'Halal' Foie Gras

Encountered 'halal' foie gras the other day.

There's a video voice-overed by Roger Moore on the nature of this barbaric European delicacy.

Demonstrates the extreme nature of some tastes, especially when industrialised.

Allahumma forgive us, help us correct.

The Awami League of Ignocratic Fairy Tailoring strikes again

Two bits of very terrible news today. The first from Bangladesh as Awami Leage lecturers at Jahingirnagar University instigate a witch hunt on a history professor for including critical tracts by Sarmila Bose and Syed Sajjad Husain on the Bangladesh war. Apparently its anti-liberation and worth whipping up student frenzy and authority over. This is reminiscent of the treatment meted out to all who question the Logic of Liberation: that the Awami League, the Mukti Bahini and the Indian Army came down the chimney 40 years ago to fill our stockings with Liberation.

Awami fascism is at a peak these days as Bangladesh = 40 approaches, as opposition leaders are on trial for war crimes. There is interesting coverage of the trial proceedings over here , the witnesses for the prosecution arent very good it appears and the defence counsel himself is being harrassed and undermined by the government.

Squint and find silver linings.

One positive of having a trial is that its forcing the accused to counter the allegations against them, amplified and disseminated over the past 20 years. Their defence is unlikely to be given a fair hearing as the decisions have already been made and the vests involved are very interesting. 'Socially' its good because the population at large has been kept in the dark about important aspects of the Bangladesh War, now its harder for the media and government to drown out every single word they say.

That said, I am not naive about the truth emerging anytime soon.

This Kangaroo Court operates in a society where rage, envy and hurt have been channelled all wrong, into injustice making. Where human rights only apply whilst the awami league is in opposition, to the tune of aid money and towards secular liberal types of people. The NGOs, donors and parties have bought off the collective mind and for scholars its simply easier to reproduce the fairy tales of liberation that please the parties.

This is a protection of intellect, dignity and possible even life issue. Three central, essential objectives of the Sharia.

Prof Mushtaq Khan, of SOAS has been saying for a while that neither of the three narratives : Liberation, Independance and Succession are sufficient and that they dont work for us, so we must make a new one.

British Masochists for Sadistic Domination?

 [Inspired by Wikipedia]

BMSD is an buerotic preference and a form of sexual political expression involving the consensual use of white structures of power, intense secular stimulation, and fantasy power games. The compound BMSD is derived from the terms: british, a national formation in decline; Muslim, the subjectivity targetted for attack; secular, the vice of godlesness in polity; and democracy, a form of political charade whereby the people are duped. BMSD performs a limited range of activities, supplicates to secular authority and reproduces forms of indistinct blandness.

[New Word] Yaarmchair

The position adopted by the english-educated native informant prickistani on goings on (s)he has no knowledge of. Found with great frequency in thinktanks in Washington and London and published reputefully.

[New Word] Shit Lit

Defn:

A mode of literary production, usually female, that grows in the post 9/11 cultural quagmire to demonstrate that Muslims can be just as superficial as their airhead counterparts in the rest of humanity.

Indistinguishable from other emelisms, shit lit is expected to acheive large sales. The damage caused by such interventions is partially offset by the inspiration they provide to those who's bogey's have more talent.

Eg. Desperate in Dubai, Kia Abdullah, Monica Ali etcetera etceterapossibly also mohsin hamid's yaarmchair-giri

[New word] Britentious

To describe the misbeleif that dignity, confidence and uplift are to be found through national identity politics and adopting the inhuman ideologies and perspectives set within it.

Often accompanied with whiteous indignation, golf clubs, migritude, professionationalism, prevent/arts council funding, OBE/MBEs, cultural capitulation and terminal cases of acceptance seeking syndrome.

The Artist Taxi Driver on the strike (prestrike)

Maulana Bhashani's death anniversary today

 Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani. Born 1880, Died 1976. aka The Red Maulana

He returned to his Maker on 17th November 1976, a few months after leading the Long March in protest at the Indian Government's dastardly construction of the Farrakha Barrage on the Ganges River. He was doing this kind of thing in his 90s!!!

This was an immense display of political mojo from a gentleman who demonstrated it quite a lot and didn't get stuck in personality cults and petty bickering.

Those of us who share Sylheti ancestry tend to admire his leadership during the Assam Referendum on 1947 and against the Line System which tyrannised cultivators of the Surma Valley, as it was known then.

He embodied a Left Islamic political practise and hailed from a joint Jatra Movement-Deoband training. Interesting huh?!? Mister Jinnah didn't quite like him as he wasn't British educated and suited enough.

He stood against the Pro-US turn of the Pakistani State, and was feted by Late Chairman Mao.


His involvement in the Bangladesh War is hard to figure. He boycotted the 1970 election. The Indian government basically trapped him for its complete duration, as they couldn't trust him.

All of these facts mentioned above mark him out as someone every deshi could easily relate to, limitations and all. Alas, we the bangali musalmans and musalwomans have become seminarised, selfish, secularised and docile.

Allahummah grant him protection, mercy and high station, since you are the Knower of Subtleties, the Reckoner and the Majestic.


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Developmentshire bites back at the Tehrik e Insaf and Imran Khan

Some time ago, Imran Khan a Pakistani political leader made a pronouncement along the lines that Pakistan didn't need foreign 'aid', and that it caused more trouble in any account.

Though not my country of focus, the liberal discomfort with his political existence seems to have amplified.

I think its worth exploring the connection between their development-shire being threatened by creative and disruptive political momentum.

Of course this is coming from the Sylhatian who saw possibilities with the 1/11 coup in Bangladesh which ended up made things worse, but hey, nothing ventured nothing gained.

So to those young people with developmentia. Stop thinking so linearly and with such constipated political horizons. Now is a time when new people are getting turned on into politics, at least be educative with your borrowed white privilege.

Remembering the victims of British imperialism over all space and all time

Poppies perpetuate propagandist claims
On freedom, suffering and political frame
Territorialising time.
Sweet brother mine.

For Britain's bloody legacy of war crime,
Not to forget Industrial grime,
Makes sub prime
Look frankly small time.

Millions of skeletal remains, or less
Bear witness to its savage prowess
At establishing slaughter and starvation,
On occupation and parasitic taxation.

You pose at your temples of doom
With crocodile poppies
As you annihilate Afghanis
Having drugged China with opium for decades

Free trade
The pasts clings onto your present
Don't forget it, we haven't.

From today we remember the victims of imperialisms past and present
We do not celebrate nor collect pity pounds for your storm troopers
Each of those souls had a choice.
They were wrong. Rejoice.

Oh starved of Bengal, eradicated Tasmanians
Heroic Mau Mau and Tipu Sultanians
We greet you.
We offer fatiha at your graves.

Review: Fauzia Khan film | Bangla Season of Drama

Last night [9/11/11] in the nowhere lab, an art studio and venue on Bethnal Green Road, we were treated to the Bangla Season of Drama’s film night. Managed by the good people of The Brady Centre and supported by farsighted community organisation the season is something worthwhile supporting, for all sorts of reasons.


The film night was centred on an autobiographical account of theatrical director and veteran Fauzia Khan I do deform to be deformed, and followed by shorter feature from curator Hamja Ahsan and Drik Gallery’s Chobi Mela. The evening provided a window into a cultural conversations that we see or hear little of on these shores. We have to squint and listen hard for the little that we can witness here, something which should change.

The main feature followed Begum Fauzia over her career of participation in the Bangladesh theatre scene since national formation. Glancing themes of rebellion, roots, collective creative labour and artistic method, the piece depicts the artist’s eye view of her creative processes and self-image. Being this viewer’s first contact with her work, it was difficult to fully grasp at times. I guess a great deal is lost in translational steps. For example, I found the subtitler’s conflation of the Catholic concept of confession and the Islamic concept of tawba a bit silly. Fauzia Khan sure has an awesome singing voice and is someone I will be paying attention to. It was the clear vocal training and lyricism that appealed to me, if not the roles and scenarios played out on stage.

Next, as a here-and-now interlude, a collection of short films from OtherAsias  Hamja Ahsan were shown. The first places a Brick Lane restaurant tout in St Martin’s Art College, much to that institution’s bemusement. The second and third ran two Bangladeshi narratives on Morrisey’s warped worldview down Brick Lane.

In both directions, from the deeply insulted post colonial man in a lunghi and futwa brandishing a sugar cane travelling from banglatown to dickhead town, a Bengali on a platform, to the third generation Asian uberfans heading the other way with no coherent narrative other than badly expressed adulation.

To round up, a video presentation of Drik Gallery’s fifth Chobi Mela in 2010 rammed the point home that there is very good news from Bangladesh, even if it is a little too donor sponsored. Shahidul Alam, the founder of Drik is an activist and photographer of international reknown. The Chobi Mela is a unique expressive event that moves both the socially-engaged international photography community and the national community. The feature again took the position of fly-on-the-rather-interesting-wall and explored the personalities, intentions and social interactions of the festival as it unfolded in the streets, galleries and community centres of Dhaka.

Bangladesh has a great deal of creativity circulating around, and the theatre season is a good initiative to connect those of us formed in the UK to cultural production in our ancestral lands. Yes there are different ideologies and often problematic donor and national politics running through it, but I am sure we can all appreciate the confidence, beauty and inspiration value of it and learn.

This was the second in a string of theatre-based events that will take place over the next month. It is important if we are to collectively move beyond chicken shop and hip hop, with both local and Bangladeshi playwrights and actors featured.

For a the programme of events see the Tower Hamlets Arts page 

Two Ummahtic launches: Shariah Bill of Rights and The Meccan Openings

These are significant points in political-legal practice and poetical expression.

The Shariah Bill of Rights was written by Imran Ahsan Khan Nyazee, a scholar from Pakistan who I find compelling and socially engaged. It is a statement of Islamic political principles arguing for the poor's inalienable Allah given right to,

• A share in Mineral wealth
• Produce of the Land
• Pasturing animals and Commercial assets, amongst other things.

Please do read this piece, think about it critique/whatever and circulate in order that it become part of our space. It was released at the beginning of the year.

The Meccan Openings is a spoken work album released this Eid (mubarak) from Amir Sulaiman, an African American educator from the US, whose 'Danger' on def jam and Rebel Musik electrified us some years ago. It is free to download. There's clearly some kind of Ibn Arabic linkage occuring here.

I wonder what it is.

Post Awami League Bangladesh and reclaiming the Red Maulana

Maulana Bhashani is a figure I am full of admiration for. If I was a political idolator I would go all father of the nation on him. But I'm not so I won't.

He has been backgrounded in the eyes of the current generation. Or coopted. Not sure which is worse.  Reclaiming him with sobriety is part of the struggle of our times and recentring a deenic mojo within our own sweet borders.

Maulana Bhashani does a lot of work when recruited for Bangladesh, providing;

Political creativity
An-Indian posture
Alternate narrative of decolonisation.
Non-secularism
Ecological Transformability
Strength and mobilisation
A counter point to a thoroughly corrupt urban intelligensia that reproduces trash.

A Halal Chicken returns an angry gaze

The halal chicken took her seat
Amongst the Conference of the Birds.
"Such great accomodation,
But my complaint you haven't heard."

I demand a joint action,
For my kith and my kin,
For these Muslims are collecting,
Great barrels of sin.

At two pounds we are valued,
Beak, feathers and all,
Our flesh is devoured,
Rememberance small.

They say that it is lawful, industrial, clean,
Let's wipe them out with their own damned machines.
Our living rights are curtailed in crates and conveyers,
Optimised, efficient, cheap perverted purveyors.

Claiming diminished,
Responsibility,
Believers come to me,
With tales of colonisation and skullduggery.

I bear witness that there is no creature as abominable as mankind.

Occupy a Browner part of Town

Unfortunately the Occupy London Stock Exchange Encampment seems to be attracting too many St Pauls Cathedral headlines. Instead of the city, the greed'n'criminality of some their in and systemic evil of the present political economy.

Got me wondering what would have occured had they decided to camp outside a masjid in London. Surprise events really do bring out the fools in our governance structures or our qualities.

If they set up in Altab Ali Park, the green scultured garden just west of East London Mosque and the London Muslim Centre, how would the people and local institutions respond?

I think they'd probably be fine, would take some convincing i guess at its a bit far from the action.

"The Muslims of Britain would like to let the world that this is one Occupation that they support."

What about Quakers?

Sights we probably wont be seeing.

OccupyBaitulMukkarram
OccupyShahFaisalMasjid
OccupyKaaba. (oh, actually thats hajj right?)

sites we will be seeing

OccupyShoppingComplexes
OccupyFootballStadiums
Occupy Harrods

Babar Campaign video - sign the petition

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/885

Occupy London: Serenity at St Paul's Cathedral

Stayed over last night, clear cold and full on thinkings and voicings. very inspiring indeed.A good 100 or so tents have been pitched up outside the iconic religious space as people take encouragement from occupy wall streets efforts over the past month. Along with people in hundreds of cities on this great Earth.

If you found demonstrations impersonal and mob-like.
If you'd like to contribute to a process of ..building a global empathic civilisation.
If you enjoy heckling the footsoldiers drinking from the teat of Muther Capitali with a good sense of humour, you should join the 'work run'.
Or maybe you just want to talk to someone and connect with others who feel moved enough to show up.
Maybe dont consider yourself on the left cheek and still think there is something terribly wrong with the way things are going.

Please do try and visit /support as best you can.

Niyyat is to last through winter . #occupylondon #occupylsx

[New Word] Farticipatory

Often when people try to tick a box or gain legitimacy (and funding) they invoke the Participatory.

Some years ago i was with some water sector people in Bangladesh. Proper NGOistan.

They were feeding me some stuff on their participatory projects and i came accross an interesting pie chart.
It was a pie chart of their donors/financers. And yes, The Agents of Developmentia were well represented.

What a farce, how farticipatory.

This foul breeze exists in all climes. Im sure it isnt what Paulo Freire was on about.

Sign the Babar Ahmad Petition.

Over the next 4 weeks we will attempt to gather about 80 000 more signatories for a petition to try Babar Ahmad in the UK. He is now in his 8th year of incarceration simply because the US government wants him and won't provide any evidence its really incredible. It could be any of us or our loved ones.

It is this particular loved one.

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/885

Please do get everybody in your households and friends circle to sign this.

It creates a unity, whilst promoting justice and dispels this atmosphere of intimidation that is fogging our mind-bodies. Talha Ahsan's case is in a similar predicament and linked to the progress of this issue. Our communities really need to back up people who are victimised and dealt so cruelly with by the state.

The free babar ahmad campaign has released this video to promote the petition



http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/885

[New Word] Episteamology

Its a complicated and delicate matter, accept multiple ways of contributing.

[New Word] The Sci(l)encer

A technocratic technique that uses anointed and institutionally backed knowledge production to overwhelm and generally quieten other forms of knowing that are carried and embodied by humans.

Strugglers are implored to elude the Sci[l]encer and deploy non collaborative vibes in its general direction

Dumb Fiqh

Has blocked the means,
For those who rode green submarines,
To reach the land of light and dreams.

To it we dedicate a Garden
From which to beg Ummahtic pardon
To move, transmit and then self sharpen

[New Word] The Musalmoaner

Usually hailing from a Muslim family background, the musalmoaner indulges himself or herself in a kind of faithmail whereby the possibility of their belief hinges on the capacity of their local ummah to deliver the social goods they desire. The category of musalmoaner tries to capture that alienated positionality that misrecognises belief in God, His Speech and His Messenger for a big ready-made contiguous socio-political infrastructure that submits to the musalmoaners prioritisation instantaneously.

Demonstrably intelligent in other domains, the musalmoaner becomes stuck on issues like: 'Muslims do bad things', 'Praying doesnt seem to have positive impact on Muslim behaviour, from what I can see',  'Muslims bully me' and the general theme of 'I can't be part of a culturally degenerate group, guffaw'. 

Online Archive on Nazrul Islam

Go go go go

Thank you Dr Mohammad Omar Farooq!!

Bangladesh's own self serving Terrorism traders

Let us join together and laugh at the idiotic national security developmentia that is the Bangladesh Enterprise Insitute's 'The State of Terrorism Report' . It looks like the Danish Embassy plunged three years of money into creating to bullshit tool that people in the terrorism industry can bandy about with 'authority' for a while. To its credit it giver the resistive reader some idea of the lengths the government has gone to territorialise the security agenda and suckle on the teats of Empire.

Firstly, will somebody in desh corner Farooq Sobhan and those involved in the report, and slap them around a bit with a great big wet fish.

The sources are characteristically poor. Shahriar Kabir crops up quite a bit, and its publically quite well known that he's a RAW agent, also featuring are Developmentshire, shady (in)security think tanks, gratituous self reference, the Daily Star and the Indian media.

It looks like your usual Blame madrassas! Its poverty! All hail our secularity! nonsense making that is the charactersitic arsehole footprint of unfortunate Bangladesh's fortunately declining policy gatekeepers.  The report's crowning incredulity is the framing of Hizbut Tahrir as a terrorist organisation. A meme that has been carried in local developmentia's English-language mouthpiece The Daily Star.

I think it shows the depth of ideological insecurity amongst certain quarters to make a move like that. They see their sons and daughters, allegedly educated people, attracted to an Islam-sprung ideology and can't for the life of them understand what is going on outside their bubbles. Whatever the confusion, it is despicable that they should exploit the terrorism slur in these WarOnTerrorTimes, when HT have no record on this.

The everyday insecurity of the ordinary Bangladeshi people comes from the violence of everyday life, criminality, extortion and the banditry of the major political parties. Public interest research and intervention would target that, not The Empire's chief distraction tactic, carrot and stick.

On Prevent: What to do

Seems to me that resistance to this campaign particular campaign by the British Government to produce docile Muslim subjects is growing and needs to be both broadened and deepened.  I suspect its intimately tied with the discovery, creation and exercise of ummahtic mojo.

Here's what folks can do.

1. Read this dossier on PREVENT
2. Highlight the experiences and ordeals of those at the bum end of the Project to Produce Docile Muslims
3. Sharpen awareness of whats going on around us in legislation, institutional policies and everyday life
4. Convey the experiences of those who have previously engaged with this shit
5. Encourage radical forms of expression, action and imagination
6. Delegitimate engagement and engagers
7. Lampoon and spit upon ideological foundations of the project
8. Reward creative - disengagement with social dignity
9. Share best resistance practice

I do so hope that you share this good news with others.

[New Word] Liberation Mortgage

Often in near history we have the tale of a group seeking national liberation but holding insufficient power to pull it off and falling from the frying pan into the fire because they have to take out a Liberation Mortgage.

The consequence of the Liberation Mortgage is that your autonomy is severely hampered as the power that made you have their tendrils inside of you.

The prime example from my life is Bangladesh and its 1971 birthing with the active assistance of India. Had the leadership been different, it should have been prosecuted without resorting to an alliance to a hostile neighbour.

Today we have Libya, the new apparent rulers of which took a mortgage out with NATO, the single more violent, militant and powerful organisation on earth. Iraq and Afghanistan too.

A counter example for is China, Chairman Mao gave the USSR the finger in 1961 and they turned in on their own experimantal selves. Today they dont really have any mortgage repayments to keep up.

Fly free your excellencies. remeber to make a large deposite and seek only small symbolic partnerships. Partnerships from dignified equals, not empires. There are no shortcuts.

[New Word] Chickenomics

Is an ideologically imprinted way of 1) looking at the life of birds, 2) feeling the call of your belle and 3) making a monetary purchase.

Some famous chefs had a go at Tescos 3 years ago, as they introduced £1.99 whole chickens, they took a proposal for higher standards to Tescos shareholders  but only got 10% support. Alas no Jamie Oliver effect. Meanwhile, Chicken Cottage HQ in Croydon expects to make a killing in the economic downturn as people look to spend less on eating out.

Much of the internal conversation withing the integrative community tends to be on the stunning/ non stunning issue. Stunning is an inhuman, cowardly and barbaric modern practice, but as Musalmen we should consider the (de)industrialisation of farming.

Chickenomics is multifaculty.

Fat cats, poets, grandmothers and farmers invited.

Onnineleveneencommemorationthatmakesmewanttopuke

Please stop this autumnal necrophilia
Sucky oppressed releases of developmentia
So some buildings fell down
George W did frown
And the bastards turned several countries upside down
The ummahs got boring
Bought out and appalling
Some bros they went Banking
I shall not be thanking
This veneration of date
From the empire of hate
Screw you fat commenter
Brown hostaged lamenter.
Say nothing at all
Just let the buggers fall.
Find a dignified job.
Or sell corn-on-the-cob
Good men and good womin
Lets quit with the blaming
And mobilise our minions
To smash through these dominions
Now down on your knees
Remember the Garden
Join hands with the trees
and beg His great pardon

Screw this imperial porn

taking 11/9 as an important and defining date over the past years and participating in this westoxic necrophilia is wrong and anyone indulging in it should be ritually abused.

recenter on your life and the transforming aspects of it.

delink from these oversize narratives and manipulations.

Bangladesh justice system on war trial

The kangaroo court of the bangladesh war crimes trials is showing its unjust side these days. The defence team of one of the Jamaat leaders accused, ex-MP Delwar Hossain Sayeedi, didn't even get copies of the prosecuting witness statements made against him.

Its like trial by delinquent children.

I wish these so-called justice makers would pull their socks up and that the accused would say his piece clearly for us all to hear. I know that he and the rest of his party see this all as a charade and believe noone will give their side of the story a fair hearing, as they have made their minds up through years of awami brainwash, epistemicide and bad jamati leadership on the issue.

A little epistemic disobedience would definately undermine this show trial.

I recall how whenever Janab Sayedee would come to the uk to talk to deshi muslims, the 1971 industrialists would go ape shit. He seems like powerful speaker, not my style but can move people.

I think he should have a go and tell it how he sees it, answering the specific accusations and testinomies ranged at him. It would be cathartic. However my inkling is that the jamaat block are playing defence.

In the past he's challenged his accusers to prove their allegations. its an open challenge issues through all sorts of media. The continual and unrelenting demonisation from the 1971 industry really gets on his wick, as evident in this clip.



But now the accusations are officialised and detailed around his alleged actions in Pirojpur Sadar and Zia Nagar upazila. Its the whole pre-Sarmila Bose kitchen sink actually, 30 000 people reported to have been killed and buried in mass graves, looting, torture, arson, genocide and rape. 

A fair trial seems beyound the non governing organisation which is the GoB.

Remember the Garden, for the sake of Allah

Is the title of a talk delivered by the late Haji Ayman Ahwal last year,



Sadly (for us) he passed on from this world last week and was buried in Birmingham, where he spent the last 7-8 years amongst a community he loved a lot and which clearly loved him greatly.

His upriverproject blog contains a rich presentation of the struggle to protect forest and life in Aceh.





Closer to home, but with exactly the same ethic, the Clean Madina project (below) was an amazing intervention, Jihad on Litter in Brumistan!

Hajja Aisha Bewley on the importance of Quran in Ramadhan

This speaker is the author of a great many quality translations of islamic literature, from the Quran itself to ibn Arabi.  Currently gettign my head aroung Ibn Arabi on the Secrets of fasting.

Translated by Aisha Bewley, Edited by Laleh Bakhtiyar, Foreward by Seyyed Hossein Nasr.

Goodness.

Cambridge Khutbas Ramadan Reader

Awesome

Jawshan al Kabeer - Iranian style

words to this are fantastic

Fasting not Feasting, Flashmob Iftar, Tarawih with Trees, Camping with Quran

video from last year

[New Word] Ohingsha

(i) Negation of envy and jealousy.
(ii) Post Gandhian political movement to break the socially and spiritually degenerative characteristics of Bangladeshi Moronarchy

Stop (im)Press: The Ummah Code hath been discoverethed

Thirty-two, or there abouts, is the number of solar years that it takes for the lunar calender to complete one circuit.

This year's Ramadan burns the summer holiday period, apparently we have had an Arab Spring and we fast with hope and scope. Just like in 1979, for the Iranians, or Laylatul Qadr, 1947, 14th night/15th August,  for the Indians. (Reach to 1915 and we have the Late Ottoman / Armenian Mayhem hmmm)

Thirty-two is an interesting Ummahtic Time Period. If we pile on and superpose these images i wonder what we could understand. Maybe how we dance to the music of celestial bodies.

Thirty-two years is a good period with which to prod our collective selves for reflections of qualitative change. Deeds and taqwa through higher objective struggle, deen, life, dignity, intellect and property.

1. How close are we to its core? What is the depth of atheisation?
2. How are we treating creation? How are our lives unfolding?
3. How does the Musalman earn and produce honour these days? How prevalant is humiliation and disgrace?
4. How have our peronal and social intelligences refined and honed? Is religious education getter more or less stupifying?
5. Are our assets safe from eachother? How secure are we form material poverty?

natural resource exploitation in bangladesh

The Awami government has been selling the country short to Conoco-Phillips it would seem.
theres been some spirited lefty protest going on thats getting beaten by the cops a lot.

Shahidul Alam's blog covers it
Theres a neat video fo a Dhaka Uni-based action, an interview with Rahnuma Ahmed

My hopes are that its not just political ID politics and that a broader base of people come outaffirming a pro indigenous technological development mood music, epistamic movement and disobedience.

We must superscede the anarchic street protest methodology that the awami league had deployed since before 1970, and the archaic student tribal showing -off politics that blow things out of proportion every now and again (most recently during the military caretaker government.)

Bangla bhai, Bangla bhai
Tui MNCderke marteparo nai?

Anti Drones Campaign

http://dronewarsuk.wordpress.com/

Drone Wars UK aims to be a source of information on the growing use of armed drones. As we are based in the UK we will focus on the use of British drones but also include information about armed drones in general.

The Drones Campaign Network in the UK is calling for a week of action to protest the growing use of armed drones from 3rd – 9th October.  The week will be part of the international ‘Keep Space for Peace Week’, which this year is focusing on the use of drones

World Bank and Climate Change Adaptation Financing

Whats a joke that this agency should have anything to do with the future.

The World Development Movement has a report on Climate Loan sharks, which i suppose is good for them, but doesnt delink the Majority world from the mode of thinking, modern development, politics, consumption and science that have cause such pain in the world.

This pain is not just communicated by Global Weirding of Climate Change, but this general post colonial capitulation and floundering that we see.

*salutes bolivia again*

The Tale of the misInterpreted Dream

An understanding is travelling around the mystics of London's East as to the fundamental direction of arrogance and position making of the Quilliam Foundation.

Some years ago, he of Egyptian jail fame was languishing in the gaol of the erstwhile Pharaoh Mubarak when he saw himself in a dream leading the Prophets in prayer.

He managed to get news of the dream out to the intepreters, however it is unfortunate that the interpretation did not reach his ears, it was that 'Don't worry, tell your friend he will soon be freed from jail'.

He seems instead to have interpreted it himself to mean that he had been given permission to reform Islam to his liking.

Transforming what Halal does in the meat industry

Bismillah..

this is a really important communique in the struggle to transform the halal meat industry. There are several values as well as halal-at-slaughtering-moment.

Halal - Lawful (legal)

Tayyib - Good (ethical)
Rahma - Mercy (insan-ity, a small measure of His Name)
Ihsan - Excellence (quality)


The reason we dont see anything other than halal, is because it alone is getting more industrialised in our technocratic modernity and fetishisation of Allah's Law. Its also a reflection of deep ummahtic distortion.

We resist and salute those that resist the consumerisation of the din and the bewitching of humans away from their role in creation in privaledged partnership with it.

While reducing the quantity of meant we consume we can drive up Real Standards whilst spending the same amount of moolah. The commodification of Creatures of God as meat really goes against dinic notions of life and dignity.

The video below is from Mercy Halal Islamic Slaughter, who sound like they are based in the Americas. In the UK there are a growing number of farms and initiatives who could do with your patronage. There's a facebook group 'ethical slaughter' that hosts several related resources also.



We work with carbon footprints, but the key one that we neglect too often is the arsehole footprint. The arsehole footprint sets of avalances and has repercussions on the spirit.

It's probably time to start talking to butchers and waiters and cooks and restauranters about arseholyness and the options available to them.

The Kansu Braves, Hu Songshan and the Koumintang

The Muslim history in China intriguing.

Check out the Kansu Braves who fought in the 1900 Boxer Rebellion against the Eight Nation Allians.

Hu Songshan, who went to Hajj and came back a Chinese nationalist

and of course the Koumintang, who now run Taiwan

Ummahtic Round up

Egypts getting funny. Despite Ikhwan's political front intending only to run for under 50% of the seats in any election and not put a candidate for the top job, the other formations are jumping up and down.

Meanwhile googlebhai accuses everybody of ideology, trying to pull the old 'sort out poverty' line, as if such a task is unpolitical and devoid of political spirit.

Over the past 10 years im not sure if either political poles have developed significantly to find creative ways around this very late 20th century roadblock.

In other developments.

Hasan Nasrallah's recent not-coming-out-against-syrian-leader-bashar has compounded Hamid Dabashi's wrath and pissed off a lot of diasporic supporters who seem to beleive that a little realpolitik, or recognition of one's developmentia and limits is contrary to the ummahtic spirit.

A youngish american-israeli male has been caught in Egypt and stands accused of spying along with an egyptian businessman. His name is plastered all over the internet in connection with dubious pro-israeli propadanda campaigns and he has fought for the IDF.

AK party win a 3rd term in Turkey, Erdogan's victory speech pledged his commitment to everybody and this beautiful gem

"Believe me, Sarajevo won today as much as Istanbul, Beirut won as much as Izmir, Damascus won as much as Ankara, Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin, the West Bank, Jerusalem won as much as Diyarbakir."

Malaysia's ruling UMNO party angst against Anwar Ibrahim shows no sign of abating or getting less disgusting.

Back in the UK of A PREVENT 2011 came out, but more interestingly so did Soundings.

The UK government continues to incarcerate 31 year old poet and Aspergers sufferer Talha Ahsan. Its been FIVE years and he is still in no man's land, no idea of what he's alleged to have done.

Tactical Questioning

I had the chance to watch Richard Nrton-Taylors theatrical compression of the Baha Moussa inquiry last week and the Tricycle Theatre.

The Late Baha Moussa was an Iraqi captured and beaten to death by the British Occupation forces in Basra. to date one person has been jailed for one year.

I recommend the play, not for entertainment, but to animate mobilisation and attention to the Inquiry which report in September.

Andy Ingram, a defence ministry MP at the time was played by an actor from The Bill. slimey slippery New Labour toe-rag.

the inquirey focussed mainly in the british. One of Baha Moussa's co-detainees was shown via video link, however was cut off when he started to get interesting, strayed from the narrow factual confirmation bit, and was making his own questions known. Cue Rowdy Unconformative Arab

Thus the middle classes like to listen to themselves and pay more attention to their reflections in the world.

The Inquiry is about the UK self interest, the audience too reflective for that interest. Dialogue, trialogue and quatralogue arent in the design.

*Turns head 90 degrees*

This is a characteristic of sarmila bose's book and the middle class interpretation of it. A lot of criticism of those who call her a genocide denier focuses on privaledge portrayal of pakistani soldiery above bangladeshi surviver. A lot of these folks arent getting qualitative resources at all and think this is newtonian physics.

But when two alike people meet their shared world view and anecdotary repository are much larger and available for viewing, repeating and manipulating. Military power is also inherently advantaged by birds eye command view with details.

Just something to bear in mind on future research.

IMF Job Advert

The Silencing of Violencing

Im not talking about that bullshit extremist/terror discourse that empires of white and brown use to twist and torture.

Its the everyday violence thats hard to resist I worry about. Occasionally bangladeshi fed and educated classes get jolted by some criminal marital behaviour and emit some whiteous indignation, ironically this comes a few weeks after celebrating the revenge of a castration event.

A few years ago i was interviewing people in bangladesh, quite a few and at length from all over the place. At the time there was a caretaker government and some kind of ban on official politics. People, weaker ones especially were appreciating greater safety. The politics of tribe and gang cause a great deal of grief in our country. Its almost as if it was purposely designed to lead us into the abyss.

People and families who had been displaced by river erosion, and out of their communities were especially vulnerable untill some coalescence had occured and still weakened thereafter andignobilised.

Thinking through Bangladesh, and other places I cant help but feel that if you cant provide safety you have no right to consider yourself free.

And thats not in any development goal i have seen.

Along with decoloniality, tawhesive interdisciplinarity and maqasidic islah i think that great efforts form the intelligent, resourceful, soulful and wise should be ranged at the issue of violence, its institutions and technologies of ceasefire.

Not the anatomy of violence or its record (player), but the movement, transformation and embodiment of it.

The political formation that is able to immobilise a raging and randy mob of awami league activists armed to the teeth with sticks, oars and pistols, without submitting to its logic, deserves a future.

The political formation that can promote a socio-spiritual environment of safety and space, all over the nation deserves a future.

Get Really Radical

I speak of prevent,
That political dement,
Its worldview we spurn
In all manners burn.

Screw Churchill, The Starver
Parliamentary Balaklava
Delegitimate collaboration
With some explanation.

Critical Thinking on 1971, Sarmila Bose @ Brick Lane Circle

Sarmila Bose on critical thinking on 1971 - part 1 from bricklanecircle on Vimeo.

Why numbers killed in 1971 War and 1974 Famine of Bangladesh really matter

In recent account-makings of killings in Bangladesh during the 1971 war, one of the rhetorics we use is 'numbers dont matter', one person is too many. While this is true, and killing one person is like killing all of humanity, I must beware of the blindness this calculated flattening creates.

If the Bangladesh war killed fewer people than the Bangladesh famine of 1974 then that is a great matter for the people to ponder.

Colonial fields around white converts

The powerful and political institutions of whiteness, which move through us all to a hopefully diminishing extent, must be scrutinised, resisted and superseded. What better situation to think this through with than in the deployment of whiteness in religious activity?

It is apparent that many brown people would prefer a white convert Muslim to teach them their religion, or to speak on their behalf, or even script the language around what they mobilise.

• What's the salafi fascination with Abdul Hakim Green?
• Whats with ISB's infantile obsession with appearing white at every given opportunity?
• Does anybody else feel perterbed by the insidious and creeping emelisation?
• HOW THE HELL has it come to the point where people are selling 'traditional islam' back to consumerised asians in the UK? Its like the selling sand to the arabs cliche. Ooops.
• How can groups like British Muslims for Secular Democracy even exist?

This is related to what underlies the fascination of finding scientific meanings in the Revelation (petty tafsir), accumulating badges of white institutional honour (social mobility) and using human rights as a vocabulary of virtue (secularised subjectivity). In addition to being closer to home (or TV)  there's something potent about the yearning for a childlike innocence that meddles with your judgement and betrays a misunderstanding of His Forgiveness.

I'm not arguing for quotas for converts or decolonial-diversity mosque subcommittees, but for a more judicious consideration of racial and class politics in the Millat, because it buggers up the animation of ummahtic mojo.

See also: I've lost a lot of good friends to Dubai (c)

This colonial convert field has expanded as more organisations deploy whiteness as an attempt to buffer and to complicate things for their adversaries, both inside the muslim envelope and externally.

Its demonstrating itself to be a self defeating dawah/pr tactic and we are reaping the whirlwind as we speak. I do not think this is doing justice to anyone in the scenario, not least the collective intelligence and sensemaking capacity of the Millat.

Micheal Muhammad Knight's books relay what I suppose must be his experiences of white privilege in the brown millat in the US. Its really quite vivid and sexual. Eventually somebody from soas will write a book on this.

It is an important research topic i think you'll agree.

One year after the Mavi Marmara killings

Nine heroes were slain by the Israeli Offence Force, and conveyance of relief to the beleaguered people of Gaza prevented this time last year. We learnt how organisations from turkey, malaysia and jews for justice were all united and courageous in their efforts to send their support to people living in the biggest open prison of our times.

One year later, the Turkish press ruminates over the possibilities for flotilla-type actions in other areas. The capacity of Turkish organisation to really flip the script has grown of late. mA.

I heard today that the NUS Black students were quite uinited in pushing forward palestinian solidarity, but were facing 'contestation' from the president who i thought had resigned over his lameness wrt student tuition fees. Its a special time these days as the colonialism at home is connected with imperialism overseas in the minds of young people. Students have realised how epistemicidal the education cuts are and are responding in all sorts of ways .  New websites and publication collectives are sprouting up all over the place, and the cultural effects of these alliances will be felt for a long time, far more cohering than any apoliticised big society clap trap.

Yes, i think the FCO should contract out its middle east policy to the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

The UK supporters of Palestine have made a single and video on message. Do buy it when its available, for demo-politico-economically affect if not artistic appreciation.

local environmentality, recycling and missing the point

Local Authority Environmentality has transformed the recycling value into something which has harmed the visual environment of residential neighbourhoods, which are now littered with bins. This is especially annoying where space is scarce.

How about:
bin camoflage?
communal facilities?

Setting aside the tinkering for a moment, local authorities are strict on this because land fill taxation is driving their bin deployments.  But what about the over consumption that lies at the front of the problem?

Mark Thomas - Extreme Rambling

The activist comic has been walking around the Israeli-built Wall and is touring towns across the UK disseminating what he saw. Recommended, if a bit humanising of Israeli footsoldiers.

Kun Kaatiman, a poem by Shayk Amadou Bamba

The Shayk is buried in Touba Senegal, a Mouridic Capital in the region.

This beautiful advice is for the seeker of learning, pan disciplinary I guess.

The day their music died

The Awami League of Liars stared
Their version of the past declared,
An exaggerated, Jatra play
A power game, a truth to flay

No party is exhonerated,
Our ranks were still quite decimated,
May the future flow uphill in wonder,
With dignity and hope not blunder.

We recognise that modus operandi,
That can only beg for foreign candy,
Terrorise and halt the nation,
With political emaciation

Noble souls,
Our thoughts controlled,
Questions patrolled,
Now, may His truth unfold.

Bose Condensate, Bangladesh Concentrate

I have been reading Dead Reckoning this week, Sarmila Bose's book that casts a critical eye on a few of the episodes of the Succession to (il)Liberation struggle that brought us Bangladesh. It disturbs the Manichean fairy tale of Liberation quite significantly and I doubt whether anything will be the same again.

Nobody is exonerated in this piece of work, which provides resources for justice-seeking and future-making alike. I feel embarrassed as to how well it depicts the character of the deshi intelligensia. These people seem to confirm themselves with every blow they land on the integrity of the work and author.

• The question is, so what now?
• As more deshis realise how shamelessly they have been misled and infantalised, how does the envelope of future becoming expand?
• Will this book even be available to buy in Bangladesh?
• What other sense making is possible shortly?

The Battle of Algiers

Is definitely one to watch, pay attention to and read about. Kindles the political imagination. It, the Algerian War of Liberation it represents and Franz Fanon mark the beginning of something potent and post colonial.

The Doctor's Wife

Is an episode of Doctor Who, that I cannot recommend enough, the Tardis comes alive!

IMF scandal

I read a piece in the Guardian (of course) about the accused being a progressive and wanted to laugh.

The IMF, and the World Bank are epistemicidal engines of destrarchitecture.

Impactful groups of alterglobalist, leftist and other stripes would do well to target, defeat, destroy and superscede them.

Bangladeshi Epistemicide | Conference of the Pirates | Dead Reckoning | Abul Kalam Azad | Pacistan

Think of a situation where a press baron forbids his religious wife from bringing up his children with quranic teachings, employing a infantalising editorial policy on family, firm and whatever scale he can muster.

This is (present) Bangladesh.

I wonder if I would rather be beaten within an inch of my life by a spouse, or forbidden from conveying revelatory messages to my child.  I consider both to be domestic abuse. A maqasidi view would recommend remedial action in order to protect and promote faith.

Examination of the local politics of knowing and being suggests that this is not an isolated case. Plenty of Muslim subjectivities have been secularised, by Machines.

I shudder to think of what potential movement has been wasted in recent generations because of this. A post colonial generation taught by teachers who know little of their historical sources, a generation (mis)led by fools who seem to have snatched the keys to the political engine-building machine, trapped by an electoral politics that reduced the magic of political possibilities to spoils distribution and an ever hastier race to the bottom.

Shudder is an overreaction, sorry.

Actually, I shrug and call for epistemic disobedience and a regular Conference of the Pirates (CoP) through which we shall plunder passing ships for their treasures, seeds, spores and talents and assemble a nomadic freedom flotilla.

With each CoP, we shall emerge further from the narrow triangular bumprints of Year Zeroism, Coloniality, Developmentia and Secular Liberal Capitulation. Not for the purposes of establishing culpability/innocence or jumping back into any romanticised frying pan, but for future potentialities.

The raucous and epistemicidal reception of news of the publication of Dead Reckoning, by Sarmila Bose, from the rabid end of the Custodians of the Victims of Liberated Bangladesh was to be expected.  In a book which is based on large amounts of field work, she contests the numerology of and simple angel-devil picture of the Liberation Account, and complicates matters. I suppose when the actual content of the study is digested and compared with other evidences, things will sharpen, unevenness will be accepted and false witness exposed. I await it in the post.  Her work is seen as a threat by those who have invested a lot of time and effort promoting War Crimes Trials.



*********************************************************************************


On a related note, here's a link to an apparent interview of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad in 1946, where he reflects on the difficulties likely to be faced by the Muslims of south asia in the future. He foresaw quite a lot of grim times ahead. I would like to have spent time with him, Abul Hashim and Iqbal. probably in some kind of Tardis.



**********************************************************************************


On another related note, I think its important to recognise that Pakistan stopped being called Pakistan in 1971. After this time it should be thought of as Pacistan.

Islam's quantum question talk

So I went to the city circle event this friday for a bit to take my mind of my toofache and hear what  Nidhal Guessoum had to say about the Islam and Science debate. His book ' Islam's Quantum Question' is out now.

Nidhal is an astro physicist  from Algeria, with a US PhD and a little NASA Lab post doc experience. Presently he is a prof at the American university of sharjah, is academically quite published, teaches and appears a lot of Gulf TV channels. It was chaired by Ehsan Masood, who knows and writes in the space quite well.

He observed that Islam and science comes up in a couple of variants.

• The Historical Civilisational Navel Gaze
• Philosophically natured debates on the Nature of Knowledge
• Practical applications of science to ritual issues.
• Modernist-Iman-bolstering Its-in-the-Quranism

I liked his walk though previous serious contributions in the area (Sardar- Ethical, Salam- Universal, Nasr -Sacred) and his problematisation of the Harun Yahya/scientific Miracles in the Quran brigade.

Perhaps he over-egged this last issue as a hat tip to Usamafest. Shades of Hoodhboy Syndrome, 'These ridiculous natives and their ridiculous beliefs' came through at the audience level. I think this is an unfair and naive characterisation of Our collective curiosity but he was talking from his experience and quite a positivist type mind set.

We need tools to move thinking forward on this issue otherwise the level of dialogue and epistemological negotiation will remain at a very post graduate common room/prayer room level. this book is one of those devices I hope.

So far the encounter has me wondering how arab/gulf centric, indicator fed  and blind to politics, dignity and need the presentation was.

If Muslims have a 'childlike' approach to science, especially evolution, then the one I heard was adolescent. I say this because it wasn't a sense of inspiration and wonder that I got, but an 'I am imprisoned by the small mindedness of my people' frustration. Its just not an optimal position from which to speak.

When he reduced the envelope of possibilities of 'Islamic Science' to 'optional interpretive layer'  I felt that he'd dropped the can at the point of the creative step. Just like when Jasser Auda disappointingly dovetails into UN human rights and millennium development goals after beautifully excavating the history of maqasid al sharia thinking.

In today's situation, Islamic social movements  must approach the Islam and Science space with a better approach than any that are readily on offer.  Our politics and programmes must have an epistemic quality. We also mustn't divorce art from science ( from religion ) when bringing up our children as well as when identifying and thinking through our problems .

this is long.

Elif Shafak: The Politics of Fiction

TED talk from last year.

A Survey of Human Affairs

"The world today is in a state of constant internecine war. The flames of war burn the crust of the whole earth; they do not spare either the crowned heads of Windsor Castle, the Dollar-gods of White House of the humble dwellers of some jungle cave in the forests of Africa. Discontent is intensive as it is extensive.  Each individual and each nation has a tendency to suck, with the aid of all available weapons, the blood of the other individuals and nations, whether one needs it or not.  When in its external appearance war is actually visible, there is open mass cannibalism - killing and plundering on a gigantic scale.  Killing provokes more killing and plunder more plunder untill the world frets, foams and is completely exhausted. They take rest for a while and this period of respite they call a state of peace.  In this so-called state of peace, they make for an even greater killing, secret preparations which they in hypocritical and diplomatic language call post-war reconstruction; they have a League of Nations of a United Nations Organisation apparently to end war, but really to secure allies for the next game."


from Abul Hashim's "The Creed of Islam or The Revolutionary Character of the Kalima" (1950)

The author is one of those I believe needs more historical and conceptual consideration from Bakhtiyar and Begum.

Constellations, a journal from IMASE

This hybrid journal/newsletter is an electronic quarterly publication from IMASE. There have been five editions so far, focussing on Muslim perspectives on science, society and technology.

This quarter's issue features: bioethics, unemployment, usamafest, political sciences, approaches to the Quran.

Worth reading and circulating.

Imagining a Ministry of Mother Earth

The bolivians must now institutionalise, translate and hone a new environmentality.

Imagine a river, objecting to being dammed, in a court, with fish and otters and the like bearing witness to the injustice of the matter. Luckily the river will not be represented as idealised point particle, a 'resource' or curvilinear flows in a computer model.

I hope Islamic movements and shaykments have their pencils sharpened and avoid Thamudian ingratitude and perversity.

Mother Earth Rights in the Plurinational State of Bolivia

Alhamdullillah its now official. The cooliest environmental law of our times.
A different way of looking and being. Tool up lawyers.

Developmentia

Developmentia is quite simple to define. It is an institutional psychology that inhibits socio-political uplift, suppressing the superscession of today’s status quo with bland jargon, wrong knowledges, false technocracies and waste.

Disconsensus 2011

Fill in your form and get better services, healthcare and education say the adverts for the 2011 Census, which Lockheed Martin have won the contract to administer.

Lockheed Martin also make fighter jets, very sophisticated killing machines for the Empire.

You couldn't possibly make it up.

so there's £1000 fine to hurry along subjects to cough up their details.

and several ways of lengthening the processes and minimising the firm's profits from this adventure.

Duas for Benghazi and the Ansar

I am fearful for the resistance in Libya, that their autonomy maybe too temporary. They may will be overwhelmed by Qaddafi's forces, a particularly nasty branch of which is SAS trained. Its hard to get any fine grained knowledge on the matter. Bahrain too. I pray that the Noble Ansar and Mujahidin are finding ways of doing their thing, on all planes and fronts, with light and metal and that the notorious Khamis brigade becomes inoperable as its members and leaders shoot bent, stand up and cross over.

For those of us on the sidelines Sandala have circulated a recording of this dua, follow its words on the pdf whilst listening.


The Prayer of the Oppressed (mp3 audio)

"This highly potent du’a by the renowned Shaykh Muhammad Ibn Nasir (d. 1674), was recited across Morocco and inspired resistance to the French occupation. So powerful was it as a rallying ...cry of the resistance that the French president issued an order banning its recitation from the mosques. It is appropriate to the present state of the ‘Umma.' "

English translation and arabic (pdf) 

O You to Whose mercy one flees!
You in Whom the one in need and distress seeks refuge!

O Master, You Whose pardon is near!
O You Who help all who call on Him!

We seek Your help, O You who help the weak!
You are enough for us, O Lord!

.....

Alien's kidnapped my imam and meddled with his mind

Is how many people feel about the Usama Hasan saga. For others its been a time for political capitalism and whiteous indignation. For me I think a lot of organisation's lost the 'fear' that speaking in support of his safety would 'Quilliamise' them in Muslim eyes.

On the matter of Evolution, I temporarily conclude that neither Harun Yayha, Nuh Keller, Usama Hasan nor Taner Eidis approaches are satisfactory or nourishing.


On the mosque politics, the paradigms of Mubarak and Abu Bakr(ra) under siege have been invoked by various sides, like a coplicated game of celebrity trump cards.


As the Millat grows - radially - we can expect more conflict and would be wise to design technologies of humility and deescalation, inculcate the adab of ikhtilaugh and nurture interest in the truth, not the power.


 Dissentary is a problem, as well as gangsterisation.

Climate Bribe Money

Basically over the next months and years the big power are going to be bribing smaller, climate vulnerable countries with adaptation goodies in order to institute a carbon regime of their choosing and timing on the world for all time.

They will extoll the virtues of the carbon market, a 4 degree global burn, patronising technological transplant solutions to impacts and most funnily of all, have the World Bank to administer it all.

Now which short termist developmentia ridded Southern country could disagree to that?

I guess we shall see.

Bolivia have a good stance, based on Mother Earth Rights, They trialled this last December at Cancun. We need a Southern bloc to unite to tackle this appropriation of nature.

Its rewarding and it makes me happy

When I hear or see a charity/voluntary/development worker wax on about how rewarding their developmentia is, |I seriously want to clobber them on the head. I won't make a gendered facility statement but will observe this, the disease is effecting ostensibly Islamic organisations full of the clueless who have come to adopt this self-satisfied narrative.

Imamic emission

A list of voicings concerning the production of ummahtic stupidity surrounding tawhid mosque,  muslim perspectives on evolution and Shayk Usama Hasan.

"Why don't you educated people keep your science in the university? This is a mosque."
"Don't go creating fitna over here!"
"Are you saying that the Prophet Adam's came from apes?"
"Let him speak, I want to hear hear if he's a kaafir myself!"
"These fuckers irritate me so much, I actually have sympathy for the EDL."
"Bro Usama, I am behind you. If there is someone that issues you a death threat, give me his name, I will come there myself and YANK HIS BEARD OUT WITH MY OWN HANDS! "
"[He] should be commended, hes doing what we never did, put[ting] his balls on the line"
Indeed there is faya between the kuns. And the Trustees are on faya

Threedom in north africa

The brotherhoods of secular liberals, socialists and political Islams jump for joy with transnationality and delusion. The former are particularly strong, especially in the wests, in their immediate interpretation and reterritorialisation of the temporary autonomous zones produced by these most interesting times.

Fidel Castro writes in, dissapointingly to some, about the Imperialists plan for Libyan Oil, saying that this is just a prelude to invasion.

Hamid Dabashi talks of new geographies of liberation

I guess nobody anywhere knows how this will pan out

Duas

[New Word] Decommodifier

All is not well in the world as we are coming to know it in a warped way.
The craponomists have taken over the asylum and have commodified people, trees and even the air we breath. We have been duped into cost-benefit, market-think as the only way in and out of situations.
 
The search is on for ways of reversing this trend in order that our judgments and dealings be properly appreciated for what they are. These ways are called decommodifiers.

For instance, the Universal Declaration of Mother Earth Rights, a prayer by a tree and freedom of movement.

Day 3 of WSF 2011 Dakar

More on Climate Change responses, Migrant rights, Rio +20, the integration of development and military agencies (eg. AFRICOM and USAID) commodification and social movements vs political parties.

A blossoming of book launches from hagiographies of Samir Amin to Nepali development reports on vulnerability in south asia. 

Met a Navvao uncleji with 'Fighting Terrorism since 1492' on his T shirt, who spoke movingly about Mother Earth, his community's analysis fo the white settler, what some of us would call fitra.

A surprising amount of people are using the WSF as a field work opportunity. Social Movement porn?  Did my own interview today :-), of one of the student volunteers. didnt seem to be aware that anything was wrong. bless.

Tomorrow we move to convergences. Look forward to knowing what they are and where they are exactly.

Questions.

As the arrmies of the west become more integrated with unDevelopment charades,  do unDevelopment workers become military targets and hence lose the halo they hold highly above their own heads?

How will Islamic countries respond to Mother Earth approach of Bolivia? Are we simply envirornamental about these things?

Why do people say 'Science says' so much?

2nd day of the World Social Forum

The disorganisation committee had been working hard today!

Despite its best efforts we managed to stumble upon Naomi Klein, Susan George and Pablo Solon [Bolivian Ambassador to the UN] discussing the upcoming G20 mayhem, with Climate Change, Financial Crises and the Arab Revolutions on the mind. Bolivia famously resisted the crappy climate consensus of capitulation at Cancun last year, and had developed a non market based Rights of Mother Earth to issues of nature and human survival which I will explore in coming posts.

There was a decent session on Food sovereignty and global trade politics and several on corporate land grabbing and resistance. Couldnt help but feel for the people and possibilities that have been wasted and unrealised by organisational difficulties and obstacles. We shouldnt have to put up with this.

Tonight we went to visit a friend at a hotel next to the fortresslike USAID HQ, enough said really.

At the World Social Forum in Dakar

Have been in Senegal for about a week in the run up to the Social Forum. Incerdible place, wish you were here with us. Sufi, Social, Musical, Majical. Check this, a few nights ago I heard a band called Nuru Kane, Bai Fall  Gnawa featuring Kora AND Oud. The kora sounded like light from heaven pouring out of a rip in the sky. This land's characters have made and continue to make, great contributions to Islamic and general culture. Even the boaba trees look like they could walk up to you and give you a good old frisking! bellebellebelle.

Today was the first 'business' day of the forum and participants have come from all over. Corporate NGOs (have already bumped into CRAP) and internationalist thinktanks do feature but by far its not the NGO fair that I feared. The theme for the day was Africa and Diasporas, well reflected in the sessions and conversations that we had as well as the questions im off to lala land with.

TrustAfrica's "Culture as Weapon" was chaired/interpreted and signed with states(wo)manly awesomeness. Dr Abduoulwaye Niange especially impressed. HE'S got a DOCTORATE IN BREAK DANCE! Needless to say the political and social value of hiphop is not under estimated in the content of urban culture in this country. The discussions ranged and searched and are only beginning to sink in at the moment (Art in politics, challenges of amateur/professionalism, the culture of cooperation and conditionality, social media, BS culture, financing, relations with power/state..). To top it off, arather jubilant tunisian bromrade played us out with an oud powered song.

Following a yasser poulet lunch, conversations with a mouritian teacher, a senegerman environmental worker and a good old fashioned brain-squeeze of an autonomous artist couple we made it to the Liberation Theology run session on Borders/immigration and the right to free movement. There have been several Caravan trips here, from Bamako and other African places. These intervention/protest acts have been highlighting how Europe is outsourcing its border control to north african regimes, and how much of west africa's regional unity is paper-based and not backed up by tarmac and political-administrative enablement.

The Campus mosque is a really happy place too. Dropped the mandatorys and proceeded in the direction of some cafe touba (spicy coffee). But not before experiencing some heavy heavy Tijani (?) dhikr from one of the student halls.

Ended the night watching a Malian musical-theatrical troupe perform a fantastic production on migrant experience.

Follow the World Social Forum here.

NatWest Bank chief PressTV account.

The UK's National Westminster (NatWest) Bank has frozen the accounts of PRESS TV Ltd, a London-based independent television production company.

The company had been set up to produce news, factual programs and documentaries to be sold to the Tehran-based Press TV News Channel.

Matthew Richardson, Press TV's legal adviser, confirmed that NatWest in its letter of December 7, 2010, announced its closure of Press TV Ltd's bank accounts.

Richardson said that NatWest had refused to explain why it had frozen the accounts.

“To this date, NatWest has neither given a reason nor an explanation for freezing our account. Its letter had not provided any contact names, contact telephone numbers or email addresses. Despite our persistent letters, emails, phone calls and text messages to individuals with whom we had previously corresponded, NatWest has not even made an attempt at a response. It should be noted that it was not Press TV Ltd that initially approached NatWest for business. Rather it was NatWest that sought business with Press TV Ltd with open arms and with a big welcome”, said the Press TV's legal advisor in London.

Richardson said that NatWest has blocked almost £200,000 of the Press TV Ltd money in Pounds, Euros and Dollars without reason or explanation.

“Press TV Ltd works within the framework of the Law and has trained journalists, cameramen, editors and assistant producers, some of which were later recruited by other networks, such as the BBC, CNN, and Sky. It has provided work, job opportunities, training and income for tens of thousands of companies and hundreds of individuals, all of whom contribute to the UK via all various taxes”, said Richardson.

The news company's legal advisor noted that Press TV Ltd was working with NatWest based on a commercial agreement and not a political one, but, he said a raft of issues lead us to think that the Bank has been encouraged by the British government to act against the interests of the company.

“When we witness the violent attacks on our Satellite Van, our vehicles, our cameramen and our equipment, the recent demonization campaign by the BBC, and the ITN of Ken Livingstone, and the threats to our presenters, such as George Galloway in the Houses of Parliament and the death threats to our colleagues, the detention and imprisonment of our British reporter, and the theft of our equipment by Israel in international waters, with the British government not showing any reaction to any of the above incidents, it is reasonable for us to question the British government's position, particularly following the WikiLeak in the Guardian about the government's intentions to close down Press TV Ltd”, added Richardson.

Meanwhile, Lauren Booth, the sister-in-law of former British prime minister Tony Blair who works for Press TV and recently converted to Islam, blasted the NatWest's move as a "politically motivated act".

It was "intended to cripple a thriving British company whose programs and news bulletins shed light on areas of policy which certain agencies would sooner keep in the dark," she said.

Booth said that NatWest's action was “punitive, draconian theft”. 

British Security Service infiltration of environmental movement

I am unsure as to why there has been a spike in coverage of spooks and officers doing dastardly things whilst 'serving the public' but I hope the news will turn good people away from odious livelihoods.

That the environmental movement (and ministerial protection)  has evidently been so heavily infiltrated by people with little self control makes me wonder how deeply entrenched they are amongst the Islamically moved, and what it is that they might be doing to undermine concepts, people, relationships and organisations with the ultimate cover of acting in the UK public's safety and best interests.

Climate and environment protesters are a harmless, creative and noble bunch. I hope this experience makes them,

Another World Is Possible

The World Social Forum is in its tenth annual incarnation now. The 2011 meet in Dakar, Senegal is a testamant to the depth of movement epicentring on brazil, but fanning out across humanity. Another world is possible is its slogan, and pluriversal is its application. Following the advancements of social movements in Latin America to the extent that the Washington Consensus amongst national politics there has broken, the naive marxist's acceptance that there are categories other than class and modes of production to be worried about, the rise of decoloniality and the growing exposure of the civilisational cul de sac that is liberal secular capitalism... I think that there is a lot to do.

1200 different organisations, 700+ activities going on over the week


Click below for more

http://fsm2011.org/en/wsf-2011

Follow it in the non-standard electronic press in early february.
inshAllah it won't be an NGO fair.


India 2004

The Quilliam Language Police

For some reason these sock puppets for secular liberal hegemonic imperialism send me their saddo press releases. A few weeks ago they let off a plea for funds. Today I get some random notice of a report that simply causes laughter. Perhaps its a the dying throw of a fish suffocating in the air, maybe its conceptual cost cutting who knows?

Basically they are telling people not to use the following terms lest they cause extremism. Its like Orwellian newspeak and thoughtcrime.

• ‘The Islamic/Muslim World’
• ‘Muslim countries’
• ‘The Muslim Community’
• ‘Islamic Law’
• ‘Islamophobia’

Reading between the lines, this is saying,

• You have no place in the world.
• You have no nationhood.
• Not even lower scales of organisation and collectivity.
• Or body of live legal theory and practice.
• Or cause for complaint.

Its quite an ambitious ideological stun grenade.
 
Oh dear, I think I just got radicalised, quite holistically.
 
In the meantime we await the laughter inducing antics of Dr M and Mister Moo.

Tunisia Developments : FT interview with Shayk Ghanouchi

Interview transcript: Rachid Ghannouchi




Published: January 18 2011 11:47
Last updated: January 18 2011 11:47



The Financial Times interviewed Rachid Ghannouchi, exiled leader of Tunisia’s Nahda party, in London. The interview was conducted on Sunday evening, just before a new unity government was announced in Tunis.



FT: A government is about to be formed in Tunisia following the fall of Zein al-Abidine Ben Ali. It includes parties that are there, on the ground, and you are not there. How is Nahda going to find a way to be involved on the ground?



RG: The government that is to be announced tomorrow is a continuation of the 7 November era. This is not a rupture with that era. The revolution wanted a rupture with that era. The revolution was against a dictator and the era of 7 November. But the faces we see are the same faces of the old regime with some new faces from the official opposition.



FT: How would you describe this current stage? Is it just the beginning of the end of the Ben Ali era or do you feel that perhaps the revolution is not yet completed?



RG: There are many contradictory wills within this government. Perhaps some of those participating in this process such as Najib Chebbi (opposition leader) believe that this is the path for moving from the dictatorship to a democracy. Some of the others, the ruling party and the domestic opposition see democracy as just a facade for the dictatorial system and indeed an attempt to contain the revolution.



FT: This is all new for Tunisians, the end of the Ben Ali era. How can you make a very strong break today from the system, when there is nothing to replace it? Don’t you need this type of transition period?



RG: Basing the transition on the (current) constitution to build a democratic system is a futile attempt to build democracy from dictatorship because only God can bring out life from death. We cannot bring out a democratic system out of this corrupt, dictatorial system. We have to put an end to the authoritarian system and start a new one. Basing this transition on Article 56 or 57 is a continuation of the old system. The constitution was a tyranny, the state was reduced to one man, who had in his hands the executive, judicial and legislative powers and was not accountable to anyone. How can such a constitution point towards building a democratic system, even as a starting point.



The first step of building a democratic system is to build a democratic constitution. For this we need a founding council for rebuilding the state, one in which political parties, the trade unions and the civil society join. This council will rebuild the democratic constitution and will be the basis for building the democratic system.



FT: But who will decide who takes part? Ben Ali controlled so much as you know but now that he’s gone, political parties that are there are very weak, trade unions are weak, who will bring people together?



RG: Who made this revolution? It is the people who made this revolution.This revolution was not made by an angry, out-of-control mob. There are 250, 000 university graduates who are in fact the basis for this revolution. It is not angry, uneducated people. They were the base of this revolution with their creative ways of using the internet and other media. As to the trade unions, it’s true that their leadership has been subservient (to the regime) but the regional union headquarters were the centre of the protests and they led the revolution.



The lawyers also led the main protest marches and these are important bodies which were later joined by the opposition towards the end. There are still important civil society institutions, lawyers, trade unions, political parties, the representative bodies of unemployed graduates and it is them who (could potentially) support the constitutional council. What we see is that they are not present in this (current) transition.



FT: Are you in contact with the other leaders in the opposition? Have you been consulting with them?



RG: We as a member of the October 18 movement which we founded in 2005 and it brings together parties and civil society institutions, including Nejib Chebbi from the Progressive Democratic Party, the Tunisian Communist Workers Party, and the Conference for the Republic and other human rights organisations. This was founded in 2005 for one simple demand: to call for freedom of expression and association for everyone and for recognising the rights of all parties.



Later when we developed this coalition, to elaborate this joint intellectual basis we produced several papers which all members of this movement agree on and embrace. The first was a paper on philosophical pluralism. There is no limit to pluralism except not embracing violence, and giving the rights to anyone to found the party.



The second was the rights of women because the government used to always say to frighten people away that (the Islamists) will take away the rights of women. Then we had to reassure others in this coalition who were being accused of working with the Islamists. And we all recognise, we accept the personal status code and will not cancel it or refuse it. Indeed we had expressed this since 1988 on 17 July where I made a statement in which I recognised the personal status code.



Another paper was on the freedom of conscience, to address the allegations that Islamists will be using the punishment for apostasy and will kill people for what they believe. The paper recognised that Tunisians have the freedom to believe in anything, to leave or embrace any faith, as faith is a personal matter. On the basis of these papers the coalition moved from no longer being a short-term political coalition, but a social project for society.



For the Tunisia that we are working for, one in which women enjoy equality, people can establish and join any party and they have the freedom to believe any faith.



FT: Have you been talking to some of the leaders over the past two days? Is there any coordination?



RG: Yes we are in communication with members of this coalition…. However with the recent developments in the county, differences have appeared between members of the coalition, in their evaluation of the situation. In that Nejib Chebbi two days before the fall of Ben Ali met with the former prime minister, who is indeed has been currently re-installed as the interim prime minister. This was Ben Ali’s last trick to try to remain in power, to call for forming a national unity government. So indeed what we see now, this national unity government, was planned by Ben Ali. Chebbi agreed to meet the Prime Minister, (others) rejected this.



FT: What is the representation of Nahda today in Tunisia? It was a long time ago that you were there...do you think people are still attached to Nahda?



RG: Only elections can reveal that. In the West the popularity of a party is judged through elections – they may have 10, 20 or 30 per cent of the vote. Anyone can claim 99 per cent popularity. When the ban on parties is lifted (in Tunisia) only then can we can judge the success and failure of parties or the extent of their popularity.



I could tell you that we are very popular, but how would you believe that? There are new generations now who have not had the opportunity to be familiar with Nahda and nor does Nahda know them. We have not had the opportunity to address or influence them.



We expect that many still remember us. The crackdown on Nahda was very severe, and there is not a family in Tunisia who hasn’t had one of its members because of association with Nahda, imprisoned, lost their jobs or been exiled (for political reasons).



One of our members was recently killed in the latest protest. He was (first) abducted, then killed.



Thirty thousand of our members and sympathisers were imprisoned in the beginning of the 90s. There was a crusade against us. Over a hundred died under torture or suffered torture in prison. While this was happening Ben Ali was receiving great support from Europe, and Tunisia was the first country of the southern Mediterranean to become a trade partner (referring to the Association Agreement) with the EU.



While torture was taking place, documented by Amnesty International and other human rights organisations, and repression was at its highest point, Europe was praising Ben Ali’s great achievement and supposed economic miracle. And European universities were awarding Ben Ali human rights awards, whilst he was slaughtering Tunisians, they were granting him honorary doctorates.



When I left Tunisia, I was prevented from entering many European counties. I had visas for France, Germany, Italy and Spain. All were cancelled when Ben Ali’s crackdown started on Nahda – except for Great Britain. And I appreciate that this country gave me refuge when all other European countries prevented me from entering their soil, not to mention all Arab countries who deported members of Nahda or handed them over to the Tunisian government.



FT: You alluded earlier to the fact that even within the October 18 movement, with fellow Tunisians from other parties, that, as an Islamist you had to make your position clear on a number of issues preemptively in order to be accepted as a legitimate member of the movement. Do you worry that an Islamist component within the unity government might harm Tunisian’s external relations, particularly with the EU?



RG: Well I don’t accuse the EU of not putting pressure on Ben Ali for repressing Nahda. Ben Ali was very keen to repress us not because we were religious or an Islamist party but because we represented a powerful opposition to his system.



Habib Bourguiba (the country’s first post-independence President, later deposed in 1987 by Ben Ali in a coup d’état) and Ben Ali’s regime, under them, Nahda members were not the first to occupy their prisons. In the 50s prisons were filled with Youssefites (political activists loyal to Salah Ben Youssef, a senior official who broke away from Bourguiba’s ruling Constitutional Party); in the 60s it was the Leftists; in the 70s it was the trade unions; and in the 80s it was our turn to replace them under this regime, which represses anyone who represents a credible opposition.



We do not hold the EU responsible for Ben Ali’s repression; Ben Ali repressed anyone who opposed him. But Europe did not oppose or criticise this repression. The EU accepted Ben Ali as a partner and while the EU-Tunisia trade agreement has an economic aspect with human rights and political clauses that require those in charge of government to protect human rights, democracy.



This human rights aspect was put aside and Ben Ali was accepted whilst he was involved in using the most severe violence against Tunisians, falsifying elections, winning by 99 per cent of the vote and Europe was silent. Why? Because Ben Ali presented himself to Europe saying that we are in one battle, we are (his regime) against fundamentalism, we have a common enemy, we are part of the war in terror.



While Ben Ali has in fact been a great source of terrorism. When Nahda was in Tunisia, functioning inside Tunisia there was no al-Qaeda and there were no violent acts, whereas now there are hundreds of Tunisian youths who are involved in fighting in Iraq, Somalia and Afghanistan due to not having the opportunity to be familiar with a moderate Islamic movement and have been influenced by al-Qaeda’s ideology.



Ben Ali sold himself to Europe saying support me and I will be a barrier to terrorism when in fact he has been the greatest source and exporter of terrorism to Europe.



FT: Are you really going back? You have been saying you are returning so when do you expect to be in Tunisia?



RG: I decided to return because the cause for which I left Tunisia has now disappeared. I was sentenced to life imprisonment (three life sentences, when one would have been enough), and I did not accept to spend the rest of my life in prison. I had to defend my right to freedom.



Now Ben Ali has gone, the natural state is for me to be inside the country, to be involved. The dictator has fallen, but the dictatorship is still there. I wish to be involved in contributing alongside others to the dismantling of the dictatorship and to help in the process of taking Tunisia from the dictatorial system to a democratic one. To help in these efforts to take Tunisia though this transitional process.



We’ll go back to organising ourselves and contribute to the education of the new generation through our moderate, democratic thought.



Our thought is similar to that of the AKP (Justice and Development Party) in Turkey, currently in government. Indeed my books have almost all been translated into Turkish and are widely read there.



However I have no political aspirations myself, neither for standing as a minister, for parliament or president. Some are presenting me as a Khomeini who will return to Tunisia – I am no Khomeini.



The natural state is for me to be in Tunisia. As for the timing I have left this for my brothers, members of the Nahda have been informed of my intention and desire to go back, and arrangements have been left with them to prepare. Indeed the day they say ‘come’, I will go back.



My age does not allow me to consider such aspirations. I am nearing 70 years old and there are new generations inside Nahda more able, more suited to political activism. I intend to concentrate my contribution to the development of Islamic thought and my involvement in the causes of the Muslim world, and I hope to dedicate the rest of my life for working towards these endeavors.



Tunisa is one part of the Muslim world, and it will be one among my many duties and interests.



FT: You cited Nahda as being similar in some respects to the progressive AKP party in Turkey. If you were to look at Nahda within the spectrum of other regional Islamist movements and parties, how far are you from the Ikhwan (Muslim Brotherhood)?



RG: (When I first came to the UK) I gave a lecture Manchester University in which I said democracy should not exclude communists. At the time this was rejected strongly by Islamists who saw it as accepting atheism. I said that it is not ethical for us to call on a secular government to accept us, while once we get to power we will eradicate them. We should treat people like-for-like. As the Prophet Muhammad said, one should wish for his brother what he wishes for oneself. And Kant said you should use your behaviour as your base for treating the rest of humanity.



At the time this was alien to political thought (among UK-exiled Arab Islamists) and I was described as a secularist and part of a secularist movement because I called for democracy that does not exclude anyone.



Indeed since our first statement, our founding statement on 5 June 1981, journalists have asked me: if the Tunisian people elected communists would you accept that?



I answered that if the Tunisian people do that then I would respect the will of the Tunisian people and I’ll then address them to convince them that this is not right and when there are elections, the elections will tell whether we managed to convince them.



And from 1981 to this day, there have been many changes to the Muslim world, democratic thought has spread and Islamists have realised the danger of dictatorships, and the benefits of democracy. And they have also realised the harm of Islamic regimes that are not democratic such as the model seen in Afghanistan under the Taliban and Islamist Sudan.



I believe that my thoughts, these ideas have been adopted by the mainstream of the Islamic movements. For instance, the Ikhwan, the largest Islamic movement, have accepted democratic principles and they have since issued many papers on the principles of pluralism and political participation of women. In the latest political programme of the Muslim Brotherhood (of Egypt) they have adopted these ideas although there remains some reservation on women as the head of state and on non-Muslim heads of state, Coptic Christians for instance, and where scholars oversee the legislative process. I openly criticised this stance on television and also in an article on Al-Jazeera in which I said that we should embrace the principles of citizenship as the basis for running the state. And since women and Coptic Christians are citizens they have the right to run for any position and there should be no overseeing of the legislative process by scholars.



In addition I should also actually add that this project published by the Muslim Brotherhood (of Egypt) was circulated for general discussion, it was not final. When they met with internal opposition they realised the error in this. Especially after the latest events in Egypt, many such as Ibrahim Munir (Secretary General of the International Organisation of the Muslim Brotherhood) have stated that they do not oppose the standing of Coptic Christians for head of state and have retracted their previous statement. This would otherwise undermine national unity, so we see a gradual development taking place. So we see a gradual evolution, we (Nadha) drank the cup of democracy in one gulp back in the 1980s while other Islamists have taken it sip by sip.



FT: Do Tunisians feel betrayed by their European neighbours in terms of allowing Ben Ali to continue his regime? And do you feel Tunisia’s relations are overly reliant politically and economically on the EU? If so, should Tunisia rebalance its relationships more towards the East, like Turkey have done?



RG: Europe has the right to seek its interests, we are not opposed to that. We do not teach them where their interests are, they know where their interests lie. The EU states have supported Ben Ali for their own interests, but now realise that it was short-sighted and at the expense of principles and ethics.



We believe in the interests can be sought while respecting ethics that there is no contradiction between ethics and interests.



The dictators should realise that they are supported when they are strong but abandoned when they fall .... As we saw, France supported Ben Ali but when he fell they united against him. Ben Ali’s plane was not allowed to land in Paris.



However Britain and France have been positive on the whole from the beginning of these events. They recognise the right of the Tunisian people to democracy and freedom...and other countries also eventually expressed this, including the United States.



It is the Arab world that expresses displeasure and concern, worrying that the flames will spread. Although we try to reassure them that each county has its own condition, but they still seem fearful. It seems that we have not yet exceeded to expel that fear.



The dictators are supported by the West but once they lose the trust of the people they will be abandoned by the West. But dictators are foolish and they only realise that too late and they did not read history...including very recent history. The Shah of Iran upon expulsion flew around the world (looking for assistance upon fleeing Tehran in 1979), but no one accepted him.



Regarding the relations with Europe, the departure of Ben Ali did not end the relations with the Europe Union. Such relations are not decided by which government is in power but by geography.



The EU and North Africa has had strong relations before and after Ben Ali. They are our near neighbours and always had strong relations of trade and culture between the North and South of the Mediterranean. In the era of the Romans, the Carthaginians and in the Islamic era, the relationship with Europe is not linked with any particular individual. On a clear night in fact one can see from the Tunisian coast the lights of Europe.



The demand of nationalist forces in Tunisia does not put an end to relations with Europe but a balance. Relations (must be) built on mutual respect and based on equality, and relations that are not at the expense of the wealth of the people, (or their) freedom and dignity.



Despite what I mentioned previously, Nahda greatly appreciates that several thousands of its members were accepted as political refugees in European countries – in France, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, Holland, Britain and almost all European countries, despite great pressure from Ben Ali who claimed that these were extremists. But no European country accepted these claims....and this is an ethical stance that we appreciate.



Over 1,000 Nahda members were not only refugees but have become citizens of Europe and become involved in all aspects of life. Many are businessmen and women and are part of and participating in the wider Islamic community of Europe and are forwarding the agenda of moderation and are working against extremist ideas. So I hope we have not been a burden on Europe, that we are seen as a positive (force) living in Europe, and we have attempted to remain faithful to the contract, pact of sanctuary.