A few years back I went to the London Barbican to watch Outfoxed, a documentary feature film that made the outrageous claim that Fox TV was rather to the Right in its coverage of political issues.
Astounding! The cinema audience laughed and wailed and expressed outrage at the channels obvious political distortion. And in the morning, I imagine, those same people turned on their radio to listen to the Today programme confident that this was the undistorted truth free from bias and lies.
But while Fox has certainly influenced politics in the US, in terms of shifting the terms of cultural and political debate it is like Austin Powers to the BBCs James Bond.
The latest revelation to come out of the BBC is the guidance issued at the BBC editorial meeting suggesting that Abu Qatada, the Jordanian whom the British government is too gutless to deport, should not be described as an extremist because that would suggest a value judgment.
#1
One man's terrorist is another man's BBC journalist.
Posted by: Matt ||
02/08/2012 18:58 Comments ||
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#2
Oh god, I don't trust Sky, and I don't trust the BBC - and it is such a rip off. £140 a year and the BBC make like 6 channels, close their world service and make a mockery of programs. Channel 4 sponsors a few fairly good ones and I tell you that they aren't funded by TV license payers money. Its a joke. The BBC should really heed the calling for firing a bunch of people because if I was prime minister I would see the whole lot go into administration. Jesus Trading standards should step in because no one is satisfied. Have you seen Eastenders. Makes me mad. Anyway evening all
As always, the BBC-TV casting,make-up, costumes and scripting are almost always excellent; until that cloying, One-worlder guilt-trip mind-messaging begins to seep into the "Family Room/Den/Man-Cave carpet.
That said, I totally enjoyed "The Queen" (+Corgi dogs)and "The King's Speech" Brit movies released in the past 5 years.Very moving.
[Dawn] IN addition to those living in Pakistain's conflict zones, in recent years the urban citizenry too has become uncomfortably familiar with acts of terrorism. The perpetrators seem to consider no place or occasion off limits. From public areas to places of worship, religious and political gatherings all have at some point come under attack.
Has the law-enforcement apparatus met with any success in quelling such attacks? In pockets, it does seem that the situation is improving. Consider Bloody Karachi, ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It may be the largest city in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... which has seen terrorist attacks in places frequented by the public -- as delineated from law-enforcement and military installations that the beturbanned goons claim are their main targets. Such instances include the bombing of the Ashura procession in December 2009 and that of the shrine of Abdullah Shah Ghazi in 2010. Yet, over the past year, various events and occasions that both ordinary people and the law-enforcement set-up feared would be targeted thankfully passed off without incident. Also, a number of high-profile bully boyz have been placed in durance vile, implying that protecting the people is possible if there is sufficient will on the part of law-enforcement personnel.
While this is encouraging, it is clearly not enough. Combating the monster of terrorism requires a multi-pronged and holistic approach where different methods achieve success in concert. One area where law-enforcement efforts continue to under-perform is at the level of prosecution. Trials of suspected beturbanned goons or bully boyz tend to yield little because of either poor investigation or prosecution. A case in point is the 2006 Nishtar Park bombing, for which three men believed to be associated with the proscribed Lashkar-e-Jhangvi ... a 'more violent' offshoot of Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistain. LeJ's purpose in life is to murder anyone who's not of utmost religious purity, starting with Shiites but including Brelvis, Ahmadis, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Rosicrucians, and just about anyone else you can think of. They are currently a wholly-owned subsidiary of al-Qaeda ... remain in jug. In the six years that have passed, the prosecution has presented merely one witness. This pattern is repeated around the country in terms of prosecution, and sends out all the wrong signals.
True, there are difficulties: hard evidence in such cases can be difficult to gather and, given the profiles of the beturbanned goons involved, there is always the possibility of witnesses, prosecutors and judges being intimidated. If the police and prosecution could improve their performance in this regard, we would see greater success in combating terrorism.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/08/2012 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] The Moslem crisis of identity is linked to their inability to redefine themselves in today's world. Most Moslem nations lack both political and economic stability. Oil-rich Arab nations have economic stability -- thanks to oil revenues -- but are autocracies. Turkey, Malaysia and Indonesia, however, are steadily moving towards both economic and political stability but have not yet reached the stage where they could serve as role models for others.
In the 20th century, Moslem nationalists tried to create Western nation states in countries that have not one but many nations with distinct ethnic, linguistic and cultural features. The socialists -- in trying to create model social states -- clashed with religious groups that hurt both.
MoslemIslamic fascistibased their dreams of a pure and just Islamic society on people's attachment to religion. But instead of delivering any of the goods they had promised, they led their followers to a path that pitched Islam against the rest of the world.
Reforms, introduced by liberal Moslem rulers, helped improve the situation in some places but only for some.
Education was supposed to bring knowledge and prosperity to all. It did not. For most, it only increased their dreams without equipping them with the tools to make them come true.
Divided between the English (or French) schools of the elite and the ordinary schools for the rest of the country, the education system has created a large number of educated unemployed or under-employed.
The madrassas too met the same fate and ended up adding more people to an already swelling army of the unemployed youths, although the mosque-madrassa network did provide some jobs. But it was soon taken over by the jihad industry as the main employment provider for madrassas-trained youths. Other unemployed and ideologically disenchanted teenagers also joined this vicious industry which, at least in Pakistain and Afghanistan, has had disastrous consequences. It seems that the monsters created by this industry -- the Taliban, al Qaeda, Sipah-e-Sahaba et al -- will continue to haunt both nations for quite some time.
Those employed by the jihad industry also want a change, any change and at any cost. They do get it, a permanent change as deaders of a faulty cause and soldiers of radical leaders who have little sympathy for them, or the ones they leave behind when they die.
The cities are growing, slowly but steadily. In Pakistain, officially between 30-40 per cent people live in the cities but unofficial estimates claim that it's higher than 50 per cent. This change, however, does not reflect in electoral rolls. So the rural ruling elite -- the zameendars -- remain the dominant political group in the country.
City dwellers, deprived of their true representations, have little stake in this system. Perhaps that's why even when a popular government is toppled, there's little protest in the cities. In fact, the urban middle class starts opposing an elected government as soon as it is in power.
This also explains the media's hostility towards the PPP government, which often has to face unfair criticism.
Another manifestation of this urban desire for change was seen in the strong support the Paks cities gave to the movement for the restoration of the Chief Justice, as it was supported mainly by the urban middle classes both in Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... .
The Pak Army, once dominated by the feudal families of Punjab and the KP, has also undergone a change in the 1980s when urban middle class youths -- including those from Urdu medium schools -- began to join the military as officers in larger numbers than before. Thus, now the army has many junior and middle rank officers who come from the cities.
Like those in the media, many of them were associated with religious groups like Islami Jaimiat-e-Tulaba when students at least had a religious bent of mind.
But officers with religious backgrounds have been weakened greatly after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the US when the Musharraf regime allied itself with Washington and attempted to root out religious extremism from the military.
This led to a clash between the armed forces and the jihad industry, which hitherto, looked at the army as its chief patron. Now they turned their guns on the army and the clash has already caused tens of thousands of deaths, on both sides, if the civilians killed in these fights are also included.
In 1994, the madrassas bad turbans, who believe that only one of them is fit to lead an Islamic state, got lucky.
Afghanistan became the first state to be ruled by the Sunni clergy. As the events that followed showed, the Taliban were not fit to rule. Power corrupted them. For a group, which traditionally depended on alms from affluent Moslems, even a little power was too much.
The situation in Afghanistan, allowed half-educated madrassas students, known as the Taliban, to takeover the country, with support from Pakistain, Soddy Arabia and others. Initially, the West did not resist this change and even tried to reach out to the Taliban.
Thus, Afghanistan became the first state to be ruled by the Sunni clergy. As the events that followed showed, the Taliban were not fit to rule. Power corrupted them. For a group, which traditionally depended on alms from affluent Moslems, even a little power was too much. So they went berserk. Nothing else explains their strange behavior, such as the restrictions they imposed on women or their determination to take on the entire world.
And so the inevitable happened.
Their so-called honored guest, the late Osama bin Laden, ... he's rotten though not quite forgotten... orchestrated the 9/11 attacks which brought down the twin towers of the World Trade Center, and damaged the Pentagon. The Americans reacted as expected and in two months, the Taliban had to leave Kabul. But, as a US military report released last week said, are still "a determined enemy" that can overrun Kabul if US and NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A collection of multinational and multilingual and multicultural armed forces, all of differing capabilities, working toward a common goal by pulling in different directions... troops leave. The Taliban were not created out of void.
The madrassas serve an important purpose: providing food and some education to those who were denied both -- children of landless peasants. Since they cannot feed them, they send their children to the madrassas where they are given two meals a day, two pairs of clothes and some education which can provide low-level jobs in thousands of mosques across the country.
For the families they come from, even this is a major social accomplishment as it brings both food and some prestige. Some of these madrassas received money from Arab governments eager to fight increasing Iranian influence in non-Arab Moslem countries after Ayatollah Khomeini's revolution. Others received money from affluent Moslems who prefer to give their alms to mosques rather than governments.
Since Sept. 11, the Pak government has, at least apparently, made some efforts to curb the influence of the madrassas but they continue to function and still have a lot of influence in their catchments area.
The appeal of Islam as a remedy to the Moslem world's social and economic ills is not confined to the Taliban. It is also not just a reaction to Western domination or the hold of the Westernised elite over the administrative set up. And it is not confined to the unemployed youths either. For many Moslems, their religion has always had this special appeal.
The distinction between religion and politics is not as obvious in Islam as it is in the West today. Even Moslem poets and thinkers, like Allama Iqbal, have opposed the separation of religion from politics saying, "A political system without religious influence becomes a tyranny." For this Moslems draw inspiration from their history which is full of religious figures opposing despotic secular rulers, often at the risk of their lives.
But the majority, at least in Pakistain, does not agree with this over-emphasis on religion. This religious-political identity festivities with other identities that many Moslems adhere to. Most Paks are well aware of their Islamic identity but their group interests as Punjabis, Sindhis, Pashtun or Baloch are also dear to them. The same goes for Arabs, Iranians, Afghans, Tajiks, Uzbeks or Turks.
Thus being born as Moslems is like being born with many faces. Who are you? A Moslem, a Pak, an Indian, a Bangladeshi, a Punjabi, a Sindhi or a Baloch?
The first identity that of a Moslem, transcends all national and geographical boundaries. Ideally, it may be correct, practically, it is not. A Moslem is also a Pak, an Indian, an Afghan or an Arab. Being a Moslem does not automatically grant him the nationality of all the 56 countries that claim allegiance to Islam.
The moment he wants to travel, even from one Moslem country to another, he or she ceases to be a Moslem and becomes an Egyptian or an Iranian. No Islamic country allows a Moslem to enter its territory on the basis of his or her faith only. And this is where the national identity, which provides the traveler with a passport and a visa, becomes more important than the religious identity.
But, as internal conflicts in many Moslem countries show, even a national identity is not enough. You need to identify yourself with a particular group or place as well, in the case of Pakistain with one of the four provinces. Then there are identities based on a language or race. Sometimes one identity takes precedence over the other. Thus some Moslems living in the West, where they now confront a gradually increasing hostility after 9/11, often get more comfort from their Islamic identity than from their nationality, acquired or native.
Others, particularly Paks, re-discover their regional affiliation too. The first people Paks living in the West often befriend are Indians.
But a Pak living in the Gulf finds it more useful to be a Pak before a Moslem. Here his Pak identity comes before his religious identity. It also comes before his regional identities as a Punjabi or a Pashtun because it provides him strength in dealing with the Arabs who often look down upon him as a Pak, whichever province of Pakistain he is from.
However, those who apply themselves too closely to little things often become incapable of great things... back in Pakistain his Pak identity becomes less important. Now he is more cautious of being a Pashtun, a Punjabi, a Mohajir, a Baloch or a Sindhi. And when he goes to his ancestral district, he has to further divide his identity on ethnic and tribal lines thus becoming a Seraiki speaking Sindhi or a Sindhi speaking Sindhi, a Pashto speaking Baloch or a Balochi speaking Baloch.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
02/08/2012 00:00 ||
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#1
Some of them do understand. How hellish that must be.
...The film Groundhog Day showed us a man who was doomed to repeat the same day over and over again until he learned to use his time to become a better person. Islam has been stuck in its own form of that cycle, repeating the same century over and over again, moving from religious ecstasy to holy war, seeking redemption through religious tyranny, and finding that there was no escaping the internal decay and instability in the veins of its religion.
Islams only redemption lies in establishing a theocracy. Its commitment to power and the indulgence of the earthly and heavenly paradise of loot, slaves and violence led to its own degeneration over and over again. Having no other spiritual form than the exercise of power, it has corrupted itself each time, and then attempted to exorcise the corruption through more of violence.
The Islamic leaders of one generation endorse the tyrants whom the Islamic leaders of another generation strive to overthrow. Hardly had Mohammed kicked the bucket than his nearest and dearest were fighting a civil war over supreme rulership. The origins of the Shiite-Sunni split lay not in theology, but in a vulgar power play between Mohammeds relatives. That greedy infighting has hardened into theological variations, but underneath they remain fixed in the same patterns of warring over power and wealth.
Over a thousand years later the Muslim world is still dedicating all its energies to civil wars and external conflicts whose only true goal is to put money and power into the hands of its leaders. The confrontations between the prominent Shiite families running Iran and the Arab Sunni families running the Arabian gulf states are not theological, though they take place under the guise of theology. They are ethnic and economic conflicts dressed up as religious conflicts.
[Dawn] COMING a day after the massacre by the security forces at Homs, the second Russian-Chinese veto on Saturday seems to have made a diplomatic solution to the Syrian crisis difficult. The Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... plan is in tatters, the possibility of a fresh P-5 consensus appears remote, and President Bashar Al Assad seems determined to stay on, no matter what the cost in terms of blood. Friday's massacre in Homs has been described as the worst of the 'Arab Spring'.
Even though the absence of foreign journalists has made an assessment of the extent of carnage difficult, whatever has emerged confirms that the Syrian army used mortar bombs and artillery on a city called "the heart of the revolution".
People's homes turned into debris or were set ablaze, and there were bodies everywhere. According to Syrian opposition sources, 260 people were killed, with burials taking place at night to avoid sniper firing. The UN had stopped counting the dead after the figure crossed 4,500 in January. But neutral observers say nearly 7,000 people have been killed, while the government claims that 2,000 soldiers have died in festivities with "armed gangs and terrorists" since the trouble began last March.
Russia and China have come under international criticism for vetoing the resolution, which contained elements of the original Arab League plan and had been watered down to accommodate Russian objections. The resolution, voted for by 13 nations, including Pakistain, had been worked out after intense negotiations. It avoided threats of sanctions and arms embargo, much less military intervention, and did not include that part of the AL plan which called upon President Assad to hand over power to his deputy to organise a fresh election. Nevertheless, the motion condemned the government for human rights ...which are usually entirely different from personal liberty... violations, "arbitrary executions", enforced disappearances and the persecution of protesters and media persons. As a sop to Russia and China it appealed to "all parties in Syria, including gangs" to cease violence and reprisals.
It is true western delegates tried to accommodate Russian and Chinese views, but Saturday's failure at the UN is now likely to lead to a diplomatic impasse. While the western governments showed haste in tabling the resolution, Moscow and Beijing were obviously guided less by what is going on in Syria and more by economic and strategic interests in the region. At the same time, one cannot but note the contradiction in the western attitudes. While in Libya, the US and NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all.... managed a military intervention to oust a dictator, they sat idle while foreign forces moved into Bahrain to save the regime and crush a popular uprising.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/08/2012 00:00 ||
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#1
a diplomatic solution to the Syrian crisis difficult
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
IN addition to those living in Pakistain's conflict zones, in recent years the urban citizenry too has become uncomfortably familiar with acts of terrorism. The perpetrators seem to consider no place or occasion off limits. From public areas to places of worship, religious and political gatherings all have at some point come under attack.
[Dawn] The 
The madrassas too met the same fate and ended up adding more people to an already swelling army of the unemployed youths, although the mosque-madrassa network did provide some jobs. But it was soon taken over by the jihad industry as the main employment provider for madrassas-trained youths. Other unemployed and ideologically disenchanted teenagers also joined this vicious industry which, at least in Pakistain and Afghanistan, has had disastrous consequences. It seems that the monsters created by this industry -- the Taliban, al Qaeda, Sipah-e-Sahaba et al -- will continue to haunt both nations for quite some time.
Punjab
Their so-called honored guest, 
Since Sept. 11, the Pak government has, at least apparently, made some efforts to curb the influence of the madrassas but they continue to function and still have a lot of influence in their catchments area.
The first identity that of a 
[Dawn] COMING a day after the massacre by the security forces at Homs, the second Russian-Chinese veto on Saturday seems to have made a diplomatic solution to the Syrian crisis difficult. The 
