Author: Mick Hartley

From the Washington Post (via):

Three months since the signing of a tenuous peace deal, Sudan appears to be preparing a major military offensive in its troubled Darfur region, aid workers are increasingly at risk, and the population “may have to relive the horrors of late 2003 and early 2004, and hundreds of thousands of lives will be at risk,” a top United Nations official warned the Security Council in a private briefing yesterday.

The blunt assessment by the deputy head of the U.N. peacekeeping forces, Hedi Annabi, came as Britain and the United States introduced a Security Council resolution to send 17,000 U.N. peacekeepers to Darfur over the opposition of Khartoum. China and Russia, however, suggested they would reject the resolution, and the Sudanese government reiterated its opposition to a U.N. force. […]

Khartoum has told the United Nations that it plans to deploy 26,500 armed forces to Darfur by year’s end, which would violate the peace agreement, Annabi said. He said there are reports that the buildup of forces has already commenced and that extra battalions have been deployed.

Annabi told the Security Council that since the signing of the deal, “instead of reconciliation and building of trust, we see more violence and further polarization.”

Eleven aid workers have been killed since the signing of the peace agreement, “an unprecedented level of deadly attacks,” and humanitarian organizations have access to only half of the 3.6 million people affected by the conflict, he said. He said aid workers may be forced to withdraw completely from North Darfur, where more than 1.2 million need help.

The peace agreement lacks the support of larger segments of the population, Annabi added. Minni Minnawi, the rebel leader who signed the accord, is from a different ethnic group than is much of the Darfur population, adding to the tensions, experts have said.

Annabi said the violence between the rebel groups since the accord was signed has “resulted in hundreds of deaths, systematic looting, new displacements and horrendous acts of sexual and gender-based violence.”

Sexual and gender-based violence? Is there a difference?

their “Muslim” identity to access particular services and to gain traction over social and political concerns.

While in earlier periods British Bengalis were known by their national origin, today they are seen as part of a homogeneous “Muslim community”. This is the irony of multiculturalism: policies aimed to create diversity in British society opened spaces for fundamentalist intolerance and homogeneity. Islamists have been the main beneficiary of these developments. The media may portray them as “backward” and “medieval” people who reject British values, but their demands on the British state have been and are legitimated within a government-created framework. […]

The fight of secularists against racism and poverty appears bland compared to the ardent certainties of religion. In Bangladesh, secularists and the left have been marginalised and suppressed by the post-2001 ruling coalition. While the Bangladesh Nationalist Party – and George Galloway in London – seek to ride the Jamaat-e-Islami tiger for political gain, the prospects of this strategy for resolving the enduring questions of social justice, equality and diversity are dim. Jamaat and other fundamentalist groups are sowing the seeds of future conflict, as well as obscuring more hopeful and humane pathways to equity and harmony for Bengalis, in both Britain and Bangladesh.

om the National Society for Human Rights, has now retracted the allegations of physical and sexual abuse against her father.

But according to Umm Abdul Aziz, the 28-year-old neighbor who first alerted authorities to the alleged abuse, Zarni’s mother convinced her to retract her allegations in order to get her father out of jail. And now her family has arranged for a marriage to a paternal cousin.

Umm Abdul Aziz said she received information from Zarni’s maternal cousin that, following the marriage, she will be flown back to Pakistan.

“When she reaches Pakistan it will be her end, literally,” said Umm Abdul Aziz. “She comes from a Balochi tribal family and they are known to be very unmerciful in rape situations. The only way they solve it is by killing the woman.” It is generally referred to as honor killing.

In an interview with Arab News in June, Zarni described in detail her reaction the first time she was allegedly abused by her father.

“I cried for three days,” she had said in that interview. “I went directly to my relatives and told them about my father’s action, but they told me to go back to him.”

Zarni had also alleged that her father was mentally unstable, breaking items and “hitting himself.” She said her father became anguished after hearing of the death of an old lover back in Pakistan, and that he told his daughter that she reminded him of the old flame. She also claimed that she had attempted suicide “a number of times” over the course of three years of alleged abuse. The woman said she was afraid to go to the police fearing they wouldn’t believe her. Zarni also alleged that she became pregnant from her father and got a clandestine abortion.

Now of course it’s possible that this Zarni woman suffers, as her father maintains, from “mental disorders”, made the whole thing up, and has now finally come to her senses. But….well, she didn’t, did she?…make the whole thing up. It’s really not possible to read the article, knowing the status of women generally in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, without believing that this woman was indeed sexually abused by her father, aborted his child, was helped out by a caring neighbour, but has now been pressured to recant. It’s also very likely that she’ll be killed sooner or later – probably sooner – for bringing dishonour to her family. And the only item in the story which marks it out from scores of others is the redoubtable Umm Abdul Aziz, who for all her troubles has received death threats and had her apartment broken into.

I’d be curious to know if we have any of these Koran memorisation schools in the UK similar to this one in Queens, NY (via Althouse):

The carpeted room is full of children in skullcaps crouched on prayer mats, reciting verses from a holy text. Some mumble the words under their breath; others sing them out. They rock back and forth as they chant, their disparate voices blending into an ethereal melody.

The children, ages 7 to 14, are full-time students, in class 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, even in the summer. But they are not studying math, science or English. Instead, they are memorizing all 6,200 verses in the Koran, a task that usually takes two to three years….

The students who finish memorizing the Koran earn the title hafiz, an exalted accomplishment in the Muslim world that is relatively rare in the United States. A hafiz plays an important role during Ramadan, when the entire Koran must be recited over 30 days to mosque members. But becoming a hafiz is also believed to bring rewards in the hereafter, guaranteeing the person entrance to heaven, along with 10 other people of his choosing, provided he does not forget the verses and continues to practice Islam.

“It’s almost like a bank account for the afterlife,” said Zawar Ahmed, 11, who recently became a hafiz through the Muslim Center and brought in sweets for his classmates to celebrate.

Iftkhar Ahmed, Zawar’s father, a Pakistani immigrant who runs a 99-cent store, said the day his son became a hafiz was the happiest of his life….

Because the task is so difficult, most of the children at the Muslim Center study only the Koran while they are enrolled in the class. Some parents try to tutor their children in other subjects on the side. But for the most part, it is after the children finish that they work to catch up in other subjects in preparation for going back to regular school….

There is no special technique for memorizing the Koran, except for pure repetition. Several times a day, the students recite for their teachers. First, they recite the lesson from the previous day, which usually amounts to a page or two from the Koran. Then they must recite the previous six or seven lessons combined. Finally, they recite the equivalent of one-thirtieth of the Koran — the Koran is divided into 30 parts. This is how each student, at his own pace, works his way through the entire Koran, learning a new section every day, but reviewing older ones he has already memorized.

Making the work even more difficult, the students, for the most part, do not understand what they are reciting. Muslims believe the Koran was spoken to the prophet Muhammad by the angel Gabriel in Arabic. Because it is seen as the literal word of God, the use of translations is frowned upon. Students know how to pronounce the words but mostly do not know what they mean.

Young children, aged 7 to 14, spending 9 hours a day memorising a text they don’t even understand, largely, it seems, for the benefit of their relations who get a free pass to heaven…..isn’t this child abuse?

As part of the conversation we have started, we have opened a new section of the Website. “Social Democratic Futures” will be vehicle for new Left thinking. The first two, very different, “carriages” of this train of thought are conducted by Shalom Lappin, a co-author of the manifesto and by James Purnell, Minister of State for Pensions in the British Labour government.

Alan Johnson at the Euston Manifesto website.

The hope is that we can create an intellectual space in which progressives supportive of the broad thrust of the Euston principles can debate with each other across political parties, social movements, intellectual traditions and countries.

Readers are invited to respond to the articles in up to 1000 words, or to ask questions of the writers. The writers have agreed to write rejoinders. One angle – there is no other place where leading younger ministers are engaging in online dialogue with people in this way. Submissions to me at alanjohnsonsdf@aol.com

cisms of the Dalai Lama. Senior civil servants must produce 10,000-word essays while those in junior posts need only write 5,000-character condemnations. Even retired officials are not exempt.

When it comes to Tibet, China really doesn’t feel the need to dissemble. They’ve almost completed the destruction of the culture, and of the country:

Between 1966-1977, an entire civilisation was gutted as 2,000 years of Tibetan history was razed. Prior to China’s invasion, there had been 6,259 Buddhist monasteries and nunneries; by 1976, eight remained. In the name of socialist purity, untold numbers of statues, artefacts, ancient manuscripts and paintings vanished.

A few high-profile palaces and temples were restored in the 1980s. But since 1994, the Chinese government has opted for an active programme of destroying the nation’s sense of its autonomous history.

And they don’t care who knows about it, or what anyone thinks. A fight to the death, China against the Dalai Lama? Much as I’d like to believe in the power of being nice and smiling a lot, there’s not much doubt as to the outcome of this particular battle. Tibet’s lucky to make the inside pages of the papers now, and soon it’ll disappear altogether.

James Glassman, a writer on The Ali G Show, reports from Edinburgh:

There have always been anti- Semitic jokes. But you know times are changing when you go along to a stand-up show at the Pleasance Courtyard at the Edinburgh Fringe and you hear audience members shouting “Throw them in the oven” when the comic suggests kids should stop playing Cowboys and Indians and replace it with Nazis and Jews.

Stand-up comedy is as good a prism as any through which to look at the changing attitudes in our society. If my past few days are anything to go by then it is becoming increasingly acceptable to hate the Jews. Again.

I’ve seen two comics so far who have been happy to amuse their crowds with Holocaust gags. I’m not sure which to be the more concerned about.

One was a left-leaning angry Australian conspiracy theorist, Steve Hughes, whose show The Storm is an assault on all things Western. “I want to bash Condoleezza Rice’s brain to bits and kill that f****** Jew Richard Perle.” […]

For me, Hughes represents a growing trend among left-thinking people in this country and around the world to accept as dogma that those on the Left should hate Bush, Blair, American imperialism, Israel and, while we’re at it, the Jews. It is a cultural trend that I’ve found increasingly evident but never before has the Jew-hating element been so overt. This week has confirmed that my Jewish paranoia is not entirely unfounded. As the old saying goes: “Just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get me.”

Hughes wasn’t one for the odd remark or the clever comment; he waxed lyrical on how Osama bin Laden is far less of a threat than Dick Cheney, before defending Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian President, saying he has no intention of destroying Israel, he has just been misquoted.

Hughes now says he regrets calling Perle a “fucking Jew”:

Steve Hughes, an Australian stand-up, told The Times that he regretted describing Richard Perle, an advisor to President George Bush, as “that f***ing Jew Richard Perle”. The comment, in his show The Storm, offended audience members including Jamie Glassman, a Jewish comedy writer.

“I want to bash Condoleezza Rice’s brain to bits and kill that fucking Jew Richard Perle.” I suppose you had to be there, really.

Tim Worstall links to this Times article (which I’d already seen, I should add) and prints out the Top Joke in England – the one about the weasels. Which is funny – I mean, yes, the joke is quite funny I suppose, if you like that sort of thing, but I’m talking more funny peculiar here – because the one that does it for me is the Best British Joke:

A woman gets on a bus with her baby. The driver says: “That’s the ugliest baby I’ve ever seen. Ugh!” The woman sits down, fuming. She says to a man next to her: “The driver just insulted me!” The man says: “You tell him off, I’ll hold your monkey.”

I don’t know why, but that makes me chuckle every time. I’m sure I’ve heard it before, but where? Is it Billy Connolly, and that’s why it’s British and not English? Off the top of my head I’d say Les Dawson.

Iran, a theocratic nation where it is an act of resistance to show an inch or two of female hair beneath the veil and whose president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is not joking about his murderous intentions towards Israel and the Jews.

On the defining issue of our times, the rise of Islamic extremism, what is left of the sisterhood has almost nothing to say. Instead of “I am woman, hear me roar”, there is a loud silence, punctuated only by remonstrations against Tony Blair and George Bush — “the world’s number one terrorist” as the marchers would have it.

d.html”>here, here. Oh, and here. And here.

My Anglocentric contribution: If other football teams had followed the examples of Accrington Stanley and Sheffield Wednesday…

Preston Sidney

Bolton Sunday

Plymouth Keith

Barnsley Tuesday

West Bromwich Albert

Tottenham Henry

Barry Barry

Aston Martin