Death of a professor

In a letter to a friend in Europe, Abdul Razaq al-Na'as, a Baghdad university professor in his 50s, grieved for his killed friends and colleagues. His letter concluded: "I wonder who is next!" He was. On January 28 al-Na'as drove from his office at Baghdad University. Two cars blocked his, and gunmen opened fire, killing him instantly.

Al-Na'as is not the first academic to be killed in the mayhem of the "new Iraq". Hundreds of academics and scientists have met this fate since the March 2003 invasion. Baghdad universities alone have mourned the killing of over 80 members of staff. The minister of education stated recently that during 2005, 296 members of education staff were killed and 133 wounded.

Not one of these crimes has been investigated by the occupation forces or the interim governments. They leave that to international humanitarian groups and anti-war organisations. Among them is the Brussels Tribunal on Iraq, which has compiled a list to persuade the UN special rapporteur on summary executions to investigate the issue; they do so with the help of Iraqi academics, who risk their lives in the process. Their research shows that the victims have been men and women from all over Iraq, from different ethnic, religious and political backgrounds. Most were vocally opposed to the occupation. For the most part, they were killed in a fashion that suggests cold-blooded assassination. No one has claimed responsibility.

Like many Iraqis, I believe these killings are politically motivated and connected to the occupying forces' failure to gain any significant social support in the country. For the occupation's aims to be fulfilled, independent minds have to be eradicated. We feel that we are witnessing a deliberate attempt to destroy intellectual life in Iraq.

Dr al-Na'as was a familiar face on al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya TV. He had often condemned the continued presence of US-led troops in Iraq, and criticised the sectarian interim governments and their militias. His case echoes the assassination of the academic Dr Abdullateef al-Mayah. A prominent human rights campaigner and critic of the occupation, Mayah was killed only 12 hours after he had appeared on al-Jazeera denouncing the corruption of the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council.

Militias have replaced the disbanded Iraqi army, applying their own rule of law. Some units operate under a semblance of "legality" - the "wolf brigade", attached to the interior ministry, is infamous for its terror raids on mosques and the torture of civilians.

Last month the journalist Abdul Hadi al-Zaidi accused the government's militias of targeting intellectuals. He is one of a group of Iraqi journalists who, in the aftermath of al-Na'as's assassination, went on strike, demanding an immediate investigation into the "systematic assassination campaign" against intellectuals opposed to the occupation.

After the July London bombings, Tony Blair promised the British people to "bring those responsible to justice". In Iraq, the British government does exactly the opposite. The law of occupation states that: "All foreign soldiers, diplomats or contractors implicated in the killing of Iraqi civilians are immune from arrest or trial in Iraq." Both the British and US governments turn a blind eye to the systematic violations of human rights and murders committed by their clients in Iraq.

It has become obvious that the occupation forces, with their elite troops and $6bn-a-month budget, cannot hold Iraq. The only honorable and realistic way out is genuine dialogue with the Iraqi resistance over a complete withdrawal of foreign troops and adequate reparations and debt-cancellation to rebuild the country.

· Haifa Zangana is an Iraqi-born novelist and former prisoner of Saddam's regime; a longer version of this article will appear in Not One More Death, published next month by Verso

Libya: A Threat to Society?

The government of Libya is arbitrarily detaining women and girls in “social rehabilitation” facilities for suspected transgressions of moral codes, locking them up indefinitely without due process. Portrayed as “protective” homes for wayward women and girls or those whose families rejected them, these facilities are de facto prisons. In them, the government routinely violates women’s and girls’ human rights, including those to due process, liberty, freedom of movement, personal dignity, and privacy. Many women and girls detained in these facilities have committed no crime, or have already served a sentence. Some are there for no other reason than that they were raped, and are now ostracized for staining their family’s “honor.” There is no way out unless a male relative takes custody of the woman or girl or she consents to marriage, often to a stranger who comes to the facility looking for a wife.

The official bylaw governing Libya’s social rehabilitation facilities states that they are to provide housing for “women who are vulnerable to engaging in moral misconduct.” The facilities are supposed to “protect” these women and girls from violence by relatives in the name of “family honor,” and to rehabilitate women deemed to have transgressed socially-accepted norms of behavior. But this is protection gone seriously awry: suffering a range of human rights abuses in the facilities, most of the women and girls Human Rights Watch interviewed said they wanted to leave, and would escape if they could.

Human Rights Watch visited two social rehabilitation facilities in April and May 2005. Some of the women and girls we interviewed were confined because they were accused—but not criminally convicted—of having had extramarital sex. Others had served prison sentences for engaging in extramarital sex, and were transferred to the facilities because no male family member would take custody of them. Many had been raped, and then evicted from their homes by their families.

Libya is violating some of the most basic principles of human rights law in the operation of these facilities. The women and girls we interviewed had no opportunity to contest their confinement in a court of law, and had no legal representation. Staff did not allow them to leave the compound gates. They also subjected them to long periods of solitary confinement, sometimes in handcuffs, for trivial reasons like “talking back.” Women and girls were tested for communicable diseases without their consent, and most were forced to endure invasive virginity examinations upon entry to the facilities. The only education the government offers girls in these facilities is weekly religious instruction.

The paradox for women in Libya is striking: legal reforms over the past several decades have put Libya ahead of many countries in the Middle East and North Africa in terms of formal gender equality. For example, Libyan law now protects a woman’s right to hold judicial positions, requires judicial divorce rather than allowing husbands to simply verbally repudiate their wives, and grants women presumptive custody of children upon divorce. Yet the rigid social norms governing women’s and girls’ participation in society and their status in families undermine these legal reforms. They also put women and girls at risk of being stripped of their liberty and held captive in social rehabilitation facilities.

Libya’s zina laws, which criminalize adultery or fornication, can lead to the detention of women and girls in social rehabilitation facilities. These laws, codified in the penal code, discourage rape victims from seeking justice by presenting the threat of prosecution of the victims themselves. Women and girls who attempt to press charges for rape risk being imprisoned for adultery or fornication if they are unable to meet the high threshold of evidence required in rape cases. Judges in Libya also have the authority to propose marriage between the rapist and the victim as a “social remedy” to the crime, further impeding the ability of rape victims to seek justice. Zina laws violate international legal standards guaranteeing individuals the right to have control over matters relating to their sexuality, free from coercion, discrimination, and violence. Most of the women and girls we interviewed were suspected of having committed zina offenses, leading prosecutors to commit them to “social rehabilitation” facilities.

In addition to the zina laws, social and cultural norms regarding chastity, virginity, and “family honor,” and the stigma attached to unmarried women living alone, contribute to the detention of women and girls in these facilities. Libyan authorities treat adult women detained in social rehabilitation facilities like legal minors with little to no independent decision-making authority over their lives. Thus, the human rights of women and girls are subordinated to rigid social norms condoned and reinforced by the Libyan government.

While the number of detained women and girls in Libya’s social rehabilitation facilities is small—often less than one hundred—the abusive nature of these facilities and the egregious violations that occur within them require immediate action. Libya should immediately release all women and girls detained in social rehabilitation facilities, and instead establish purely voluntary shelters for women and girls in need of housing or protection from violence. These shelters should not compromise their privacy, autonomy, and freedom of movement. Any woman or girl suspected of a crime should receive due process protections, and if convicted should be released upon serving her sentence. The government must also take all appropriate measures to eliminate the discriminatory laws that lead to the detention of women and girls in these facilities in the first place.

This report is based on interviews conducted in Tripoli and Benghazi in April and May 2005 during Human Rights Watch’s first visit to Libya. During this three-week investigation, the authorities provided access to a wide range of high-level officials and allowed researchers to speak to prisoners and detainees in private. Government guides, however, escorted the delegation and monitored unofficial contact with individuals.

This report presents findings from brief visits to two social rehabilitation facilities in Libya: the Social Welfare Home for Women in Tajoura, near Tripoli, and the Benghazi Home for Juvenile Girls. At both of these facilities, the directors questioned the women and girls about their conversations with Human Rights Watch researchers. The director of one of centers told detainees only to speak positively about the facility.

All of the names of women and girls whose cases are discussed have been changed to protect their privacy and to ensure they are not penalized for their comments. Identifying information for other individuals has been withheld in some cases for the same reasons.

The Libyan government submitted a response to these findings in January 2006 attached as an appendix to this report. The statement, prepared by the General People’s Committee of Foreign Liaison and International Cooperation, defends the detention of women and girls on the basis of Libya’s “religious, sociological, cultural and legal” norms. However, the statement concluded that the appropriate authorities would take these findings into consideration and investigate the conditions in these institutions according to national and international standards.

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Tortured Logic

By ANTHONY LAGOURANIS Chicago I HAVE never met Sgt. Santos Cardona or Sgt. Michael Smith, but we share similar experiences. In late 2003 and early 2004, both men used their dogs to intimidate Iraqi prisoners during interrogations at Abu Ghraib prison. They maintain that they were following legal orders. Now they both face impending court-martial.

From January 2004 to January 2005, I served in various places in Iraq (including Abu Ghraib) as an Army interrogator. Following orders that I believed were legal, I used military working dogs during interrogations. I terrified my interrogation subjects, but I never got intelligence (mostly because 90 percent of them were probably innocent, but that's another story). Perhaps, I have thought for a long time, I also deserve to be prosecuted. But if that is the case, culpability goes much farther up the chain of command than the Army and the Bush administration have so far been willing to admit.

When the chief warrant officer at our interrogation site in Mosul first told me to use dogs during interrogations, it seemed well within what was allowed by our written rules and consistent with what was being done at Abu Ghraib and other detention centers. The dogs were muzzled and held by a handler. The prisoners didn't know that, though, because they were blindfolded; if they gave me an answer I didn't like, I could cue the handler so the dog would bark and lunge toward them. Sometimes they were so terrified they'd wet their jumpsuits. About halfway through my tour, I stopped using dogs and other "enhancements" like hypothermia that qualify as torture even under the most nonchalant readings of international law. I couldn't handle being so routinely brutal.

In training, we learned that all P.O.W.'s are protected against actual and implied threats. You can never put a "knife on the table" to get someone to talk. That was clear. But our Iraqi prisoners weren't clearly classified as P.O.W.'s, so I never knew what laws applied. Instead, a confusing set of verbal and written orders had supplanted the Geneva Conventions.

When an Army investigator asked Col. Thomas Pappas, the top military intelligence officer at Abu Ghraib, how intimidation with dogs could be allowed under this treaty, he gave the chilling reply, "I did not personally look at that with regard to the Geneva Convention." Colonel Pappas later testified that he was taking his cue on the use of dogs from Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, who took over detainee operations in Iraq after running them in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

General Miller has denied recommending the use of guard dogs to intimidate prisoners during interrogations in Iraq. He also recently said he would not testify in the courts-martial of Sergeants Cardona and Smith, invoking his right to avoid self-incrimination. As someone who voluntarily spoke at length about my actions in Iraq to investigators, without a lawyer present, I can't have a favorable opinion of General Miller. By doing the military equivalent of "taking the Fifth," he's decided to protect himself, apparently happy to let two dog handlers take the fall - a stunning betrayal of his subordinates and Army values.

Sergeants Cardona and Smith have been accused of sick and sadistic behavior. They face the prospect of serious jail time. But they almost certainly acted believing they were following legal orders. In the military, orders are orders unless there is clear, uncluttered law transmitted from far above our commanders' rank and station. Instead of a clear message prohibiting torture, our top commanders gave us a deliberate muddying of the waters.

Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, recently shepherded a ban on torture through Congress. Then, while reluctantly signing the legislation, President Bush muddled this very clear ban on torture by stating that he would construe it "in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the president."

Those who serve in the prisons of Iraq deserve to know clearly the difference between legal and illegal orders. Soldiers on the ground need a commander in chief who does not seek strained legalisms that "permit" the use of torture. The McCain amendment, prohibiting "cruel, inhuman, or degrading" treatment in all instances, is an accurate reflection of the true values of the military and American society. We should adhere to it strictly and in all cases. I know, from personal experience, that any leeway given will be used to maximum effect against detainees. No slope is more slippery, I learned in Iraq, than the one that leads to torture.

Anthony Lagouranis served in the Army from May 2001 to July 2005.

The Muslim in the Mirror

by Arshin Adib-Moghaddam

Few things are more frustrating than the doxa to which a hybrid and multifarious object such as "Islam" is all too readily reduced by formulaic provocation and paranoiac reaction. The current "cartoon war" between "militant" Muslims and "militant" liberals in the "West" is a case in point. Once again, people are led to view themselves and others in binary terms. On one hand, to many peoples in the non-Muslim world, "Islam" represents an antagonistic force which threatens to compromise the rational universalism and secular humanism of Western Enlightenment. For Muslims, on the other hand, the "West" in general and the United States in particular embody an exceptionally destructive form of savage, heavily armed nihilism. The production of both categories, far from undergoing a process of critical examination, has been given over to a machine of escalating ideological incitement, which "al-Qaedaizes" Islam and "infidelizes" the West, withering the will to understand others.

Why is it, one may ask, that this parody of what "Islam" and the "West" represent, involving as it does a perennial cycle of reductions and counter-reductions, is so readily accepted? Why is there such a mutual desire and passion to conquer, liberate, and possess the other -- a rather incestuous dialectic between two societies that have institutionalized the Abrahamic prophecies, albeit in different ways. As if the "West" and "Islam" needed to be constantly produced and reified. As if it were essential to know the other's "difference" from us. As if it were obligatory to decide between "us" and "them." Those who are involved in the current clash of reductionisms would have done well to remember the parable of Babel: the transparency of our world was destroyed once and for all. Instead, alas, hubris is the norm, with Danish, French, German, and Norwegian journalists claiming to represent the secular present of "Western liberalism" and neo-fundamentalists in the Islamic world claiming to defend the sacrosanct essence of "Islam."

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The battle for the soul of Islam

Khaled Abou El Fadl 's The Great Theft attempts to inform Muslims of a grave threat to Islam's moral centre

EMRAN QURESHI

From Friday's Globe and Mail

The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam from the Extremists By Khaled Abou El Fadl Harper San Francisco, 308 pages, $28.95

Today, there is a struggle for the soul of Islam, taking place between the loud extremists who have captured the headlines and Islam's silent, moderate majority. In the last few years, we have witnessed 9/11, Bali, Madrid, London and the orchestrated use of violence by a small group of Muslim radicals who seem to define Islam in entirely negative and reactionary terms.

Khaled Abou El Fadl is a professor of law at UCLA, trained in both Western and Islamic legal traditions. He is a believing Muslim. A graduate of Yale and Princeton, he is fluent in English, French, Arabic, Ottoman Turkish, Hebrew, Persian, Latin and Syriac. In The Great Theft, he attempts to inform Muslims of a grave threat to Islam's moral centre and to wrest control of the discourse on defining what being a Muslim is in the modern world away from the extremists.

To be sure, the term "moderate" Muslim may seem condescending, as no one appears to use the term to describe non-Muslims. But he states his case for its use in contradistinction to terms such as progressive, liberal or modernist. He retells the tradition of the Prophet Mohammed as a moderate man who avoided extremes.

Abou El Fadl traces the rise of Islamic extremism to the rise of the Wahhabi state, the precursor of modern Saudi Arabia. By now it has become something of a cliché, but here the author's original contribution is actually to explore the ideas of the sect's founder, Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab through his writings, and the dislocations they produced. He calls Wahhabis "puritans" and demarcates their ethos and underlying world view from the moderate centre of Islam. Some critics may consider this to be too reductive. But one needs to ask: Has this interpretation of Islam influenced modern Muslim understanding of their faith, and if so, how?

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Iraq: three years on

Before first light on 20 March 2003 missiles rained down on Baghdad as the American-led invasion began. Saddam's regime was toppled but, three years on, the war still rages. About 35,000 Iraqis, 2,500 allied troops and 109 journalists are dead. The lives of millions have changed forever. Here are some of their stories Sunday March 12, 2006 The Observer The poet

'My mission was to try and rehumanise our society' Abdullah al-Baghdadi, 41, a poet, lives in the Karrada district of Baghdad

On 9 April 2003, when I saw the statue of Saddam being hauled to the ground in Baghdad's al-Fardous square, I had such hopes for the future. Seeing the tyrant lolling on his back with a rope around his neck was the ultimate in poetic justice. It opened up all sorts of possibilities for artists and intellectuals in Iraq. Previously half-formed thoughts and ambitions began to solidify in our minds.

Inspired by the name of the movie, I decided to form an Iraqi Dead Poets' Society - so named because all of us had spent the past 35 years like dead men walking. I contacted all the poets I knew. It wasn't easy; all the phone lines were down. I sent letters and taxis and messengers across Baghdad, hunting down the pens that I knew could help beat the sword. And the reaction was overwhelmingly positive.

I would find a suitable venue, a 'Poetry HQ', and we would meet weekly for readings of our work. All the poems and poets banned or suppressed under Saddam would have a chance to live and breathe again. We would issue a monthly magazine in both Arabic and English. We would invite poets from the West to come and share their inspirations with us, to bypass the artificially imposed barriers that had been in place for far too long.

We would also form a poetry club for the youth of Iraq, who had been starved of all beauty under the Baathist regime. I remember how three years ago I had this passion - I felt it almost as a mission - to rehumanise our thoroughly brutalised society.

I also wanted to override the images of concrete blast barriers, barbed wire, suicide bombs and mortar shells that were threatening to take hold of our imaginations after the first few months of liberation. I believed all that had been destroyed could be recreated again, in verse, by us poets. Any destruction of any thing means the death of part of a poet's soul.

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A beautiful tradition

The Messenger of God, Muhammad (SAS) once said, Every believer has thirty obligations over his brother in faith, which he could not be said to have met unless he either performs them or is excused by his brother in faith from performing them. These obligations are: forgiving his mistakes; being merciful and kind to him when he is in a strange land; guarding his secrets; giving him his hand when he is about to fall; accepting his apology; discouraging backbiting about him; persisting in giving him good advice; treasuring his friendship; fulfilling his trust; visiting him when he is ill; being with him at the time of his death; accepting his invitation and his presents; returning his favours in the same manner; thanking him for his favours; being grateful for his assistance; protecting his honour and property; helping him meet his needs; making an effort to solve his problems; saying to him: `God bless you', when he sneezes; guiding him to the thing he has lost; answering his greetings; taking him at his word (not drawing a bad interpretation of things he says); accepting his bestowals; confirming him if he swears to something; being kind and friendly towards him, not unsympathetic and hostile; helping him whether he is being unjust or is a victim of injustice [when we speak of helping him when he is being unjust, we mean that he must be kept from being unjust; when we speak of coming to his aid when he is a victim of injustice, we mean that he should be assisted in securing his rights] ; refraining from feeling bored or fed up of him; not forsaking him in the midst of his troubles. Whatever good things he likes for himself he should also like for his brother in faith, and whatever he dislikes for himself he should also dislike for his brother. Few of us seem capable of understanding such things...

SPECIAL REPORT TO THE 20TH CONGRESS OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE SOVIET UNION

This is just my input into the danger of hero worship that we see all over the middle east, from Bin Laden, to Sadr, to Sistani....

(Closed session, February 24-25, 1956)

By Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev, First Secretary, Communist Party of the Soviet Union

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Western intelligence agencies had no difficulties obtaining the "Secret Speech" shortly after it was delivered. Translated into English, possibly by Russian speakers working in West Germany for the CIA, it was disseminated widely outside the Soviet bloc. The text below has been adapted from the most commonly available variant. I have corrected the worst of the translation's infelicities and have made small grammatical changes to improve its readability.

Khrushchev's speech is full of references to people and events that should/would have been fully understandable to his intended audience. For the benefit of student readers who don't share that background knowledge, I have supplied paragraph-end footnotes where I thought them appropriate. I also have footnoted a number of instances where Khrushchev's remarks demand amplification or correction according to what we now know about the Stalin period. This commentary is based in part on cold-war-vintage annotations by Boris Nikolaevsky. However it has been revised and expanded.drastically to reflect new, archivally-based understanding as well as present-day concerns.

If you are reading this on a web browser, click on highlighted paragraph-end notes in the text to go to the appropriate commentary. Use your browser's back button to return to the spot where you had interrupted your reading.

Jon Bone

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Comrades! In the Party Central Committee's report at the 20th Congress and in a number of speeches by delegates to the Congress, as also formerly during Plenary CC/CPSU [Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union] sessions, quite a lot has been said about the cult of the individual and about its harmful consequences.

After Stalin's death, the Central Committee began to implement a policy of explaining concisely and consistently that it is impermissible and foreign to the spirit of Marxism-Leninism to elevate one person, to transform him into a superman possessing supernatural characteristics, akin to those of a god. Such a man supposedly knows everything, sees everything, thinks for everyone, can do anything, is infallible in his behavior.

Such a belief about a man, and specifically about Stalin, was cultivated among us for many years. The objective of the present report is not a thorough evaluation of Stalin's life and activity. Concerning Stalin's merits, an entirely sufficient number of books, pamphlets and studies had already been written in his lifetime. Stalin's role of Stalin in the preparation and execution of the Socialist Revolution, in the Civil War, and in the fight for the construction of socialism in our country, is universally known. Everyone knows it well.

At present, we are concerned with a question which has immense importance for the Party now and for the future -- with how the cult of the person of Stalin has been gradually growing, the cult which became at a certain specific stage the source of a whole series of exceedingly serious and grave perversions of Party principles, of Party democracy, of revolutionary legality.

Because not all as yet realize fully the practical consequences resulting from the cult of the individual, [or] the great harm caused by violation of the principle of collective Party direction and by the accumulation of immense and limitless power in the hands of one person, the Central Committee considers it absolutely necessary to make material pertaining to this matter available to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

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Did a plane hit the pentagon?

A rather interesting flash presentation about the Pentagon attack.... hmm good point... where exactly is the plane.... don't ask no questions Click here to watch...

Exit without a strategy

The popular response to Iraq's latest atrocities has been to blame the occupation, not rival sects Sami Ramadani Friday February 24, 2006 The Guardian The shattered golden dome of Samarra is yet another milestone in George Bush's "long war" - in which a civil war in Iraq shows every sign of being a devastating feature. But what sort of civil war? I am convinced it is not the type of war that politicians in Washington and London, and much of the western media, have been anticipating.

The past few days' events have strengthened this conviction. It has not been Sunni religious symbols that hundreds of thousands of angry marchers protesting at the bombing of the shrine have targeted, but US flags. The slogan that united them on Wednesday was: "Kalla, kalla Amrica, kalla kalla lill-irhab" - no to America, no to terrorism. The Shia clerics most listened to by young militants swiftly blamed the occupation for the bombing. They included Moqtada al-Sadr; Nasrallah, leader of Hizbullah in Lebanon; Ayatollah Khalisi, leader of the Iraqi National Foundation Congress; and Grand Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran's spiritual leader. Along with Grand Ayatollah Sistani, they also declared it a grave "sin" to attack Sunnis - as did all the Sunni clerics about attacks on Shias. Sadr was reported by the BBC as calling for revenge on Sunnis - in fact, he said "no Sunni would do this" and called for revenge on the occupation.

None of the mostly spontaneous protest marches were directed at Sunni mosques. Near the bombed shrine itself, local Sunnis joined the city's minority Shias to denounce the occupation and accuse it of sharing responsibility for the outrage. In Kut, a march led by Sadr's Mahdi army burned US and Israeli flags. In Baghdad's Sadr City, the anti-occupation march was massive.

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I love Black Adder

Percy: Oh Edmund... [sees the bridesmaid] Hello there... Edmund, you didn't tell me we were expecting guests. And such a pretty one too. Edmund: Oh God... Percy: Now you're a little cuty to be hiding your self away all these years. Tell me gorgeous, what is your name? Edmund: He's called Baldrick. Percy: Baldrick.. that's a pretty name. Edmund used to have a servant called Baldrick. But anyway, away with such small-talk. Lady.. a kiss! Baldrick: What? Percy: And so modest too. Come on you little tease. You know you want to. Give us a kiss. Baldrick: All right, if you say so. [kisses Percy heavily] Percy: Ohghw...he.. what an original perfume. Edmund:That is our Baldrick. He's wearing a dress. Percy: Ourgh.. Edmund:Anyway, what do you want? Percy: Ourgh... well euh.. [deep voice] Edmund, there has been some discussion around the Court on the subject of who's going to be your best man and I thought it might be the moment to bring the subject to a conclusion. Edmund: Ah yes, Percy. I would like you... Percy: Oh, I'm so proud! Edmund: Please let me finish. I would like you to take this letter to Dover where is recently docked the galleon of my old school friend and adventurer Lord Flashheart. He shall be my best man. Percy: Lord Flash Heart. The best sword, the best shot, the best sailor and the best kisser in the kingdom. Edmund: Even he. To Dover at once! Percy: Yes. Actually I was going to suggest Lord Flash Heart as the best man my self. Edmund: Were you?

[Percy leaves, crying his eyes out]

Father Frank is a Genius

FATHER FRANK’S RANTS Rant Number 195 29 November 2005 The Libertine A hardened old atheist is on his deathbed. Anxious for the salvation of the sinner’s soul, the Church strives to convert him. His parish priest offers him the consolations of religion. Confession, anointing, the sacraments, all that. Assures him warmly of God’s love, forgiveness, mercy, etcetera. Pointless. The fellow counters: “Thank you. I do not believe in God.” A highly educated man we are dealing with, see, a hard-headed rationalist, trained in science. So a brilliant Dominican preacher, skilled in debate, is summoned. To no effect. The old chap is himself a dialectician, a relentless reasoner, adroit at refuting the cleverest arguments. Then a subtle Jesuit has a go…still no joy. The case looks hopeless when an aged Franciscan, a rather down-to-earth, non-academic priest, steps forward. Left alone with the sinner for two hours - he succeeds! Taken in hand at five in the morning, the atheist confesses at seven and passes peacefully away at eight. People are astonished. “Father, how did you do it? You must be fantastic at arguing.” “I didn’t argue”, mutters the old friar, “I just made him very scared of hell.” Sigh…maybe that’s right. A mali estremi, rimedi estremi, as Italians say. But God can go one better. Like in the true story of a notorious Restoration rake, now the protagonist of The Libertine, a turbid movie starring Johnny Depp and John Malkovich. “You won’t like me”, hisses at the audience a Mephistophelean Johnny Depp. Yeah. John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester was not the sort to introduce to your maiden aunt. The author of the play ‘Sodom or the Quintessence of Debauchery’. Poet and courtier. Friend and boon companion of King Charles II, his ‘father in vice’. Basically, Venus and Bacchus – wine and women, ad nauseam – held him in thrall. “I have been under the influence of drink for five consecutive years” lamented the Earl at the end of a tragically short life. London’s dens of iniquity were partly responsible. Quirky historian John Aubrey writes of Rochester that “when he came to Brentford the Devil entered into him and never left him till he came into the country again.” (NB Boring Brentford, in the London banlieau, is where Fr Frank happens to live. Old Nick seems conspicuous by his absence – ought to cross myself!) Yet this voluptuary was a no mean poet. A spicy satirist worthy of Juvenal. And a composer of stirring amorous lyrics. Problem is – his verse is exceedingly bawdy. No way the priest can reproduce it here. As late as 1964, the appalling “A Ramble in St James’ Park” was still unprintable in England. But beware: Rochester was no vulgar pornographer. His rationale for blunt Anglo-Saxon words was polemical, anti-Scriptural. As the Puritans had undertaken to call things by their Biblical name, the naughty Earl, the scion of a famous Cavalier, undertook to call everything ‘by its own name’. Which only goes to show the limitations of realism. Along with booze and venereal disease leading to the libertine’s undoing, I must regretfully count not horses but philosophy. Rochester was a Hobbist. Not a Hobbit, no. A follower of the writer Thomas Hobbes. (No mention of this in the movie: a case of philosophy not being sexy enough?) The author of Leviathan produced an implacably mechanistic and materialist system, immensely influential at the time. Man and nature consisted of matter in motion and its modifications, that’s all. First causes, free will, the immortality of the soul, resurrection of the body, a future state were all rejected. Little wonder these crude tenets found favour with the decadent Stuart court. A pseudo-scientific creed that denigrates an afterlife of rewards and punishments will always find besotted votaries – till it’s time for a ‘reality check’, that is… For Rochester the reckoning came early. Aged 33, body dreadfully wasted owing to his injudicious debaucheries, a pain-wracked ‘skin and bone’, he lay dying at Woodstock. There learned Anglican divine Gilbert Burnet visited him. Dr Burnet naturally sought to lead the sick man to repentance. His reasonable arguments convinced only imperfectly. The Earl accepted that vice and impiety were contrary to human society. He agreed, if restored to health, to ‘forbear swearing and irreligious discourse’. Yet, he still held there was nothing wrong in gratifying his self-destructive appetite for sex and wine. Worse, he confessed to an impoverished idea of God of Spinozistic flavour: “...a vast Power that wrought everything by the necessity of its nature…there was not to be either reward or punishment…to love God seemed to him a presumptuous thing and the heat of fanciful men.” Hardly the change of heart you’d expect from a contrite sinner. Breakthrough at last came via neither cold reasoning nor hellfire horrors but through an act of God’s amazing grace. Conveyed by Scripture – the awesome 53rd chapter of the book of the Prophet Isaiah. The Suffering Servant passage foreshadowing the coming of Christ. It prophesies the Messiah’s redemptive work on sinful humanity’s behalf: “He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed…He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth…he bore the sins of many, and made intercession for our faults.” Rochester later related that, as he heard Isaiah read “he felt an inward force upon him…so that he could resist it no longer.” “Mr Hobbes and his philosophy have been my ruin”, he eventually declared. “This, this is the true philosophy”, he then exclaimed, putting his hand on the Bible. Well, all very edifying. But was it, really? Were the clergy preying on the weakness, even the disturbed mind of a decayed scrap of humanity at death’s door? Or were they genuinely seeking to save the reprobate’s eternal soul? Discuss. I wonder, I just wonder, does Rochester, the tragic libertine, stand for much of our society today? Huh! I can hear the inward groan: “Spare us the sermon, Fr Frank. No need. We got your drift” – and so I won’t preach. But you can’t stop me praying for another tremendous act of divine grace. Revd Frank Julian Gelli FATHER FRANK’S RANTS Rant Number 194 23 November 2005 Plural Beds “Polygamie au banc des accuses”. The riots in the French suburbs have put polygamy in the dock, writes the influential Le Monde. Some immigrants’ vast plural beds allegedly are behind their children’s revolt. Youths lacking a father figure in the home are more prone to anti-social behaviour…it goes like that. How bizarre. Father Frank couldn’t agree more a father is a jolly good thing. But surely it is fatherless monogamous families that are our Western society’s bane, if any. Bet there are plenty of those in France. I wonder whether the liberal media across the channel put monogamy on trial when investigating youth delinquency? As to multiple wives, consider the Mormons. Until 1890, when an intolerant, persecuting US federal government bullied them into forsaking it, the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints did practice polygamy. Indeed, Brigham Young, who succeeded Joseph Smith as leader of the Church, boasted 27 wives (though not all of them alive at the same time) and 56 children. But it does not seem that Brigham’s children ever complained of the lack of a father figure. Nor does it appear that polygamy either alienated or caused social unrest amongst Mormon youngsters. On the contrary, LDS youths were and are known as models of conservative citizenship. Hard-working, industrious, honest, law-abiding and chaste. So much for plural marriage necessarily breeding hooligans, then. Sociology apart, it’s curious the custom should provoke so much prejudice. There is no divine command against polygamy in the Bible. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David and Solomon had more than one wife. True, Jesus in St Mark’s Gospel (10:8) lays down that a man and a woman in marriage “… shall become one flesh.” But the thrust of the Lord’s words is directed against divorce, not polygamy. And ‘Man’ and ‘woman’ are generic terms designating genders. Moreover, the ‘one flesh’ remark harks back to Genesis, the beginning of creation. Clearly, Hebrew sacred writers never interpreted the passage to forbid plural marriage, or Scripture would have castigated the patriarchs for that. As to the New Covenant (I Timothy, 3:2), St Paul notably rules that, amongst a bishop’s qualities, he should be “the husband of one wife”. Dig that? Those mitred old goats! What didn’t they get up to! Like it or not, some criticism of polygamous practice is implied there. To be sure, beyond St Paul stands the Messiah himself. Granted that the personal love life of the Lord must forever remain an enigma (pace the Da Vinci Code rubbish), all the evidence points to Christ being unmarried. Even non-Christian traditions, hostile and friendly alike, never mention a Mrs Jesus of Nazareth. (A liberal theologian once quipped that, if such a female ever existed, she would have kept an impossibly low profile.) In that respect, Christ might more akin to an abstinent Master like Siddartha Gautama, the Buddha, than to married Prophets like Moses or Muhammad. Accordingly, strict monogamy would appear more becoming to followers of a religion founded by a holy celibate than polygamy. The Christian world used to acknowledge as much. Virginity and celibacy for centuries were its highest ideals. I haven’t noticed President Chirac, Sarkozy and their laiciste gang praising those virtues lately… Remarkably, a certain Shia Muslim’s somewhat quirky communication to me proffers an extra-reason for Christ’s unmarried status: “As you Christians hold that Issa son of Mary is the Son of God, I well understand it’s impossible he could have had a wife. Bad enough to have a son of God – imagine having to reckon with God’s grandchildren! No, that had to be prevented from happening, I do see it.” Intriguing! By the way, as Christianity arose out of Judaism, I usefully learn from Rabbi Isacco Israelovici - a former Italian Army comrade (how green we all were then, eh, Isacco?) – that Jews took plenty of time to legislate on the matter. Ashkenazi rabbis did not officially rule out plural beds until about 900 AD. Sephardic Judaism, however, still leaves the possibility open, although 100 rabbis altogether are needed to allow a man to take a second wife. Hmmm… must be pretty rare, I guess. But why beat about the bush? What Gallic secularists are gunning for are Muslims, especially those of African origin. Islamic plural beds make the not-so-fecund heirs of les droits de l’homme jittery. But Muslim teaching is complex. The Qur’an does indeed allow a believer as many as four wives (Surah An-Nisah, 3). Actually, that number is restrictive vis-à-vis the pagan customs of pre-Islamic, polytheistic Arabia, when a man could enjoy an unlimited harem. The Qur’anic text also hedges the permission about with qualifications. Should a man not be able to deal justly with plural wives, for example because he lacks the means to support them, only one is lawful. Relevant is also the Sunna, the personal custom and practice of the Prophet Muhammad, one of the sources of Sharia law. One would expect the Messenger to be a normative model for all Muslims. Interesting though that Ibn Taymiyya, the famous medieval jurist widely regarded as a Wahabi forerunner, was not married. And King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, a most pious monarch, had only one wife. African Islam… I must plead anthropologically ignorant. Can only get anecdotal about my friend Mouftah, an excellent Nigerian Muslim. He has two spouses. Trust me: he is the best of fathers. “Frank, women view polygamy very differently from men”, my beloved Marian now cautions me. Fair enough. They are bound to, I suppose. But surprises are always possible. In 1870 a US congressman had the brilliant idea of abolishing plural beds by granting the vote to women. He assumed that Mormon women would rise up by ballot against polygamy. But when the territorial legislature of Utah granted women the vote – they prompted voted as their husbands did. Funny, isn’t it? FATHER FRANK’S RANTS Rant Number 183 16 August 2005 Salman the Hopeless “Muslims, unite!” you, dear Rushdie, wrote in The Times last week, adding “a new Reformation will bring your faith into the modern era”. What a clarion call! Sounds almost as if you were putting yourself forward as a progressive Caliph of a restored, reinvigorated Muslim umma. Or another Saladin, perhaps? Or even the awaited Mahdi? Must have cheered many believers in Britain, subjected as they are right to attack and vilification, to have found a bold champion such as yourself, a household name, an egregious writer and intellectual….but, wait a minute. Something isn’t quite right. I seem to remember – aren’t you the same Salman Rushdie whose Satanic Verses caused an uproar worldwide, was deemed insulting to Islam’s Holy Prophet and got you a death sentence for blasphemy? Forgive my being candid but – you have done it again! Your status as a novelist I will not dispute. Because I have not read any of your books. Friends say they are stodgy, pretentious, unreadable. Maybe. I reserve judgment till I have time to find out for myself. What I question is the half-baked ideology and wrong-headed theology adumbrated in your article. First, you advocate an ‘Islamic Reformation’. Capital ‘R’. A term synonymous with Protestantism. A version of Christianity that jettisons church traditions and authorities in matters of faith. Insists instead on the supremacy of the Bible. True Protestants were iconoclasts, by the way. Often thuggish. Smashed and vandalised churches, shrines, stained glass, altars, relics all. (They would have got on well with the Wahabis, really.) Thing is, eminent Prots like Luther and Calvin were adamant about the infallibility of Scripture. Conversely, not all that great about tolerance. In theocratically-ruled Geneva, Calvin burnt at the stake theologian Miguel Servetus for denying the Trinity. Luther himself was a virulent anti-Semite, as it happens... All that for the record. Later, much Protestantism partly degenerated into rampant individualism. Spawned countless fissiparous, oddball sects, from Jehova’s Witnesses to Seventh-Day Adventists. Some even dissolved into atheism. Story too tedious to recount – I can’t for the life of me see why Muslims should see that tired trajectory as worthy of imitation. They already have their share of sects, anyway. As for serious Protestants today, well, you’d be surprised to discover how much they have in common with sincere, traditional Muslims, believe you me. Indeed, my former fellow King’s College student, professor Ian Markham, has wisely asserted that religious dialogue itself, in order to be relevant, should be one between good Muslims and “conservative Christians”, i.e. Christians who read, value and follow their Bibles. So, there! In fact, dear Salman, none of my Muslim friends dream of seeing the example of later Protestant, liberal Christianity, as a model. They do admire European high-tech and material achievements, sure. The way modern European man has watered down the truths of revelation, abandoned the Bible and forsaken the faith of their fathers, they simply despise. And, I do too. Second, the matter of the nature and status of the Qur’an. You advocate, as a liberal panacea, situating al-Kitab within history, not beyond it. A very knotty, potentially dangerous matter – it landed you in a spot of trouble before, I think - and who am I, a poor Christian, to rush in where angels fear to tread? No problem for me to look at my faith that way. It is not the Book that is ultimate for me but the Man. The central event of Christianity, Christmas, God made man in Christ, happened at the intersection of history and eternity. Bethlehem and the Empyrean, Heaven and Earth literally locked together at the Incarnation. The whole of the Bible for me leads up to that tremendous, natural-and-supernatural event. Revelation’s point, its raison d’etre hinges on, and is subordinated to it. Eternity met with and became incarnated in, time. Both history and super-history together play out their key part in the cosmic drama of man’s salvation. The Muslim paradigm of revelation is different, granted. If you knew more about your religion, however, you would know that Islamic theology does not rest only on the Qur’an but also on the ahadith, the Prophet’s sayings. And, surprise, surprise, there is already a sort of historical-critical science of the ahadith. Hope that pleases you… Third, I could not help a very broad grin on reading that, according to you, the Qur’an should be read “as a plea for the old matriarchal values in the new patriarchal world”. Now, sucking up to the ladies is a move that might win you favour in London and New York’s literary circles. Over here too, from 10 Downing St to suburban Anglican Vicarages. Serious Muslims, though, in my experience are a bit more discerning than that. Truth is, Salman, I do actually know lots of Muslim women. Some even converts from paganism (the correct name for the actual creed of most people in Britain today). Most of them wear the hijab – voluntarily. They are proud of their religion. Find comfort in it. Rejoice in it. I tell you, they are not chattels. Far from it. They hold their head high. They are real women. Talk of matriarchy would make them laugh. Only a few cracked ideologues and pandering blokes like yourself mouth that kind of cant. Women don’t give a hoot about matriarchy - whatever that might be. Not do they care about its opposite, patriarchy. Professional feminists do. Muslim women, in my modest experience, don’t. And why on earth should they? They can do one better. Be the real thing: mothers… Tell you a secret, Salman. Not too long ago I was shopping in that area of lost souls, Hammersmith, when I saw walking towards me a chap of middle stature, with familiar glum features: you. I then remembered the old fatwa on your life. The thought crossed my mind: “How much money is this guy worth? What if…?” But I dismissed it. I would not wish anything bad on you. But stop playing with fire. Religion is too important to be left to intellectuals. As to your fellow Muslims – they need you like a hole in the head. FATHER FRANK’S RANTS Rant Number 177 22 June 2005 Insurrection “He’s gone! To fight Jihad. Ah, poor son of mine! What will happen to him?” From somewhere in the Middle East, the distressed words of a father. A caring, tolerant, peace-loving dad. (Friend of mine, actually.) Desperate at the thought his beloved boy could now be in the inferno of post-Saddam Iraq – carrying out acts of violence – perhaps, God forbid, even about to turn himself into a suicide bomber. Lamely, I tried to console him: “Don’t distress yourself unduly, Zalman. How can you be sure? He is such a nice lad. Wouldn’t hurt a fly. He’d never…” “Ya Frank!”, an e-mail message shot back “It’s useless. He wants to join the insurgents. I know. He left a note…” Jihad. A potent, ghostly word. Not one to be trifled with. Because, rightly or wrongly, it conjures up a spectre haunting Europe, nay, the whole West. The spectre of Islamist insurrection. Holy War. The horror of 9/11. The vaguely apocalyptic, by now done-to-death cliché (yawn), ‘clash of civilisations’. All that and…more. Why not the Id? The monsters of the Unconscious. The loathing of the Other – maybe even of oneself. Hasn’t Jean Baudrillard insinuated the deracinated West deep down envies, is jealous of Islam? Of its metaphysical certitudes? Quite bloody likely. Jihad, note, has many meanings. Basically, it signifies a striving. Against one’s inward, sinful, ungodly drives. Thus Oswald Spengler called jihad ‘the asceticism of Islam’. It may also mean other, natural strivings. (During the last Ramadhan, in a mosque I heard a young preacher speak of a woman in the grip of ‘the jihad of childbirth’.) As outward, violent effort, it means a war of self-defense. However, when hunted Osama B.L. and his faithful lieutenant, fallen physician Dr Ayman Al-Zawahiri, invoke this hugely emotive word, there can be no doubt as to what they have in mind. Whether these fighting men have the authority to summon a jihad, and whether it is licit to declare holy war against an enemy that includes many fellow Muslims, well, I am a poor Christian, aren’t I? Such nasty knots I must leave to the learned amongst my Islamic friends to untie. But Zalman mentioned ‘the insurgents’. Uprising. An etymologically suggestive term, as oddball, heretical Hegelian thinker Max Stirner showed in his anarchic, profoundly subversive treatise, The Ego and His Own. Explosive stuff. Revolution and insurrection are not the same, Stirner argues. Revolution aims at a new state arrangement. It is a political, social act, often by violent means. Insurrection, by contrast, designates no armed rising, but an in-surgere, in Latin a ‘rising up’, a re-arrangement, not of the masses but above all of individuals. The revolutionary strives to overthrow an established order, the insurgent to straighten himself, to ‘get up’, to rise above things. Insurrection needs not be a violent fight against the institutions because, if it thrives, they will collapse automatically, like a house of cards. Rank, petty-bourgeois, self-defeating adolescent individualism, Fr Frank, surely! Prima facie, it may look that way but wait. Amazingly, Stirner singles out Christ as his typical insurgent. Christ, the Prince of Peace. The Messiah rejected by many of his own people because he did not seek to emulate King David’s military exploits. The Christ who rode into Jerusalem on a war-horse but on a humble donkey. The Saviour who never called for bloodshed, for violent rebellion against the Roman emperor. (“Give unto Caesar…”) And that in a Palestine in which the air was so inflamed with armed struggle that the Messiah’s enemies accused him precisely of that before Pilate. (St Luke 23:5) So, why wasn’t Christ a revolutionary, a guerrilla like Che Guevara? He was not that because he was no vulgar political agitator but an insurgent. One who raised himself up, above the shallow expectations of the world. And, in the process, caused others to do the same. Hmmm…Christ was sort of like Gandhi, then. Is that it? NO! No way. Totally erroneous. Jesus as Gandhi is a line of thought current in some Muslim circles – and they do mean well – but it’s absolutely the wrong image. Forget the pious, fraudulent travesty of a Jesus ‘meek and mild’. Think rather of a tigerish Christ. The Christ who with a whip drove the traders out of the Temple. The Messiah who overcame and cast out legions of angry demons. Who rebuked Satan, ‘the Prince of This World’. Who stood up to a powerful religious establishment, calling them ‘brood of vipers’, ‘the devil’s children’ and ‘white sepulchres’. Whose spiritual strength was such as to willingly accept to undergo the horror of the Cross. The Christ who, above all, overcame in himself the temptation to be a conventional Anointed One, another murderous Joshua, another, lesser King David, another cheap, violent demagogue raging away in a wretched, paltry, insignificant Levantine polity. Instead, he lifted himself above the stale hopes and unholy urges of contemporary power-worshippers. Listen to Stirner: “Exactly because Christ cared not a jot for overthrowing the government, he was in truth its deadly enemy and destroyer. For he, calmly and inexorably, raised himself up, walled in the old world, and built over it his own Temple, oblivious to the wailings of the immured therein.” Stupendous, no? Er…Fr Frank, if you say so. Only wish Stirner would explain his explanation. Back to the guys fighting in Iraq – suicide bombers included. What about them? Again, it’s above all Muslim cause. Competent Muslim authorities should judge. Christian ethics forbids suicide bombing but so does it condemn aggressive war, regime change, disproportionate civilian casualties, ill-treatment of prisoners and so on. Condy Rice calls for Syria to make it impossible for foreign Jihadists to enter Iraq. By the same logic, Western forces and various mercenaries in that unhappy country ought to get out double-quick. But, pardon the cliché, there is no quick fix. Woe to those who first create a hell and then complain it is a place full of demon.

Egyptian Moviegoers Stage Their Own Show

Three Hours With 'King Kong' By Daniel Williams Washington Post Foreign Service Tuesday, February 14, 2006; A10 CAIRO This moviegoing adventure might as well have been called King Kong vs. the Odeon Midnight Show. At 12 a.m., a crowd of ticketholders waiting outside the downtown New Odeon Cinema to see the new "King Kong" was let in through a single, narrow door, even though there was a panel of three that could be opened. Young men, some with dates, muscled past ushers who worked frantically to match the number of tickets thrust into their hands with the number of customers. Families with toddlers in tow and even babies trooped in carrying plastic bags full of sandwiches. It was the beginning of what was, in effect, an interactive night at the movies. Egyptian audiences practically merge their lives with what's going on up on the screen, and the movie's familiar plot was supplemented by heavy audience participation. Seats in Cairo movie houses are assigned, with seat numbers handwritten on the tickets. That led to a bit of pleading throughout the theater. In the seventh row, two young men wanted to sit next to their friends -- in someone else's seats. "You will see, these are better," said one youth to the person actually assigned the places. "But yours are in Row 3!" answered the middle-aged man, incredulous, his wife standing idly behind. "But they're in the center," the youth went on. "My eyes are bad," answered the man. The lights dimmed and the censor's certificate of authorization -- a big white document stamped with an official Egyptian government eagle -- flashed on the screen. Momentary applause. Then the crowd settled down, except for a hefty woman in a head scarf who changed her baby's diaper. The aisle served as a changing station. A squalid, cluttered 1930s New York of soup lines and hovels filled the screen. Someone from the back yelled out, "Cairo!" When Carl Denham, the manic movie director, persuaded Ann Darrow, the struggling actress, to join his sea cruise to Skull Island, where they would encounter Kong, several audience members seized the moment to make cell phone calls. Why not? The dialogue was in English with Arabic subtitles, so chatting interfered with no one's understanding of the movie. "Ya, Ahmed," a man's voice rang out in Row 9. "I'm at the cinema. Let's meet at auntie's." "Yes," said another, evidently taking care of unfinished day business. "I'll drop it off in the morning." A latecomer was guided to his seat by an acquaintance shouting, "Over here." A picnicker pulled out a cream cheese and olive oil sandwich and offered it to a foreign spectator, a complete stranger, and asked where he was from. "America, good," the inquiring picnicker remarked. By the time Denham's ship left New York Harbor, it was time for a baby in the Odeon to cry, which he did until they reached the Pacific. Kong was about to commandeer Ann, who had been offered to him as a sacrifice by island natives, when a cell phone rang to the tune of the "Mexican Hat Dance." Later, the rumble of brontosauri tumbling over one another on the screen was joined by the voice of Lebanese singing star Nancy Ajram on yet another cell phone. She sang a chorus of " Habibi, habibi " -- "My love, my love" -- a requisite phrase in most Middle Eastern pop songs. A Tyrannosaurus rex tried to bite off Ann's head and a voice from the dark called out, "Ann, bite him back!" When Kong pounded his chest in macho triumph, a few boys stood up to imitate the gesture. "He looks like you, Hossam," one yelled to his friend. An exchange of knowing looks at sunset between an infatuated Ann and a smitten Kong provided time for several audience members to check their text messages. Ann's escape in the clutches of some batlike creature was greeted with a shout: "Don't leave Kong! He'll feed you bananas forever!" A husband and wife in Row 12 began to discuss whether to leave; the children had fallen asleep. They got up about the time the captured Kong made his Broadway theater debut. The approaching climax finally seemed to subdue the audience. There was almost no crowd noise as Kong hunted for Ann, picking up and tossing New York blondes. But when the ape made his last stand atop the Empire State Building and grabbed an attacking biplane, the Odeon erupted in screams of "Allahu akbar!" or "God is great!" The wounded Kong began to slip off the skyscraper's peak, and several spectators rose, apparently thinking the movie was over and figuring they could squeeze through the exit in advance of the throng. " Lissa! " advised somebody helpfully. "Not yet!" The would-be departees sat down. But as Kong dropped onto Fifth Avenue, runaway spectators ignored the appeals and headed for the door. At the end, after three hours in the theater, those who remained clapped. The lights came up, the "Mexican Hat Dance" sounded out in the lobby, and on the street, a beggar exchanged blessings for small change.

Arab democracy is exposing the blind spot of US policy

The resurgent Palestinian rejectionism of Hamas can only be halted by checking the persistent rejectionism of Israel David Hirst Thursday February 23, 2006 The Guardian So, with Hamas taking control of the Palestinian Authority and its institutions, the destiny of the Palestinian people is once more in the hands of a party that believes in the dissolution of the Israeli state and in violence as a way of achieving it. Israeli, American and in good measure European governments remain appalled and perplexed at this political earthquake. Indeed the Israelis, who are now applying the first of their economic sanctions, and Americans - planning the same - hardly disguise their ambition to subvert it. This is despite the fact that, retrogressive though it may have been, it has impeccable democratic credentials. It comes, as Ghassan Charbel put it in the pan-Arab newspaper al-Hayat, "from inside the logic of the new world order". That is to say, from the very democratisation that is the central mission of the Bush presidency, from its "war on terror" and all those sicknesses, such as despotism and religious extremism, which nurture it. This democratisation is also meant to contribute mightily to that other strategic US purpose, Arab- Israeli peace, because democratic states are said to automatically make good neighbours of other democratic states.

Yet nothing like this electoral triumph of the Hamas "terror organisation", and America's reactions to it, could have so dramatically illustrated the blind spot at the centre of the US's Middle East policies. Ever present, this blind spot has been brought to its apogee under the Bush administration, with its proselytising zeal on the one hand and unsurpassed devotion to Israel on the other. What US administrations seem habitually unable to see is that Palestinians, and Arabs in general, happen, like other peoples, to possess national or patriotic feelings. When these feelings are transgressed they react more or less aggressively in response. Since Palestine is the place where those feelings are most systematically flouted, it is also where democracy, as both reflection and instrument of the popular will, is most likely to be belligerent rather than peaceable.

"Democracy," said Joseph Samaha, a Beirut columnist, is not "an alternative to patriotism. It is one of its tools. The mound of western theories and sleights of hand will collapse. The mound quivered in Iraq, and Palestine turned it into ruins. Give us democracy and take resistance." Or, as Ismail Haniyeh, the prime minister-designate, put it, "We will go for arms and a parliament, for there's no contradiction between the two."

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When it won't need a tyranny to deprive us of our freedom

The creeping extension of implantation technology will eventually break down all the barriers between us and the state

George Monbiot Tuesday February 21, 2006

Guardian

It received just a few column inches in a couple of papers, but the story I read last week looks to me like a glimpse of the future. A company in Ohio called City-Watcher has implanted radio transmitters into the arms of two of its workers. The implants ensure that only they can enter the strongroom. Apparently it is "the first known case in which US workers have been tagged electronically as a way of identifying them".

The transmitters are tiny (about the size of a grain of rice), cheap (£85 and falling fast), safe and stable. Without being maintained or replaced, they can identify someone for many years. They are injected, with a local anaesthetic, into the upper arm. They require no power source, as they become active only when scanned. There are no technical barriers to their wider deployment.

The company that makes these "radio frequency identification tags", the VeriChip Corporation, says they "combine access control with the location and protection of individuals". The chips can also be implanted in hospital patients, especially children and people who are mentally ill. When doctors want to know who they are and what their medical history is, they simply scan them in. This, apparently, is "an empowering option to affected individuals". For a while, a school in California toyed with the idea of implanting the chips in all its pupils.

A tag such as this has a maximum range of a few metres. But another implantable device emits a signal that allows someone to be found or tracked by satellite. The patent notice says it can be used to locate the victims of kidnapping or people lost in the wilderness. There are, in other words, plenty of legitimate uses for implanted chips. This is why they bother me. A technology whose widespread deployment, if attempted now, would be greeted with horror, will gradually become unremarkable. As this happens, its purpose will begin to creep.

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Veil power

In the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, sexual apartheid rules. But things are changing - the world of work is opening up to women and economic freedom is beginning to empower them in other ways, too. Brian Whitaker reports

Brian Whitaker Tuesday February 21, 2006

Guardian

A heavy metal door guards the entrance to the women's section of the Nardeen lighting company in Riyadh. To gain admittance, you press the bell and wait. In my case it is a long wait because the arrival of a male visitor brings production to a halt inside the factory while the entire workforce of 30 women shroud their faces in black. Eventually I am allowed in, only to hear a scream from one woman in the distance who is still wrestling to pull her abaya over an orange-coloured dress. Unsure of the protocol, I turn my back to await the all-clear.

Working from 7am to 3pm with a lunch break and a prayer break, the women assemble 2,800 fluorescent light fittings every day. It's fiddly work but, even with the woollen gloves they wear to protect their skin, they slip the wires and other bits and pieces into position at lightning speed. Once an hour a loud bell rings, signalling that they must cover themselves again because a man is coming to collect their finished work.

The women's section at the Nardeen factory, which opened last April, is a sign of changing times in Saudi Arabia. It is one of half a dozen projects sponsored by a charity to provide needy women with jobs in a man-free environment.

It may look a bit like a sweatshop but the women here seem happy enough. They are paid the same rates as men and earn 2,000 riyals (£300) a month, plus bonuses if they exceed the daily production quota - not a lot considering the country's oil wealth, but comparable with what some Saudi teachers earn.

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Evidence that she never ever changes that pose

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A Scanner Darkly

Here is the new trailer for A Scanner Darkly, Richard Linklater's adaptation of the surreal SF novel by Philip K. Dick. Coming July 7. Seen here, Bob Arctor removes the scramble suit that hides his identity by constantly flickering through visual characteristics of other people. Very trippy. Link to Quicktime file (Thanks, Dave Gill!)

Muqtada al-Sadr on Aljazeera

"Ready to attack the Americans if they Attack Iran or Syria" "In a Democratic Iraq, Kurds will not need Own Region" Muqtada al-Sadr gave an extended interview on Saturday on Aljazeera, which I am going to blog here. What follows is a quick paraphrase of the interview done while watching it. He began by explaining to the interviewer what was meant by the "Sadr Movement," which he said is not a political party. He described it as simply consisting of anyone who strictly follows [yuqallid] the teachings of Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr (d. 1999), Muqtada's father (known as "the second martyr"). He said that in a wider sense, anyone who honored the "Speaking Hawzah" or religious authority, including those who follow Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr (d. 1980) ("the first martyr"), could be counted as part of the Sadr Movement. They call for the Islamization of society and the spread of Islam in the world, so that it will become a base for the advent of the Imam Mahdi [the Muslim messiah to come at the end of time]. [Since Muhammad Baqir was a major theorist of the Dawa Party, Muqtada by including both figures is suggesting that all Da`wa Party members are also a kind of Sadrist, thus greatly expanding the scope of the movement. The Sadrists make a distinction between the "Speaking Hawzah", which comprises ayatollahs who speak truth to power, and the "Silent Hawzah," which consists of Shiite clerics who stick to religion and are too timid to enter politics.] He distinguished between the Speaking religious authority and the silent religious authority in the time of Saddam. He pointed out that the Sadrists held Friday prayers in the time of the Dictator [Saddam], while others said they were not necessary under conditions of tyranny. [This is a dig at Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who was known to be cautious under Saddam.] Muqtada says with pride that he continues to hold Friday prayers in Kufa, and now those who once said they were unnecessary have begun holding them again. But the Speaking religious authority has been consistent. Muqtada says that the Sadr Movement has passed through three stages of resistance [to the American occupation of Iraq]. The first was peaceful resistance (demonstrations). The second was military resistance. And the third and present stage is political resistance. He admits that the religious authority [Sistani et al.] when it called for political participation in January 2005 was engaged in political resistance, since Iraqi voters going to the polls was seen as a prologue to the departure of occupation troops from Iraq. Thus, he suggests, the Sadr Movement has its own rhythm and tactics, but that does not define the present religious leadership as a Silent authority. [The interviewer is attempting to get Muqtada to differentiate the Sadrists as the speakers from Sistani and colleagues as silent, but Muqtada dodged that question.] Muqtada defends having tried all three tactics to get the ocupiers out, each in accordance with the specific requirements of the time. He denied the interviewer's implication that Sistani had been right to go for political resistance all along, and Muqtada had finally caught up with him. Muqtada says that he has knocked at every door, and that if he had begun with the political, he would be being asked why he never tried the military option. He admits that the latter failed, but says that it paved the way for the next, political, stage. Pressed as to whether the military stage is over completely, Muqtada replies that it is. He says that the Sadr Movement is committed to a political struggle to see that the foreign military occupation ends. "Whether it is an immediate or a gradual withdrawal, that is a matter for discussion," he adds. [This is significant. It is the first time I can remember Muqtada even entertaining the option of a gradual timetable for US withdrawal. -JC] Muqtada says that the goal of the Sadr Movement is the creation of an Islamic society. "For an 'Islamic government' without an Islamic society cannot in any way be considered actually an Islamic government." He rejects any separation of religion and state. "I say that religion is complete and all-encompassing, extending to politics." Since religion issues from God, who is perfect and complete, religion itself must be complete, and therefore must encompass all aspects of life. Religion is a part of politics, but politics must not dictate religion. The interviewer says that the United Iraqi Alliance, supported by Sistani, was criticized by many for removing the element of political competition and choice from the public by depending on a religious instruction. The interviewer mentions Iyad Allawi as one of these critics. Muqtada instists that there is political competition, and that not everyone even follows the same grand ayatollah. He says that competition has to be for service to the Iraqi people, not for private benefit. [This is a slam at Allawi, whose government is accused of being extremely corrupt, with billions embezzled by some ministers.] Muqtada says that he is not himself interested in holding political office. He says that each member of parliament represents all Iraqis. He says he only offers advice to the Sadrist bloc in parliament, which is responsible to the Iraqi people generally. The thirty Sadrist delegates must follow their own conscience. He said that each of the Sadrist MPs was free to support either Ibrahim Jaafari or Adil Abdul Mahdi. the important things was that they should support someone who insists on the departure of the occupation army. [Is Muqtada letting it slip that Ibrahim Jaafari gave the Sadrists private assurances that he would work toward withdrawal of US troops from Iraq?] He says that last year he gathered 130 signatures from parliamentarians asking for a US withdrawal. Muqtada says that one basis for the closeness between the Sadr representatives and Jaafari was that Jaafari had demanded the release of imprisoned Sadrists. The interviewer asks him if by entering the United Iraqi Alliance he hasn't given up a pan-Islamic identification in favor of being known as a Shiite leader. He replies that he is honored to be a follower of the Prophet and of Ali b. Abi Talib, and that he did not want to introduce a division into the ranks of the Shiites. He therefore joined with the UIA to maintain Shiite unity. How the Sadrists got elected, however, does not dictate whom they represent. Each parliamentarian, he says, represents all Iraqis, and can serve Sunnis and Christians and Turkmen as well as Shiites. He asks that the Sadrist MPs cooperate with Sunnis and Kurds, with all forces who want the independence of Iraq, as long as they are not either Baathists [he then corrects himself and says 'Saddamists'--suggesting that he might in fact cooperate with mere Baathists] or takfiris [i.e. hardline Salafis who say that Shiites are not really Muslims at all]. Asked why he doesn't meet with the Sunni politicians, Muqtada says that he is stuck in Kufa for reasons of security and does not have the luxury of visits to Baghdad to consult politicians there. But he says he is allied with Sunni politicians who demand the withdrawal of the occupiers and the trial of Saddam. He says that by an end to occupation and an opposition to the presence of foreign troops, he does not just mean US troops. He rejects Arab League troops, as well, saying that they would be even worse. Such a situation, he warns, might lead to Muslim on Muslim violence, which would be the worst possible outcome. He implies that the US is not allowing the Iraqi police and army to strengthen themselves and is blocking their acquisition of heavy weaponry so as to make its own presence seem necessary. He says that Iraq is capable of defending itself if properly armed. He calls Abu Musab al-Zarqawi an imaginary figure, and says that he is a dagger in the hands of America. He says there are three such intertwining threats, the occupiers, the takfiris [excommunicators] and the Saddamis. He is asked about the Iranian demand that British troops leave Basra. Muqtada replies that this does not concern him. He says what is important is that the fate of the Iraqi teenagers beaten by British troops be determined. Are they even alive? Then he says, the troops must be investigated. There must be investigations also of Abu Ghraib and the prison at Mosul where Iraqis have been tortured. He says that the Mahdi Army is still present in Iraq, but has become a "cultural army" rather than a military one, and is serving the Iraqi people in various ways. He says that it is the "base" of the Imam Mahdi and that such a base for the promised one cannot be abolished. He denies that Ayatollah Kadhim al-Ha'iri or Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani asked him to dissolve it. [Elsewhere he had acknowledged that al-Ha'iri [Haeri] had been indicated by his father as the source of relgious-legal guidance for Sadrists, but he says that the Sadr Movement has other dimensions and that he does not mean to take away from the principle that each Shiite must follow the legal rulings of a great ayatollah.] He says that he advises the Sadrists in parliament to seek as cabinet posts those that involve service to the people. He is especially interested in the ministry of electricity going to a Sadrist. He denies that he opposes the principle of provincial confederacies and loose federalism. In fact, he says, it is a principle approved by the Prophet Muhammad. He is worried, however, that establishing this sort of federalism under foreign military occupation could lead to a very bad outcome. One is that there is a danger that the foreigners will take advantage of it to partition Iraq. They will also just take advantage to intervene more heavily in Iraqi affairs. And if there were a partition, he asks, what would happen to the Turkmen or the Christians or the Sabeans (groups too small to have their on provincial confederacies). He says he opposes sectarian confederacies and rejects the idea of a big Shiite provincial confederacy in the south of the country. Asked about Kirkuk, Muqtada says that the Kurdistan Confederacy was established in the north because of the then dictatorship. He says that when the foreign occupation ends, and a democratic state is established in Iraq, with freedom of belief and freedom of peoples, there will be no reason to maintain a separate provincial confederacy. And it won't need to demand Kirkuk. Kirkuk belongs to all of Iraq and all must equally benefit from it. He suggests that it be kept as a province and an example of communal harmony, rather than being partitioned by ethnic group. As for his recent visits to neighboring heads of state, he argues that the US has attempted to create tensions between Iraq and each of its neighbors. Muqtada says that he urged the neighboring heads of state to be balanced in their statements. He says that Iran must not be a partisan of the Shiites, but must rather help all Muslims. There should be no fear of a Shiite crescent, and no fear of a Sunni triangle. All must live peaceably alongside one another. Asked where he stands in the conflict between the United States on the one side and Iran and Syria on the other, and what he would do if open conflict broke out, Muqtada replied "I am in the service of Islam. Whatever they need in their difficulties, I will provide it. . . I will defend all Islamic and Arab states." But, he said, he would have to be asked by those states to intervene. He wouldn't just volunteer to do it whether they wanted it or not. That, he said, is what is wrong with volunteers coming to Iraq unasked to fight the occupation, and then staying to kill Iraqi civilians. What, he is asked, if Iran or Syria requested that he help them by attacking American troops inside Iraq. He replies, "If I have the capability, I will do it. I am here to serve Islam. Why wouldn't I do them this favor?" He says he hopes that the Muslims states will stand by Hamas and help form a Palestinian state with sovereignty. He complains that in the past some Muslim powers have not served the Palestinians well. He says he hopes the Palestinians will be enabled to build their state. Asked about the trial of Saddam, Muqtada says that his greatest fear is that the trial will be conducted in such a way that he will be found innocent. He says that whoever was killed in Iraq was killed by Saddam, directly or indirectly. He killed Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr with his own hands, but killed Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr through others. He deserves death. On the Danish caricatures of the Prophet, Muqtada says that the reaction has been a spontaneous reaction of the outraged masses. It is an assault not by Christians but by Crusaders against Islam. We want, he says, a condemnation of Bush's solidarity with Denmark over this issue. He recalls the outcry and solidarity against Malaysian Prime Minister Mohammad Mahathir when he made remarks interpreted as antisemitic. Why is there not now a similar outcry and solidarity with Muslims over these bigotted caricatures? There should be a bigger outcry, Muqtada says. Al-Zaman reports on some of Muqtada al-Sadr's other comments in Amman, where he will meet Sunday with Jordan's King Abdullah II, after having held talks on Saturday with Jordan's Prime Minister, Ma`ruf al-Bakhit. It reports, Muqtada al-Sadr said that he does not intend at the present time to establish any relationship with the United States before it withdraws its troops from Iraq. He explained in comments distributed on Saturday in Ammand that the Sadr Movement Will have no relations with Washington "unless it withdraws from our land, or sets a timetable for withdrawal." Al-Sadr warned against a civil war in Iraq, but affirmed that he is sure that the Iraqi people will not fall into a protracted internal struggle. He denied that growing Iranian influence in the country is the only threat it faces, saying that the menace of neighboring powers using Iraq for their own purposes is present on all sides. He called on Iraq's neighbors to cooperate with Iraq rather than intervening in it.

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