| Opinion Editorials February 22, 2003 http://www.aljazeerah.info | ||
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Democracy
for the Middle East? Bah, humbug!
By
Firas Al-Atraqchi -
YellowTimes.org) – Mainstream media, talk shows and online columns in the past few weeks have been festooned with the urgent call to liberate Iraq from dictatorship and install democracy in the region. "Liberating the Iraqi people," we are told, makes for a sound moral and legal argument. "Other Arab nations will become democratic," we are also told. However, to the informed reader and Middle East analyst, the call to liberate Iraq is a thinly veiled hypocrisy that is as much an insult to the intelligence as it is to the people of the region. History provides ample
proof that no undertaking in the Middle East has been for the liberation
of the peoples of the region. In 1951, the Iranian people held their first, and last, truly democratic elections and chose Mossadegh to lead Iran. His first act was to nationalize the oil industry, which had been under British colonial rule. In 1951, journalist J.H. Carmical, reporting for the New York Times, wrote "Since Anglo-Iranian is owned by British interests, with the British Government holding a majority of the stock, nationalization of the Iranian oil properties would be a severe blow to the British economy." (New York Times Archives, March 25, 1951) Sensing that it would lose all-important oil revenue, the British government sought U.S. help in staging a coup to overthrow Mossadegh and return the pivotal oil fields to Western control. On August 19, 1953, the New York Times reported that "there has been considerable speculation here over General Schwarzkopf's recent visit to Iran. He returned to the United States last week after a trip to Lebanon, Syria, Pakistan and Iran. State Department officials said the department had arranged for General Schwarzkopf's visits to Lebanon, Syria and Pakistan, but that he had made the Iranian visit on his own initiative 'to meet old friends' there." The Soviets charged that Schwarzkopf (father to Stormin' Norman Schwarzkopf of the Gulf War) had secretly paid 5 million dollars to a General Zahedi who led the coup, and that the CIA and British SIS had helped funnel the funds. It was revealed later (this is all well documented history now) that Iranians covertly working for the CIA and posing as communists harassed Iran's Shiite religious leaders and staged the bombing of a prominent cleric's home in a campaign to turn the country's Islamic religious community against Mossadegh's government. After much legal wrangling and an initially-failed coup attempt, Mossadegh was ousted on August 20, 1953 and the Shah of Iran once again ruled Iran with an iron grip. Mass executions of Mossadegh loyalists followed as Iran was returned to serfdom and a virtual vassal state. Rather than protest the overthrow of a democratic institution, an August 6, 1954 New York Times editorial charged that "underdeveloped countries with rich resources now have an object lesson in the heavy cost that must be paid by one of their number which goes berserk with fanatical nationalism." Message: Iran got what it deserved for wanting to control its own oil resources! However, the Shah's hold on Iran was untenable, at best, as Iranian society admired and supported Mossadegh. Consequently, to ensure that no harm would come to the Shah and oil interests in Iran, the CIA and the Israeli Mossad in 1957 began to train, equip, and mentor a new police force in Iran, the Savak, who came to be known as one of the world's most brutal security forces. Its main task was to suppress opposition to the Shah's government and keep the people's political and social knowledge as minimal as possible. Amnesty International would later report that the Savak had the worst human rights record, far outpacing the loathed East German Stasi, and the Soviet KGB. From an Amnesty International report in 1976: Iran, under the CIA-backed Shah, had "the highest rate of death penalties in the world, no valid system of civilian courts and a history of torture which is beyond belief. No country in the world has a worse record in human rights than Iran." What are we to surmise from the above? A democratic election, the first of its kind in the Middle East, is thwarted and overthrown for oil interests. And the result? Less than 25 years later, a fundamentalist regime led by Ayatollah Khomeini would rise to power in Iran and extremism would spread throughout the Middle East. Revolutionary Iran, having overthrown the Shah, would then turn its hatred and bitterness on Israel and the U.S., accusing them, and rightly so, of having supported the Shah's brutal treatment of his own people. Freedom for the Middle East? Hardly. More like freedom to siphon oil from the Middle East. Ask any Iranian and they will proudly tell you that Mossadegh brought a shining moment to Iran's modern history. Within a year of the Iranian revolution, a war erupted between Iraq (former U.S. "friend" in the region) and Iran. Could this be punishment for overthrowing the Shah? [Firas Al-Atraqchi, B.Sc (Physics), M.A. (Journalism and Communications), is a Canadian journalist with eleven years of experience covering Middle East issues, oil and gas markets, and the telecom industry.] Firas Al-Atraqchi encourages your comments: fatraqchi@YellowTimes.org
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Hate Crime
The brutal murder in Riyadh on Thursday afternoon of a 37-year-old Briton working for BAE Systems has profoundly shocked people in the Kingdom, expatriates and Saudis alike. Robert Dent’s death has evoked an immense sense of sadness, as if we ourselves were somehow connected. The Council of Senior Islamic Scholars has issued an edict forbidding attacks anywhere in the world on non-Muslims, stating that the shedding of innocent blood, be it through bombing or any other similar act, is against Islam, and that those who carry out such acts have deviated from their beliefs and must be held responsible for such crimes. If the man arrested is found guilty, he will be executed. He has brought misery not only to the family and friends of his victim but to his own family and friends too. Such is the sheer evil of hate: Nothing good ever comes of it. It is a poison. It destroys the person who hates; it destroys those he hates. No one is so naive as to imagine that Saudi Arabia is untainted by crime or bloodshed. Murder happens here as it happens elsewhere. And other Westerners have died — notably in car bomb blasts. But these were explained as turf wars between illegal alcohol suppliers; in other attacks people took comfort from the fact that no one was killed. Now it is different. There seem to be no two ways of looking at this crime. Here the victim was apparently selected at random, his murder a symbolic statement of sheer, vicious hate. That is why the gun attack on a bus carrying nurses and doctors in Hail the same day, shocking though it was, evoked a much less emotive response. It was not blind hate. We have not seen this sort of thing here before, and that is what is so shocking — even though we have seen it elsewhere and have been repulsed by it. It happened in the US when, in an outburst of anti-Muslim hysteria in the wake of Sept. 11, innocent people were attacked and murdered. We were angry and are angry still when we hear of people being targeted in the US simply because they are thought to be Muslim or Arabs. But we cannot be repulsed by Islamophobic attacks there and not be angered by the equivalent here: anti-Western venom. That would be hypocrisy. Both demonstrate the same contempt for human life. Both kill the innocent. That is why there was such sadness at the news of this killing. Saudi Arabia, so long held up as a place of great safety for all, now has to face up to the brutal reality of so much of the rest of the world. An age of innocence has gone. There is bound to be apprehension among Western expatriates here. Some may opt to leave, as much because of this hate crime as because of the war clouds gathering over the region. But most will not. Nor should they. Saudi Arabia is extremely grateful to all the foreigners working here. They play an important part in building up and developing this country. It would be as much a tragedy for Saudi Arabia as for them if they were to give in to their fears and leave. That is what some people want. But the expatriate community is, we believe, made of sterner stuff. Of course, we need to keep things in perspective; such killings are still far more common in London or Washington than in Riyadh. We should not overreact. But we must all stand against such evil and condemn it, much as we condemn hate crimes when we see them elsewhere. Otherwise evil will triumph.
Wallace Stevens must have been a seer to so truthfully prophesize the coming of the Bush administration in his poem “The Emperor of Ice Cream,” depicting a vulgar, immoral, decadent empire of “boys” and “wenches.” Bush’s pre-emptive strategy, the notion that you should kill all able-bodied, resolute and highly opinionated people lest they start to think of threatening your empire, is an ancient anti-terror measure practiced by many tyrants long before Sept. 11 and long before the advent of the new Texan emperor at the White House. Moses’ Pharaoh, Herod-the-tyrant, Nero, Abraha, and the Mongols — all embarked on this gruesome policy which eventually brought ruin and destruction upon its instigators and the people who followed them. Pharaoh and Herod are famous example; their pre-emptive campaigns were diabolically symmetrical; both wanted to kill blessed infants, baby Moses and baby Jesus respectively, before they grew up to threaten their authority. But what of the Mongols and their strategy of pre-emption? Genghis Khan, their most powerful emperor, believed he was the “Universal Ruler,” and that he had been given the dominion of the whole world. And so he embarked on his brutal pre-emptive tactic. His army of Tartars were so bloody, so ferocious, so remorseless, that their Russians victims called them invaders from Tartarus, the deepest pit of Hell. But the ultimate enemy of the Mongols was themselves. As they accumulated wealth, they became resented by the people as an elite, privileged class exempt from taxation. It took several natural disasters and a peasant rebellion to rid the world of their heinous empire. We all know of Nero’s madness — of his hysterical laughter as he watched Rome burn. But Nero’s madness was not without rhyme and reason. There was system to his alleged insanity — a system that is chillingly reminiscent of Bush’s doctrine of pre-emption. When a fire broke out in Rome in July of 64 AD. destroying much of the city, Nero turned the wrath of the population against the Christians, who made excellent scapegoats since the population already despised their holier than-thou attitude. Tacitus writes in his Annales that when crowds of Christians were placed on trial, they were convicted not so much for arson as because of their “hatred of the human race.” Some were put to death; others were imprisoned, tortured, set on fire, crucified or torn to death by dogs. In the midst of all this carnage, Nero mingled with his people in the dress of a charioteer or drove about in his chariot. As Tacitus explains, the Christians were being destroyed “not for the public good but to gratify the cruelty of an individual.” In other words, Nero ingeniously capitalized on the July 64 attack to persecute and attack minorities and people of different religions and ethnic backgrounds — all in the name of national security. Today, it is not the Christian population but Iraq, and Muslims and Arabs who are being punished and blamed for the burning of the World Trade Center. Today, it is not Christian “hatred of the human race,” but Muslim “jealousy” and “hatred” of Western freedom and Western way of life that is being offered as a pretext for the trial and conviction of innocent human beings. This witch-hunt is perpetrated not only by the Bush administration but even by ordinary civilians, by the so-called relatives of the victims of Sept. 11. In the trial in Germany of 28-year-old Mounir El-Motassadeq, the Moroccan student accused of helping terrorist pilots set up the attack, American relatives of the victims offered tearful testimony and made emotional pleas for a guilty verdict against the student even though he has claimed he knew nothing of the plot and had nothing to do with the attack. They insisted that El-Motassadeq was guilty by association. A widow of a New York firefighter lashed out at what she called his “aggressive and unapologetic” defense of his actions. In typical Bushian rhetoric, she insisted that he had chosen to “associate himself with the forces of evil” and demanded he receive “life imprisonment.” Other relatives drew parallels to Nazi war crimes trials, saying that those involved in perpetuating the Holocaust used these same arguments to claim innocence. Do the American expect all Arabs, no matter how wrongfully accused, to bend over backwards and accept punishment without “aggressively” defending themselves? The basic problem is that Bush’s Nero-like bellicose and crude rhetoric has become a means for Americans to vent their anger and spite, to find a so-called sense of closure, and above all to gain millions of dollars in law suits against alleged associates no matter how fabricated the case against them is or how flimsy the evidence offered by US intelligent sources. To go back to our list of pre-emptive tyrants, let us take an example less familiar to the Western world — the case of Abraha, the Christian viceroy of Yemen. In 570 AD., a year aptly called the “year of the elephant” by medieval Arab historians, the Abyssinian Abraha, launched a pre-emptive campaign against Makkah, hoping to divert the annual Arabian pilgrimage from the Kaaba, the ancient shrine built by the Prophet Abraham and his son Ishmael, to the new church he had just erected at Sanaa. Abraha hoped to gain not only religiously but financially as well; Makkah was the economic center of the ancient trade route, and by destroying its sacred shrine, he hoped to shift this lucrative enterprise from Makkah to Yemen. And so this religious fanatic and overly-ambitious ruler set out at the head of a large army equipped with the latest wonder-weapons of the times — a 13-strong army of elephants led by Mahmoud, the biggest and meanest elephant in all of Arabia! The story of Abraha’s awesome pre-emptive attack is described in the Qur’an and fully documented by Arab historians. To cut a long saga short, like something straight out of Hitchcock or Spielberg, Abraha’s army was completely destroyed by successive flocks of killer birds that came from the direction of the sea and pelted the men with “molten” rocks until they were all “eaten to the stubble.” It is believed that the multitude of pigeons circling the Kaaba to this day are descendants of those mysterious flying creatures from the sea that saved the people of Makkah who in stoic resignation had placed their fate in the hands of the Almighty God and prayed for deliverance. Historians inclined toward a more naturalistic explanation say that what decimated the army was a killer virus, an air raid of smallpox-laden rocks that literally dissolved the flesh of Abraha’s holy warriors, finger-by-finger and limb-by-limb. By the time Abraha had reached Yemen, he looked like “a plucked chicken,” and eventually his heart just “burst from his breast.” Had it not been the 6th century BC, Abraha would have surely screamed biological WMD and called in UN inspectors to disarm Makkah. But God works in mysterious ways and He is certainly capable of launching biological warfare on those who oppress and terrorize the faithful. Contrary to Bush’s theology-ridden emotional appeal in his February State of the Union address, God’s gift to humanity is not “freedom,” but security and peace. Bush’s arrogance, his flaunting of power and his threat to unleash the mighty weapons of America is un-godly, almost sacrilegious, a pagan religion by any standards. Must we remind him that God alone is capable of guarding us from hunger and protecting us from fear. In all scriptures, it is not only the peacemakers who are blessed but also the “poor in spirit,” “the meek,” “the merciful, and “the pure in heart.” They are the salt of the earth, the light of the world (Mathew 5: 13-15). As to the elephants, we know that just before the onslaught of birds, their leader Mahmoud had absolutely refused to budge in the direction of Makkah. The poor creature was beaten and pelted and tortured, and yet he remained steadfast, ready to move in all directions except toward the Holy Kaaba. These words were said to have been whispered in Mahmoud’s ears by Nafil ibn Habeeb, an Arab Bedouin abducted by Abraha’s men and forced to act as a guide: “Stop Mahmoud! Return from whence you came. For you are in God’s holy land.” The moral of this pre-emption story is that the greatness of a nation is not measured by its superior military might, but by the wisdom of its leaders and the righteousness of its people. The moral of the tale is that arrogance, greed and coveting the lands and resources of others can lead to great ruin and the scourge of God. As one Russian protester, holding a photograph of Bush in last weekend’s global demonstrations, so aptly phrased it: “Butcher: Get out of other people’s land.” The moral of the tale is that God alone has the power to grant victory or defeat, glory or humiliation. All goodness is in his hands and He alone is capable of all things. History has come full circle, and the Holy land of Makkah is again being threatened by a brutal army of vindictive men equipped with a modern-day army of elephants. Whether we like it or not, Iraq is the gateway to the most sacred cities of Islam, Makkah, Madinah and Jerusalem. As one US administrative official puts it: “The road to the entire Middle East goes through Baghdad.” Should Iraq fall in the hands of white supremacists, Christian extremists and radical Zionists, that will threaten the very security of our holy sites. Already we are told that Israeli Prime Minister Sharon has a list of potential targets in Iraq, and is simply dying to enter the bombing campaign. Even if he doesn’t, he is gearing up to claim the Al-Aqsa Mosque and cleanse Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza once the US attack on Iraq is under way, knowing full well that he will be financed and defended by the Bush administration. Yes, the pending pre-emptive attack against Iraq and the US military buildup in the Gulf are ominous signs for the inhabitants of this holy region. There’s a mad raging elephant in our living room, and we cannot just ignore it or wish it away. The argument that we must bomb and nuke Iraq to get rid of one brutal tyrant just doesn’t hold. Do we remove the whole brain to get rid of a suspicious tumor? Do we bomb our family home to get rid of an intruder? Do we gas Chicago because it is the center of crime in the world? The forces of evil, Bush, Blair and Sharon, definitely have a more sinister agenda and one must have the brains of a gnat not to realize what that is. There’s no mistake about it, the thirst for the oil-fields of Mosul and Kirkuk, and for the waters of the Tigris and Euphrates and for the easy money of the Middle East, is at the top of Bush’s agenda. For those who need more graphic evidence, Larry Lindsey, Bush’s former top economic advisor states it quite bluntly: “When there is regime change in Iraq, you could add three million to five million barrels (per day) of production to world supply. The successful prosecution of the war would be good for the economy.” According to the BBC correspondent in Iraq, Raggi Omar, a full tank, 170 liters of oil, costs just $3 at an Iraqi gas station. At the world market, a barrel of oil, 159 liters, now costs $34. In more mundane terms, a full tank in Iraq costs less than a big scoop of Baskin Robbins ice cream, a rich Jamaica mocha flavor at that. Just think, wouldn’t that definitely whet the appetite of the emperor of ice cream? (Afnan Hussein Fatani is Professor of Stylistics at King Abdul Aziz University and currently a visiting professor at Dar Al-Hekma College, Jeddah.)
It has finally become intolerable to listen to or look at news in this country. I've told myself over and over again that one ought to leaf through the daily papers and turn on the TV for the national news every evening, just to find out what "the country" is thinking and planning, but patience and masochism have their limits. Colin Powell's UN speech, designed obviously to outrage the American people and bludgeon the UN into going to war, seems to me to have been a new low point in moral hypocrisy and political manipulation. But Donald Rumsfeld's lectures in Munich this past weekend went one step further than the bumbling Powell in unctuous sermonising and bullying derision. For the moment, I shall discount George Bush and his coterie of advisers, spiritual mentors, and political managers like Pat Robertson, Franklin Graham, and Karl Rove: they seem to me slaves of power perfectly embodied in the repetitive monotone of their collective spokesman Ari Fliescher (who I believe is also an Israeli citizen). Bush is, he has said, in direct contact with God, or if not God, then at least Providence. Perhaps only Israeli settlers can converse with him. But the secretaries of state and defence seem to have emanated from the secular world of real women and men, so it may be somewhat more opportune to linger for a time over their words and activities. First, a few preliminaries. The US has clearly decided on war: there seem to be no two ways about it. Yet whether the war will actually take place or not (given all the activity started, not by the Arab states who, as usual, seem to dither and be paralysed at the same time, but by France, Russia and Germany) is something else again. Nevertheless to have transported 200,000 troops to Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, leaving aside smaller deployments in Jordan, Turkey and Israel can mean only one thing. Second, the planners of this war, as Ralph Nader has forcefully said, are chicken hawks, that is, hawks who are too cowardly to do any fighting themselves. Wolfowitz, Perle, Bush, Cheney and others of that entirely civilian group were to a man in strong favour of the Vietnam War, yet each of them got a deferment based on privilege, and therefore never fought or so much as even served in the armed forces. Their belligerence is therefore morally repugnant and, in the literal sense, anti-democratic in the extreme. What this unrepresentative cabal seeks in a war with Iraq has nothing to do with actual military considerations. Iraq, whatever the disgusting qualities of its deplorable regime, is simply not an imminent and credible threat to neighbours like Turkey, or Israel, or even Jordan (each of which could easily handle it militarily) or certainly to the US. Any argument to the contrary is simply a preposterous, entirely frivolous proposition. With a few outdated Scuds, and a small amount of chemical and biological material, most of it supplied by the US in earlier days (as Nader has said, we know that because we have the receipts for what was sold to Iraq by US companies), Iraq is, and has easily been, containable, though at unconscionable cost to the long-suffering civilian population. For this terrible state of affairs I think it is absolutely true to say that there has been collusion between the Iraqi regime and the Western enforcers of the sanctions. Third, once big powers start to dream of regime change -- a process already begun by the Perles and Wolfowitzs of this country -- there is simply no end in sight. Isn't it outrageous that people of such a dubious caliber actually go on blathering about bringing democracy, modernisation, and liberalisation to the Middle East? God knows that the area needs it, as so many Arab and Muslim intellectuals and ordinary people have said over and over. But who appointed these characters as agents of progress anyway? And what entitles them to pontificate in so shameless a way when there are already so many injustices and abuses in their own country to be remedied? It's particularly galling that Perle, about as unqualified a person as it is imaginable to be on any subject touching on democracy and justice, should have been an election adviser to Netanyahu's extreme right- wing government during the period 1996-9, in which he counseled the renegade Israeli to scrap any and all peace attempts, to annex the West Bank and Gaza, and try to get rid of as many Palestinians as possible. This man now talks about bringing democracy to the Middle East, and does so without provoking the slightest objection from any of the media pundits who politely (abjectly) quiz him on national television. Fourth, Colin Powell's speech, despite its many weaknesses, its plagiarised and manufactured evidence, its confected audio-tapes and its doctored pictures, was correct in one thing. Saddam Hussein's regime has violated numerous human rights and UN resolutions. There can be no arguing with that and no excuses can be allowed. But what is so monumentally hypocritical about the official US position is that literally everything Powell has accused the Ba'athists of has been the stock in trade of every Israeli government since 1948, and at no time more flagrantly than since the occupation of 1967. Torture, illegal detention, assassination, assaults against civilians with missiles, helicopters and jet fighters, annexation of territory, transportation of civilians from one place to another for the purpose of imprisonment, mass killing (as in Qana, Jenin, Sabra and Shatilla to mention only the most obvious), denial of rights to free passage and unimpeded civilian movement, education, medical aid, use of civilians as human shields, humiliation, punishment of families, house demolitions on a mass scale, destruction of agricultural land, expropriation of water, illegal settlement, economic pauperisation, attacks on hospitals, medical workers and ambulances, killing of UN personnel, to name only the most outrageous abuses: all these, it should be noted with emphasis, have been carried on with the total, unconditional support of the United States which has not only supplied Israel with the weapons for such practices and every kind of military and intelligence aid, but also has given the country upwards of $135 billion in economic aid on a scale that beggars the relative amount per capita spent by the US government on its own citizens. This is an unconscionable record to hold against the US, and Mr Powell as its human symbol in particular. As the person in charge of US foreign policy, it is his specific responsibility to uphold the laws of this country, and to make sure that the enforcement of human rights and the promotion of freedom -- the proclaimed central plank in the US's foreign policy since at least 1976 -- is applied uniformly, without exception or condition. How he and his bosses and co- workers can stand up before the world and righteously sermonise against Iraq while at the same time completely ignoring the ongoing American partnership in human rights abuses with Israel defies credibility. And yet no one, in all the justified critiques of the US position that have appeared since Powell made his great UN speech, has focused on this point, not even the ever-so- upright French and Germans. The Palestinian territories today are witnessing the onset of a mass famine; there is a health crisis of catastrophic proportions; there is a civilian death toll that totals at least a dozen to 20 people a week; the economy has collapsed; hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians are unable to work, study, or move about as curfews and at least 300 barricades impede their daily lives; houses are blown up or bulldozed on a mass basis (60 yesterday). And all of it with US equipment, US political support, US finances. Bush declares that Sharon, who is a war criminal by any standard, is a man of peace, as if to spit on the innocent Palestinians' lives that have been lost and ravaged by Sharon and his criminal army. And he has the gall to say that he acts in God's name, and that he (and his administration) act to serve "a just and faithful God". And, more astounding yet, he lectures the world on Saddam's flouting of UN resolutions even as he supports a country, Israel, that has flouted at least 64 of them on a daily basis for more than half a century. But so craven and so ineffective are the Arab regimes today that they don't dare state any of these things publicly. Many of them need US economic aid. Many of them fear their own people and need US support to prop up their regimes. Many of them could be accused of some of the same crimes against humanity. So they say nothing, and just hope and pray that the war will pass, while in the end keeping them in power as they are. But it is also a great and noble fact that for the first time since World War Two there are mass protests against the war taking place before rather than during the war itself. This is unprecedented and should become the central political fact of the new, globalised era into which our world has been thrust by the US and its super-power status. What this demonstrates is that despite the awesome power wielded by autocrats and tyrants like Saddam and his American antagonists, despite the complicity of a mass media that has (willingly or unwillingly) hastened the rush to war, despite the indifference and ignorance of a great many people, mass action and mass protest on the basis of human community and human sustainability are still formidable tools of human resistance. Call them weapons of the weak, if you wish. But that they have at least tampered with the plans of the Washington chicken hawks and their corporate backers, as well as the millions of religious monotheistic extremists (Christian, Jewish, Muslim) who believe in wars of religion, is a great beacon of hope for our time. Wherever I go to lecture or speak out against these injustices I haven't found anyone in support of the war. Our job as Arabs is to link our opposition to US action in Iraq to our support for human rights in Iraq, Palestine, Israel, Kurdistan and everywhere in the Arab world -- and also ask others to force the same linkage on everyone, Arab, American, African, European, Australian and Asian. These are world issues, human issues, not simply strategic matters for the United States or the other major powers. We cannot in any way lend our silence to a policy of war that the White House has openly announced will include three to five hundred cruise missiles a day (800 of them during the first 48 hours of the war) raining down on the civilian population of Baghdad in order to produce "Shock and Awe", or even a human cataclysm that will produce, as its boastful planner a certain Mr (or is it Dr?) Harlan Ullman has said, a Hiroshima-style effect on the Iraqi people. Note that during the 1991 Gulf War after 41 days of bombing Iraq this scale of human devastation was not even approached. And the US has 6000 "smart" missiles ready to do the job. What sort of God would want this to be a formulated and announced policy for His people? And what sort of God would claim that this was going to bring democracy and freedom to the people not only of Iraq but to the rest of the Middle East? These are questions I won't even try to answer. But I do know that if anything like this is going to be visited on any population on earth it would be a criminal act, and its perpetrators and planners war criminals according to the Nuremberg Laws that the US itself was crucial in formulating. Not for nothing do General Sharon and Shaul Mofaz welcome the war and praise George Bush. Who knows what more evil will be done in the name of Good? Every one of us must raise our voices, and march in protest, now and again and again. We need creative thinking and bold action to stave off the nightmares planned by a docile, professionalised staff in places like Washington and Tel Aviv and Baghdad. For if what they have in mind is what they call "greater security" then words have no meaning at all in the ordinary sense. That Bush and Sharon have contempt for the non-white people of this world is clear. The question is, how long can they keep getting away with it?
There have been some suggestions of late that the Israeli government might relax its systematic persecution of the Palestinians, if only to facilitate the looming American war on Iraq, which it wholeheartedly supports. However, the events of the past few days in Palestine, as well as the official Israeli rhetoric, suggest that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government continues to view the probable war on Iraq more as an opportunity to further subjugate the Palestinians than it does as a reason to back down for a while. In this respect, Israel continued unabated its killing of Palestinian civilians, its extrajudicial executions of suspected resistance activists as well as vandalism and sabotage of the basic civilian infrastructure in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Israel's rampages are not necessarily prompted by Palestinian acts of resistance -- as many Israeli apologists would want the world to believe. Some observers have concluded that Israel has an undeclared policy towards the Palestinians whereby a given number of Palestinians must be killed and a given number of homes must be bulldozed and dynamited on a daily basis. In the streets of major Palestinian towns and population centres -- from Rafah at the southern tip of the Gaza Strip to Jenin in the northernmost part of the West Bank -- three to four funerals of victims of the Israeli occupation take place each day. Last week, as Muslims celebrated the Eid Al- Adha holiday (11-15 February), the Israeli army killed at least 10 Palestinians, most of them civilians. In reaction, Hamas guerrillas blew up a thoroughly-armoured Israeli tank near the Jewish settlement of Dugit in the northern Gaza Strip. The more than 40-kilogramme-bomb completely ravaged the giant vehicle, turning it into a huge fireball, and incinerating its crew of four soldiers. Rescue efforts were hampered as the tank's load of munitions -- including high-calibre artillery shells -- continued to explode for an entire hour. The Israeli army censored reports of the attack for over 36 hours. And when it issued news of the incident Sunday afternoon, the acknowledgment was in the form of a harshly-worded threat by Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz, who warned that Israel would exact deadly retribution on Hamas for what he called "this terrorist act". Mofaz's threats were carried out when thousands of Israeli soldiers and tanks raided Gaza City and the northern part of the strip on Monday and Tuesday, killing at least four Palestinians, including Riyadh Abu-Zeid, one of Hamas's top guerrilla leaders. Several homes belonging to the families of resistance activists were also promptly dynamited. Hamas, however, received a painful blow on Monday when six members of its military wing, the Izzudin Al-Qassam Brigades, were killed in a powerful blast, apparently while preparing an explosive-laden unmanned flying vehicle (UFV) which was to be used for an attack on Israeli soldiers. The primitive drone reportedly exploded suddenly, killing the six fighters, but it was unclear if the blast was a "work accident" or the result of an Israeli air-to-ground missile fired from an Israeli helicopter gunship or a fighter warplane. Hamas said it was investigating the causes of the blast, but vowed during the six guerrillas' massive funeral procession, in which more than 70,000 people took part, to avenge the death of its members. On the same day, the Israeli occupation army killed three more Palestinians in Nablus and injured another 23 during a raid on a multi-storey building in the heart of the largest town in the West Bank. All of the three were civilians, while many of the injured were school children returning home from their first day back at school after the Eid holiday. During the raid, the Israeli army arrested Taysir Khaled, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organisation executive committee and second in command of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Hamas's successful attack on the Israeli tank may be indicative of a strategy by the Islamist resistance group to target the Israeli occupation army and paramilitary groups of Jewish settlers, while refraining, in the words of one of its spokesmen, "as much as possible" from attacking Israeli civilians. "Our position is to confine our resistance attacks to occupation soldiers and terrorist settlers," said Ismael Abu-Shanab, a senior aide to Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, in an interview with Al-Ahram Weekly. He added, this position would change in the event the Israeli army steps up the "wanton slaughter" of Palestinian civilians. "If the enemy resorted to the sort of massacres of civilians such as we saw a few months ago, our fighters would be under immense pressure to act in kind. Their blood is not more precious than our blood," Abu-Shanab said. Unless Sharon provokes the movement to resume suicide bombings inside Israel, it seems possible that Hamas would continue to confine its attacks to military and settler targets. There are even some suggestions that there is an tacit understanding to that effect between Hamas and Egypt, whereby Hamas would refrain from targeting Israeli civilians. Added to this, Hamas has expressed a renewed interest in resuming the Egyptian-sponsored inter-Palestinian dialogue in Cairo. The movement's senior spokesman in Gaza, Abdel-Aziz Al-Rantisi, was quoted recently saying that Hamas was awaiting an invitation from Egypt for the resumption of the talks in Cairo. Meanwhile, there seems to be greater willingness on the part of the Palestinian Authority (PA) leadership to "cooperate" with Israel for the purpose of thwarting guerrilla attacks originating from areas still nominally under PA control. Last November, Israeli state radio reported that PA security officials coordinated with the Israeli army to defuse six Izzudin Al-Qassam missiles that were to be launched at a Jewish settlement near Gaza. The Israeli army reportedly allowed PA personnel to reach the spot where the primitive projectiles were discovered to destroy them. However, it is unlikely that this event will herald a change of policy or a change of heart on Israel's part towards the Palestinians, and towards Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, in particular, in view of the fact that his marginalisation, if not replacement, is clearly the new government's primary objective.
Reminiscent of the barbed wire and walls that separated East Jerusalem from West Jerusalem before the 1967 Six Day War, Al-Izzariyya checkpoint is a grey concrete wall, 150-metres- long and two-metres-high, in the middle of a road in an Arab neighbourhood in East Jerusalem. Once so enthusiastically dismantled, fences and walls are becoming more prevalent in and around Jerusalem as Israel increases its control over the movement of Palestinians. Al-Izzariyya is situated on the rocky slopes of the Mount of Olives, less than two kilometres from the Dome of the Rock. Located on the old road to Jericho, the checkpoint lies on the borders of municipal Jerusalem -- the administrative divide created on paper after the 1967 war, when the municipality of Jerusalem was unilaterally and greatly enlarged to include a large swathe of the West Bank bordering the city to the east. Al-Izzariyya checkpoint is just one of a network of checkpoints, roadblocks and fences encircling or "enveloping" municipal Jerusalem. The series of checkpoints, along with the bypass roads and settlements, make up the "Jerusalem Security Envelope", which is part of the larger national project aimed at physically separating Israel from the occupied territories, ostensibly to prevent Palestinian terrorists from penetrating Israel. However, quite aside from the huge economic cost, many claim the policy is fundamentally flawed. The insulating envelope around Jerusalem leaves within the "security area" over 300,000 Palestinians who can't be "separated" without undermining the principle of the "unity of Jerusalem". In other words, it doesn't really separate Israelis from Palestinians. Several Israeli settlements within the metropolitan area, such as Ma'aleh Adumim and Givat Ze'ev will remain "outside" Jerusalem, in the middle or Arab West Bank. Palestinians believe that the envelope is just another excuse for expropriating Palestinian land, creating a new de facto border and will ultimately lead to the implementation of the Israeli vision of the "Metropolitan Jerusalem Plan". (The Metropolitan Master Plan, which was presented to the Israeli government in 1995, outlines a long- term strategy of expanding Jerusalem's borders to encompass an additional land measuring 440 kilometres square. Most of this land would be confiscated from the Palestinian territories lying to the east of the city.) The checkpoint is only a few months old, established in August last year, and replaces a smaller checkpoint at Abu Dis which was dismantled. Since August, life in Al-Izzariyya has been taken over by the task of obtaining access to neighbouring areas. Al-Izzariyya and the bordering neighbourhood of Abu Dis were linked to other Arab neighbourhoods, such as Ras Al- Amud, further down the valley by numerous little unpaved roads. These have now been sealed, either with great piles of earth and rubble, or by a stone wall running the length of the main road leading to the checkpoint. The checkpoint itself separates the residents of this neighbourhood from the schools, hospitals, places of work and family, which are located on the other side. The checkpoint is crowded and chaotic, with garbage, dust and a confusion of vehicles. Crossing the checkpoint entails climbing over the wall under the direct gaze of the soldiers. Two Palestinian young men standing on top of the wall have taken the responsibility of helping people cross. The ground is muddy, but piles of broken stones act as makeshift steps. One of them, who introduced himself as Abed, explains, "We come here every day, stand on this wall, and help people jump. There is no work. There is nothing else to do, at least we can do something here; hundreds, if not thousands, cross from here every day." The Israeli Defence Forces claim that such checkpoints ensure its full control over Palestinian movement -- even between Palestinian neighbourhoods. However, Palestinians don't believe this is the sole purpose of the checkpoints. Muna is a student at Al-Quds University and crosses the checkpoint everyday -- into Jerusalem in the morning and back to Al-Izzariyya again in the afternoon. "They say the checkpoint is for security, to stop the 'terrorists' from crossing into Jerusalem. But really it is a tool they use to humiliate and subjugate us. The soldiers watch us cross, probably hundreds of us each day, and sometimes they even laugh." A man passing by overheard her comment and added, "My wife is pregnant and the hospital is on the Mount of Olives, on the other side. She can't climb over walls, it's humiliating and insulting. The alternative is to take a long detour through the Jordan Valley, but there is a checkpoint there, too, and those with West Bank IDs aren't allowed to cross it." Graffiti, which covers the walls at the Al- Izzariyya checkpoint, expresses a defiant mood in the face of the helplessness felt by the people whose lives are dominated by the presence of the checkpoint. It also testifies to growing political extremism, arguably bred by the intractability of the situation. Slogans pledging loyalty and support to radical groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad merge with the Star of David interlinked with the Nazi swastika, while defiant words scribbled on the concrete wall read, "No peace without complete Palestinian sovereignty over Jerusalem". Fear and humiliation is visible on the faces of the people as they face the soldiers. However the presence of the checkpoint, with the wider implications of its role for the future of Arab East Jerusalem and the long-term aspirations for a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as it's capital, is stoking deep resentment and hatred and, arguably, incites more extremists to take revenge on the people who are making their lives a misery.
On 15 February, the world saw mass demonstrations opposing war in Iraq, with people protesting in some 60 countries and 300 cities across the globe. People from all walks of life took to the streets, from Sydney to Berlin, from Rome to New York, to send a message to their leaderships that came through loud and clear: It's 4.00pm on 13 February, two days before what organisers hope will be the largest anti-war demonstrations since the Vietnam war, and Lindsey German, convener of the Stop the War Coalition, is scrawling a makeshift timetable of member interviews on a large board by the door of the coalition's press offices near King's Cross. In the run-up to the demonstrations planned for Saturday, 15 February, the British press has -- whether purposely, as is the case with the Daily Mirror, or unwittingly, as is the case with the unexpectedly sizeable coverage given to preparations by the Daily Telegraph -- become an active agitator, fuelling heightened anticipation for Saturday's events. Stop the War members are lined up for interviews the next day starting from 5.30am and running on to a 10.30pm engagement. A table in the centre of the small office -- a space donated by the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (NATFHE) -- is littered with the day's press clippings, most of them proclaiming the estimated turnout of half a million protesters, alongside a detailed guide to the where, when and how of the demonstrations. The Guardian, the Scotsman, the Independent are snipped and scattered in a proud array of publicity prowess. A dry erase board in one corner is crammed with scribbled contact numbers for quick reference. Leaning against filing cabinets, slumped in their desk chairs, hands pressed to their brows, mobile phones glued to their ears, coalition staff are fielding last minute arrangements. Will Jesse Jackson and his entourage be able to drive? Will pop diva Ms Dynamite get stuck in traffic? Can Corin Redgrave appear on S Live at 7.30 in the morning? Magnum wants to know how to get a good aerial shot. Between relentless mobile phone calls, Stop the War Coalition co-founder John Rees tells me that the demonstrations will easily top half a million, with coaches setting out from large and small towns alike -- 200 from Birmingham, 30 from Liverpool, 35 from Devon, and so on. The government has decided to take out the railings in Hyde Park, where marchers setting out from two separate starting points in the city will converge for a high-profile rally. Press packets are being assembled, replete with "Stop the War" pins. At the same time, at the coalition's other office in East London -- what Rees refers to as the "mobilisation office" -- "Don't Attack Iraq" placards are being assembled in huge numbers. Gear for the more than 400 volunteer staffers who will steward the demonstration is being pulled together. For all the public noise generated from Stop the War's press office, one could easily envision a legion of dedicated staffers working around the clock to generate publicity. But there are only nine people in this office on Thursday, and according to Rees, "the actual number of full-time workers that the coalition has is ... three." These are very energetic, very organised people -- and most of them have a day job. Still, the atmosphere is loose and jovial -- strangely calm. There is a latent sense of wonder over how big all this got so fast. MAKE LOVE, NOT WAR: FOR Stop the War, 14 February is not Valentine's Day, it's the eve of the 15 February demonstrations, and there is no time for romantic interludes. The day is spent zigzagging around London for an array of anti-war events, kicking off with a press op at the Criterion theatre, on Piccadilly Circus, at 11.00 in the morning. Members of casts from an array of West End musicals have gathered under the banner of "Artists against the War" to show their opposition to war in Iraq. The gathering is brief, with the performers doing two takes of a song for the television cameras and then dispersing, but the clip gets considerable play on news channels throughout the day. I head over to the national office of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), in north London, tucked behind an unassuming door painted with a peace sign. CND, along with the Muslim Council of Britain (MAB), are co-sponsoring the demonstrations, although unlike Stop the War, both organisations have another primary agenda. In the case of CND, it's raising awareness about nuclear non- proliferation and bringing about the abolishment of British nuclear weapons. Up the stairs, the halls are lined with stacks upon stacks of placards for the demonstrations. Kate Hudson, looking tired but friendly, greets me with coffee and a healthy dose of resentment over US-UK hegemony and contravention of international laws. Again, I am amazed to see how limited the resources of CND actually are. The organisation has around 10 staff members. But, as with Stop the War, what the group lacks in manpower and office space, it more than makes up for in drive and ingenuity. Stop the War, CND and MAB all share a basic conviction, which is that war in Iraq is no way to solve the problems in Iraq, or even the potential threat posed by Iraq. Hudson does not make any excuses for Saddam Hussein, but she is certain that "To bring about regime change by bombing civilians would seem ... crazy, and counterproductive." At 4.30pm I make my way down to the new Mayor's building, jutting out alongside Tower Bridge in southeast London, for a press conference featuring London Mayor Ken Livingstone, American civil rights activist Jesse Jackson and actor Tim Robbins. Always a charismatic speaker, Jackson is nonetheless deep into the clichés by the time I arrive -- All this "name calling", he says, incites fear. It's "Meet me at high noon at Okay Corral". The "have" nations cannot say to the "have-not" nations "my way or the highway". "Peace is possible," he notes. "Reconciliation is the order of the hour." Seated next to Jackson, Livingstone invited incendiary questions from the press, but in the end, all the fiery words came from the two in front of the cameras. While he noted that there was "not the slightest doubt" that there is a terrorist threat to London, Livingstone questioned the dubious link made by the US between Saddam Hussein and Al- Qa'eda. Livingstone warned that innocent Iraqis were going to die to enrich oil companies. Jackson concurred, noting that "We don't want to run the risk of killing them to save them." Arguing that the statement by UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix, only a few hours old at this time, indicated that there was no evidence of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq, Livingstone underscored the hypocrisy of the argument for disarmament by adding "Israel has dozens and dozens of nuclear weapons; nothing is being done about it." A statement offered by Tim Robbins lauded the "genuine, spontaneous movement" of people from all backgrounds, across the political spectrum. Saying that he "take[s] great hope in the resistance", Robbins called the swelling anti-war movement an "unprecedented outcry". "This is what democracy looks like," he said. "It should be celebrated." The television crews descend on Jackson and Robbins, and Stop the War staff are quietly deploying to different events across the city. No time for free drinks upstairs; I have just enough time to make it across to city for a bit of culture. WAR, WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR? At the doors of the Bloomsbury Theatre, near Euston Square, I am rebuffed from the poetry reading by "Poets Against the War", the first event on Stop the War's "Make Love, Not War" evening. "It's not that I'm turning you away," says the woman manning the ticket booth. "It's just that there is actually no space in the theatre." At the door, a stall selling Stop the War Coalition paraphernalia, from T-shirts, to posters, to buttons, is doing brisk business. There are a number of other events going on simultaneously: a talk organised by the Campaign Against Criminalising Communities on "The war on terror at home" in the nearby Friends Meeting House, and a trade union rally at the Bloomsbury Baptist Church, in central London. I duck into "Globalise This!", a talk at the London School of Economics featuring international activists and a video link-up with Edward Said. I have just enough time to hear Egyptian activist Soheir Morsy deliver her solidarity message before its back to Euston Road for the evening's big event: the Stop the War Coalition rally, a warm-up for the day ahead. It's easy to find my way to the Friend's Meeting House. I know I'm getting warm when the graffiti gets political: "No War in Iraq", "Freedom for Palestine". People are pouring into the hall and the house is packed -- standing room only by the time the speeches begin. Most of the speakers here will give similar speeches at the rally in Hyde Park tomorrow, but the venue, in virtue of its dimmed, crowded atmosphere gives a conspiratorial feel to the event and the buzz of resistance is infectious. Veteran labour politician Tony Benn leads off, reminding the audience that he lived through the Blitz and served as a pilot. It is now time to reassert the principles of the UN charter, he said. "We are actually tomorrow, dear friends, building a world popular movement," he told the crowd of almost 1,500. What was being born here, he said, was "the greatest thing in my lifetime". Behind the podium, pictures play on a stage-wide screen on a loop: military footage of bombs being dropped, the cover of the Daily Mirror proclaiming, "You are not powerless. You do have a voice. NO WAR." On the stage, an unlikely melange of well- known figures get chummy. Jesse Jackson is rubbing elbows with human rights activist Bianca Jagger. Algerian resistance leader Ahmed Ben Bella sits alongside Tim Robbins. When Ben Bella gives his speech, through a French translator, he reminds the crowd that he has a pedigree of resistance. "I started being a militant when I was 15," he says. "Now, I am 84. I've fought through two wars." At the edge of the stage, a worn-out- looking Robbins was snapping his gum, but the charismatic Ben Bella still managed to rouse him. "I was a statesman, but I was also a guerrilla fighter," he said. "Mr Bush has to tidy up his own house before going on to others." Prominent anti-war spokesman and former UN humanitarian coordinator for Iraq Denis Halliday painted a picture of devastation in Iraq should the US and UK go to war, saying that there will be the use of depleted uranium and cluster bombs that will "contaminate the cities of Iraq for the next 4.5 billion years". The war will kill innocent people, he said -- "people who weren't born when Kuwait was invaded, if we haven't killed them already". Sanctions, he added, "are still killing them as we sit here". In his rabble-rousing speech, Stop the War's Rees raises his estimate from the day before to declare that "we have every chance of putting one million people on the streets" tomorrow. "I open the Evening Standard to find that the prime minister is 'not concerned'." "I did not vote Labour", he said, "to have the decisions made over war and peace, by the national security adviser of the United States, Condaleezza Rice". Painting the anti-war movement as heir in a long line of "great mass movements", Rees issued a stark warning to the Blair government: "You depend on the trade union movement in this country for 70 per cent of the funding of every general election you stand in," he said. "We, through the policies of trade unions, through the actions of this great mass movement, through the actions of this international movement, are telling you here and now: Listen to us, listen to us on the 15th of February, or we will pull you down." IT'S A WONDERFUL DAY FOR A PROTEST: It's cold but bright as I make my way to the tube on Saturday morning. Protesters headed for the Embankment tube station -- one of the gathering points where marchers will set off for the Hyde Park rally -- can be spotted easily by their "Stop the War" badges and makeshift signs tucked under their arms. More protesters pile onto the train as we approach Embankment. This is one of the last trains before the tube station shuts. The march begins as we file off the train, because from that moment on, and for the next four hours, it is one continuous sea of people and placards, pamphlets and chants, horns and whistles, as the southern contingent of Britain's largest ever demonstration winds its circuitous route through the streets of London. As we exit the station, an all-commanding voice blares over the speaker: "Please move away from the station. Do not loiter at the station." Crowds flow into the tightly cordoned off roads along their prescribed route up onto the Strand. Throngs of protesters, 25 to 30 people across, row after row, after endless row, swarm past billboards for musicals like "STOMP" and "Chicago". At the Strand Palace Hotel, a few tourists hang back behind the doors, gawking. It's cold, but with this many people, you don't feel the wind. Photographers are shimmying up lampposts, scrambling on top of phone booths and balancing on railings to get a shot of the crowds. From the ground you can only see as far as your nearest neighbours and their placards, which range from the obvious -- "Blood 4 Oil", "Don't Attack Iraq", "Not in My Name" -- to the witty -- "Put the Gun Down George", "Monkey and the Flunky", "Don't Let Bush Come to Shove, Don't Attack Iraq" -- to just plain out there -- "Sex Workers of the World Unite", "Don't Bomb, Bike", "Make Tea, Not War". There is no way to classify the 15 February protester because the people are so strikingly diverse. Most of the people I ask have never been to a protest in their lives. There are skinned heads, pierced tongues, double strollers, families of five. There are lovers and puppies; there are drunken agitators. But most of all, there is an overwhelming sense of camaraderie. People are eager to chat with strangers, offer a smoke, giggle as they hit each other's heels in the shuffle down Victoria Embankment and up past Parliament. An Iraqi marching next to me with his wife and daughter tells me that it is not a matter of whether Iraqis support the war -- it's a matter of distrust. The US did nothing when Iraqis rose up against Saddam Hussein, he noted, and we all know that this war is about oil. An elderly Afghan marching with his family said that war would bring destruction and chaos. No one is for the war, he said. The sea of bobbing placards flows onwards. "Leave Him Tony, He's Not Worth It", "Regime Change in America", "Capitalism is America's Jihad", "A World in Peace, Not in Pieces". Some get more profound -- "Love of Oil is the Root of All Evil", "War is the Defeat of Humanity" -- others cryptic -- "The Darkness Lies Within". Many are tantamount to incitement: "Blair's Blood First", "Class War to Stop War". One man hands me a flyer saying that marching from one place to another will not stop the war -- "Occupying the US Embassy could change history!" A map to the embassy is provided. The smell of cannabis is potent in giddy pockets of the crowd. Two girls are gossiping about their friend and her failed exams. I weave between "Jews Against the War" and "Socialist Workers Unite", past "Freedom for Palestine". I am starting to get impatient, weary of all this solidarity and just wanting to get to Hyde Park. "One, two, three, four! We don't want your bloody war!" The chants go up, the whistles shriek, the cries rise up and then settle down to a murmur once again. I am thwarted at every turn. While this is the biggest protest London has ever groaned under, it is also the city's largest traffic jam in history. As our stream of the march opens out onto Trafalgar Square, the group behind me decides they've shown enough solidarity for the day and veer off for a pint. As we converge with the northern faction at Piccadilly, I am starving and considering what I might be willing to do for a bite of the apple the guy walking next to me is crunching into. At Piccadilly Circus, the atmosphere is reminiscent of Mardi Gras. Street performers are dancing and pounding on loud, percussive drums. People are covered in body paint, walking on stilts, wearing skeleton costumes and George Bush masks. People are dancing, and the mood is decidedly upbeat. "If we never make it" to Hyde Park, one fellow marcher remarks, "then that's the best success." As the moving party streams on past Piccadilly, I ask a Stop the War Coalition steward if the rally is still going on. "It is," she said, waving us on. "Only half a mile to go." When we finally reach Hyde Park, we can't even see it because of the fleet of hired coaches -- an estimated 1,500 coaches ring the park. People have been arriving at the park since 11.00am, even though papers announced that marchers should assemble at the starting points at 12.30pm. When I finally enter the gate of the park it's 4.00pm. I've been marching for over four hours -- the average for people who set off after 12.00 noon. And people are still coming. People are drawn to the stage set up at Hyde Park Corner, where politicians like former MP George Galloway, Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy, Ken Livingstone and Tony Benn let loose their anger with Downing Street's warmongering. Jesse Jackson, in his element, raised chants from the crowd, while Blur lead singer Damon Albarn and Ms Dynamite entertained the crowds. I found Nawwaz and Azim Khan, both in their 50s, standing on the fringes of the crowd taking it all in. "It's wonderful!" enthused Nawwaz, saying that people young and old are united in a "mass movement of humankind". Asked if he thought it would stop the war, he said it would not, "but they'll think twice. There's no justification, no reason [for war]. It's for oil. Nothing else." "Bush and Blair are determined to take control of Muslim countries," adds Azim. "It's up to Muslims to show solidarity, especially in the Middle East. Egypt should take a positive role. If [the Arab world] gets united, no one will bomb you. But divided, you'll be bombed one by one." Groups hitching a ride on the anti-war drive are manifold. In the crush, I glimpse the Socialist Resistance, the Women's Contingent on the Stop the War March, the Colombia Solidarity Campaign. Statements on issues from the Kurdish question, to the Intifada, to racism against Algerians make their way into my hands. As Jesse Jackson's voice rings out across the park -- the third time I've heard this speech in two days -- I strike up a chat with Neelo Shravat and Richard Dollamore, two students who, like most people here, are shocked by how enormous the demonstration has actually become. Underneath our feet, the grass has been trampled and left a sticky layer of mud. Shravat says he has turned out, obviously, because he opposes the war, "basically because it's not justified. It's an act of unilateral aggression". Asked if he thinks the government will heed this call to stop the war, he says there is a chance to sway Blair's decision. "We have a very populist prime minister," he said. "Whether he likes it or not, he has to listen." The most impressive thing about the demonstrations, the two agree, is that there are "people from all walks of life", not just the usual suspects. "This is a crisis point for the UN," adds Shravat. "We have to rally behind the UN." After Ms Dynamite has performed, protesters are told to "keep fighting" and, basically, to go home. But people are still arriving from their march, and many have settled in, lighting campfires, getting out their guitars and making a night of it. On my way out of the park, I'm beseeched to join the Communist Party, embrace Islam today, and support the Intifada. Iraq, that side issue that brought us all here, is barely on the agenda. BIRTH OF A MOVEMENT: On Sunday morning, organisers are back on the interview circuit. The consistently low police estimate of the turnout was 750,000 people. Stop the War estimated two million. Even at a conservative estimate, there were in excess of one million on the streets, offering the protest its place in history. Close to another million are said to have marched in Rome. More than half a million marched in Berlin. "I was expecting to get one million," says Stop the War's Lindsey German. "To get two million is absolutely fantastic." Noting that the turnout is irrefutable evidence of "how isolated Blair is", German said that the demonstration was bound to be a "big shock" for him. Combined with the Blix report on Friday, she added, it showed how hard it is going to be for America and Britain to push a second Security Council resolution through. Kate Hudson, of CND, was equally enthusiastic, calling the protest a "success without precedent" -- a "public outcry that was absolutely incredible". "To get in excess of a million exceeded all our expectations," she said, adding that this is a "massive indication" that people are not willing to accept war. As for Blair, Hudson says she thinks that he will have to take note. "We think he must by now realise that his career is at stake." German said that the next step for the anti-war movement was to continue campaigns on the local level. "We want Blair to change his mind," she said, simply. She added that there was a call for an emergency conference of union leaders to discuss strike actions. Of the crisis of leadership facing Tony Blair, German warned that Blair was either going to "get broken, or he will break the Labour Party". Hudson stressed that groups must continue to put pressure on the government in as many ways as possible. CND, along with Stop the War and MAB, have an agreement that should there be a declaration of war, they will immediately mobilise a demonstration. But for now, Hudson said, there is no date planned for another demonstration. The sweet smell of success will linger on for some time to come.
The scene on Saturday at noon in Cairo's Al-Sayeda Zeinab square was entirely predictable. An army of at least 3,000 anti- riot police armed with batons, shields and black helmets was lined up in impressive rows, backed by dozens of armoured personnel carriers (APCs) neatly lined up in all the streets leading to the square. It was clear, even from a distance, that the spot where the phalanx appeared most impenetrable was the reason for the powerful security display. At the entrance of the shrine to Al-Sayeda Zeinab (Prophet Mohamed's grand-daughter), a few hundred people were demonstrating against the planned American war against Iraq. The fluttering Palestinian and Iraqi flags and the anti-war, anti-US placards held high were the only sign, from even just a few metres distance, that a demonstration was taking place. Loudspeakers were forbidden, limiting the distance demonstrators' cries could carry. Inside the security barricade, chaos reigned, as the protesters split into two and sometimes three mini-demonstrations; each chanting different slogans. A striking number of high-ranking police officers observed every minute of the demonstration for over three hours. "We won't bow, we won't bow, we're sick of the quiet voice", demonstrators chanted, "Build more prison walls, tomorrow the revolution will come and leave no one". "Freedom, where are you? Egypt's police stand between me and you"; "Down with America! Down with Blair!"; "There is no god but God, and the Zionists, the Americans and Tony Blair are the enemies of God"; "America is the source of terrorism"; "America, get your army out of here", were just some of the refrains that rang out in the square. Hundreds of representatives of the nation's political forces -- Islamists, Nasserists, socialists, communists, liberals, the various syndicates -- along with activists, intellectuals, political figures, actors and actresses, writers and university professors participated in the demonstration, which was organised by several organisations, including popular solidarity committees with the Intifada and the Iraqi people. On the same day, the frozen Islamist- oriented Labour Party held a smaller demonstration in front of the US Embassy, which was similarly cordoned off by hundreds of anti-riot police, blocking traffic in central Cairo for a few hours as a result. David Welch, US ambassador to Egypt, reportedly observed the demonstration for 10 minutes under heavy security. Although this wasn't the first time the capital witnessed such small demonstrations, many Egyptians felt that the 15 February protests were embarrassing, because of their glaring contrast with the millions who marched worldwide against the war on the same day. "Where are the millions, where are they? Where are the Arab people, where?"; "Where is Arab anger?" Al- Sayeda Zeinab demonstrators chanted. British journalist Robert Fisk, who is viewed here as largely sympathetic to the Arabs, took notice in an 18 February article titled "A million march in London but, faced with disaster, the Arabs are like mice", published in the Independent. The article, which described the Arab demonstrations as "pathetic", was widely read and disseminated among educated Egyptians. Activists naturally complain of police control. During the past two months, 15 activists, including a filmmaker and a journalists, have been arrested in connection with anti-war and Iraq solidarity activities. Only four have been released so far. The timing of the arrests has drawn local and international criticism from rights groups such as Human Rights Watch (HRW), the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights (EOHR), the Geneva-based World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) and the Stop the War Coalition, which issued a solidarity statement by former Algerian President Ahmed Ben-Bella and British MP George Galloway on 14 February, demanding the release of the detainees. HRW also charged that eleven of the detainees had been physically abused. On Monday, the Freedoms Committee of the Press Syndicate held a press conference in solidarity with the detainees where speakers, such as film director Yousef Chahine, Nasserist MP Hamdin El-Sabahi, and a journalist with the business daily Al- Alam Al-Youm, Ibrahim El-Sahar, who was arrested and released a few hours before the press conference, attacked what they called the "police state". El-Sahar was arrested in the early hours of 7 February when security forces raided his apartment and, in his words, "searched it bit by bit, including a thorough search of my computer's hard drive". He was taken to State Security Investigation headquarters in Cairo and then to Mazra'at Tora Prison without being permitted contact with his family or legal counsel, he said. When asked to give his testimony El-Sahar, who founded the Centre for Socialist Studies, did not talk of his arrest but of what he described as the "inhumane" prison conditions of the detained Islamists he met while in jail. "What happened to me was nothing; the fact that I was beaten up and abused verbally and physically is nothing compared to what happens to the Islamists," he told his audience. "I salute those who were arrested because they said no to a war on Iraq and no to American imperialism, but above all, I salute the 30,000 detained Islamists. Those who imprisoned me did me a huge favour because, although I had known about what happens to the Islamist detainees, I didn't know the gruesome details," at which point loud applause erupted. Islamist lawyers and rights groups claim that 30,000 suspected Islamists are being held in prison without trial. Since the assassination of President Anwar El-Sadat in 1981 by high ranking Islamist army generals, Egypt has been under the emergency law which strictly bans street demonstrations and allows police to hold people in custody without pressing charges. Despite numerous efforts by opposition parties and rights groups to end the state of emergency, the government refuses to cancel the law, which it says is necessary to fight terrorism. In his address, film director Chahine lashed out at the government. "I feel violated and humiliated in this country," he said. "I'm disgusted. Millions opposed the war in Europe, but what about us? What's our [government's] position? Who said we're a great people and descendants of the Pharaohs? We are cowards!" But mounting public rage finally found its voice on Tuesday when thousands of students at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, the branch of Cairo University in Beni Suef, Upper Egypt, and at Suez Canal University in Ismailiya held massive anti-US, anti-UK and anti-Israel demonstrations. The students tried to take their protest to the streets, but were prevented by riot police. Despite the "silence" of the Egyptian street, which observers blame on police repression, they, along with officials, warn of popular outbursts at the deteriorating economic conditions and anger at the regional political crisis. The slogans chanted in Al-Sayeda Zeinab, and at almost every demonstration over the past year have consistently linked poverty with politics. A demonstration in front of Cairo University is scheduled for Saturday 22 February at noon.
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Glimmer of hope for US policy toward Iran
The Daily Star, 2/22/03
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It would be understandable if Iranians
and others in the Middle East expressed confusion about the official
American view of the Islamic Republic of Iran. For months now Iran has
been designated by Washington as a charter member of the “axis of
evil,” along with Iraq and North Korea. Last week, US Deputy Secretary
of State Richard Armitage said in a press interview that Iran’s
designation was appropriate, but also that it should be approached and
treated differently from the others because it is a democracy. Two days
ago, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher added that Iran’s
“democratic flowering” was more than was evident in Iraq or North
Korea, and that the United States recognized and supported the
democratic aspirations of the Iranian people, especially the holding of
elections and Iranians’ ability to express themselves. He added that
“any steps toward democracy, movement toward democracy and democratic
activity in Iran is something we want to support.”
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Ankara tries to play both sides
By Mohammad Noureddine
Thee Daily Star, 2/22/03
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Turkey chose the right objective, but the
wrong tactics to go about achieving it. This error was enough to lose
Ankara the credibility it had gained through Prime Minister Abdullah
Gul’s recent Middle East tour. The logic of peace that prevailed over
the logic of war during the latest session of Turkey’s National
Security Council (held on Feb. 14) a logic which was further
underlined by the mass demonstrations for peace held around the globe on
Feb. 15 was a straight contradiction, both in interests and indeed in
essence, with the Turkish position vis-a-vis the issue of Iraq. Beirut-based Mohammad Noureddine is an analyst on Turkish affairs.
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Why Saudis are unruffled by US call for
reform
By Jamal Ahmad Khashoggi The Daily Star, 2/22/03
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The news coming out of Brussels and the
UN Security Council in New York was music to Arab ears, not only because
the Europeans were arguing with the Americans (and angering such
American Likudniks as Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Perle and Elliot Abrams),
nor because Europe has suddenly opted to side with innocent Iraqis
(Europe was decidedly indifferent to the plight of the Muslim Bosnians
when they were being slaughtered by the Serbs in the early 1990s; in
fact, the US position in that particular conflict was much better than
that of Europe), nor indeed because we have suddenly discovered that we
have friends in high places (Europe’s interests with the US are much
bigger than their interests in the Arab world). Jeddah-based Jamal Ahmad Khashoggi is a Saudi political analyst and the deputy editor of Saudi Arabia’s English-language Arab News.
As the US declares its forces ready to
invade Iraq when they are given the presidential order, the New York
bureau chief of the Saudi-run pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat judges that only
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s resignation or removal from power can
now prevent war. |