Thursday, January 11, 2007
What they said about democracy...
Ariel Sharon: In terms of culture and tradition, the Arab world is not built for democratization. [Source]
Bashar Assad: "..Syria is too backward to sustain Western-style democracy. Tribalism has haunted Syria for 2000 years and sectarianism is too deeply rooted and too close to the surface of society to permit Western–style freedoms. If unleashed, these ancient loyalties would cause civil war and chaos" [Source]
Paulo Freire: "Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world".
Sydney J. Harris: “Democracy is the only system that persists in asking the powers that be whether they are the powers that ought to be.”
Mohandas K. Gandhi: "In true democracy every man and women is taught to think for himself or herself".
C. S. Lewis: "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience".
Aristotle: "If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in the government to the utmost".
Zbigniew Bbrzezinski: "If not genuinely accepted and reinforced by traditions of constitutionalism, democracy can degenerate into plebiscites that only add legitimacy to extremism and authoritarianism".
Hermann Goering: "Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.
Thomas Jefferson: "Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government".
Voltairine de Cleyre: "So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men".
Alastair Farrugia: "Freedom is when the people can speak, democracy is when the government listens.”
Mahatma Gandhi: "The true democrat is he who with purely nonviolent means defends his liberty and, therefore, his country's and ultimately that of the whole of mankind”.
Saturday, January 06, 2007
History lesson: the six-day war - film clip
The six-day war with Israel in 1967 was a severe humiliation to the Arabs. The armies of Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Iraq were defeated, 100 Egyptian pilots killed and over 300 Egyptian jetfighters and hundreds of tanks were destroyed on the ground.
Israel seized the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula, the West Bank of the Jordan River (including East Jerusalem), and the Golan Heights. Overall, Israel's territory grew three times in size; 300 kilometers in the south, 60 kilometers in the east and 20 kilometers in the north. About one million Arabs came under Israeli control in the captured territories. Egyptian President Gamal Abdul Nasser resigned but the emotional masses wanted him to stay, so he revoked his resignation. Syrian Defence Minister Hafez Al Assad did not resign. He had trained as a fighter pilot and two thirds of the Syrian airforce was destroyed in the 6-day battle. Before the war, on 20 May 1967, he had declared:
"Our forces are now entirely ready not only to repulse the aggression, but to initiate the act of liberation itself, and to explode the Zionist presence in the Arab homeland. The Syrian army, with its finger on the trigger, is united....I, as a military man, believe that the time has come to enter into a battle of annihilation"
This film clip shows horrific scenes of death and destruction and Egyptian General Mun'em Abdul Husseini signing the surrender documents in the presence of Israeli army generals. the Israeli army is also seen entering East Jerusalem almost unchallenged. Sympathy and admiration for the Israelis can be detected in the American narrator's comments.
Click here to watch (5 minutes).
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Death of Saddam, rebirth of the Persian Empire
Nuri Al-Maliki, Prime Minister of Iraq, and his predecessor, Ibrahim Al-Jaafari belong to the AL-Da'wa party, a once clandestine Islamic Shia movement that tried to assasinate Saddam Hussein seven times when he ruled the country. Two days ago, Al-Maliki had the pleasure of signing off Saddam's death warrant.
The manner and timing of Sadam's execution were designed to project Shia power in Iraq. Shias had been the underdog for centuries in the predominantly Sunni Middle East. The pendulum has swung back with a vengeance in Iraq, just as it has done in Lebanon through Hizbollah and, to a lesser extent, in Syria through the Alawites. Iran has played a fundamental role in "liberating" the Arab Shia communities in the last 30 years and the invasion of Iraq has only served to further its imperial ambitions in the region.
American policies in the Middle East have been discredited for decades because everyone knows that US administrations promote democracy only when and where it serves their interests. US Middle East strategic plans have now been well and truly defeated in the Shia crescent of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon and to some extent the Palestinian Territories. Some believe US strategies have failed because Arabs are simply not capable of embracing democracy. This view is not only plainly arrogant but also dangerous because it serves the region's dictators and ignores the lessons of history. Oppression and violence perpetuate themselves through vengeance. Many decent people in the world had hoped the new government in Iraq would break the cycle of violence by sparing Saddam's life and working towards social reconciliation between Shias and Sunnis. Instead, the government has shown itself to be a puppet of Tehran and no less crude than Saddam was. Moqtada Al-Sadr, leader of the Mehdi militia army, which is financed and trained by Iran, and which won most of the votes in the Iraqi elections, had demanded Saddam's head as a price for joining the government. Nuri Al-Maliki duly delivered it to him on Eid Al-Adha (the Islamic "sacrifice" festival).
At this moment of our history, we are witnessing the re-emergence of the Persian Empire on the back of a Shia revival. There is no room for compromise, free speech or cultural diversity in an Empire that is in the ascendancy and needs to build power and use it to beat others into submission. As ever, the people of the Arab Middle East lay themselves wide open to foreign exploitation and despotic leaders. We pursue revenge rather than reconciliation, pure greed rather than social justice, closed rather than open systems of government and indoctrination rather than the opening up of young minds. No wonder our nations are weak and our people desperate.
In Syria, we have allied ourselves firmly with Iran as an emerging regional power. The late Assad was both politically astute and lucky; his regime needed Iran's backing but he also bet on the right horse. His focus on foreign policy and lack of interest in strengthening the institutional foundations of our nation has left us more vulnerable to foreign intervention than at any time since the Second World War. His son has continued in his father's footsteps to ensure the regime's survival. We are now throwing the whole of our country, our history, our future, our culture and our diversity at the feet of the new Persian Emperor. As if our people have not had enough of the Ottoman Turks, the French, the British, the Soviets, the Baath Party and the Assads already. Must we always remain weak or sell our souls to the highest bidder?
The manner and timing of Sadam's execution were designed to project Shia power in Iraq. Shias had been the underdog for centuries in the predominantly Sunni Middle East. The pendulum has swung back with a vengeance in Iraq, just as it has done in Lebanon through Hizbollah and, to a lesser extent, in Syria through the Alawites. Iran has played a fundamental role in "liberating" the Arab Shia communities in the last 30 years and the invasion of Iraq has only served to further its imperial ambitions in the region.
American policies in the Middle East have been discredited for decades because everyone knows that US administrations promote democracy only when and where it serves their interests. US Middle East strategic plans have now been well and truly defeated in the Shia crescent of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon and to some extent the Palestinian Territories. Some believe US strategies have failed because Arabs are simply not capable of embracing democracy. This view is not only plainly arrogant but also dangerous because it serves the region's dictators and ignores the lessons of history. Oppression and violence perpetuate themselves through vengeance. Many decent people in the world had hoped the new government in Iraq would break the cycle of violence by sparing Saddam's life and working towards social reconciliation between Shias and Sunnis. Instead, the government has shown itself to be a puppet of Tehran and no less crude than Saddam was. Moqtada Al-Sadr, leader of the Mehdi militia army, which is financed and trained by Iran, and which won most of the votes in the Iraqi elections, had demanded Saddam's head as a price for joining the government. Nuri Al-Maliki duly delivered it to him on Eid Al-Adha (the Islamic "sacrifice" festival).
At this moment of our history, we are witnessing the re-emergence of the Persian Empire on the back of a Shia revival. There is no room for compromise, free speech or cultural diversity in an Empire that is in the ascendancy and needs to build power and use it to beat others into submission. As ever, the people of the Arab Middle East lay themselves wide open to foreign exploitation and despotic leaders. We pursue revenge rather than reconciliation, pure greed rather than social justice, closed rather than open systems of government and indoctrination rather than the opening up of young minds. No wonder our nations are weak and our people desperate.
In Syria, we have allied ourselves firmly with Iran as an emerging regional power. The late Assad was both politically astute and lucky; his regime needed Iran's backing but he also bet on the right horse. His focus on foreign policy and lack of interest in strengthening the institutional foundations of our nation has left us more vulnerable to foreign intervention than at any time since the Second World War. His son has continued in his father's footsteps to ensure the regime's survival. We are now throwing the whole of our country, our history, our future, our culture and our diversity at the feet of the new Persian Emperor. As if our people have not had enough of the Ottoman Turks, the French, the British, the Soviets, the Baath Party and the Assads already. Must we always remain weak or sell our souls to the highest bidder?
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