Arab Spring nations don't yet grasp freedom of dissent (CNN)

[tokugawa]

Editor's note: Ed Husain is a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of "The Islamist." He can be followed on Twitter via @Ed_Husain

(CNN) -- The fall of dictatorships does not guarantee the creation of free societies. There is often a period in which we witness the legacy of tyranny. The Arab uprisings have overthrown tyrants in Egypt and Libya, but the populations and lawmakers have yet to grasp that democracy is not only about free elections but creating free societies.

When sexual harassment of women increases on the streets of Egypt, when centuries-old shrines of Muslim saints are destroyed with explosives in Libya, when screenings of films such as "Persepolis" trigger riots in Tunisia and Christian minorities across the Middle East feel under siege, then we must stop pretending that all is well with the Arab Spring. But all is not lost either.

Arab societies are on a journey. They can easily take the wrong turn. The attacks on the American embassies in Libya, Egypt and Yemen are examples of the ongoing presence of intolerant, tyrannical actors in Arab societies.

These are people who were born and raised in dictatorships. They are accustomed to thinking that a government controls its citizens -- that a film or documentary cannot be produced without government approval. For decades, this has been the reality of their lives, and they strongly believe that the Western world and its citizens have a similarly controlling relationship between individuals and government.

In light of this assumption, they hold the U.S. government responsible for the tacky and distasteful film produced by a right-wing Muslimphobe.

Little wonder, then, that Egyptian President Mohamed Morsy has called for the prosecution by the U.S government of the filmmakers, and Egypt's top cleric, Mufti Ali Goma, has called on the United Nations to forbid denigration of faiths. Morsy studied in the United States and Ali Goma regularly visits the West on the interfaith circuit, yet both men don't yet grasp that religious freedom and the freedom of expression are inextricably linked in America.

It is hard for younger Arabs not born into freedom to understand how individual liberty works in real life.

The freedom to proselytize also guarantees the right to apostatize. Heresy and blasphemy are essential parts of free and democratic societies. Arab activists cannot seek to emulate the West's political and social achievements by looking at the United States and Europe today, but must observe and learn from the religious battles of 17th-century Europe, the smashing of the tyranny of the Roman Catholic Church, the ending of burning witches and the forbidding of hanging heretics.

It is this history of unbolting the doors of dissent that led to the conditions in which John Locke and John Stuart Mill could write and think freely and then influence Thomas Jefferson and the other U.S. Founding Fathers. There are no shortcuts to freedom, except to learn from the mistakes of the West in the past.

The Arab uprisings are not over yet. They are still unfolding and shaping the future. This culture of shouting and killing those with whom Muslims disagree must end. When the Prophet Mohammed's companions shouted "Allahu Akbar," (meaning "God is Greatest," a popular slogan for those yelling outside embassies today) the prophet reprimanded them saying "Our Lord is not deaf."

Bergen: Extremists and leaders incite violent protests

When a Bedouin Arab entered the most sacred mosque of the prophet in Medina and violated its sanctity by urinating in this place of divinity, the prophet cleansed the mosque himself and forbade anybody from even reprimanding the Bedouin, let alone attacking the man. This is the way of the Prophet Mohammed. Where is this spirit of mildness, forgiveness and compassion amid Islamist activists today?

The millions of protestors last year in Arab capitals that chanted "hurriyah, karamah, adala ijtima'iyya" or "freedom, dignity and social justice" cannot allow for the emotions of bigots to derail their revolution.

Freedom is not only about majority rule, but ensuring that women, religious minorities and intellectual dissenters are able to flourish without fear.

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/14/opinion/husain-arab-spring-democracy/index.html

Interesting perspective.

 

[Miss*Bijou]

How long will it take for the West to understand that people who grew up being brainwashed into believing that their faith is the absolute truth and everybody who is different should be punished, will rather die than change their minds?
Every attempt to reform them gives them more incentive to fight what they perceive is their enemy.

How can the West ever understand anything when they're just as indoctrinated and brainwashed into believing their faith/culture/country/way of life/values etc is the absolute truth and everybody who is different needs to be forced into changing, made to passively accept to be exploited, controlled and made subordinate to the Great powers of the West.... and that they be grateful about it too!

It works like this with any aggressive dogma, not only with Islam. Just raise kids listening to how everybody who offends a guy who died hundreds of years ago, should die, and when it actually happens, they will go and kill the person without thinking twice. People, who would be compassionate and rational as individuals, behave completely different when united into a mob.

There are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world. If the actions were representative of Muslim beliefs and Islam, there would have been a hell of a lot more damage and people killed.

 

[the old maxx50]

A good forum place to talk about how every thing is Fucked up .. But they are going to have to fix it all by them selves .. the west has all ready been screwing around in those countries for 2000 yrs even though Islam is only 1500 yrs .. it has been at odds against all other religions from the beginning They have the true faith .. as do the Jews , and the Catholics and the Protestantism of mutable denomination and yet they have the same profits and stories as the bases of faith..

All the blame we might heap on our governments and business ,or on any one else will not change a thing until ...... I have know idea what it will take others to see the truth.. I can not even say that I honestly know what the right thing is in any of these situation ..Because we are all tainted by our beliefs and prejudices .It Just does not matter which side you are seeing it from we wear blinders

 

[Miss*Bijou]

A good start would be to stop seeing ourselves as superior and to put a complete stop to our bullying and self righteous Imperialistic missions. To stop considering ourselves as superior and viewing anything different as in need of our wisdom. Stop behaving as though the rest of the world were like children that need to be shown their way is simply wrong, inferior. We need to drop the arrogance that makes us believe our needs for resources, for cheap labor, for profit and unrealistic pursuit of growth justify our predatory, destructive and inexcusable plundering and theft of others on their own lands, along with the exploitation of the population.


It probably wouldn't hurt to stop kissing Israel's ass, funding and arming it (billions every year from the US alone- hello?!). To stop enabling it to laugh as it violates one international law after another, to continue to steal more land and water, commit human rights crimes, threaten and attack its neighbors shamelessly.


Maybe closing Guantanamo Bay, releasing those still being detained without charges and offering some serious and genuine apologies for the abhorrent treatment inflicted on the Muslim men and shameful behavior of successive US government, CIA and army leadership. Maybe acknowledging and apologizing for the despicable treatment in the last 10+ years of Muslims living in the West - ie Special Renditions to be tortured, harassment, witch hunt, persecution and imprisonment of Muslims for political reasons.


It would probably help a lot to close the dozens of US military bases and stop army presence in countries all over the Middle East (and the world, for that matter). To stop supporting oppressive regimes because it allows us to do what we want and we know very well that wouldn't fly otherwise. That's really what we could do if we really wanted to or cared. But that's not where our priorities are - not even close. Unfortunately it's quite clear the West has no intention of doing any of these things.


Yes, the riots and violence over a movie is inexcusable and should be condemned. No doubt. But to fail to consider the wider context, of which there is so much to acknowledge, is totally disingenuous and dishonest. And to never step away from our own limited, arrogant and self serving Western perspective, really makes one's conclusions or understanding really useless and not worth anyone's time. And if you aren't sure what I'm referring to, spend 10 minutes reading comments on the National Post website and you'll understand exactly what I mean (or even many threads on perb!). That chauvinistic, arrogant, supremacist view of the world - it's everywhere and it's depressing. The most depressing part is that this is how our own government thinks too and that is a scary thought. It's also a sure bet that things aren't about to get any better either.

 

[Tugela]

Interesting perspective.

What the Americans don't get is that a free society means that you are totally free, which includes the freedom to hate others, in this case the Americans themselves. So, from their point of view they want this freedom suppressed to "more acceptable levels by us".

The US is not a free society either. Try going an expressing an unpopular point of view down their if you disagree, and see what happens to you.

What Americans mean by "free society" is that you should be McDonalds-loving fat slobs obssessed with watching football, basketball, baseball or whatever on TV, god fearing fundamentalist gun toting christians, just like them. Anything less or more is not "free", it is simply un-American and therefore not natural.

The hypocrisy of the Americans knows no bounds.

 

[Ray]

 

[blazejowski]

Organized religion is a poison that will kill off humanity

 

[Ray]

 

[westcoast555]

How can the West ever understand anything when they're just as indoctrinated and brainwashed into believing their faith/culture/country/way of life/values etc is the absolute truth and everybody who is different needs to be forced into changing, made to passively accept to be exploited, controlled and made subordinate to the Great powers of the West.... and that they be grateful about it too!





There are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world. If the actions were representative of Muslim beliefs and Islam, there would have been a hell of a lot more damage and people killed.

Face it.. not all cultures are equal. That's the pitfall of Western self-loathing cultural relativism. If you go and spend some time in Pakistan or Afghanistan or any Muslim country you'll see that their cultures are inferior. They're living in the dark ages because their barbaric religion still governs every facet of their lives. Western culture has plenty of problems but it's literally light years ahead of the Muslim world. We went through our enlightenment and unshackled ourselves from the manacles of religious fanaticism ( although the Republican party seems to have not got the memo ).

It's true that the average Muslim is probably not much different from the rest of us.. just wants to get on with their life etc. The problem is that they will tell us that but they seem to be unable to rein in their own extremists. And the fact is that all the brutality and stupidity being exhibited by the Islamists is in fact.. being perpetrated in full accordance with what's in the Koran. Blasphemy and apostasy are indeed punishable by death. Islam as written is not a religion of peace but one of subjugation, control and brutal repression. Christianity went through this phase too but the notion of benevolence worked its way through.

Western notions of pluralism, personal autonomy, free speech, political dissent, rational inquiry, open debate, empiricism, representative democracy and gender equality were all painful, hard-won battles and NONE of that is established in Muslim countries. If believing in those principles makes me a cultural chauvinistic imperialist... then I'm a cultural chauvinistic imperialist. Guilty as charged!

 

[westcoast555]

Let's look at that a little closer... that Akin dickhead on the top right. He believes that there should be no exception on abortions even in the case of rape and incest. Does he speak for all Christians? No. But what he believes in in the official REPUBLICAN PLATFORM. So anybody who signs up as a Republican is officially endorsing that view by virtue of accepting the platform.

Same for all the murder, intolerance and misogyny inherent in the Quaran. It's in their 'holy' book. It's in the political platform. You can be an apologist by making a case that any individual is an aberration to the cause. But if you read the documents themselves... it's all there. The insanity. The intolerance. The irrationality. The insistence on enforcing a dogma at the expense of others' freedom. They don't get their awful ideas in a vacuum like John Hinkley or Mark David Chapman or Ted Bundy. It's in the official documents. Read them.

 

[blazejowski]

No, only half of it Then somebody will have the common sense to reform Islam and make it more human.

If you don't think as many people have died because of "the good" of christianity as have died because of the militant islamic ones, you're kidding yourself....

I don't support any religion whatsoever - too many people have died in its name...

 

[blazejowski]

Oh, I am so tired of this discussion

Why don't we just put ashes on our heads, admit to our wrongs and let them roll all over us?

If you don't mind screwing up the future of your children and grandchildren by letting Islam spread to us, I really don't give a damn. It will have no effect on my life as I have no children.

Finished with this subject.

Where did I ever state that I was FOR Islam - I said ALL religions...

 

[Miss*Bijou]

wow I'm sorry but Anita and westcoat - those are some supremely bigoted and clueless things to say. It totally ignores any other perspective than your own western, privileged way to see the world and to hold the colonizer's "culture" as superior and ideal. No offense but it makes me want to throw up.


You are doing yourselves a disservice by taking the simplistic way to explain or perceive a subject that is anything but simple. You can begin here"

Islam and Islamophobia
http://www.isreview.org/issues/52/islamophobia.shtml





You tell me who's more dangerous...

Muslims don't have a monopoly on religious fanatics.


"The Crusade for a Christian Military": Are US Forces Trying to Convert Afghans to Christianity?
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/5/6/the_crusade_for_a_christian_military


<iframe width="400" height="225" src="http://www.democracynow.org/embed/story/2009/5/6/the_crusade_for_a_christian_military" frameborder="0"></iframe>







The Warrior Class

(videos)
http://harpers.org/archive/2012/04/hbc-90008515

The full article is not posted on Harper's website but you can download/read it here:



<a title="View The Warrior Class by Charles Glass - Harper's April 2012 on Scribd" href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/106060433/The-Warrior-Class-by-Charles-Glass-Harper-s-April-2012" style="margin: 12px auto 6px auto; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none; display: block; text-decoration: underline;">The Warrior Class by Charles Glass - Harper's April 2012</a><iframe class="scribd_iframe_embed" src="http://www.scribd.com/embeds/106060433/content?start_page=1&view_mode=scroll&access_key=key-213d0nrozwtbg0lmfkus" data-auto-height="false" data-aspect-ratio="0.735576923076923" scrolling="no" id="doc_45213" width="400" height="600" frameborder="0"></iframe>







Jesus killed Mohammed: : The crusade for a Christian military
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/05/0082488




Israel's fundamentalism problem
(sorry, I can't post the original link the excerpt since it appears the National Post has since removed it!)
http://www.pageorama.com/?p=israelfundamentalism





Try to actually put yourself in the shoes of people who are on the receiving end. A serious effort to honestly consider how you might react when it's your home being bombed and it's you picking up bits of your kids brains, your mother's foot and your brother's charred body when you were not making bombs or plotting attacks but about to sit down for a family meal? Try to imagine if it was hard, practically impossible to find someone who didn't have some similar story to tell about family members, neighbors or friends?

Sorry but that's just so ignorant. AND racist whether you like to tell yourselves it's just refreshing and non PC. In case you haven't noticed, it's very much PC these days to say this kind of thing. Nothing refreshing about ignorance, simplistic arrogance and bigotry. Well, not in my world anyway.






What America would be like if it was like Afghanistan
It Couldn’t Happen Here, It Does Happen There
The Value of American — and Afghan — Lives

“Do you do this in the United States? There is police action every day in the United States… They don’t call in airplanes to bomb the place.” — Afghan President Hamid Karzai denouncing U.S. air strikes on homes in his country, June 12, 2012


http://www.juancole.com/2012/06/wha...ke-if-it-was-like-afghanistan-engelhardt.html

Deep in the Times article, another shocking revelation that hasn’t received as much attention as the “kill list” is the Obama administration’s effort to erase the deaths of some innocent victims by categorizing “all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants.” This excludes them from the civilian casualties count, allowing the administration to claim that civilian casualties have been minimal. All Muslim men in “combat zones” in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen have been presumed to be terrorists, and therefore worthy of death, simply for being of “military age.”

How did we get to a place where innocent Muslim men can be killed with impunity around the world with little public outcry? The short answer is that Muslims have been long been constructed as “terrorists” upon whom righteous terror can be rained. The image of the Muslim enemy in the US is not new. While Hollywood and television play a key role in conveying that image to the public, they did not create it. The “Muslim enemy” is inextricably tied to a long history of US imperialism.
…


Through much of the 1950s and ’60s, secular Arab nationalists and leftists who failed to cooperate with this US agenda were seen as stooges of the USSR or as “terrorists.” The latter image intensified with the birth of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and its use of armed struggle. The PLO was coded as “terrorist” because of the close relationship between the United States and Israel.

Following the infamous incident at the 1972 Munich Olympics in which a group of Palestinians took Israeli athletes hostage and murdered them, the Nixon administration launched “Operation Boulder,” giving law enforcement agencies carte blanche to investigate Arab immigrants and Arab American citizens in search of connections to “terrorist” activities related to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Thus, a violent act committed in Munich by a handful of Palestinians became the basis on which all Arabs were designated as “suspicious”; the process of racial profiling had begun in earnest.

The “Arab terrorist” morphed into the “Islamic terrorist” after the 1979 Iranian revolution. When US embassy personnel were taken hostage in Iran for 444 days, the crisis generated daily front-page and headline news that effectively associated Islam with terror. Ayatollah Khomeini became the personification of all things evil, and all things Muslim. The Middle East henceforth would be seen through the lens of “Islam,” a distorted construction of the religion and the people who practiced it.

…

Barely had the ashes settled from the Twin Towers when loud proclamations that “Islamic terrorists” represented existential threats to the United States began to echo in the public sphere. From then on, US policy was geared towards “keeping Americans safe” from Muslim “evildoers.” The “clash of civilizations” rhetoric became the ideological basis for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as domestic attacks on Muslims and Arabs.

…

At the end of the day, the fear of “Islamic terrorism” is manufactured to grease the wheels of empire. Statistics show that Americans are more likely to die from lightning strikes and dog bites than an act of terrorism. In the ten years since 9/11, a comprehensive study shows that of the 150,000 murders in the United States, eleven Muslim Americans were responsible for the deaths of thirty-three people (besides themselves).

http://www.thenation.com/article/168695/islamophobia-bipartisan-project#

Now after securing the intended goal uprooting the Taliban regime and crippling Al-Qaeda beyond repair – the over 134,000 foreign troops from 50 nations from all the continents, under the U.S. and NATO command, are for the last eight years waging an unwinnable and untenable but ruthless and lethal war against the insurgency to protect the west installed puppet regime of Hamid Karzai.

In doing so, a disproportionate number of civilian casualties are being created by the indiscriminate bombings and raids by the U.S. Special Forces on civilian population hunting for the insurgents. All reports coming from Afghanistan clearly indicate that the civilian deaths are decidedly excessive and unacceptable in relation to any gain against the insurgents. These thoughtless killing of unarmed men, women, and children galvanizes the opposition to the foreign troops presence and in turn fuel support for the insurgency.

In a moment of truth, during a video conference with U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, General McChrystal candidly admitted, “We’ve shot an amazing number of people and killed a number and, to my knowledge, none has proven to have been a real threat to the force,” He further acknowledges, “To my knowledge, in the nine-plus months I’ve been here, not a single case where we have engaged in an escalation of force incident and hurt someone has it turned out that the vehicle had a suicide bomb or weapons in it and, in many cases, had families in it.”

http://nwoobserver.wordpress.com/20...war-a-saga-of-lopsided-death-and-destruction/

U.S. drones deeply unpopular around the world
Animus toward American aggression is widespread and sustained in the Muslim world
http://www.salon.com/2012/06/13/u_s_drones_deeply_unpopular_around_the_world/


Duh? Really? Who'd have thought!?

 

[Miss*Bijou]

Author Deepa Kumar on the imperial roots of anti-Muslim sentiment
http://mondoweiss.net/2012/07/author-deepa-kumar-on-the-imperial-roots-of-anti-muslim-sentiment.html

“Colonial discourse is greatly implicated in ideas of the centrality of Europe, and thus in assumptions that have become characteristic of modernity: assumptions about history, language, literature and ‘technology’. Colonial discourse is thus a system of statements that can be made about colonies and colonial peoples, about colonizing powers and about the relationship between these two. It is the system of knowledge and beliefs about the world within which acts of colonization take place. Although it is generated within the society and cultures of the colonizers, it becomes that discourse within which the colonized may also come to see themselves. At the very least, it creates a deep conflict in the consciousness of the colonized because of its clash with other knowledges (and kinds of knowledge) about the world. Rules of inclusion and exclusion operate on the assumption of the superiority of the colonizer’s culture, history, language, art, political structures, social conventions, and the assertion of the need for the colonized to be ‘raised up’ through colonial contact. In particular, colonial discourse hinges on notions of race that begin to emerge at the very advent of European imperialism. Through such distinctions it comes to represent the colonized, whatever the nature of their social structures and cultural histories, as ‘primitive’ and the colonizers as ‘civilized’.

Colonial discourse tends to exclude, of course, statements about the exploitation of the resources of the colonized, the political status accruing to colonizing powers, the importance to domestic politics of the development of an empire, all of which may be compelling reasons for maintaining colonial ties. Rather it conceals these benefits in statements about the inferiority of the colonized, the primitive nature of other races, the barbaric depravity of colonized societies, and therefore the duty of the imperial power to reproduce itself in the colonial society, and to advance the civilization of the colony through trade,administration,cultural and moral improvement.“

http://neocolonialthoughts.wordpress.com/2012/02/05/colonial-discourse/#

Fear and Loathing of Islam
http://www.thenation.com/article/168383/fear-and-loathing-islam




The revolution must be peaceful
http://neocolonialthoughts.wordpress.com/2012/06/27/the-revolution-must-be-peaceful/



The Issue of Framing
http://neocolonialthoughts.wordpress.com/2012/05/14/the-issue-of-framing/#




Few Believe U.S. Backs Democracy
Most Muslims Want Democracy, Personal Freedoms, and Islam in Political Life
Pew Report Released: July 10, 2012

http://www.pewglobal.org/2012/07/10...ersonal-freedoms-and-islam-in-political-life/

 

[blazejowski]

Herrrrrrrrrrrrrrre comes Miss Bijou and the powerpoints.... LOL
;P

 

[westcoast555]

wow I'm sorry but Anita and westcoat - those are some supremely bigoted and clueless things to say. It totally ignores any other perspective than your own western, privileged way to see the world and to hold the colonizer's "culture" as superior and ideal. No offense but it makes me want to throw up.


You are doing yourselves a disservice by taking the simplistic way to explain or perceive a subject that is anything but simple. You can begin here"

[

No dear... you're getting lost in cultural relativism and colonial guilt mongering. I understand you're trying to be open-minded but you're getting sucked into reactionary, 'equivocation' kind of narrative. Since you missed the most salient part I'll just repeat it. And we can leave it at that but I would hope you consider carefully. It begins and ends here:

"Western notions of pluralism, personal autonomy, free speech, political dissent, rational inquiry, open debate, empiricism, representative democracy and gender equality were all painful, hard-won battles and NONE of that is established in Muslim countries. " I challenge anybody to refute the truth in this statement...and that they make Western culture superior. They do.

 

[Ray]

"Western notions of pluralism, personal autonomy, free speech, political dissent, rational inquiry, open debate, empiricism, representative democracy and gender equality were all painful, hard-won battles and NONE of that is established in Muslim countries.

These aren't Western notions.

A number of these concepts, such as pluralism, personal autonomy, free speech, political dissent, rational inquiry, empiricism, have existed in almost all societies, including Muslim societies, at various times.
Representative democracy and gender equality have not yet made an appearance.
And at various times, autocratic rulers have appeared that did not tolerate pluralism, any sort of dissent, and established a cult of personality.
Unfortunately, for much of the 20th century, most of our leaders seem to have embraced and supported the worst of the autocrats on the other side of the world. Now, it is their turn, through hard fought battles, to embrace the same universal values that they were denied for so long. It is a work in progress, and no doubt, it may be a long struggle.

 

[Miss*Bijou]

Just to illustrate what I am talking about:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/1874471.stm

I have read about that story and I absolutely agree - it's disgusting.

Hmm. So we're talking about Saudi Arabia here. Let's see....

The Conservatives and Saudis

Stephen Harper’s Conservatives have strengthened military, business and diplomatic ties with one of the most misogynistic and repressive countries in the world.

Saudi Arabia is ruled by a monarchy that’s been in power for more than seven decades. The House of Saud has outlawed labour unions and stifled independent media. With the Qur’an ostensibly acting as Saudi Arabia’s constitution, over a million Christians (mostly foreign workers) in the country are banned from owning bibles or attending church.

Outside its borders, the Saudi royal family uses its immense wealth to promote and fund many of the most reactionary, anti-women social forces in the world. They aggressively opposed the “Arab Spring” democracy movement through their significant control of Arab media, funding of establishment political movements and by deploying 1500 troops to support the 200-year monarchy in neighbouring Bahrain. The Saudi monarchy may be the worst regime in the world. (The US, of course, is responsible for far more violence but it is relatively free domestically. North Korea is as repressive but its foreign policy is benign compared to Saudi Arabia’s.)

The Conservatives have been extremely deferential towards the Saudi leadership. When Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud died in June foreign minister John Baird gushed with praise. “Saudi Arabia has lost an honourable man of great achievement who has dedicated his life to the security and prosperity of the people of Saudi Arabia.” In fact, Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud, interior minister for three and a half decades, was considered a fairly conservative member of the Al Saud family who resisted the weakening of Wahhabi religious doctrine as a threat to the monarchy’s grip on power.

When defence minister and deputy premier Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz Al Saud died in October 2011 Baird issued a similar assessment. “The Kingdom has lost a man of great achievement who dedicated his life to the well-being of its people.” Appointed defence and aviation minister in 1962, Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz Al Saud was a leading figure in the country for five decades. He pushed a stridently anti-communist position and was implicated in a number of major corruption scandals.

The Conservatives released two press releases praising the lives of Saudi princes but they stayed quiet when the regime took the lives of “Arab Spring” protesters. This author could find no direct Canadian criticism of Saudi Arabia’s role in crushing the democracy movement in Bahrain. Nor did the Conservatives release any statement about the Saudi’s domestic repression. Alongside the upsurge in protest across the region, small numbers demonstrated in Riyadh and other major centres. They were quickly disbursed in what Amnesty International called a new “wave of repression” that saw hundreds of reformists arrested and imprisoned after “grossly unfair” trials. Similarly, when the long oppressed Shia Muslim minority in the eastern province of Saudi Arabia began agitating for change many were arrested or killed.

Not a single one of the 300+ statements released by Foreign Affairs since the beginning of 2011 has concerned the repression in Saudi Arabia.

Even when the monarchy targeted Canadians, the Conservatives generally stayed silent. For example, when Shaykh Usama Al-Atar led a group prayer in October 2011 the Edmonton-based Shia imam was beaten and arrested by police in Medina, but the Conservatives said little. “We were a bit surprised the Canadian government hasn’t taken the role that it should and there’s no support for him right now in Medina where he needs it most. He needs to be visited by consular officials,” Massoud Shadjareh, spokesperson for the Islamic Human Rights Commission told CTV’s Canada AM.

Al-Atar’s experience reflected a pattern. The Conservatives refused to act when 21-year-old Nazia Quazi’s father forced her to remain in Saudi Arabia by taking her Canadian and Indian passports as well as other identification. Nazia’s case was similar to that of long-time Montréaler Nathalie Morin whose Saudi husband refused to let her and their three Canadian-born children leave the country. The Conservatives said or did little.

What explains the Conservatives refusal to confront the Saudis? The answer is support for the monarchy’s pro-US foreign policy and the Saudi monarchy’s growing role in international financial markets. Much to Washington’s pleasure, the Saudi’s led opposition to the “Arab Spring” and are aggressively hostile to Iran. The Kingdom is also home to a number of the world’s biggest investment funds. In a bid to entice investment in Canadian companies ministers Peter Van Loan and John Baird (as well as former prime ministers, turned corporate lobbyists, Brian Mulroney and Jean Chrétien) recently visited Prince Alwaleed, 95% owner of the $20 billion Kingdom Holding Company.

Under the Conservatives there has been growing diplomatic, business and military relations between Canada and Saudi Arabia. Conservative ministers Lawrence Cannon, Gerry Ritz, Peter Van Loan, John Baird, Ed Fast (upcoming) and Stockwell Day (twice) visited Riyadh to meet the king or different Saudi princes. These trips spurred various business accords and an upsurge in business relations. Bombardier and SNC Lavalin, for instance, have received some $600 million in Saudi contracts in recent years.

The Conservatives also developed military relations with the Saudis. For the first time, on January 10, 2010, HMCS Fredericton participated in a mobile refueling exercise with a Saudi military vessel. In another first, Saudi pilots began training in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan and Cold Lake, Alberta in 2011 with NATO’s Flying Training in Canada (NFTC). Dubbed “the benchmark for military flying training”, NFTC is run by the Canadian Forces and Bombardier.

At the start of 2010 the government-backed Canadian Association of Defence and Security Industries sent its first-ever trade mission to Saudi Arabia. It was successful. According to a February 2012 Postmedia report, in 2011 the Conservatives approved arms export licences worth a whopping $4 billion to Saudi Arabia. Canadian small arms, ammunition as well as various weapons systems and components, have made their way to Saudi Arabia. But, Canada’s main export to the Saudis are the wheels of war. A General Dynamics factory in London, Ontario has produced more than a 1,000 Light Armoured Vehicles (LAVs) for the Saudi military, which used the vehicles when their forces rolled into Bahrain in March of last year.

Already equipped with hundreds of Canadian-built LAVs, the Saudis contracted General Dynamics Land Systems for another 724 LAVs in 2009. Since the vehicles were scheduled to be delivered weeks after the invasion of Bahrain, the Ottawa-based Rideau Institute called for a suspension of further arms shipments to the Saudis. The Conservatives ignored the call and as mentioned they approved $4 billion worth of arms exports in 2011, which included many more (Canadian Commercial Corporation facilitated) LAVs.

Canada didn’t just sell the vehicles to Saudi Arabia. A Canadian colonel, Mark E.K. Campbell, also leads General Dynamics Land Systems Saudi Arabian LAV support program.

The Conservatives’ ties to the Saudi monarchy demonstrate the absurdity (even on their terms) of Harper’s claim that “we are taking strong, principled positions in our dealings with other nations, whether popular or not.”

http://yvesengler.com/2012/08/20/the-conservatives-and-saudis/

Well, so much for our principles, I guess. I'd say our government is pretty comfortable associating and doing business with the Saudis. No concern for women. No concern for human rights. No concern for funding of brutal regimes, of terrorism or religious rights and persecution. Not. A. Peep. (I guess they mean we care about muslim women, just not Saudi muslim women. We just like Afghans and Iraqis better. Oh ok, I get it now.)

Well, aren't we principled! Right.

Miss Bijou, most of the stuff you said is true, but, especially us, women, should be very cautious of what we are ready to embrace. Just look at how women are treated in muslim-dominated countries and you will see that there ARE certain areas that we can and should interfere in

Well personally I don't think muslim women are children, I don't think we should sit here and decide what's best for them. I think we should ask them, listen to what they say and support them in ways they think would help, if they ask. Otherwise, no, I do not think we should be so arrogant as to assume that they need or want what we think is best for them.

I was just watching an interesting lecture with Lila abu-Lughod, who criticizes this idea that “cultures of violence” only exist in lands far away from America. She points out that everyday in the US, women are raped, beaten, abused, and stigmatized - but American culture is never blamed. But when the focus is on Egyptian “culture” or Nigerian “culture” or Colombian “culture”, suddenly the violence becomes cultural. The problem with this is not only that it essentializes culture into one homogenous thing, but it is the fact that these discourses apply to “Others” and not to those who are in power. When a white male steals money from millions of Americans, this does not reflect on all white males, nor on American culture, nor on Judeo-Christianity. It reflects only on him. In other words, it is individualized. If he were anything but white, it would have been collectivized - i.e. all people sharing those characteristics would have been made to carry the burden/stigma.


Cultural arguments are distributed unevenly around the world as explanations for what we are seeing, and if I had to think of one culture to blame for the violence affecting women in the Arab world, it would be that of armed conflict and militarism exemplified by invasions and occupations, like the US of Afghanistan and Iraq; and of Israel to Palestine. We don’t normally relate militarism to American culture or to Judaism or Protestantism, though in these cases, one could say that. But we don’t. We call it politics. And we see that it is connected to economics and so on (Lila abu-Lughod).


Lila gives an example from Palestine, where she shows how Palestinian feminists have traced forms of family violence to the larger political situation of harassment, humiliated men living in poverty, of besieged families living in fear in inhumane conditions. Palestinian women point at the larger structural issues affecting their lives, without brushing under the carpet local family issues. You cannot isolate gender relations from the context of occupation and simply blame it on “Palestinian/Islamic culture.” Not only is this simplistic, but I also don’t believe it is a coincidence or mistake. It happens, repeatedly, in order to produce people of colour/women/LGBTQs as essentially backwards/violent/problematic.


As long as we focus on gendered violence of the personal sphere as though it were detached from the larger, global political sphere, and as long as we selectively blame other cultures or religions for women’s suffering instead of focusing on bigger structures that dictate how women live their lives, structures we in the west are hugely responsible for creating, we won’t be able to solve anything (Lila abu-Lughod).


http://neocolonialthoughts.wordpress.com/2012/03/10/the-issue-of-culture/

The critique of many western feminists towards “Arab/Muslim” women is that they are lagging behind the “emancipation” happening in the west. How come western women have “developed” so much faster than Muslim women? Why do western women have “more rights” than women in the Muslim world? While it may be the case, according to certain indicators, that women in certain segments of western society are living a better life than women in certain segments of Muslim society, it is important to see this as a reality at a particular point in time, not as a generalizable fact. 800 years ago while women were being treated like slaves in Europe, they enjoyed significant rights and power in parts of the Islamic empire. This shows that we shouldn’t essentialize things like “Muslim women,” “Islamic masculinity” or “European culture” as historically consistent, as the status of women different greatly from period to period and from context to context. It is quite possible that in 100 years, it will be Muslim women, again, that will have a status higher than women in Europe.

Writing this, I realize yet again how difficult it is to speak of women’s issues at an international level. Who defines what freedom is, what equality is, what a woman’s status is? Are women in Europe better off than women in the Middle East (excluding economically)? Who decides that, how is it is measured? More importantly, why is it so important for Europeans and Americans to consistently construct themselves as advanced on gender issues, especially as compared to the backwards Muslim world? Why is the first complaint from Europeans/Americans usually about “the way Muslim women are treated”? Whose power interests do these Orientalist stereotypes serve?

http://neocolonialthoughts.wordpress.com/2012/02/25/understanding-womens-movements-historically/

One of the original justifications for the war in 2001 that seemed to resonate most with liberal Americans was the liberation of Afghan women from a misogynist regime. This is now being resurrected as the following: If the U.S. forces withdraw, any gains made by Afghan women will be reversed and they'll be at the mercy of fundamentalist forces. In fact, the fear of abandoning Afghan women seems to have caused the greatest confusion and paralysis in the antiwar movement.

What this logic misses is that the United States chose right from the start to sell out Afghan women to its misogynist fundamentalist allies on the ground. The U.S. armed the Mujahadeen leaders in the 1980s against the Soviet occupation, opening the door to successive fundamentalist governments including the Taliban. In 2001, the United States then armed the same men, now called the Northern Alliance, to fight the Taliban and then welcomed them into the newly formed government as a reward. The American puppet president Hamid Karzai, in concert with a cabinet and parliament of thugs and criminals, passed one misogynist law after another, appointed one fundamentalist zealot after another to the judiciary, and literally enabled the downfall of Afghan women's rights over eight long years.

Any token gains have been countered by setbacks. For example, while women are considered equal to men in Afghanistan's constitution, there have been vicious and deadly attacks against women's rights activists, the legalization of rape within marriage in the Shia community, and a shockingly high rate of women's imprisonment for so-called honor crimes — all under the watch of the U.S. occupation and the government we are protecting against the Taliban. Add to this the unacceptably high number of innocent women and children killed in U.S. bombing raids, which has also increased the Taliban's numbers and clout, and it makes the case that for eight years the United States has enabled the oppression of Afghan women and only added to their miseries.

This is why grassroots political and feminist activists have called for an immediate U.S. withdrawal from their country. After eight years of American-enabled oppression, they would rather fight for their liberation without our help. The anti-fundamentalist progressive organization, Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), has called for an immediate end to the war. Echoing their call is independent dissident member of Parliament Malalai Joya, who tells her story in her new political memoir, A Woman Among Warlords. The members of RAWA and women like Joya are openly targeted by the U.S.-backed Afghan government for their feminism and political activism. RAWA and Joya have worked on the ground, risking their lives for political change and echo the vast majority of poor and ordinary Afghan women. It's they whom we ought to listen to and express solidarity with. If American progressives think they know better than Afghanistan's brave feminist activists on how liberation can be achieved, we're just as guilty as the U.S. government for subjecting them to the mercy of women-hating criminals.

http://radicalprofeminist.blogspot.ca/2010/04/sonali-kolhatkar-essay-and-interview.html

The Symbolic Use of Women

…

To take Egypt as an example, it is clear that the past 40-50 years have seen increasing social conservatism, spurred mainly by the rising prominence of Islamism and Islamic organizing. A major reason for why I believe Islamists are reacting to westernization is because of the kinds of discourses they use and the issues they focus on – issues that have basically been used by the west consistently to show how backwards and primitive Muslim societies are. The number one issue here is, of course, WOMEN.
There is nothing new in using women as a cultural battleground.Women have regularly been used as symbols that signify and reproduce nations, cultures and religions; and the norms and values that constitute these. When the French colonized Algeria, for example, they used the status of women (as if it is a homogenous fact) to “prove” how backwards and uncivilized Algerian (read: Muslim) culture was, and therefore justify their civilizing mission. The fact that (some) women were covered, for example, supposedly showed the need for the French to liberate them – a discourse that actually still exists in France today when you see their laws re. the burqa.
…

We see a similar battle over women and women’s bodies in today’s western mainstream media, particularly in efforts to demonize Muslims/Arabs. Women are consistently used to show how progressive & modern Europe/America are, either by images of them wearing a bikini/underwear/miniskirts/as little as possible, or with statistics that show how emancipated women are because they work/earn money (or have been sucked into another oppressive structure known as capitalism). Not only does this create the discourse of women in the west being “free”, which is far from the truth; it also simultaneously creates the discourse of women who do not look like western women or act like western women as backwards. Once this discourse is created, it is then taken to represent other cultures in general: women in the Middle East cover their hair because they are oppressed by culture/religion/etc.

…

When an American magazine prints a picture of a woman wearing a bikini and reproduces the discourse that the less a woman wears, the more liberated she is, it is not doing this out of a genuine concern for women or women’s issues. Similarly, when an Islamists wants to “protect” women from immoral behaviour and maintain their purity, they are not doing this out of a concern for women, but rather because of bigger religious and national interests/beliefs. Either way, women lose.

We lose because it is always decided for us what liberation or oppression means. It is never a choice. Women who cover their hair in the Netherlands are seen as oppressed by their own culture/religion/men; and women who wear miniskirts in Cairo are seen as oppressed by consumerism and a culture obsessed with women’s bodies & sex. And within these binary discourses, how free are we, as women, to choose what we want to wear, be, think, feel, or do?

This is complicated even more if you are a non-white woman, because then it is not only patriarchal men trying to decide for you and using you to make their point; it is also patriarchal/colonial women (sometimes they even call themselves feminists) who are trying to manipulate and use you. Did Laura Bush *really* want to help Afghan women when she argued that that was one of the primary motivations for invading Afghanistan? Or was she just stupid enough to somehow think that (1) wearing a burqa automatically means you are oppressed and (2) bombing the hell out of you will somehow get read of sais oppression? Or is it more likely that she was simply yet another tool used by Empire to achieve their goals; and in the process of her becoming a tool, she in turn used other women – in this case women in Afghanistan (who are of course one homogenous group).

As a woman, you have to always be alert when you hear someone say they want to “liberate” you. Do they really have your best interests at heart? Are they really trying to understand your situation and context? Or is it just another case of someone using women to make a point/justify a war/fulfill some religious commandment?

http://neocolonialthoughts.wordpress.com/2012/03/18/the-symbolic-use-of-women/

And please don't tell me about moderate muslims. Yes, they are everywhere. They live almost like the westerners and are nice people. BUT when it comes to it, they do NOTHING against the fanatics for fear of being killed. We cannot count on the moderates to change them. The fanatics tend to change the moderates into fanatics (as you can see worldwide), not the other way around.

I'm not sure what you refer to when you say "moderate muslims". Does it mean secular muslims? Liberal muslims? Does a practicing muslim that is very conservative (compared to non muslim liberal culture) not a "moderate muslim"? Or can any non fundamentalist/extremist/jihadist muslim be considered to be moderate? What are they supposed to do? What exactly should be able to count on them for?

 

[Miss*Bijou]

Herrrrrrrrrrrrrrre comes Miss Bijou and the powerpoints.... LOL
;P

Herrrrrrrrrrrrrre comes the usual complaining LOL

As usual: No one's twisting your arm to read it so don't if you aren't interested in adding to your knowledge.

No dear... you're getting lost in cultural relativism and colonial guilt mongering. I understand you're trying to be open-minded but you're getting sucked into reactionary, 'equivocation' kind of narrative. Since you missed the most salient part I'll just repeat it. And we can leave it at that but I would hope you consider carefully. It begins and ends here:

"Western notions of pluralism, personal autonomy, free speech, political dissent, rational inquiry, open debate, empiricism, representative democracy and gender equality were all painful, hard-won battles and NONE of that is established in Muslim countries. " I challenge anybody to refute the truth in this statement...and that they make Western culture superior. They do.

Colonial guilt mongering? What does that mean? As the superior culture, you think it's our right, I suppose?

And I think that you should be responsible for proving to me that these are "superior". Maybe they are to you and maybe they are to me. But not every person on the planet will agree with all or some of it. So what makes it superior?

And I'm not sure what planet you live on but while women's rights have of course greatly improved, we have not achieved "gender equality". And what we have achieved, we have evolved to it in our own time, of our own will, and not because

And apparently, you didn't bother to check this particular link so I would encourage you to do so as clearly you are working from the faulty premise that muslims apparently don't value or desire these things and you are also assuming quite incorrectly that there is one universal set of beliefs about these issues that all muslims agree on. So here's the link again:

Few Believe U.S. Backs Democracy
Most Muslims Want Democracy, Personal Freedoms, and Islam in Political Life

Pew Report Released: July 10, 2012
http://www.pewglobal.org/2012/07/10...ersonal-freedoms-and-islam-in-political-life/


You also ignore the fact that we have in many cases interfered to make sure the exact opposite of what we supposedly value happened in countries where we've been more concerned about our own interest - not the population, not the women, not freedom or democracy. So it's unbelievably hypocritical to point fingers and brag about our "superiority".

 

[Miss*Bijou]

Islamic Scholar Tariq Ramadan on the Growing Mideast Protests and "Islam & the Arab Awakening"
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/9/13/islamic_scholar_tariq_ramadan_on_the


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