Lettters to the Editor
Right to resist
Sir-- Much of the mainstream Western media ignore the indisputable truth that occupation by foreign invaders, however noble their rhetoric, is fundamentally incompatible with democracy.
The foremost task of the Iraqi people is to remove the US-led military forces from their land. They deserve international solidarity and support in their valiant efforts to liberate themselves.
Zeljko Cipris
California
USA
Outrageous remarks
Sir-- Many thanks to Khalid Amayreh for his article 'Hunger strike' ( Al-Ahram Weekly, 19-25 August). The utter indifference by Israel's Security Minister Tzahi Hanegbi towards the prisoners' hunger strike is deeply disturbing. The prisoners have every right to demand "better conditions".
Indeed, I feel prison officials are blaming the victims here. It's their abusive behaviour and the deplorable conditions inside the prisons that have exacerbated this situation. I hope the Israeli courts and the international human rights watch groups will monitor and resolve this dispute.
Still, Mr Hanegbi's remarks about the fasting prisoners, "They can starve... even to death" is outrageous; it shows total disregard and contempt for human rights. Mr Hanegbi should apologise or be removed from his post. His remarks are totally insensitive to mankind.
Doris Cadigan
Natick, MA
USA
Defining terrorists
Sir-- Most Israelis, and indeed some Americans, portray Israeli state-sponsored terror against Palestinians as being legitimate army actions, while Palestinian resistance to an occupying country is terrorism pure and simple. The argument that is often used is that the army is attacking legitimate targets, while the Palestinians are attacking civilians.
Notwithstanding the thousands of innocent civilian Palestinians killed in the last four years alone, that argument does not hold water. Was the pilot who dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, killing 100,000 civilians, a terrorist or was he a decorated war veteran? Were the Allied pilots who flattened Dresden at the twilight of the great war, killing everything that moved, terrorists or just patriots defending freedom?
Mountains of lies and misrepresentations by the Israeli government cannot last forever, because some day the truth will prevail -- all of it.
Fikry Boulos Salib
Stamford, CT
USA
Vicious circles
Sir-- I am an American married to a Palestinian woman who was born in Chicago, but lived for years as a child in Betoonia. I recently saw for the first time the HBO documentary entitled Death in Gaza. The images and story were heart-breaking; the Israeli government's use of un-godly force and the Palestinian culture of death disguised as glory seem like some nightmare. Holy land indeed. The situation there is such that people have been reduced to caveman-like mentalities.
The Israeli government has succeeded in creating an environment where human life has lost all meaning. The Palestinian militia forces are behaving exactly as any group of virile, angry, young men would react with no police to stop them, no future to look forward to, no room to move freely, no way to have fun, no way to accept anything less than revenge or no way to have a stable life. It reminds me a bit of the climate in Los Angeles before the last riots. Or, historically, of the culture that existed within imperial Japan.
I am not surprised by the Palestinian reaction to occupation, nor should any decent student of history. The whole thing seems like some perverse sporting event, played over and over again throughout history all the while keeping the same obscene rules. Namely, big power needs more stuff for "their people"; big power attacks smaller power to get stuff; smaller power fights back with "their people" as best as they can, while losing their humanity and losing their grace; different peoples worship different invisible men in sky; big power blames smaller power because, "well, just look at how they behave! They're evil!" while inversely, small power blames big power for their troubles because their use of force and occupation has forced them to live in very bad conditions, no home or country; good-hearted people see the wickedness of the situation, try and help, but cannot really do anything; this keeps going until big power collapses from within, loses too much money to keep support from it's people or is defeated (rarely happens) or small power is annihilated; repeat if necessary.
I hold no anti-Arab or Anti-Jew sentiments, I think that those in power are to blame not the individuals fighting this war. Just know that your newspaper is being read by me, my wife and other Americans. Truth is your best weapon, your only obligation.
Joe Mcnally
California
USA
Meaningless freedom
Sir-- In a highly bureaucratised/automated society in an advanced capitalistic stage, like America, the accumulation of advantages at the very top, implants freedom of decision only to a small Power Elite. The mass society's bondage to the method of life generated from on high is so complete, that the power of reflection itself is usurped from the individual -- his work, his leisure and even the kind of personality he is supposed to have is implanted into him (or her) -- by the institutions that describe the routines of life, the mass media and those sectors of formal education that are increasingly market-oriented. As a result, there is political apathy and the conversion of society from production (of culture) to mass consumption and standardisation.
In societies that have not "developed", such a level of bureaucratisation of conduct, the so-called "less developed" nations, the level of freedom that exists for individuals is, as a result, much greater. Even under a tyrannous dictatorship and in spite of all the coercion- explicit control, the lack of freedom can never be so thorough, complete or affect as many people as implicit control -- which affects the very being of the masses (albeit in a polite manner).
The effects of this greater freedom in "less developed" nations is easily discernible by its link to regular political crisis and unrest that those nations face -- unrest that reflects a conscious public, prompted of course by economic oppression.
Freedom in America exists as a meaningless slogan that is itself generated from on high, and designed to evoke "religious" feelings of solidarity for the purpose of manipulation. Like all tools of manipulation, it grants no real utility to the ones who rally around it.
M Asadi
Springfield, IL
USA
Selective sanctions
Sir-- The UN Security Council condemned Israel's building of the apartheid wall, but no further action was taken against Israel by the UN or any other country.
But when the UN warned Sudan about the human crisis in Darfur, the country was threatened with sanctions, embargoes and many countries are ready to send troops there. Why this discrepancy between Israel and Sudan?
Amri Fatmi
Banda Aceh
Indonesia
Keep them separate
Sir-- In 'An excuse for inaction' ( Al-Ahram Weekly, 12-18 August), the writer reasonably argued in favour of democracy and how positive it would be to accommodate Islamic parties within its framework, instead of isolating them, and they will not disappear. There are enough reasons to disagree with that conclusion, and lean favourably otherwise. An Islamic party is a party for which Islamic teachings and traditions, as understood and interpreted by that party, are the soul reference to their "governing manifesto". Should they win, all other parties will be branded "anti-Islamic".
The society will end up with one party. Non-Muslims, as those in Egypt, will be deprived of any active roles. Simply, an autocratic government would emerge, possibly similar to that of the Iranians, or in the extreme, as that of the Taliban. The dream of living in a democracy would evaporate.
The argument of reviving early Islamic rule -- caliphates -- is old fashioned, and to any good and fair observer, there wasn't one. What was there, were wars and invasions to conquer every country that cannot protect itself. History rejected that course of action, and Islamic conquest was no difference. Better said, those who have lots of passion for God's wisdom, should serve Him either in charities or as normal servants peacefully receiving their rewards according to their deeds.
As for zeal about God, would He really give a man power to act and rule on his behalf? We hardly grasp elementary knowledge such as mathematics or physics to be given power to rule. Many facts were hardly observed by those who called themselves God's men, caliphs and religious scholar. On the contrary, they were the first to condemn true knowledge and the last to admit ignorance. Good, unbiased education is what is needed, not self- righteous religious parties.
Makael Bartholomew
Preston
UK
A long, hard look
Sir-- Broad progress in the Arab world is paralysed by a string of irrational concepts in all social levels on religion, the West and modernity. As underlined by The Economist in their 7 August issue, one of the consequences is hostility to any problem solution suggested by the "successful part of the world". Therefore, the UN put together pure Arab expert groups to analyse why the Arab world does not deliver and the two first (shocking) reports have been published -- though with minor impact on Arab attitudes towards their own short-comings.
Perhaps Al-Ahram Weekly might put together an expert group of their own to do some genuine analytical work on these irrational concepts and publish the results. It might better be illustrated by "case studies", starting with Iraq as this country is doing old mistakes over again ("those that do not learn from history, are damned to repeat mistakes").
The expert group could use South Korea as a reference case (as that country was "occupied" by USA and still is), and the group then could see how these two countries developed through 50 years and explain why South Korea, without any natural resources (in contrast to Iraq), has an expanding economy and Iraq not? Is the bottom line "these irrational concepts", being less dominant in a Buddhist culture? How is it possible for Iraq to continue with new mistakes as if the past was glorious while now, when finally someone will invest in its civil sector, they want "liberation from occupation" at any cost? As a European observer it looks insane and incredible.
I think the reader will find this type of "mistake evaluation" illuminating and it might even open the door for a new trend of "blaming yourself for being outstripped" -- and hopefully you might indicate a road out of the quagmire.
Victor Oiestad
Pontevedra
Spain
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