“A democratic, stable and developed Turkey,” he said, “is a source of power for all Muslims. [A] strong Turkey means a strong Jerusalem, a strong Palestine.”
Unfortunately, Turkey is neither democratic, nor stable — nor developed. The world’s most credible pro-democracy institutions, most notably Freedom House, list Turkey in their democracy indices as either a “not free” or a “country with major democratic deficit.”
“They want to keep the state of enemyhood with Israel, and they want the Palestinians to think ‘thank God, we’re going to go back some day'” (7:55)
Mudar Zahran may need to launch a fleet of leaflets, posters, and slogans after all:
Islamic State group militants gained a foothold on the Jordan-Iraq border Tuesday when they destroyed at least six Jordanian border control posts, according to reports from Jordanian activists and Islamic fighters associated with the Islamic State, also known as ISIS.
The jackal pack of greedheads and zealots driving the Islamic Small Wars respect no weakness and take heart with such wins. Like it or not, by either advancing or losing, they force the hands of power to act and reach decision. The news of raids on Jordanian border control stations follows by nine days King Abdullah’s likening the fight with ISIS to “a third world war”.
This coming Friday, January 9, will mark the tenth anniversary of his victory in the Palestinian Presidential election. Funnily enough, though, his term was supposed to end six years ago. It didn’t — mainly because he’s called off every election since. Which means that this Friday will mark not only the birth of Mahmoud Abbas’ Presidential rule, but the death of Palestinian democracy.
The multiple pun that would be “Hamasestine” may meet its match in “Fatahlism”, for the worse Fatah’s position in the middle east conflict, the more loud and pushy the rant of its old man, “Abu Mazen”, the father who has protected no one’s interests but his own and in terms of what he is: another dictator.
While the malignantly narcissistic might define Palestinian progress in terms of harm brought to Israelis — Christian, Jewish, and Muslim — a more normal psychology might wish to watch for measures of progress in human rights and qualities of living brought to the refugees of 1948 and their progeny wherever they are living today. In that regard, Abbas and much of the Arab world beside have accomplished nothing more than bad mouthing the Jews, and next to that old and boring behavior, modern and progressive secular democrat Mudar Zahran looks pretty good: at the very least, he questions the integrity of the old guards, royal and so-called revolutionary, while he himself has room today to promote his own forthright ethics, honesty, and objectivity.
Until the hour someone sends me the “who, what, where, when, how, and why” on a breaking event, I, perhaps others as well, may not be able to do much more than add to the advocacy and compile whatever’s on the web in news and organizational support for this buffer that has been politically birthed between west and east, between democracy and narcissistic authoritarianism.
This Anzac Day weekend, we opened the first ever Free West Papua campaign office in Australia.
For more than 50 years, my people have suffered what I considered to be a slow-moving genocide under the repressive military occupation of Indonesia. During the second world war, the “Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels” of West Papua came to the aid of Australian soldiers. Now it is the West Papuans that need Australia’s help in order to end human rights abuses so that my people can be free to live in peace.
Five West Papuans were killed when Indonesian military and police personnel shot into a protesting crowd on Monday, local media reported. Reports say the protesters were not separatist rebels, but community members angered by the alleged assault on a group of adolescents who had clashed with soldiers the previous night.
The protesters, some carrying ceremonial Papuan hunting bows that have a purely ritual function, expressed their grievance through a traditional Papuan waita dance, which involves shouting, running in circles and mimicking birdsong.
The police ordered the protesters to disperse and then struck them with batons and sticks when they refused to comply. Police and military personnel then fired live ammunition into the crowd.
For years I worked as a tour guide, sharing my knowledge of the region with those few individuals who desired a glimpse of what the National Geographic calls “one of the wildest, most isolated frontiers on earth.” But on this visit I wanted to verify a village burning in the Lanny Jaya area and continue filming the West Papuan refugees living in Papua New Guinea.
Jakarta: Two French journalists have been sentenced to two months and 15 days imprisonment in an Indonesian jail for reporting in the West Papua province while on a tourist visa.
http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/9173 – 4/22/2013: “The military presence in West Papua is almost always accompanied by human rights violations such as killings, arbitrary arrests, rape and torture.”
The Indians’ decision to make contact was not driven by a desire for material goods, however, but by fear. With the help of translators who spoke a closely related indigenous Panoan language, the Acre Indians explained that “violent attacks” by outsiders had driven them from the forest. Later, details emerged that their elder relatives were massacred, and their houses set on fire. Illegal loggers and cocaine traffickers in Peru, where the Indians are thought to come from, are likely to blame, according to the Brazilian government. Indeed, Funai’s own nearby monitoring post was shut down in 2011 due to increasing escalations with drug traffickers.
So what do anthropologists who specialize in first contact say? Are there ‘uncontacted tribes’? The short answer is ‘no’, and while I appreciate SI’s work on behalf of ‘tribal’ people, I find it disappointing to find that they still use this sort of language. Any one who reads the material on their web page will see that by ‘uncontacted’ they actually man ‘frequently in contact with, and victimized by, outsiders’. Let’s take a look at the evidence from SI’s website.
Caption statement by the Free West Papua Campaign: “West Papua, Melanesia. Rally organised by the KNPB. These are the images the Indonesian government is trying to stop the world seeing. The Indonesian government always lies to the world and says that West Papuans who want freedom are just small groups in the jungle. In fact the vast majority of peaceful civil society want freedom. This is why Indonesia dosen’t want foreign journalists in West Papua. Because every West Papuan who they meet tells them they want freedom. This is the truth in West Papua. That almost everyone wants to be free. This is the truth that Indonesia is trying to hide. West Papuans want to be free and Indonesia believes it has the right to torture and murder those who want to be free.”
In a normal public school district, you’d be able to tell who the vendors are, but in charter world, it’s purposely opaque. It must amount to millions of dollars of business that aren’t going out to bid, or that in all likelihood, aren’t even going out to Americans.
Basic research, basic due diligence, basic critical thinking skills— these are the only things required to figure out that there are multiple connections between this transnational social/political/religious movement and the three charter schools in Chicago, that these connections are purposely blurred to keep people uninformed, and that this phenomenon is consistent with the established patterns of behavior of the Gulen Movement worldwide.
“By even developing a certain code of rebellion of their own, they might begin to refuse even very plausible thoughts developed as a result of serious pondering and forget the fact that doing things for the sake of God is exalted above all.
Actually, what lies at the root of such wrongs is a lack of learning manners. In the past, people who were responsible for education were very good teachers of manners as well.”
Behave!
🙂
And obey Gülen — as regards aspects of the autocratic, authoritarian, unreasoning, and cult-of-personality dimensions evident in the Fathullah Gülen story, Rachel Sharon-Krespin’s Middle East Forum piece (Winter 2009) contains plenty for related reflection.
Today, despite the rhetoric of European Union accession, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has turned Turkey away from Europe and toward Russia and Iran and reoriented Turkish policy in the Middle East away from sympathy toward Israel and much more toward friendship with Hamas, Hezbollah, and Syria. Anti-American, anti-Christian, and anti-Semitic sentiments have increased. Behind Turkey’s transformation has been not only the impressive AKP political machine but also a shadowy Islamist sect led by the mysterious hocaefendi (master lord) Fethullah Gülen; the sect often bills itself as a proponent of tolerance and dialogue but works toward purposes quite the opposite. Today, Gülen and his backers (Fethullahcılar, Fethullahists) not only seek to influence government but also to become the government.
Gulen, once respected by Erdogan, is now vilified and branded an “assassin” — a reference to Hassan Sabbah’s violent medieval cult. Thousands of public servants allegedly close to the Gulen community have been removed from their jobs. Some have been arrested.
“A Gülen organization controls the real estate companies that own their schools. They charge rent to their own schools and taxpayers foot the bill. They refuse to answer public records requests, falsify attendance records, and cheat on standardized tests. Yet, Ohio continues to grant them charters to operate.”
No more tender a national achilles heel offers itself to America’s enemies quite like public education.
That Fethullah Gülen’s organization has run itself into trouble against Turkish autocrat Erdogan fits with the same emerging neo-feudalism that has surfaced in Russia, i.e., cabal of shady nouveau riche rise to operate organization out of the public’s view, exploit the same, any which way (and they produce sufficient tell-tale propaganda to prove it), and live lavishly promoting their favored or more convenient ideological or religious program – but then they must contend with one another.
Life as a Jew in India was no different to the lives of people of other faiths. India is the only country in the world where anti-semitism never existed. Jews were full citizens with the same rights and duties as everybody else.
Jews from other parts of the world are usually surprised to discover the level of religious tolerance in a country they believed was ‘backward. It is difficult for them to believe that the Beni Israel have been in military service for generations. We did not live in ghettos. We could live and work wherever we wanted. We owned the land we worked on – something European nations forbade their Jews.
Thalas of sweets that arrived on Diwali and Christmas were never turned away. Mutton sent on Eid was welcomed. This was not ‘compromise’ but respect for other people’s feelings.
BackChannels 