julho 19, 2009
‘A Indonésia acorda para o terror‘ in Asia Times
por Gary LaMoshi
Experts have written the obituary of extremist violence in Indonesia, but the violent extremists keep refusing to read the script. Friday morning's deadly twin bombings of Western-branded hotels in Jakarta are proof that complacency in the fight against terrorism in Indonesia remains misplaced.
Restaurant areas at the JW Marriott, site of a car bombing in 2003, and Ritz Carlton were hit by suicide bombers at breakfast time, according to Indonesian police, with the death toll climbing to nine in the first hours after the attacks. Dozens were injured, and hundreds of guests evacuated.
The bombings spoil a seemingly triumphant moment for Indonesia. After veering toward chaos a decade ago, the country with the world's largest Muslim population had become the world's third largest democracy. "This is a blow to us," presidential spokesperson Dino Patti Djalal said in a broadcast interview.
Spare drill, spoil fill
The attacks also highlight shortcomings in President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's nuanced approach to fighting radicalism and violence.
The Friday morning explosions shattered a lull in terror attacks in Indonesia that lasted nearly four years. They came a week after a successful, peaceful election that appears to have given Yudhoyono, a moderate former general with a "speak softly but carry a big stick" reputation, a second term by a landslide margin. The attacks hit after many Western governments lifted their travel restrictions on Indonesia, boosting the tourism trade to record levels.
Things were considered so safe that English Premier League football champions Manchester United were due to stay at the Ritz Carlton from Saturday during a four-day visit to Jakarta, including a scheduled match on Monday against an Indonesian all-star team. A few hours after the bombing, Manchester United announced it would cancel that leg of its Asian tour.
Indonesia has been the target of terrorism dating back to Christmas Eve 2000, when churches were bombed across the archipelago. The attacks were part of widespread Christian-Muslim clashes with shadowy military backing, aimed at undermining reformist president Abdurrahman Wahid. He was ousted in July 2001, but the military's Frankenstein monster took on a life of its own, gaining strength from anti-Western sentiment in the wake of the US-led wars in Afghanistan and then in Iraq.
In October 2002, bombs destroyed a pair of popular nightclubs in Bali, accompanied by a calling card blast at the US Consular Agency on the popular resort island. The Marriott attack in August 2003 killed 12. In September 2004, a car bomb targeted the Australian Embassy in Jakarta, leaving nine dead. In October 2005, suicide bombers hit a pair of popular restaurants in Bali.
Back to the future
The attacks on Bali and beyond were attributed to Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), a Muslim extremist group that seeks to create a caliphate linking Muslim areas across Southeast Asia. JI has alleged links to al-Qaeda, but operates independently.
Experts say Friday's attacks bear the hallmarks of JI, including coordinated attacks on multiple targets frequented by Westerners. But, after many arrests of its top leadership, the group has reportedly splintered into factions, not all retaining the JI name. So far no one has claimed responsibility for the attacks.
After the second Bali bombings, the first confirmed suicide bombings in Indonesia, Yudhoyono rallied Muslim clerics and other religious leaders to denounce sectarian violence and extremism, declaring unequivocally that Indonesia should not be a battleground for jihad. That high-profile declaration, and revulsion at suicide bomber videos, helped turn the tide of public opinion against extremist violence. The momentum held seemingly until Friday morning.
But Yudhoyono's administration has walked a fine line in fighting homegrown terrorism, balancing ties with the West against radical elements at home. It has accepted support from the Australian and US governments, helping Indonesian police crack down on terrorists. Much of the JI leadership has been arrested, and its top bombing mastermind Azahari Husin, a Malaysian with a PhD from Britain, was killed in a 2006 raid. "We've had a number of preventive successes in Sumatra, in Java, and other places," presidential spokesman Djalal said. "We always knew there are terrorist cells out there. You can never fully eradicate them."
Yudhoyono even welcomed George W Bush for a very unpopular visit in 2006 that avoided Jakarta and entailed a virtual lockdown (and cell phone blackout) around the suburban presidential palace in Bogor. The inauguration of US President Barack Obama, who spent part of his childhood living in Jakarta and opposed the war in Iraq, promises even closer ties between the US and Indonesian governments and has already created a great deal of grassroots warmth toward the US.
Embracing extremists
On the other hand, Yudhoyono's political coalition includes extremist Islamic parties that provide a home for sentiments that feed radicalism. He's largely ignored local governments that enact radical-inspired laws, such as dress codes and bans on females traveling alone after dark, that contradict national laws.
Yudhoyono has stoked radical fires by embracing the Palestinian cause as Indonesia's own, in the name of Muslim solidarity. By linking his good name to these fringe elements, Yudhoyono gives legitimacy to parties that advocate imposing sharia law across the archipelago, whose members preach and publish violent anti-Western Islamist screeds.
Indonesia's violence isn't all attributable to Islamic radicals. Despite democratic trappings, there's widespread feeling of powerlessness since government remains largely unresponsive while the elite and connected act with impunity. Many feel Yudhoyono's regime hasn't changed things enough in that regard. For example, it has still failed to convict the masterminds of the murder of human rights activist Munir Said Thalib, poisoned aboard a flight on national flag carrier Garuda in September 2004.
Yudhoyono's current cabinet includes Aburizal Bakrie as Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare, whose family business has failed to stop the mudflow it caused in Sidoarjo, East Java, in 2006 and adequately compensate the thousands of displaced victims. The company was allowed to sell the affiliate to an offshore company to avoid responsibility for the damage.
Yudhoyono's two faces embody a national personality that prefers accommodation to confrontation. His approach had seemed to lower the political and social temperature in Indonesia, but Friday's bombings show it's failed to extinguish the embers of radical violence.
With his popularity proven by his win at the polls, Yudhoyono must summon the courage to root out elements that aid and abet terrorism. It's a quality called leadership and Indonesia needs it at this dark moment.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/KG18Ae01.html
JPTF 2009/07/19
julho 15, 2009
‘No Xinjiang, o separatismo não passará!‘ in Courrier International
Les incidents qui se sont produits, le 26 juin, dans l’usine de jouets Xuri de Shaoguan (province du Guangdong) étaient au départ une simple bagarre générale [un ouvrier han a été arrêté pour diffusion de fausse rumeur. Il avait accusé sur Internet des ouvriers ouïgours d’avoir violé une ouvrière han. Les affrontements qui ont suivi ont fait deux morts parmi les Ouïgours]. Mais cette affaire a été montée en épingle par des personnes aux noirs desseins à l’intérieur et à l’extérieur du pays, entraînant les graves violences du 5 juillet. Animés de sinistres intentions, ces individus ont profité de l’occasion pour fomenter des troubles à visées séparatistes.
Le Congrès ouïgour mondial [fédération des organisations ouïgoures en exil installée à Munich] dirigé par Rebiya Kadeer – qui ne pense qu’à provoquer de graves incidents – ne s’est jamais résigné à admettre le développement prospère et stable du Xinjiang ni la bonne entente entre les peuples qui y règne. A intervalles réguliers, cette organisation projette des attentats ou des attaques terroristes. Si ces incidents ne s’étaient pas produits le 5 juillet, ils auraient eu lieu un autre jour, et si l’affaire du 26 juin n’avait pas joué le rôle de déclencheur, une autre affaire aurait tout aussi bien servi de prétexte. Cette organisation a plus d’un tour dans son sac pour déformer la réalité, induire en erreur la population, attiser sa colère et répandre la haine entre les différentes nationalités.
Quand des incidents éclatent, elle prétend ne pas y être mêlée et rejette la faute sur le gouvernement chinois. Face à l’Occident, elle se présente toujours comme un “groupe non violent, sans aucun lien avec le terrorisme”. En mars 2008, après l’attentat manqué contre un vol de la compagnie Southern Airlines par des activistes de l’indépendantisme du Turkestan oriental [Xinjiang], le porte-parole du Congrès ouïgour mondial, Dilixiati, avait tout de suite crié au complot de la part du pouvoir chinois et, le 6 juillet dernier, il a fait le même genre de déclarations. Pour faire croire que la Chine pratique une politique discriminatoire envers les minorités, ils appellent blanc ce qui est noir et font passer le vrai pour le faux. Les larges déplacements de main-d’œuvre sont un phénomène très répandu et normal dans la Chine actuelle, mais ils considèrent comme anormal que des minorités aillent travailler dans les régions de l’intérieur du pays et dénoncent des “déplacements forcés”.
S’ils ont attisé par leurs manigances les incidents du 5 juillet, c’est dans le but de semer la discorde et la haine entre les peuples pour créer de nouveaux troubles. Ils veulent aussi susciter l’indignation chez les gens qui ont une mauvaise approche de la réalité afin de mettre de l’huile sur le feu. Les incidents du 5 juillet ne correspondent pas à un problème entre nationalités, même si, à l’extérieur de nos frontières, des forces séparatistes espèrent qu’il en découlera des antagonismes entre les peuples. Ces incidents ont mis à mal les intérêts et le bien-être de la population, une situation dont toutes les personnes souhaitant l’entente entre les peuples et l’harmonie dans la société ne veulent pas ! Face à ces violences, les différentes composantes ethniques de la population se doivent de conserver leur calme, de se serrer les coudes en nourrissant une haine implacable contre l’ennemi, pour réduire à néant les complots des forces séparatistes situées par-delà des frontières.
L’unité de la patrie, la concorde entre les peuples, la stabilité de la société, sont appelées de leurs vœux par toutes les nationalités de Chine, y compris nos concitoyens du Xinjiang. C’est l’intérêt commun de toutes les nationalités chinoises, lesquelles ne sauraient tolérer des pratiques à visée séparatiste ou cherchant à instaurer le désordre. Résoudre les conflits dans le cadre de la Constitution et des lois est le devoir sacré du gouvernement et du Parti, dont l’action est sûre d’obtenir le soutien et l’appui de l’ensemble des masses populaires et des cadres du Parti. Aucun complot séparatiste ne saurait triompher !
http://www.courrierinternational.com/article/2009/07/13/au-xinjiang-le-separatisme-ne-passera-pas
JPTF 2009/07/14
‘Al-Qaeda ameaça interesses chineses em África em resposta à repressão contra os uigures de Xinjiang‘ in Público
Pela primeira vez, a Al-Qaeda ameaçou interesses chineses. É uma forma de retaliação pelas mortes de muçulmanos uigures na província de Xinjiang, no Noroeste da China. E pode ser também um sintoma do papel internacional que Pequim tem vindo a desempenhar.
A célula do grupo de Osama bin Laden no Norte de África - a Al-Qaeda no Magrebe Islâmico (AQIM, com base na Argélia) - lançou um grito de vingança, pedindo um ataque aos interesses chineses no Norte do continente africano, segundo informou a Stirling Assynt, uma rede de análise de informações secretas e terrorismo com sede em Londres.
Não são de esperar ataques dentro da própria China, mas "alguma coisa irá acontecer no Norte de África... Se eu fosse um chinês a viver na Argélia ou no Iémen, estaria realmente preocupado", comentou ao PÚBLICO por telefone Justin Crump, chefe da equipa de terrorismo da Stirling Assynt.
"Há cerca de 50 mil chineses a viver na Argélia e este será o alvo principal, porque os indivíduos são sempre os alvos mais fáceis", adiantou. Outro alvo possível é o dos projectos, sobretudo de infra-estruturas, que a China está a desenvolver. Os países da África subsariana, como Angola, por exemplo, "não estarão em risco".
Para Crump, a ameaça "não é surpreendente", embora a China "não faça parte da estratégia da Al-Qaeda". O facto de os distúrbios, que duram há mais de uma semana, terem acontecido em Xingiang - uma região autónoma onde os uigures formam o maior grupo étnico - não é motivo para, à partida, colocar Pequim debaixo da ameaça islâmica. "Há uma relação muito, muito baixa entre Xinjiang e a Al-Qaeda". Ou seja, "temos informações de que meia dúzia de uigures receberam treino no Paquistão ou no Afeganistão".
E é precisamente nestes países onde o grupo terrorista está a investir as suas energias e os seus recursos, que vão sendo mais escassos, sobretudo desde que os Estados Unidos têm um novo Presidente. "A eleição de [Barack] Obama está a custar apoios."
O analista Kerry Brown, da Chatham House, não conhecia a ameaça dos islamistas, mas afirmou ao PÚBLICO, também por telefone, que este será "um sinal de que a China se está a tornar num actor mais importante na cena internacional. E também num alvo válido para um ataque".
O gesto do AQIM foi recebido pelo Governo chinês também com um aviso: serão tomadas todas as medidas para que a ameaça não passe à prática. "Vamos seguir de perto a situação e fazer esforços conjuntos com os paí-ses envolvidos para tomar todas as medidas necessárias para garantir a segurança das instituições e cidadãos chineses no estrangeiro", afirmou numa conferência de imprensa o porta-voz do Ministério dos Negócios Estrangeiros, Qin Gang.
Oportunismo do AQIM
A ameaça poderá ter outras consequências para além de ataques na Argélia ou no Iémen. "O Governo [chinês] diz com veemência que em Xinjiang há elementos ligados a grupos terroristas internacionais. O que a Al-Qaeda fez agora foi dar-lhe bases para esse argumento", continua Kerry Brown.
Por outro lado, "a China tem tido um low profile. Isto pode mudar essa posição, e significa que o Governo terá mais interesse em trabalhar com outros parceiros internacionais" na luta contra o terrorismo.
O investigador da Stirling Assynt adianta ao PÚBLICO que "há um certo oportunismo" na atitude do AQIM, que será um "franchising regional da Al-Qaeda": está a aproveitar "os ressentimentos que existem em Xinjiang" em relação à governação chinesa. E, "apesar de a China não fazer parte dos mais altos interesses da Al-Qaeda, o grupo também não se pode dar ao luxo de não dizer uma palavra", quando cidadãos muçulmanos estão a ser vítimas de uma repressão.
Os distúrbios começaram no dia 2 de Julho em Urumqi, a capital da região, quando milhares de uigures foram para a rua exigir uma investigação à morte de dois membros da sua etnia em Guangdong, no Sul da China. Confrontos entre uigures e chineses han (largamente maioritários no resto do país) levaram à morte de pelo menos 186 pessoas e a 1680 feridos.
http://ultimahora.publico.clix.pt/noticia.aspx?id=1391824&idCanal=11
JPTF 2009/07/15
julho 09, 2009
A democracia na Europa: insistam, insistam até que os irlandeses digam sim...
Just over a year after Ireland's shock rejection of the Lisbon Treaty, Dublin has announced that a second referendum on the charter will take place on 2 October.
The move comes after the Irish government last month secured agreement from other member states on a package of guarantees on interpretation of the treaty in the areas of neutrality, tax sovereignty and social and ethical issues.
These areas had been identified as ones where there was confusion among Irish voters about the implications of the treaty.
Irish prime minister Brian Cowen made the date public in the Irish parliament on Wednesday (8 July.) He said the concerns of the Irish voters had been addressed by the legal guarantees.
"On that basis, I recommended to the government that we return to the people to seek their approval for Ireland to ratify the treaty and that referendum will take place on 2 October."
Ireland was the only country that put the treaty to referendum last year. A vociferous no-campaign suggested the treaty would see the EU set tax rates, legalise abortion and make the Irish army take part in EU peacekeeping operations.
The government was wrong-footed by the anti-treaty camp and the June vote saw 53.4 come out against the treaty, causing shock in Brussels and some grumbling about ungratefulness as the country has been a major beneficiary of EU funds.
Dublin indicated early on that it would put the treaty back to a vote but only after it was seen to be winning concessions first.
As part of the general Lisbon guarantees package, it also secured agreement that the number of commissioners would remain at one per member state even after the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, which foresees a reduction in commission size.
The national backdrop has changed dramatically since last year with the country having been severely affected by the global economic downturn. Polls suggest, and analysts have widely predicted, that this will lead to a yes vote in October.
The government is also hoping to make the treaty - not known for being easy reading - more accessible to voters. It has set up a website explaining it and is sending postcards to all households outlining the legal guarantees on the treaty.
In addition, the referendum bill is designed to ease any voter fears that EU decision-making can be taken without national scrutiny by increasing parliamentary oversight.
All other countries have ratified the treaty in their parliaments. But Germany, the Czech Republic and Poland have yet to finish the ratification process which still needs the signatures of the countries' presidents.
http://euobserver.com/9/28429?print=1
JPTF 2009/07/09
julho 03, 2009
‘Irão diz que a Europa não está mais qualificada para as negociações do program nuclear‘ in EU Observer
Iran says Europe is no longer qualified to hold nuclear talks due to its meddling with the post-election protests in the country, with Sweden, as the new EU presidency, calling up officials from the 27-member bloc to discuss the next diplomatic move.
The EU has played a significant part in international efforts to make Tehran comply with the world's rules on nuclear power. Three EU states - Germany, France, and the UK - have been leading the negotiations along with the US, Russia and China.
But Iran's military chief of staff Major-General Hassan Firouzabadi on Wednesday (I July) said that the alleged "interference" of Europeans in the riots following the June presidential election means the bloc has "lost its qualification to hold nuclear talks."The statement came after Tehran's action against local employees of the UK embassy, accused by Iranians of meddling with the opposition protests.
Nine persons were detained over the weekend but most of them released on Monday and Wednesday. Two British staff members are still in jail.
In a bid to protest the handling of the situation, other EU states are also considering withdrawing their ambassadors from Tehran, with Britain pressing hard for a joint gesture while Germany and Italy, as Iran's key trade partners, prefer to keep on speaking terms with the country.
"It is easier to get everyone in the EU to agree on tough language on Iran, as happened last weekend, rather than take tough action," one British diplomat said, according to the Financial Times.
Just two days into its six-month chairmanship of the European Union, Sweden has called on member states' senior officials to discuss the issue on Thursday (2 July).
Speaking to journalists at the official opening of the presidency, Swedish prime minister Fredrik Reinfeld made clear that Europe wants to support the democratic forces in Iran but also avoid isolating the country from the rest of the world. "That's the balance we need to strike," he said.
Tehran's political unrest broke out following the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on 12 June. Iranian supporters of his rival, opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, argue that the poll had been rigged and demand its complete re-run.
Iran's police chief Esmaeil Ahmadi-Moghaddam said that 20 people were killed and more than 1,000 arrested in the wave of protests, AFP reported on Wednesday.
http://euobserver.com/9/28404
JPTF 2009/07/03
junho 30, 2009
junho 26, 2009
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
junho 24, 2009
Leituras: As Faces de Janus: Marxismo e Fascismo no Século XX, de A. James Gregor (Imprensa da Universidade de Yale, 2000)
Descrição do livro:
Attempting to understand the catalogue of horrors that has characterised much of twentieth-century history, Western scholars generally distinguish between violent revolutions of the "right" and the "left". Fascist regimes are assigned to the evil right, Marxist-Leninist regimes to the benign left. But this distinction has left us without a coherent understanding of the revolutionary history of the twentieth century, contends A. James Gregor in this insightful book. He traces the evolution of Marxist theory from the 1920s through the 1990s and argues that the ideology of Marxism-Leninism devolved into fascism. Fascist regimes and Communist regimes - both anti-democratic ideocracies - are far more closely related than has been recognised. Employing wide-ranging primary source materials in Italian, German, Russian, and Chinese, the book opens with an examination of the first standard Marxist interpretation of Mussolini's fascism in the early 1920s and proceeds through the emergence of fascist phenomena in post-Communist Russia. A clearer understanding of the relation between fascism and communism provides a sharper lens through which to view twentieth-century history as well as the present and future politics of Russia, Communist China, and other non-democratic states, Gregor concludes.
JPTF 2009/06/24
junho 19, 2009
‘O ataque dos BRIC‘: Brasil, Rússia, Índia e China ensaiam bloco contra o G7 in Courrier International
Le Brésil, la Russie, l’Inde et la Chine, pays désormais rassemblés sous l’acronyme "BRIC", se sont réunis pour la première fois en vue de tenir un langage commun face aux grands défis internationaux. Ils ont affirmé vouloir une réforme rapide du système financier mondial, même si la question d'une monnaie de réserve supranationale fait débat entre eux, et ont manifesté le souhait d'être plus influents et de se faire entendre davantage aux Nations unies. Le sommet qui a eu lieu le 16 juin dernier dans l’Oural, à Ekaterinbourg, la troisième ville de Russie, se voulait le contrepoids du sommet du G7 (groupe des sept pays les plus industrialisés) qui aura lieu dans un mois en Italie. Le ministre des Affaires étrangères brésilien, Celso Amorim, a donné le ton vendredi. "Le G7 est mort. Il ne représente plus rien. Je ne sais pas comment sera l’enterrement…", a-t-il confié à l'AFP. Les grands pays émergents représentent 25 % des terres habitables de la planète, 40 % de la population mondiale et 15 % du produit intérieur brut mondial. Ce sont en réalité des pays encore très pauvres, mais leur potentiel de croissance est de plus en plus important. Selon Goldman Sachs, qui a inventé l’acronyme BRIC en 2001, ces pays pèseront de plus en plus dans l’économie mondiale. Le PIB de la Chine, par exemple, dépassera celui des Etats-Unis d’ici à 2050. Aujourd’hui, les pays du BRIC pèsent pour 15 % dans le commerce mondial, un chiffre qui devrait augmenter au fil des années. Nandan Unnikrishnan, chercheur à l'Observer Research Foundation de New Delhi et qui a l’oreille des autorités indiennes, met en exergue ce qui unit les quatre pays. Il évoque aussi les relations tumultueuses entre l’Inde et la Chine, les deux moteurs asiatiques du BRIC.
LE TEMPS Le BRIC est-il un concept viable ?
NANDAN UNNIKRISHNAN Les quatre pays ont de nombreuses préoccupations communes : les réformes de la gouvernance mondiale, la mise en place d’une nouvelle architecture financière avec un système de régulation, la démocratisation du Fonds monétaire international pour refléter le véritable poids économique de chaque pays membre, des réformes à apporter à l’ONU et au Conseil de sécurité. Ces revendications ne doivent pas laisser penser que le BRIC est une nouvelle version des pays non-alignés. Les quatre pays ne sont pas identiques. Les économies brésilienne et russe sont fondées sur l’exploitation et l’exportation des matières premières, alors que l’Inde et la Chine sont des importateurs. Dans le domaine industriel, la Russie et le Brésil ont déjà des secteurs très avancés, notamment l’aviation, que la Chine et l’Inde voudraient développer.
La Chine et l’Inde peuvent-elles vraiment s’entendre ?
Les relations entre les deux pays sont très complexes et représentent un défi. Ils souffrent de l’héritage de la colonisation. Les frontières ont été découpées de façon arbitraire. Elles ont donné lieu à une guerre entre les deux pays en 1962. Le différend n’est toujours pas réglé. Une commission y travaille, mais elle ressemble davantage à un chien qui dort et qu’il ne faut pas réveiller. Il s’agit d’une question difficile, c’est pourquoi il faudra encore beaucoup de temps pour la résoudre. Le plus important, c'est que les possibilités d’une nouvelle guerre sont pratiquement inexistantes.
Y a-t-il des points de convergence ?
Les deux pays sont des économies émergentes. Le commerce entre eux ne cesse d’augmenter : il se monte aujourd’hui à plus de 45 milliards de dollars. Nous avons beaucoup de positions communes dans les forums internationaux, notamment dans les négociations commerciales du cycle de Doha. Le fait que nos diplomates s’entendent nous aide à construire une relation de confiance. Construire cette confiance est un objectif majeur.
Les pays du BRIC ne sont-ils pas concurrents dans le commerce international ?
Absolument. Pas seulement dans la conquête des marchés, mais aussi dans la course aux matières premières. Nous avons tous un grand besoin d’énergie ou d’acier. Le Brésil, la Chine et l’Inde se concurrencent, notamment en Afrique. Il y a aussi une vraie concurrence dans le développement des voies maritimes : Pékin et Delhi tentent de s’assurer l’accès aux ports en Asie et en Afrique.
Comment expliquez-vous qu’il y ait plusieurs plaintes commerciales déposées à l’OMC entre le Brésil, l’Inde et la Chine ? Récemment, l’Inde a d’ailleurs interdit l’importation de différents produits chinois ?
C’est de bonne guerre. Lorsque les enfants font leurs dents, ils cherchent toujours à mordre. Il ne s’agit pas de problèmes fondamentaux. Il faut voir le nombre de choses que nous faisons déjà ensemble.
Des entreprises chinoises investissent en Inde. Des entreprises indiennes produisent en Chine.
http://www.courrierinternational.com/article/2009/06/18/bresil-russie-inde-chine-l-attaque-des-bric
JPTF 2009/06/19
junho 16, 2009
junho 08, 2009
Derrota generalizada dos partidos socialistas/sociais-democratas nas eleições europeias in Guardian, 8 de Junho de 2009
Europe's mainstream centre-left parties suffered humiliation last night when four days of voting in the EU's biggest-ever election concluded with disastrous results for social democrats.
Results from the national rounds of the European parliament election across the 27 member states also showed support for centre-right Christian democrats diminishing in places, but nonetheless notching up handsome victories in several key states.
In Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Poland, Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary and the Czech Republic, the centre right won the elections, with stunning defeats for the left in certain cases.
In the EU's biggest country, Germany, returning 99 of the parliament's 736 seats, the Social Democrats (SPD), the junior partner in Chancellor Angela Merkel's grand coalition, sunk to an all-time low, with 21% of the vote.
The result was slightly worse than a dismal performance five years ago that all the opinion polls had predicted would not be repeated.
"The result is significantly worse than we expected," said Franz Müntefering, the SPD's chairman. "This is a difficult evening."
Less than four months before Germany's general election, last night's outcome augured well for Merkel's hopes of ditching her grand coalition in favour of a centre-right alliance with the small Free Democrats, who made the biggest gains, from six to more than 10%.
Next door in Austria, the chancellor and leader of the Social Democrats, Werner Faymann, led his party to its worst ever election result, just over 23%.
In both countries, the Christian democrats won comfortably, but Merkel's Christian Democrats and her Bavarian CSU allies were six points down, on 38%.
France's president, Nicolas Sarkozy, claimed triumph with 28% for his UMP party to the Socialists 17%, the first time a sitting French president has won a European election since the vote began 30 years ago.
In Italy, the centre-right government of Silvio Berlusconi also did well, despite his marital breakdown and scandals over parties at his Sardinian villa, while in Spain the Socialist government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero also lost the election to conservatives.
"It is bitterly disappointing, we had hoped for a better result. In most countries it went pretty bad for us," said Martin Schulz, the leader of the Socialist group in the European parliament.
With the social democrats licking their wounds and the centre-right scoring victories whether in power or in opposition, the other signal trend of the ballot was the breakthroughs achieved by extreme right-wing nationalists and xenophobes.
Following on from the triumph of Geert Wilders, the anti-Islam campaigner, who came second with 17% in the Netherlands on Thursday, the hard-right and neo fascists chalked up further victories .
The anti-Gypsy extremists in Hungary, Jobbik, took three of the country's 22 seats; in Austria two far-right parties mustered 18%, and extreme Slovak nationalists gained their first seat in the European parliament.
Anti-Brussels candidates and Eurosceptics also won more seats in Denmark, Finland, Austria, and the Czech Republic.
The misery for the centre left, exemplified by Germany's SPD and Labour's traumas in the UK, deepened as results trickled in from other big EU states, such as France, Italy, Poland, and Spain.
The main opposition for Donald Tusk, the Polish prime minister, is further to the right, while the leaders in France and Italy appeared to benefit from tough anti-immigration and law-and-order stances, despite the soap opera nature of both leaders' private lives.
With the jobless numbers soaring amid the worst economic crisis in the lifetimes of European voters, the centre left is clearly failing to benefit politically in circumstances that might be expected to boost its support.
In the Netherlands on Thursday, in the first of the four-day election marathon, the Dutch Labour party, junior partner in the government, also took a hammering, losing 11 points to come third and failing for the first time to lead in at least one of the country's four big cities.
If the social democrats in the big countries of Europe faced a bout of soul-searching pessimism last night, many of the smaller EU countries offered little consolation.
The opposition centre-right in Ireland also notched up gains, while the Fianna Fáil government performed wretchedly. The opposition right in Hungary scored a landslide victory against a discredited socialist government.
Crumbs of comfort for the centre left came from Portugal, Greece, and Malta.
But analysts noted that the protest votes and victories for mavericks could also be ascribed to a lackluster election campaign in which leaders of key countries such as Germany, the Netherlands, and the other big member states failed to project any persuasive pro-European vision in the midst of the most worrying economic crisis ever experienced by voters.
Yesterday was the big election day, with 18 of the 27 staging ballots, as well as Italy voting for the second day. Britain and the Netherlands kicked off the voting marathon on Thursday last week, with a further five countries following on Friday and Saturday.
Estimates of the new balance of power in the 736-seat assembly suggest that the centre right will have around 270 seats to the socialists' 160, a much wider margin than predicted.
The four-day vote was the biggest ever for the EU's only directly elected institution, with 375 million people entitled to choose from more than 10,000 candidates for 736 seats.
Hans-Gert Pöttering, the outgoing president, or speaker, of the European parliament, stressed that Europeans "want" the parliament, but conceded that that desire would not be reflected in the turnout.
Pöttering, a German Christian Democrat, is likely to be the sole MEP to serve in all seven parliaments since voting began in 1979.
The assembly, he said, closing the final session last month, is "the centre of a European parliamentary democracy of which we could only dream in 1979".
The damning popular verdict on that assertion, however, was the lowest turnout in 30 years. It was estimated at around 43%, compared with 45% last time, and 62% in Europe's first election in 1979.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jun/07/eu-elections-social-democrats
JPTF 2009/06/08
junho 06, 2009
‘O drama multicultural‘ da Holanda: resultados eleitorais mostram uma crescente polarização da sociedade holandesa
In politics, things can turn on a euro cent. Just six month ago Wouter Bos was celebrated for the way he dealt with the financial crisis. The Dutch Labour party leader and finance minister soared in the opinion polls. But all that was forgotten when people went to vote on Thursday, and dealt Bos' party a devastating blow: Labour lost four of its seven seats in the European parliament.
The Christian democrats, the other major coalition partner, also took a severe beating: it went from seven to five seats. That didn't keep prime minister and party leader Jan Peter Balkenende from claiming victory: "We said we wanted to remain the biggest party and that's what happened," Balkenende said, adding nevertheless that his coalition government will have to work hard to regain the public's confidence.
The big winner of Thursday's election was undoubtedly Geert Wilders, whose Party for Freedom (PVV) went from zero to four seats, making it the second biggest Dutch party in the Brussels parliament in its first European election.
Low turnout
The mainstream parties had silently hoped that the traditional low turnout for European elections would prevent a PVV breakthrough, going on the assumption that Wilders supporters are not that interested in Europe and wouldn't bother to vote. That turned out to be wrong. Despite a record low turnout - 36.5 percent, 2.5 points less than in 2004 - the PVV was able to attract 16.9 percent of all voters. According to research by public broadcaster NOS, many PVV voters were men and/or over fifty.
At a party meeting on Monday, Wilders had correctly predicted that the PVV would become bigger than his old party, the right-wing liberal VVD, which he broke away from in 2004. Still, VVD party leader Mark Rutte was not entirely unhappy with his party's three seats - down from four. Opinion polls had predicted a bigger loss. Just ahead of the election, Rutte had caused a controversy by proposing to broaden the definition of freedom of speech to include Holocaust denial. No matter how hard he tried to explain what exactly he meant, Rutte was ruthlessly attacked by political friends and foes alike. "This is a good result, " Rutte said on Thursday night.
But even Wilders had not expected his party to become bigger than Labour. "This the day the PVV finally made its breakthrough," he said. "People have had enough of the Balkenende and Bos cabinet." Wilders will not be going to Brussels himself; preferring to concentrate on national politics. Instead, an aide, Barry Madlener, will lead the PVV's four-man delegation to the European parliament, an institution it would like to see abolished.
'No real answers'
Just two months ago, the other parties said they were thrilled that the PVV had decided to take part in the European elections. Finally, they would get a chance to prove that the PVV had no real answers to European problems, was the thinking. The mainstream parties would have no trouble at all convincing the electorate that Europe was in the end a good thing for the Netherlands, or so they thought.
But the PVV's Barry Madlener, a former real estate agent, ran a better campaign than expected. His message was clear and simple: Brussels should have less power, and Turkey will never ever join the European Union. The mainstream parties, by contrast, had a much fuzzier stand on Europe, as Madlener never failed to point out.
In fact, the only other party to do well in these elections was at the other end of the political spectrum. The left-wing liberal party D66, which went to the polls with an outspoken pro-European stance, won over 10 percent of the voters and went from one to three seats in the European parliament.
The Netherlands is a more polarised country since Thursday's election. The political landscape has splintered. Stable government coalitions made up of two major parties and a sometimes a smaller third party may be a thing of the past. If national elections were held today with the same outcome, it could take months of negotiations to form a government. And any government coalition would probably require four parties, since most parties have already ruled out governing with the PVV. (The Christian democrats are on the fence about sharing power with Wilders.)
Penalised by voters
All this makes it easy to forget that this election was really about Europe. So what does the Dutch result say about the position of the Netherlands in Europe? The Netherlands was a founding member of the European Union. Does the PVV victory, on top of the Dutch 'no' in the 2005 referendum about the European constitution, mean that the Netherlands is now firmly in the eurosceptic camp?
Not quite. The electoral gains of the eurosceptic PVV are offset by the success of the pro-European D66. Another eurosceptical party, the Socialist Party, gained slightly compared to the 2004 election but lost big-time compared to the 2006 national election. The pro-European Green party held its own.
By contrast, parties like Labour, the Christian democrats and the right-wing liberal party VVD, who tried to be pro-European and eurosceptic at the same time, were penalised by the voters. In the European context too, the Netherlands is now a polarised country.
http://www.nrc.nl/international/Features/article2262197.ece/The_Netherlands_is_now_a_polarised_country
JPTF 2009/06/06
junho 02, 2009
maio 28, 2009
maio 25, 2009
maio 23, 2009
O regresso do passado otomano à Grécia? ‘Emigrantes muçulmanos confrontam-se com a polícia em Atenas‘ in Kathimerini
A Muslim immigrant shouts in front of a row of riot policemen during a rally in central Athens yesterday. Hundreds of Muslims marched through the center to protest the alleged defacement of a copy of the Quran by a Greek policeman.
Police clashed with hundreds of Muslim immigrants in central Athens for a second day yesterday in an escalating protest at reports that a policeman had defaced a copy of the Quran during a routine inspection earlier this week.
An estimated 1,500 demonstrators, mostly immigrants from Syria, Pakistan and Afghanistan, hurled sticks and stones at police officers in full riot gear who had been stationed outside Parliament yesterday afternoon. Police responded with tear gas and stun grenades. In the escalating unrest, which saw several store facades smashed, parked cars overturned and traffic lights vandalized, one officer and four protesters were said to have sustained minor injuries. More than 15 protesters were arrested. The demonstration followed a less violent protest that broke out near Omonia Square on Thursday in the wake of reports that a policeman had torn up a copy of the Quran and then stamped on it during a routine inspection conducted on four Syrian migrants in the city center. After word spread about the alleged incident, local migrant groups organized the protest. Later on Thursday an Afghan national was arrested in the run-down Athens district of Aghios Panteleimonas after allegedly throwing a firebomb at a police station, causing limited damage but serious injury to himself.
The Muslim Union of Greece, which represents thousands of immigrants in the capital, said that it had taken legal action against the unidentified policeman alleged to have defaced the Syrian’s copy of Islam’s holy book. Police said an internal investigation had been launched.
Meanwhile, in a related development, Athens Mayor Nikitas Kaklamanis welcomed a proposal by Athens Prefect Yiannis Sgouros to purchase the building of the old Athens appeals court in the city center where hundreds of illegal immigrants have been squatting for the past six months.
http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_politics_100003_23/05/2009_107438
JPTF 2009/05/23
Subscrever:
Mensagens (Atom)