Thank you for reading this year.
by John PilgerI remember the boys dressed in army surplus, the girls in hessian, their silhouettes framed in beach shanties, staring across an abyss. You were not meant to talk about them. They were not counted in the census, unlike the sheep, and anyway were dirty and feckless and dying off.On 4 November 2009, John Pilger received the Sydney Peace Prize, Australia’s international human rights award. A Secret Country, his best-selling history of Australia published 20 years ago, remains in print (Vintage Books).
You were not meant to disturb the surface of our great southern idyll, sun-kissed and God-blessed, in circumstances that might raise questions of race. At high school, I studied a celebrated historian, Russel Ward, who wrote: “We are civilized and they are not.” They were the first Australians. At least he mentioned them. Other text books simply left them out.
Today, almost everything has changed and has not changed. For many Aboriginal people, who value healing, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s apology last year was important. They and their white allies had worked tirelessly for the mere word to be uttered. The resistance was formidable; white supremacist politicians, journalists and academics damned the “black armband version of our history”. And when Rudd finally said it, the Sydney Morning Herald described the apology as “a piece of political wreckage” that “the Rudd government has moved quickly to clear away... in a way that responds to some of its supporters’ emotional needs”.
Australia's apartheid
There is to be no compensation for those thousands of Aborigines wrenched from their families as children, known as the stolen generation. The previous, openly racist government’s “intervention” into Aboriginal lands in the Northern Territory is being consolidated. In 2007, on the pretext that Aboriginal children were being sexually abused in “unthinkable numbers”, the government of John Howard suspended the Racial Discrimination Act and sent the army and “business managers” to take over black communities.
Within a year, barely reported statistics revealed how bogus it all was. Out of 7433 Aboriginal children examined by doctors, a maximum of four possible cases of sexual abuse were identified. The Australian Crimes Commission found no evidence of paedophile rings. What they found they already knew: poverty and sickness on the scale of Africa and India.
Since Rudd’s apology, Aboriginal poverty indicators have gone backwards. His “Closing the Gap” programme is a grim joke, having produced not a single new housing project. An undeclared agenda is straight from Australia’s colonial past: a land grab combined with an almost prurient need to control, harass and blame a people who have refused to die off, whose genius is their understanding of an ancient land that still perplexes and threatens white authority. Whenever Canberra’s politicians want to look “tough” they give the Aborigines a good kicking: it is a ritual as sacred as Don Bradman worship or Anzac Day.
The indigenous affairs minister, Jenny Macklin, has decreed that unless certain communities hand over their precious freehold leases they will be denied basic services. The Northern Territory contains abundant mineral wealth, such as uranium, and has long been eyed by multinationals as a lucrative radioactive waste dump. The blacks are in the way, yet again: so it is time for the usual feigned innocence. Rudd has said his government “doesn’t have a clear idea of what’s happening on the ground” in Aboriginal Australia. What? The reports of learned studies pour forth as if the sorcerer’s apprentice is loose. One example: the rate of incarceration of black Australians is five times that of South Africa during the last years of apartheid. The state of Western Australia imprisons Aboriginal men at eight times the apartheid figure, an Aussie world record.
On 16 November, a 12-year-old Aboriginal boy appeared in court charged with receiving a Freddo Frog chocolate bar from a friend who had allegedly taken it from a supermarket. The supermarket did not seek prosecution. Only the international headlines forced the police to drop the case. Two thirds of Aboriginal children who have contact with the police are jailed; two thirds of white children are cautioned. A young Aboriginal man was jailed for a year for stealing £12 worth of biscuits and soft drink.
A mattress in the desert
In my lifetime, Australia has become one of the most culturally diverse places on earth, and it has happened peacefully, by and large. This proud achievement fades when you drive into a country town and pass the funerals of the native people, many of them young, who take their own lives. The whispering in Antipodean hearts is race. The navy is sent against leaking boats filled with desperate refugees, Tamils, Iraqis and Afghans, and if they cannot be dumped behind razor wire somewhere in Indonesia, they are isolated on Christmas Island which, for the purpose, has been “excised” from the Australian map by a legal sleight of hand. How clever.
While I have been in Australia, Irene Khan, Amnesty’s secretary general, an experienced witness of poverty and discrimination, has been travelling through the vast outback region known as Utopia. The roads are dirt; water trickles from a single standpipe in many communities. She saw children, their eyes streaming and coughs hacking. She met Elsie, who sleeps on a mattress in the desert, yet pays rent to the government. Shocking, she says.
There is currently a liberal clarion call in Australia for a Bill of Rights, and the republican movement is stirring again. These debates are meaningless until white Australia summons the moral and political imagination to offer its first people a genuine treaty, as well as universal land rights and a proper share of the country’s resources. And respect. Only then will this fortunate society earn the respect it so often craves by other means.
A father has today written to the Minister of Health complaining about the treatment of his pregnant wife and how after their baby son died he had to search through 40 dead babies to find his child at Johannesburg's Coronation Hospital.Read the rest of the article here.
The caption to this News24 picture reads:SPEAKING OUT: A woman walks with her face partially covered during a march for International Day of (sic) the Elimination of Violence Against Women in Colombia. (Fernando Vergara, AP)Resolution 54/134 (December 17, 1999) of the UN General Assembly designates November 25 as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.
(a) Physical, sexual and psychological violence occurring in the family, including battering, sexual abuse of female children in the household, dowry-related violence, marital rape, female genital mutilation and other traditional practices harmful to women, non-spousal violence and violence related to exploitation;When South Africa held its Truth and Reconciliation hearings the issue of state sanctioned violence against women was mostly ignored.
(b) Physical, sexual and psychological violence occurring within the general community, including rape, sexual abuse, sexual harassment and intimidation at work, in educational institutions and elsewhere, trafficking in women and forced prostitution;
(c) Physical, sexual and psychological violence perpetrated or condoned by the State, wherever it occurs.
Human Rights Watch today released a 46 page report that documents British "complicity" in the torture of "five UK citizens of Pakistani origin ..."Canada’s chief diplomat in Kandahar in 2006-07, Richard Colvin, who told a House of Commons committee on Afghanistan that Afghans arrested by Canadian military and handed over to Afghan authorities were knowingly tortured.Read the rest of the article here.
South Africa deported an Israeli airline official last week following allegations that Israel’s secret police, the Shin Bet, had infiltrated Johannesburg international airport in an effort to gather information on South African citizens, particularly black and Muslim travellers.Read the rest of Jonathan Cook's article in Dissident Voice here.
The move by the South African government followed an investigation by local TV showing an undercover reporter being illegally interrogated by an official with El Al, Israel’s national carrier, in a public area of Johannesburg’s OR Tambo airport.
The programme also featured testimony from Jonathan Garb, a former El Al guard, who claimed that the airline company had been a front for the Shin Bet in South Africa for many years.
Of the footage of the undercover reporter’s questioning, he commented: “Here is a secret service operating above the law in South Africa. We pull the wool over everyone’s eyes. We do exactly what we want. The local authorities do not know what we are doing.”
Read the rest of the article here.The Romas, a discriminated minority in Hungary, turn to Ambedkar and Buddhism in their quest for dignity and equality. Pardeep Attri journeys to Sajókaza and Budapest to find out how the Dalits and Romas connect.
Khumalo, a Zulu, goes on to argue that the practice is cruel and should not be supported simply because it is said to be a cultural right."... observed by people of Nguni stock, including Zulus, Swazis, and Ndebeles - which involves about 40 young men killing a bull with their bare hands.
There is a belief that the warriors inherit the bull's strength and power when the beast is killed. When the warriors salute the king upon completion of their mission, the power is transferred to the king and his kingdom.
Another explanation for the ritual is that, by killing the beast, the young warriors form a bond of trust and commitment to each other, a sentiment they then transfer to their other peers, creating a strong manhood in the kingdom in question."
"... during the festival of Ukweshwama, a group of youths torment and slaughter a terrified bull with their bare hands. They rip out the bull's tongue, shove handfuls of dirt into his mouth, tear out his eyes, and mutilate his genitals."The man being interviewed was indignant that non-Africans, including Indian politician Maneka Gandhi who is associated with PETA, was calling on President Zuma to condemn the practice.
Animal Rights Africa (ARA) will be going to the High Court in Pietermaritzburg on the 24th November 2009 to try and end the extremely cruel Ukweshwama ritual, which is due to take place on the 5th December in at Nongoma, KwaZulu-Natal, during the First Fruits Festival. Said ARA spokesperson Michele Pickover, "It physically pains us and is an affront to our dignity that an animal is made to suffer in such an overtly cruel and protracted way. "Read the rest of the press release here.
The combination of racism fuelled by anger produced a highly volatileJust this morning the disturbing themes contained in these two paragraphs replayed inside my head as I read an article in the Los Angeles Times by conservative commentator, Jennifer Rubin.
situation. The consequences for Japanese Americans extended outside of the interpersonal realm into the arena of business and their professional lives.
Banks in California refused to do business with Japanese Americans. Their accounts were frozen and they were not allowed to draw any money. Japanese Americans were turned away from grocery stores, convenience stores, and other basic service providers. The state of California rescinded the certification of doctors to practice medicine and of lawyers to practice law. Japanese Americans who owned businesses lost their customers and clients. The stigma of assumed betrayal was used to deprive Japanese Americans of the right to make a living and to live without fear of reprisals from angry mobs. Hardship and uncertainty grew as Japanese Americans struggled to provide basic necessities for themselves and their families.
Political leaders throughout the country joined pressure groups that were
venting anger and calling for reprisals against Japanese Americans. Senator Tom
Stewart joined congressmen John Rankin of Mississippi and Martin Dies of Texas in
a campaign of racist rhetoric that was intended to advance their beliefs in white
supremacy. Congressman Rankin, who was notoriously known for being anti-black
and anti-semitic described World War II as a “race war” that inevitable pitted the
“white man’s civilization (against) Japanese barbarism” in a duel in which “one of
them must be destroyed.” He added that the Japanese “are pagan in their
philosophy, atheistic in their beliefs, alien in their allegiance, and antagonistic to everything for which we stand.” His comments were intended to caste suspicion
onto Japanese Americans when he said: “Once a Jap always a Jap. You cannot
change him. You cannot make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.” Rankin’s comments
received ardent support from congressional leaders in Arkansas, Virginia, and West
Virginia.
YOU CANNOT SINCERELY TAKE AN OATH TO UPHOLD THE CONSTITUTION AND SIMULTANEOUSLY CLAIM TO BE AN OBSERVANT MUSLIM.This last comment scratches deep to dredge up the derogatory term "mohammedans" as opposed to Muslims.
also;
In the words of Pogo Possum: "We have met the enemy, and he is us." At the very least, he is within our own ranks. Sacrificing the hunt for fifth columnists on the altar of political correctness does not ensure anyone's liberty or due process. It's time we root out those who intend to do us harm, and call them for what they are: enemies. Those who do not wish to be counted among their ranks need to stand up and be counted among those who are not.
and;
We have seen numerous incidents of mohammedans killing their fellow soldiers in the US Army. We have seen the majority of mohammedans keep silent rather than oppose the radicals who promote this insanity in the name of religion. Perhaps it's time for the US to rethink the notion of freedom of religion.
Mustafa, now three years old, witnessed the murder of his mother in front of judges and other court personnel.
Jack Teitel, a 37-year-old settler, is escorted by police officers, into a courtroom in Jerusalem, Thursday, Nov. 12. 2009. Teitel, a Jewish-American extremist, is suspected of carrying out a series of high-profile hate crimes against Arabs, peace activists and a breakaway Jewish sect. (AP Photo/Dan Balilty, October 5, 2009)Homegrown and exported terrorism ...?
The caption to this picture from News24 reads: "FLOODED:A cyclist wades through floods in northern Tanzania. Flooding in the country has killed at least 20 people following three days of torrential rains. (AFP).
The caption to this picture from the Mail & Guardian reads: Storm warning: A man walks through a flooded street during rain in Mumbai, India, on Wednesday. Cyclone Phyan moved toward India's western coast as authorities sounded an alert and shut schools and offices in anticipation of its arrival. (Rajanish Kakade, AP)
Augustine Mabasa is a 29 year old brother who lives in Siyandani village. Despite enormous challenges he assembled scrap metal to build an electrical car that can achieve 30kmh.
I like his ride. The detail and lines are tight.In the aftermath of this terrible tragedy, it is more important than ever that we not make the same scapegoating and broad stroke mistakes that were evident in the aftermath of previous tragedies. The Association of Patriotic Arab Americans in Military urges the media, government officials and all of our fellow Americans to recognize that the actions of Hasan are those of a deranged gunman, and are in no way representative of the wider Arab American or American Muslim community.Even as APAAM pleads for sanity the almost reflex tendency of the far right to portray Major Hasan's alledged action as a result of Islam, Islamic militancy, terrorism, and of course, jihad, is well on the way.
In fact, thousands of Arab Americans and American Muslims serve honorably everyday in all four branches of the U.S. military and in the National Guard. ...
The murders by Malik Nadal Hasan at Ft. Hood, TX are not a ‘lone wolf incident’ as being described by most media organizations. Hasan had been taught the ideology that is being advocated by hundreds of Islamic scholars and Imams in the U.S. We as a country can continue to deny there are numerous Islamic leaders and their supporting organizations such as CAIR, ISNA, MSA, and MANA, to name a few, who advocate killing innocent men, women, and children whom they allege ‘oppress Islam.’Gaubatz goes further. He even asserts that Hasan, an American soldier, is a terrorist:
How many more incidents similar to this that have been occurring in America does it take before even the media wants to report the truth? ...
Expect more. Israel has endured ‘suicide/attacks’ similar to this for many years. Malik Nabal Hasan is a terrorist supporting the ideology of Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, and yes, CAIR. In Palestine, the leaders send out the young and vulnerable to carry out the murders in the name of Islam. The same is happening in America.Is Glazov for real? How can he justify making a connection between Hasan's alledged actions and Al Qaeda's "ideology"?
Major Hasan’s motive was perfectly clear — but it was one that the forces of political correctness and the Islamic advocacy groups in the United States have been working for years to obscure. So it is that now that another major jihad terror attack has taken place on American soil, authorities and the mainstream media are at a loss to explain why it happened – and the abundant evidence that it was a jihad attack is ignored.And the reason that "it happened" is according to this 'scholar' a matter of knowing that Islam preaches violence and Muslims are instructed to attack those who oppose them.
" ... nasty, divisive and Islamophobic bigots who take whatever opportunity, whatever tragedy, they can to stir up hatred against Muslims and Islam in the west."These racist Islam haters would not attribute the same kind of motives to Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, as pointed out by a comment on Mehdi Hassan's article.
McVeigh served in the US Army and said his actions were aimed at bringing down the US government.
That said it should also be expected that much will be made about the alleged shooter, Major Nidal Malik Hasan (39), who is said to be an American born Muslim of Palestinian/Jordanian descent.Unusually for a soldier, Hasan appeared to have little taste for violence, at least up until yesterday. His cousin, Nader Hasan, said: "He was someone who did not enjoy going to the firing range." That may have been a consequence of the stories he had heard in the hospital wards from the returning soldiers.I expect that as Major Hasan, who is still alive according to a news report, is put on trial his co-accused will be all Muslims, particularly those living inside the US.
Hasan became an unhappy soldier as his career progressed, according to his family and colleagues.
Nader said his cousin, though born in America, had suffered harassment from fellow soldiers who questioned his loyalty to the US and commented on his Middle East ethnicity. As a Muslim, he was upset at the killing of Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Nader confirmed that he had been resisting deployment in either war zone.
He had been scheduled for deployment to Iraq at the end of the year and had told colleagues repeatedly he did not want to go. He felt trapped, looking at ways to buy his way out, even going to the extent of hiring a lawyer to see if he could leave military service honourably.
See Mehdi Hasan's (New Statesman Senior Political Editor) "Change we can’t believe in" and his most recent article "Obama's first year -- good or bad?".MILAN - An Italian judge sentenced 23 former CIA agents to up to eight years in prison Wednesday for the abduction of a Muslim cleric in a symbolic ruling against "rendition" flights used by the former U.S. government.COMMENT: A great start indeed. It must be noted though that there is evidence that the practice of "rendition" continues under President Obama.
The Americans were all tried in absentia after the United States refused to extradite them. But the verdict, the first of its kind, was welcomed by rights campaigners who have long complained the renditions policy violated basic human rights.Judge Oscar Magi dropped the case against three Americans, including a former CIA Rome station chief, for the abduction of Egyptian-born cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr (pictured), who was snatched off a Milan street in 2003 and flown to Egypt for interrogation.
He also acquitted the former head of Italy's Sismi military intelligence service, Nicolo Pollari, and his former deputy, ruling that evidence against them violated state secrecy rules.
Magi sentenced the former head of the CIA's Milan station, Robert Seldon Lady, to eight years in prison and the other 22 former CIA agents to five years each.
He ruled that those convicted should paid 1 million euros in damages to Nasr, better known as Abu Omar, and 500,000 euros to his wife.
Abu Omar was secretly flown from Aviano airbase in northeast Italy via Ramstein base in Germany to Egypt, where he says he was tortured and held until 2007 without charge.
It is the first case of its kind to contest the practice of "extraordinary rendition" under the administration of former U.S. President George W. Bush, in which terrorism suspects were captured in one country and taken for questioning in another, where interrogation techniques were tougher.
(Reporting by Emilio Parodi and Daniel Flynn; writing by Daniel Flynn)© 2009 Reuters
Article Source
A Louisiana justice of the peace who refused to marry a couple because the bride was white and groom was black resigned Tuesday, after weeks of refusing to step down despite calls for his ouster from officials including the governor.Read the rest of the NY Daily News article here.
Keith Bardwell quit with a one-sentence statement to Louisiana Secretary of State Jay Dardenne and no explanation of his decision: “I do hereby resign the office of Justice of the Peace for the Eighth Ward of Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana, effective November 3, 2009.”
Gov. Bobby Jindal called Bardwell’s resignation “long overdue.”
Bardwell, who is white, refused to marry Beth Humphrey and Terence McKay.
When questioned, Bardwell acknowledged he routinely recuses himself from marrying interracial couples because he believes the marriages harm the couples’ children. In interviews, he said he refers the couples to other justices of the peace, who then perform the ceremony, which happened in this case.
My head hurts!"Which country in Africa is home to the largest population", I asked the young bright face in front of me.
"China", she shouted back almost instantly.
I looked at her with a smile borrowed from years of experience with young undergraduate students.
"Are you sure?", I asked.
"Yes I am because they have more than a billion people there", she insisted.
"But China is not on the African continent", I said.
She looked back with a furrowed brow as a slow smile of recognition crept over her face.
"Oh yes that is true ... China is more like in Europe", she declared.
"Right ... and China's capital city would be Lagos, right?", I said.
"I don't know but is this question going to be on our final exam", she asked somewhat exasperated.
"No it won't be on your exam. I'll stick with the easier questions on foreign policy formulation and implementation", I replied.
A good few years ago I started my first Mexican vacation in Punta Mita, a small resort town about 26 miles North of Puerto Vallarta.
This 'breaking' story caused me to remember a few hours I spent at Iceland's Keflavik International Airport, in Reykjavík, several years ago.
By Sherwood RossThe Pentagon has paid anti-war activist Noam Chomsky the highest honor any totalitarian entity can bestow upon an author: they’ve banned his book “Interventions” at Guantanamo Bay prison.Read the rest of the article here.
They won’t say precisely why they “honored” Chomsky, but Navy spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Brook DeWalt told the Miami Herald that “Interventions”(City Lights Books) might negatively “impact on (Gitmo’s) good order and discipline.”
The Pentagon, of course, insists on “good order and discipline” running its prison camp. Chomsky likes order, too. What he objects to is the Pentagon spreading disorder globally.
Instead of thanking the Pentagon for his “honor,” Chomsky, is said to be angry. The Herald quotes him as saying, “This happens sometimes in totalitarian regimes.”
"All stakeholders inside and outside the UFS are invited to meet with the university management to table their concerns and to try to find consensus on a way forward."Interesting.
Mooi seems to think that our next adventure should be to Pakistan. We came close to Pakistan in 06/07 but not close enough obviously.
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... Obama, the smooth operator from Chicago via Harvard, was enlisted to restore what he calls "leadership" throughout the world. The Nobel Prize committee's decision is the kind of cloying reverse racism that has beatified the man for no reason other than he is a member of a minority and attractive to liberal sensibilities, if not to the Afghan children he kills. This is the Call of Obama. It is not unlike a dog whistle: inaudible to most, irresistible to the besotted and boneheaded. "When Obama walks into a room," gushed George Clooney, "you want to follow him somewhere, anywhere."Read the rest of this New Statesman article here
The great voice of black liberation Frantz Fanon understood this. In The Wretched of the Earth, he described the "intermediary [whose] mission has nothing to do with transforming the nation: it consists, prosaically, of being the transmission line between the nation and a capitalism, rampant though camouflaged". Because political debate has become so debased in our media monoculture - Blair or Brown; Brown or Cameron - race, gender and class can be used as seductive tools of propaganda and diversion. In Obama's case, what matters, as Fanon pointed out in an earlier era, is not the intermediary's "historic" elevation, but the class he serves. After all, Bush's inner circle was probably the most multiracial in presidential history. There was Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, Clarence Thomas, all dutifully serving an extreme and dangerous power. ...
I want to like Jonathan Jansen but he makes it almost impossible most times.
The caption to this picture from the Mail & Guardian reads: "A family who had left their village in Waziristan along the Afghan border arrive at Dera Ismail Khan on Wednesday. The military is gearing up for an offensive against Taliban strongholds in the area. (Ishtiaq Mahsud, AP)"
Caption from News24 reads: "Residents of Sakhile near Standerton in Mpumalanga protest over poor service delivery and corruption. (Sapa)"
Erica reminded me a few days ago that this ol' blog is about to turn three years old.
"I was invisible to everyone before this video happened, but after it came out politicians wanted to speak to me. I met the rector for the first time. We were given tea in his office. My family was hounded by the South African media. I am not an educated woman, but I knew I was being used. Collectively we made a decision to step away from this incident. We stayed away from the university for a short while, but we all kept our jobs, we all went back to work together, although we were moved to another hostel.These words are haunting and their relevance at this historical moment should weigh heavy on our collective consciousness.
We saw those boys in a different way to how they saw us ... I treated them like sons. I cleaned up their hostel and joked with them. I told them off if they made too much of a mess. We helped them when they first came into the hostel. They were young, nervous, we made them tea. They betrayed us. Stuck a knife into our hearts. We were not as intelligent as them, so they manipulated us. They told us they were playing a game.
I don’t have anger in my heart, but I understand injustice. I have travelled to work at that university for over 25 years. I see black students on campus. I see their hope and ambition. My own daughter aspires to go to university. But for me, the way I am treated, that hasn’t changed. My pastor told me that God wanted me to fight against injustice and that is why I became involved in this legal matter. He also asked me to forgive those boys, but it is not them I wish to forgive. It is their parents, for they made them that way.”
