Showing posts with label Middle East. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Middle East. Show all posts

Friday, April 01, 2011

Paul Goodman on Youth Revolt in the Middle East

In light of the youth revolt spreading through out the Middle East, I thought this quote from the American anarchist Paul Goodman was appropriate, it comes from the sixties youth revolt in the U.S. which he participated in.

And there is an authentic demand for Young People's Power,
their right to take part in initiating and deciding the functions of society
that concern them—as well, of course as governing
their own lives, which are nobody else's business.
Bear in mind that we are speaking of ages seventeen
to twenty-five, when at all other times the young
would already have been launched in the real world.
The young have the right to power because they are
numerous and are directly affected by what goes on,
but especially because their new point of view is
indispensable to cope with changing conditions, they
themselves being part of the changing conditions.
This is why Jefferson urged us to adopt a new
constitution every generation.


And while American youth in the sixties were protesting the Viet-Nam war and demanding Free Speech on campuses they were experiencing a capitalist economy that was booming, despite that boom their alienation from the old Left and old Right and the rule of old men was not unlike their counterparts today in the Middle East.

A coalition of six youth groups that emerged from Egypt’s revolution last month has refused to meet with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who arrived in Cairo earlier today, in protest of the United States’ strong support for former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak who was ousted by the uprising.

This juncture may be unprecedented in modern Arab history. Suddenly, despotic regimes that have been entrenched for fourty years and more seem vulnerable. Two of them – in Tunis and then in Cairo – crumbled before our eyes in a few weeks. Others in Tripoli and Sanaa are fighting to survive. The old men who dominate the rest suddenly look their age, and the distance between them and most of their populations, born decades after them, has never been greater. An apparently frozen political situation has melted overnight in the heat of the popular upsurge that began in Tunisia and Egypt, and now is spreading. We are all privileged to be experiencing a world-historical moment, when fixed verities vanish and new potentials and forces emerge. Perhaps one day some of us can say, as Wordsworth said of the French Revolution, “Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive, but to be young was very heaven.”

At its core, the uprising from Tunis to Sana is a youth revolt and it can be sparked elsewhere in the world, whether the local government is run by monarchs, generals or kleptocratic elected officials.

Observers have identified decades of oppressive rule and growing economic disparity as the main factors behind the Arab upheaval. One aspect that has not received adequate attention is the anger of the region's youth populations, educated and unemployed, most of whom have known only one ruler in their lifetimes. Products of high fertility rates and low investment in education and job creation, these young adults fear ending their lives as poor, unmarried and marginalised in their own societies. They demand democracy in order to take charge of their lives and to build a future, but what they crave most is the dignity of employment and a normal family life.

Population growth in the Arab region followed by rise in life expectancy has created a youth bulge, not unlike in India. The total number of youth (those between the ages of 15 and 24) has grown nearly two and half times in 30 years, with 60% of Arabs aged between 15 and 59 years. (In India, the same demographic accounts for 56.9%.)

This young workforce and low dependency rate would have been welcomed as a "demographic dividend", as it is in India. In theory, young workers could have supplied the world's labour force and - with only 6% of the population over 60 - increased the savings rate. But the region's failure to generate employment and offer education and skill-sets matching jobs has instead created a demographic disaster. The region's single largest unemployed group comprises educated youth below 25, whom a recent ILO report on unemployment called a "lost generation".


Mother Tells UN’s Ban How Son’s Suicide Sparked Tunisian Revolt

“I am proud of my son, my son who contributed to the liberation of Tunisia,” Manoubieh Bouazizi said following her 10-minute meeting with Ban at the Regency Hotel in Tunis. Her comments in Arabic were translated into French by one of her daughters. “I am sure where my son is, he is happy.”

To support his extended family, including a sister at university, Bouazizi sold fruit and vegetables on a street in rural Sidi Bouzid, a four-hour drive from the capital. He was harassed and heckled by local police for not having a permit and his cart, the source of his livelihood, was confiscated. That final humiliation was the last straw.

“The real violation was the affront to Mohamed Bouazizi’s sense of human dignity,” Ban said. “The daily indignities, the crushing of a people’s potential.”


Students study unrest in the Middle East

Faris said the recent Arab revolutions are all important waves of democracy. He said the incident in Tunisia where a fruit-seller set himself on fire to protest the government was the catalyst in Egypt. There are many other factors to the recent revolts and one very notable cause is the passion of the youth. The youth make up the most of the population of the protesters.

Fashandi said the role young people are playing in the uprisings throughout the Middle East is vital. "It is amazing to see the factors which separate the Egyptian people such as religion and social class, and instead focuses on the common goal of basic human rights and democracy," said Fashandi.

Faris said it is important to note that the youth are at the forefront of the revolutions in the Middle East. "What happened in Tunisia and Egypt is a reminder to all of us that young people really do have the power to bring about important changes, both in the Middle East and here."



SEE:

For the Revolutionary Youth in the Middle East

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Libya A Diversion

The civil war in Libya is acting as a convenient cover for more repressive American backed regimes in the Middle East to continue their oppressive regimes and attack their citizens who are protesting. By focusing on Libya the silence of the International community is deafening when it comes to these attacks on legitimate protests.

Police fired tear gas to disperse hundreds of anti-government demonstrators blocking access to the financial district of Bahrain's capital on Sunday, as sectarian tension escalated in this tiny island kingdom.

The Persian Gulf kingdom, home to the headquarters of the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, has seen weeks of demonstrations led by Shiites, who make up a majority of the population but say they are discriminated against by the Sunni royal family.

The confrontations Sunday were among the most violent since the military killed seven protesters on Feb. 17. They followed similar clashes Friday when security forces fired what protesters said were rubber bullets, and pro-government gangs armed with sticks beat back several hundred protesters near the royal palace.

At least one person was killed and scores were hurt on Sunday when Yemeni police fired live rounds and tear gas at protesters in Sanaa demanding an end to President Ali Abdullah Saleh's 32-year rule, medical sources said. Meanwhile, protests continued in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Oman.

Four people, including a 12-year-old boy, were killed in protests around Yemen on Saturday, bringing the total number of dead during two months of unrest to above 30.


Yemeni security forces also fired tear gas and live ammunition for a second day in a bid to force students to vacate a protest camp near Sana'a University. Eyewitnesses say police and pro-government supporters also used wooden clubs and knives to attack the protesters. Dozens of casualties were reported.

Al-Jazeera TV reported that protesters in the southern Yemeni port city of Aden attacked and set fire to a police station for the second time in 48 hours. Al-Arabiya TV reported anti-government protesters also clashed with police in the city of Taiz, north of Aden, injuring several.

Yemeni protesters across the country have been demonstrating since mid-February, amid calls for the resignation of veteran President Ali Abdallah Saleh, who has offered sweeping concessions to the protesters.

In Lebanon, tens of thousands of supporters of the anti-Syrian March 14th coalition turned out in Beirut’s Martyr’s Square to commemorate the 2005 Cedar Revolution that forced Damascus to withdraw its troops from the country.

- Morocco's King Mohammed VI promised sweeping constitutional reforms, including real powers for a popularly elected prime minister instead of a royal appointee, as well as a free judiciary.

In his first speech after uprisings across the Arab world and less than a month after protests erupted in Morocco for more social justice and limits on royal powers, the king Wednesday pledged to draw up a new draft constitution.

The live broadcast was the first time the king has delivered an address to the nation since thousands of people demonstrated in several cities on February 20 demanding political reform and limits on his powers.

There have been other peaceful rallies since then, including in the capital Rabat and the country's biggest city Casablanca, with young activists campaigning for greater democracy using the Facebook social network to call for new demonstrations on March 20.

Six people were killed in unrest that erupted after demonstrations on February 20, including five found burned to death in a bank set ablaze by people whom officials labelled vandals.

Another 128, including 115 members of the security forces, were wounded in the violence and 120 people were arrested, the interior ministry said.

Dozens of vehicles and buildings were also damaged or set alight.



Tuesday, March 01, 2011

Charlie Gadhafi

Has anyone noticed that the news has been taken up recently by nonsensical rants from these two guys who sound a lot alike when it comes to self deluded self indulgent babbling.

"It's perfect. It's awesome. Every day is just filled with just wins. All we do is put wins in the record books," the 45-year-old actor said. "We win so radically in our underwear before our first cup of coffee, it's scary. People say it's lonely at the top, but I sure like the view." The embattled actor opened up his Beverly Hills home, which he now shares with his two girlfriends and his twin sons with soon-to-be ex-wife Brooke Mueller, to ABC News this weekend.


Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi appeared Monday either to not know that demonstrators in cities throughout Libya are calling for an end to his rule or not accept it, according to excerpts from the interview "No demonstration at all in the streets," he told ABC News and the BBC in a joint interview carried out at a restaurant in Tripoli, excerpts of which were posted on the BBC's website.Gadhafi, wearing sunglasses and clad in brown tribal clothing, refused to accept the reporter's assertion that they were not. "No. No one against us. Against me for what?"

Mind you at least the reporters talking to Gadhafi challenged him unlike the reporters who pandered to Charlie Sheen. Maybe Qaddafi should consider moving to Hollywood, where he would get the fawning respect of the entertainment industry that masquerades as news.

When Rossen said that Sheen was seen as crazy as he talked about being a warlock with tiger's blood, Sheen shrugged. "It's entertaining as hell. I'm laughing. ... Did they expect it to be a normal interview - conventional, boring? No, we're shaking a a tree. We're shaking all the trees."

Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi has told the BBC he is loved by all his people and has denied there have been any protests in Tripoli.

Col Gaddafi said that his people would die to protect him.

He laughed at the suggestion he would leave Libya and said that he felt betrayed by the world leaders who had urged him to quit.


Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Truth A Casualty of War


Could this be the reason
Tuesday also marks the sixth anniversary of the worst terror attacks on U.S soil, giving the administration an opportunity to link present-day al-Qaida extremists in Iraq with Sept. 11 mastermind Osama bin Laden.
For this

The idea that the Bush administration participated in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks is not limited to fringe Web sites and conspiracy theorists, according to a poll commissioned by a Web site that promotes alternative explanations for the events of Sept. 11. The poll, conducted by Zogby International for 911Truth.org and released last week, found that 31 percent of Americans do not accept the official explanation for Sept. 11 -- that "19 Arab fundamentalists executed a surprise attack which caught U.S. intelligence and military forces off guard." Among that 31 percent, around 26 percent agreed that the American government "knew the attacks were coming but consciously let them proceed for various political, military, and economic motives." Almost 5 percent believed that U.S. officials "actively planned or assisted some aspects of the attack."
Given the White House lies equating their long planned assault on Iraq as their post 9/11 response, equating Saddam with bin Laden, lies about WMD, etc. etc. Ended up being an excuse to leave their war on Al Qaeda in Afghanistan to head off to Baghdad. The result was that gave Al Qaeda clones another front to fight them on.

Given that why wouldn't you believe in a conspiracy. After all there was one, just not the one that 9/11 Truth would have us believe.

America has a long history of Conspiracy theories in politics.

See:

Ron Paul

Saddam and the CIA




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Saturday, September 08, 2007

Bin Laden Transcript

Bin Laden Inc. takes on the American Empire.(transcript)

This is why I tell you: as you liberated yourselves before from the slavery of monks, kings, and feudalism, you should liberate yourselves from the deception, shackles and attrition of the capitalist system.

If you were to ponder it well, you would find that in the end, it is a system harsher and fiercer than your systems in the Middle Ages. The capitalist system seeks to turn the entire world into a fiefdom of the major corporations under the label of “globalization” in order to protect democracy.

And Iraq and Afghanistan and their tragedies; and the reeling of many of you under the burden of interest-related debts, insane taxes and real estate mortgages; global warming and its woes; and the abject poverty and tragic hunger in Africa: all of this is but one side of the grim face of this global system.

So it is imperative that you free yourselves from all of that and search for an alternative, upright methodology in which it is not the business of any class of humanity to lay down its own laws to its own advantage at the expense of the other classes as is the case with you, since the essence of man-made positive laws is that they serve the interests of those with the capital and thus make the rich richer and the poor poorer.

The infallible methodology is the methodology of Allah, the Most High, who created the heavens and earth and created the Creation and is the Most Kind and All-Informed and the Knower of the souls ofHis slaves and the methodology that best suits them.


It is asymmetrical Imperialism versus the new Imperium. The modern manichiest duality. Bin Laden Inc. is a Muslim engineering, security and banking corporation in competition for regional hegemony with USA Inc. and it's partner's Halliburton and Bechtel. Not to be confused with the family business back in Saudi Arabia.


The Saudi Binladin Group is not liable for the Sept. 11 attacks, attorneys for the multinational engineering firm maintain, because it made Osama bin Laden surrender his stake in the company 14 years ago. Responding in federal court to lawsuits over the attacks, the lawyers wrote that in 1993, the terrorist mastermind was forced out as a shareholder in two companies his family owns.

A judge had ordered Saudi Binladin Group in July to provide additional information about where the money for Osama bin Laden's 2 percent stake in the company went.
Osama bin Laden in lecturing America sounds like Ben Bernake, lecturing on the financial impacts of the housing crisis, and the coming recession. And well he should he is the scion of the largest telecommunications and engineering family in Saudi Arabia. He is a self made man. Not unlike Donald Trump.

His anti-capitalism in the transcript is a medievalist reaction, he is one of many new prophets claiming to be the Mahdi, and he is using the Wahhabist base that is the Saudi state religion.

The Sept. 11 Commission concluded that the Sudanese government took Osama bin Laden's assets when he left Sudan in 1996.

"He left Sudan with practically nothing," the commission concluded.

"When bin Laden arrived in Afghanistan, he relied on the Taliban until he was able to reinvigorate his fundraising efforts by drawing on ties to wealthy Saudi individuals that he had established during the Afghan war in the 1980s."

Before Osama bin Laden, it might be argued, there was the Mahdi. Over 120 years ago, a messianic leader united the tribes of the Sudan in a bloody revolt against their Turkish-Egyptian masters. Proclaiming that Islam had been corrupted and defiled by "foreigners," this Islamic warrior declared a jihad against the "outsiders."

Although not alike in all significant respects--the Mahdi, for example, came from humble origins, whereas bin Laden is the scion of a Saudi billionaire--the desert warrior and the peripatetic leader of al Qaeda show some striking similarities. There is a shared connection with Sudan, from which bin Laden was expelled in 1996. Both men tangled militarily with the major power of their eras. Both believed themselves to be directed by Allah to lead a holy war, to eradicate the corrupting influence of the West from Muslim lands and, in the process, spread Islam.
The Islamic Traditions of Wahhabism and Salafiyya


And he knows how to use the media to get out his message, hence he has gained weight, changed his beard, is dressed well.

[binny2.jpg]


He is a businessman lecturing to his peers. He is not yet dead, nor captured the war on terror so far has been a failure, just like Iraq. This is what his spectacular appearance says.

In any case, it may be that the point of terror is not merely to disrupt spectacle by producing indigestible images, but to exceed it. Retort highlight the paradox of the vanguard Islamic revolutionaries, who deny themselves all that capitalist spectacle has to offer, and harden themselves against mundane sentiment and appetite, yet who still hold to the effectiveness of the image, and propagate images of their acts through websites.


His is not class war but global inter-Imperialist rivalry. America is in the way of his war against the current ruling classes in the Middle East. Always was.

Retort argue that the result of the spectacular defeat of 9-11 has been to push the state into actions that are as much governed by spectacle as by material considerations. Warfare has been elevated from an intermittent action to permanent imperial conflict. They claim that one frequently repeated charge of the anti-war movement "that the war was fought for oil" when taken too simply, ignores the "partially non-factual imperatives of capital accumulation." These include the effort to repair spectacle, and the drive to normalize war in the minds of citizens.
SEE:

Osama bin Laden Republican


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Wednesday, April 11, 2007

A Surge in Terrorism

The war in Iraq is a failure as is the White Houses so called war on terror. In the fourth year of the war in Iraq all that has been done is that Iraq has created the conditions for a surge in asymmetrical warfare in the region. Not exactly what was supposed to happen.Qaeda claims responsibility for Algeria blasts

Algiers Blast Follows Casablanca Raids

Although there was no apparent connection between the events in Morocco and Algeria they illustrate how North African countries are struggling to deal with Islamic extremists. Steinberg is convinced that there is a new organized Jihadist scene in North Africa. "One has to expect further attacks in the region," he said.

'This is an incentive to pursue the war on terrorism without respite,' Communication Minister Nabil Benabdallah told Reuters, adding the incident was 'in the framework of horrendous terrorist acts in Morocco and other Maghreb countries'.

Governments in North Africa fear violence may spill over from Algeria after the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat renamed itself Al Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb with the aim of fusing similar Islamist groups together.

Al-Qaeda's beliefs are those of Salafism, which originates in the Saudi Arabia as the State religion.

The movements of Islamic fundamentalism are those of America's client state in the region; Saudi Arabia, attempting to subvert its neighbours in order to keep its own house stable.

Like Bush who tells Americans it is better that Iraqis die in the war on terror to keep America from being attacked, the House of Saud declares better to export its own terror abroad than to have it come home.

See:

Sadr Surge

Surge In Iraq

Vietnamization of Iraq

Calling A Spade A Shovel


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Sunday, February 04, 2007

Fraser Institute On Lebanon


I found this Fraser Institute Report on Economic Freedom, ie. advanced capitalist development, in the Arab World. In it they praise Lebanon, not once but at least twice and place it in their top five Arab countries developing capitalism their way in the region. Despite last summers war on Lebanon by Israel. This press release was made from Beirut in December.

Five Arab nations share economic freedom awards during ceremony in Beirut
News Release

Despite the current troubles in Lebanon, we thought it important to proceed with the
meeting to show our support for Lebanon and the region, and the role that economic
freedom can play in its future,” said Fred McMahon, director of The Fraser Institute’s
Centre for Globalization Studies.

1) Lean Government Award: Lebanon
This category examines various measures to determine whether the government sector is inappropriately large, crowding out personal choice with government decisions.

3)Sound Money Award: Lebanon
This measures the extent to which a nation’s currency is sound and holds its value over time.

Data for the Economic Freedom of the Arab World Report (2006)


Which shows the correctness of my thesis; that the war against Lebanon was a deliberate attempt to destablize a capitalist economy in competition with Israel. In other words classic Imperialist reasoning to go to war; inter-capitalist competition. Hizbollah was a mere pretext.

Specifically see:

Unemployment Breeds Terrorism

Israel Lies Cost Lebanese Lives

Economic War

The Economics of War In Lebanon

Six Week War for Nothing

Lets Get Our Facts Straight

Hezbollah Are Not Terrorists

Israel War Crimes

We Are Hezbolah


Links to my articles on:

Fraser Institute

Lebanon

Israel

Middle East

Arab


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Monday, January 29, 2007

Measured Response


Remember His Highness Stephen Harper saying that Israel's war with Lebanon last summer was a measured response.

And after that he was silent on any Israeli war crimes. Insisting even at the Franco-phone summit that a motion critizing Israel be muted and include criticism of Hizbollah, by inference blaming them for starting the war.

And then Peter Mackay was in Israel last week saying the New Government of Canada stands by its new found ally.

Which is why they have been silent about this less than measured response in the last days of that war.....


Israel may have violated agreements with Washington on the use of US-made cluster bombs in its war with Hizbullah in Lebanon last summer, the state department said today.


See

Israel

Palestine

Lebanon

Peter MacKay


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