May 22, 2019
Christchurch mosques attacker charged with terrorism
By Abdus-Sattar Ghazali
New Zealand police Tuesday filed a terrorism charge against white supremacist Brenton Tarrant accused with killing 51 worshippers in attacks on two Christchurch mosques in March 2019.
The offense carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. It's a test case for New Zealand's terror law, which was enacted in 2002 following the 9/11 terror attacks in the United States.
It is the first time a person has been charged in New Zealand with an act of terror under this law.
Tarrant is already facing charges of murder and 40 of attempted murder following the attack on two mosques in the South Island city on 15 March.
He is currently being held in a high-security prison and has been ordered to undergo psychiatric assessment. His next court appearance is scheduled for June 14.
Interestingly, a judge had earlier ordered that the 28-year-old's face not be shown.
The March 15 attacks on the Al Noor and Linwood mosques in Christchurch were the worst shootings in New Zealand's history.
The self-proclaimed white supremacist - who allegedly outlined his intentions in a rambling and expletive-filled document online before carrying out the attack - has not yet been asked to enter a plea to the charges.
The carnage shocked the population and prompted the government to tighten the country's gun laws. It also sparked widespread criticism of social-media platforms, which allowed the lone gunman to livestream the massacre.
According to BBC, proving in court that the accused was engaged in an act of terror will require examining motivation, not just intention, and that creates the possibility of any trial becoming a platform to air extremist views, something many in Christchurch want to avoid. This may be why the police spent weeks considering the option, and consulted the families of the victims before announcing the charge.
Christchurch shooter has links with European far-right groups
The Christchurch Mosque shooter reportedly sent funds to a far-right French group before sending a "donation" to Austria. The Austrian far-right have recently come under scrutiny for their links to the shooter.
The 28-year-old Australian citizen in March 2019 reportedly sent a total of $2,490 to Ge'ne'ration Identaire, a French far-right anti-migrant movement, in late 2017.
Sources close to the interior affairs committee in the Bundestag, Germany's parliament, told Germany's DPA news agency as well as Berlin's taz daily, Dusseldorf's Rheinische Post and Die Zeit newspaper about the payment last month.
A police official from Germany's investigative Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) had told parliamentarians that the suspect sent Ge'ne'ration Identitaire the sum between September 18 and 25, 2017.
In 2012, some 70 Generation Identitaire members occupied a partly-built mosque in Portiers. In December 2017, four were given suspended prison terms and fined.
Generation Identitaire is a youth group within a larger bloc, Les Identaire, The movement's spread from France since 2012 saw affiliated groups established in other European countries such as Germany, Austria and Italy.
Last month, the head of the Austrian branch of the Identitarian Movement (IBÖ), Martin Sellner, said in a video post that he had received a "disproportionately high donation" of Euro 1,500 in early 2018, but denied having anything to do with the Christchurch massacre suspect.
Austria's BVT domestic intelligence agency searched Sellner's home in Graz last month.
Undeterred by US sanction threat, Turkey to buy Russian S-400 missiles
By Abdus-Sattar Ghazali
Turkey is preparing for US sanctions after going ahead with the purchase of Russian military hardware, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said Wednesday (May 22).
The White House has threatened sanctions under the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), which prohibits business activities with Russia's intelligence and defense industry.
US Ambassador Tina Kaidanow, who serves as acting assistant secretary of the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs at the State Department, said in July that the White House wants US allies to understand how serious the White House is when it comes to them acquiring Russian military hardware.
"We want them to understand the downsides, the real, serious downsides to making these acquisitions, and particularly the S-400 acquisitions from the Russians, and to continue to " look to our systems and to put inter-operability and all the other things we care about first," said Kaidanow.
The United States is hoping to pressure Turkey, a NATO ally, into buying its Patriot missile battery system. However, the Turkish government has refused to back out of purchasing Russia's S-400 missile system, Akar told reporters.
"We've sent personnel to Russia for S-400 training that will begin in the coming days and will span the following months," Akar said.
Russia condemns
Russia has condemned US ultimatum to Turkey designed to force it to cancel the deal to buy Russian S-400 surface-to-air missile systems and purchase American Patriot batteries instead, calling it "unacceptable".
Moscow on Wednesday was responding to a report by CNBC that said Washington had given Turkey two weeks to scrap the Russian arms deal and do one with the United States instead or risk severe penalties.
"We regard this extremely negatively," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said when asked about the CNBC report by reporters.
"We consider such ultimatums to be unacceptable and we are going on the many statements made by representatives of Turkey's leadership - headed by President [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan - that the S-400 deal is already complete and will be implemented."
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday said the S-400 deal with Russia was done and wouldn't change. "There is absolutely no question of [Turkey] taking a step back from the S-400 purchase. That is a done deal," Erdogan said adding:
"Turkey and Russia would jointly produce S-500 defense systems after Ankara's purchase of the S-400s from Moscow."
US-Turkey ties
Ties between Turkey and the US, both NATO allies, have frayed over multiple issues, including the detention of an American pastor, American support for Syrian Kurdish fighters viewed as "terrorists" by Ankara and the US failure to extradite self-exiled Turkish cleric Fatehallah Gulen blamed for the 2016 coup attempt against President Erdogan. Congress in July last blocked the delivery of F-35 fighter jets that Ankara had already partly paid for.
Washington says the deal with Moscow is a threat to Western defense. In April, the US suspended the delivery of F-35 stealth fighter jets to Turkey in a bid to halt the purchase.
Turkish pilots are in the US receiving training on the F-35s, manufactured by Lockheed Martin. Ankara is expected to buy a total of 100 jets.
Erdogan said Turkey conducted technical studies amid US concerns over the compatibility of the S-400s and the F-35s but found there were no issues. He also insisted "sooner or later" Turkey would receive the F-35 jets.
Despite the threat of sanctions, Erdogan repeated that the S-400s were expected to be delivered in July.
"They [US] are passing the ball around in the midfield now, showing some reluctance. But sooner or later, we will receive the F-35s. [The US] not delivering them is not an option." he said.
But while Turkey is still intent on acquiring Russian military hardware, Saudi Arabia appears to have let go of the prospect. Colonel Konstantin Sivkov, vice president of the Russian National Geopolitical Academy, told Russian broadcaster RT that Saudi Arabia had "succumbed to pressure from the United States," according to the London-based Middle East Monitor.
"The US needs to engage in more robust diplomacy to reassure allies and adversaries, which are engaged in a Middle East Cold War," added Mason, a former visiting scholar at the Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia at New York University.
Other US allies in the region reportedly in talks to acquire the Russian S-400 system include Iraq and Morocco.
'Russian system outperforms'
But politics are only one dimension of US allies' interest in Russian military hardware.
Egyptian Brigadier General Samir Ragheb, president of the Arab Foundation for Development and Strategic Studies, told the German News Agency Deutsche Welle that in many ways, countries in the region view the S-400 system as a better alternative to the Patriot system, the US alternative.
"There is no doubt that this Russian system outperforms the Patriot system in range and ability to deal with targets in a small orbit, and its ability to launch multiple missiles," Ragheb said.
Experts have also noted that Washington's issue with the system could stem from its technological capabilities.
"The root cause of US dissatisfaction appears to be the S-400 missile defense system's ability to track and destroy aircraft at unprecedented ranges and to gather information about aircraft in the surrounding airspace," Mason told the Deutsche Welle.
India's "Far Right, Hate Filled" 2019 Election
Results Puts 200 Million Muslims in Danger
By Abdus-Sattar Ghazali
These are some of the headlines of leading newspapers about the landslide victory of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party securing a commanding parliamentary majority in the largest democratic exercise in history.
- Washington Post: Modi's win is a victory for a form of religious nationalism that views India as a fundamentally Hindu nation and seeks to jettison the secularism promoted by the country's founders.
- The Guardian: Indian politics has likely entered a new era of Hindu nationalist hegemony fuelled by Modi's extraordinary popularity.
- New York Times: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is one of the most powerful and divisive leaders in India.
Media reports said that Indian-television estimates, and the official government tally showed, BJP and its allies were set to win more than 340 seats - a number that will allow them to form the majority in India's lower house of parliament.
Reuters said Modi's re-election reinforces a global trend of right-wing populists sweeping to victory, from the United States to Brazil and Italy, often after adopting harsh positions on protectionism, immigration and defense.
Nalin Kohli, a senior BJP official, claimed his party had picked up votes from Muslims, especially Muslim women:
"We are the party of power, we are the flavour of the season. It is the aspirations of 1 billion-plus people that have elected us."
It is the first time in almost five decades that an Indian premier has been voted back with increased majority.
However, some of the BJB critics accusing it of making India a more divisive country, particularly for Muslims and other minorities, many are asking what happens next for India.
Professor Santosh Kumar Rai of Delhi University said:
"Certainly a second term means an ideological victory, even if it is more a personality cult. With a [BJP] majority, a rightist agenda with all the institutions of the state under its control, the party will be more likely to convert India into a majoritarian state."
The Guardian said the emphatic victory will be greeted with dismay among some members of religious minority groups, who have voiced fears that a returned BJP government would be further emboldened to prosecute its Hindu nationalist agenda.
A Modi victory puts 200 million Indian Muslims in danger
On Tuesday, The Nation published an article titled: "A Modi Victory Puts India's 200 Million Muslims in Danger." Writer of the article is Ruchira Gupta. He is a visiting professor at New York University and founder of the Indian anti-sex-trafficking organization, Apne Aap Women Worldwide.Ruchira Gupta writes:
"Thursday, India will announce election results that could put the country's 200 million Muslims in danger".Human Rights Watch reports that between May 2015 and December 2018, cow vigilantes lynched at least 44 people-including 36 Muslims-suspected of eating beef or trading in cattle. In one case in 2016, a group beat to death a Muslim cattle trader and a 12-year-old boy traveling to an animal fair in Jharkhand. Their badly bruised bodies were found hanging from a tree with their hands tied behind them. Instead of trying to keep Muslims safe, the government announced a national commission to protect cows in February 2019. Police often stalled prosecutions of the attackers, while several BJP politicians publicly justified the attacks. Commentators accuse Modi of normalizing bigotry by refusing to condemn such acts. The Pew Research Center has ranked India the fourth-worst country in the world for religious intolerance-after Syria, Nigeria, and Iraq."
Ruchira Gupta argues that for many ordinary Indians Modi's policies were an "economic nightmare". Between 2014 and 2016, 36,320 farmers killed themselves-an average of 33 suicides per day.
"A massive student and farmers movement grew, and Modi's government retaliated. Students and professors were falsely arrested, the press was muzzled, and members of the opposition were charged with corruption. One journalist, two writers, and a dissenting judge were killed".
Modi turned to Islamophobia
To justify the state terror, Modi turned to Islamophobia with disastrous consequences across society. Mobs marched into private residences in search of young people in inter-faith relationships. These self-styled "anti-Romeo" squads terrorized Muslim and Dalit youth for befriending Hindu girls and detained hundreds of young men from minority groups. In June, a mob in Kashmir beat a police officer to death after an altercation said Ruchira Gupta adding:
"Vigilantes raped Dalit, Muslim, and Adivasi girls with impunity. The lawyer representing the family of an 8-year-old Muslim girl, who was allegedly raped by the caretaker of a Hindu temple, was forced to withdraw after repeated threats and intimidation by BJP leaders. The father of a 17-year-old Dalit girl who says a BJP leader raped her was arrested on false charges and died mysteriously in a police station."
About the growing extremism under Modi, Ruchira Gupta writes:
"One candidate for Parliament in particular illustrates the growing extremism of the BJP. In Bhopal, a city of 1.8 million people, Modi personally endorsed Pragya Singh Thakur, who is out on bail after almost nine years in jail for alleged involvement in a terrorist bombing that killed six Muslims."
Pragya Thakur's main election plank appears to be revenge against Indian Muslims for 400-year-old humiliations. At her campaign launch, she boasted that 27 years ago she helped demolish a 16th-century (Babri) mosque in northern India:
"I climbed atop the structure and broke it, and I feel extremely proud that God gave me this opportunity."
Thakur, like Modi, is a proponent of a far-right militant ideology called Hindutva, which was invented in the 1920s by an all-male vigilante group called the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Its founders corresponded with Adolf Hitler and met with Benito Mussolini in 1929 to model their party along fascist lines. A member of the group assassinated Mahatma Gandhi in 1948.
On the campaign trail, Thakur said Gandhi's assassin "was a patriot, is a patriot, and will remain a patriot."
By nominating an alleged terrorist as a lawmaker, Modi has made his party's agenda clear. He's shifted his rhetoric from fighting corruption to generating hate.
Thakur defeated her opponent, Digvijaya Singh, a two-term chief minister of Madhya Pradesh state and a senior member of the main opposition Congress party.
Polarizing campaign
Modi and other party leaders frequently portrayed the political opposition as being in league with Muslim majority Pakistan, and called on voters to honor soldiers who died in the February attack by supporting the BJP, the Los Angeles Times said.
"Modi and Amit Shah (BJP President) ran perhaps the most polarizing campaign in Indian history, an acknowledgement that they didn't think their policy record was adequate," said Irfan Nooruddin, director of the Georgetown India Initiative at Georgetown University.
Their tactics "showed a willingness to pander to the most extreme elements of the Hindu right wing," Nooruddin said. "A big win this week will be interpreted as vindication of this strategy, and, minimally, that there was no cost to the polarization caused over the past five years."
Academic Manindra Nath Thakur, who teaches at New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University, told Al Jazeera that Modi will face virtually no opposition in his second straight term as prime minister. He also said that Modi's win means that the discourse of forming a Hindu state will remain very dominant.
Al Jazeera reported that as results suggesting a massive BJP win began to emerge, India's Muslims said they were worried about the future of secularism in the country.
"This election shows that the BJP's anti Muslim campaign has succeeded," shopkeeper Faizan Zafar, 25, told Al Jazeera in New Delhi. "This time it looks like Muslims will be finished and they will declare a 'Hindu Rashtra' (theocratic Hindu state)."
According to AFP, the campaign, estimated to have cost more than $7 billion, was awash with insults -- Modi was likened to Hitler and a "gutter insect" -- as well as fake news in Facebook and WhatsApp's biggest markets. BJP outspent Congress by six times on Facebook and Google advertising, data showed, and by as much as 20 times overall, according to Reuters.
Hate crimes against minorities continue in the aftermath of Modi’s landslide victory
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
While the entire country was seeing a video clip of Muslim youths being thrashed black and blue on the suspicion of carrying beef, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was addressing a meeting of National Democratic Alliance’s newly elected members of Parliament, Times of India reported.
On May 22, the day before counting of votes, three Muslims, including a couple, were beaten up by cow vigilantes in Madhya Pradesh. Self-proclaimed gau rakshaks thrashed them after getting a tip-off that a Muslim couple and one other youth, travelling in an auto, were carrying beef in Seoni, Madhya Pradesh.
The video of the incident, which went viral on social media, showed goons descending on the youths with sticks as onlookers stood by. They also forced the youth to chant ‘Jai Shree Ram’ slogans while forcing one of the youths to beat the woman who was accompanying them.
Here are few more violence against Muslims and Dalits:
Youth shot at in Begusarai after he reveals his ‘Muslim name’
A youth Mohammad Qasim was shot at in Begusarai district of Bihar on Sunday (May 26) morning after he was asked his name. A video of the injured youth speaking about the incident has gone viral on social media.
Qasim is a detergent salesman and he had gone to Kumbhi village on his bike for his business purposes.
“I was stopped by Rajiv Yadav and he asked me my name…when I told him my name he fired at me and said you should go to Pakistan,” said Qasim in the video and FIR lodged at the local police station.
Shot in the back, Qasim is heard saying in the video that “no one witnessing the incident came to his rescue and somehow” he reached the police station and the police took him to the sadar (town) government hospital for further treatment.
On May 26, a 25-year-old Muslim man was assaulted in Gurgaon by four unidentified youths for wearing traditional skull cap. The victim, a native of Bihar, was beaten by the attackers.
"The accused threatened me, saying wearing cap was not allowed in the area. They removed my cap and slapped me, while asking me to chant Bharat Mata ki Jai," Alam said in the FIR, lodged at the city police station, reported PTI. Alam was returning home after offering prayer in a mosque.
Jharkhand Adivasi Professor arrested for FB post written in 2017
On May 25, an Adivasi (indigenous) professor was arrested over a Facebook post where he mentioned the right to eat beef. He was attending a cultural function near Sakchi with some friends and staying at a hotel when police came and arrested him.
Jeetrai Hansda, a professor at the Government School and College for Women, Sakchi, in Jharkhand was arrested on Saturday, after a complaint was filed against him in June 2017 based on a Facebook post he had written.
Last year, on May 29, Hansda had posted: “Tribals do eat beef while performing last rites and during various festivals. Just because of a law banning cow slaughter, why should we stop our tradition of having beef and follow Hindu tradition.
“It will be an end to tribal existence and we would not accept this. We raise objection over such law by the government. I would like to inform that we also eat national bird of the country ‘peacock’. If tribals too belong to India, the lawmakers should stop making such law to save tribal tradition and identity….”
Gau rakshaks vandalize dairy alleging cow slaughter
On May 26, a group of self-styled gau rakshaks entered a dairy in Raipur, Chhattisgarh and accused people in the shop of cow slaughter and the sale of beef. They assaulted them and vandalised the shop.
Next day, at least 50 men belonging to BJP-affiliate Bajrang Dal alleged that the dairy owner Qureshi be arrested on cow slaughter charges, reported Indian Express. They alleged that they found bones behind the shop. However, police officers said there is no such evidence.
In Gujarat, a mob of 200-300 upper caste people allegedly attacked the house of a Dalit couple in Mahuvad village on Vadodra, after the husband allegedly put up a Facebook post saying that the government does not permit the village temple to be used for Dalit wedding ceremonies.
The Dalit woman filed a police complaint and got an FIR registered against 11 people and mob of 200-300 people for attacking her house, pelting stones and thrashing her husband.
Another Muslim man ends life over NRC shame
A Muslim man, believed to be in his early 90s, ended his life in Assam on the prospect of being declared a foreigner and sent to detention centre. Ashraf Ali’s body was found from a school campus, close to his hut in Sontoli in Boko, 70 kms west of Guwahati, Janta Ka Reporter reported Sunday.
93-year-old Ashrab Ali’s name was in the National Register for Citizenship (NRC) draft list but someone filed an objection prompting the authorities to call his entire family for a hearing on 23 May. Ali was the 23rd Muslim to end his life over the issue till date since 2015 when the updation process started with most victims belonging to poor families.
Minorities living in fear
Shweta Sengar of India Times wrote, with BJP coming back to power with stonking majority, the spirits of such fringe outfits have emboldened. The minorities have been attacked continuously over their religion, food choice and caste.
“There has been a significant increase in hate crimes against Muslims in recent years. Some fear the world’s largest democracy is becoming dangerously intolerant of the minorities living in the country…. In the entire election campaign, the BJP rode high on Hindu nationalism,” Shweta said adding:
“The state of affairs does not seem to improve anytime soon unless law and order situation in the country is tightened and minorities are also treated as citizens of India, like anyone else. The change must start from the top and not from the grassroots level, where top leaders of the ruling government come out in support of minorities and ensure attackers be prosecuted immediately.”
The India Times also reproduced The Guardian editorial to emphasize its point of view about minorities, particularly Muslims in India.
The Guardian editorial on the victory of Narendra Modi had noted that the mandate is “changing India for the worse.” Stressing that “it stands for the flagrant social dominance of the upper castes of Hindu society, pro-corporate economic growth, cultural conservatism, intensified misogyny, and a firm grip on the instruments of state power. The landslide win for Mr Modi will see India’s soul lost to a dark politics – one that views almost all 195 million Indian Muslims as second-class citizens.”
Murders of religious minorities in India go unpunished: HRW
The Indian authorities have delayed investigating a wave of vigilante-style murders of religious minorities, with many instead working to justify the attacks or file charges against some of the victims’ families, according to a report released in February 2019 by Human Rights Watch. The 104-page report said that since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s governing Bharatiya Janata Party took power in 2014, attacks led by so-called cow protection groups have jumped sharply.
Between May 2015 and December 2018, at least 44 people have been killed, Human Rights Watch found. Most of the victims were Muslims accused of storing beef or transporting cows for slaughter, a crime in most Indian states. Many Hindus, who form about 80 percent of India’s population, consider cows sacred.
Data cited in the report from FactChecker.in, an Indian organization that tracks reports of violence, found that as many as 90 percent of religion-based hate crimes in the last decade occurred after Mr. Modi took office. Mobs hung victims from trees, frequently mutilated victims and burned bodies.
In almost all of these attacks, victims’ families faced significant pushback when they pressed for justice. The police “initially stalled investigations, ignored procedures, or even played a complicit role in the killings and cover-up of crimes,” the report said.
“Indian police investigations into mob attacks are almost as likely to accuse the minority victims of a crime as they are to pursue vigilantes with government connections,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, the South Asia director of Human Rights Watch.
Released ahead of national elections this April and May, the report, called “Violent Cow Protection in India: Vigilante Groups Attack Minorities,” also looks at the government’s response to 11 recent attacks that killed 14 people.
According to a survey from NDTV cited by Human Rights Watch, “communally divisive language” in speeches by elected officials shot up nearly 500 percent between 2014 and 2018, compared with the five years before the B.J.P. came to power. Ninety percent of those speeches were from the B.J.P., which has ties to far-right Hindu nationalist groups.
“We will hang those who kill cows,” Raman Singh, a member of the B.J.P. and the former chief minister of Chhattisgarh state, said in 2017.
The report said this sort of rhetoric, paired with the profusion of stricter cow protection laws, had emboldened mob attacks. They included assaults of Muslim men and women in trains; the stripping and beating of lower-caste Dalits in western India; the force-feeding of cow dung and urine to two men in northern India; the rape of two women and the killing of two men in the state of Haryana for allegedly eating beef at home.
Some of the attacks were filmed, suggesting that the mobs did not fear retribution for their actions, said Harsh Mander, an Indian social worker and writer.
It is a Confluence of Civilizations: Beijing Conference refutes Huntington's Clash of Civilizations worldview
By Abdus-Sattar Ghazali
China hosted a two-day Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations (CDAC) to boost exchanges and mutual learning among Asian civilizations. The CDAC theme was "Exchanges and Mutual Learning among Asian Civilizations and A Community with A Shared Future."
It brought together more than 2,000 government officials and representatives of various circles from 47 Asian countries and other nations outside the region.
Among those attending were: King of Cambodia Norodom Sihamoni, Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos, Singapore President Halimah Yacob, Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
In his inaugural address, the President of China, Xi Jinping, underlined that this Conference "creates a new platform for civilizations in Asia and beyond to engage in dialogue and exchanges on an equal footing to facilitate mutual learning".
President Xi highlighted the importance of the interactions in Asia, as these interactions between civilizations "have enriched each other and written an epic development". He elaborated also:
"Our forefathers in Asia have long engaged in inter-civilizational exchanges and mutual learning; the ancient trade routes notably the Silk Road, the tea road and the spice road brought silk, tea, porcelain, spices, paintings and sculpture to all corners of Asia, and they have witnessed inter-civilizational dialogue in the form of trade and cultural interflow."
"No civilization is superior over others. The thought that one's own race and civilization are superior and the inclination to remold or replace other civilizations are just stupid," the Chinese leader said adding:
"All civilizations are rooted in their unique cultural environment. Each embodies the wisdom and vision of a country or nation, and each is valuable for being uniquely its own. Civilizations only vary from each other, just as human beings are different only in terms of skin color and the language used. No civilization is superior over others. The thought that one's own race and civilization are superior and the inclination to remold or replace other civilizations are just stupid. To act them out will only bring catastrophic consequences". What we need is to respect each other as equals and say no to hubris and prejudice."
Pehaps Xi was alluding to Huntington's theory of Clash of Civilizations. In 1992, American political scientist Samuel P. Huntington proposed the hypothesis of the Clash of Civilizations that people's cultural and religious identities will be the primary source of conflict in the post-Cold War world. Huntington later expanded his thesis in a 1996 book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order.
The concept of a clash of civilizations, suggested by the Harvard Professor Samuel Huntington, is based on the notion of the Western domination of the world. In an article entitled "The Clash of Civilizations?" Huntington predicts that future world politics will be determined by conflicts between different civilizations/cultures. He envisaged that future competition and conflict would be based not on national perceptions and goals but on larger cultural groupings "civilizations", of which he identified eight civilizations: the Western, Confucian, Japanese, Islamic, Hindu, Slavic-Orthodox, Latin American and possibly African civilizations. He took note of the fact that the failure of western ideas of nationalism and socialism had produced a return to the roots phenomenon among non-western civilizations, such as Asianisation in Japan, Hinduisation in India, "re-Islamization" in the Middle East, and Russianisation in Russia. He further concluded that the most potent challenge to the West would arise from the anti-western cooperation between Islamic and Confucian states. He obviously had in mind the cordiality between China and such Islamic countries as Pakistan and Iran.
Noam Chomsky
Noam Chomsky called it just being a new justification for the United States "for any atrocities that they wanted to carry out", which was required after the Cold War as the Soviet Union was no longer a viable threat.
"We have to support oppressive states, like Saudi Arabia and others, to make sure that they guarantee that the profits from oil (it's not so much the oil as the profits from oil) flow to the people who deserve it: rich western energy corporations or the US Treasury Department or Bechtel Construction, and so on. So that's why we need a huge military budget. Other than that, the story is the same," Chomsky said in a lecture delivered at the Delhi School of Economics on November 5, 2001.
He went on to say: "What does this have to do with Huntington? Well, he's a respected intellectual. He can't say this. He can't say, look, the method by which the rich run the world is exactly the same as before, and the major confrontation remains what it has always been: small concentrated sectors of wealth and power versus everybody else. You can't say that. And in fact if you look at those passages on the clash of civilizations, he says that in the future the conflict will not be on economic grounds. So let's put that out of our minds. You can't think about rich powers and corporations exploiting people, that can't be the conflict. It's got to be something else. So it will be the 'clash of civilizations' the western civilization and Islam and Confucianism."
Edward Said
What Edward Said has to say is illuminating as well: Huntington is an intellectual serving the interests of the last superpower (he is actually quite frank about this) whose pre-eminence as a world power he is set on serving and maintaining. The real subject of his work therefore is not how to reduce the conflict of cultures, but how to turn them to American advantage, as a way of conceding to the United States the right to lead the whole world. Yet none of his grandiose rhetoric can conceal the fact that this style of thought derives from the same polluted source to be found in all cultures, the notion that my way of life, my traditions, my way of thinking, my religion or civilization can neither be shared with anyone nor understood by anyone who does not have the same religion, color of skin, etc. India, Pakistan, Bosnia, Ireland, South Africa, Lebanon and of course Israel-Palestine bear the ravages of such a logic, which in the end leads to more, not less narrowness, misunderstanding, violence. (The Uses of Culture, Dawn, February 24,1997)
Jochen Hipplier
Jochen Hipplier, author of The Next Threat: Western Perception of Islam, has said: By caricaturing different cultures, by arbitrarily and willfully misrepresenting Islamic societies we grant ourselves absolution. Others are fanatical, we are not. Other are irrational, we are not. Furthermore, it is clearly very important for us in the West to feel superior and to see Western culture as the 'best' and 'most' progressive.
The term civilization is usually used in the singular to mean Western civilization which since the eighteenth century has been in the West as the civilization that has set about to destroy and obliterate systematically all other civilizations including the Islamic.
To borrow from Hippler: In a certain sense you could call Huntington's argument 'culturally racist'. The Muslims (or Chinese) are different from us and therefore dangerous. Unlike in classic racism, this difference is not generically but culturally based. There is such a gulf between their values and ways of thinking and ours that understanding or cross-pollination is almost unthinkable. Only military solutions can promise result.
Hippler further elaborates this point very convincingly: Huntington's image of Islam (or of other Asian cultures) is hardly original. It follows the current stereotypes and cliche's of popular literature and some of the media. Yet he manages brilliantly to embellish these repeated fears pseudo-scientifically and elevate them ideologically. His success is in making the old cliches acceptable in foreign policy debate. For Huntington, Islam is ideologically hostile and anti-Western. It is also a military threat in itself due to Chinese (Confucian) arms supplies. Islam is bloody, with a long warring tradition against the West. (The fact that Muslims have often been the victims rather than the perpetrators of violence from Bosnia to India hardly troubles him.)
Stephen Walt
According to Stephen M. Walt, The Clash of Civilizations is also strangely silent about Israel, which has been a central concern for U.S. foreign policy since its founding in 1948. During the Cold War, U.S. support for Israel could be justified on both ideological and strategic grounds. From a cultural perspective, however, the basis for close ties between Israel and the "West" is unclear. Israel is not a member of the West (at least not by Huntington's criteria) and is probably becoming less "Western" as religious fundamentalism becomes more salient and as the Sephardic population becomes more influential. His silence on this issue may reflect an awareness that making this conclusion explicit would not enhance the appeal of the book, or Israel may simply be an anomaly that lies outside of his framework. In either case, however, the issue reveals a further limitation of the civilizational paradigm. [Building Up New Bogeyman by Stephen M. Walt- Foreign Policy, Spring 1997]
Some 144 people have been executed since
US-client Field Marshal Sisi seized power in 2013
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
Some 144 people have been executed since US-client Field Marshall President Abdul Fatah el-Sisi seized power overthrowing the elected President Mohammad Morsi in July 2013, the Times reported on Sunday (May 26).
More than 2,440 people have been sentenced to death in Egypt since President Sisi began a crackdown on opposition after coming to power six years ago, according to new figures released by UK-based human rights group Reprieve.
There were five trials in which more than 75 people were sentenced to death at the same time. Among them were at least ten minors.
Ahmed Saddouma was 17 when he was accused of taking part in “terrorist acts” in 2015, and was given a death penalty in a mass trial last year.
Nine executed on February 20, 2019
On February 20, 2019, Egypt executed nine men over allegations of killing the country’s chief prosecutor, Hisham Barakat, in 2015. Nine young men told the judges during their trial that their confessions were taken under torture.
One told the judges that he was threatened by his torturers saying that they would take his parents and do what they want. Another young man told the jury “give me a taser, and I will make someone confess that he killed Sadat.”
Hüseyin Alptekin, Assistant Professor at Istanbul Şehir University, wrote, “Those nine young men would be alive with their families today if only the West had not supported Sisi. This is about the concrete and tangible Western support for dictators like Sisi. Unlike the toppled president Morsi, Sisi has nothing else other than Western support.”
“Egypt is one of the scenes where the Arab Spring ended up with an Arab Winter. Egyptians overthrew a military-backed dictator, (Air Force General) President Mubarak, only to be crushed by another, Sisi,” Alptekin added.
'War crimes' being committed by el-Sisi regime: Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch (HRW) has accused the Egyptian regime of el-Sisi of carrying out enforced disappearances, killings, torture and other illegal acts.
In a 134-page report titled If You Are Afraid for Your Lives, Leave Sinai!, the group said it documented arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, torture, extrajudicial killings, forced evictions, and possibly unlawful air and ground attacks against civilians.
HRW compiled the report over two years interviewing more than 50 residents of the Sinai Peninsula, in northeast Egypt, where independent media coverage is effectively banned and a state of emergency has been in force since 2013.
Some died in custody because of ill-treatment and lack of medical care, HRW said, citing former detainees.
Children as young as 12 have been detained in routine sweeps, eventually being jailed in secret prisons.
"Instead of protecting Sinai residents in their fight against militants, the Egyptian security forces have shown utter contempt to residents' lives, turning their daily life into a nonstop nightmare of abuses," said Michael Page, HRW's deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa region.
The armed fighters have also committed horrific crimes, including kidnapping and torture of residents, some of whom were killed, the New York-based watchdog said. They have also killed captured members of the security forces, HRW said.
Access to North Sinai has been restricted for years, making it difficult to independently verify what is happening on the ground.
The report said that tens of thousands of residents have been forcibly evicted or fled their homes due to the ongoing violence.
The HRW report called on the United States, which gives $1.5bn annually in aid, and Egypt's other international partners to halt military and security assistance.
It also called on the Egyptian authorities to allow independent humanitarian and relief groups to conduct operations in Sinai, including the Egyptian Red Crescent and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
The Journal of America Team:
Editor in chief:
Abdus Sattar Ghazali
Senior Editor:
Prof. Arthur Scott
Special Correspondent
Maryam Turab
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