Bill Moyers program “Selling the War” aired last night on PBS is perhaps the best documentary ever seen on America’s media and its collusion with Washington and without doubt an indictment of the independence of media as guardians of the debate over public issues, especially with important issues such as going to war. Read the rest of this entry »
Quoting from today’s New York Times article written by Sabrina Tavernise, regarding the on going debate in Turkey of the forthcoming selection of a new president “Mr. Gul’s candidacy goes to the heart of the secular-religious debate, because the presidency is such a revered symbol with real powers-he is commander in chief and has a veto. Turkish military leaders in the past have remarked that they would refuse to visit the presidential palace if a woman in head scarf were living in it”
This is the real debate and the real issue with Turkish secularist and the military who have defined Turkish secularism as a way to deny the very nature of Turkey as a state where the majority of the population is Muslims.
It is one thing to be secular and it is another thing to take secularism to the point of denying the citizens the right to express their faith and value system.
The military in Turkey have been the guardian of “secular” Turkey in the same way the “Mullahs” of Iran are the guardians of Iran Islamic Republic. Both parties appointed themselves as the guardian of the state, making sure the state is a defined through their own eyes. It is not the nation that counts it is their privileges that matters, preserving that interest at all costs.
In Turkey, women with traditional headscarf are forbidden from entering any governmental buildings and forbidden from entering public universities. A Turkish-American woman was elected to the Turkish parliament was refused the right to take her seat and was not sworn in because she was wearing headscarf.
Turkey like Iran both are doing their best with the first defining secularism in complete denial of the people faith, tradition and value system while the later is refusing to acknowledge the fact that people and citizens have a varying degree of commitment to traditions or Islamic life style.
Turkey takes secularism too many steps toward total denial of the rights of people to choose what they wear and the right to exercise their religion and values without the state denying them full access to its institutions. As if secularism is a form of National Socialism like that of Germany where only members of the Nazi party had full access to the state and its institutions. Perhaps Turkish secularist like women in mini-skirts to suite their own taste of fashion designs. There is nothing wrong with secularism as long as it recognizes and accepts that people have certain religious and traditional value system that shape their private and public behavior and value systems. Even a secular country like the US with separation of church and state many if not most of its laws and constitutional value systems are imbedded in religion and the believe in God. With both mini-skirts living in harmony with headscarves.
Secular Turks and especially the military are trying to preserve the most restrictive form of secularism which is denial of religious values and beliefs. As if secularism is the religion of the state and as if belief in secularism is a condition of membership n the state. One has to ask the question why a mini-skirt is accepted as a fashion while secularist denies Turkish women the right to wear a head scarf. Perhaps it is time for secular Turkey to accept both the right of the mini-skirt and the head scarf as a private choice not a state regulated national dress code. Attaturk was not very successful when he mandated that Turks not only change their traditional dress but the letterings of their language. Turkish military leaders must not think they are the guardians of secular Turkey, but must think of themselves as professional soldiers leaving the people with the right to define their own value system. The Turkish military leaders are no different than Iran’s Mullahs who made sure they write their own selfish and personal interest in the country constitutions. I am often asked the questions of my preference between a “secular” state and an “Islamic” state and my answer always was and will be ” I want to live in secular state where my rights as a Muslims are fully respected and not defined by my faith rather than live in an Islamic state that define my rights as citizen only through my faith and consequently denying people of other faiths full rights and citizenship” Perhaps Turkey should and can learn from the American model of a “secular” state where people value systems and faith or lack of it are fully respected and this protection is imbedded in the constitution. There are no reasons for a Muslim, a Jew or a Christian or Hindu or Atheists not fully exercising their rights and value systems in a secular state, but not the Turkish model. It is time for both Iran and Turkey to redefine what a secular or a religious state is all about.
Abdullah Gul, no doubt will make a first class president and his wife with the headscarf will also make a first class first lady. Perhaps it is the Turkish military that have to take their hats off when entering the presidential palace in honor of its resident, President Abdullah Gul and his wife Hayrunisa.
No one can deny, least not me that the Jews and their leadership did a much better job at finding and establishing the state of Israel than the Palestinians and their leadership was able to deal with the catastrophic result of the creation of Israel and its aftermath on the Palestinian people.
It is true that the world Jewish community pulled together and was able to get the best and brightest and enlist them in the service of a Zionist cause that succeeded in the creation of Israel and with the subsequent expulsion of more that 700,000 Palestinians. The world Jewish community by hooks and by crooks was able to enlist the support of key leaders and key states and enlist them, together with their world wide economic and financial resources and with a well armed militia and terrorist organizations was able to win their war of independence over a people that for the most part did not know what was going on and for the most part led by a most incompetent and intellectual inept leadership of the time. Yes, the Jews succeeded because they knew what they were doing and succeeded because they have accountable leadership and we failed because we did not have the kind of leadership that was a match for the Zionist leadership at the time. Yes the Jews were damn good at what they were doing and they succeeded while the Palestinians failed.
59 years later and the Palestinian people and the leaderships are not much better than they were in 1948. While Israel is celebrating a garrison state with perhaps the most ruthless army in the world, it was also able to become an economic power house attracting some $14 billions in foreign investment last year while it waging its most criminal war against the people of Lebanon, and with some of the best and well known corporations leading the world in science and technology. The Palestinians are having a tough time managing and bringing under control a runaway ministry full of lose guns and with so many ambitious small time thugs masquerading as colonels and generals, as if they have won the Battle of the Al-Alamain.
One could not help but compare Ben-Gurion with Arafat. While Ben-Gurion made sure he attracted the best of Jews and gentiles to support his drive for the establishment of the state insuring not only its survival but that it thrives as well, No one cold deny that many committed and talented Palestinians joined the cause for liberation, Arafat attracted for the most part not the best and brightest, but the mediocre where loyalty counted for every thing. This policy of Arafat continued even after Oslo where many of those parasites returned with him to run a mini-state for the occupation, and they have shown they are as inept at running the state as they did in Beirut and Tunis for over 40 years. While Ben-Gurion made sure he has a state operating like a state within one minute from his declaration of independence, Arafat and his PLO had 40 years to prepare for such a day when they can run an independent state and they have proven they were ill prepared not only to run a state but were and are ill prepared to even manage a department. While Ben-Gurion made sure he attracted the best brains to serve Israel, Arafat and the PLO made sure that only those who were out to rob and fleece were invited to join a fledging Palestinian Authority that is till today riddled with corruption and incompetence.
With hundreds of thousands of talented Palestinians in all fields, we did not see mass migration back home join and build a nation. All leaderships and key position in the new authority was given to loyalist whose only qualification they kissed his ass ad feet and said yes to his every wish and ever challenge his many wrong policies and ill advised missteps. The same remain true now as it was in the days of Arafat.
One has to raise even more questions as to why after all these 59 years the Palestinians are not closer to freedom and independence, with the priorities on finding funds to run inefficient and badly managed departments and with no priorities on ending the occupation.
In over 40 years of PLO leadership we did not see much improvement in education or health care let alone preparedness for that day when we will sit down with the Israelis and seek a final settlement. Non of our organizations and institutions have the tools nor the talent to address all of the issues of exiles, properties, wrongful use of stolen properties, war crimes and restitutions for the more than 750,000 where were jailed by Israel at one time or the other. After 40 years we do not see a vision for that future state that may come one day. After 40 years and with hundreds of thousands dead and with more than $ 30 years of funding over the years, there is no support for a total accounting for all that happened in the last 40 years and there is no calls for bringing the leadership past and present to account for its actions and failures and also for the billions of missing funds.Perhaps as a first step to redeem ourselves as people we need to clear out act and we need to put the interest of the nation and people above the interests of every one. We need to make sure that the Diaspora people are involved in all decisions and to make sure that the Diaspora Palestinians not only well represented at the table supported by the best and brightest ( Palestine Agency/Palestine Documentation Center), and that all Palestinians share in the formulation of a vision for the new state, if and when it comes, rather than rely on a leadership that after 9 years of trying is unable to reform one single ministry with over some 70,000 undisciplined gun carrying militia without loyalty to the nation and the cause but loyalties to a bunch of thugs and mafia like bosses. The Palestinians of today are perhaps in much worse position than they were some 59 years ago. Too bad for all of the millions with so many talents and life time commitments that the present leadership is unable to go out of its parasite infested circles and see the support and active input of all Palestinians at home and abroad. May Alla/God help us, we need all the help we can.
In a rousing speech that had Republicans standing on their feet at the annual Lincoln Day dinner in Iowa, the Republican Congressman from Colorado, Representative Tom Tancredo declared illegal immigration as the greatest threat to Western Civilization, for sure angering the White House for not using Al-Qaeda as the greatest threat to Western Civilization. How could any one but a Republican buy such a stupid declaration? And how could any one but a Republican buy into the idea that illegal immigration is the greatest threat to Western Civilization?
Now joining Congressman Tancredo ( I am sure he is not a Native American Indian but an immigrant from somewhere) is the Republican presidential candidate Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City who himself is not a Native American Indian, but the son or grandson of an Italian immigrant, albeit legal/illegal immigrant.
Now the Republican Party has a great platform for its coming presidential campaign. It is the illegal immigrants that pose the greatest threat to America. Of course not the stupid and reckless policies of the White House and the Republican controlled congress that lead us to the War on Iraq costing the lives of some 3,500 of our finest soldiers, putting our country on debt for generations to come, putting priorities such as education, healthcare and affordable housing at great risk, and of course the killing and murder of over 750,000 Iraqis, and the only thing the leading activist of the Republican Party can come up with is illegal immigration as the platform. Only if they claimed illegal immigration as a threat to the US one perhaps can uderstand that, but declaring illegal immigration as the greatest threat to Western Civilization is taking it a bit too far. Perhaps they could have said, Jihadist or international terrorism, or drug trafficing, or white color crimes committed by their friends in corporate America, but to declare the poor Spanish immigrant from Mexico and Central America as a threat to Western Civilization is a bit too much. Once again, the Republicans are proving they lost their marbles.
Of course Republicans want to hid and ignore their failures at every front, from the War on Iraq to their War on Terrorism, to the War on Drugs, and of course having succeed at their War against the poor and the unemployed. With the exception of making money for their friends in the business community who robbed the country blind in Iraq with cost to tax payers in the tens of billions of dollars,the only thing Republicans can say to cover up their failure is to blame every thing on illegal immigrants. That is a repeat of what the small town of Herndon, VA said when it declared the Latino illegal immigrant as the greatest threat to its community and values.
I could not understand how an illegal immigrant from San Salvador or Ecuador can be a great threat to Western Civilization, a civilization that stretches from Greece in the East to Los Angeles in the West. Keep in mind the Republican did not claim illegal immigrant as a threat to the US but to Western Civilization. Of course, it is true these hard working immigrants are a threat to Western Civilization; they are the one who build our homes, making lots of money for White American and Republican businessmen. They keep the grass cut and our highways clean, they cook for us in restaurants where lobbyist buy a $100 dinner for members of congress. They clean the homes and baby sit for rich Republicans as they go out and rob and fleece America and corrupt the core values of America as the land of freedoms and the homes of the brave.
Yes, these poor and hardworking illegal immigrants are the greatest threat to Western Civilization far greater threats than nuclear war, or the bird flue or the drug trafficing. Why? Because these illegal immigrants are not White. They do not come from “White” countries such as Russia, or East or West Europe, where the Russian Mafia have substituted and taken over from the Italian mafia illegal gambling, drug trafficking, prostitution and while slavery and racketeering. Of course these millions of illegal immigrants are working so hard accepting minimum wages to keep the farms of Californian and Florida thriving, and keeping the US construction industry and housing market going. What if these “Brown skinned” illegal immigrants where “White skinned” would Republican say they are the greatest threat to Western Civilization. I do not think so.
What so amazing is that such alarming and racial calls find listing ears among the very poorest of poor within “White America” with people who have been left out of any economic and social development in the country and who are at the greatest risk when tornados hit their trailer homes and shacks in the South? These poor and left behind White are the core support of a racist Republican Party that in itself is the greatest threat not only to American but our democratic values. Let us not say the greatest threat to Western Civilization.
Who would believe that the Arabic news satellite Aljazeera would take off a program and documentary on Fairouz to bring George Bush live from Ohio to tell his lies? But this is exactly what happened on Thursday night at 17.15 GMT few minutes in the program on perhaps one, and together with the late Om- Kulthoum the most beautiful and powerful voice.
Om-Kulthum has her style but Fairouz is a special phenomenon with a mesmerizing soft voice and with a wide range of music and song that she was able to entertain generations of Arabic listeners from Morocco to Bahrain from Aleppo to Sana’a.
Fairouz was that special voice that sang love songs, sad songs, nationalist songs, funny songs. She sang for people and for counties. She sang for causes and for cities. Most of all she sang for all of us. We loved and will always love her voice, her music and the themes that inspired her music.
With hardly any documentary on the first lady of music, Aljazeera started the documentary with a visit to where she was born showing pictures of the young Fairouz and showing pictures of Fairouz with her long time music partner and husband, with some of the old and most beautiful songs, only for the station to interrupt the program and bring that stupid man, George Bush alive from Ohio to tell us and Arab viewers why he was at war in Iraq.
Having not learned from over 4 years of lies and more lies, George Bush again, try to us in the US and tell Arab audience that his was on Iraq was part of his war on terror, part of his war on Alqaeda. George Bush in his message in Ohio as to win votes and to intimidate the US Congress that finally caught up with his lies and that finally woke up to its responsibility, albeit late with more than 3,500 brave American soldiers killed in a senseless war and with more than 700,000 Iraqis dead and more than 2 millions exiles as refuses seeking to escape the death and destruction that George Bush’s Tel-Aviv mafia brought about.
While this mafia, with the exception of their godfather, Dick Cheney all left the stage to more lucrative jobs at the World Bank and at Georgetown, poor George was left holding the bag after sticking it to the US tax payers with more than $ 500 Billons that the war on Iraq has cost and of course not to mention the invaluable lives lost because of his war and the ineptness of those who planned, and managed the war.
Now George Bush is desperate to keep the war going telling us that his stupid war is succeeding when we see on the daily news the Talibans are every where in Afghanistan and with Osama Bin Laden somewhere in Pakistan or Afghanistan and with his was in Iraq igniting a very ugly and destructive civil war that only Iraqi can excel at with daily suicide bombing and with daily truck and car bombs that kills innocent people before any thing else.
One has to ask Mr. Bush how can you claim you are winning the war on terror when there is terror every where, nurtured by your incompetence and reckless leadership? How dare you tell us to give you more chance to succeed when you have been nothing but failure for the last 4 years? A total failure at your war on terror and total failure of your domestic programs at home. Your tenure in office has been nothing but jinks for America and the world.
I never could understand why Aljazeera or for that matter Alarabyia and Al-Ekhbaryia, all leading Arabic satellite station interrupt their programs to bring George Bush live from Ohio to tell Arab viewers his views on the war on terror and on the need to keep the funding going to keep the his stupid and reckless war going. Of course the Iraqis with their vindictiveness and their disregards for any human values are not helping to bring an end to this war. The Sunnis and Shiites are both supporting George Bush and his war against the Iraqi people and in turn against the American people.This is lost war from the very start. The wrong war for the wrong reasons and in the wrong country. It was a war well planned by Bibi Netanyahu friends and partners in the Reagan and Bush administration and it was a war promoted and managed by the Likudists in Washington, DC. It was an Israeli proxy war fought and paid for by American and Iraqi lives and of course paid for by American tax payers. The only beneficiaries of this reckless war are the NeoCons who are out to destroy America, and so far they are succeeding at it. Fairouz that very beautiful voice that sang for Jerusalem, as the wounded city and the grandest of all cities was taken off the air to allow the man who funds and sponsor the continued killing of Palestinians, who continue to fund the Apartheid Wall and the man who continue to sponsor the ugliest military occupation in the last century. Perhaps all 3 networks got their instructions from Washington. How could any one listen to George Bush when they can listen to the very beautiful and serene voice of Fairouz.
Several theaters in New York, Miami and Toronto cancelled the planned staging of the play, “My name is Rachel Carrie” the young American activists who was killed by and American made bulldozer in Gaza few years ago as she tried to defend and stop the uprooting of trees and destruction of homes by an Israeli army driving by hate.
The cancellation of the show, which had a very successful run in London, should not come as a complete surprise. This story reminded me of the time when as young activists in New York City we wanted to show a documentary about the forced exiles of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians by Jewish terrorists back in 1948
An agreement was reached with the operator of the theater in Mid-Town only to be cancelled when he knew that we planned to show a film about Palestinian exiles and of course about the behavior of Jewish terrorists. We end up showing the film within the compound of the UN as the only place with a free speech zone in New York City.
For the most part and it is sad to say, that when it comes to Israel and when it comes to the criminal actions of Israel the American Jewish community for the most parts shut off its eyes, its ears, and its conscious and refuse to admit that the Israeli Wall is nothing but an Apartheid Wall designed to prevent terrorism, but as a way to steal ad rob Palestinians of their homes and farms and destroy their community. They refuse to accept that Jewish Only Road for the Jewish settlers and trespassers are apartheid and they refuse to accept the idea of separate cards and separate colors and separate license plates and destructions of tens of thousands of Arab homes and the refusals to give permits to Palestinians to build on their own properties are nothing but simple Jewish Apartheid.
In the US there are very few possibilities for any readers to get published any editorial comments in major news papers let alone publish any features in the editorial pages. When this happens and it does happen once in great while it is considered a major event celebrated by the Arab and Palestinians communities as a public holidays. News media hardly ever invite Arabs to give their point of views and of course Congress hardly ever has Arab staff experts on its payroll preferring to get its experts from the many Israeli and Jewish shops in town. There is simply no equal opportunity for Arabs when it comes to the issue of Israel and the Israeli Occupation of Palestinians and Arab land.
Publishers and editorial managing editors always exercise “self censorship” let they cross the lines and always leery of the advertising power of major advertising companies that simply can kill any publication that cross the red line.
The Jewish community has its watch and attack dogs on college campuses and in the class rooms and they have the same in the media giving its dogs some nice sounding names like Campus Watch and Accuracy in Media and Flame among others.
With that kind of environment, no wonder there are hardly any open and full fledged debate on the Arab-Israeli issues and conflicts. No wonders why we as citizens in the US can debate whether God exists or not. We can debate whether God is a man or woman, we can debate George Bush whether he is smart or simply stupid. We can debate the creation. We can openly debate Moses, Jesus, and Mohamed and can debate racism, and many social and political issues with some varying degrees of rigors. But we never have the chance to openly debate US partnership with Israel and the Occupation, or the influence of the Jewish and Zionist lobbies on decision making process in the US. I would like to know why is it that this issues that has cost US tax payers over a trillion dollars, and have cost the US so many lives most of it gunned down by the Israel Army. I ask the question why the murder of some 36 US navy personnel by the Israeli Air Force does not merit a Naval Board of Inquiry when the alleged funding of Palestinians terrorism by Professor Sami Al-Aryan merit the spending of some $100 millions on his trial and the flying at tax payers expense some 40 Israeli witnesses. Lyndon Johnson did not have the balls or the courage to order a naval board of inquiry into the murder the crew of the USS Liberty. Why the murder of Rachel Corrie by the Israeli Army does not merit or own State Department opening an investigation and the flying of the FBI agents to investigate? Why the murder of Palestinian-Americans by Israeli army and settlers does not merit opening an investigation when the murder of an American Jew makes the entire government jump from its seat and shake the White House and the US Congress. We only ask our government to treat its citizen in the same way, whether they are murdered or killed by Palestinian or Jewish terrorists. Yes, it is Apartheid and its censorship.
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