Um novo ‘Africanistão‘ na fronteira Sul da Europa?

After years spent waging war on terror in Afghanistan and Iraq, almost $1.5 trillion in direct costs and hundreds of thousands of lives lost, the Western public feels it has learned a hard lesson. It is more convinced than ever that even the best-intentioned foreign intervention is bound to bog its armies down in endless wars fighting invisible enemies to help ungrateful locals.
Echoes of Afghanistan rang loud earlier this month when French forces swooped on advancing columns of Islamists threatening the Saharan state of Mali. And they were heard again, a few days later, when a unit of bearded, gun-toting jihadists from the “Signed-in-Blood Battalion” seized a gas plant and slaughtered dozens of foreigners in next-door Algeria—more than in any single Islamist terror attack since the bombing of a Bali nightclub in 2002. Here, it seemed, was the next front of the global war on terror and also a desert quagmire to entrap vainglorious Western leaders. [...]

Ver artigo da revista Economist

Mali: a conturbada situação geopolítica explicada neste vídeo

A conturbada situação geopolítica no Norte do Mali, onde grupos islamistas e tuaregues separatistas controlam grande parte do terreno, explicada neste interessante vídeo do jornal Le Monde  (ver aqui o vídeo).

Primavera Árabe ou Primavera Islamista? (Parte I – o equívoco das grelhas de leitura ocidentais)

1. As revoltas ou revoluções que as populações de diversos países muçulmanos, da margem Sul do Mediterrâneo, levaram a cabo desde o início de 2011, têm sido  vistas, com excitação mal contida,  por grande parte da imprensa europeia e ocidental. Fala-se, frequentemente, numa  “Primavera Árabe” para as designar. A expressão tem uma boa ressonância para o público europeu. Evoca imagens históricas e acontecimentos quase míticos do seu passado. O apelo desta forma de designar os acontecimentos, está, também, numa certa nostalgia, na recordação de tempos heróicos e de bravura. Nesse passado, cada vez mais distante para os europeus, estes ainda se revoltavam contra a tirania e os seus regimes autoritários. Faziam-no em nome de valores mais grandiosos do que os da lógica hedonista-materialista em que vivem, ou do “valor” da competitividade, que os seus governos lhe dizem ser o único caminho possível para a salvação da crise.

2.  A expressão “Primavera Árabe” é, por isso, uma evocação sublime e tocante de outras "primaveras" europeias. Desde logo, a “Primavera de Praga”, ocorrida na ex-Checoslováquia, no ano 1968, numa revolta contra a opressão e autoritarismo do regime comunista. Esta foi celebrizada na literatura pela obra do escritor checo, Milan Kundera, “A Insustentável Leveza do Ser”, mais tarde adaptada também ao cinema por Philip Kaufman. Foi precursora, em duas décadas, da revolta dos países da Europa Central e de Leste, que levaram à queda do muro de Berlim (1989) e à dissolução do Império Soviético (1991). Todavia, a designação “Primavera de Praga”, um acontecimento da segunda metade século passado, já foi um remake de uma outra Primavera  – a "original"  –, ocorrida no século XIX, a que os historiadores chamaram a “Primavera dos povos” de 1848. Nessa época, desencadeou-se um conjunto de revoltas e revoluções, baseadas num misto de revindicações liberais, democráticas e nacionalistas. Ocorreram em grande parte da Europa e eram dirigidas contra as monarquias tradicionais e os Estados multinacionais, governados por casas reais multiseculares como os Habsburgos do Império Austríaco (mais tarde Austro-Húngaro).

3. Com este quadro mental bem enraizado, o europeu e ocidental interpreta, ainda que o possa fazer de forma inconsciente, a evolução histórica dos outros povos do mundo como decorrendo em direcção a uma finalidade, que é similar à sua própria evolução histórica. Assim, os povos não europeus e não ocidentais – neste caso os árabes –, estarão também destinados, mais tarde ou mais cedo, a ser como nós: a querer a democracia (pluralista e secular), a liberdade (política, de opinião, religiosa, etc.), os direitos humanos (tal como estão inscritos na Declaração Universal das Nações Unidas de 1948). Esta visão teleológica da história, misturada com o wishful thinking de que o rumo dos acontecimentos será no sentido da “boa” evolução da humanidade (pelo menos assim julgam os europeus), levou a imaginar mais uma “primavera”, agora replicada na margem Sul do Mediterrâneo. A questão é saber se este não é um dos mais comuns e enganadores equívocos de leitura dos acontecimentos internacionais, que, em vez de clarificar, não contribuirá, sobretudo, para obscurecer a compreensão de uma realidade que nos é essencialmente estranha. (Fim da Parte I - publicada originalmente a 1/11/2011).

Livro ‘O Islão na Europa face ao Islão Global: Dinâmicas e Desafios‘

Lisboa: 25 de Junho às 18h30
no Grémio Literário, Rua Ivens, 37
Apresentação do livro pelo Dr. Figueiredo Lopes

Porto: 29 de Junho às 21h30 
na Fundação Engenheiro António de Almeida, Rua Tenente Valadim, 231-325
Apresentação do livro pelos jornalistas Carlos Magno e Ricardo Alexandre

Terrorismo islamista: o fim da excepção francesa de ausência de atentados domésticos (cartoon de Laora Paoli na Slate.fr)

La tuerie perpétrée par Mohammed Merah porte un coup sévère à une institution sécuritaire qui se targuait d'avoir tenu la France à l'écart du terrorisme le plus violent. Si les tensions raciales et confessionnelles ont pu déboucher sur de violentes émeutes, Paris n'avait en effet pas connu d'attentats de l'ampleur de ceux de Londres, Madrid ou New York.

Après une série d'attentats dans les années 1980 et 1990, principalement revendiqués par le GIA (Groupe islamiste armé, algérien), les autorités françaises avaient été les premières en Europe à s'intéresser aux violences des extrémistes musulmans, à une époque où les Britanniques se préoccupaient des paramilitaires irlandais et les Espagnols des indépendantistes basques. Cela avait conduit nombre d'organisations islamistes à quitter Paris pour Londres, où les forces de police et de sécurité les laissaient à peu près tranquilles. On estimait alors que cela faciliterait l'infiltration de ces mouvements, et qu'ainsi, les djihadistes locaux ne s'en prendraient pas à leur pays de résidence. Les attentats dans les transports londoniens en juillet 2007 ont prouvé le contraire. Paris et d'autres capitales alliées, dont Washington, avaient d'ailleurs mis en garde contre cette éventualité.

Parallèlement, la France s'était probablement mise temporairement à l'abri en refusant, contrairement au Royaume-Uni et à l'Espagne, de participer à la coalition américaine qui a envahi l'Irak - participation qui, à l'époque, fut le principal argument de radicalisation des jeunes musulmans britanniques, selon Eliza Manningham-Buller, qui dirigeait alors le MI-5 [le service de renseignement intérieur britannique].

Mais le répit français a été de courte durée et la France, en particulier sous la présidence de Nicolas Sarkozy, a adopté une position de plus en plus agressive en matière de lutte antiterroriste. Selon des chiffres publiés l'année dernière par Europol, la police européenne, la France a réalisé 94 des 179 arrestations d'"individus liés au terrorisme islamiste", soit plus de la moitié. Ce qui, selon les termes du gouvernement français, faisait du pays "le premier rempart contre cette menace en Europe". "La méthode préventive à la française paie", insistait le criminologue Alain Bauer, qui conseillait les autorités sur la question de la menace terroriste. [...].

Ver artigo original do The Independent e a tradução francesa do Courrier International

Irmãos Muçulmanos em ascensão no novo Egipto

In post-revolutionary Egypt, where hope and confusion collide in the daily struggle to build a new nation, religion has emerged as a powerful political force, following an uprising that was based on secular ideals. The Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist group once banned by the state, is at the forefront, transformed into a tacit partner with the military government that many fear will thwart fundamental changes.
It is also clear that the young, educated secular activists who initially propelled the nonideological revolution are no longer the driving political force — at least not at the moment.
As the best organized and most extensive opposition movement in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood was expected to have an edge in the contest for influence. But what surprises many is its link to a military that vilified it.
“There is evidence the Brotherhood struck some kind of a deal with the military early on,” said Elijah Zarwan, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group. “It makes sense if you are the military — you want stability and people off the street. The Brotherhood is one address where you can go to get 100,000 people off the street.”
There is a battle consuming Egypt about the direction of its revolution, and the military council that is now running the country is sending contradictory signals. On Wednesday, the council endorsed a plan to outlaw demonstrations and sit-ins. Then, a few hours later, the public prosecutor announced that the former interior minister and other security officials would be charged in the killings of hundreds during the protests.
Egyptians are searching for signs of clarity in such declarations, hoping to discern the direction of a state led by a secretive military council brought to power by a revolution based on demands for democracy, rule of law and an end to corruption.
“We are all worried,” said Amr Koura, 55, a television producer, reflecting the opinions of the secular minority. “The young people have no control of the revolution anymore. It was evident in the last few weeks when you saw a lot of bearded people taking charge. The youth are gone.”[...]

Ver notícia no New York Times

Uma quantidade de disparates sobre o Egipto

"David Cameron has criticized ‘state multiculturalism' in his first speech as prime minister on radicalization and the causes of terrorism.
 "At a security conference in Munich, he argued the U.K. needed a stronger national identity to prevent people turning to all kinds of extremism. He also signaled a tougher stance on groups promoting Islamist extremism. ... As Mr. Cameron outlined his vision, he suggested there would be greater scrutiny of some Muslim groups which get public money but do little to tackle extremism".
 ‘Ministers should refuse to share platforms or engage with such groups, which should be denied access to public funds and barred from spreading their message in universities and prisons,' he argued. ‘Frankly, we need a lot less of the passive tolerance of recent years and much more active, muscular liberalism,' the prime minister said."
For those of us who have been calling for years for the United Kingdom and Europe to become "intolerant" of the radical Islamist threat to our culture, this is a thrilling and gratifying moment.
It is the obligation of both citizen and statesman to avoid both illusion and self-delusion when considering national threats. And so it is ironic that on the same weekend that the British government finally removes the scales from its eyes and looks straight-on at the mortal threat that aggressively asserted Islamist values pose to our civilization, in Egypt - at the constant hectoring of Washington voices - the remnants of the Mubarak government begins its halting, perhaps inevitable march toward the illusion of Egyptian democracy. [...]

Ver artigo no Rear Clear Politics

Leituras na revista Limes: o regresso do sultão à Turquia

Al-Qaeda lança a sua primeira revista de propaganda

"Inspire", le premier magazine de propagande d'Al-Qaida diffusé en anglais, devrait sortir dans les jours ou les semaines qui viennent. Mais l'organisation terroriste, rompue aux techniques modernes de communication, a déjà réussi à en faire le buzz du moment. Un premier aperçu du magazine au format PDF circule sur le Net depuis la semaine dernière. En dehors de la couverture et de la table des matières, l'essentiel des 67 pages est crypté.

Pour l'heure, seuls des djihadistes confirmés et quelques chercheurs ont eu accès au document en version intégrale sur des forums islamistes sécurisés. L'universitaire Mathieu Guidère fait partie de ceux-là. Selon lui, cette revue entièrement en anglais marque un véritable "tournant" dans la communication et la stratégie de recrutement d'Al-Qaida. [...]

Ver notícia no Le Monde

Leituras: ‘A Fuga dos Intelectuais‘ de Paul Berman

‘A república do medo na Turquia‘ in Wall Street Journal

por Soner Cagaptay

Last week's arrests in Turkey of dozens of high-ranking military officers mark the country's latest step toward authoritarianism. Neither Europe nor the United States can afford to ignore Turkey's transformation.

Since coming to power in 2002, the ruling Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) and ultra-conservative Fethullah Gulen Movement have gained significant leverage over the police and media. Emulating Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, the AKP has made selective use of the legal code to effectively silence the country's two largest independent media groups.

Dogan, which owns about half of the media outlets in the country, faces a record $3.5 billion fine on delayed tax payments. Liberal media mogul Mehmet Emin Karamehmet has been sentenced to 12 years in jail on charges related to dealings at his bank for which he was earlier acquitted. Editors now think twice before running stories critical of the government.

Until recently, the judiciary and the military were able to keep government excesses in check. That apparent equilibrium between Islamists and secularists was shattered a few weeks ago, when Gulenist papers published a 5,000-page memo allegedly written by military officers planning a coup.

U.S. diplomats I have talked to and Turkish analysts say that if the military really had planned to overthrow the government, it would have hardly written it down in a detailed 5,000 page document. The idea that the military would bomb Istanbul's historic mosques and shoot down its own planes to precipitate such a coup—as the alleged memo describes—is simply outlandish. The military denies any plans for toppling the government and says much of the document is actually taken from a 2003 war game exercise. It says that the incriminating elements detailing the alleged coup were added to the document.

For the past two years, the Turkish military has been the target of illegal wiretaps and accusations that it is plotting against the government. The question is whether the military will tolerate the assault or strike back, as it has done in the past when it thought the secular nature of the state was threatened.

The Islamist government has also targeted Turkey's other secular bastion—the judiciary. Last month, a Gulenist prosecutor arrested a secular prosecutor in Erzincan. He was officially charged with belonging to an ultranationalist gang known as Ergenekon, which the Gulenists and AKP claim is trying to overthrow the government. Whether that's true or not, there is no doubt the arrest solved a lot of problems for the government. Before his arrest, the Erzincan prosecutor was investigating alleged connections between Gulenist fund raising and Chechen and Hamas terrorists. He was also looking into the armed activities of Ismailaga, a radical Islamist movement.

The Gulenists and the AKP are further targeting the courts by appointing a disproportionate number of Gulenist jurists, thus eroding the secular nature of the judiciary. And the courts seem to have been wiretapped as well. According to media reports, the police have bugged over 130 top judges and prosecutors, as well as the high court of appeals. This is not that hard to believe, given that the justice minister admitted in 2009 that the police have wiretapped 70,000 people.

What is the way forward for Turkey? A military coup isn't the answer and a court ban against the AKP would likely backfire, boosting the party's popularity. The next general elections are scheduled for 2011, but by that time the cards might be stacked too much in favor of the governing parties. That's why the West should press for elections that are free and democratic. The next elections won't be fair if the Turkish media are not independent and if Turks fear that they live in a police state that wiretaps its judiciary and citizens.

Hoping to win Ankara's support for tougher Iran sanctions and more troops in Afghanistan, the U.S. and Europe have so far been hesitant to criticize the AKP-led government. The "pragmatists" fail to realize that an illiberal and Islamist Turkey will be increasingly opposed to Western policies.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704187204575101820058883004.html

Islamistas radicais ‘infiltraram-se‘ no Partido Trabalhista britânico in Telegraph

The Islamic Forum of Europe (IFE) — which believes in jihad and sharia law, and wants to turn Britain and Europe into an Islamic state — has placed sympathisers in elected office and claims, correctly, to be able to achieve “mass mobilisation” of voters.

Speaking to The Sunday Telegraph, Jim Fitzpatrick, the Environment Minister, said the IFE had become, in effect, a secret party within Labour and other political parties.

“They are acting almost as an entryist organisation, placing people within the political parties, recruiting members to those political parties, trying to get individuals selected and elected so they can exercise political influence and power, whether it’s at local government level or national level,” he said.

“They are completely at odds with Labour’s programme, with our support for secularism.”

Mr Fitzpatrick, the MP for Poplar and Canning Town, said the IFE had infiltrated and “corrupted” his party in east London in the same way that the far-Left Militant Tendency did in the 1980s. Leaked Labour lists show a 110 per cent rise in party membership in one constituency in two years.

In a six-month investigation by this newspaper and Channel 4’s Dispatches, involving weeks of covert filming by the programme’s reporters:

• IFE activists boasted to the undercover reporters that they had already “consolidated … a lot of influence and power” over Tower Hamlets, a London borough council with a £1 billion budget.
• We have established that the group and its allies were awarded more than £10 million of taxpayers’ money, much of it from government funds designed to “prevent violent extremism”.
• IFE leaders were recorded expressing opposition to democracy, support for sharia law or mocking black people. The IFE organised meetings with extremists, including Taliban allies, a man named by the US government as an “unindicted co-conspirator” in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and a man under investigation by the FBI for his links to the September 11 attacks.
• Moderate Muslims in London told how the IFE and its allies were enforcing their hardline views on the rest of the local community, curbing behaviour they deemed “un-Islamic”. The owner of a dating agency received a threatening email from an IFE activist, warning her to close it.
• George Galloway, a London MP, admitted in recordings obtained by this newspaper that his surprise victory in the 2005 election owed more to the IFE “than it would be wise – for them – for me to say, adding that they played a “decisive role” in his triumph at the polls.

Mr Galloway now says they were one of many groups which supported his anti-war stance and had never sought to influence him.

The IFE has particularly close links to Tower Hamlets council. Seven serving and former councillors said Lutfur Rahman, the current council leader, gained his post with the group’s help.

Some said they were canvassed by a senior IFE official on his behalf. After Mr Rahman was elected, a man with close links to the group, Lutfur Ali, was appointed assistant chief executive of the council with responsibility for grant funding.

This was despite a chequered employment record, a misleading CV and a negative report from the headhunters appointed to consider the candidates. The council’s white chief executive was subsequently forced from his post.

Since Mr Rahman became leader, more council grants have been paid to a number of organisations which our investigation established are closely linked to the IFE.

Funding for other, secular groups was ended or cut. In the borough’s well-known Brick Lane area, council funds were switched from a largely secular heritage trail to a highly controversial “hijab sculpture”, angering many residents who accused the council of “religious triumphalism”.

Schools in Tower Hamlets are told by the council should close for the Muslim festival of Eid, even where most of their pupils are not Muslim.

Mr Rahman refused to deny that an IFE activist had canvassed councillors on his behalf. He said: “There are various people across Tower Hamlets who get excited, who get involved.”

He would not comment on concerns about infiltration, saying they were “party matters”. He said: “If you look at our flagship policies, like investing £20 million to tackle overcrowding, you can see that we are working for everyone.”

The IFE said it did not seek to influence the council and had not lobbied for Mr Rahman. “If anything, existing members of the Labour Party have joined the IFE, rather than the other way round,” it said.

The group insisted it was not a fundamentalist or extremist organisation and did not support violence.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/labour/7333420/Islamic-radicals-infiltrate-the-Labour-Party.html

‘Os mártires modernos do Cristianismo‘ in Der Spiegel

The rise of Islamic extremism is putting increasing pressure on Christians in Muslim countries, who are the victims of murder, violence and discrimination. Christians are now considered the most persecuted religious group around the world. Paradoxically, their greatest hope could come from moderate political Islam.

Kevin Ang is cautious these days. He glances around, taking a look to the left down the long row of stores, then to the right toward the square, to check that no one is nearby. Only then does the church caretaker dig out his key, unlock the gate, and enter the Metro Tabernacle Church in a suburb of Kuala Lumpur.

The draft of air stirs charred Bible pages. The walls are sooty and the building smells of scorched plastic. Metro Tabernacle Church was the first of 11 churches set on fire by angry Muslims -- all because of one word. "Allah," Kevin Ang whispers.

It began with a question -- should Christians here, like Muslims, be allowed to call their god "Allah," since they don't have any other word or language at their disposal? The Muslims claim Allah for themselves, both the word and the god, and fear that if Christians are allowed to use the same word for their own god, it could lead pious Muslims astray.

For three years there was a ban in place and the government confiscated Bibles that mentioned "Allah." Then on Dec. 31 last year, Malaysia's highest court reached a decision: The Christian God could also be called Allah.

Imams protested and disgruntled citizens threw Molotov cocktails at churches. Then, on top of everything, Prime Minister Najib Razak stated that he couldn't stop people who might protest against specific developments in the country -- and some took that as an invitation to violent action. First churches burned, then the other side retaliated with pigs' heads placed in front of two mosques. Sixty percent of Malaysians are Muslims and 9 percent Christians, with the rest made up by Hindus, Buddhists, and Sikhs. They managed to live together well, until now.

It's a battle over a single word, but it's also about much more than that. The conflict has to do with the question of what rights the Christian minority in Malaysia is entitled to. Even more than that, it's a question of politics. The ruling United Malays National Organization is losing supporters to Islamist hardliners -- and wants to win them back with religious policies.

Those policies are receiving a receptive welcome. Some of Malaysia's states interpret Sharia, the Islamic system of law and order, particularly strictly. The once liberal country is on the way to giving up freedom of religion -- and what constitutes order is being defined ever more rigidly. If a Muslim woman drinks beer, she can be punished with six cane strokes. Some regions similarly forbid such things as brightly colored lipstick, thick make-up, or shoes with clattering high heels.

Expelled, Abducted and Murdered

Not only in Malaysia, but in many countries through the Muslim world, religion has gained influence over governmental policy in the last two decades. The militant Islamist group Hamas controls the Gaza Strip, while Islamist militias are fighting the governments of Nigeria and the Philippines. Somalia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen have fallen to a large extent into the hands of Islamists. And where Islamists are not yet in power, secular governing parties are trying to outstrip the more religious groups in a rush to the right.

This can be seen in Egypt, Algeria, Sudan, Indonesia to some extent, and also Malaysia. Even though this Islamization often has more to do with politics than with religion, and even though it doesn't necessarily lead to the persecution of Christians, it can still be said that where Islam gains importance, freedoms for members of other faiths shrink.

There are 2.2 billion Christians around the world. The Christian non-governmental organization Open Doors calculates that 100 million of them are being threatened or persecuted. They aren't allowed to build churches, buy Bibles or obtain jobs. That's the more harmless form of discrimination and it affects the majority of these 100 million Christians. The more brutal version sees them blackmailed, robbed, expelled, abducted or even murdered.

Bishop Margot Kässmann, who was head of the Protestant Church in Germany before stepping down on Feb. 24, believes Christians are "the most frequently persecuted religious group globally." Germany's 22 regional churches have proclaimed this coming Sunday to be the first commemoration day for persecuted Christians. Kässmann said she wanted to show solidarity with fellow Christians who "have great difficulty living out their beliefs freely in countries such as Indonesia, India, Iraq or Turkey."

There are counterexamples as well, of course. In Lebanon and Syria, Christians are not discriminated against, and in fact play an important role in politics and society. And the persecution of Christian is by no means the domain of fanatical Muslims alone -- Christians are also imprisoned, abused and murdered in countries such as Laos, Vietnam, China and Eritrea.

'Creeping Genocide' against Christians

Open Doors compiles a global "persecution index." North Korea, where tens of thousands of Christians are serving time in work camps, has topped the list for many years. North Korea is followed, though, by Iran, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, the Maldives and Afghanistan. Of the first 10 countries on the list, eight are Islamic, and almost all have Islam as their state religion.

The systematic persecution of Christians in the 20th century -- by Communists in the Soviet Union and China, but also by Nazis -- claimed far more lives than anything that has happened so far in the 21st century. Now, however, it is not only totalitarian regimes persecuting Christians, but also residents of Islamic states, fanatical fundamentalists, and religious sects -- and often simply supposedly pious citizens.

Gone is the era of tolerance, when Christians enjoyed a large degree of religious freedom under the protection of Muslim sultans as so-called "People of the Book" while at the same time medieval Europe was banishing its Jews and Muslims from the continent or even burning them at the stake. Also gone is the heyday of Arab secularism following World War II, when Christian Arabs advanced through the ranks of politics.

As political Islam grew stronger, devout believers' aggression focused not only on corrupt local regimes, but also more and more on the ostensibly corrupting influence of Western Christians, for which local Christian minorities were held accountable. A new trend began, this time with Christians as the victims.

In Iraq, for example, Sunni terrorist groups prey specifically on people of other religions. The last Iraqi census in 1987 showed 1.4 million Christians living in the country. At the start of the American invasion in 2003, it was 550,000, and at present it is just under 400,000. Experts speak of a "creeping genocide."

'People Are Scared Out of Their Minds'

The situation in the region around the city of Mosul in northern Iraq is especially dramatic. The town of Alqosh lies high in the mountains above Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city. Bassam Bashir, 41, can see his old hometown when he looks out his window there. Mosul is only 40 kilometers (25 miles) away, but inaccessible. The city is more dangerous than Baghdad, especially for men like Bassam Bashir, a Chaldean Catholic, teacher and fugitive within his own country.

Since the day in August 2008 when a militia abducted his father from his shop, Bashir has had to fear for his and his family's lives. Police found his father's corpse two days later in the Sinaa neighborhood on the Tigris River, the body perforated with bullet holes. There was no demand for ransom. Bashir's father died for the simple reason that he was Christian.

And no one claims to have seen anything. "Of course they saw something," Bashir says. "But people in Mosul are scared out of their minds."

One week later, militiamen slit the throat of Bashir's brother Tarik like a sacrificial lamb. "I buried my brother myself," Bashir explains. Together with his wife Nafa and their two daughters, he fled to Alqosh the same day. The city is surrounded by vineyards and an armed Christian militia guards the entrance.

Tacit State Approval

Bashir's family members aren't the only ones who came to Alqosh as the series of murders in Mosul continued. Sixteen Christians were killed the next week, and bombs exploded in front of churches. Men in passing cars shouted at Christians that they had a choice -- leave Mosul or convert to Islam. Out of over 1,500 Christian families in the city, only 50 stayed. Bassam Bashir says he won't return until he can mourn for his father and brother in peace. Others who gave up hope entirely fled to neighboring countries like Jordan and even more to Syria.

In many Islamic countries, Christians are persecuted less brutally than in Iraq, but often no less effectively. In many cases, the persecution has the tacit approval of the government. In Algeria, for example, it takes the form of newspapers reporting that a priest tried to convert Muslims or insulted the Prophet Mohammed -- and publishing the cleric's address, in a clear call to vigilante justice. Or a public television station might broadcast programs with titles like "In the Clutches of Ignorance," which describe Christians as Satanists who convert Muslims with the help of drugs. This happened in Uzbekistan, which ranks tenth on Open Doors' "persecution index."

Blasphemy is another frequently used allegation. Insulting the core values of Islam is a punishable offense in many Islamic countries. The allegation is often used against the opposition, whether that means journalists, dissidents or Christians. Imran Masih, for example, a Christian shopkeeper in Faisalabad, Pakistan, was given a life sentence on Jan. 11, according to sections 295 A and B of Pakistan's legal code, which covers the crime of outraging religious feelings by desecrating the Koran. A neighboring shopkeeper had accused him of burning pages from the Koran. Masih says that he only burned old business records.

It's a typical case for Pakistan, where the law against blasphemy seems to invite abuse -- it's an easy way for anyone to get rid of an enemy. Last year, 125 Christians were charged with blasphemy in Pakistan. Dozens of those already sentenced are on death row.

'We Don't Feel Safe Here'

Government-tolerated persecution occurs even in Turkey, the most secular and modern country in the Muslim world, where around 110,000 Christians make up less than a quarter of 1 percent of the population -- but are discriminated against nonetheless. The persecution is not as open or as brutal as what happens in neighboring Iraq, but the consequences are similar. Christians in Turkey, who numbered well over 2 million people in the 19th century, are fighting for their continued existence.

It's happening in the southeast of the country, for example, in Tur Abdin, whose name means "mountain of God's servants." It's a hilly region full of fields, chalk cliffs, and centuries-old monasteries many. It's home to the Syrian Orthodox Assyrians, or Aramaeans as they call themselves, members of one of the oldest Christian groups in the world. According to legend, the Three Wise Men brought the Christian belief system here from Bethlehem. The inhabitants of Tur Abdin still speak Aramaic, the language used by Jesus of Nazareth.

The world is much more familiar with the genocide committed against the Armenians by Ottoman troops in 1915 and 1916, but tens of thousands of Assyrians were also murdered during World War I. Half a million Assyrians are said to have lived in Tur Abdin at the beginning of the 20th century. Today there are barely 3,000. A Turkish district court threatened last year to appropriate the Assyrians' spiritual center, the 1,600-year-old Mor Gabriel monastery, because the monks were believed to have acquired land unlawfully. Three neighboring Muslim villages had complained they felt discriminated against by the monastery, which houses four monks, 14 nuns, and 40 students behind its walls.

"Even if it doesn't want to admit it, Turkey has a problem with people of other faiths," says Ishok Demir, a young Swiss man with Aramaean roots, who lives with his parents near Mor Gabriel. "We don't feel safe here."

More than anything, that has to do with the permanent place Armenians, Assyrians, Greeks, Catholics and Protestants have in the country's nationalistic conspiracy theories. Those groups have always been seen as traitors, nonbelievers, spies and people who insult the Turkish nation. According to a survey carried out by the US-based Pew Research Center, 46 percent of Turks see Christianity as a violent religion. In a more recent Turkish study, 42 percent of those surveyed wouldn't accept Christians as neighbors.

The repeated murders of Christians come, then, as no surprise. In 2006, for example, a Catholic priest was shot in Trabzon on the Black Sea coast. In 2007, three Christian missionaries were murdered in Malatya, a city in eastern Turkey. The perpetrators were radical nationalists, whose ideology was a mixture of exaggerated patriotism, racism and Islam.

Converts in Grave Danger

In even graver danger than traditional Christians, however, are Muslims who have converted to Christianity. Apostasy, or the renunciation of Islam, is punishable by death according to Islamic law -- and the death penalty still applies in Iran, Yemen, Afghanistan, Somalia, Mauritania, Pakistan, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

Even in Egypt, a secular country, converts draw the government's wrath. The religion minister defended the legality of the death penalty for converts -- although Egypt doesn't even have such a law -- with the argument that renunciation of Islam amounts to high treason. Such sentiments drove Mohammed Hegazy, 27, a convert to the Coptic Orthodox Church, into hiding two years ago. He was the first convert in Egypt to try to have his new religion entered officially onto his state-issued identity card. When he was refused, he went public. Numerous clerics called for his death in response.

Copts make up the largest Christian community in the Arab world and around 8 million Egyptians belong to the Coptic Church. They're barred from high government positions, diplomatic service and the military, as well as from many state benefits. Universities have quotas for Coptic students considerably lower than their actual percentage within the population.

Building new churches isn't allowed, and the old ones are falling into disrepair thanks to a lack both of money and authorization to renovate. When girls are kidnapped and forcibly converted, the police don't intervene. Thousands of pigs were also slaughtered under the pretense of confining swine flu. Naturally all were owned by Christians.

The Christian Virus

Six Copts were massacred on Jan. 6 -- when Coptic celebrate Christmas Eve -- in Nag Hammadi, a small city 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of the Valley of the Kings. Predictably, the speaker of the People's Assembly, the lower house of the Egyptian parliament, called it an "individual criminal act." When he added that the perpetrators wanted to revenge the rape of a Muslim girl by a Copt, it almost sounded like an excuse. The government seems ready to admit to crime in Egypt, but not to religious tension. Whenever clashes between religious groups occur, the government finds very secular causes behind them, such as arguments over land, revenge for crimes or personal disputes.

Nag Hammadi, with 30,000 residents, is a dusty trading town on the Nile. Even before the murders, it was a place where Christians and Muslims mistrusted one another. The two groups work together and have houses near each other, but they live, marry and die separately. Superstition is widespread and the Muslims, for example, fear they could catch the "Christian virus" by eating together with a Copt. It comes as no surprise that these murders occurred in Nag Hammadi, nor that they were followed by the country's worst religious riots in years. Christian shops and Muslim houses were set on fire, and 28 Christians and 14 Muslims were arrested.

Nag Hammadi is now sealed off, with armed security forces in black uniforms guarding roads in and out of the city. They make sure no residents leave the city and no journalists enter it.

Three presumed perpetrators have since been arrested. All of them have prior criminal records. One admitted to the crime, but then recanted, saying he had been coerced by the intelligence service. The government seems to want the affair to disappear as quickly as possible. The alleged murderers will likely be set free again as soon as the furor has blown over.

More Rights for Christians?

But there are also a few small indications that the situation of embattled Christians in Islamic countries could improve -- depending on the extent that nationalism and the radicalization of political Islam subsides again.

One of the contradictions of the Islamic world is that the best chances for Christians seem to crop up precisely where a major player actually comes from the political Islam camp. In Turkey it is Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a former Islamist and now the country's prime minister, who has promised Turkey's few remaining Christians more rights. He points to the history of the Ottoman Empire, in which Christians and Jews long had to pay a special tax, but in exchange, were granted freedom of religion and lived as respected fellow citizens.

A more relaxed attitude to its minorities would certainly signify progress for Turkey.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,druck-680349,00.html

‘Escritórios do Jyllands-Posten iam ser alvo de atentado terrorista com camião‘ in Politiken

U.S. prosecutors have released an extended indictment in the case against two men charged with conspiracy against the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, suggesting that the newspaper’s offices in Denmark were to have been the target of a truck bomb attack.

Jyllands-Posten was the Danish newspaper that originally commissioned and printed cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed which angered many Muslims. One of the cartoonists, Kurt Westegaard, has recently been the target of an attack on his life. A 28-year-old Somali is currently on remand in Denmark on attempted murder charges.

Two detained in U.S.
In the U.S. case involving the newspaper, two men are currently in custody in Chicago charged with having planned the attack – a Pakistani-American David Headley and a Pakistani-Canadian Rana Tahawwur. Headley, whose name was Daood Gilani before changing his name, is said to be helping U.S. agencies.

The extended case now also includes in absentia charges against the head of the al-Qaeda affiliated Pakistani terrorist group Harakat ul-Jihad-I-Islami, Ilyas Kashmiri. Kashmiri is currently believed to be in Waziristan, and is said to have been the bankroller and mastermind of the planned attack.

Central to the charges are scouting trips made by Headley to the newspaper’s offices in Copenhagen and Århus, as well as Headley’s alleged involvement in extended scouting trips to Mumbai in India to determine targets and locations for the November 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks in which more than 160 people died.

Video spying
The indictment describes how Kashmiri had closely studied video footage taken by Headley in January 2009, including sequences from the Jyllands-Posten offices in Copenhagen and Århus. At a meeting in February 2009 in Pakistan, Headley is alleged to have been told by Kashmiri that he had contacts in Europe who could provide funding, weapons and men in order to carry out the attacks.

At the same time, Kashmiri is reported to have suggested that the group should consider carrying out the attack using a lorry filled with explosives.

Europe
Armed with contact details to Kashmiri’s contacts, Headley is then said to have travelled from Chicago to various European destinations to meet contacts, and for a further visit to Denmark to scout the Jyllands-Posten locations.

The U.S. charges also include suggestions that Kashmiri had been urged to arrange an attack on Denmark by a senior al-Qaeda leader Sheikh Saeed al-Masri, aka Mustafa Abu al-Yazid and who is said to have been the financial head of al-Qaeda.

Following the Danish embassy bombing in Islamabad in June 2008, al-Masri appeared in a video in which he claimed the attack had been carried out by a Saudi al-Qaeda operative, and urged further attacks on Denmark in connection with the cartoon issue and Denmark's involvement in the international force in Afghanistan.

Kashmiri is said to have passed the task of scouting Denmark on to Headley, who was to carry out the same type of intelligence gathering as he is alleged to have done for the Mumbai attacks.

Not guilty
Tahawwur Rana, who is said to be a close friend of Headley from their time at a Pakistani academy, has denied all charges against him.

On his arrest, the FBI says that Headley initially admitted that he and Pakistani terrorist groups had been planning an attack on the Jyllands-Posten newspaper.

Recently, however, he denied all charges during his court appearance in Chicago.

http://politiken.dk/newsinenglish/article880501.ece

‘Iémen: um imam estará ligado aos ataques de Fort Hood et do voo 253‘ in Le Monde

L´imam Anwar al-Aulaqi serait lié à la fusillade de la base militaire américaine de Fort Hood en novembre ainsi qu'à l'attentat raté contre le vol Amsterdam-Detroit du 25 décembre, a indiqué dimanche 3 janvier le conseiller anti-terroriste du président Barack Obama.

Anwar al-Aulaqi, un prédicateur musulman né aux Etats-Unis mais qui vit aujourd'hui au Yémen, "nous pose problème. Il essaie de fomenter des actes terroristes" a déclaré à la chaîne de télévision CNN ce conseiller, John Brennan. "Selon certains éléments, Aulaqi a été en contact direct avec [Abdul Farouk] Abdulmutallab", le Nigérian poursuivi pour avoir voulu faire sauter le vol 253 de la compagnie américaine Northwest Airlines, a-t-il ajouté.

Le nom de l'imam Anwar al-Aulaqi a déjà été cité dans la fusillade qui a fait 13 morts et 42 blessés le 5 novembre à Fort Hood (Texas, sud), la plus grande base de l'armée américaine. Le tireur, le psychiatre militaire Nidal Hasan, avait évoqué en 2008 le meurtre d'Américains avec l'imam, a raconté récemment ce dernier à la presse, soulignant qu'ils se connaissaient depuis neuf ans.

"Mon avis est que le major Hasan a réalisé tout seul cet attentat" mais qu'"il a été inspiré par le genre de discours de personnes comme Aulaqi", a ajouté le conseiller présidentiel. M. Brennan a toutefois refusé de qualifier la fusillade de Fort Hood d'attentat terroriste. "Nous continuons à enquêter là-dessus", a-t-il précisé.

http://www.lemonde.fr/ameriques/article/2010/01/03/yemen-un-imam-serait-lie-aux-attentats-de-fort-hood-et-du-vol-253_1287015_3222.html#ens_id=1262453

‘Ataque terrorista de Detroit: uma ideologia criminosa tolerada por demasiado tempo‘ in Telegraph

Friday's attempt to blow up a transatlantic airliner by a British-educated Islamist was foiled by the bravery of its passengers and crew. We cannot assume that we will be lucky next time. And the indications are that there will be a next time. According to police sources, 25 British-born Muslims are currently in Yemen being trained in the art of bombing planes. But most of these terrorists did not acquire their crazed beliefs in the Islamic world: they were indoctrinated in Britain. Indeed, thousands of young British Muslims support the use of violence to further the Islamist cause – and this despite millions of pounds poured by the Government into projects designed to prevent Islamic extremism.

Is it time for a fundamental rethink of Britain's attitude towards domestic Islamism? Consider this analogy. Suppose that, in several London universities, Right‑wing student societies were allowed to invite neo-Nazi speakers to address teenagers. Meanwhile, churches in poor white neighbourhoods handed over their pulpits to Jew-hating admirers of Adolf Hitler, called for the execution of homosexuals, preached the intellectual inferiority of women, and blessed the murder of civilians. What would the Government do? It would bring the full might of the criminal law against activists indoctrinating young Britons with an inhuman Nazi ideology – and the authorities that let them. Any public servants complicit in this evil would be hounded from their jobs.

Jihadist Islamism is also a murderous ideology, comparable to Nazism in many respects. The British public realises this; so do the intelligence services. Yet because it arises out of a worldwide religion – most of whose followers are peaceful – politicians and the public sector shrink from treating its ideologues as criminal supporters of violence. Instead, the Government throws vast sums of money at the Muslim community in order to ensure that what is effectively a civil war between extremists and moderates is won by the latter. This policy – supported by all the main political parties – does not seem to be working. The authorities, lacking specialist knowledge, sometimes turn for advice to "moderate" Muslims who have extreme sympathies; supporters of al-Qaeda are paid to disseminate their ideology to young people.

Radical Islamist leaders are not stupid: they know how to play this system. The indoctrination of students carries on under the noses of public servants who are terrified of being labelled Islamophobic or racist. Therefore they fail to do their duty, which is to protect Muslims and non-Muslims alike from a terrorist ideology. If providing that protection requires fewer "consultations" with "community leaders" and more arrests, then so be it.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/6903728/Detroit-terror-attack-A-murderous-ideology-tolerated-for-too-long.html

‘Detidos dois homens que preparavam atentado contra o jornal Jyllands-Posten‘ in Courrier International

Grâce à l'efficacité de la police, deux hommes soupçonnés de préparer des actions terroristes contre Jyllands-Posten ont été arrêtés aux Etats-Unis. En attendant la décision judiciaire, il convient de rappeler le fond de cette affaire.

Les premières menaces de mort à l'encontre du quotidien danois Jyllands-Posten qui avait publié "les visages de Mahomet" datent de l'automne 2005. Elles ont continué en flux régulier pour culminer début 2006. Puis, en février 2008, un attentat projeté par trois musulmans contre Kurt Westergaard [l'un des caricaturistes] a été déjoué, tandis que, quelques mois plus tard, l'ambassade du Danemark au Pakistan faisait l'objet d'une attaque terroriste qui tua plusieurs personnes. Un groupe lié à Al-Qaida revendiqua cette action en déclarant qu'il s'agissait de représailles après la nouvelle publication du dessin de Kurt Westergaard dans les journaux danois et que, par ailleurs, les actes terroristes continueraient tant que le Danemark n'aurait pas puni les responsables et donné l'assurance que ce genre d'événement ne se reproduirait plus.

Terrorisme et intimidation se combinent ainsi pour inciter les gens à modifier leur comportement dans le sens souhaité par les auteurs de ces menaces. Cela s'est déjà vu sous l'Occupation. C'est ce qui se passe dans le monde musulman lorsque des minorités ethniques et religieuses sont persécutées ou partout ailleurs quand des opposants à tel ou tel régime sont menacés d'emprisonnement ou subissent la torture. Mais c'est aussi ce qui se passe lorsque des médias jugés trop critiques sont censurés, voire carrément interdits.

Les auteurs des menaces et des actions préparées contre Jyllands-Posten n'ont pas apprécié la publication des caricatures de Mahomet. Ils ont exigé leur interdiction et tenté d'intimider la population danoise. Malheureusement - mais il fallait s'y attendre -, certains ont pointé du doigt le journal comme étant responsable des menaces terroristes visant le Danemark. C'est une erreur. Et rien ne peut justifier le recours à la violence et aux menaces contre des citoyens exerçant les droits que leur garantit la Constitution. Il s'agit d'un principe qu'il nous faut absolument préserver au nom de la liberté et de la sécurité.

L'Histoire nous enseigne en effet que, si l'on commence à céder à la terreur et aux menaces, celles-ci ne vont pas diminuer. Bien au contraire, elles ne feront que redoubler car, lorsqu'un individu, un média ou une société cèdent à l'intimidation, cela prouve aux terroristes que leurs actes odieux et méprisables ont eu l'effet souhaité.

L'arme la plus efficace contre les menaces terroristes, c'est donc de montrer que nous ne sommes pas disposés à céder sur les principes qui assurent notre liberté et notre prospérité. Nous signifions ainsi clairement aux adversaires de la liberté d'expression qu'en dépit de leurs actes et de leurs tentatives d'intimidation nous continuerons d'agir comme nous l'avons toujours fait - voire nous pratiquerons la dérision et le mépris.

Certains n'approuvent pas cette attitude car nous vivons à une époque où une nouvelle forme de fondamentalisme menace la liberté. Il ne s'agit pas de fondamentalisme religieux ou politique. Non, ce qui constitue la plus grave menace contre la liberté, c'est le fondamentalisme de l'outrage. C'est un courant de pensée selon lequel quiconque a subi un outrage a le droit de réagir violemment. Ce fondamentalisme-là sert de fil conducteur aux nombreuses tentatives pour limiter la liberté d'expression dont nous sommes témoins ces temps-ci. Il est grand temps de tirer la sonnette d'alarme.

http://www.courrierinternational.com/article/2009/10/29/ou-l-on-reparle-du-jyllands-posten-et-des-caricatures-de-mahomet

‘Atentado suicida contra os guardas revolucionários iranianos provoca três dezenas de mortos‘ in Times

A suicide attack targeting Iran’s Revolutionary Guards killed about 31 people, including at least five senior commanders, Iranian state television said.

More than two dozen were wounded in the attack, which the local prosecutor blamed on a Sunni rebel group in Iran’s restless southeast region near the border with Pakistan.

The Jundollah, or Soldiers of God — ethnic Baluch Sunni insurgents who have been blamed for previous attacks in the region — have claimed responsibility for the attack.

However, a statement from the Guards has accused America and its allies, including Britain, of complicity.

“Surely foreign elements, particularly those linked to the global arrogance, were involved in this attack,” said the statement, reported on the English-language Press TV. Iran often uses the term “global arrogance” to refer to the United States.

The US rejected the accusation as "completely false", and condemned the bombing.

The state broadcaster IRIB said that the bombing happened this morning at the entrance to a sports complex in Sarbaz in Sistan-Baluchestan, a province that is the scene of frequent clashes between security forces, Sunni rebels and drug traffickers.

Guards representatives were due to meet local tribal leaders to promote unity between Sunnis and Shias.

Press TV said that the bomber approached the Guards on foot and detonated his suicide bomb vest. A number of civilians were among the dead.

News agencies named the most high-ranking casualties as the deputy head of the Guards’ ground forces, General Nourali Shoushtari, and the Guards’ commander in Sistan-Baluchestan province, General Mohammadzadeh. General Shoushtari was also a senior official of the Guard’s elite Qods Force, reports said.

It was the most severe attack on the Guards in recent years and underlined deepening instability in the southeastern region bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The Revolutionary Guards is an elite and politically influential military conglomerate seen as fiercely loyal to the values of the 1979 Islamic revolution. Numbering 120,000 troops with its own ground, naval and air units, its duties include handling security in sensitive border areas and control of Iran’s missile system programme.

It also commands vast financial resources and has stakes in many sectors of the Iranian economy, ranging from oil and gas to telecoms and farming.

Jundollah has an escalating history of violence, claiming responsibility for a bomb attack on a Shia mosque in Sistan-Baluchestan province in May that killed 25 people. Thirteen members of the faction were convicted of the bombing and hanged in July.

In 2007 the group abducted nine Iranian soldiers in the same region, demanding that Tehran free 16 imprisoned members of the group.

Iran has accused the US of backing Jundollah in order to create instability in the country. Washington denies the charge. Jundollah says that it is fighting for the rights of the Islamic Republic’s minority Sunnis.

Iran, a predominantly Shia country, also claims that there are links between Jundollah and the al-Qaeda network. Most people in Sistan-Baluchestan are Sunnis and ethnic Baluchis. Iran rejects allegations by Western rights groups that it discriminates against ethnic and religious minorities.

The fresh outbreak of internal unrest comes at a time when the Islamic Republic is being tested politically by a reform movement that refuses to go away. Mir Hossein Mousavi, the Iran opposition leader, pledged today that Iran’s reform movement would continue, despite harsh judicial reprisals by the State, and made a fresh plea for prisoners to be released.

“Our people are not rioters. Reforms will continue as long as people’s demands are not met,” Mr Mousavi’s website quoted him as saying.

Mr Mousavi was defeated in the presidential elections on June 12. He and other moderates claim that the vote was rigged to secure the re-election of hardline President Ahmadinejad. Iranian authorities deny the allegation.

More than 100 people, including former senior officials, still remain in jail, and at least one reformist has been sentenced to death.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6879850.ece

As fantasias ocidentais sobre a revolução iraniana revisitadas por Daniel J. Flynn no City Journal

The bloody scenes in Tehran, with at least 19 protestors killed so far in clashes with government forces, may seem like a repeat in miniature of the violence there more than 30 years ago. The glaring difference is that the protestors who toppled a corrupt, oppressive regime in 1979 have become the corrupt, oppressive regime in 2009.

With the 1979 Iranian revolution so close in the rearview mirror, the mistakes of Western observers then bear remembering today, as the seeds of something momentous may be again at hand. In the late seventies, some intellectuals, enamored with the idea of revolution in general and the anti-Western outlook of the Iranian revolutionaries in particular, projected their political values on the shah’s deposers. When, instead of embracing the ideology of Harvard Square or Telegraph Avenue, the revolutionaries exported terror, exhibited a toxic anti-Semitism, persecuted homosexuals, and pursued nuclear weapons, many of these intellectuals emerged with egg on their faces. As Mother Jones editor Adam Hochschild candidly admitted after Iranian reality had dashed Western dreams: “The Left is always better at seeing what leads to revolutions than at seeing what may follow them.” Though criticisms of the shah of Iran for human-rights abuses and other crimes seemed on the mark, Hochschild conceded in 1980 that his magazine had been “embarrassingly nearsighted about [the shah’s] successors.”

A year earlier, Mother Jones had been much more buoyant about the Iranian revolution’s prospects. “What kind of state might result if Khomeini or his followers take power?,” Eqbal Ahmad asked in the magazine’s April 1979 issue. “As someone who has talked with him at length, I believe that, when Khomeini speaks of an Islamic state for Iran, it is a Shi’ite scholar’s way of saying that he wants a good state in Iran. His concept of a good state includes democratic reforms, freedom for political prisoners, an end to the astronomical waste of huge arms purchases, and a constitutional government.” Ahmad ridiculed the view that “reactionary Muslim mullahs motivated by their hostility to modernization and reforms” led the revolution. “Left alone,” he speculated, “Iran without the Shah would probably evolve into a country that looked like Spain or Portugal without Franco or Salazar.” Even by the magazine’s postdated publication date, the prediction appeared ridiculous.

Sounding like the ideological tourists who visited Iran’s Soviet neighbors several generations earlier, Kai Bird opined in the March 31, 1979 issue of The Nation that “there is every reason to believe that the still unpublished [Iranian] Constitution will include all the elements of a liberal democratic system.” The future Pulitzer Prize winner exuberantly noted how merchants hawked Lenin and Marx on the streets. He imagined decentralized workers’ collectives, rather than the state, controlling Iran’s oil industry. In the April 21, 1979 issue, Bird described the economic views of Iranian oil workers as not very different from those of the average Nation reader. He wrote, “The worker komitehs want to participate in [oil policy] decisions—and if they persevere, there will be little room left for the fellows from Exxon.” In an unsigned editorial in the March 24, 1979 issue, anticipating its special correspondent’s report, The Nation excused “the revolutionary insistence on summary justice” by maintaining that it “may have staved off a far bloodier round of private vengeance.” After all, “less than forty former Pahlevi officials have been executed, and with only one possible exception, each was prominently associated with the worst excesses of state power in the Shah’s era.” But just a few months after the Ayatollah Khomeini’s triumph, events forced Bird to concede that the Islamic Revolution had been a “disappointment.”

“One thing must be clear,” warned postmodern philosopher Michel Foucault in the fall of 1978. “By ‘Islamic government,’ nobody in Iran means a political regime in which the clerics would have a role of supervision or control.” An atheist homosexual, Foucault nevertheless found himself seduced by an Islamic revolution that targeted people like himself once it had consolidated power. Writing for the French and Italian press, the celebrity intellectual made two trips to Iran in the fall of 1978 to compile material for his firsthand dispatches.

Prophetic in seeing Islam as a “powder keg” of political force, Foucault was horribly remiss in his uncritical assessment of Islamism. From his conversations in Iran, and in Paris with exiles such as the Ayatollah Khomeini, Foucault was not, unlike other Western intellectuals, deluded into believing that the shah’s overthrow would result in a secular government familiar to Westerners. Rather, he believed that an Islamic theocracy might consist of equal rights for men and women, a socialist redistribution of oil profits, and a responsive democracy, among other things.

Writing in Le Nouvel Observateur in October 1978, Foucault outlined the principles that he believed would undergird any emergent Islamic state in Iran: “Islam values work; no one can be deprived of the fruits of his labor; what must belong to all (water, the subsoil) shall not be appropriated by anyone. With respect to liberties, they will be respected to the extent that their exercise will not harm others; minorities will be protected and free to live as they please on the condition that they do not injure the majority; between men and women there will not be inequality with respect to rights, but difference, since there is a natural difference. With respect to politics, decisions should be made by the majority, the leaders should be responsible to the people, and each person, as it is laid out in the Quran, should be able to stand up and hold accountable he who governs.”

The devotion to socialism, pluralism, democracy, and disarmament that Foucault, Bird, and others imagined in their Persian proxies turned out to be remarkable delusions. Rather than looking at Iran and describing the ugliness they saw, prominent intellectuals instead looked in the mirror, reported the beauty they saw there, and called it Iran.

Their blindness offers a cautionary lesson for today. As a new generation of Iranians rebel against yesterday’s revolutionaries, conservatives appalled by the anti-Americanism of the Iranian old guard risk projecting their political values upon today’s revolutionaries. This is Iran, after all, and even the opposition candidate despises Israel, aggressively pushes for a nuclear Iran, and has heretofore shown little interest during his long political career in transitioning from government by ayatollahs and mullahs to government by the people.

President Obama, who undermines his credibility by vacillating between remaining strategically outside of the fray and inserting himself in it by telling Iranians that the whole world is watching, nevertheless seems to understand the danger of getting Western hopes up too high: “Although there is amazing ferment taking place in Iran, the difference in actual policies between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi in terms of their actual policies may not be as great as advertised,” the president explained on CNBC last week. “I think it’s important to understand that either way, we are going to be dealing with a regime in Iran that is hostile to the U.S.”

http://www.city-journal.org/2009/eon0624df.html

JPTF 2009/06/26

‘Da Fatwa à Jihad: o caso Rushdie e o seu legado‘, de Kenan Malik

‘With images of Geert Wilders being turned back at Heathrow fresh in our minds, seldom can a book have had a more searing relevance to contemporary events. Seldom has a book offered a more revealing portrait of both a religion and a nation's frail carapace and intellectual and moral failings. And seldom do we see so clearly that one of the lessons of history is that no one learns the lessons of history.
The government's shameful and self-defeating ban on Wilders, continuing a policy of appeasement in the face of extremist threat, makes Malik's case for him: that the Rushdie affair continues to cast a long, baleful shadow over the British cultural landscape.
Malik, an Indian-born, Manchester-raised writer and broadcaster, is perhaps best known as an acute commentator on race and a staunch critic of multiculturalism, a case he has refined in his previous books The Meaning of Race (1996) and Strange Fruit: Why Both Sides Are Wrong in The Race Debate (2008). This book is both a social and intellectual history and a personal journey, since the Rushdie affair stands as a decisive turning point in his own relationship with the left, where, as a member of the Socialist Workers' Party in the 1980s, he cut his political teeth [...]‘. (Extracto da recensão do livro feita por Lindsay Johns para o New Humanist).

JPTF 2009/05/21