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6. The Art of Protest

Feb-03-2012 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: Protests: we march down the street, wave banners, and maybe click in the little box to send a prewritten letter to a preselected recipient. Doing that is better than not doing it… but here are a few more challenging acts of protest to emulate. The Target video is a must see. Adbusters, the Canadian group who catalyzed the Occupy protests is becoming a nexus for such actions.

* 5 Acts of Creative Disruption NationofChange

• When Target spent $150,000 to support a Minnesota politician who favors anti-gay legislation, thousands of people decided to boycott the big-box chain. But instead of simply shopping elsewhere, these activists turned to the popular musical-style TV show, GLEE, for inspiration. With choreography, a catchy tune, and Target accessories as props, they took shoppers and employees by surprise.

• To draw attention to the destructive practices of Enbridge, the oil company responsible for the 2010 spill in Michigan, pranksters The Yes Men—Mike Bonanno and Andy Bichlbaum—coordinated a campaign called “MyHairCares”: In the name of the company, they requested that salons send in discarded hair to be used as an oil sponge.

* Doll ‘Protesters’ Present Small Problem For Russian Police The Guardian (Thanks, Linda)

Russian police don’t take kindly to opposition protesters – even if they’re 5cm high and made of plastic.

Police in the Siberian city of Barnaul have asked prosecutors to investigate the legality of a recent protest that saw dozens of small dolls – teddy bears, Lego men, South Park figurines – arranged to mimic a protest, complete with signs reading: “I’m for clean elections” and “A thief should sit in jail, not in the Kremlin”.

“Political opposition forces are using new technologies to carry out public events – using toys with placards at mini-protests,” Andrei Mulintsev, the city’s deputy police chief, said at a press conference this week, according to local media. “In our opinion, this is still an unsanctioned public event.”

* Occupy Education Adbusters Culturejammer Headquarters (25 minute video)

For the past eight months Chilean high school students have shut down classrooms, organized massive street protests and refused to go to school. Watch this Al Jazeera report about Latin America’s most unequal education system and what young people there are doing to fight back.

10. World Travails

Sep-23-2011 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: Big Picture shows us the student protests still ongoing in Chile, while In Focus shows us life in Peru, and Pakistan trying to deal with this year’s floods. Too much to be Eyecandy, to many great photos to be news. Take a look and file as you will.

* Student protests in Chile The Big Picture

* Scenes From Peru Alan Taylor – In Focus

* New Devastating Pakistan Floods Alan Taylor – In Focus

Sept 9th, 2011 :: Year 8, Issue 25

Sep-09-2011 | Comments (0)

1. 9/11: The International Results

Bird’s Eye: Three sections on 9.11 this week (and at that we didn’t rerun the iconic pictures!) We look at the effects internationally, at the effects internally, and at the growing fight to regain those freedoms we have lost. Internationally, we start with a blazingly insightful Robert Fisk, who explores the unasked question: Why? Chomsky gives an accurate overview on the decade, and explores some of the roads not taken, and Andrew Sullivan (The Daily Beast) asks if we let Bin Laden win… but concludes that we let our fear win, and concludes that, “Until we decide to grasp hope again, the war will live on. Within us all.”

* For 10 Years, We’ve Lied To Ourselves To Avoid Asking The One Real Question Robert Fisk The Independent (Thanks, Antonia!)

By their books, ye shall know them.

I’m talking about the volumes, the libraries – nay, the very halls of literature – which the international crimes against humanity of 11 September 2001 have spawned. Many are spavined with pseudo-patriotism and self-regard, others rotten with the hopeless mythology of CIA/Mossad culprits, a few (from the Muslim world, alas) even referring to the killers as “boys”, almost all avoiding the one thing which any cop looks for after a street crime: the motive.

Why so, I ask myself, after 10 years of war, hundreds of thousands of innocent deaths, lies and hypocrisy and betrayal and sadistic torture by the Americans – our MI5 chaps just heard, understood, maybe looked, of course no touchy-touchy nonsense – and the Taliban? Have we managed to silence ourselves as well as the world with our own fears? Are we still not able to say those three sentences: The 19 murderers of 9/11 claimed they were Muslims. They came from a place called the Middle East. Is there a problem out there?

* Was There an Alternative? Looking Back on 9/11 a Decade Later Noam Chomsky

We are approaching the 10th anniversary of the horrendous atrocities of September 11, 2001, which, it is commonly held, changed the world. On May 1st, the presumed mastermind of the crime, Osama bin Laden, was assassinated in Pakistan by a team of elite US commandos, Navy SEALs, after he was captured, unarmed and undefended, in Operation Geronimo.

A number of analysts have observed that although bin Laden was finally killed, he won some major successes in his war against the U.S. “He repeatedly asserted that the only way to drive the U.S. from the Muslim world and defeat its satraps was by drawing Americans into a series of small but expensive wars that would ultimately bankrupt them,” Eric Margolis writes. “’Bleeding the U.S.,’ in his words.” The United States, first under George W. Bush and then Barack Obama, rushed right into bin Laden’s trap… Grotesquely overblown military outlays and debt addiction… may be the most pernicious legacy of the man who thought he could defeat the United States” — particularly when the debt is being cynically exploited by the far right, with the collusion of the Democrat establishment, to undermine what remains of social programs, public education, unions, and, in general, remaining barriers to corporate tyranny.

* Did Osama Win? Andrew Sullivan

...I was, like most of us, simply terrorized. And it’s only now, a decade later, that I’ve come to see how significant that feeling was, how transformative it would become. We often talk about terror in terms of the terrorist. We do so less in terms of the terrorized. But it was how this act changed those of us who were bystanders that made this event more awful than a mere mass murder. It was mass murder as theater and as threat.

It took months for this initial trauma to ebb, years for my psyche to regain its equilibrium. And it took me close to a decade to realize just how slickly Osama bin Laden had done his evil work, how insidiously his despicable performance art had reached into my mind and altered it, how carefully he had set the trap and how guilelessly I—we—had walked right into it.

We need to understand that 9/11 worked. It worked as a tactic to induce American self-destruction, even if it failed spectacularly as a strategy to advance Al Qaeda—and its heretical message of suicidal warfare—across the globe.

4. Global Warming’s Coming Attractions

Sep-09-2011 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: As we head further down the climate change path, countries are reacting differently. Some (the US) are in denial. Some (China, the Middle East) are scrambling to prepare by buying land (“agro-imperialism” is your new political word for the week: remember it.) Others, like Canada, are gambling that the disasters destroying millions of lives overseas will help their economies at home. There is some good news on the environmental front… but is it too little too late?

* Water wars: 21st century conflicts? Al Jazeera (Thanks, Gabe!)

As global warming alters weather patterns, and the number of people lacking access to water rises, millions, if not billions, of others are expected to face a similar fate as water shortages become more frequent.

Presently, Hassain is one of about 1.2 billion people living in areas of physical water scarcity, although the majority of cases are nowhere near as dire. By 2030, 47 per cent of the world’s population will be living in areas of high water stress, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Environmental Outlook to 2030 report.

* Is There Such a Thing as Agro-Imperialism? New York Times

In a series of meetings, Saudi government officials, bankers and agribusiness executives told an institute delegation led by Zeigler that they intended to spend billions of dollars to establish plantations to produce rice and other staple crops in African nations like Mali, Senegal, Sudan and Ethiopia. “They laid out this incredible plan,” Zeigler recalled. He was flabbergasted, not only by the scale of the projects but also by the audacity of their setting. Africa, the world’s most famished continent, can’t currently feed itself, let alone foreign markets.

…Foreign investors — some of them representing governments, some of them private interests — are promising to construct infrastructure, bring new technologies, create jobs and boost the productivity of underused land so that it not only feeds overseas markets but also feeds more Africans. (More than a third of the continent’s population is malnourished.) They’ve found that impoverished governments are often only too welcoming, offering land at giveaway prices. A few transactions have received significant publicity, like Kenya’s deal to lease nearly 100,000 acres to the Qatari government in return for financing a new port, or South Korea’s agreement to develop almost 400 square miles in Tanzania. But many other land deals, of near-unprecedented size, have been sealed with little fanfare.

* Total Arctic Sea Ice At Record Low In 2010: Study Reuters

The minimum summertime volume of Arctic sea ice fell to a record low last year, researchers said in a study to be published shortly, suggesting that thinning of the ice had outweighed a recovery in area. The study estimated that last year broke the previous, 2007 record for the minimum volume of ice, which is calculated from a combination of sea ice area and thickness. The research adds to a picture of rapid climate change at the top of the world that could see the Arctic Ocean ice-free within decades, spurring new oil exploration opportunities. (Editor’s note: Well, that’s good news then, innit?)

*Top Ten Good News Green Energy Stories Juan Cole Informed Comment

Here are the week’s top ten energy good news stories.

1. A Japanese technical innovation has the potential to double or triplethe power generated by wind turbines.

2. Germany now gets over 20% of its energy from low-carbon sources:6.5% wind, 5.6% biomass, 3.5% solar, 3.3% hydro and 0.8% other.

3. Over 100 companies are researching wave energy, which will likely provide 180 gigawatts of power by 2050. It takes the world’s 440 nuclear power reactors to produce 376 GWe at the moment, so this would be equivalent to building 220 new nuclear plants.

August 26th, 2011 :: Year 8, Issue 23

Aug-26-2011 | Comments (2)

1. Bali and Indonesia

Bird’s Eye: Welcome back! All July we were travelling in Bali, so the least that can be offered as solace for abandoned Tikkunista readers is some photos and insights. Bali is a small (PEI, or RI) island, 95% Hindu, but part of Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim country. Indonesian Islam differs from that of the Saudis’, as an excellent Washington Post article delineates.

* Bali: The Images

2400 shots, edited down to 123, and precisely photoshopped to exacting tolerances by skilled craftspeople with pride in their work.

* Bali: The Words

Peter’s take on Bali

Diana’s take on Bali

* Saudi Beheading Fuels Backlash In Indonesia The Washington Post

The beheading of Ruyati binti Satubi — executed in June for the killing of an allegedly abusive Saudi employer — stirred such revulsion here that even the most strictly observant Indonesian Muslims now ask how the guardians of Islam’s most sacred sites can be so heedless of their faith’s call for compassion. At least 20 Indonesians, nearly all women, are on death row in the Persian Gulf kingdom….. The acrimonious rift between the birthplace of the prophet Muhammad and Indonesia, home to the largest community of his followers, even led to calls for a boycott of Mecca by hajj pilgrims. The mood became so testy that when Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa announced that he had received an apology over the beheading from the Saudi ambassador in Jakarta, the kingdom’s usually mute embassy promptly issued a statement that accused the minister of lying.

2. Pakistan and Afghanistan

Jun-17-2011 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: Alt.Muslim offers a fascinating perspective on the shared victim mentalities of these two countries. Juan Cole (whom the New York Times reported this week was illegally targeted by the CIA for reaching conclusions out of sync with the US government!) looks at the Pakistani Government’s arrest of the spies who told the US where Osama was hiding. Gee, why is Pakistan angry with the US? Meanwhile the Karzai Government (the one NATO is fighting to save), cuts off free media and is rated the worst place to live for women in the world. As Kenny Rogers sang, “You gotta know when to hold them, know when to fold them….”

* Afghanistan & Pakistan: Going Beyond Victim Narratives altmuslim –

More interesting than the rights and wrongs of my colleagues’ viewpoints was the fact that the Afghan narrative about Pakistan was uncannily similar to the Pakistani account of US foreign policy. Much in the same way that Afghans see a Pakistan hand in all their problems, Pakistanis have wholeheartedly subscribed to a fraught fantasy of American omnipresence and omnipotence.

…The point is not to reiterate the complicated dynamics of Pakistan-Afghanistan and Pakistan-US bilateral ties; it is to show that both Pakistan and Afghanistan seem to have subscribed to narratives of victimhood. When faced with their country’s myriad, growing security, political and economic challenges, they simply place the blame elsewhere. This was not a problem of our own making, the logic seems to imply, and therefore we can’t possibly be asked to fix it.

Such narratives of victimhood are dangerous for a variety of reasons. They allow governments to defer responsibility for contemporary problems, and dwell in the past, rather than plan for the future. And they are devastating when it comes to strategic planning: for a nation to define strategic, social, economic and political goals, it must articulate a vision of the future and single-handedly pursue it. However, if the nation is suffering from a victim complex, its strategic planning becomes reactive rather than active. Instead of setting targets for achievement, it dithers about, waiting for the professed villain (whether Islamabad or Washington) to make a move. Only then does it respond, and that too in a defensive manner.

* Pakistan Arrests CIA Informants in Bin Laden Case Juan Cole Informed Comment

The Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence has arrested five Pakistani informants who gave the CIA information leading to the raid on Usamah Bin Laden’s compound at Abbotabad, according to the NYT. …From an American point of view, that Pakistan arrested the informants rather than giving them medals suggests perfidy. But from a Pakistani point of view, they can’t be having nationals working for a foreign intelligence agency and enabling foreign special operations raids into the country from outside.

…US bad relations with Pakistan at the moment derive from using the CIA in paramilitary ways in a no-man’s land of covert action that lacks any framework of international or bilateral law. If Washington goes on like this, it will push Pakistan altogether into the arms of the Chinese and it will set up a negative situation for its likely withdrawal from Afghanistan, in which Islamabad has powerful perceived interests that the US has not respected. The US-Pakistan relationship is important and can be repaired, but it must be by the two countries acting like democracies, not cartoon spies.

* Gained By Blood, Threatened By A Declaration Al Jazeera (thanks, Gabe)

On June 1, Afghanistan’s Council of Religious Scholars known as the Ulema Shura met with President Karzai and unequivocally demanded the shutting down of two of the country’s most prominent media outlets.

Their crime? “Publishing material that is against religion, against national unity, and against the high interest of the nation,’’ declared the Council. Karzai’s office not only announced that the president listened to these demands carefully and praised the role of the Ulema, but also sent out their declaration to the media through its own channels.

Over the past two weeks, the two outlets - Tolo TV and Hasht-e-Subh Daily - have been locked in a battle for survival. While this is not the first time the closure of these outlets – and many others – has been demanded, the clear-cut nature of the demand by a social organisation extending its mandate speaks to the vulnerabilities of the press in Afghanistan.

* Afghanistan Worst Place In The World For Women The Guardian

Targeted violence against female public officials, dismal healthcare and desperate poverty make Afghanistan the world’s most dangerous country in which to be born a woman, according to a global survey released on Wednesday.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Pakistan, India and Somalia feature in descending order after Afghanistan in the list of the five worst states, the poll among gender experts shows.

The appearance of India, a country rapidly developing into an economic super-power, was unexpected. It is ranked as extremely hazardous because of the subcontinent’s high level of female infanticide and sex trafficking.

Others were less surprised to be on the list. Informed about her country’s inclusion, Somalia’s women’s minister, Maryan Qasim, responded: “I thought Somalia would be first on the list, not fifth.”

5. The War is Over, But the Battle Goes On

Jun-03-2011 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: It makes sense to fight for a cause; that’s how change happens. But (as Albert Einstein may have said) insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. The war against drugs is not cutting down drug use; the war on Afghanistan (started, lest we forget, to get Bin Laden) is costing lives and doing nothing to defeat the Taliban, and as for the Harper government’s “War on Crime”, the facts show we’re winning that war without the punitive aspirations he espouses. What do these people fear – a 500 foot tall Bin Laden rising from the sea?

* War On Drugs Not Working, Says Global Commission The Guardian

The global war on drugs has failed and governments should explore legalising marijuana and other controlled substances, according to a commission that includes former heads of state and a former UN secretary general.

A new report by the Global Commission on Drug Policy argues that the decades-old “global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world.” The 24-page paper was released on Thursday.

“Political leaders and public figures should have the courage to articulate publicly what many of them acknowledge privately: that the evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that repressive strategies will not solve the drug problem, and that the war on drugs has not, and cannot, be won,” the report said.

* Time to Begin Leaving Afghanistan Juan Cole Informed Comment

The protests in Lashkar Gah, Helmand Province, Afghanistan, against yet another alleged killing of 14 women and children in an airstrike that went awry, reminds us that the big counter-insurgency effort in that country still has not produced social peace, still has not yielded a government capable of taking over security duties. NATO has had to issue an apology. If Afghan police and soldiers could project authority and force in local areas, air strikes would be unnecessary. And after nearly 10 years since the overthrow of the Taliban, it is legitimate to ask when and how exactly local troops can be expected to take up this slack? (Editor’s Note: See also relevant “Get Your War On” toon.)

* The Truth About Canadian Crime Rates John Macfarlane The Walrus Thanks, Susie,

According to Statistics Canada, the crime rate fell by 15 percent between 1998 and 2007, but that’s only part of the story. In 2009, StatsCan introduced an index that measures not only the change in volume of a particular crime, but also its relative seriousness in comparison with others (for example, homicide and rape are assigned higher weights than, say, shoplifting and creating mischief). The index shows that for the same decade, 1998 to 2007, the severity of crime in Canada fell by 21 percent.

Why, then, do so many Canadians believe the situation is getting worse? How is it possible that there were 77,000 fewer crimes in 2008 than the year before — including fewer violent crimes, which account for one in five in Canada — and yet almost half of us continued to believe just the opposite?

1. Pakistan Masala

Apr-15-2011 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: A ‘masala’ is a mixture, and Pakistan today is certainly that. It’s the US ally in the “War on Terror”, but the US is facing increasing hostility both from Pakistan’s people and from its government because of that war, and its cost to Pakistan in both lives and stability. Recent political killings (both US and Pakistani) highlight the precipitous decline from political stability, while the monumental literary achievements of recent years show the depth and range of the culture.

* US-Pakistan relations ‘face biggest crisis since 9/11’ The Guardian

Bitter disputes over covert CIA activities and drone attacks inside Pakistan, lack of progress over peace talks in Afghanistan, and rising Islamist-led opposition to the presence of foreign forces in the region are fuelling the biggest crisis in US-Pakistan relations since the 9/11 attacks, Pakistani politicians, army sources and intelligence officers say.

Pakistan is seen by Washington and London as a vital ally in the “war on terror”,…but harsh US criticism of Islamabad’s counter-terrorism campaigns in Pakistan’s western tribal areas, repeated in a White House report last week, and “blowback” from the US military surge in Afghanistan are testing the relationship to breaking point, officials warn.

“We will not accept the stigmatising of Pakistan,” said Salman Bashir, Pakistan’s foreign secretary. “We need to re-examine the fundamentals of our relationship with the United States to get greater clarity. There has been a pause. Now we must start again.” Rehman Malik, Pakistan’s interior minister, said the Americans should stop blaming others for their difficulties in Afghanistan, where violence has worsened in the past year and reconciliation efforts have made little progress. “If the strategy is not right, all the stakeholders have to share responsibility,” Malik said….

Pakistani anger focuses in turn on three main areas: unauthorised CIA activity inside the country, Pakistan’s perception that the US is keeping it “out of the loop” on Afghanistan, particularly in respect of mooted peace talks with the Taliban, and what Islamabad sees as the US failure to appreciate the full cost and impact of the “war on terror” on Pakistan’s economy and social cohesion.

* Spy game: The CIA, Pakistan and ‘blood money’ Al Jazeera

The case of Raymond Davis has all the trappings of a 21st century spy novel. It is a story of murder, prison and clandestine payments, starring a burly former US Special Forces soldier tangled in a murky web of intelligence agencies, competing diplomats and – differentiating his case from Cold War spy sagas – shady private military contractors.

Pakistani authorities released the CIA contractor from prison on Wednesday, after families of two motorcyclists he killed in January were paid a reported $2.3mn in “blood money”. Details surrounding the case are sketchy at best: a series of claims and counter-claims from various diplomats, agencies and organisations which are almost impossible to independently verify. And the stakes are high.

* The Pakistan Killings Are Not About Blasphemy Nick Cohen The Observer

The Islamist murders first of Salmaan Taseer and then of Shahbaz Bhatti show that what tiny scruples blood-soaked men possessed vanished long ago. The best way to describe the terror which is reducing Pakistani liberals to silence is to enumerate what the assassins did not allege. They did not say that Taseer and Bhatti must die because they were apostates – or, to put that “crime” in plain language, because they were adults who decided they no longer believed in the Muslim god. Taseer had not renounced Islam. Bhatti could not renounce it as he was the bravest Christian in Pakistan, who campaigned for equal rights for persecuted minorities with the dignity and physical courage of a modernMartin Luther King.

Nor did their assassins claim that their targets had committed the capital crime of blasphemy. Taseer and Bhatti had not said that the Koran, like the Talmud and the New Testament, was the work of men not god. They did not denounce Muhammad’s morality or offer any criticism of his life and teaching. If you wanted to reduce the whirling, brilliant narrative of Rushdie’s Satanic Verses to a single sentence, you could say that it was in part a “blasphemous” account of the early history of Islam. Taseer and Bhatti attempted nothing so brave. They confined themselves to making the modest point that Pakistan’s death penalty for blasphemywas excessive and barbaric, and that was enough to condemn them. Their killers murdered them for the previously unknown crime of advocating law reform: blew them away for the new offence of blaspheming against blasphemy.

* The Pak Pack Takes Over The Literary World? – Hindustan Times

Pakistani writing has certainly been on a high in recent years, with Mohsin Hamid being shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2007 for his novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist. Mohammed Hanif’s A Case of Exploding Mangoes won the overall Commonwealth Best First Book Prize in 2008. Daniyal Mueenuddin won the regional Commonwealth Best First Book Prize with In Other Rooms, Other Wonders in 2010; he was also nominated for a Pulitzer prize in the United States. Kamila Shamsie’s novels set in Karachi across various periods of history have been nominated more than once for the Orange Prize, the premier fiction award in the UK for women’s writing. Uzma Aslam Khan’s Trespassing was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Prize in the Eurasia region; and Aamer Hussein’s masterful short story collections paved the way for the novella Another Gulmohar Tree and its nomination for the Commonwealth Prize earlier this year.

Besides the “top five” – a construct that may or may not be artificially created by international publishers for the sake of packaging and marketing – many other Pakistani writers are working hard to establish themselves: Feryal Ali Gauhar, Shandana Minhas, Sehba Sarwar, Maniza Naqvi, Sorraya Khan to name a few (again, one has to wonder why the “top five” is predominated by men; and whether this is a deliberate or unconscious bias against Pakistani women writers).

3. The Spreading Revolts

Feb-25-2011 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: As the lovely ‘toon “Uninstalling Dictators” makes clear, the revolution is spreading. We look at Al Jazeera’s role in the Middle east, at a prediction that it’s going world-wide (and as our next section will suggest, the US is not exempt) and at the start of the first ever serious protests in North Korea. We certainly do live in interesting times, don’t we?

* The Unstoppable Revolutionary Power Of Al Jazeera Mondoweiss

It’s hard to imagine the revolutions sweeping the Middle East happening without al Jazeera. Yes Tunisians started their revolution, taking the first steps, and it took Jazeera a couple of weeks before it focused on Tunisia. But once its started and Jazeera was on its war footing it could connect activists and demonstrators from around the country, it could disseminate information to other parts of country. Now middle class people in Tunisia who were told by their parents not to get involved in politics could learn about what was happening elsewhere and feel that somebody else was also expressing their grievances, or other grievances, and it was ok for them to express them too.

Once the revolution starts Jazeera shapes people’s political opinions and plans, it asks demonstrators and activists and leaders what they will do, will they form a political party, this is what one side says, what do you say in response, etc, thus shaping political dialogue and facilitating it. In Egypt, when established opposition parties and Muslim Brothers went to Umar Suleiman to cut a deal, Jazeera played a key role in scuttling this betrayal of the revolution by going back to the demonstrators and airing their demands and challenging the opposition leaders. Jazeera asked people what they wanted if Mubarak left, if they wanted Suleiman, etc and it pressured political leaders who were more inclined to compromise with the regime. Jazeera forced them to hear what the street was saying and prevented them from compromising.

* The New Face of Revolution Ted Rall’s Rallblog

After Tunisia and Egypt, the World

From the British newspaper the Independent: “Like in many other countries in the region, protesters in Egypt complain about surging prices, unemployment and the authorities’ reliance on heavy-handed security to keep dissenting voices quiet.”

Sound familiar?

Coverage by U.S. state-controlled media of the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt is too dim by half: they say it’s an Arab thing. So it is. But not for long. The problems that triggered the latest uprisings, rising inequality of income, frozen credit markets, along with totally unresponsive government, span the globe. To be sure, the first past-due regimes to be overthrown may be the most brutal U.S. client states—Arab states such as Yemen, Jordan and Algeria. Central Asia’s autocrats, also corrupted by the U.S., can’t be far behind; Uzbekistan’s Islam Karimov, who likes to boil his dissidents to death, would be my first bet. But this won’t stop in Asia. Persistent unemployment, unresponsive and repressive governments exist in Europe and yes, here in the U.S. They are unstable. The pressure is building.

Global revolution is imminent.

* North Korea First Public Protests Against The Kims’ Regime – Asia News

The wave of protests that began in the Mideast appears to have reached even North Korea. For the first time in the history of the Stalinist regime, groups of ordinary citizens have protested in three cities demanding food and electricity, sources say. The event is exceptional and confirms the economic difficulties, especially concerning food supplies, people have to face under the Communist government.

1. Tunisia

Jan-21-2011 | Comments (0)

ird’s Eye: We start with Amy Goodman’s interview with Juan Cole, available as a ten minute video, with written excerpts below. As always, Cole is knowledgable and insightful, arguing that the revolution is secular and populist, and exploring how that shapes reactions from other countries. That populism means (to many in power) that it has to stop, and Helena Cobban looks at how that is happening. And finally we link both to Big Picture’s excellent collection of photos, and Lucas Dolega’s final assignment: he was killed shortly after this picture was taken.

* “Spearheaded by Labor Movements, by Internet Activists, by Rural Workers; It’s a Populist Revolution” Juan Cole

One thing to keep in mind is that Tunisia is not an oil state. And it suffered from a kind of nepotism that was extreme. I mean, the U.S. leaked cables from WikiLeaks suggest that 50 percent of the economic elite of that country was related in one way or another to the president or to the first lady, Leila Ben Ali, and her Trabelsi clan. So, the combination of not having any extra resources to bribe people and buy them off and also of monopolizing the country’s economic resources in the hands of a few relatives was unique to Tunisia.

* ‘Delugist’ narrative on Tunisia Helena Cobban

There is a powerful constellation of forces in the Middle East that wants to see Tunisia’s current popular uprising fail. This constellation includes: (1) All the other U.S.-supported autocrats in the Arab world, now terrified that Pres. Ben Ali’s hasty departure from the country his family has looted for so long may foretell their own; (2) The U.S. securocracy, which for years now has relied heavily on inserting military “advisers”, “trainers”, etc into the highest levels of all these autocracies to help it pursue some of the most repressive portions of the so-called “Global War on Terror”; and (3) The Israeli establishment, which sees the rule of autocrats in Egypt, Jordan, etc as essential to the continued repression of pro-Palestinian activities in and by these countries.

How could the various portions of the region’s anti-democratic constellation respond? Mainly, they rushed to invoke (and also, perhaps, to help activate) an “Apres lui le deluge” kind of narrative designed to warn the citizens of other Arab countries that: (1) The downfall/departure of Ben Ali would lead only to chaos, instability, and social strife inside Tunisia, and (2) Therefore, the regimes of all the other US-supported countries where a Tunisian-style mass uprising might threaten should immediately be strengthened in their capacities to withstand any repeat of a similar uprising– including by being able to “point” to the Tunisian example as one of strife and chaos, rather than democracy and enhanced national unity, emerging from an autocrat’s overthrow.

* An uprising in Tunisia The Big Picture

* Eyewitness: Final assignment

Demonstrators outside the Tunisian interior ministry, photographed by Lucas Dolega of EPA. Dolega, 32, was hit by a teargas grenade in the protests and died of his injuries yesterday

2. Afghanistan

Jan-21-2011 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: Why are we in Afghanistan? Why are Afghanis being killed by Western soldiers? Was it to stop them from hating us, or to get a more just government than the Taliban? Why are we still there when it’s clearly such an unmitigated disaster from any goal perspective? Juan Cole gives an excellent overview on dominant myths that we tell ourselves, Counterpunch looks at why we’re following a failing policy, and new (to Tikkunista) blog Registan (All Central Asia, All The Time) explores a specific story of how a village was razed, to protect it from the Taliban.

* Top Ten Myths about Afghanistan Juan Cole Informed Comment

10. “There has been significant progress in tamping down the insurgency in Afghanistan.”

Fact: A recent National Intelligence Estimate by 16 intelligence agencies found no progress. It warned that large swathes of the country were at risk of falling to the Taliban and that they still had safe havens in Pakistan, with the Pakistani government complicit. The UN says there were over 6000 civilian casualties of war in Afghanistan in the first 10 months of 2010, a 20% increase over the same period in 2009. Also, 701 US and NATO troops have been killed this year, compared to 521 last year, a 25% increase. There were typically over 1000 insurgent attacks per month in Afghanistan this year, often twice as many per month as in 2009, recalling the guerrilla war in Iraq in 2005.

* Killing Peace in Afghanistan Conn Hallinan Counterpunch

In spite of a White House declaration that “progress” is being made in Afghanistan, by virtually any measure the war has deteriorated significantly since the Obama Administration surged troops into Kandahar and Helmand provinces. This past year has been the deadliest on record for U.S. and coalition troops. Civilian casualties are on the rise, and, according to the Red Cross, security has worsened throughout the country. U.S. allies are falling away, and the central government in Kabul has never been so isolated. Polls in Afghanistan, the U.S. and Europe reflect growing opposition to the nine-year conflict.

So why is the White House pursuing a strategy that is almost certain to accelerate a descent into chaos, and one that runs counter to the Administration’s stated goal of a diplomatic solution to the war? It is not an easy question to answer, in part because the major actors are hardly being straight with the public.

*The Unforgivable Horror of Village Razing Joshua Foust Registan.net

Translated from obnoxious mil-speak, she is describing the village being intimidated by the Taliban, who are chased away by soldiers, then “cleared” by special forces, and leveled by massive aerial bombardment, apparently with no casualties. Nowhere in this account is there a sense that the villagers felt any ill-will toward the Americans beforehand—rather, Broadwell explicitly describes the village as being victimized by the Taliban first, then being completely obliterated by the Americans. In other words, rather than actually clearing the village—not just chasing away the Taliban but cleaning up the bombs and munitions left over—the soldiers got lazy and decided to destroy the entire settlement… “to give the men confidence.” This sounds bad enough—like a nightmare from before there was a Fourth Geneva Convention that prohibited the collective punishment and expulsion of civilians from conflict zones—but it gets worse.

4. Good News Stories

Nov-19-2010 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: Some good things have happened recently, and they’re worth celebrating. In “Burma”, Aung San Suu Kyi has been freed from house arrest and bravely continues her fight for a change in Myanmar’s government. In Africa, a Chinese “Peace Ark” of doctors offering free medical services to people who would otherwise not have them, sails the coasts. And around the world, synagogues and mosques practice “twiningsm”, enabling Muslims and Jews to form better relationships.

* Myanmar Dissident Calls for Change New York Times

On her first full day of freedom after more than seven years of house arrest, Myanmar’s pro-democracy leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, demonstrated the enduring power of her popularity on Sunday, drawing thousands of jubilant supporters to a rally at which she pledged to lead them in a struggle for political change.

Though she spoke of reconciliation, the event itself was a challenge to the authority and control of the ruling military junta. The size and enthusiasm of the crowd — the kind of outpouring of public support that had led the government to cut short her previous period of freedom in 2003 — suggested that she had emerged with her popularity and moral authority intact.

*Thousands Get Free Health Care In ‘Floating Hospital’

Medical staff aboard the Chinese Navy hospital ship Peace Ark have been treating an average of 700 patients a day since last Thursday. The crew, which leaves the port of Mombasa tomorrow, has been doing an average of six operations, 80 physical examinations, 110 dental check-ups, 35 CT scans, 200 DR examinations, 240 ultra sound cases and 170 heart check-ups per day.

* Twinningsm Month

Throughout November and December, more than 100 mosques and 100 synagogues in 22 countries on four continents will participate in the Weekend of Twinningsm. On 31 October, the twinning kicked off with a worldwide virtual twinning event during which participants from around the world heard reports on Jewish-Muslim initiatives underway in various countries.

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