of stemming the blood from an old wound which refuses to heal; only they seem to be thinking about bigger plasters, which probably won’t do the trick. Meanwhile, somewhere in the UK, another jihadist is born.
I documented the birth of one particular jihadist in my BBC3 film My Brother the Islamist. The film charted my attempts to reconnect with Rich, who happened to be my stepbrother, to try to understand the new world he had become a part of. Ultimately the shared journey drew us closer together, but a year later he would be arrested for attempting to join the Taliban in Pakistan.
Only two weeks before he vanished from the streets of Ealing we talked about our family, football, and albeit fleetingly, the future. I left the meeting with a smile on my face. Six months later he would plead guilty to terrorism charges, and I began making a second film, My Brother the Terrorist.
From the moment he converted, Rich was talking about fighting western oppression and dying a martyr. In a sense, the writing was on the wall. Violent jihad was something he and his “brothers” constantly talked about. When Rich pleaded guilty to preparing to commit acts of terror in 2012, he had been planning to travel to Afghanistan to cross the border and join the Pakistani Taliban.
But I never saw Rich as a terrorist, and didn’t see any of the people he surrounded himself with as terrorists either. What I saw were, and I hate to say it – vulnerable young men – with great chips on their shoulders. With their radical new status they felt empowered, superior and perhaps most annoyingly for me, righteous.
In a former life, the world they had been brought up in had wronged them. Perhaps they had family troubles, or maybe society shunned them, whatever it was, they resented it – they were lost, empty and had no stake in the western world. Becoming a radical Muslim reversed the polarity.
It’s a cliquey club from which everything beyond is viewed as imperfect at best, or evil at worst. And it’s the evils that these guys saturate their perceptions of the world with. Horrific, graphic and brutal images of the suffering, pain and death of Muslims at the hands of the west, played out alongside a powerful narrative of oppression and injustice – a narrative that is difficult to dismantle. The powerful human response to violence becomes nullified, and they become blind to the evil they themselves help to perpetrate.
People like my stepbrother justify fighting violent jihad out of a sense of responsibility and powerlessness at the plight of fellow Muslims. Yes, fighting on a foreign battlefield and owning your own AK-47 is pretty exciting too (and let’s not forget that dying a martyr is like hitting the afterlife jackpot), but crucially their motivation isn’t to kill innocent people, or to do bad. They’re not thinking about blowing themselves up at a tube station, the story they’re telling themselves is, as confounding as it sounds – one of saving humanity.
In hindsight, Rich’s arrest and subsequent conviction shouldn’t have come as a surprise to me: he set out to do what he had always talked of. As I stood in the public gallery and heard the evidence put forward by the prosecution, I looked into the dock to see Rich’s stony face and felt let down and sad, but also unexpectedly stupid. The inherent problem in attempting to tackle radicalisation is that often it is too late. By the time its signs begin to show, the scene is already set. Extremism of any kind is a symptom of an unhealthy society and, like any illness, in order to eradicate it, we should look to treat its cause.
Yes, charismatic ideologues play a part in the radicalisation process. But deep down, for those who are vulnerable, it’s not really about religious conviction or saving the world from oppression or defeating the evil west – these are just emotional vents; justifications for appeasing the deep lonely spaces of the human condition. It’s about feeling important, valued and ultimately, having a stake in the world surrounding them. [Abbrev.]
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/22/brother-jihadi-terrorist-society-extremism
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