Palestine, Tunisia, Egypt – The Rise of the Muslim Brotherhood

The Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan Al-Muslimun) groups are making steady progress; the election results show it is the people’s choice. Hamas won in Palestine, Nahda won in Tunisia, and now the Freedom and Justice Party led by Muhammad Morsi have been elected in Egypt, the largest Arab country, where the ideology and the movement of Ikhwan was formed by Sheikh Hasan Al-Banna in the 1920s. Under the Arab nationalist leader Jamal Abdul Nasser in the 1950s, the movement suffered as its activists were imprisoned, despite aiding Jamal Abdul Nasser to overthrow the old monarchy that had more or less mortgaged Egypt to the Western banks. Over successive years, the Ikhwan movement spread to most parts of the Islamic world.

Libya, Yemen, Morocco, Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Algeria may also eventually elect a similar type of government in the future, provided there is political stability with a framework for a free and fair election. Until the election of Hamas in Gaza, Sudan was the one country were the Brotherhood was most successful in gaining power, its members making up a large part of the government for the last two decades. However, the Ikhwan based movements (Jamat-e-Islami) in the Indian subcontinent including Malaysia and Indonesia have not done well historically.

Therefore, why are the brotherhood groups succeeding now in the Arab world when they have been around since the 20s?

Freedom for the Syrians - is it inevitable?

Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Libya fell; however, Syria and Bahrain seem to be defying that trend, where signs of regime change look remote; both nations are governed by the minority sect. Bahrain is dominated by the minority Sunni regime over the Shi’ite masses, and the situation is the reverse in Syria. In the case of Bahrain, the momentum for the protests is receding, whereas in Syria, the violence is escalating; to date it is estimated 15,000 people are dead.

With the systematic murder of 108 civilians including 49 children in Houla and subsequently 78 killed in the town of al-Qubair in a similar manner, the cycle of violence has escalated to new heights - naturally the peace negotiated earlier by Kofi Anan has been nullified. The harrowing pictures of children soaked in blood have been published in some of the Arabic newspapers; according to the UN the victims were summarily executed. In response, many countries have expelled Syrian diplomats. Note the contrast of response to the Israelis committing massacre of civilians in Gaza, and despite the overwhelming evidence, it was as usual, ‘defenceless’ Israel ‘defending’ itself with much greater firepower.

The NATO Withdrawal and the Future of Afghanistan: Construction or Destruction?

“The care of human life and happiness and not their destruction is the first and only legitimate object of good government.” (Thomas Jefferson - US President, 1801-1809)

It is far easier to destroy then to build; a single explosion can destroy in a moment a building that took weeks to construct. This holds true for physical artefacts as well as the human character. A single incident can tarnish an individual’s reputation permanently, but it takes years to build a good name and gain the trust of the community. Applying this axiom of ‘destruction being easier than reconstruction’ to Afghanistan, the country needs political stability, a rebuilding programme, and a thorough cleansing of the existing network of corruption.

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Rochdale Sex Crimes – Are they a product of the Pakistani Ghetto or Liberalism?

For certain, had these men been white Anglo-Saxons, the media coverage and the reaction would have been different; an isolated group of criminals only, with no reference to their racial or cultural identity. This is how for example serial killers are often portrayed. Take the example of the 8 Scottish paedophile gang convicted in 2009 [1] who were caught raping babies not consenting young teenagers like the Rochdale case, the news went unnoticed. Similarly, the recent case in Cornwall [2] also slipped under the media radar. There was no attempt to cast a slur on the wider community, based on the actions of these culprits.

In contrast, based on the actions of the 9 culprits in Rochdale, the media and certain politicians have been busy tarnishing the Pakistani community, which is almost a million or more in the UK. The notion of proportion and logic is discarded when there is an underlying agenda; predictably, the usual Islamophobes to the closet racists have come out blaming it on race and culture, the more daft elements of the far right are blaming religion.

Was it Khalid Sheikh Mohammed or Usamah Bin Laden behind the 9/11 attacks?

The US-led coalition went to war, and in the process killed almost a million people, in order to capture Usmah bin Laden, who allegedly masterminded the 9/11 attacks from the caves in Afghanistan. To avenge the killing of innocent civilians, by killing many more innocent civilians is a perverse notion of justice. If dispensing collective punishment is the policy, then it makes little sense to talk of innocence or guilt. Thus a suicide bomber is no different to those dropping bombs from a distance, both dispensing collective punishment on a community.  

Yet there was constant talk of guilt, and everybody pointed the finger at Usamah Bin Laden. He was conveniently killed, instead of being captured and put on trial – which would have provided the perfect opportunity to discover who was telling the truth. Of course, that is assuming he was going to be given a fair trial, rather than one based on ‘evidence’ acquired from water-boarding and other forms of torture that are regularly used by the Americans, euphemistically called "enhanced interrogation".  

The Taliban “Spring Offensive” – Beginning of a civil war or a New Afghanistan?

Usamah Bin Laden is dead, along with most of Al-Qaeda’s leadership; Anwar al-Awlaki is also dead, and after a decade of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Arabs are calling for freedom and democracy on the streets. A suitable time for reflection, and one would expect the Taliban to reflect on the strategy of armed struggle to impose Sharia laws with an iron fist as a way forward. But, it seems business as usual for them, and so they began their “spring offensive” last week, the biggest offensive for a decade on Kabul, targeting the British, US and German embassies as well as the parliament building and the NATO military camp. Concurrently, 100 Taliban fighters attacked a prison inside Pakistan releasing about 400 Taliban fighters.

For sure the current regime in Afghanistan has the stamp ‘made in USA’ with a sell by date - it is very fragile. The US is keen to withdraw its forces sooner, rather than later, as it is forced to cut its war budget facing a mountain of debt. This is all building up to a significant turning point in Afghanistan, and a good time for the various parties to consider about bringing peace and prosperity for all in the country. However, the signs look ominous with the Taliban offensive. In anticipation of the vacuum that will be left by the vacating US forces, the various factions seeking to protect tribal interests may engage militarily, eventually descending back to civil war. 

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War Trophies from Afghanistan: A Clash of Morals

The awful pictures, published in the Los Angeles Times, show US soldiers posing with the remains of dead Afghans. For sure they have an audience in their military bases and back at home; such people must be consumed with immense hate to take pleasure from such macabre images. Similar pictures have also surfaced earlier, including a video showing US Marines urinating on dead Afghans. Then followed the Anders Breivik like killing rampage, by a lone US soldier; 17 innocent and defenceless civilians, including women and 9 children were murdered in cold blood. All these examples show an underlying trend; deep contempt for the Afghans, which correlate with the xenophobic and racist culture that runs deep within US history. 

There is a history behind the ‘art’ of collecting parts of mutilated dead bodies as war trophies. During the Vietnam War, some U.S. soldiers collected skulls of Vietnamese soldiers. Similarly in World War II, teeth and skulls of dead Japanese service personnel were commonly taken and sent home. Their ancestors, who migrated from Europe, engaged in taking scalps from dead Native Americans as trophies.

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