No community or a nation can have undue advantages over others. Such benefits are temporary and deleterious to lasting peace.We have to maintain a healthy balance within our communities and with all nations, what is good for America, has got to be good for the world and vice versa. Sadly, our foreign policy is run by short-sighted men who do not understand the concept of Justice.
I am looking forward to the end of Bush-Cheney-Rice era and hope for a bright future for America with Obama. We still have extremists controlling the media and our administration who are intolerant to another point of view. We need to restore America to what it stood for; democracy and respect for international law.
I have a dream, a dream to strengthen the pluralistic values of America, and the desire to encourage the community of nations to review our values of Liberty, Justice and co-existence as catalysts for prosperity.
We should consciously abandon the fear mongering Neocons, whose policies have done nothing but destruction of us and other nations. Every thing they have proposed was out of the fear and they have miserably failed America, and it is time to ask them work from the angle of live and let live or simply take a vacation and relax and come back to a better world.
A few article on the Georgia-Russia conflict are listed below
Mike Ghouse is a Speaker, Thinker and a Writer. He is president of the Foundation for Pluralism and is a frequent guest on talk radio and local television network discussing interfaith, political and civic issues. He is the founding president of World Muslim Congress with a simple theme: Good for Muslims and good for the world. His comments, news analysis and columns can be found on the Websites and Blogs listed at his personal website www.MikeGhouse.net. Mike is a Dallasite for nearly three decades and Carrollton is his home town. He can be reached at MikeGhouse@gmail.com
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Who Restarted the Cold War
Pat Buchanan
"Putin's Hostile Course," the lead editorial in The Washington Times of Oct. 18, began thus:
"Russian President Vladimir Putin's invitation to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to visit Moscow is just the latest sign that, more than 16 years after the collapse of Soviet communism, Moscow is gravitating toward Cold War behavior. The old Soviet obsession – fighting American imperialism – remains undiluted. ...
"(A)t virtually every turn, Mr. Putin and the Russian leadership appear to be doing their best in ways large and small to marginalize and embarrass the United States and undercut U.S. foreign policy interests."
The Times pointed to Putin's snub of Robert Gates and Condi Rice by having them cool their heels for 40 minutes before a meeting. Then came a press briefing where Putin implied Russia may renounce the Reagan-Gorbachev INF treaty, which removed all U.S. and Soviet medium-range missiles from Europe, and threatened to pull out of the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, whereby Russia moved its tanks and troops far from the borders of Eastern Europe.
On and on the Times indictment went. Russia was blocking new sanctions on Iran. Russia was selling anti-aircraft missiles to Iran. Russia was selling weapons to Syria that found their way to Hezbollah and Hamas. Russia and Iran were talking up an OPEC-style natural gas cartel. All this, said the Times, calls to mind "Soviet-era behavior."
Missing from the prosecution's case, however, was the motive. Why has Putin's Russia turned hostile? Why is Putin mending fences with China, Iran and Syria? Why is Putin sending Bear bombers to the edge of American airspace? Why has Russia turned against America? For Putin's approval rating is three times that of George Bush. Who restarted the Cold War?
To answer that question, let us go back those 16 years.
What happened in 1991 and 1992?
Well, Russia let the Berlin Wall be torn down and its satellite states be voted or thrown out of power across Eastern Europe. Russia agreed to pull the Red Army all the way back inside its border. Russia agreed to let the Soviet Union dissolve into 15 nations. The Communist Party agreed to share power and let itself be voted out. Russia embraced freedom and American-style capitalism, and invited Americans in to show them how it was done.
Russia did not use its veto in the Security Council to block the U.S. war to drive Saddam Hussein, an ally, out of Kuwait. When 9-11 struck, Putin gave his blessing to U.S. troops using former republics as bases for the U.S. invasion.
What was Moscow's reward for its pro-America policy?
The United States began moving NATO into Eastern Europe and then into former Soviet republics. Six ex-Warsaw Pact nations are now NATO allies, as are three ex-republics of the Soviet Union. NATO expansionists have not given up on bringing Ukraine, united to Russia for centuries, or Georgia, Stalin's birthplace, into NATO.
In 1999, the United States bombed Serbia, which has long looked to Mother Russia for protection, for 78 days, though the Serbs' sole crime was to fight to hold their cradle province of Kosovo, as President Lincoln fought to hold onto the American South. Now America is supporting the severing of Kosovo from Serbia and creation of a new Islamic state in the Balkans, over Moscow's protest.
While Moscow removed its military bases from Cuba and all over the Third World, we have sought permanent military bases in Russia's backyard of Central Asia.
We dissolved the Nixon-Brezhnev ABM treaty and announced we would put a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic.
Under presidents Clinton and Bush, the United States financed a pipeline for Caspian Sea oil to transit Azerbaijan and Georgia to the Black Sea and Turkey, cutting Russia out of the action.
With the end of the Cold War, the KGB was abolished and the Comintern disappeared. But the National Endowment for Democracy, Freedom House and other Cold War agencies, funded with tens of millions in tax-exempt and tax dollars, engineered the ouster of pro-Russian regimes in Serbia, Ukraine and Georgia, and sought the ouster of the regime in Minsk.
At the Cold War's end, the United States was given one of the great opportunities of history: to embrace Russia, largest nation on earth, as partner, friend, ally. Our mutual interests meshed almost perfectly. There was no ideological, territorial, historic or economic quarrel between us, once communist ideology was interred.
We blew it.
Who Restarted the Cold War
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Premen Addy
Georgia learns a brutal lesson
The anniversary of Indian independence was to have been the event of my week, evoking remembrance of things past, reflections on time present, with perhaps a cursory glance at mysterious runic shapes for clues to the future. That, alas, was a not to be. Georgia's President Mikhail Saakashvilli decided to strut his hour upon the stage, little realising that the exercise would release bolts of lightning accompanied by claps of thunder, which have begun to reverberate across the globe. An adventurer by instinct, a huckster in search of a role, Mr Saakashvilli was primed and programmed by his American mentors and put through his paces at the Harvard University Law School with a State Department scholarship. He returned to his native Georgia, with an American spouse in tow, and ignited the 'Rose Revolution' whose force lifted him to the seat of power.
Not cut from the cloth of Brutus or Mark Antony, Mr Saakashvilli is invariably his inimitable self, much given to incontinent perorations on his democratic and human rights credentials and Russia's sins of commission and omission down the ages. He is a case study of creatures great and small trapped in a great game in which they are at best hapless pawns.
The mainstream and creationist American view of America is not far removed from Catholicism's immaculate conception. The systematic extermination of the Indian peoples of the North American plain, the long years of Black slavery, the use of atom bombs on Japan when the country's rulers were suing for peace, the massacre of the Vietnamese and Indo-Chinese peoples through carpet bombing and defoliation and the deceitful war on Iraq (without the discovery of the weapons of mass destruction, which were its alleged justification) are conspicuously absent from mainstream American political discourse. Its commanding heights are dominated increasingly by dipsomaniac disquisition on the threat to world order from the Professor Moriarty of modern crime, Mr Vladimir Putin himself.
America is a great country with a multitude of wonderful accomplishments but its self-serving theology of unblemished virtue and rectitude is in danger of taking all humanity over the abyss. The United States is deep in the constructing of empire: American exceptionalism through Calvinistic grace makes the exercise credible in many American eyes. The dissolution of the Soviet Union constituted an opportunity for a divinely ordained enterprise; the vast expanses of Eurasia and its natural wealth to be dominated and exploited by American decree.
Nato's noose is drawn ever tighter round the Russian neck. American military and missile bases are already ensconced in Romania and Bulgaria -- two states once in harness with Adolf Hitler's Third Reich and the invading Nazi legions into the USSR -- in a bid to strangle the possible emergence of a rival centre of power in the Black Sea. Mr Saakashvilli, a midget in a grand design, was instrument in the baiting of the Russian bear. His troops and tanks, guns blazing, entered the rebellious Georgian enclave of South Ossetia to subdue its recalcitrant Russian-speaking population. He and his Anglo-American handlers calculated wrongly that a quiescent Kremlin, absorbed by the glittering opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympiad, would take the blow in humiliated silence.
It was delusional fantasy. The Georgian President has received a salutary and brutal lesson, and the US and Europe have been put on notice that Russia's era of passive accommodation is now closed. The Sunday Telegraph -- the haw-haw voice of Toryism -- produced an inebriating leader threatening Russia with combat based on the West's superior economy and military technology. Nazi Germany was similarly convinced of a triumph that never was, as was Napoleon a century earlier.
The US-led coalition of the willing hasn't covered itself in glory in either Iraq or Afghanistan, with Britain engaged in an urgent recruitment drive in Jamaica to replenish the diminishing manpower of its armed forces, particularly its under-strength Army. Nato may not have the stomach for a replay of Stalingrad.
The Independent's Mark Siegal, reporting from the border town of Vladikavkaz, Russia's old Caucasian staging post, tells of young Russians streaming in from all parts of this huge nation to volunteer for action. Muscular 30-year-old Nikolai from Stavropol, the birthplace of Mr Mikhail Gorbachev, had "left his job, jumped into the car and driven 600 miles through the night to sign up to defend the Russian cause". Another young compatriot barked, "This war is absolutely a war between Russia and America. The biggest mistake was in underestimating us. Now you'll see what happens."
A pity that American neocons are not much given to reading, let alone understanding, history. Having taken repeated provocations from Imperial Japan's forces along the Mongolian-Manchurian border in the summer of 1939, Marshal Zhukov was despatched to the frontier to sort out the problem -- which he did to such telling effect that Tokyo's military turned southwards and attacked the European colonial presence in South-East Asia rather than try conclusions again with the Red Army. Marshal Zhukov, the conqueror of Berlin, had saved his country the hazards of a possible two-front war in the aftermath of the Nazi assault. Appropriate force projection in pursuance of a political goal was thus vindicated. Thirty years later, in 1969, along their common frontier on the giant Amur river, the Soviet response to an unprovoked Chinese assault, which resulted in 61 Russian dead, left China's territory looking like a moonscape.
Mr Gorbachev, poor man, had wound up the Cold War (much to his credit) without precautionary insurance against Western bad faith. Western leaders made false promises on Nato non-expansion eastwards. Realpolitik, not pie-in-the-sky bromides on peace and brotherhood, is still the surest guarantor of peace and security.
A perusal of Barbara Crossette's report in the New York Times, at the commencement of the Pakistan-incubated Islamist insurgency in Kashmir in January 1990, will reveal the prognostication of an unnamed Islamabad-based Western diplomat, that the world was about to witness a permanent shift in the Sub-continental balance of power. The prediction mercifully was as still-born as the Nixon Administration's hope of similar geopolitical change in the wake of its support for the Pakistani military dictatorship in its war with India in December 1971.
India's public discourse on foreign and strategic policy is prone to mix political metaphors: The organising principles of a yogic ashram have no place in the fundamentals of statecraft. Force in the defence of dharma, as Krishna expostulated to Arjuna, is morally justified. It was so more than two millennia ago; it is as true today.
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Saturday, August 16, 2008
Saturday, July 26, 2008
McCain would start WWIV
Would John McCain start WWIV?
Mike Ghouse
Most Americans understand the message of Jesus, where he says, even if you are slapped, work on mitigating the conflict rather than slapping back and continuing the slap cycles to eternity.
Cheney, Bush, McCain, Lieberman and Giuliani do not get that message, they are either insecure and want to keep fighting an imaginary enemy cooked by them or simply they don't understand that if by aggravating the conflicts, the opposite of what they imagine happens; insecurity to one an all. If others are not secure, we cannot be safe either.
We become a great nation by earning the respect from the community of nations, by being just and fair to the parties where there is conflict. We have to earn our name back as a nation that gives and cares where help was needed.
From a business point of view, the gang is downright stupid. Had we invested half of that money we blew in Iraq and Afghanistan on education, jobs, friendship and exchange programs, we would have had greater returns, we would have fewer enemies and the world would have been a safe place for us Americans as well as the people of the world. I am sure some one will come out with the statistics. Do we have more people frustrated at us American now, than before Bush’s misadventure. Brzezinski speaks sense, when he says, McCain could start the WWIV.
It is time to have leaders who reflect the sentiments of Americans, and make sure our democracy remains, government of the people, by the people for the people.
Mike Ghouse is a Speaker, Thinker and a Writer. He is president of the Foundation for Pluralism and is a frequent guest on talk radio and local television network discussing interfaith, political and civic issues. His comments, news analysis and columns can be found on the Websites and Blogs listed at his personal website http://www.mikeghouse.net/. Mike is a Dallasite for nearly three decades and Carrollton is his home town. He can be reached at MikeGhouse@gmail.com
Brzezinski: McCain would start WWIV
Sat, 26 Jul 2008 22:26:50
Former US national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski
Former White House national security adviser says if John McCain becomes the next US president the world will move toward World War IV.
Former US President Jimmy Carter's national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski criticized US officials in Senator McCain's camp for pushing the presumptive Republican nominee toward a radical foreign policy on issues such as Iran.
Brzezinski described McCain's presidency as an 'appalling concept' as it would lead to the World War IV, arguing that from the viewpoint of figures surrounding the Arizona senator the Cold War counted as World War III.
"Well, if McCain is president and if his Secretary of State is Joe Lieberman and his Secretary of Defense is [Rudolph] Giuliani, we will be moving towards the World War IV that they have been both favoring and predicting," Brzezinski cautioned.
Earlier in October 2007, President George W. Bush, who has endorsed John McCain, warned of the eruption of World War III should Iran continue uranium enrichment.
CS/HGH
Mike Ghouse
Most Americans understand the message of Jesus, where he says, even if you are slapped, work on mitigating the conflict rather than slapping back and continuing the slap cycles to eternity.
Cheney, Bush, McCain, Lieberman and Giuliani do not get that message, they are either insecure and want to keep fighting an imaginary enemy cooked by them or simply they don't understand that if by aggravating the conflicts, the opposite of what they imagine happens; insecurity to one an all. If others are not secure, we cannot be safe either.
We become a great nation by earning the respect from the community of nations, by being just and fair to the parties where there is conflict. We have to earn our name back as a nation that gives and cares where help was needed.
From a business point of view, the gang is downright stupid. Had we invested half of that money we blew in Iraq and Afghanistan on education, jobs, friendship and exchange programs, we would have had greater returns, we would have fewer enemies and the world would have been a safe place for us Americans as well as the people of the world. I am sure some one will come out with the statistics. Do we have more people frustrated at us American now, than before Bush’s misadventure. Brzezinski speaks sense, when he says, McCain could start the WWIV.
It is time to have leaders who reflect the sentiments of Americans, and make sure our democracy remains, government of the people, by the people for the people.
Mike Ghouse is a Speaker, Thinker and a Writer. He is president of the Foundation for Pluralism and is a frequent guest on talk radio and local television network discussing interfaith, political and civic issues. His comments, news analysis and columns can be found on the Websites and Blogs listed at his personal website http://www.mikeghouse.net/. Mike is a Dallasite for nearly three decades and Carrollton is his home town. He can be reached at MikeGhouse@gmail.com
Brzezinski: McCain would start WWIV
Sat, 26 Jul 2008 22:26:50
Former US national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski
Former White House national security adviser says if John McCain becomes the next US president the world will move toward World War IV.
Former US President Jimmy Carter's national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski criticized US officials in Senator McCain's camp for pushing the presumptive Republican nominee toward a radical foreign policy on issues such as Iran.
Brzezinski described McCain's presidency as an 'appalling concept' as it would lead to the World War IV, arguing that from the viewpoint of figures surrounding the Arizona senator the Cold War counted as World War III.
"Well, if McCain is president and if his Secretary of State is Joe Lieberman and his Secretary of Defense is [Rudolph] Giuliani, we will be moving towards the World War IV that they have been both favoring and predicting," Brzezinski cautioned.
Earlier in October 2007, President George W. Bush, who has endorsed John McCain, warned of the eruption of World War III should Iran continue uranium enrichment.
CS/HGH
Pro-Israel or Pro-Palestine are divise words
http://internationalconflicts.blogspot.com/2008/07/pro-israel-or-pro-palestine-are-divise.html
My comments are followed by the article "Durban redux? Vitriol may follow Israel to Geneva" and I do hope, we look at humans without a branding them with a label.
The idea of pro-Israel or pro-Palestine in itself is a divise, we ought to consider looking at the issue in terms of Justice, peace and security for the people of the area understood as Israel and Palestine.
It is human to crave for Justice and every faith is designed to deliever that to the people. Justice is the only thing that sustains peace and security for the people. The simple truth is that neither the Palestinians, nor the Israelis will have peace for themselves, unless they want the peace for the other and take steps to achieve it. Security will not come to either party, if other party is not in the equation.
Gun power is short lived, neither the Palestinians were able to succeed with it in the last sixty years, nor the history has oppressed the Jewish people in the three thousand years of their history.
What do the real people want? Not the Media not the Administration nor the hawks who believe in gun powder and all of them combined are a tiny minority.
Take a look at our own country. For the last seven years that will come to a conclusion in January 2008, our Administration and their policies did not represent the will of the people, the media failed to focus on it, instead they became the mouth pieces of the administration like they do in the non-democratic nations. Is Israel going through the same?
Justice must be the corner stone of any governance. The idea of partitioning the grops as Pro-Palestine and Pro-Israel is wrong, they should rather look at the issue from a human rights perspective.
Mike Ghouse
http://www.mikeghouse.net/
Durban redux? Vitriol may follow Israel to Geneva
By Michael J. Jordan Published Yesterday Cover Story
http://www.jstandard.com/articles/4550/1/Durban-redux%3F-Vitriol-may-follow-Israel-to-Geneva
Michael J. Jordan
View all articles by Michael J. Jordan GENEVA – In less than a year, the United Nations will try again to tackle the thorny questions of racism around the world. Its effort in 2001 devolved into a virulent attack on Israel and Jews.
While it’s too early to tell which groups hostile to Israel will show up at the follow-up conference in April, at least two hint at what treatment awaits the Jewish state.
The Ford Foundation, the powerful philanthropy whose money fueled much of the anti-Israel activity at the anti-racism conference in Durban, South Africa, has opted out of the event in this Swiss city.
The New York headquarters of the Ford Foundation, which following JTA’s 2003 investigative series "Funding Hate," published stringent new guidelines on its grantees. JTA Photo
Indeed, Durban reportedly has become something of a dreaded "D word" in some diplomatic circles, prompting widespread concern that the follow-up could be a repeat of the anti-Israel extravaganza seven years ago.
At least two Palestinian organizations have declared publicly their intent to carry the crusade launched in Durban to Geneva.
That crusade paints Israel as an "apartheid state" like the South Africa of old to be similarly crippled through boycotts, divestment, and sanctions. And by most accounts, even more pro-Palestinian groups are sure to arrive in Geneva to trumpet their cause célebre.
At the 2001 World Conference Against Racism in Durban, the rabid activism of numerous anti-Israel nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs, virtually drowned out much of the world’s other ills.
Last month in Brazil, at the first regional meeting to determine the substance of next year’s conference, one group hinted at what to expect.
BADIL: The Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights (www.badil.org) issued an open letter (www.badil.org/Publications/Press/2008/press481-08.htm) to the "Latin American people, its governments, movements and organizations."
The letter stated: "The world’s imperial powers, with the United States and Israel at the forefront, are putting pressure on states" to "silence the principled voices of the victims of racism."
Latin America should resist, the letter said, because "the struggle against Israel’s colonial apartheid regime is one of the cornerstones of the struggle against state-sponsored racism and ongoing colonial policies worldwide."
BADIL was not present in Durban.
A second group created since Durban recently sought and gained accreditation to the Geneva conference. The Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign, (www.stopthewall.org) is at the forefront of the international boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign against Israel.
It’s too soon to know which funding agencies will help send NGOs such as BADIL and the Wall Campaign to Geneva, but one watchdog suggests European money will likely be involved.
"European aid agencies give tens of millions of euros per year to very political, in some cases radical, anti-Israel NGOs, and these groups are the most active in the Durban process," said Gerald Steinberg, the executive director of the Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor, which recently detailed these links in its report "Europe’s Hidden Hand".
"There are many officials in those agencies who come from an anti-colonialist, anti-American, anti-Israel political ideology," Steinberg said, "and they have almost no supervision, almost no open discussions in their parliaments over these budgets."
European Union officials told JTA that none of its grants are explicitly for NGOs to attend conferences, like the Durban follow-up, but rather are directed toward specific projects.
Beyond the Durban process, the EU officials say a grantee’s words — like branding Israel as apartheid or endorsing boycotts — are the "sole responsibility" of the grantee and do not reflect EU positions.
Brussels "cannot be held responsible" for these statements, nor can it "oblige them to refrain" from making them, said David Kriss, a spokesman for the European Commission delegation to Israel.
"The Commission is respectful of freedom of expression as a key feature of a democratic society," Kriss wrote in an e-mail from his office in Ramat Gan, Israel. "An open debate over political issues is indispensable on the way towards better mutual understanding.
"At the same time, the Commission is firmly committed to the fight against incitement to hatred between ethnic or religious groups as well as to the expressions of racism, xenophobia, discrimination, anti-Semitism, or Islamophobia, and will continue fighting these deplorable phenomena."
The 2009 Durban follow-up will likely cost "several million dollars," according to a U.N. official in Geneva, with U.N. member-states expected to foot the entire bill.
Few, however, have ponied up so far. Some $750,000 left over from the 2001 event is now being used, said the U.N. official, with Russia recently adding a contribution of $250,000 and China another $20,000.
Other countries have pledged funds but not yet delivered, which is typical among member-states that sometimes promise money but are slow to act.
Meanwhile, the United States, Israel, Canada, and France have threatened to boycott the event, saying it should focus on racism and discrimination generally, not stir the Middle East conflict.
To urge fellow NGOs and U.N. member-states to rise above at Geneva, the Magenta Foundation of Holland, the American Jewish Committee’s Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights and Human Rights First have circulated a petition with five "core principles" (www.magenta.nl/coreprinciples.html) that would reject any effort to "foment hateful stereotyping in the name of human rights" and instead "uphold language and behavior that unites rather than divides."
The New Israel Fund, a group that promotes human rights and pluralism in Israel, is one of 96 signatories pushing for a more productive conference. But NIF told JTA it will not allocate funds for any of its grantees to attend the event. In 2001, the fund provided $50,000 for such participation through a Ford grant it had received.
There is no contradiction, said an NIF spokeswoman, nor does it indicate a lack of trust that its own grantees — some of whom were most active in Durban — would adhere to these higher standards.
"Basically, NIF was outraged at the misuse" of the Durban forum and was concerned about "a possible repetition" of the tone and substance, said the spokeswoman, Naomi Paiss.
"We are a family of organizations representing a range of opinions," she said. "As strongly as we feel about Durban, this is not a question of forbidding another group from attending. We are saying we will not fund it."
One NIF and Ford grantee that played a prominent role in Durban — Adalah: The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel (www.adalah.org/eng/index.php) — says it has yet to decide whether to attend.
"Adalah will deal with the follow-up issues regarding Durban at the relevant time, not now," Eva Mousa, the group’s media director, told JTA. "At that time, Adalah will speak about it and discuss it with our donors, including Ford and NIF."
The United Nations, meanwhile, stung by criticism of the 2001 event, is taking steps to prevent a repetition.
In late May, member-states decided to host the event on the serene, secure U.N. campus in Geneva. In Durban, with thousands of activists milling about inside tents and on the streets, Jewish activists say the atmosphere often grew tense — even intimidating— punctured by anti-Semitic incidents.
The world body also is expected to eliminate a separate NGO Forum, which in Durban was the source of the harshest anti-Israel rhetoric (www-personal.umich.edu/~hfc/mideast/NGO_WCAR.htm). At the forum, the Jewish state was accused of such human rights crimes as genocide, apartheid and ethnic cleansing.
Startled by the protest walkout of the American and Israeli delegations — and the discredit it brought upon the conference — the member-states that remained settled on two rather benign references to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the government declaration (www.unhchr.ch/pdf/Durban.pdf).
At this point, it’s "very likely" that NGO participation in Geneva will be restricted and woven into the governmental gathering, said a U.N. official who asked not to be identified because there was no authorization to speak on the record.
NGOs instead will probably be encouraged to attend, but at most official U.N. meetings will have to request an opportunity to address the gathering beforehand. Each will be allotted three minutes to speak.
None of the 775 NGOs that attended Durban saw their accreditation revoked for their actions there, so they remain accredited and free to attend April’s event, according to the U.N. official.
"The NGO issue is a highly political issue here," the official said.
This format may mean less Israel-bashing, but also less criticism of U.N. member-states that rank at the bottom of most global surveys of racism and other forms of discrimination. After all, few governments choose to freely chastise themselves.
This is left to the NGOs.
Still, three minutes available every day at a four- or five-day conference – the world’s largest in the sphere of human rights — is enough time to sling arrows, hammer home a message to the media and have it documented for eternity in U.N. archives.
That’s why some Jewish observers were taken aback by the conference accreditation granted to the Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign.
The group, according to its Website, was formed one year after Durban, in October 2002, by one of the more extremist NGOs that did attend Durban — the Palestinian Environmental NGOs Network.
The Wall Campaign partnered with another prominent Israel basher at Durban, the Palestinian NGO Network, or PNGO, to hold the First Palestinian Conference for the Boycott of Israel (BDS) on Nov. 18, 2007. At the time of Durban, PNGO was a Ford grantee, but is no longer.
In addition, the Wall Campaign and PNGO are two members of the National Committee to Commemorate the Nakba, the Arab term for catastrophe used to depict Israel’s creation as a state.
On its Website, the Wall Campaign links to BADIL, the group based in Bethlehem, on the west bank, which declared its intent in Brazil last month to bang the apartheid drum against Israel in Geneva.
This link refers to BADIL’s role in leading the current "Nakba 60 campaign," an international effort aimed at countering Israel at 60 celebrations.
At the April planning conference for the Durban follow-up, the Wall Campaign won accreditation without debate. More public attention in Geneva was devoted to Iran’s intervention to deny a Canadian Jewish group accreditation to attend the event next year. The group, the Canadian Council for Israel and Jewish Advocacy, citing bureaucratic and political hurdles, eventually withdrew its application.
BADIL’s home page in July announced a new Website, "It Is Apartheid," with a "viral, guerrilla marketing" campaign that includes tips on how to propagandize neighbors, co-workers and strangers (www.itisapartheid.org/itisapartheid.org).
The group’s presence in Brasilia and its lobbying of Latin American delegations was another harbinger for Jewish observers who warn the Geneva event may follow in the politicized footsteps of Durban.
The Geneva-based UN Watch declared that the current working paper (http://blog.unwatch.org/?p=168), in U.N. lingo known as a "non-paper," already "breaches red lines" as laid out by the Europeans: It singles out the Palestinians for sympathy, implicitly criticizing Israel.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center, which sent two observers to Brasilia, described the event as a "lost opportunity" to underscore those red lines.
Latin Americans "have failed to stand up and be counted," Shimon Samuels, Wiesenthal’s director for international relations, told JTA.
Meanwhile, with the Ford Foundation announcing that it won’t pay to send any grantee to the Geneva conference — both because of its prospects for failure and potential to become another anti-Israel festival — and with other donors, governmental and nongovernmental, reportedly wavering, Samuels says that some have found a target to blame in case the Durban follow-up disintegrates.
Samuels said that in Brasilia, he discussed how to prevent a pro-Palestinian "hijacking of the agenda" with an Afro-American group lobbying for slavery compensation.
The fellow activist agreed, he said, but "blew my mind with a vehement accusation of Jewish control of the Durban boycott movement" and "attacked me for stopping foundation funding of their participation in Geneva and destroying possibilities for a NGO Forum."
JTA
Article Series
This article is part 4 of a 5 part series. Other articles in this series are shown below:
Durban’s descendants
Linking to South Africa
Questions raised about actions of some New Israel Fund grantees
Durban redux? Vitriol may follow Israel to Geneva
Ford funding to Jewish groups
My comments are followed by the article "Durban redux? Vitriol may follow Israel to Geneva" and I do hope, we look at humans without a branding them with a label.
The idea of pro-Israel or pro-Palestine in itself is a divise, we ought to consider looking at the issue in terms of Justice, peace and security for the people of the area understood as Israel and Palestine.
It is human to crave for Justice and every faith is designed to deliever that to the people. Justice is the only thing that sustains peace and security for the people. The simple truth is that neither the Palestinians, nor the Israelis will have peace for themselves, unless they want the peace for the other and take steps to achieve it. Security will not come to either party, if other party is not in the equation.
Gun power is short lived, neither the Palestinians were able to succeed with it in the last sixty years, nor the history has oppressed the Jewish people in the three thousand years of their history.
What do the real people want? Not the Media not the Administration nor the hawks who believe in gun powder and all of them combined are a tiny minority.
Take a look at our own country. For the last seven years that will come to a conclusion in January 2008, our Administration and their policies did not represent the will of the people, the media failed to focus on it, instead they became the mouth pieces of the administration like they do in the non-democratic nations. Is Israel going through the same?
Justice must be the corner stone of any governance. The idea of partitioning the grops as Pro-Palestine and Pro-Israel is wrong, they should rather look at the issue from a human rights perspective.
Mike Ghouse
http://www.mikeghouse.net/
Durban redux? Vitriol may follow Israel to Geneva
By Michael J. Jordan Published Yesterday Cover Story
http://www.jstandard.com/articles/4550/1/Durban-redux%3F-Vitriol-may-follow-Israel-to-Geneva
Michael J. Jordan
View all articles by Michael J. Jordan GENEVA – In less than a year, the United Nations will try again to tackle the thorny questions of racism around the world. Its effort in 2001 devolved into a virulent attack on Israel and Jews.
While it’s too early to tell which groups hostile to Israel will show up at the follow-up conference in April, at least two hint at what treatment awaits the Jewish state.
The Ford Foundation, the powerful philanthropy whose money fueled much of the anti-Israel activity at the anti-racism conference in Durban, South Africa, has opted out of the event in this Swiss city.
The New York headquarters of the Ford Foundation, which following JTA’s 2003 investigative series "Funding Hate," published stringent new guidelines on its grantees. JTA Photo
Indeed, Durban reportedly has become something of a dreaded "D word" in some diplomatic circles, prompting widespread concern that the follow-up could be a repeat of the anti-Israel extravaganza seven years ago.
At least two Palestinian organizations have declared publicly their intent to carry the crusade launched in Durban to Geneva.
That crusade paints Israel as an "apartheid state" like the South Africa of old to be similarly crippled through boycotts, divestment, and sanctions. And by most accounts, even more pro-Palestinian groups are sure to arrive in Geneva to trumpet their cause célebre.
At the 2001 World Conference Against Racism in Durban, the rabid activism of numerous anti-Israel nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs, virtually drowned out much of the world’s other ills.
Last month in Brazil, at the first regional meeting to determine the substance of next year’s conference, one group hinted at what to expect.
BADIL: The Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights (www.badil.org) issued an open letter (www.badil.org/Publications/Press/2008/press481-08.htm) to the "Latin American people, its governments, movements and organizations."
The letter stated: "The world’s imperial powers, with the United States and Israel at the forefront, are putting pressure on states" to "silence the principled voices of the victims of racism."
Latin America should resist, the letter said, because "the struggle against Israel’s colonial apartheid regime is one of the cornerstones of the struggle against state-sponsored racism and ongoing colonial policies worldwide."
BADIL was not present in Durban.
A second group created since Durban recently sought and gained accreditation to the Geneva conference. The Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign, (www.stopthewall.org) is at the forefront of the international boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign against Israel.
It’s too soon to know which funding agencies will help send NGOs such as BADIL and the Wall Campaign to Geneva, but one watchdog suggests European money will likely be involved.
"European aid agencies give tens of millions of euros per year to very political, in some cases radical, anti-Israel NGOs, and these groups are the most active in the Durban process," said Gerald Steinberg, the executive director of the Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor, which recently detailed these links in its report "Europe’s Hidden Hand".
"There are many officials in those agencies who come from an anti-colonialist, anti-American, anti-Israel political ideology," Steinberg said, "and they have almost no supervision, almost no open discussions in their parliaments over these budgets."
European Union officials told JTA that none of its grants are explicitly for NGOs to attend conferences, like the Durban follow-up, but rather are directed toward specific projects.
Beyond the Durban process, the EU officials say a grantee’s words — like branding Israel as apartheid or endorsing boycotts — are the "sole responsibility" of the grantee and do not reflect EU positions.
Brussels "cannot be held responsible" for these statements, nor can it "oblige them to refrain" from making them, said David Kriss, a spokesman for the European Commission delegation to Israel.
"The Commission is respectful of freedom of expression as a key feature of a democratic society," Kriss wrote in an e-mail from his office in Ramat Gan, Israel. "An open debate over political issues is indispensable on the way towards better mutual understanding.
"At the same time, the Commission is firmly committed to the fight against incitement to hatred between ethnic or religious groups as well as to the expressions of racism, xenophobia, discrimination, anti-Semitism, or Islamophobia, and will continue fighting these deplorable phenomena."
The 2009 Durban follow-up will likely cost "several million dollars," according to a U.N. official in Geneva, with U.N. member-states expected to foot the entire bill.
Few, however, have ponied up so far. Some $750,000 left over from the 2001 event is now being used, said the U.N. official, with Russia recently adding a contribution of $250,000 and China another $20,000.
Other countries have pledged funds but not yet delivered, which is typical among member-states that sometimes promise money but are slow to act.
Meanwhile, the United States, Israel, Canada, and France have threatened to boycott the event, saying it should focus on racism and discrimination generally, not stir the Middle East conflict.
To urge fellow NGOs and U.N. member-states to rise above at Geneva, the Magenta Foundation of Holland, the American Jewish Committee’s Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights and Human Rights First have circulated a petition with five "core principles" (www.magenta.nl/coreprinciples.html) that would reject any effort to "foment hateful stereotyping in the name of human rights" and instead "uphold language and behavior that unites rather than divides."
The New Israel Fund, a group that promotes human rights and pluralism in Israel, is one of 96 signatories pushing for a more productive conference. But NIF told JTA it will not allocate funds for any of its grantees to attend the event. In 2001, the fund provided $50,000 for such participation through a Ford grant it had received.
There is no contradiction, said an NIF spokeswoman, nor does it indicate a lack of trust that its own grantees — some of whom were most active in Durban — would adhere to these higher standards.
"Basically, NIF was outraged at the misuse" of the Durban forum and was concerned about "a possible repetition" of the tone and substance, said the spokeswoman, Naomi Paiss.
"We are a family of organizations representing a range of opinions," she said. "As strongly as we feel about Durban, this is not a question of forbidding another group from attending. We are saying we will not fund it."
One NIF and Ford grantee that played a prominent role in Durban — Adalah: The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel (www.adalah.org/eng/index.php) — says it has yet to decide whether to attend.
"Adalah will deal with the follow-up issues regarding Durban at the relevant time, not now," Eva Mousa, the group’s media director, told JTA. "At that time, Adalah will speak about it and discuss it with our donors, including Ford and NIF."
The United Nations, meanwhile, stung by criticism of the 2001 event, is taking steps to prevent a repetition.
In late May, member-states decided to host the event on the serene, secure U.N. campus in Geneva. In Durban, with thousands of activists milling about inside tents and on the streets, Jewish activists say the atmosphere often grew tense — even intimidating— punctured by anti-Semitic incidents.
The world body also is expected to eliminate a separate NGO Forum, which in Durban was the source of the harshest anti-Israel rhetoric (www-personal.umich.edu/~hfc/mideast/NGO_WCAR.htm). At the forum, the Jewish state was accused of such human rights crimes as genocide, apartheid and ethnic cleansing.
Startled by the protest walkout of the American and Israeli delegations — and the discredit it brought upon the conference — the member-states that remained settled on two rather benign references to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the government declaration (www.unhchr.ch/pdf/Durban.pdf).
At this point, it’s "very likely" that NGO participation in Geneva will be restricted and woven into the governmental gathering, said a U.N. official who asked not to be identified because there was no authorization to speak on the record.
NGOs instead will probably be encouraged to attend, but at most official U.N. meetings will have to request an opportunity to address the gathering beforehand. Each will be allotted three minutes to speak.
None of the 775 NGOs that attended Durban saw their accreditation revoked for their actions there, so they remain accredited and free to attend April’s event, according to the U.N. official.
"The NGO issue is a highly political issue here," the official said.
This format may mean less Israel-bashing, but also less criticism of U.N. member-states that rank at the bottom of most global surveys of racism and other forms of discrimination. After all, few governments choose to freely chastise themselves.
This is left to the NGOs.
Still, three minutes available every day at a four- or five-day conference – the world’s largest in the sphere of human rights — is enough time to sling arrows, hammer home a message to the media and have it documented for eternity in U.N. archives.
That’s why some Jewish observers were taken aback by the conference accreditation granted to the Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign.
The group, according to its Website, was formed one year after Durban, in October 2002, by one of the more extremist NGOs that did attend Durban — the Palestinian Environmental NGOs Network.
The Wall Campaign partnered with another prominent Israel basher at Durban, the Palestinian NGO Network, or PNGO, to hold the First Palestinian Conference for the Boycott of Israel (BDS) on Nov. 18, 2007. At the time of Durban, PNGO was a Ford grantee, but is no longer.
In addition, the Wall Campaign and PNGO are two members of the National Committee to Commemorate the Nakba, the Arab term for catastrophe used to depict Israel’s creation as a state.
On its Website, the Wall Campaign links to BADIL, the group based in Bethlehem, on the west bank, which declared its intent in Brazil last month to bang the apartheid drum against Israel in Geneva.
This link refers to BADIL’s role in leading the current "Nakba 60 campaign," an international effort aimed at countering Israel at 60 celebrations.
At the April planning conference for the Durban follow-up, the Wall Campaign won accreditation without debate. More public attention in Geneva was devoted to Iran’s intervention to deny a Canadian Jewish group accreditation to attend the event next year. The group, the Canadian Council for Israel and Jewish Advocacy, citing bureaucratic and political hurdles, eventually withdrew its application.
BADIL’s home page in July announced a new Website, "It Is Apartheid," with a "viral, guerrilla marketing" campaign that includes tips on how to propagandize neighbors, co-workers and strangers (www.itisapartheid.org/itisapartheid.org).
The group’s presence in Brasilia and its lobbying of Latin American delegations was another harbinger for Jewish observers who warn the Geneva event may follow in the politicized footsteps of Durban.
The Geneva-based UN Watch declared that the current working paper (http://blog.unwatch.org/?p=168), in U.N. lingo known as a "non-paper," already "breaches red lines" as laid out by the Europeans: It singles out the Palestinians for sympathy, implicitly criticizing Israel.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center, which sent two observers to Brasilia, described the event as a "lost opportunity" to underscore those red lines.
Latin Americans "have failed to stand up and be counted," Shimon Samuels, Wiesenthal’s director for international relations, told JTA.
Meanwhile, with the Ford Foundation announcing that it won’t pay to send any grantee to the Geneva conference — both because of its prospects for failure and potential to become another anti-Israel festival — and with other donors, governmental and nongovernmental, reportedly wavering, Samuels says that some have found a target to blame in case the Durban follow-up disintegrates.
Samuels said that in Brasilia, he discussed how to prevent a pro-Palestinian "hijacking of the agenda" with an Afro-American group lobbying for slavery compensation.
The fellow activist agreed, he said, but "blew my mind with a vehement accusation of Jewish control of the Durban boycott movement" and "attacked me for stopping foundation funding of their participation in Geneva and destroying possibilities for a NGO Forum."
JTA
Article Series
This article is part 4 of a 5 part series. Other articles in this series are shown below:
Durban’s descendants
Linking to South Africa
Questions raised about actions of some New Israel Fund grantees
Durban redux? Vitriol may follow Israel to Geneva
Ford funding to Jewish groups
Monday, May 5, 2008
Clinton stoking anti-semitism
According to a new report from the US State department, Anti-Semitism is on rise.Nick Mackenzie writes in the religious intelligence report. "Today, more than 60 years after the Holocaust, anti-Semitism is not just a fact of history, it is a current event," the report, presented to Congress on March 13, read. "The distinguishing feature of the new anti-Semitism is criticism of Israeli policy that whether intentionally or unintentionally has the effect of promoting prejudice against all Jews by demonizing Israel and Israelis and attributing Israel's perceived faults to its Jewish character," the report stated.
The anti-Semitic attacks continue to occur in Europe and the United States. Just recently two Jewish commuters were beaten up in the subway for wishing happy Hanukkah. A few years ago a council person referred to the other as “you people” in the Dallas City Hall referring to “Jewish people” as though they were cause of a discrepancy. What is the point in throwing in religion in a civic transaction, unless it anti-Semitism?
Every now and then I read disgusting anti-Semitic comments in stray emails I get from groups all across the world; oddly it is not from Muslims but everyone else. I continue to speak out against such acts and point out the unrighteousness of it. There is a growing perception that Israeli Lobby buys and manipulates our law makers to do things that are detrimental to American as well as the Israeli interests.
Equally disgusting are McCain and Clinton’s comments; one wants to bomb, bomb and bomb Iran and the other wants to “obliterate it’. Give two minutes to John McCain on the TV, he shoots the Anti-Islam rhetoric. I have not seen McCain’s mouth spew out anything but hate and war. Give the same two minutes to Clinton; she wants to be the commander in Chief from day one. It sounds downright stupid to the community of nations that a Democratic America talks about Commander in Chief’s as though we are a dictatorship. Most Americans realize the cheap gimmick to gain votes.
“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing” said Edmund Burke. It is time for the moderate majority of Americans of all hues to speak out and discourage the rhetoric of Clinton and McCain.
With friends like Clinton, Jews don’t need enemies. Her words fuel the anti-Semitic repressed sentiments among average Americans and certainly evoke anger in the Middle East; where as McCain’s Islamophobic attitude fuels terrorist outfits like Al-Qaeda. Do we need these two to run our nation down?
To be fair in the media, Clinton’s Obliteration and McCain’s bombing should be looped 24 hours on CNN and Fox like the Wright sound bites.
We need our President who talks and brings peace to the community of nations that is true leadership. We certainly don’t want an eager beaver to sacrifice our men and women and bent on destruction of others.
Mike Ghouse is a writer, speaker, moderator, pluralist and a peace thinker based in Dallas. The list of his Blogs and websites are listed at www.MikeGhouse.net and he can be reached at MikeGhouse@aol.com
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Sarkozy is Wrong About Turkey
The root cause of conflicts begins in the exclusive ideologies, where there is no reason or rationality. Sarkozy is a trouble maker and a neocon and we have to watch him.
Mike Ghouse
# # #
Amir Taheri was born in Iran and educated in Tehran, London and Paris. Between 1980 and 1984 he was Middle East editor for the London Sunday Times. Taheri has been a contributor to the International Herald Tribune since 1980. He has also written for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. Taheri has published nine books some of which have been translated into 20 languages, and In 1988 Publishers'' Weekly in New York chose his study of Islamist terrorism, "Holy Terror", as one of The Best Books of The Year. He has been a columnist Asharq Alawsat since 1987
Sarkozy is Wrong About Turkey
http://aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=2&id=12615 02/05/2008
Amir Taheri
“I am no ideologue,” insists French President Nicolas Sarkozy at every opportunity. He was doing so the other evening during a 90-minute long live television exposé marking the first anniversary of his election victory. By saying he is no ideologue, the French leader tries to present himself as a pragmatic politician, open to argument and ready to admit errors. This was what he did during his TV marathon. On at least six occasions, referring to various aspects of his policies, he said: I admit
I made an error!
There was, however, one issue on which Sarkozy sounded like an ideologue: Turkey’s application for membership of the European Union. Sarkozy has opposed Turkish membership for years, a position he emphasised during his campaign last year.
Hoping that Sarkozy is open to argument, let us see if we could persuade him to change his mind for to shut Turkey out of the EU is harmful to both.
Sarkozy’s key argument is based on geography. He insists that Turkey is not “in Europe”. However, the EU is an economic and political club, not a geographical one. Geographically, Switzerland is in the heart of Europe but not in the EU. Norway and Iceland are also European in terms of geography but neither wishes to join the EU. Albania, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro, Moldova and Ukraine are all geographically in Europe and wish to join the EU but cannot because membership requires something more than geography. Belarus is in Europe but the EU would not touch it with a bargepole because it lacks the minimum political qualifications.
As far as the conventional geographical description of Europe is concerned, only five per cent of Turkish territory is European. But Europe is not always defined in such narrow terms. Turkey is a founding member of the Council of Europe, a body that includes countries such as Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Kazakhstan that have no geographical connection with the continent.
Should the fact that a part of a country’s territory falls outside the traditional geographical limits of Europe automatically exclude it from EU membership?
There is no such rule in any of the treaties that have produced the EU since 1949. If such a rule were to be established, Russia, most of whose territory is geographically in Asia, could never consider joining the EU. Denmark would also be excluded because its vast possessions in Greenland are far away from the continent. France itself has quite a few overseas possessions in the Americas, Africa, Asia and Australasia.
When France, in association with West Germany, Italy and the Benelux countries, was building the future EU it still regarded Algeria as two if its provinces. That meant that only a quarter of French territory was actually located in Europe at the time.
Turkey has strong geographical links with Europe.
It has land and sea borders with five European nations: Russia, Ukraine, Moldova Romania, Bulgaria and Greece (the last three are members of the EU).
Turkey controls the vital link between two key European waters: the Black Sea and the Aegean, and occupies a strategic position on the Mediterranean, the heart of European civilisation.
Turkey’s historic ties with Europe are even stronger.
Several of the earliest European states, including those of the Hittites and the Greeks, were located in Anatolia. For many centuries, the Ottoman Empire, based on present-day Turkey, was a major European power with a leading role in the Balkans. In the 19th century, when Western Europeans called the Ottoman Empire “the sick man of Europe”, they never questioned its place in the continent.
Furthermore, ethnically, Turkey is predominantly European. The majority of the population are from Lydian, Hittite, Greek, and Thracian stock with addition from Slavs, Armenians, Caucasian nations, and, of course, Turkic peoples from central Asia. If Turks were “Asiatic” as Sarkozy implies, they would look like Kazakhs, Uzbeks or Koreans rather than southern Europeans.
Sarkozy might point out that the Turkish language is not European.
That is true. Turkish belongs to the Altaic family of languages while all but three European languages come from the Indo-European family. The EU, however, is not a linguistic club either. If it were, Finland and Hungary, whose national languages are not Indo-Europeans, would be excluded. France itself, along with Spain, is home to the Basque language that is also “alien” because it is not related to any European linguistic family.
In any case, there are already more Turkish speakers within the current EU than there are Bulgarian, Catalonian, Czech, Danish, Estonian, Finnish, Gallic, Greek, Hungarian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Portuguese, Swedish, or Slovenian speakers.
Turkish is already a major EU language thanks to the presence of an estimated 12 million Turkish immigrants. Only seven of the EU’s 25 recognised languages, German, French, English, Italian, Spanish, Polish and Romanian, are spoken in its present boundaries by a larger number of people.
There is one other factor that Sarkozy takes into account, albeit without giving it headline treatment: Turkey is a majority Muslim nation.
However, that factor, too, need not exclude Turkey.
Islam is already the second religion of the EU in terms of the number of its adepts. France itself is home to some six million Muslims. In 22 of the 27 current EU members, Muslims represent the largest religious minority. Islam may also be the fastest growing faith in EU in terms of demography. Some scholars project Islam to become a majority faith in Europe within the current century.
However, the EU is not a Christian club either. If it were it would have to exclude its 2.5 million Jews as well as its 20 million Muslims, not to mention millions who practice no faith at all. Should Albania and Bosnia-Herzegovina, where Muslims form majorities, never become EU members? Both have already started the preliminary stages of applying for membership.
If there are no objective reasons to keep Turkey out of the EU, there are many reasons to support its candidacy.
The EU is Turkey’s largest trading partner. It is also the biggest foreign investor in the Turkish economy. Some 80 per cent of visitors to Turkey come from the EU while the EU is the number-one destination for Turks doing business, receiving education or holidaying abroad.
It is not only by adopting the Latin alphabet that Turkey has tried to draw closer to Europe. It has adopted the democratic system, is building a secular republic and promoting a culture of pluralism. Trying to meet EU conditions, Turkey has reformed its cultural, social, and economic policies, and judicial system (the process is known as mise-a-niveau or bringing up to standard). Today, Turkey is closer to EU standards than many of the current members.
As already mentioned, Turkey is a founding member of the Council of Europe. But it is also a founding ember of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and provides its second largest army. No so long ago, Turkey led NATO’s efforts to stabilise post-Taliban Afghanistan.
Sarkozy is wrong on Turkey, and the sooner he admits it the better for all concerned.
Mike Ghouse
# # #
Amir Taheri was born in Iran and educated in Tehran, London and Paris. Between 1980 and 1984 he was Middle East editor for the London Sunday Times. Taheri has been a contributor to the International Herald Tribune since 1980. He has also written for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. Taheri has published nine books some of which have been translated into 20 languages, and In 1988 Publishers'' Weekly in New York chose his study of Islamist terrorism, "Holy Terror", as one of The Best Books of The Year. He has been a columnist Asharq Alawsat since 1987
Sarkozy is Wrong About Turkey
http://aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=2&id=12615 02/05/2008
Amir Taheri
“I am no ideologue,” insists French President Nicolas Sarkozy at every opportunity. He was doing so the other evening during a 90-minute long live television exposé marking the first anniversary of his election victory. By saying he is no ideologue, the French leader tries to present himself as a pragmatic politician, open to argument and ready to admit errors. This was what he did during his TV marathon. On at least six occasions, referring to various aspects of his policies, he said: I admit
I made an error!
There was, however, one issue on which Sarkozy sounded like an ideologue: Turkey’s application for membership of the European Union. Sarkozy has opposed Turkish membership for years, a position he emphasised during his campaign last year.
Hoping that Sarkozy is open to argument, let us see if we could persuade him to change his mind for to shut Turkey out of the EU is harmful to both.
Sarkozy’s key argument is based on geography. He insists that Turkey is not “in Europe”. However, the EU is an economic and political club, not a geographical one. Geographically, Switzerland is in the heart of Europe but not in the EU. Norway and Iceland are also European in terms of geography but neither wishes to join the EU. Albania, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro, Moldova and Ukraine are all geographically in Europe and wish to join the EU but cannot because membership requires something more than geography. Belarus is in Europe but the EU would not touch it with a bargepole because it lacks the minimum political qualifications.
As far as the conventional geographical description of Europe is concerned, only five per cent of Turkish territory is European. But Europe is not always defined in such narrow terms. Turkey is a founding member of the Council of Europe, a body that includes countries such as Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Kazakhstan that have no geographical connection with the continent.
Should the fact that a part of a country’s territory falls outside the traditional geographical limits of Europe automatically exclude it from EU membership?
There is no such rule in any of the treaties that have produced the EU since 1949. If such a rule were to be established, Russia, most of whose territory is geographically in Asia, could never consider joining the EU. Denmark would also be excluded because its vast possessions in Greenland are far away from the continent. France itself has quite a few overseas possessions in the Americas, Africa, Asia and Australasia.
When France, in association with West Germany, Italy and the Benelux countries, was building the future EU it still regarded Algeria as two if its provinces. That meant that only a quarter of French territory was actually located in Europe at the time.
Turkey has strong geographical links with Europe.
It has land and sea borders with five European nations: Russia, Ukraine, Moldova Romania, Bulgaria and Greece (the last three are members of the EU).
Turkey controls the vital link between two key European waters: the Black Sea and the Aegean, and occupies a strategic position on the Mediterranean, the heart of European civilisation.
Turkey’s historic ties with Europe are even stronger.
Several of the earliest European states, including those of the Hittites and the Greeks, were located in Anatolia. For many centuries, the Ottoman Empire, based on present-day Turkey, was a major European power with a leading role in the Balkans. In the 19th century, when Western Europeans called the Ottoman Empire “the sick man of Europe”, they never questioned its place in the continent.
Furthermore, ethnically, Turkey is predominantly European. The majority of the population are from Lydian, Hittite, Greek, and Thracian stock with addition from Slavs, Armenians, Caucasian nations, and, of course, Turkic peoples from central Asia. If Turks were “Asiatic” as Sarkozy implies, they would look like Kazakhs, Uzbeks or Koreans rather than southern Europeans.
Sarkozy might point out that the Turkish language is not European.
That is true. Turkish belongs to the Altaic family of languages while all but three European languages come from the Indo-European family. The EU, however, is not a linguistic club either. If it were, Finland and Hungary, whose national languages are not Indo-Europeans, would be excluded. France itself, along with Spain, is home to the Basque language that is also “alien” because it is not related to any European linguistic family.
In any case, there are already more Turkish speakers within the current EU than there are Bulgarian, Catalonian, Czech, Danish, Estonian, Finnish, Gallic, Greek, Hungarian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Portuguese, Swedish, or Slovenian speakers.
Turkish is already a major EU language thanks to the presence of an estimated 12 million Turkish immigrants. Only seven of the EU’s 25 recognised languages, German, French, English, Italian, Spanish, Polish and Romanian, are spoken in its present boundaries by a larger number of people.
There is one other factor that Sarkozy takes into account, albeit without giving it headline treatment: Turkey is a majority Muslim nation.
However, that factor, too, need not exclude Turkey.
Islam is already the second religion of the EU in terms of the number of its adepts. France itself is home to some six million Muslims. In 22 of the 27 current EU members, Muslims represent the largest religious minority. Islam may also be the fastest growing faith in EU in terms of demography. Some scholars project Islam to become a majority faith in Europe within the current century.
However, the EU is not a Christian club either. If it were it would have to exclude its 2.5 million Jews as well as its 20 million Muslims, not to mention millions who practice no faith at all. Should Albania and Bosnia-Herzegovina, where Muslims form majorities, never become EU members? Both have already started the preliminary stages of applying for membership.
If there are no objective reasons to keep Turkey out of the EU, there are many reasons to support its candidacy.
The EU is Turkey’s largest trading partner. It is also the biggest foreign investor in the Turkish economy. Some 80 per cent of visitors to Turkey come from the EU while the EU is the number-one destination for Turks doing business, receiving education or holidaying abroad.
It is not only by adopting the Latin alphabet that Turkey has tried to draw closer to Europe. It has adopted the democratic system, is building a secular republic and promoting a culture of pluralism. Trying to meet EU conditions, Turkey has reformed its cultural, social, and economic policies, and judicial system (the process is known as mise-a-niveau or bringing up to standard). Today, Turkey is closer to EU standards than many of the current members.
As already mentioned, Turkey is a founding member of the Council of Europe. But it is also a founding ember of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and provides its second largest army. No so long ago, Turkey led NATO’s efforts to stabilise post-Taliban Afghanistan.
Sarkozy is wrong on Turkey, and the sooner he admits it the better for all concerned.
Saturday, April 12, 2008
1.25 Million sign Tibet petition
Over 1.25 million sign online petition for Tibet dialogue
http://news.webindia123.com/news/articles/India/20080411/929552.html
Dharamsala April 11, 2008 9:45:06 AM IST
In what could be the fastest growing online petition, people across the world - from Rio de Janeiro to Rome and New York to New Delhi - have signed up to mount pressure on China for a dialogue with Buddhist spiritual leader the Dalai Lama on Tibet.
The online petition campaign launched by a global advocacy network - www.avaaz.org - has so far obtained over 1.25 million signatures to force China to discuss Tibet with the Dalai Lama.
"One million signatures in seven days is unprecedented. We believe it is the largest global online petition in history and the fastest growing internet petition ever - obtaining over a million signatures in just seven days," Avaaz campaign director Ben Wikler told IANS.
"If all the signatories of this petition joined hands in a line, it would stretch from London to Rome."
Hard copies of the petition - addressed to Chinese President Hu Jintao and carrying all the 1.25 million signatures - will now be stacked up outside Chinese embassies in most countries across the globe.
"As citizens around the world, we call on you to show restraint and respect for human rights in your response to the protests in Tibet, and to address the concerns of all Tibetans by opening meaningful dialogue with the Dalai Lama. Only dialogue and reform will bring lasting stability. China's brightest future, and its most positive relationship with the world, lies in harmonious development, dialogue and respect," the petition says.
"The petition is online, and it has been signed by citizens of every country on earth, as well as every inhabited, dependent territory. The only exception is Antarctica, where scientists are not allowed to participate in political activity.
"As of this moment, the petition has been signed by 13,159 people in India, as well as more than 100,000 each in the US and UK, and nearly a million in mainland Europe," Wikler pointed out.
Avaaz - which means 'voice' in several languages - itself exists as a virtual organisation on the internet and its staff reside in London, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, New York City, Geneva, and Manama. It is legally incorporated as an NGO in the state of New York in the United States, Wikler said.
The idea for an online petition started last month following the violence and protests inside Tibet against Chinese rule there.
The Tibetan government-in-exile based in this Himalayan abode of the Dalai Lama in the north Indian state of Himachal Pradesh is excited with the response to the petition and the overall reaction of people to the Tibet issue.
"This gives a lot of support to our cause. We are hoping that China too will see reason," a top Tibetan exiled government official, requesting anonymity, told IANS here.
"This is a clear message to the Chinese government that the Tibetan people have a vast amount of support around the world. The popularity of the 'Made in China' brand and the Olympics will be significantly affected by how China deals with Tibetan grievances," said Ricken Patel, executive director of Avaaz.
The greatest response to the petition has come from France, where 376,568 people have signed the petition. That's six per 1,000 French citizens and more than one percent of all internet users there, Wikler pointed out.
As a fraction of the population, the response is even greater in Switzerland, where nine per 1,000 Swiss citizens have signed, he added.
-Indo-Asian News Service
http://news.webindia123.com/news/articles/India/20080411/929552.html
Dharamsala April 11, 2008 9:45:06 AM IST
In what could be the fastest growing online petition, people across the world - from Rio de Janeiro to Rome and New York to New Delhi - have signed up to mount pressure on China for a dialogue with Buddhist spiritual leader the Dalai Lama on Tibet.
The online petition campaign launched by a global advocacy network - www.avaaz.org - has so far obtained over 1.25 million signatures to force China to discuss Tibet with the Dalai Lama.
"One million signatures in seven days is unprecedented. We believe it is the largest global online petition in history and the fastest growing internet petition ever - obtaining over a million signatures in just seven days," Avaaz campaign director Ben Wikler told IANS.
"If all the signatories of this petition joined hands in a line, it would stretch from London to Rome."
Hard copies of the petition - addressed to Chinese President Hu Jintao and carrying all the 1.25 million signatures - will now be stacked up outside Chinese embassies in most countries across the globe.
"As citizens around the world, we call on you to show restraint and respect for human rights in your response to the protests in Tibet, and to address the concerns of all Tibetans by opening meaningful dialogue with the Dalai Lama. Only dialogue and reform will bring lasting stability. China's brightest future, and its most positive relationship with the world, lies in harmonious development, dialogue and respect," the petition says.
"The petition is online, and it has been signed by citizens of every country on earth, as well as every inhabited, dependent territory. The only exception is Antarctica, where scientists are not allowed to participate in political activity.
"As of this moment, the petition has been signed by 13,159 people in India, as well as more than 100,000 each in the US and UK, and nearly a million in mainland Europe," Wikler pointed out.
Avaaz - which means 'voice' in several languages - itself exists as a virtual organisation on the internet and its staff reside in London, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, New York City, Geneva, and Manama. It is legally incorporated as an NGO in the state of New York in the United States, Wikler said.
The idea for an online petition started last month following the violence and protests inside Tibet against Chinese rule there.
The Tibetan government-in-exile based in this Himalayan abode of the Dalai Lama in the north Indian state of Himachal Pradesh is excited with the response to the petition and the overall reaction of people to the Tibet issue.
"This gives a lot of support to our cause. We are hoping that China too will see reason," a top Tibetan exiled government official, requesting anonymity, told IANS here.
"This is a clear message to the Chinese government that the Tibetan people have a vast amount of support around the world. The popularity of the 'Made in China' brand and the Olympics will be significantly affected by how China deals with Tibetan grievances," said Ricken Patel, executive director of Avaaz.
The greatest response to the petition has come from France, where 376,568 people have signed the petition. That's six per 1,000 French citizens and more than one percent of all internet users there, Wikler pointed out.
As a fraction of the population, the response is even greater in Switzerland, where nine per 1,000 Swiss citizens have signed, he added.
-Indo-Asian News Service
Friday, April 11, 2008
Tibet - Uri Avnery
Uri Avenery is another one of the writers I admire. He writes sense, he is not born to please some one to compromise the truth. I am pleased to be alive to read stalwarts like him - Mike Ghouse
http://www.avnery-news.co.il/english/index.html
Not You! You!!
"Hey! Take your hands off me! Not you! You!!!" - the voice of a young woman in the darkened cinema, an old joke.
"Hey! Take your hands off Tibet!" the international chorus is crying out, "But not from Chechnya! Not from the Basque homeland! And certainly not from Palestine!" And that is not a joke.
LIKE EVERYBODY else, I support the right of the Tibetan people to independence, or at least autonomy. Like everybody else, I condemn the actions of the Chinese government there. But unlike everybody else, I am not ready to join in the demonstrations.
Why? Because I have an uneasy feeling that somebody is washing my brain, that what is going on is an exercise in hypocrisy.
I don't mind a bit of manipulation. After all, it is not by accident that the riots started in Tibet on the eve of the Olympic Games in Beijing. That's alright. A people fighting for their freedom have the right to use any opportunity that presents itself to further their struggle.
I support the Tibetans in spite of it being obvious that the Americans are exploiting the struggle for their own purposes. Clearly, the CIA has planned and organized the riots, and the American media are leading the world-wide campaign. It is a part of the hidden struggle between the US, the reigning super-power, and China, the rising super-power - a new version of the "Great Game" that was played in central Asia in the 19th century by the British Empire and Russia. Tibet is a token in this game.
I am even ready to ignore the fact that the gentle Tibetans have carried out a murderous pogrom against innocent Chinese, killing women and men and burning homes and shops. Such detestable excesses do happen during a liberation struggle.
No, what is really bugging me is the hypocrisy of the world media. They storm and thunder about Tibet. In thousands of editorials and talk-shows they heap curses and invective on the evil China. It seems as if the Tibetans are the only people on earth whose right to independence is being denied by brutal force, that if only Beijing would take its dirty hands off the saffron-robed monks, everything would be alright in this, the best of all possible worlds.
THERE IS no doubt that the Tibetan people are entitled to rule their own country, to nurture their unique culture, to promote their religious institutions and to prevent foreign settlers from submerging them.
But are not the Kurds in Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria entitled to the same? The inhabitants of Western Sahara, whose territory is occupied by Morocco? The Basques in Spain? The Corsicans off the coast of France? And the list is long.
Why do the world's media adopt one independence struggle, but often cynically ignore another independence struggle? What makes the blood of one Tibetan redder than the blood of a thousand Africans in East Congo?
Again and again I try to find a satisfactory answer to this enigma. In vain.
Immanuel Kant demanded of us: "Act as if the principle by which you act were about to be turned into a universal law of nature." (Being a German philosopher, he expressed it in much more convoluted language.) Does the attitude towards the Tibetan problem conform to this rule? Does it reflect our attitude towards the struggle for independence of all other oppressed peoples?
Not at all.
WHAT, THEN, causes the international media to discriminate between the various liberation struggles that are going on throughout the world?
Here are some of the relevant considerations:
Do the people seeking independence have an especially exotic culture?
Are they an attractive people, i.e. "sexy" in the view of the media?
Is the struggle headed by a charismatic personality who is liked by the media?
It the oppressing government disliked by the media?
Does the oppressing government belong to the pro-American camp? This is an important factor, since the United States dominates a large part of the international media, and its news agencies and TV networks largely define the agenda and the terminology of the news coverage.
Are economic interests involved in the conflict?
Does the oppressed people have gifted spokespersons, who are able to attract attention and manipulate the media?
FROM THESE points of view, there is nobody like the Tibetans. They enjoy ideal conditions.
Fringed by the Himalayas, they are located in one of the most beautiful landscapes on earth. For centuries, just to get there was an adventure. Their unique religion arouses curiosity and sympathy. Its non-violence is very attractive and elastic enough to cover even the ugliest atrocities, like the recent pogrom. The exiled leader, the Dalai Lama, is a romantic figure, a media rock-star. The Chinese regime is hated by many - by capitalists because it is a Communist dictatorship, by Communists because it has become capitalist. It promotes a crass and ugly materialism, the very opposite of the spiritual Buddhist monks, who spend their time in prayer and meditation.
When China builds a railway to the Tibetan capital over a thousand inhospitable kilometers, the West does not admire the engineering feat, but sees (quite rightly) an iron monster that brings hundreds of thousands of Han-Chinese settlers to the occupied territory.
And of course, China is a rising power, whose economic success threatens America's hegemony in the world. A large part of the ailing American economy already belongs directly or indirectly to China. The huge American Empire is sinking hopelessly into debt, and China may soon be the biggest lender. American manufacturing industry is moving to China, taking millions of jobs with it.
Compared to these factors, what have the Basques, for example, to offer? Like the Tibetans, they inhabit a contiguous territory, most of it in Spain, some of it in France. They, too, are an ancient people with their own language and culture. But these are not exotic and do not attract special notice. No prayer wheels. No robed monks.
The Basques do not have a romantic leader, like Nelson Mandela or the Dalai Lama. The Spanish state, which arose from the ruins of Franco's detested dictatorship, enjoys great popularity around the world. Spain belongs to the European Union, which is more or less in the American camp, sometimes more, sometimes less.
The armed struggle of the Basque underground is abhorred by many and is considered "terrorism", especially after Spain has accorded the Basques a far-reaching autonomy. In these circumstances, the Basques have no chance at all of gaining world support for independence.
The Chechnyans should have been in a better position. They, too, are a separate people, who have for a long time been oppressed by the Czars of the Russian Empire, including Stalin and Putin. But alas, they are Muslims - and in the Western world, Islamophobia now occupies the place that had for centuries been reserved for anti-Semitism. Islam has turned into a synonym for terrorism, it is seen as a religion of blood and murder. Soon it will be revealed that Muslims slaughter Christian children and use their blood for baking Pitta. (In reality it is, of course, the religion of dozens of vastly different peoples, from Indonesia to Morocco and from Kosova to Zanzibar.
The US does not fear Moscow as it fears Beijing. Unlike China, Russia does not look like a country that could dominate the 21st century. The West has no interest in renewing the Cold War, as it has in renewing the Crusades against Islam. The poor Chechnyans, who have no charismatic leader or outstanding spokespersons, have been banished from the headlines. For all the world cares, Putin can hit them as much as he wants, kill thousands and obliterate whole towns.
That does not prevent Putin from supporting the demands of Abkhazia and South Ossetia for separation from Georgia, a country which infuriates Russia.
IF IMMANUEL KANT knew what's going on in Kosova, he would be scratching his head.
The province demanded its independence from Serbia, and I, for one, supported that with all my heart. This is a separate people, with a different culture (Albanian) and its own religion (Islam). After the popular Serbian leader, Slobodan Milosevic, tried to drive them out of their country, the world rose and provided moral and material support for their struggle for independence.
The Albanian Kosovars make up 90% of the citizens of the new state, which has a population of two million. The other 10% are Serbs, who want no part of the new Kosova. They want the areas they live in to be annexed to Serbia. According to Kant's maxim, are they entitled to this?
I would propose a pragmatic moral principle: Every population that inhabits a defined territory and has a clear national character is entitled to independence. A state that wants to keep such a population must see to it that they feel comfortable, that they receive their full rights, enjoy equality and have an autonomy that satisfies their aspirations. In short: that they have no reason to desire separation.
That applies to the French in Canada, the Scots in Britain, the Kurds in Turkey and elsewhere, the various ethnic groups in Africa, the indigenous peoples in Latin America, the Tamils in Sri Lanka and many others. Each has a right to choose between full equality, autonomy and independence.
THIS LEADS us, of course, to the Palestinian issue.
In the competition for the sympathy of the world media, the Palestinians are unlucky. According to all the objective standards, they have a right to full independence, exactly like the Tibetans. They inhabit a defined territory, they are a specific nation, a clear border exists between them and Israel. One must really have a crooked mind to deny these facts.
But the Palestinians are suffering from several cruel strokes of fate: The people that oppress them claim for themselves the crown of ultimate victimhood. The whole world sympathizes with the Israelis because the Jews were the victims of the most horrific crime of the Western world. That creates a strange situation: the oppressor is more popular than the victim. Anyone who supports the Palestinians is automatically suspected of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial.
Also, the great majority of the Palestinians are Muslims (nobody pays attention to the Palestinian Christians). Since Islam arouses fear and abhorrence in the West, the Palestinian struggle has automatically become a part of that shapeless, sinister threat, "international terrorism". And since the murders of Yasser Arafat and Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the Palestinians have no particularly impressive leader - neither in Fatah nor in Hamas.
The world media are shedding tears for the Tibetan people, whose land is taken from them by Chinese settlers. Who cares about the Palestinians, whose land is taken from them by our settlers?
In the world-wide tumult about Tibet, the Israeli spokespersons compare themselves - strange as it sounds - to the poor Tibetans, not to the evil Chinese. Many think this quite logical.
If Kant were dug up tomorrow and asked about the Palestinians, he would probably answer: "Give them what you think should be given to everybody, and don't wake me up again to ask silly questions."
http://www.avnery-news.co.il/english/index.html
Not You! You!!
"Hey! Take your hands off me! Not you! You!!!" - the voice of a young woman in the darkened cinema, an old joke.
"Hey! Take your hands off Tibet!" the international chorus is crying out, "But not from Chechnya! Not from the Basque homeland! And certainly not from Palestine!" And that is not a joke.
LIKE EVERYBODY else, I support the right of the Tibetan people to independence, or at least autonomy. Like everybody else, I condemn the actions of the Chinese government there. But unlike everybody else, I am not ready to join in the demonstrations.
Why? Because I have an uneasy feeling that somebody is washing my brain, that what is going on is an exercise in hypocrisy.
I don't mind a bit of manipulation. After all, it is not by accident that the riots started in Tibet on the eve of the Olympic Games in Beijing. That's alright. A people fighting for their freedom have the right to use any opportunity that presents itself to further their struggle.
I support the Tibetans in spite of it being obvious that the Americans are exploiting the struggle for their own purposes. Clearly, the CIA has planned and organized the riots, and the American media are leading the world-wide campaign. It is a part of the hidden struggle between the US, the reigning super-power, and China, the rising super-power - a new version of the "Great Game" that was played in central Asia in the 19th century by the British Empire and Russia. Tibet is a token in this game.
I am even ready to ignore the fact that the gentle Tibetans have carried out a murderous pogrom against innocent Chinese, killing women and men and burning homes and shops. Such detestable excesses do happen during a liberation struggle.
No, what is really bugging me is the hypocrisy of the world media. They storm and thunder about Tibet. In thousands of editorials and talk-shows they heap curses and invective on the evil China. It seems as if the Tibetans are the only people on earth whose right to independence is being denied by brutal force, that if only Beijing would take its dirty hands off the saffron-robed monks, everything would be alright in this, the best of all possible worlds.
THERE IS no doubt that the Tibetan people are entitled to rule their own country, to nurture their unique culture, to promote their religious institutions and to prevent foreign settlers from submerging them.
But are not the Kurds in Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria entitled to the same? The inhabitants of Western Sahara, whose territory is occupied by Morocco? The Basques in Spain? The Corsicans off the coast of France? And the list is long.
Why do the world's media adopt one independence struggle, but often cynically ignore another independence struggle? What makes the blood of one Tibetan redder than the blood of a thousand Africans in East Congo?
Again and again I try to find a satisfactory answer to this enigma. In vain.
Immanuel Kant demanded of us: "Act as if the principle by which you act were about to be turned into a universal law of nature." (Being a German philosopher, he expressed it in much more convoluted language.) Does the attitude towards the Tibetan problem conform to this rule? Does it reflect our attitude towards the struggle for independence of all other oppressed peoples?
Not at all.
WHAT, THEN, causes the international media to discriminate between the various liberation struggles that are going on throughout the world?
Here are some of the relevant considerations:
Do the people seeking independence have an especially exotic culture?
Are they an attractive people, i.e. "sexy" in the view of the media?
Is the struggle headed by a charismatic personality who is liked by the media?
It the oppressing government disliked by the media?
Does the oppressing government belong to the pro-American camp? This is an important factor, since the United States dominates a large part of the international media, and its news agencies and TV networks largely define the agenda and the terminology of the news coverage.
Are economic interests involved in the conflict?
Does the oppressed people have gifted spokespersons, who are able to attract attention and manipulate the media?
FROM THESE points of view, there is nobody like the Tibetans. They enjoy ideal conditions.
Fringed by the Himalayas, they are located in one of the most beautiful landscapes on earth. For centuries, just to get there was an adventure. Their unique religion arouses curiosity and sympathy. Its non-violence is very attractive and elastic enough to cover even the ugliest atrocities, like the recent pogrom. The exiled leader, the Dalai Lama, is a romantic figure, a media rock-star. The Chinese regime is hated by many - by capitalists because it is a Communist dictatorship, by Communists because it has become capitalist. It promotes a crass and ugly materialism, the very opposite of the spiritual Buddhist monks, who spend their time in prayer and meditation.
When China builds a railway to the Tibetan capital over a thousand inhospitable kilometers, the West does not admire the engineering feat, but sees (quite rightly) an iron monster that brings hundreds of thousands of Han-Chinese settlers to the occupied territory.
And of course, China is a rising power, whose economic success threatens America's hegemony in the world. A large part of the ailing American economy already belongs directly or indirectly to China. The huge American Empire is sinking hopelessly into debt, and China may soon be the biggest lender. American manufacturing industry is moving to China, taking millions of jobs with it.
Compared to these factors, what have the Basques, for example, to offer? Like the Tibetans, they inhabit a contiguous territory, most of it in Spain, some of it in France. They, too, are an ancient people with their own language and culture. But these are not exotic and do not attract special notice. No prayer wheels. No robed monks.
The Basques do not have a romantic leader, like Nelson Mandela or the Dalai Lama. The Spanish state, which arose from the ruins of Franco's detested dictatorship, enjoys great popularity around the world. Spain belongs to the European Union, which is more or less in the American camp, sometimes more, sometimes less.
The armed struggle of the Basque underground is abhorred by many and is considered "terrorism", especially after Spain has accorded the Basques a far-reaching autonomy. In these circumstances, the Basques have no chance at all of gaining world support for independence.
The Chechnyans should have been in a better position. They, too, are a separate people, who have for a long time been oppressed by the Czars of the Russian Empire, including Stalin and Putin. But alas, they are Muslims - and in the Western world, Islamophobia now occupies the place that had for centuries been reserved for anti-Semitism. Islam has turned into a synonym for terrorism, it is seen as a religion of blood and murder. Soon it will be revealed that Muslims slaughter Christian children and use their blood for baking Pitta. (In reality it is, of course, the religion of dozens of vastly different peoples, from Indonesia to Morocco and from Kosova to Zanzibar.
The US does not fear Moscow as it fears Beijing. Unlike China, Russia does not look like a country that could dominate the 21st century. The West has no interest in renewing the Cold War, as it has in renewing the Crusades against Islam. The poor Chechnyans, who have no charismatic leader or outstanding spokespersons, have been banished from the headlines. For all the world cares, Putin can hit them as much as he wants, kill thousands and obliterate whole towns.
That does not prevent Putin from supporting the demands of Abkhazia and South Ossetia for separation from Georgia, a country which infuriates Russia.
IF IMMANUEL KANT knew what's going on in Kosova, he would be scratching his head.
The province demanded its independence from Serbia, and I, for one, supported that with all my heart. This is a separate people, with a different culture (Albanian) and its own religion (Islam). After the popular Serbian leader, Slobodan Milosevic, tried to drive them out of their country, the world rose and provided moral and material support for their struggle for independence.
The Albanian Kosovars make up 90% of the citizens of the new state, which has a population of two million. The other 10% are Serbs, who want no part of the new Kosova. They want the areas they live in to be annexed to Serbia. According to Kant's maxim, are they entitled to this?
I would propose a pragmatic moral principle: Every population that inhabits a defined territory and has a clear national character is entitled to independence. A state that wants to keep such a population must see to it that they feel comfortable, that they receive their full rights, enjoy equality and have an autonomy that satisfies their aspirations. In short: that they have no reason to desire separation.
That applies to the French in Canada, the Scots in Britain, the Kurds in Turkey and elsewhere, the various ethnic groups in Africa, the indigenous peoples in Latin America, the Tamils in Sri Lanka and many others. Each has a right to choose between full equality, autonomy and independence.
THIS LEADS us, of course, to the Palestinian issue.
In the competition for the sympathy of the world media, the Palestinians are unlucky. According to all the objective standards, they have a right to full independence, exactly like the Tibetans. They inhabit a defined territory, they are a specific nation, a clear border exists between them and Israel. One must really have a crooked mind to deny these facts.
But the Palestinians are suffering from several cruel strokes of fate: The people that oppress them claim for themselves the crown of ultimate victimhood. The whole world sympathizes with the Israelis because the Jews were the victims of the most horrific crime of the Western world. That creates a strange situation: the oppressor is more popular than the victim. Anyone who supports the Palestinians is automatically suspected of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial.
Also, the great majority of the Palestinians are Muslims (nobody pays attention to the Palestinian Christians). Since Islam arouses fear and abhorrence in the West, the Palestinian struggle has automatically become a part of that shapeless, sinister threat, "international terrorism". And since the murders of Yasser Arafat and Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the Palestinians have no particularly impressive leader - neither in Fatah nor in Hamas.
The world media are shedding tears for the Tibetan people, whose land is taken from them by Chinese settlers. Who cares about the Palestinians, whose land is taken from them by our settlers?
In the world-wide tumult about Tibet, the Israeli spokespersons compare themselves - strange as it sounds - to the poor Tibetans, not to the evil Chinese. Many think this quite logical.
If Kant were dug up tomorrow and asked about the Palestinians, he would probably answer: "Give them what you think should be given to everybody, and don't wake me up again to ask silly questions."
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