Chomsky: A Free Global South?

Latin America and Asia are at last breaking free of Washington’s grip

The US-dominated world order is being challenged by a new spirit of independence in the global south

Noam Chomsky
Wednesday March 15, 2006
The Guardian

The prospect that Europe and Asia might move towards greater independence has troubled US planners since the second world war. The concerns have only risen as the “tripolar order” – Europe, North America and Asia – has continued to evolve.

Every day Latin America, too, is becoming more independent. Now Asia and the Americas are strengthening their ties while the reigning superpower, the odd man out, consumes itself in misadventures in the Middle East.

Regional integration in Asia and Latin America is a crucial and increasingly important issue that, from Washington’s perspective, betokens a defiant world gone out of control. Energy, of course, remains a defining factor – the object of contention – everywhere.

China, unlike Europe, refuses to be intimidated by Washington, a primary reason for the fear of China by US planners, which presents a dilemma: steps toward confrontation are inhibited by US corporate reliance on China as an export platform and growing market, as well as by China’s financial reserves – reported to be approaching Japan’s in scale.

In January, Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah visited Beijing, which is expected to lead to a Sino-Saudi memorandum of understanding calling for “increased cooperation and investment between the two countries in oil, natural gas and investment”, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Already much of Iran’s oil goes to China, and China is providing Iran with weapons that both states presumably regard as deterrent to US designs. India also has options. India may choose to be a US client, or it may prefer to join the more independent Asian bloc that is taking shape, with ever more ties to Middle East oil producers. Siddharth Varadarjan, the deputy editor of the Hindu, observes that “if the 21st century is to be an ‘Asian century,’ Asia’s passivity in the energy sector has to end”.

The key is India-China cooperation. In January, an agreement signed in Beijing “cleared the way for India and China to collaborate not only in technology but also in hydrocarbon exploration and production, a partnership that could eventually alter fundamental equations in the world’s oil and natural gas sector”, Varadarjan points out.

Dutch Convert to Islam: Veiled and Viewef as a ‘Traitor’

Dutch Convert to Islam: Veiled and Viewed as a ‘Traitor’
A Woman’s Experience Illustrates Europe’s Struggle With Its Identity

By Molly Moore
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, March 19, 2006; A21

BREDA, Netherlands — Rabi’a Frank sees her Dutch home town through the narrow slit of the black veil that covers her face.

The looks she receives from the townspeople are seldom kindly.

On a recent winter afternoon, the wind tugged at her ankle-length taupe skirt, olive head scarf and black, rectangular face veil as she walked to her car from an Islamic prayer meeting in downtown Breda. Two blond teenagers on bicycles stared, their faces screwed into hostile snarls. Other passersby gawked. Some stepped off the sidewalk to avoid coming too near.

She tried to act like it didn’t offend her. But it did. She knows what they think of Muslim women like her.

“If you cover yourself, you are oppressed — that’s it,” said Frank, a lanky, 29-year-old Dutch woman who converted to Islam 11 years ago, about the time she married her Moroccan husband. “You are being brainwashed by your husband or your friends.”

Or, you’re a potential terrorist.

21 “Best” Books in Middle East Studies, a survey

The survey was compiled at the MES Center at the American University in Cairo using selections sent in by fifty-two professors in the field of Middle East studies. Concerning background information, the goal of the survey was to find the Middle East studies books most highly recommended by professors in the field. All told, fifty-two professors sent their lists to us and from these recommendations the MES Center compiled the following list of the 21 “Best” Books in Middle East studies:

1. Orientalism
Edward Said, 1978

2. The Old Social Classes and the Revoltionary Movements of Iraq
Hanna Batatu, 1978

3. Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age
Albert Hourani, 1962

4. A History of the Arab Peoples
Albert Hourani, 1991

5. The Venture of Islam
Marshall Hodgson, 1975

6. Colonising Egypt
Timothy Mitchell, 1988

7. The Mantle of the Prophet
Roy Mottahedeh, 1986 

8. Contending Visions of the Middle East
Zachary Lockman, 2004

9. Women and Gender in Islam
Leila Ahmed, 1992

10. The Emergence of Modern Turkey
Bernard Lewis, 1961

11. Over-stating the Arab State: Politics and Society in the Middle East
Nazih Ayubi, 1995

12. A Political Economy of the Middle East
Alan Richards & John Waterbury, 1990

13. A History of Islamic Societies
Ira Lapidus, 1988

14. Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity
Timothy Mitchell, 2002

15. Ambiguities of Domination: Politics, Rhetoric, and Symbols in Contemporary Syria
Lisa Wedeen, 1999 

16. The Muqaddimah
Ibn Khaldun, 1377 (Rosenthal transl.)

17. A Peace to End All Peace
David Fromkin, 1989

18. Armed Struggle & the Search for State
Yezid Sayigh, 1997

19. State, Power and Politics in the Making of the Modern Middle East
Roger Owen, 1992

20. Society of the Muslim Brothers
Richard Mitchell, 1969

21. Arab Politics: The Search for Legitimacy
Michael Hudson, 1977

Cyber Jihad

LRB | Vol. 28 No. 5 dated 9 March 2006 | Charles Glass

Cyber-Jihad

Charles Glass

The Secret History of al-Qaida by Abdel Bari Atwan [ Buy from the London Review Bookshop ] · Saqi, 256 pp, £16.99

Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror by Michael Scheuer [ Buy from the London Review Bookshop ] · Potomac, 307 pp, £11.95

Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama bin Laden ed. Bruce Lawrence trans. James Howarth [ Buy from the London Review Bookshop ] · Verso, 292 pp, £10.99

Osama: The Making of a Terrorist by Jonathan Randal [ Buy from the London Review Bookshop ] · Tauris, 346 pp, £9.99

When I was five years old, the first secretary of the Soviet Communist Party, Nikita Khrushchev, threatened to bury me. That was in 1956, when he buried the Hungarian Revolution. In California we welcomed Hungarian victims of Soviet brutality while finding no room for the Guatemalans whose democracy the CIA had crushed two years earlier. We were trained to ignore our victims and to fear our enemy. After all, Khrushchev could have buried us, even if he did not mean to do so literally, so much as to attend the funeral of capitalism. His formidable arsenal, we were told by Senator Kennedy, when he ran for president in 1960, contained more intercontinental ballistic missiles than ours. Soviet scientists propelled the first satellite and the first man into space. The Soviets had more manpower, more tanks and more dedication than we would ever have, somnolent as we were in our material comfort. ‘Monolithic Communism’ ruled most of the Eurasian landmass. J. Edgar Hoover, America’s chief law enforcer, warned us about ‘godless Communists’ and their designs on our liberties in his bestselling Masters of Deceit. Other titles in the red-baiting crusade – yes, they called it a crusade – were You Can Trust the Communists (to Be Communists) and None Dare Call It Treason. Under banners proclaiming that ‘The only ism for me is Americanism’, and ‘Better Dead than Red’, Dr Fred Schwarz’s Christian Anti-Communist Crusade held rallies that were guaranteed to fill the Hollywood Bowl.

Every morning at my parochial school, we pledged allegiance to the flag, sang the national anthem and prayed for the conversion of Russia. The otherwise thoughtful Sisters of the Immaculate Heart sometimes asked us – a kind of moral quiz – what we would do if the Communists burst into the classroom ‘right now’, levelled guns at our heads and demanded that we renounce Christ. When we got home from school, our flickering black and white televisions escalated the Communophobic barrage. The FBI Story, a weekly drama, competed in unmasking disloyalty with the real House Un-American Activities Committee and its Senate equivalent under Joe McCarthy. Commies, loners and eggheads were undermining the American way of life with foreign ideas like socialised medicine, racial mixing and unemployment insurance. The most compelling TV series was I Led Three Lives, based on the autobiography of Herbert Philbrick. Normal, God-fearing Americans shunned Communist cadre Philbrick; but we viewers knew he was secretly – and patriotically – working for good old J. Edgar at the FBI to send his comrades to the slammer. I understand now why Dalton Trumbo and Larry Adler hightailed it to England. Bad as those days were, brother, we never had it so good.

Now, the kids are terrified of some guy in a cave. The successors of McCarthy, Hoover and the 1950s television network bosses teach them that the madman Osama bin Laden can kill them at any minute, that he hates their freedom (perhaps not so much as their parents do) and is out to get them just because they are free. Unlike Khrushchev, Osama bin Laden has neither ICBMs nor nuclear warheads capable of destroying mankind ten times over. He does not even have a country. Yet he scares more than Khrushchev did. As every American schoolchild saw, bin Laden attacked the homeland on 11 September 2001 – burying a few thousand of us. He may yet bury more. We, of course, are sending his kind to their graves in Afghanistan, Iraq and other corners of the Islamic patrimony.

Tending to Muslim Hearts and Islam’s Future – Part III

Part III of “An Imam in America” series by the NY Times.

Part I can be found here.
Part II can be found here.

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PART III

March 7, 2006
An Imam in America
Tending to Muslim Hearts and Islam’s Future
By Andrea Elliott

The young Egyptian professional could pass for any New York bachelor.

Dressed in a crisp polo shirt and swathed in cologne, he races his Nissan Maxima through the rain-slicked streets of Manhattan, late for a date with a tall brunette. At red lights, he fusses with his hair.

What sets the bachelor apart from other young men on the make is the chaperon sitting next to him — a tall, bearded man in a white robe and stiff embroidered hat.

“I pray that Allah will bring this couple together,” the man, Sheik Reda Shata, says, clutching his seat belt and urging the bachelor to slow down.

Christian singles have coffee hour. Young Jews have JDate. But many Muslims believe that it is forbidden for an unmarried man and woman to meet in private. In predominantly Muslim countries, the job of making introductions and even arranging marriages typically falls to a vast network of family and friends.

In Brooklyn, there is Mr. Shata.

To Lead the Faithful in a Faith Under Fire – Part II

Part II of “An Imam in America” series by the NY Times.
Part I can be found here.
Part III can be found here.

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PART II

James Estrin/The New York Times
Sheik Reda Shata begins a seminar in cultural sensitivity at the 68th Precinct in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Through these kinds of efforts, the imam hopes to foster better understanding between law enforcement and his fellow Muslims.

March 6, 2006
An Imam in America
To Lead the Faithful in a Faith Under Fire
By Andrea Elliott

The F.B.I. agent and the imam sat across a long wooden table at a Brooklyn youth center last August.

Would the imam, the agent asked, report anyone who seemed prone to terrorism?

Sheik Reda Shata leaned back in his chair and studied the agent. Nearly a year had passed since the authorities had charged two young men, one of whom prayed at Mr. Shata’s mosque, with plotting to blow up the Herald Square subway station in Manhattan.

The mosque had come under siege. Television news trucks circled the block. Threats were made. The imam’s congregants became angry themselves after learning that a police informer had spent months in their midst.

At the meeting, the imam chose his words carefully. It is not only the F.B.I. that wants to stop terrorism, he answered; Muslims also care about keeping the country safe.

“I would turn him in to you,” Mr. Shata finally said, pointing his finger at the agent, Mark J. Mershon, the top F.B.I. official in New York City. “But not because I am afraid of you.”

The moment captured one of the enduring challenges for an imam in America: living at the center of a religion under watch.

A Muslim Leader in Brooklyn, Reconciling 2 Worlds – Part I

The NY Times has recently come out with a 3-part series on Reda Shata, an Imam at the Islamic Society of Bay Ridge in Brooklyn, New York. The following 3 posts will contain each part of the series. The links to the NYT articles contain interactive media, video, and photographs.

Part II can be found here.
Part III can be found here.

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PART I

James Estrin/The New York Times

March 5, 2006
An Imam in America
A Muslim Leader In Brooklyn, Reconciling 2 Worlds
By Andrea Elliott

The imam begins his trek before dawn, his long robe billowing like a ghost through empty streets. In this dark, quiet hour, his thoughts sometimes drift back to the Egyptian farming village where he was born.

But as the sun rises over Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, Sheik Reda Shata’s new world comes to life. The R train rattles beneath a littered stretch of sidewalk, where Mexican workers huddle in the cold. An electric Santa dances in a doughnut shop window. Neon signs beckon. Gypsy cabs blare their horns.

The imam slips into a plain brick building, nothing like the golden-domed mosque of his youth. He stops to pray, and then climbs the cracked linoleum steps to his cluttered office. The answering machine blinks frantically, a portent of the endless questions to come.

Iraq: The Four Stages of Withdrawal

The Four Stages of Withdrawal
(Files: 07/03/2006)
The Telegraph

Stage One
Spring-Summer 2006
Responsibility for security in Maysan and Muthanna provinces handed to local authorities.

Remaining British troops in the two provinces ordered to remain in their bases, with around 1,000 withdrawn to the UK or rejoining units already located around Basra.

Stage Two
Early 2007
Remaining British troops leave Maysan and Muthanna.

Responsibility for security in remaining provinces under British jurisdiction, Basra and Dhiqar, handed to local authorities. Troop numbers cut, as those that remain are restricted to training and suppressing emergencies beyond the abilities of Iraqi forces to control.

Stage Three
Spring-Summer 2008
Withdrawal of all remaining troops after Iraqi authorities and security forces are judged to be proficient in maintaining stability without UK help.

Stage Four
Summer 2008 onwards
British presence in Iraq limited to a few hundred servicemen assigned to assist in the continued training of Iraqi police and army units.

Pulling Out of Iraq – 2 Articles

The Telgraph, a British newspaper earlier reported that both American and British troops were to leave Iraq by next year. A new report by The Telegraph indicates the British troops are to now exit the country by Summer of 2008.

Ed: Articles in full below

Shias Add Fuel to Hatred with “Gangsta-rap” Incitement

Shias add fuel to hatred with ‘gangsta-rap’ incitement
By Aqeel Hussein in Baghdad and Colin Freeman
(Filed: 05/03/2006)
The Telegraph

Shia musicians in Iraq are raising sectarian tensions by producing “gangsta-rap” songs in which they call for Shias to kill Sunnis.

The hate-filled lyrics of singers such as Riyadh al Wadi have proved a big hit in Shia areas after the tit-for-tat killings that have pushed the country to the brink of civil war in the past two weeks. In his songs, he urges fellow Shias to ignore the appeals of their most senior cleric not to retaliate against acts of provocation by Sunni insurgents.

Pleas for calm issued by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani are credited with stopping a slide into large-scale violence, but have fallen on increasingly deaf ears since the bombing 10 days ago of the sacred Shia shrine at Samarra.

Al Wadi, who is from Al Amara in the Shia heartlands of southern Iraq, talks of revenge for Sunni-sponsored pogroms in cities such as Latifiya and Madan last year.

“We should teach them a lesson not to kill anybody else,” he sings. “Why does Sistani prevent us from killing them? If we enter Latifiyah we’ll wipe it from the map. We’ve had enough and the end is coming.”

His song, which also has a video that can be downloaded on mobile telephones, is the first of its kind to emerge among Iraq’s Shias. It also makes lewd and unfounded comments about members of Saddam Hussein’s family and their relationship with various Sunni Arab rulers of neighbouring states.

While similar material has been peddled by extremist Sunni musicians for some time, the fact that Shias are following suit is likely to be seen as further evidence of an increasingly tense religious climate.

In the latest spate of violence, suspected Sunni gunmen stormed through the town of Nahrawan near Baghdad, killing at least 19 Shias at a brickworks. The dead were said to include a woman and three children, one a girl aged six.

The Shia prime minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, whose own position is increasingly perilous because of Sunni and Kurdish opposition in parliament, has pleaded for an end to “inflammatory” sermons by Iraq’s imams.

The violence, which has claimed more than 200 lives since the shrine bombing, has continued despite heavy security in Baghdad which has reduced the city to a virtual ghost town.