Selves and Others

According to recent news reports and as hinted in the president’s State of the Union Address, the neocons who dominate the Bush administration are gearing up for another pre-emptive military attack, this time upon Iran. The ostensible reason for such an attack is that the Iranian government is developing nuclear weapons.

In fact, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which regularly inspects Iran’s nuclear operations, has not found any signs of nuclear weapons. Although the IAEA has reported that Iran has produced enriched uranium—which can be used for either civilian or military purposes—such production has been halted thanks to a November 2004 Iranian agreement with France, Germany, and Britain. Thus, although it is possible that Iran might produce nuclear weapons some time in the future, this is hardly a certainty. Nor is it clear that the Iranian government has ever planned to produce them. (...)

In using the description ’knuckle-dragging buffoon’ I am of course referring directly (but far from exclusively) to the loutish Lieutenant General James Mattis, a US Marine officer who has been grossly over-promoted from latrine orderly. Recently he disgraced his country, his uniform and the Profession of Arms by boasting that he is a brutal thug. To remind you, what he said concerning his personal military ethos was : "Actually, it’s quite fun to fight them, you know. It’s a hell of a hoot. It’s fun to shoot some people, I’ll be right up front with you. I like brawling . . . You go into Afghanistan, you’ve got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn’t wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain’t got no manhood left anyway, so it’s a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." These were his public words. They make me wonder what this man (I use the word loosely) might really think about in the depths of his diseased and malevolent mind. (...)

The slow and troubled journey towards a future normalization of relations between Japan and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK — North Korea) is shaped by two radically different visions of the past. Both Japanese and North Korean governments demand a "settling of accounts" for past history. For Japan, however, the "account" in question is the fate of the Japanese citizens kidnapped by North Korea. For the North Korean side, on the other hand, it is the older and larger history of Japanese colonialism in Korea. (...)

Actor and civil rights activist Ossie Davis has died. He was found in a hotel room in Miami Beach Friday, where he was making a movie. He was 87 years old.

For five decades, Ossie Davis had a distinguished career as an actor, playwright and director. Along with his wife, Ruby Dee, he was a renowned civil rights activist and an unforgettable figure in the African-American struggle for equality. (...)

When we look back at the past, people’s responses to perceived threats often strike us as disproportionate or simply crazy. Past panics tend to be quietly forgotten, or dismissed as embarrassing reminders of our capacity for group hysteria. But the kind of lingering fear that fueled extraordinary explosions of public alarm in the past still thrives today. Not only do we still have a choice, however, as to how we respond to fear-inspiring threats; our future may well depend on it. (...)

For those of us who have spent time on the college campus or have resided in a university community, living with questionable opinions of "radical" professors and students is not unusual. The Mighty Ado over the University of Colorado’s Ward Churchill would barely raise a ripple among those accustomed to cantankerous academic debate.

The same may not be said for many college and university administrators and boards of regents, however, when the spotlight of controversy (complete with angry phone calls, letters and e-mails) is turned on a campus by an incensed public imbued with near-lynch-mob outrage. Frequently timid, often advised by overly-protective attorneys, campus boards and administrators may react by giving in to a managerial "retaliatory" instinct that may stem primarily from personal irritation that their lives have been upset by uncomfortable controversy, like flea bites inflamed. (...)

1) The foundation of the WSF is international solidarity. The main reason the WSF is coming to Africa in 2007 is because we must give solidarity where there is the greatest need. Africa, taken as a whole, is undoubtedly the one continent where the greatest suffering of humanity is to be found in the world today. Capitalism has been exceptionally destructive in Africa: slavery, plunder, colonialism, apartheid, neo-colonialism, structural adjustment policies, etc. Africa has paid a very heavy price to facilitate capitalist development. That is why it is absolutely correct that the WSF must come to Africa just as it was correct to take it to India last year. Following the same principle and logic we cannot turn around and say the WSF in Africa must be held in SA because that is not where the greatest need is in Africa. To the contrary, SA is a relatively rich country in Africa and is classified as a middle income economy in the world. This is notwithstanding SA being the second most unequal country in the world. (...)

As a long-time professional journalist and labor activist, I have watched from the inside for thirty years now the constriction of the media and of the flow of information to the public-information which is critical to the function of a democracy.

We have reached a point today that half the people in this virtual Land of the Free think that it was Iraqis who attacked the World Trade Center, when in fact not one Iraqi was among the suicidal terrorists on those planes, where half the people in America believe not only that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, but that the U.S. has found such weapons, when in fact there are none and were none, where half of American young people think that Social Security will be bankrupt before they reach retirement, where in fact no such thing will happen. (...)

BERLIN, Feb 8 (IPS) - With 21 feature films entered for the top Golden Bear award, critics predict competition will again be fierce at the 55th International Berlin Film Festival Feb. 10 to Feb. 20.

More than 600 movies are due to be screened during the festival’s 11-day run. Seventeen full-length feature films will be world premiered.

Africa is prominent in the main competition. In the U.S. production ’Sometimes in April’, film enthusiasts will be confronted with the gruesome civil war in Rwanda ten years ago. Raoul Peck’s film begins its investigation at the same place as director Terry George’s ’Hotel Rwanda’. But there the resemblance ends. (...)

"This is analogous to stopping the circulation of all the books about Martin Luther King, stopping the circulation of all the books about Malcolm X," said Lawrence Guyot, a prominent civil rights leader with the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. "I would call upon everyone who has access to ’Eyes on the Prize’ to openly violate any and all laws regarding its showing." We talk to Guyot about a national grassroots effort to screen "Eyes on the Prize" today.

Dili

Many people have commented about the first 100 days of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s presidency. One of his campaign promises, as we know, was to deal specifically with corruption — one of most acute problems facing Indonesia.

On the one hand, this promise shows the seriousness of SBY’s government, at least in public, in establishing good governance and democracy. However, he has ignored the issue of human rights violations committed by state apparatus over the last several decades

This includes crimes against humanity that took place in East Timor during the illegal occupation by the Indonesian regime. People might recall some of the other big atrocities, such as the killing of alleged Indonesian

Communist Party (PKI) members in 1965 and more recent cases like the May 1998 riots were thousands of people were killed. We can add to this list cases like human rights violations in Aceh, Papua and Maluku. (...)

[February 02, 2005]

After four months of virtual silence and tens of thousands more deaths, the January 31 release of the report of the United Nations International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur has prodded US spokespeople into repeating the charge that “genocide” is taking place in Sudan’s Darfur provinces.

However, if the recent past is any guide, Washington’s sudden rediscovery of the persecution of Darfur’s non-Arabic-speaking farmers will only last as long as it takes to pressure Khartoum to again tone down the worst aspects of its ethnic-cleansing campaign.

The UN report concluded that while the military regime in Sudan “has not pursued a policy of genocide ... in some instances individuals, including government officials, may commit acts with genocidal intent”. (...)

[February 9, 2005]

The Republican senators who have devoted their careers to mauling the United Nations are seldom accused of shyness. But they went strangely quiet on Thursday. Henry Hyde became Henry Jekyll. Norm Coleman’s mustard turned to honey. Convinced that the UN is a conspiracy against the sovereignty of the United States, they had been ready to launch the attack which would have toppled the hated Kofi Annan and destroyed his organisation. A report by Paul Volcker, the former chairman of the US federal reserve, was meant to have proved that, as a result of corruption within the UN’s oil-for-food programme, Saddam Hussein was able to sustain his regime by diverting oil revenues into his own hands. But Volcker came up with something else. (...) [page 21 | Comment]

Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani never had any doubts about what he wanted: use the much-cherished democracy of Americans to enable his people - the Shi’ites - to emerge as rulers of Iraq. Now, Sistani has called for Islam to be the sole source of legislation in the new constitution. But theocracy has never been an acceptable proposition in Washington.

Some Iraq veterans are returning home, only to face homelessness and mental problems. Meanwhile, the VA is MIA.

Herold Noel served his time in the military, including the first five months of the Iraq war in 2003 as a fuel handler for the military. He returned from Iraq in August of that year to Brooklyn, N.Y., hoping for a welcome and a helping hand from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), something he had been told to expect. That was not to be. (...)

in Kirkuk

Hundreds of Kurds flooded on to the streets in the northern city of Kirkuk yesterday firing weapons in the air and honking horns after the powerful Kurdish alliance came second in the Iraqi elections, winning 25 per cent of the vote nationwide.

Kurdish leaders will enter negotiations with the Shia coalition, which took nearly half the votes but lacks the two-thirds majority necessary to appoint leaders and pass legislation. Despite the strong showing and groundswell of support for greater autonomy in the Kurdish north the message from the newly elected leaders was more conciliatory. "Iraq is a mosaic," said a Kurdistan Democratic Party spokesman, Faraj al-Haidary. "It is a combination of all parts - not as an alliance with one party." (...)

in Baghdad

Suicide bombers struck in two Iraqi towns yesterday, killing at least 27 people, making it the most violent day since the January 30 elections and a signaling that after a brief lull the attacks have begun again in earnest.

The interior minister said it could be a further 18 months before the Iraqi forces could properly secure their country.

The first of yesterday’s bombers struck at the police headquarters in Baquba, a mixed Shia and Sunni town 40 miles north of Baghdad. At least 15 people were killed and 17 injured.

Witnesses said the bomber tried to drive a car through the gate of the police station but it hit a concrete blast wall and blew up near a crowd outside. (...) [page 13 | International]

The Ministry of Defence will accept liability for the death of Sergeant Steven Roberts, the first British soldier to die in action in Iraq, his widow’s lawyer said yesterday.

The move could pave the way for the families of other soldiers who have died in Iraq as a result of accidents.

[page 10 | UK News]

in Baghdad

Negotiations between the successful parties in the Iraqi election will start shortly and are likely to produce a national unity government dominated by the Shia and the Kurds, according to Hoshyar Zebari, the Foreign Minister.

In a jubilant mood in the wake of the elections, having vigorously opposed their postponement, Mr Zebari said: "We must not squander this wonderful historic victory. If we do not get it right, the consequences will be devastating." (...)

Translated by Haim Watzman

What would happen if the prime minister of Israel began his speech today at the Israeli-Palestinian summit in Sharm al-Sheikh by acknowledging the Palestinian people’s suffering? What if he were to declare that Israel accepts partial responsibility for that suffering? What effect would such simple and direct words have on the Palestinian public? What would Israel’s position in the coming negotiations suffer, and what would Israel gain?

And how would Israelis feel if the leader of the Palestinian Authority were to begin his speech by expressing his regret for the suffering that the Israeli people has endured? What if he were to accept, simply and directly, that the Palestinians are responsible in part for that suffering? Can such a moment be imagined within the thicket of suspicion and hostility that traps us both?

It is clear to all that a final peace agreement between Israel and Palestine must address the suffering that the two peoples have caused each other, and their responsibility for that suffering. (...) [page 7 | G2 features]