PRINCETON, NJ -- Americans are far less approving of President Obama's handling of the situation in Afghanistan than they have been in recent months, with 35% currently approving, down from 49% in September and 56% in July.
December 02, 2009
Yen Drops After Hatoyama Says Its Strength Can’t Be Tolerated
By Lukanyo Mnyanda
Dec. 2 (Bloomberg) -- The yen fell against all of its major counterparts after Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama was cited by the Nikkei newspaper as saying the currency’s strength can’t be left as it is.
Japan’s currency headed for its first back-to-back losses in two weeks against the dollar following the Nikkei report. Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Hirano said later Hatoyama wasn’t indicating the government is ready to intervene. The dollar traded at almost a 16-month low versus the euro on increased demand for riskier assets before a report forecast to show U.S. companies cut fewer jobs last month.
“The market is quite aware that the Bank of Japan will likely intervene if the yen appreciates too much,” said Lutz Karpowitz, a currency strategist in Frankfurt at Commerzbank AG, Germany’s second-largest lender. “Risk appetite is also driving the market at the moment, and the dollar will also be under pressure due to the low financing costs.”
The yen weakened 0.6 percent to 87.18 per dollar at 7:43 a.m. in New York, from 86.68 yesterday. Japan’s currency declined 0.6 percent to 131.51 against the euro, from 130.74. The dollar was little changed at $1.5086 versus the euro, compared with $1.5081. It depreciated to $1.5144 on Nov. 25, the weakest level since August 2008.
Rapid fluctuations in the currency market are undesirable, and the government is closely monitoring the situation, Hirano told reporters in Tokyo following Hatoyama’s comments.
Intervention View
Volatility may hamper growth, and the central bank is open to taking steps to support the economy, a Bank of Japan board member, Miyako Suda, said in a speech in Kofu, west of Tokyo. Central banks intervene by buying or selling currencies to influence exchange rates.
The yen rallied 4.3 percent versus the dollar in November, helping to erode profits of exporters including Sony Corp. and Toyota Motor Corp. It reached a 14-year high of 84.83 against the U.S. currency on Nov. 27.
The Australian dollar rose 0.9 percent to 80.86 yen and was up 0.2 percent against the dollar at 92.71 cents today. The New Zealand dollar gained 0.9 percent to 63.48 yen and strengthened 0.2 percent to 72.76 cents.
Benchmark interest rates are 3.75 percent in Australia and 2.5 percent in New Zealand, compared with 0.1 percent in Japan and as low as zero in the U.S., attracting investors to the South Pacific nations’ higher-yielding assets.
The so-called Aussie got a boost as gold, Australia’s third-most-valuable raw-material export, advanced to a record for a second straight day, reaching $1,217.23 an ounce.
[...]Japan should ask the U.S. and Europe to take coordinated action to weaken the yen, Financial Services Minister Shizuka Kamei said in an interview in Tokyo today.
“We need international coordination,” Kamei said. Kamei, whose People’s New Party is a coalition partner to the Democratic Party of Japan, said he has urged Finance Minister Hirohisa Fujii to seek international cooperation to halt the currency’s rise.
Iran to enrich uranium to 20 percent for needed fuel
Press TV - December 2, 2009 13:09:21 GMT
 |
Days after Iran announced that it would start building ten new industrial scale enrichment plants, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says Iran will start enriching uranium to a level of 20 percent.
Addressing a crowd in Iran's central province of Isfahan, President Ahmadinejad said the West has been making efforts to get in the way of Iran's nuclear progress.
"We asked for 20 percent enriched uranium fuel which according to the regulations of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) they can provide us with. However, they refused to do so," President Ahmadinejad said.
"God willing, Iran will produce [nuclear] fuel enriched to a level of 20 percent," the Iranian president announced.
The remarks came as earlier Deputy Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council Ali Baqeri warned that should the IAEA fail to provide Iran's needed fuel, the country would move to enrich uranium to a level of 20 percent on its own.
The new nuclear development comes as Tehran's research reactor has run out of fuel after years of operation and therefore Iranian nuclear officials called on the IAEA to provide the required fuel for the medical reactor.
"Based on legal terms, we have no problem to obtain the fuel for the Tehran reactor as enrichment to a level of more than 5 percent or 20 percent is not prohibited to be carried out by different countries [that are signatories to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)]," Baqeri, who is a deputy to Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili said earlier.
December 01, 2009
Obama Sells Escalation With Vague Pullout Promise
Obama Increases Total Military Outlays 10% Above Bush levels by Jason Ditz, December 01, 2009
With the Afghan War getting worse all the time it may seem like putting the cart before the horse for the administration to start talking about a timetable for its victory and pullout, but with the war’s popularity cratering all the time it seems the president believes that selling the escalation as an “endgame” strategy is about the only viable public relations strategy possible.
So tonight, President Obama tried to sell the American public on a 30,000 man escalation of the Afghan War with vague assurances that he hopes the escalation will go so swimmingly that he can begin pulling those troops out in July 2011.
Whether this is collective amnesia amongst administration officials who failed to notice that March’s 21,000 man escalation only made matters worse or a shrewd political move designed to placate a war weary public, the comparisons to Iraq cannot possibly be avoided, and were even made directly by the president.
Particularly in length, as both those “start the pullout in July 2011″ claim and the promise to be out of Afghanistan by 2017 came after the administration’s last meeting on Afghanistan and must therefore be seen as part of the same strategy.
This likely spells a glacial pace “drawdown” in Afghanistan, even assuming the escalation can be painted as a success. America’s 2007 surge in Iraq was declared a success by Summer 2007, and only now, on the eve of 2010 are troops at pre-surge levels, with administration officials forever non-committal about meeting the August 2010 goal, let alone the 2011 deadline.
Yet the 2007 “success” in Iraq was largely a function of ethnic and religious cleansing of neighborhoods leading to a drop in violence, something which the administration won’t stumble into in Afghanistan.
Rather in this case the six year drawdown may be more aimed at quieting domestic dissent, as the public appears to have forgotten entirely about Iraq the moment the vague, multi-year drawdown strategy was said to begin, rising violence and enormous American military commitments be damned.
U.S. Postpones Decision on Ethanol Blend in Gasoline
By Daniel Whitten and Mario Parker - Excerpts
Dec. 1 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. regulators postponed a decision on raising the percentage of ethanol allowed in gasoline until mid-2010 to allow more time to assess effects on engines.
The Environmental Protection Agency said it would keep the blend at 10 percent and could expand it based on a study on higher ethanol mixes in engines for cars and equipment such as lawn mowers. Growth Energy, an ethanol industry trade group, had asked that the agency permit 15 percent, also known as E-15.
“While not all tests have been completed, the results of two tests indicate that engines in newer cars likely can handle an ethanol blend higher than the current 10 percent limit,” the EPA said today in a statement. The agency “expects to make a final determination in mid-2010 regarding whether to increase the allowable ethanol content in fuel.”
Raising the so-called blend ratio would increase demand for the fuel, benefiting producers battered by volatile corn and fuel prices. At least 10 ethanol companies have sought bankruptcy protection since last year, including VeraSun Energy Corp. and Aventine Renewable Holdings Inc. Automakers and refiners have opposed a change, saying added ethanol would damage engines.
[...]
Dec. 1 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. regulators postponed a decision on raising the percentage of ethanol allowed in gasoline until mid-2010 to allow more time to assess effects on engines.
The Environmental Protection Agency said it would keep the blend at 10 percent and could expand it based on a study on higher ethanol mixes in engines for cars and equipment such as lawn mowers. Growth Energy, an ethanol industry trade group, had asked that the agency permit 15 percent, also known as E-15.
“While not all tests have been completed, the results of two tests indicate that engines in newer cars likely can handle an ethanol blend higher than the current 10 percent limit,” the EPA said today in a statement. The agency “expects to make a final determination in mid-2010 regarding whether to increase the allowable ethanol content in fuel.”
Raising the so-called blend ratio would increase demand for the fuel, benefiting producers battered by volatile corn and fuel prices. At least 10 ethanol companies have sought bankruptcy protection since last year, including VeraSun Energy Corp. and Aventine Renewable Holdings Inc. Automakers and refiners have opposed a change, saying added ethanol would damage engines.
[...]
Environmental and petroleum-industry groups aligned in opposition to a higher ethanol blend
“It’s time we recognize that ethanol has been unable to attain independent viability as a motor fuel despite lavish subsides and mandates for use, and even more important, has been unable to prove that its production and use are beneficial to the environment,” said Craig Cox, the Environmental Working Group’s Midwest vice president. He hailed the EPA decision as a sign the agency is giving the matter further scrutiny.
More Testing
The National Petrochemical & Refiners Association also supported the delay.
“In making this decision, EPA correctly recognizes that there is more study and comprehensive testing to be done to ensure that higher ethanol blends will be safe for consumers and not threaten the reliability of their fuels or operation of their vehicles, engines and outdoor equipment,” said Charles T. Drevna, the group’s president, in a statement.
[...]
ADM, Monsanto, Deere
ADM, the second-biggest U.S. ethanol producer, and agricultural companies such as Monsanto Co. and Deere & Co. stand to gain if the EPA eventually allows a 15 percent formula, Morgan Stanley analysts led by Vincent Andrews in New York said in a report yesterday. [Left unaddressed in the report is the impact that a 50% increase in the ethanol mandate would have on the world's food insecure.]
Arming Goldman Sachs With Pistols Against the Public
Commentary by Alice Schroeder
Dec. 1 (Bloomberg) -- “I just wrote my first reference for a gun permit,” said a friend, who told me of swearing to the good character of a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker who applied to the local police for a permit to buy a pistol. The banker had told this friend of mine that senior Goldman people have loaded up on firearms and are now equipped to defend themselves if there is a populist uprising against the bank.
I called Goldman Sachs spokesman Lucas van Praag to ask whether it’s true that Goldman partners feel they need handguns to protect themselves from the angry proletariat. He didn’t call me back. The New York Police Department has told me that “as a preliminary matter” it believes some of the bankers I inquired about do have pistol permits. The NYPD also said it will be a while before it can name names.
While we wait, Goldman has wrapped itself in the flag of Warren Buffett, with whom it will jointly donate $500 million, part of an effort to burnish its image -- and gain new Goldman clients. Goldman Sachs Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein also reversed himself after having previously called Goldman’s greed “God’s work” and apologized earlier this month for having participated in things that were “clearly wrong.”
Has it really come to this? Imagine what emotions must be billowing through the halls of Goldman Sachs to provoke the firm into an apology. Talk that Goldman bankers might have armed themselves in self-defense would sound ludicrous, were it not so apt a metaphor for the way that the most successful people on Wall Street have become a target for public rage.
Pistol Ready
Common sense tells you a handgun is probably not even all that useful. Suppose an intruder sneaks past the doorman or jumps the security fence at night. By the time you pull the pistol out of your wife’s jewelry safe, find the ammunition, and load your weapon, Fifi the Pomeranian has already been taken hostage and the gun won’t do you any good. As for carrying a loaded pistol when you venture outside, dream on. Concealed gun permits are almost impossible for ordinary citizens to obtain in New York or nearby states.
In other words, a little humility and contrition are probably the better route.
Until a couple of weeks ago, that was obvious to everyone but Goldman, a firm famous for both prescience and arrogance. In a display of both, Blankfein began to raise his personal- security threat level early in the financial crisis. He keeps a summer home near the Hamptons, where unrestricted public access would put him at risk if the angry mobs rose up and marched to the East End of Long Island.
To the Barricades
He tried to buy a house elsewhere without attracting attention as the financial crisis unfolded in 2007, a move that was foiled by the New York Post. Then, Blankfein got permission from the local authorities to install a security gate at his house two months before Bear Stearns Cos. collapsed.
This is the kind of foresight that Goldman Sachs is justly famous for. Blankfein somehow anticipated the persecution complex his fellow bankers would soon suffer. Surely, though, this man who can afford to surround himself with a private army of security guards isn’t sleeping with the key to a gun safe under his pillow. The thought is just too bizarre to be true.
So maybe other senior people at Goldman Sachs have gone out and bought guns, and they know something. But what?
Henry Paulson, U.S. Treasury secretary during the bailout and a former Goldman Sachs CEO, let it slip during testimony to Congress last summer when he explained why it was so critical to bail out Goldman Sachs, and -- oh yes -- the other banks. People “were unhappy with the big discrepancies in wealth, but they at least believed in the system and in some form of market-driven capitalism. But if we had a complete meltdown, it could lead to people questioning the basis of the system.”
Torn Curtain
There you have it. The bailout was meant to keep the curtain drawn on the way the rich make money, not from the free market, but from the lack of one. Goldman Sachs blew its cover when the firm’s revenue from trading reached a record $27 billion in the first nine months of this year, and a public that was writhing in financial agony caught on that the profits earned on taxpayer capital were going to pay employee bonuses.
This slip-up let the other bailed-out banks happily hand off public blame to Goldman, which is unpopular among its peers because it always seems to win at everyone’s expense.
Plenty of Wall Streeters worry about the big discrepancies in wealth, and think the rise of a financial industry-led plutocracy is unjust. That doesn’t mean any of them plan to move into a double-wide mobile home as a show of solidarity with the little people, though.
Cool Hand Lloyd
No, talk of Goldman and guns plays right into the way Wall- Streeters like to think of themselves. Even those who were bailed out believe they are tough, macho Clint Eastwoods of the financial frontier, protecting the fistful of dollars in one hand with the Glock in the other. The last thing they want is to be so reasonably paid that the peasants have no interest in lynching them.
And if the proles really do appear brandishing pitchforks at the doors of Park Avenue and the gates of Round Hill Road, you can be sure that the Goldman guys and their families will be holed up in their safe rooms with their firearms. If nothing else, that pistol permit might go part way toward explaining why they won’t be standing outside with the rest of the crowd, broke and humiliated, saying, “Damn, I was on the wrong side of a trade with Goldman again.”
(Alice Schroeder, author of “The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life” and a former managing director at Morgan Stanley, is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.) To contact the writer of this column: Alice Schroeder at aliceschroeder@ymail.com.
CRU's Phil Jones to Step Down
By Kurt Nimmo
Infowars
December 1, 2009
CRU’s Phil Jones will step down from his position as director of the unit that cooked climate change data to hide global cooling. Britain’s East Anglia University says Jones will relinquish his position until the completion of an independent review.
Infowars
December 1, 2009
CRU director Phil Jones.
CRU’s Phil Jones will step down from his position as director of the unit that cooked climate change data to hide global cooling. Britain’s East Anglia University says Jones will relinquish his position until the completion of an independent review.
The CRU scandal emerged after anonymous persons gained access to 160 MB of emails and source code. It is uncertain if the evidence implicating Jones and the CRU came from hackers or whistle-blowers.
Lord Monckton, the third Viscount Monckton of Brenchley and adviser to Margaret Thatcher’s policy unit in the 1980s, went on the Alex Jones Show last week and called for criminal prosecution of Jones and his crew of climate change fraudsters.
In a blog entry posted prior to talking with Alex Jones, Monckton noted how Phil Jones and his co-conspirators “have refused, for years and years and years, to reveal their data and their computer program listings.”
Phil Jones and the CRU have stonewalled FOIA requests demanding access to the data. It is alleged he destroyed evidence in an effort to cover-up the fraud.
On Sunday, the Times Online reported that scientists at the University of East Anglia admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based. The CRU was forced to reveal the loss following requests for the data under Freedom of Information legislation.
On Saturday, the University of East Anglia said that 95% of the CRU climate data set concerning land surface temperatures has been made available to the public for “several years” and that all data will be released as soon as they are clear of non-publication agreements.
Phil Jones told the science journal Nature that he was working to make the data publicly available with the agreement of its owners but this was expected to take some months.
He has called the charges that the emails and source code involve any “untoward” activity “ludicrous.”Monckton and others dispute the usefulness of this data. “As a revealing 15,000-line document from the computer division at the Climate Research Unit shows, the programs and data are a hopeless, tangled mess. In effect, the global temperature trends have simply been made up.”
Israeli secret agency defends use of torture
December 01, 2009 16:49By Saed Bannoura - IMEMC News
The Israeli secret service agency, Shin Bet, responded to a petition in Israel's High Court on Monday, defending their use of torture against detainees.
The petition was filed by the Public Committee Against Torture, a prisoner advocacy group which challenged the Israeli practice of forcing Palestinian detainees to sit on small chairs with their hands cuffed behind the chair during interrogations.
But Shin Bet agents insisted that their methods of interrogating Palestinian detainees are 'humane'. They said that since they increased the length of the chain between the handcuffs to 48 inches, their methods of handcuffing are now humane.
The Israeli secret agency said that the handcuffing of Palestinians during interrogation is necessary in order to 'prevent escape attempts', but gave no examples of such escape attempts actually taking place.
In 1999, the Israeli High Court determined that a number of torture techniques used by Shin Bet, including the 'banana' technique ... were illegal. But Palestinian detainees who have served time in Israeli prison camps in the ten years since that ruling say that many of the banned techniques continue to be used by Shin Bet and other Israeli military agencies.
Jewish Progressive Endorsement of Murder
Gutsy progressive congressman Alan Grayson leads a double lifeSince defeating an incumbent in Florida’s Republican-heavy 8th congressional district last year, Rep. Alan Grayson has emerged as one of the progressive movement’s most vocal champions. His attacks on Republican obstruction of healthcare reform and staunch opposition to escalation in Afghanistan have earned Grayson effusive praise from many liberal bloggers and activists.
Even before his election, Grayson gained recognition from the Wall Street Journal for being a "fierce critic of the war in Iraq" who sported a "Bush Lied, People Died" bumper sticker on his car. Recently, Grayson to CNN, "People want to see a congressman with guts. And America likes to hear the truth."
Grayson has battled for the public option and opposed the wars Obama has inherited from Bush. Of course, these positions are upheld by a broad swath of congressional Democrats and, at least in the case of the public option, are supported by a majority of Americans. But when it comes to the Israel-Palestine conflict, Grayson is fully programmed by AIPAC and the pro-war, pro-settlements wing of the Israel Lobby.
In an interview in March with the Philadelphia Jewish Voice, Grayson revealed two meetings he held the previous week with AIPAC Executive Director Howard Kohr. In the interview, Grayson explained how Kohr helped to "educate" him about Israel-related issues, then misquoted the Abba Eban line, "The Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity."
GRAYSON: I met with Howard Kohr, the head of AIPAC [American Israel Public Affairs Committee], twice last week.
PJV: And what was the gist of the conversation?
GRAYSON: The gist of the conversation was that Iran is a tremendous threat to Israel and needs to be stopped. And I agree with that.
PJV: And what about what is going on in the Gaza Strip; was there any conversation about that?
GRAYSON: Yes, we talked about that. I think what AIPAC often tries to do is to educate Members of Congress who frankly follow this a lot less closely than I do. In my case, I read Haaretz and the Jerusalem Post online four or five times a week, so I am pretty familiar with the circumstances and why the war took place. As a famous Israeli once said, the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
Grayson’s January 8th statement explaining his vote in favor of Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip read like a mimeograph of those released by other AIPAC-friendly members of Congress. However, its introductory line stood out: "Congressman Alan Grayson, one of three incoming Jewish members of Congress, issued the following statement on the situation in Gaza."
Why did Grayson feel compelled to advertise his religion in a statement in favor of a war that would ultimately kill 1400 people, including at least 400 women and children, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza? Grayson lately voted to condemn the Goldstone Report that confirmed these figures. And why does Grayson toe the AIPAC line on Israel’s wars while fervently opposing the wars America wages in the Middle East to supposedly stamp out Islamic terror? Americans would like to the hear the truth.
Rejecting Westocentrism
By BOUTHAINA SHAABAN
December 1, 2009
In a meeting with a distinguished group of female Philippines journalists (editors, op- ed writers, major TV hosts) in Manila last week, I found out that their questions about the Arab world, the Arab-Israeli conflict, the conditions in Palestine, Iraq and Iran, are based on information obtained from western media. I saw the surprise on their faces when I rephrased their questions from an Arab, or rather realistic, view of events on the ground, and as lived by the peoples of these countries. A short while after the beginning of the meeting, I discovered that the journalists, who cannot be described as hostile to Arab rights and causes, do not know anything about the Arab perspective of any of the issues covered by western media which base their coverage on the Israeli versions of reality, terminology and view of things.
The first question was how I would compare the condition of Arab women with the achievements of western women in terms of rights, independence and freedom. I was also asked whether all Arab women still wear all-covering gowns and about the ratio of men who marry more than one wife. When a well-known political editor asked about our position towards Iran’s nuclear activities and the problems the west is facing with Iran, I asked her whether she knew that Iran was a signatory of the NPT which allows it to possess nuclear knowledge and peaceful nuclear power, while Israel is not a signatory of the NPT, possesses over 200 nuclear heads, occupies Arab land by force and kills Palestinians and expels them from their villages and cities on a daily basis and builds settlements on the ruins of Palestinian homes, history and civilization.
There was no question about the Gaza blockade which has turned into a policy of genocide in the 21st century which, South African lawyers acknowledge, has become worse than the apartheid that prevailed in South Africa in the 20th century. Neither was there a question about the Goldstone report and the thousands of crimes committed by Israel in Gaza, nor on secret Israeli jails which have within their walls 3,000 Palestinians since 2000 and in which extremely serious crimes against Palestinian prisoners are committed under international silence. Lawyers and the ICRC are not even allowed to know where the prisons are. Israeli occupation troops use the most brutal methods of torture against prisoners, including physical abuse and rape. There were no questions about Israeli demolition of Palestinian homes on a daily basis, building settlements on the ruins of these homes and turning the Palestinians into refugees on and outside their land. There were no questions about the effects of the American occupation of Iraq which left over a million widows and more than two million orphans.
While I tried to answer questions with information and facts about Arab rights and the crimes committed by Israel since 1948 against Arabs as a result of a Zionist settler strategy, targeting intellectuals in Iraq and the disasters caused to the country as a result of brutal occupation, I acknowledged to the journalists that I do not blame them for the lack of facts in their questions because western media are the only conduit between east and west,
I wondered about what we all know about Afghanistan, for instance, and what is happening in it and in Pakistan except through western media. What do Arabs know about China, India and Russia; and what do these countries know about Arabs except through western media? In a moment of real dialogue, we agreed that this is the most dangerous thing about the international condition in the modern age. We also agreed that changing this reality should be a priority for countries of the east and the south.
For instance, can one imagine that the most popular books in the International Islamic Book Fair, held in New Delhi recently, were about divorce, terrorism and banking? If we take into account that most of these books have been written either in the United States or the United Kingdom, we realize the danger of reproducing the western evaluation and image of Islam and Muslims themselves, which means that they look at themselves, at their religion and culture in a western mirror.
What are we supposed to make of Barbie wearing the veil and chador on her 50th anniversary in a charity auction in Florence, Italy. The rationale of the exhibition was that it was essential for girls throughout the world to feel free to express their real image. The fact of the matter was enhancement of the image of the veil and chador as the only image for Muslim women, reducing them to an appearance considered by the west an evidence of injustice to women in the Muslim world and their inability to be effective, respectable members of their society.
Talking about the importance of cultural dialogue and the ignorance which characterizes people’s understanding of their civilizations and the events taking place on their land, Philippines specialists pointed out that Spanish colonialism which lasted over 300 years left no clear cultural influence which forces dependence on Spanish culture [apparently Catholicism was not considered], while American colonialism, which lasted only 50 years, left cultural, educational and institutional dependence which is difficult to break. It can be argued that neo-colonialism in the 21st century is cultural and western by nature, and that the Arabs, who, in the past, gave the world extremely important discoveries in all sciences are the most prominent victims of this colonialism. The Arabic language is being subjected to unprecedented neglect, and local intellectual production which expresses the Arab condition and Arab issues in an attractive manner is at its lowest level.
Regional groupings could be one of the effective responses to ‘westrocentrism’; and communication between these groupings in the future will be the real breakthrough out of westrocentrism and replacing it at least with a multi-polar world where countries of the world restore their status, sense of importance and their contribution to the progress and prosperity of humanity. ASEAN has lifted visa restrictions between its member states and opened up free trade and active economic, cultural and political exchange between its countries. Latin American countries are setting up a cultural, economic and political space resistant to American hegemony which used to consider the countries of Latin America its backyard. Most countries of the world are waking up from their fascination with the English language and are restoring the prestige of their local languages in education and the production of culture and knowledge. Look at Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, receiving Iran’s president despite western ire against this step which is a clear expression of self confidence and independence of western hegemony.
The question is: when will the Arabs see that their salvation lies in cherishing and protecting their language and producing science and knowledge in this language. And when will they see that creating a regional bloc with the Arabs as a major player is the only salvation of the Arab future and integration into the new world order in which the countries of Asia and Latin America are gaining real independence intellectually, scientifically, politically and economically.
There is no doubt that real independence lies in abandoning the western mirror in which we misconceive ourselves and, instead, in communicating with others who share our goal in order to produce a future in which all components of human civilization flourish far away from westrocentrism based on extermination of indigenous peoples, pillaging the wealth of the planet for the benefit of western countries and pushing the rest of humanity into the cycle of poverty and inactivity.
The thousand-mile-trip starts with one step; and the first step is to break this mirror and look instead in the color of the soil of our countries and the faces of our children, and expressing ourselves in our language and putting trust in our thought, causes and our capability to be real contributors to the prosperity of humanity and to the protecting of human freedom and dignity.
Bouthaina Shaaban is Political and Media Advisor at the Syrian Presidency, and former Minister of Expatriates. She is also a writer and professor at Damascus University since 1985. She has been the spokesperson for Syria and was nominated for Nobel Peace Prize in 2005. She can be reached through nizar_kabibo@yahoo.com
Source
December 1, 2009
In a meeting with a distinguished group of female Philippines journalists (editors, op- ed writers, major TV hosts) in Manila last week, I found out that their questions about the Arab world, the Arab-Israeli conflict, the conditions in Palestine, Iraq and Iran, are based on information obtained from western media. I saw the surprise on their faces when I rephrased their questions from an Arab, or rather realistic, view of events on the ground, and as lived by the peoples of these countries. A short while after the beginning of the meeting, I discovered that the journalists, who cannot be described as hostile to Arab rights and causes, do not know anything about the Arab perspective of any of the issues covered by western media which base their coverage on the Israeli versions of reality, terminology and view of things.
The first question was how I would compare the condition of Arab women with the achievements of western women in terms of rights, independence and freedom. I was also asked whether all Arab women still wear all-covering gowns and about the ratio of men who marry more than one wife. When a well-known political editor asked about our position towards Iran’s nuclear activities and the problems the west is facing with Iran, I asked her whether she knew that Iran was a signatory of the NPT which allows it to possess nuclear knowledge and peaceful nuclear power, while Israel is not a signatory of the NPT, possesses over 200 nuclear heads, occupies Arab land by force and kills Palestinians and expels them from their villages and cities on a daily basis and builds settlements on the ruins of Palestinian homes, history and civilization.
There was no question about the Gaza blockade which has turned into a policy of genocide in the 21st century which, South African lawyers acknowledge, has become worse than the apartheid that prevailed in South Africa in the 20th century. Neither was there a question about the Goldstone report and the thousands of crimes committed by Israel in Gaza, nor on secret Israeli jails which have within their walls 3,000 Palestinians since 2000 and in which extremely serious crimes against Palestinian prisoners are committed under international silence. Lawyers and the ICRC are not even allowed to know where the prisons are. Israeli occupation troops use the most brutal methods of torture against prisoners, including physical abuse and rape. There were no questions about Israeli demolition of Palestinian homes on a daily basis, building settlements on the ruins of these homes and turning the Palestinians into refugees on and outside their land. There were no questions about the effects of the American occupation of Iraq which left over a million widows and more than two million orphans.
While I tried to answer questions with information and facts about Arab rights and the crimes committed by Israel since 1948 against Arabs as a result of a Zionist settler strategy, targeting intellectuals in Iraq and the disasters caused to the country as a result of brutal occupation, I acknowledged to the journalists that I do not blame them for the lack of facts in their questions because western media are the only conduit between east and west,
I wondered about what we all know about Afghanistan, for instance, and what is happening in it and in Pakistan except through western media. What do Arabs know about China, India and Russia; and what do these countries know about Arabs except through western media? In a moment of real dialogue, we agreed that this is the most dangerous thing about the international condition in the modern age. We also agreed that changing this reality should be a priority for countries of the east and the south.
For instance, can one imagine that the most popular books in the International Islamic Book Fair, held in New Delhi recently, were about divorce, terrorism and banking? If we take into account that most of these books have been written either in the United States or the United Kingdom, we realize the danger of reproducing the western evaluation and image of Islam and Muslims themselves, which means that they look at themselves, at their religion and culture in a western mirror.
What are we supposed to make of Barbie wearing the veil and chador on her 50th anniversary in a charity auction in Florence, Italy. The rationale of the exhibition was that it was essential for girls throughout the world to feel free to express their real image. The fact of the matter was enhancement of the image of the veil and chador as the only image for Muslim women, reducing them to an appearance considered by the west an evidence of injustice to women in the Muslim world and their inability to be effective, respectable members of their society.
Talking about the importance of cultural dialogue and the ignorance which characterizes people’s understanding of their civilizations and the events taking place on their land, Philippines specialists pointed out that Spanish colonialism which lasted over 300 years left no clear cultural influence which forces dependence on Spanish culture [apparently Catholicism was not considered], while American colonialism, which lasted only 50 years, left cultural, educational and institutional dependence which is difficult to break. It can be argued that neo-colonialism in the 21st century is cultural and western by nature, and that the Arabs, who, in the past, gave the world extremely important discoveries in all sciences are the most prominent victims of this colonialism. The Arabic language is being subjected to unprecedented neglect, and local intellectual production which expresses the Arab condition and Arab issues in an attractive manner is at its lowest level.
Regional groupings could be one of the effective responses to ‘westrocentrism’; and communication between these groupings in the future will be the real breakthrough out of westrocentrism and replacing it at least with a multi-polar world where countries of the world restore their status, sense of importance and their contribution to the progress and prosperity of humanity. ASEAN has lifted visa restrictions between its member states and opened up free trade and active economic, cultural and political exchange between its countries. Latin American countries are setting up a cultural, economic and political space resistant to American hegemony which used to consider the countries of Latin America its backyard. Most countries of the world are waking up from their fascination with the English language and are restoring the prestige of their local languages in education and the production of culture and knowledge. Look at Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, receiving Iran’s president despite western ire against this step which is a clear expression of self confidence and independence of western hegemony.
The question is: when will the Arabs see that their salvation lies in cherishing and protecting their language and producing science and knowledge in this language. And when will they see that creating a regional bloc with the Arabs as a major player is the only salvation of the Arab future and integration into the new world order in which the countries of Asia and Latin America are gaining real independence intellectually, scientifically, politically and economically.
There is no doubt that real independence lies in abandoning the western mirror in which we misconceive ourselves and, instead, in communicating with others who share our goal in order to produce a future in which all components of human civilization flourish far away from westrocentrism based on extermination of indigenous peoples, pillaging the wealth of the planet for the benefit of western countries and pushing the rest of humanity into the cycle of poverty and inactivity.
The thousand-mile-trip starts with one step; and the first step is to break this mirror and look instead in the color of the soil of our countries and the faces of our children, and expressing ourselves in our language and putting trust in our thought, causes and our capability to be real contributors to the prosperity of humanity and to the protecting of human freedom and dignity.
Bouthaina Shaaban is Political and Media Advisor at the Syrian Presidency, and former Minister of Expatriates. She is also a writer and professor at Damascus University since 1985. She has been the spokesperson for Syria and was nominated for Nobel Peace Prize in 2005. She can be reached through nizar_kabibo@yahoo.com
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