Résistances, l'histoire comme politique, économie, philosophie, enquêtes
Tribunes
Les
obstacles à la mort d'une dynastie: la résistible chute
de Jacques Médecin by Robert Charvin
A
propos de la Palestine et d'Israel by Jean Dornac&Gélinotte
Le
scenario du pire by Jean Dornac
Le
mythe de Sisyphe by Agnès Maillard
La
vie n'a pas de prix by Agnès Maillard
L'Europe,
c'est con pour toi by Isabel/ATTAC78SUD
Globalisation
financière...luttes morcelées by Jean Dornac
Morale
& Liberté by Jean Dornac
DURA
LEX,SED LEX (1) by Patrick Mignard
Asie centrale-Ukraine
Kirghizie, la Suisse
de l'Asie centrale ? by Comaguer
Le Caucase convoité
by Comaguer
La Moldavie, un
petit Etat coincé entre la Roumanie et l'Ukraine by Comaguer
Documents, Ukraine
and the United States: the Challenges Ahead
by US Department of State
Premiers enseignements
de la crise Ukrainienne by Comaguer
Le "démocrate"
Yushenko et ses amis by Comaguer
Ukraine: quelques
lumières sur un chaos bien organisé by Comaguer
Ukraine:libéralisme
contre stalinisme by P.Mignard
De
la révolution médiatique...d'Otpor à l'Ukraine 2004
by Hervé Guillemain
Otpor: the
youths who booted Milosevic by Christophe Chiclet (Altermonde,
Cétacé)
INDE Nouvelle histoire et critique sociale
The
Future of the Indian Past by Romila Thapar (sacw)
Islam, the mediterranean
and the rise of capitalism (theory as history: Ernest Mendel's historical
analysis of World Capitalism) by Jairus Banaji (sacw)
Globalization
and Pakistan's dilemna of development of development
by Hassan N.Gardezi (sacw)
History
and the domain of the popular by Partha Chatterjee (sacw et suite)
Nationalisms
ant the writing of environmental histories by K.Sivaramakrishnan
It
is a fear history by K.N.Panikkar
The
politics of rewriting history in India by K.N.Panikkar
Targeting
History by T.K.Rajalakshmi
Rewriting
history by R.Champakalakshmi
Righting
or Rewriting Hindu History by Ann Ninan
In
defense of history by Romila Thapar
Hindutva
and history by R.Thapar
A
paradigm shift by R.Thapar
Films
as Historical Sources or Alternative History by Anirudh Deshpande
JAPON
Japanese
web of Marxism
AKAMAC
Cyber-friends (économie, science politique, histoire des idées,
philosophie, mathématique, au Japon) et AkamacHomepage
The
electronic body at the end of state :
etnicirty, national identity and the japanese emperor system by Tetsuo
Kogawa
The
materialist interpretation of history and marx's critique of political
economy by Takahisa Oishi
Individual,
social and common property by Takahisa Oishi
Japan's
stagnationist crises by J.Halevi and B.Lucarelli
Capitalism's
environmental crisis-is technology the answer ?
by J.Bellamy Foster
Monopoly
capitalism by Paul M.Sweezy
Monthly Review
The utopian vision
of the future (then and now): a marxist critique
by Bertell Ollman
What is the soul
of socialism ? by Andrew Blackman
The soul of socialism
: connecting with the people's values
by Stephen J. Fortunato Jr.
The
commitment of an intellectual : Paul M.Sweezy (1910-2004)
by J.Bellamy Forster
The
neo-marxian schools by New School
Multitudes
Pour
une définition ontologique de la multitude by Toni Negri
Nécessité
et liberté chez Spinoza : quelques alternatives by Toni Negri
Nouveau
millénaire, défis libertaires by S. Quadruppani
Antonio
Negri et le pouvoir constituant by D. Bensaïd
SEATTLE
by Howard Zinn
The
futur of history by H.Zinn and D.Barsamian
A
new rise in Working Class Struggle has Begun by Lal Khan
CHINE
· Rappels historiques
China
Study Group, Article Archive
China and socialism
by Martin Hart-Landsberg & Paul Burkett
Rural reforms and
the future of rural China by Han Dongpin
Speech on rural development
and environmental protection by Wen Tiejun
Why land privatization
is not a solution by Li Changping
Political crisis
in rural China:manifestation, origin and policy prescriptions
by Yu Jianrong
China: Una Revolucion
en Agonia by Robinson Rojas
La guardia roja
conquista China by Robinson Rojas
Has
China Gone Capitalist ? by Nat Weinstein
Cher
Monsieur Zengh Zhisheng by S.Mercier-Josa
ULTIMATE
MARXISM LINK
Individual,
social and common property
by Takahisa Oishi (Journal of Takushoku University, n°199.1992)
This paper is devoted to clarifying Marx's concept of 'individual property'
and 'social property' in Capital (1867), volume 1.[1] Marx's communism[2]
is one of the most basic subjects in Marxology and has been discussed
by a large number of commentators. However, I believe Marx's view is still
little known or, at least, not known well enough for the following three
reasons:
Firstly: Engels is partly to be blamed. There are significant differences
between Marx and Engels on some basic points of their communism. As we
shall see later, Engels misinterpreted Marx's 'negation of negation',
'realm of freedom', 'individual property' and 'social property' in Capital.
However, this has not been understood until now because Engels has been
regarded as the most authoritative commentator on Marx's theories. That
which we know as Marx's theories is Engels' interpretation of them and
may be quite different.
Secondly: Stalinism is to be blamed. Soviet Marxists were reluctant to
publish some of Marx's works, including the Economic and Philosophical
Manuscripts of 1844 (hereafter EPM) and the letter to Vera Zassoulitch
(1881),[3] which indicates that they have published only those parts favourable
to them. Engels' interpretation of Marx's works was more to their liking
than the originals. They could justify their oppressive political system
with some parts of Engels' works.
Thirdly: Commentators themselves are to be blamed. They have been influenced
by commentaries from Engels and from the Institute of Marxism-Leninism,
both in Moscow and in Berlin. Consciously or unconsciously, they have
not supported the peoples of Eastern Europe but rather the ruling classes,
the Communist Parties in those countries. Whatever the reason, the time
has come to understand Marx in his own words...
The materialist interpretation of history and Marx's critique of political
economy
by Takahisa Oishi (Journal of Social Sciences Vol.3, n°1,1995)
In my latest paper [1], I examined the editing problems of "I Feuerbach"
of The German Ideology (1845-1846)--hereafter FEUERBACH--. Here I am concerned
with the so-called 'materialist interpretation of history', which has
been said was formed in FEUERBACH, and its relation to Marx's critique
of political economy. I pay special attention on the so-called "sharing
problem" between Marx and Engels, i.e., Marx's and Engels' hand,
to clarify the identities and differences between the paragraphs written
by them. However, we must always bear in mind that Engels' hand does not
necessarily mean his thought. The main body of the text was written in
Engels' hand because Marx's hand was unintelligible, so-called 'hieroglyphics'.
Insertions, supplements and notes can be identified by their hand. Thus,
we can sometimes distinguish between their views in FEUERBACH.
Based on the edition I gave in my latest paper, I will start my investigation
summarising the 'materialist interpretation of history' to specify the
identity between Marx's and Engels' thought (II). Then I shall quote the
important insertions, supplements and notes in their hands (III) before
examining the differences between Marx's and Engels' views (IV). As no
English edition reproduces Marx's and Engels' hands, I believe this is
helpful for English readers.
The Unknown Marx : Reconstructing a Unified Perspective
by Takahisa Oishi
The global Left has shown its mass potential in the demonstrations that
tried to head off the US invasion of Iraq. In the Social Forums
that began three years ago, as well as in all the anti-WTO, anti-IMF,
and anti-G8 demonstrations, it has also shown its aspiration to focus
on the underlying structural issues of global power. But what it
still lacks is a full understanding of how all these issues are rooted
in capitalism, and in what sense an authentic alternative must be a socialist
one.
Oishi's study extends a long line of works (going back to the 1920s)
that have sought to recover the method and insights that can be attributed
purely to Marx, unencumbered not only by the "official Marxism"
of the Soviet Union but also by the expository and even the editorial
interventions of Engels.
In his close reading of Marx, Oishi at the same time challenges interpretations
— including but not limited to the Soviets — that have asserted
a change in Marx's focus between his early and his later writings.
The 1844 Manuscripts in particular come into view as a coherent work whose
under-emphasized political economy dimension is integrally bound up with
its more celebrated "philosophical" treatment of alienation.
Oishi, along with other writers from Lukács to the Frankfurt School
to Mészáros, has helped exhume Marx's pertinent arguments,
but the pressing question for us is how those arguments got to be so deeply
buried as to make such exhumation necessary. Soviet hostility to
the alienation-critique was one factor in this burial...
Yen Currency Region
by Iwao Kitamura (Socialism, July 1995)
On April Iranian petroleum minister requested Japan to purchase crude
oil in yen term. It isn't thought what Japanese petroleum company consents
to for this time that US planned to enforce a Iranian embargo. It was
a long-cherished hope of Japanese monopoly capital to import crude oil
and other mineral resources that still occupy a large portion of Japanese
imports to be priced in a yen. Priced in a yen, as an almost all contract
of Japanese crude oil import is a longrange contract, though crude oil
of a spot trade is decided in the international market price, that are
enough to be simply converted to a denotation. That rather are more efficient
it is directly priced in a yen, though it isn't impossible to make a substantial
"yen term " at present also if making use of a financial future,
of course. By a thing how a price formation is done at an international
crude oil market may give an influence originally again, doing business
is priced in a yen.?Since market participants must consider that 20% of
energy trade doing business are done by being priced in a yen. Immediately,
It means improvement of a position of yen that occupies internationally
economically.
An expansion of Japanese multi-nationals to Asia did progress fast in
the second half of 80's. Then, an overseas expansion of Japanese multi-nationals
comes gradually to chase the production general most suitable arrangement
of positions in process now. For the result, under the beautiful name
of " from a vertical division to a horizontal division ", they
launch into a rationalization of Asian production circulation sales front-line
base.?The foundation of " yen currency area " means that Asian
management depending on Japanese imperialism becomes strong...
Japan as a manipulated Society
by Tetsuo Kogawa
Although the emperor (<tenno>) was historically a rallying point
for the anti-establishment nationalist movement, he was not the total
system of culture, society and political institutions until the Meiji
restoration of 1868, when the 1889 Meiji Constitution was drafted on the
model of the Prussian Constitution.
<Tenno-sei> was achieved through the reorganization of the artificial
patriarchal familialism, the monopoly of Shintoism and destruction of
religious folklore, military indoctrination, mass primary education, mass
media, and the use of violence to coerce people into submission. As early
as the turn of this century, every facet of life was systematized by <Tenno-sei>
and Japan became a "Tate society," 4 with <Tenno-sei>
constituting a special pattern of behavior, relations, feelings. This
pattern has been so deeply imbedded in the people that it has almost become
the Japanese national character. Today this structured unconsciousness
is evident in national campaigns such as the "economic growth policy,"
the Olympic Games, the World Fair, the oil crisis in 1973, and energy
conservation programs.
With the 1947 Constitution, the emperor was redefined as the symbol of
the state. The monad of the emperor is not necessarily represented by
the father of the family: any member of the family can be a micro-emperor!
This may explain why one of the main themes of modern Japanese literature
has been the escape from the family rather than patricide. Although orthodox
analyses of Japanese literature saw the conflict of enlightened sons as
a struggle against feudal residues, the novelists' artistic intuition
unknowingly pointed out that the real problem was in the <Tenno>
system itself and that assassination of the emperor would have been ineffective...
Americanization began in Japan in the mid-1950s, when American advertising
and marketing techniques were introduced by Dentsu Co. and a television
broadcast company (NHK) began operating in 1953. Thirty years ago, no
one would have imagined that Japanese society would be filled with more
Americanized commodities than the United States itself. Why has everyday
Japanese life been so rapidly Americanized7 The main reason is that the
hidden network of <Tenno-sei> has survived its explicit collapse.
Since the 1950s "the American way of life" has taken over the
homogenizing functions of <Tenno-sei> and continued to shape subjectivity
and institutions that were ready to be colonized. This Americanization
of Japanese society does not necessarily entail a similarity between Japanese
and American societies, but the realization of the American ideal whereby
the logic of capital becomes predominant in everyday activities...
The electronic
body at the End of the State : Ethnicirty, National Identity and the Japanese
Emperor System
by Tetsuo Kogawa
In Japan we have had the modern Emperor system since the Meiji period.
This system corresponds to the melting pot policy of the United States:
Ethnic differences among people in Japan have been obliterated, and geographically
and culturally everything has been homogenized. If we examine the absence
of ethnic diversity in the Japanese population carefully, we find that
it is because the Ainu, the koreans, and the Chinese have all been forced
to become assimilated and made one with the Japanese people. This Japanese
version of the melting pot has clearly succeeded to a far greater extent
than what we see in the United States. The Japanese are considered to
be a nation of people who have been made into Japanese:a people having
a single language and a single way of thinking and using the same body
language and gestures.
This pan-Japanism was so efficient for the heavy industry-oriented system
that Japan accomplished modernization in a short oeriod of time before
and after World War *. After the break in the process of modernization
caused by defeat in the war, the economic development of the postwar period
has spred this process to the entire society. The system of general mobilization
imposed by the military authorities before the war has been adopted into
daily life throughout Japanese society, and not only among young people
or middle-aged men; rather, from childhood to old age every member of
society is driven as though on a battlefield of work. This is true of
every aspect of people's lives, whether it be spending money, taking examinations,
finding jobs, or working for a living.[1]
Ever since the so-called Nixon Shock of 1971(when financial exchange was
suspended and the Bretton Woods agreement collapsed)and the oil shock
of 1973, the Japanese industrial structure has worked for change. These
events allowed Japanese industry to make a big ceremony of change. At
the same time, the state, in its role as regulating apparatus of the industrial
system, also had to adapt.
Today, the state is moving toward becoming an electronically networked
state. The electronic technology needed to bring about that sort of state
belongs to "the completion of metaphysics." Therefore, because
it has reached its finality, this state cannot continue except along a
path of "eternal recurrence." For that reason, in the fluctuation
of this electronic technology we can get a glimpse of someething that
goes beyond the state. Will the state remain completely unchanged in form
forever? Or will it die out? At this moment we find ourselves at the very
brink regarding these questions...
SOCIALISTVIEWPOINT
(News and analysis for working people)
The Arsenal of
Marxism
(Archived writings on the foundations of socialism)
Why Marxists Oppose Individual Terrorism by L. Trotsky
However, terrorism is too “absolute” a form of struggle to
be content with a limited and subordinate role in the party.
Engendered by the absence of a revolutionary class, regenerated later
by a lack of confidence in the revolutionary masses, terrorism can maintain
itself only by exploiting the weakness and disorganization of the masses,
minimizing their conquests, and exaggerating their defeats...
Blair's mass deception
by John Pilger (mars 2004, Vol 4, n°3)
One piece of intelligence which was true and which we know Blair received
is a report that warned him that an attack on Iraq would only increase
worldwide terrorism, especially against British interests and citizens.
He chose to ignore it. Two weeks ago, a panel of jurists called on the
International Criminal Court to investigate the British government for
war crimes in Iraq...
WORKERS WORLD Bush, Kerry stab Palestinians in back
(Endorse Israeli land grab, assassinations) by Deirdre Griswold (pdf)
The world as a war zone by Deirdre Griswold
When war comes to a region, large populations often must be on the move,
trying to escape devastation that has made it impossible to find shelter,
go to work or school, or even get food and water. Transportation and power
systems break down, as does public health. The civilian casualties caused
by disease, starvation and exposure can exceed those of actual combat...
SOUTIEN A LA NOUVELLE HISTOIRE INDIENNE
(Theories/Ecoles)
HIMAL SOUTH-ASIAN
Hating Romila Thapar, why the Hindutva brigade has set its sights on India's
most distinguished historian
by Subhash Gatade
On the other side of the world, in India, simultaneous with Hobsbawm’s
speech, history was also being ‘rewritten’ in a disturbing
manner with the unleashing of a vicious campaign against one of the Subcontinent’s
most distinguished historians, Romila Thapar. Emeritus professor of ancient
Indian history at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in New Delhi, author
of many seminal works on the history of ancient India, recipient of honorary
degrees from many leading world universities, Thapar was recently honoured
by the US Library of Congress in a manner befitting her scholarly standing.
The library announced that it was appointing Professor Thapar as the first
holder of the Kluge Chair in Countries and Cultures of the South, and
that she would spend 10 months at the John W Kluge Centre in Washington
DC pursuing “historical consciousness in early India”.
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While 72-year-old Thapar’s appointment was greeted with applause
by serious students of history, little did anyone realise that acolytes
of the Hindutva brand of politics, primarily those in the Indian diaspora,
would unleash a vitriolic campaign against her built on name-calling and
the disparaging of her professional qualifications. Claiming that “her
appointment is a great travesty”, an online petition calling for
its cancellation has, as of the last week in May, collected over 2000
signatures. Thapar, according to the petition, “is an avowed antagonist
of India’s Hindu civilization. As a well-known Marxist, she represents
a completely Euro-centric world view”. Protesting that she cannot
“be the correct choice to represent India’s ancient history
and civilization”, it states that she “completely disavows
that India ever had a history”. The petitioners also aver that by
“discrediting Hindu civilization” Romila Thapar and others
are engaged in a “war of cultural genocide”...
FRONTLINE
A paradigm shift,
Romila Thapar interview
by Frontline (The Hindu, 22.09.1997)
In an article written nearly 25 years ago on the problems of historical
writing, you drew attention to the need for the application of an "evolutionary
analysis" in early Indian history. You wrote that "If Indian
historical writing wishes to take its place as part of the social science
tradition, it must come to terms with the assumptions of this tradition
(and evolution is one), or else it must find its own way out of the jungle..."
Has history as a discipline found its place in the social science tradition
in India?
The inclusion of history as a social science has resulted from the changes
in the discipline of history and that has been a major contribution of
historians from the 1950s. It began with the seminal work of D.D. Kosambi.
The emphasis given by Marxism to the economy and to social stratification
is in itself an interdisciplinary process drawing on other social sciences.
This has been developed further in at least three themes of research:
the formation of states was once seen as resulting from conquest or from
class confrontation, but the work being done now investigates the finer
points of each of these, suggests other indicators and demonstrates its
complexity and its variants; the relationship of political authority to
control over wasteland and cultivated land involves legal issues, property
rights, water resources, yields and assessments, rights and dues, as is
evident from the study of land grants made in the first millennium A.D.;
religion as ideology is now seen as an important part of social mobilisation,
as for instance in the confrontations of the Shaivas with the Buddhists
and Jainas...
Hindutva and history,
why do hindutva ideologues keep flooging a dead horse ?
by Romila Thapar (Frontline, 09/10-2000)
Historians initially accepted the invasion theory and some even argued
that the decline of the Indus cities was due to the invasion of the Aryans,
although the archaeological evidence for this was being discounted. But
the invasion theory came to be disc arded in favour of alternative theories
of how the language, Indo-Aryan, entered the sub-continent. In 1968, I
had argued at a session of the Indian History Congress that invasion was
untenable and that the language - Indo-Aryan - had come with a series
of migrations and therefore involving multiple avenues of the acculturation
of peoples. The historically relevant question was not the identity of
the Aryans (identities are never permanent) but why and how languages
and cultures change in a given area.
Why then do Hindutva ideologues - Indian and non-Indian - keep flogging
a dead horse and refuse to consider the more recent alternative theories?
For them the only alternative is that if the Aryans were not invaders,
they must have been indigenous...
THE SOUTH ASIA CITIZENS
WEB
· History As Politics
Links between knowledge and ideology do not justify the passing off of
political agendas as knowledge as is being done in the rewriting of history
by the present central government; and that too of a kind not based on
the understanding of history current among historians.
In Defence of the Indian Historian Romila Thapar's appointment to the
Klude Chair at the Library of Congress
#1 Romila Thapar as First Holder of he Kluge Chair in Countries and Cultures
of the South (news from the Library of Congress, 17.04.2003)
#2 Romila Thapar's appointment to Library of Congress opposed (25.04.2003)
#3 Text of the slanderous Online Petition by Hindu Fundamentalist Against
Dr. Romila Thapar
#6 Monumental History by Pr. Sanjay Subrahmanyam (Indian History and Culture
in the University of Oxford)
#6 Not quite The Satanic Verse by K.M.Shrimali (outlook Magazine, India,
25.05.2003)
#7 Recent lectures and interviews with Romila Thapar Romila Thapar: History
and Contemporary Politics in India (Webcast, 1h.32') Historian Professor
Romila Thapar "there is an attempt to suggest the only history and civilisation
that matter are hindu" by BBC/audio, 10.5.2002) Hindutva and history,
why do hindutva ideologues keep flooging a dead horse ? by Romila Thapar
(Oct.2000) (#1
to #8 same adress)
REWRITING HISTORY (The south asia citizens
web)
#8 Documentation on assault on history writing, on secular academics,
intellectuals and artists in India
On
Rewriting History in India : The Problem
by Pr. Neeladri Bhattacharya (Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal
Nehru University-JNU, Delhi)
THE idea of rewriting history is under a cloud. From the discussion that
has followed the ICHR move to stop the publication of the Towards Freedom
project volumes and the NCERT directive deleting passages from the existing
school textbooks, the very notion of rewriting has emerged tainted, as
if it inevitably means the play of hidden hands, unrevealed agendas, manipulating
minds. This is tragic. For historians, rewriting is a creative act; it
is the way history as a mode of knowledge develops. In developing new
perspectives historians critique dominant frameworks – their enclosing
limits and repressions, their silences and erasures – and rework
accepted notions of the past.
The past does not come to us with a unitary truth embedded within it...
"It is a fear history", Interview
Pr. K.N.Panikkar (Modern Indian Historia, JNU, Delhi) spoke to Sukumar
Muralidharan on his association with the "Towards Freedom" project (Frontline,
17.03.2000)
K.N. Panikkar, Professor of Modern Indian History at Jawaharlal Nehru
University, New Delhi, spoke to Sukumar Muralidharan on his association
with the ''Towards Freedom'' project and his perceptions of the current
controversy over the ICHR' s decision to withdraw two volumes from publication...
1- As a professional historian, how would you read the implications of
this? We have had in the last ten years, when the contention for influence
within civil society has been sharpening, several cases of archaeologists
and historians trampling upon prof essional ethics. Many of them are now
in the ICHR. Is the discipline strong enough to withstand this or are
we going to witness a withering away of scientific history writing?
I think there are two or three levels at which we have to understand this.
Historical scholarship in India is very strong and it has a very good
record of adhering to the methods of the discipline. Now I feel that the
discipline is in danger for two reas ons. One, though historians in this
country are largely secular and have great regard for the methods of history
writing, there has been a slow erosion. I was in one of the universities
in Haryana the other day, which had a very good department of histor y
at one time. But today an overwhelming majority of young historians who
were very secular before, have gone over to a communal view. This is actually
an indication of how this kind of ideology is creeping into the university
departments.
More important, there is a popular history that is being created by Hindu
communalists, which has nothing to do with the professional history being
produced in the universities. I sometimes wonder whether this popular
history will completely overwhelm th e professional strain.
2- Through what medium is this popular history disseminated?
There are popular books in all languages which are being circulated in
a big way. And I understand there is a huge project undertaken by the
RSS, through an organisation known as Itihas Sankalan Samiti, to write
the history of each district of the countr y. So if these histories are
published, they will become the accepted or the most easily accessible
history for the mass of the people, which is going to influence the popular
understanding. So this danger of popular history replacing professional
histor y is really very strong. Once that happens, the historical consciousness
in society might also be influenced. I have been told by some schoolteachers
in Delhi that they cannot go to their classes and teach history, because
the students come with certain communal notions already imbibed from their
immedite surroundings. During the Ayodhya movement I have myself confronted
this. Many have preferred to accept the communal construction of the history
of Ayodhya over the verifiable history...
Outsider as enemy : the politics of rewriting history in India
by Pr.K.N.Panikkar, this is the text of a presentation at a round table
on the topic of "the rewriting of history : Intellectual Freedom and Contemporary
Politics in South Asia" organised as a part of the International Conference
of North African and Asian Scholars (ICANAS) in Montreal (19.06.2001)
REWRITING of history is a continuous process into which the historian
brings to bear new methodological or ideological insights or employs a
new analytical frame drawn upon hitherto unknown facts. The historians'
craft, the French historian, Marc Bloch, whose work on feudal society
is considered a classic, has reminded us, is rooted in a method specific
to history as a discipline, most of which has evolved through philosophical
engagements and empirical investigations during the last several centuries.
No methodology which the historian invokes in pursuit of the knowledge
of the past is really valid unless it respects the method of the discipline.
Even when methodologies fundamentally differ, they share certain common
grounds, which constitute the fiel d of the historian's craft. Notwithstanding
the present scepticism about the possible engagement with history, a strict
adherence to the method of the discipline is observed in all generally
accepted forms of reconstruction of the past. A departure from such norms
of the discipline tends to erase the distinction between myth and history,
which the forces of the Hindu rightwing, actively supported by the present
government, are seeking to achieve.
Manufacturing Myths
by K.N.Panikkar (30.04.2002)
THE enthusiasm of the minister for human resource development for rewriting
history has done incalculable damage to the discipline, but has, paradoxically,
yielded some positive results. It has generated an unprecedented public
interest in matters history, which is a pre- requisite for democratising
historical knowledge...The public is taking an intelligent interest in
the discipline, the most intricate historical issues are being openly
debated and the grain is carefully separated from the chaff.
The earlier governments also promoted secular history for political reasons
— they were engaged in creating a secular state and society. The
present government is also foregrounding communal history for political
reasons. Its concept of the nation is religious and its politics is rooted
in communalism. However, in the former, history as a discipline was not
a casualty. The communal intervention is not limited to the realm of academic
history. In fact, the influence of communalism on academic history is
very minimal. But not so on popular history. Through the activities of
several organisations the popular historical consciousness is being manipulated
to usher in a communal historical consciousness...
The present regime wants to impose a specific mindset or ideology
(the saffronisation of Indian History....) by Pr. Irfan Habib (former
head of Indian Council of Historical Research, ICHR) and Rifat Jawaid
(rediff.com, 05.01.2001)
The saffronisation of Indian history has been a controversial subject
ever since the Bharatiya Janata Party assumed power at the Centre. This
has angered many leading historians in the country.
The apprehension of historians like Professor Irfan Habib arises from
the fact that this process will result in a distorted interpretation of
Indian history.
In Calcutta to attend the 61st session of the Indian History Congress,
Professor Habib, a former head of the Indian Council of Historical Research,
spoke to Rifat Jawaid about the revival of the Babri Masjid controversy
and other issues pertaining to Indian history.
1-As a historian, how disturbed are you by the reported attempts of the
saffronisation of Indian history? There are reports that saffronisation
is taking place in text books, educational institutions such as the ICHR,
the Indian Council of Social Sciences Research and the National Council
for Education, Research and Training.
You are asking me two different questions. First, we must understand what
value education the HRD ministry in the BJP government is talking about.
To me, value education is another name for religious instructions as it
is clear from the curriculum and filling up of posts in the NCERT with
those practicing the ideology of the Sangh Parivar. But that is declared
illegal by the Indian Constitution. By our Constitution, no State-supported
institutions can impart religious instructions on a compulsory basis.
It is unconstitutional.
The BJP government is visibly concerned because religious instructions
mean, to that extent, a scientific approach is automatically curtailed.
Be it Islam or any other religion, the very nature of religion is that
you accept it. No archaeologist worth his name can say that Ibrahim founded
the Kaaba, yet Muslims believe this. So clearly, religion must be separated.
Secondly, history deals with religious beliefs that the Kaaba was founded
by Ibrahim. Therefore, I believe religion does not prove its beliefs by
history and history does not accept the fact of the religion unless of
this kind. If these two issues are mixed in Indian education, it will
mark the demise of scientific and rationale education in the country.
2-The BJP government is being singled out for recruiting scholars who
toe their line. But the Left Front government in Bengal has often been
accused of appointing people with a Marxist background to sensitive positions.
As a Marxist, how can you justify this?
Even I have come across such reports in a section of media. As for Bengal,
all the appointees here were never been short of basic prerequisites.
They have always fulfilled the academic standards. The only difference
between the BJP government and the non-BJP ruled states including Bengal
is that the latter did not regard Marxist views as totally unacceptable...
The meat of the matter
by Sukumar Muralidharan (Frontline, 01-14/09/2001)
Targeting history
by T.K.Rajalakshmi (The National Council for Educational Research and
Training -NCERT- decides to remove some history textbooks from the higher
secondary curriculum, and this move raises questions about the Sangh Parivar's
agenda with regard to historical accounts, Frontline 28-11/05/2001)
THE National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT) is
once again caught in a storm, following its decision to remove from the
curriculum at the higher secondary level certain textbooks on history.
The Council also intends to do away with history as a subject at that
level and, instead, make it part of an integrated corpus of social sciences.
The ostensible objective is to reduce the curriculum load and make it
relevant and effective. These objectives were spelt out in the NCERT's
National Curriculum Framework for School Education, which itself was criticised
for its poor academic content and tendency to push the curriculum in a
certain direction. The curriculum was released by Union Human Resource
Development (HRD) Minister Murli Manohar Joshi on November 14 last year
(Frontline, December 22, 2000).
The moves of the NCERT and the HRD Ministry fall into a pattern that has
become familiar since the National Democratic Alliance government led
by the Bharatiya Janata Party assumed office. The inaugural issue of The
Journal of Value Education, an NCERT publication, came under fire for
its attempt to equate human values with religiosity. Education Secretary
M.K. Kaw had to tender an apology to the National Council of Minorities
for the offensive statements in one of the chapters authored by him in
the journal. The University Grants Commission's (UGC) recent move to approve
and allocate funds for regular university-level courses in Vedic Astrology
had only recently drawn widespread criticism (Frontline, April 13, 2001).
The move to do away with history as a separate subject at the higher secondary
level is likely to come into effect from the next academic session in
a phased manner. The textbooks that are sought to be removed are authored
by eminent historians such as Romila Thapar, R.S. Sharma, Satish Chandra
and Bipan Chandra.
Arjun Dev said that the question today was whether history should be subordinated
to theology, mythology or fact.
Said Romila Thapar: "If they wish to revise the books, let competent
historians do it. Have they set up a committee and has that committee
recommended the withdrawal of these books? We would like to know who these
experts are and on what grounds has any committee decided to do away with
these books. To say there is no ideological motivation is not correct."
She demanded that the NCERT make public the list of experts that it has
put out to design the syllabus. "They know if they write their RSS
(Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) view of history, it will get rejected. That
is one of the reasons for abolishing history," she said.
The textbooks, says Romila Thapar, were model textbooks and the understanding
was that if the States were to make any changes in them, the names of
the authors would be deleted. "We were not writing Marxist texts.
We were trying to reflect on some of the ideas of social and economic
history. The purpose was to give standard information."...
Rewriting history
by R.Champakalakshmi (history is now under threat due to the attempts
to create an official-parallel-history by political command, The Hindu,
25.05.2002)
History is now under serious threat due to the attempts to create an official
(parallel) history by political command.
REWRITING HISTORY is an exercise which the historian is (should be) constantly
engaged in. It means revising, re-interpreting and re-visiting the areas
of one's research interests as a historian, or refining one's methodology
of historical analysis and seeking answers from the sources to different
sets of questions and problems that confront the historian. In short,
it belongs to the realm of historiography and as such is a serious, rigorous
exercise, which can be undertaken only by trained, competent and committed
historians with genuine concerns in keeping the discipline of history
strictly academic. At the same time it also needs to be undertaken with
a sense of responsibility when writing or rewriting a textbook.
India / Pakistan : Righting or rewriting Hindou History
by Ann Ninan (Asia-Times OnLine, 23.02.2000)
NEW DELHI - Independent historians see the hand of the ruling right-wing
Hindu party in the decision to stop the publication of two volumes of
a project documenting India's independence movement by two eminent historians.
The Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR), where top appointments
are made by the government, has ordered the Oxford University Press (OUP)
to ''return the typescripts'' of the two books for ''review''. Neither
historian, Sumit Sarkar or K N Pannikar, were informed by the ICHR, and
they only got to know of it on February 14 from the OUP, which has declined
to comment, only saying the withdrawal of the volumes is a huge financial
loss.
Both historians have formidable reputations as liberal and secular historians,
and outspoken opponents of the Hindu right-wing which now leads the coalition
government in New Delhi. Prof Sarkar, who has been associated with Delhi
University for over two decades, says the volumes are ''based on archival
material and we have presented these documents as they are''. Prof Panikkar
is at the Jawaharlal Nehru University here.
The volumes are part of the ICHR's Towards Freedom project, giving an
overview of the last 10 years of British rule; it has been more than 30
years in the making. The project was intended to counter the colonial
view that India won freedom in 1947 not through a struggle but because
the British decided to decolonize the empire. Only two of the planned
20 volumes have been published so far by OUP. ...
A saffron offensive
by R.Krishnakumar (The Sangh Parivar's media offensive against secular
writers and intellectuals in Kerala reflects the growing stridency and
influence of communal voices within the State-Frontline,23-06/12/2002)
Defamatory letters and articles about well known intellectuals and their
writings and speeches have become a regular feature in the saffron brigade's
limited-circulation publications. Hate mail and abusive calls are on the
rise, as some of them told Frontline. As the vilification of Kamala Surayya,
Zacharia and Panikkar demonstrates, personalised attacks are increasing.
The result is that on the one hand Kerala is slowly witnessing the withdrawal
of the independent intelligentsia from secular discussions. In place of
the liberal, Marxist, left radical discourse, which was the norm, and
the cultured discussions at the socio-political and ideological levels,
communal discourse is gaining acceptance. Quite a few secular intellectuals
have either fallen silent or are being won over by the saffron brigade.
Some of them have refused to respond to the disparaging of fellow writers;
some others, who have opted to remain silent on the activities of communal,
fundamentalist forces, recently issued a statement protesting against
the inclusion of the RSS in the list of "terrorist organisations"
that Chief Minister A.K. Antony tabled in the Assembly.
The grand design is to make those who raise their voices against communalism
unacceptable to society. The disturbing communal content in Pranavam is
therefore not an aberrant, accidental phenomenon. It is as much a warning
as it is a manifestation of the pernicious religious communalism that
is gnawing at the secular fabric of Kerala.
INDIA : History Writing Takes a Strong Hindu Turn
by Ann Ninan (Inter Press Service, 9/07/1998)
Once again, history writing is the target of pro-Hindu groups like the
VHP, BJP and the neo-fascist, cadre-based Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
(RSS) which counts Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Home Minister
Lal Kishan Advani among members.
Since last April when the BJP, the political face of the rabidly Hindu
RSS, took over power to lead a 23-party coalition government, it has moved
with lightening speed to propagate Hindu culture and nationalism.
The first step in promoting its brand of history has been the reconstitution
of the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) with the induction
of 19 new right-wing historians, most of them retired and specialists
in ancient India history.
In Hoshangabad and Dewas, in central Madhya Pradesh state, more recently,
the offices of the independent non-governmental group, 'Eklavya' have
been repeatedly attacked by pro-Hindu groups for publishing textbooks
that scientifically demolish myths.
'History is the main ideology of the Sangh parivar (BJP/RSS/Vishwa Hindu
Parishad family) ... The right-wing are prepared to go to any lengths
to control and manipulate the writing of history,'' says liberal historian
Radhika Singha of Delhi University.
A Catalogue of Crimes
by Praveen Swami (Frontline 30-12/02/1999)
AFTER shaming India with the demolition of the Babri Masjid on December
6, 1992, the Bharatiya Janata Party and its patron bodies in the Sangh
Parivar sought to project a new moderation. Propelled to power by their
flagrant communal campaign in March 1998, Hindutva formations claimed
that they would conduct themselves in a responsible manner and respect
the country's Constitution and its laws.
However, communal incidents that occurred from March 1998 onwards reveal
that precisely the reverse has been true. Although there were no major
communal riots during this period, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS),
the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), the Bajrang Dal, the Shiv Sena and other
Hindutva forces were engaged in the systematic intimidation of minority
communities. This compilation by Frontline is far from comprehensive.
Put together from newspaper reports, human rights investigations and documentation
prepared by independent and community groups,Frontline's list excludes
dozens of claims of communal violence and instances of hate propaganda
which appeared to lack integrity, precision or clarity. Programmes such
as the communal- and caste-biased encounters engineered by the BJP in
Uttar Pradesh and the Shiv Sena in Mumbai were left out altogether because
of difficulties in ascertaining exactly which killings were motivated
by religious hate.
The scores of specific manifestations of hate politics that Frontline
has compiled range from outright violence to propagandistic activity.
Concentrated mostly in Gujarat and Maharashtra, the incidents give an
insight into the Hindu Right's current agenda. Attacks on Muslims account
for just over a quarter of the total. This marks a shift from the pattern
of single-minded attacks on Muslims that spearheaded the Hindutva campaign
in the early 1990s. Only one incident - in Jammu and Kashmir - involved
loss of life to Muslims. The vast majority of attacks, in which damage
to property and injuries were common, were aimed at Christians. In one
incident VHP members attacked a group of human rights activists, mistaking
them for missionary workers...
LEFT HOOK
Israel,
Suicide Nation by Junaid Alam
Yesterday
marked the first anniversary of the death of student activist Rachel Corries
by Adam Levenstein (16/03/03/04)
Killing
Rachel Corrie Again : Making Murder Responsable
by Michael Dempsey (The Raw Story, Justice)
Hated
Victims, Hidden Racism: Palestinians and the Zionist Enterprise by
Junaid Alam
DISSIDENT VOICE & freinds...
Reading
al-Qaeda into Madrid
by Kurt Nimmo (Nouveau-Mexique, 3/4/04)
CNN was so athirst for "evidence" connecting al-Qaeda to the
Madrid bombings they impulsively waved around an unsigned document harvested
from Global Islamic Media, a radical Islamic website, on March 16. According
to CNN, the document proves al-Qaeda "planned to separate Spain from
its allies by carrying out terror attacks," even though, as closer
examination of the partially translated document reveals, there is no
mention of the terrorist bombings in Spain. In fact, the document mentions
attacking Spanish troops in Iraq, not killing innocents in Madrid....
Mission Accomplished in Ha˙ti, Is Venezuela Next ? by Kurt Nimmo (6/3/04)
Chavez blamed the CIA for the failed coup, and for good reason: Charles
S. Shapiro, the US ambassador in Caracas and former Deputy Chief of Mission
at the US embassy in Chile at the time of the CIA-sponsored coup against
Salvador Allende, admitted that military training camps for
Venezuelan opposition forces are currently being run in Florida. For some
reason the Ministry of Homeland Security does not seem to mind...
Madrid 'Blueprint' : a dodgy document
by Brendan O'Neill (London, 30/3/2004)
Madrid attacks worked exactly as planned.' So said a headline on Intelwire,
a website devoted to terrorism-related news, following CNN's shock revelation
on 16 March 2004 that it was in possession of an alleged al-Qaeda document
outlining the reasoning behind the bombings in Madrid. CNN reported that
the document, written before the killing of 190 people by rucksack bombs
in Madrid on 11 March, described Spain as the 'weakest link' in the coalition
in Iraq, and set out an explicit ploy to 'topple [Aznar's] pro-US government'
through force...
FFI explains al-Qaida document
by Brinjar Lia & Thomas Hegghammer (Oslo, 19/3/04)
Since the Madrid bombings on 11 March there has been considerable media
interest in a document found on radical islamist websites some months
ago by researchers at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI).
The document recommends "painful strikes" against Spanish "forces"
specifically around the time of the Spanish elections and there has naturally
been much speculation about the relationship between this text and the
Madrid events...
Mercenairies 'R' US by B. Berkowitz (2/4/04)
Private Pentagon contractors are paying soldiers of fortune from Chile
and South Africa up to $4,000 per month for stints in Iraq
On March 31, four retired Special Operations forces employed by the private
security firm Blackwater Security Consulting were ambushed, killed, and
their bodies mutilated in Fallujah. According to the San Francisco Chronicle,
an estimated 15,000 "private security agents" are currently
operating in Iraq.
With the U.S. casualty toll ticking ever upward, and its troops stretched
thin on the ground, the Bush administration is looking to mercenaries
to help control Iraq. These soldiers-for-hire are veterans of some of
the most repressive military forces in the world, including that of the
former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and South Africa's apartheid
regime...
Osama Lama Ding Dong : The "War Without End"
by Bill Berkowitz
Nearly thirty months after President Bush declared open season on Osama
bin Laden, the much-vaunted U.S. spring offensive along the Afghanistan-Pakistan
border is getting ready to roll. According to the Miami Herald, “the
Central Intelligence Agency has moved at least two unmanned aerial vehicles,
both armed with Hellfire missiles, from Iraq to Afghanistan, and that
the military's Central Command is moving an unspecified number of Special
Forces soldiers from Iraq to Afghanistan.”
The offensive, which may produce a Spring Shocker, a Summer Stunner or
an October Surprise, is clearly aimed at capturing and/or killing al Qaeda’s
terrorist leader...
The Unmentionable source of Terrorism
by John Pilger (Sydney 18/3/04)
The current threat of attacks in countries whose governments have close
alliances with Washington is the latest stage in a long struggle against
the empires of the west, their rapacious crusades and domination. The
motivation of those who plant bombs in railway carriages derives directly
from this truth. What is different today is that the weak have learned
how to attack the strong, and the western crusaders' most recent colonial
terrorism (as many as 55,000 Iraqis killed) exposes "us" to
retaliation.
The source of much of this danger is Israel. A creation, then guardian
of the west's empire in the Middle East, the Zionist state remains the
cause of more regional grievance and sheer terror than all the Muslim
states combined. Read the melancholy Palestinian Monitor on the internet;
it chronicles the equivalent of Madrid's horror week after week, month
after month, in occupied Palestine. No front pages in the west acknowledge
this enduring bloodbath, let alone mourn its victims. Moreover, the Israeli
army, a terrorist organisation by any reasonable measure, is protected
and rewarded in the west.
3/11 - The Madrid "Terrorist Attack" and Observations
by CGR (Montréal, 20/03/04)
"By way of deception, thou shalt do war".
Milt Bearden former CIA agent who directed bin Laden's covert CIA operation
known as Maktab al Khidamar, the MAK in Afghanistan was on Dan Rather's
national TV show Sept. 12th 2001.
When Rather asked, if he (Bearden) thought bin Laden was responsible for
9/11, Bearden downright snubbed the possibility. Bearden explained "a
far more sophisticated intelligence operation had to be behind these precise
coordinated attacks... if they didn't have a bin Laden they would have
invented one."
Friendly-fire and False-flag terrorism share the same objectives: governments
orchestrate terrorist attacks to be carried out on their own soil in order
to strike fear in the population and to create a "public enemy".
From 9-11 to 3-11 - How the Madrid Attack is connected to Al-Qaeda, Bush,
and the Pentagon Israeli Lobby
by Manuel Freytas/M.Andrade (IAR-Noticias.com, Argentine,14/03/04)
El
Lobby Judio del Pentagono
by Manuel Freytas (IAR-Noticias.com, Argentine, 17/01/04)
Centre for Research on Globalization
Les
pétrolières à l'assaut des terres autochtones en
Amérique Latine
by Micheline Ladouceur (CRG, 27/09/02)
«Enron et Shell ont construit leur pipeline et ont violé
leurs promesses ». Carlos Cuasacre, Président,
Organisation des Chiquitanos.(2)
De nombreux mégaprojets gaziers et pétroliers furent développés
dans le cadre même des politiques d’ajustement structurel
imposées par la Banque mondiale et le FMI. Sous la houlette des
institutions de Bretton Woods et dans le cadre des programmes de privatisation,
la Bolivie fut obligée de confier ses immenses réserves
de gaz aux géants pétroliers. La production de gaz bolivien
était destinée non seulement au marché bréslien
mai également à celui des États-Unis.
Les réserves de gaz de Bolivie sont considérées parmi
les plus importantes dans le monde avec une capacité de plus de
24 mille milliards de pieds cubes (2002) (les plus grandes réserves
de gaz en Amérique latine après le Venezuela). La Bolivie
constitue désormais un des principaux pôles de croissance
des puissances pétrolières en Amérique latine.
La nouvelle géographie de la Bolivie et du Brésil se dessine
par le développement de milliers de kilomètres de gazoducs
et d’oléoducs qui traversent des terres autochtones. Financé
en grande partie par la Banque mondiale, le colossal gazoduc Bolivie-Brésil
(GASBOL) (3150 km dont 2.593 km au Brésil) fut inauguré
au moment même où le Brésil vivait la plus grave crise
économique de son histoire, suite à l’effondrement
de la bourse de Sao Paulo (février 1999). Sous le prétexte
de résoudre la crise énergétique du Brésil,
les mégapipelines de gaz (Bolivie-Brésil) s’insèrent
dans le nouveau modèle économique appuyé par la Banque
mondiale.
The Spoils of War : Afghanistan's Multibillion Dollar Heroin Trade
by Michel Chossudovsky (CRG, 5/04/04)
Since the US led invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, the Golden Crescent
opium trade has soared. According to the US media, this lucrative contraband
is protected by Osama, the Taliban, not to mention, of course, the regional
warlords, in defiance of the "international community".
The heroin business is said to be "filling the coffers of the
Taliban". In the words of the US State Department:
"Opium is a source of literally billions of dollars to extremist
and criminal groups... [C]utting down the opium supply is central to establishing
a secure and stable democracy, as well as winning the global war on terrorism,"
(Statement of Assistant Secretary of State Robert Charles. Congressional
Hearing, 1 April 2004)
According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), opium
production in Afghanistan in 2003 is estimated at 3,600 tons, with an
estimated area under cultivation of the order of 80,000 hectares. (UNODC
at http://www.unodc.org/unodc/index.html ).An even larger bumper harvest
is predicted for 2004.
The State Department suggests that up to 120 000 hectares were under cultivation
in 2004. (Congressional Hearing, op cit):
"We could be on a path for a significant surge. Some observers
indicate perhaps as much as 50 percent to 100 percent growth in the 2004
crop over the already troubling figures from last year."(Ibid)
DIVERS / MISCELLANEOUS (Abu Ghraib, military reports, Israel nuclear, Hamas,
Al-Qaeda, Torture, Laws, Saddham Hussein)
assassinat
de Lenin Cali Najera (23 ans)
fondateur d'Indymedia Guayaquil (Equateur)
While they waved the rainbow flag that identifies the Pachakutik political
movement, nearly 30 young people, accompanied by guitar music, paid tribute
yesterday to their young leader, Lenin Cali Nájera, 22 years old,
who was assassinated by a bullet, last Tuesday, because he resisted when
his bicycle was being robbed. Verónica Silva, who arrived from
Quito for burial, along with representatives from partisan organizations
in other provinces, demanded that the causes of this murder be clarified.
"We have been persecuted and threatened for our work, this is why
we thought that the Lenin's death was not related to a bicycle robbery",
his friend questioned...
Japan may be Next Victim of Depleted Uranium in Iraq
An exclusive interview with Dr. Asaf Durakovic, one of the world's leading
experts on depleted uranium, on how Japan now faces the DU danger in Iraq,
the continuing threats on his life, and the "conspiracy of silence"
the world over surrounding DU...
US News obtains all classified annexes to the Taguba report on Abu Ghraib
The most comprehensive view yet of what went wrong at Iraq's Abu Ghraib
prison, based on a review of all 106 classified annexes to the report
of Major General Antonio Taguba, shows abuses were facilitated--and likely
encouraged--by a chaotic and dangerous environment made worse by constant
pressure from Washington to squeeze intelligence from detainees.
Daily life at Abu Ghraib, the documents show, included riots, prisoner
escapes, shootings, corrupt Iraqi guards, filthy conditions, sexual misbehavior,
bug-infested food, prisoner beatings and humiliations, and almost-daily
mortar shellings from Iraqi insurgents. Troubles inside the prison were
made worse still by a military command structure that was hopelessly broken.
Taguba focused mostly on the MPs assigned to guard inmates at Abu Ghraib,
but the 5,000 pages of classified files in the annexes to his report show
that military intelligence officers--dispatched to Abu Ghraib by the top
commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez--were intimately involved
in some of the interrogation tactics widely viewed as abusive...
Army report (M.G. Taguba) on prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib
Below is the complete report that Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba prepared
on the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at the Abu Ghraib Prison in Baghdad. The
report was commissioned by Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez in January.
Introduction
Findings and recommendations:
Part 1: Detainee abuse
Part 2: Accountability lapses
Part 3: Training, standards, command policies and climate, conclusion...
Meet the Al-Qaeda archetype
by Brendan O'Neil
Terrorism expert Marc Sageman made waves at an international conference
in Washington last week, when he presented his findings on 382 suspected
terrorists who have direct or indirect links to Osama bin Laden's network.
Sageman found that the terrorist stereotype - of poor, young, single men
from the dusty backstreets of the Muslim world brainwashed into committing
fanatical acts - doesn't stick when it comes to al-Qaeda. Rather, most
of them are well-educated, well-off, cosmopolitan and professional, with
good jobs, wives and no history of mental illness. 'Some people at the
conference were…a little taken aback', Sageman says. 'I could have
been describing them rather than bin Laden's men.'...
Creating
the enemy
by Brendan O'Neil
In March 2004, following the Madrid train bombings that killed 191 civilians,
I wrote an essay for spiked in which I argued that contemporary nihilistic
terrorism has its origins in moral and political crises within the West,
not in the hotheaded fanaticism of faraway lands. I argued that, if you
strip away all the talk about a 'clash of civilisations', the real problem
of terrorism - in terms of both its origins and the massive impact that
such small-scale and disparate acts can have on our societies - begins
at home, in the profound uncertainty about values today and in the West's
obsession with risk-aversion. The four explosions in London that killed
over 50 people on 7 July 2005, and the response to them, starkly illustrate
the central points of the essay...
Devolved authoritarianism
by Dolan Cummings
It would have been easy to get the impression in recent weeks that the
British government's obsession with smoking and smacking is distracting
it from weightier issues. In fact, ministers have been keen to remind
us that they are equally concerned about loitering, graffiti and young
women vomiting in the street.
nyone who thinks that the proposed smoking and smacking bans are merely
symbolic should note the government's persistent campaigns against what
it calls 'antisocial behaviour'. In his spending review on 12 July, chancellor
Gordon Brown announced funding for 20,000 community support officers and
neighbourhood wardens to help tackle antisocial behaviour. On 9 July,
home secretary David Blunkett urged local authorities to make more use
of Antisocial Behaviour Orders (ASBOS) to clamp down on low-level crime
and disorder (1).
ASBOS were introduced in 1999 to deal with disorderly behaviour that lies
beyond the remit of conventional criminal justice measures. Persistent
vandals, menacing teenagers and 'neighbours from Hell' can be issued with
ASBOS ordering them to desist from unruly (but not strictly criminal)
behaviour on pain of criminal penalties. Orders might also require people
to stay away from certain areas or not to associate with certain people.
ASBOS can be used in cases where genuinely criminal behaviour is suspected
but can't be proven, since the standard of proof needed is lower...
Power, Propaganda and Conscience in the War on Terror
by John Pilger
On 12 January, John Pilger gave the Summer School Lecture at the University
of Western Australia in Perth on power, propaganda and conscience in the
'war on terror', with special reference to the part played by Australian
government, media and scholarship. He also showed his latest film, "Breaking
the Silence: Truth and Lies in the War on Terror."
I am a reporter, who values bearing witness. That is to say, I place paramount
importance in the evidence of what I see, and hear, and sense to be the
truth, or as close to the truth as possible. By comparing this evidence
with the statements, and actions of those with power, I believe it’s
possible to assess fairly how our world is controlled and divided, and
manipulated – and how language and debate are distorted and a false
consciousness developed.
When we speak of this in regard to totalitarian societies and dictatorships,
we call it brainwashing: the conquest of minds. It’s a notion we
almost never apply to our own societies. Let me give you an example. During
the height of the cold war, a group of Soviet journalists were taken on
an official tour of the United States. They watched TV; they read the
newspapers; they listened to debates in Congress. To their astonishment,
everything they heard was more or less the same. The news was the same.
The opinions were the same, more or less. “How do you do it?”
they asked their hosts. “In our country, to achieve this, we throw
people in prison; we tear out their fingernails. Here, there’s none
of that? What’s your secret?”
The secret is that the question is almost never raised...
Corporate
Power by John Pilger
Multinational corporations are the driving force behind globalisation,
and many commentators agree that they have benefited from it most. Larger
than many host nations, the multinationals are often in a powerful position
to dictate terms. Payment of bribes or 'commission' has fuelled corruption
and secured favourable terms for multinational companies in their operations
around the world.
The consequences of this growing corporate power can be seen clearly in
relation to their foreign investment role. At its best, investment by
a foreign company can provide jobs, stimulate economic growth and offer
developing countries access to key technology and skills. At its worst,
multinationals just exploit the cheap labour or natural resources which
poor countries offer, and leave them nothing in return. So how can we
ensure that all investment follows best practice?
Academia is silent on imperialism by John Pilger
The other day, I attended a conference at the University of Sussex on
the "new imperialism". What was extraordinary was that it took
place at all. Julian Saurin, who teaches in the school of African and
Asian studies at Sussex, said that, in ten years, he had never known an
open discussion on imperialism. About 80 per cent of international relations
studies in the great British universities is concerned with the United
States and Europe. Most of the rest of humanity is often rated according
to its degree of importance or usefulness to "western interests",
the euphemism for western power and imperialism.
The concept of modern imperialism seldom speaks its name. It is a taboo
subject, described as "provocative" by those "liberal realists"
who shunned the Sussex conference. The issue of academic silence this
raises is crucial. At times, universities that pride themselves on a free-thinking
tradition go silent. Germany during the rise of the Nazis and the United
States in the McCarthyite period offer obvious examples...
International
Course on Globalization, Social Justice and Civil Society
Focus on the Global South in cooperation with the MA in International
Development Studies Programme of the Chulalongkorn University in Thailand
will launch a 15-day international course on Globalisation, Social Justice
and Civil Society. The course will provide an analytical interpretation
of the ongoing debates that concerns the dynamics, institutional structures,
and central processes of globalisation and development as well as the
interactive relationship between governance and collective action...
The
Abu Ghraib Prison Photos
by CBS Sunday/Italy. Indymedia (05.2004)
Abuse
at Grhaib, the psychodynamics of occupation and the responsability of
Us all
by Stephen Soldz (05.2004)
This week, CBS' 60 Minutes II published the now infamous pictures of abuse
and torture by US soldiers at the Abu Ghraib detention facility in Iraq
(some of the pictures can be viewed on the New Yorker web site. Go to:
"View Images" on "Related Links"). Seymour Hersh has
documented in the May 10, 2004 New Yorker (Torture at Abu Ghraib) that
the abuse shown in these photos was just the tip of the iceberg. A 53-page
Pentagon report completed in February listed some of the abuse:
"Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid
on detainees; pouring cold water on naked detainees; beating detainees
with a broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape;
allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who
was injured after being slammed against the wall in his cell; sodomizing
a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick, and using
military working dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with threats
of attack, and in one instance actually biting a detainee."...
Psychoanalysts for Peace and Justice
Because we know the destructiveness that resides in each of us, we know
the importance of not letting it destroy what we hold dear...
WHO WE ARE
We are psychoanalysts and psychoanalytically-informed citizens united
for peace and justice. We have gathered, in opposition to the pending
Iraq war, with the goals of participating as psychoanalysts and citizens
in the broader peace and justice movements and of bringing our psychoanalytic
insights to bear on the critical social issues that confront our country
and our world today....
The first Psychoanalysts for Peace and Justice public forum, The Psychodynamics
of Empire was conducted on February 6th at the Friends Meeting House in
Cambridge, MA. Speakers: Stephen Soldz: Security, Terror, and the Psychodynamics
of Empire [This talk has been posted on several major web sites: ZNet;
Information Clearinghouse; Global Policy Forum; & Smutraker]; Stephen
Price: The Role of Sacrifice; Jane Snyder: Power and Paranoia. Portions
from these talks were broadcast on radio station WMBR in Cambridge, MA
on February 26 & 27, 2004. [The forum was co-sponsored by the Institute
for the Study of Violence of the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis.]
(POSTED: December 16, 2003. MODIFIED February 7 & March 10, 2004)
You can listen to the talks here [thanks to Freeman Z]:
1 Introduction to Forum (Stephen Soldz)
2 Introduction to Stephen Price
3 The Role of Sacrifice (Stephen Price)
4 Introduction to Jane Snyder
5 Power and Paranoia (Jane Snyder)
6 Security, Terror, and Empire (Stephen Soldz)...
Abu Ghraib : Has the CIA Privatized Torture ?
By Kurt Nimmo (05.2004)
It is not simply a proliferation of cheap electronic cameras that revealed
how US military and intelligence officers and agents work over detainees,
but a secret US Army internal investigation report leaked to the New Yorker
and handed over to ace investigative journalist Seymour Hersh played an
important role as well.
According to the author of the report, Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba, reservist
military police at Abu Ghraib were instructed by Army military officers
and the CIA to "set physical and mental conditions for favorable
interrogation of witnesses" -- in other words they were to be tortured
until they were reduced to well-disposed porridge.
As we now understand, it was not simply the military and the CIA that
were involved in the torture at Abu Ghraib -- so-called interrogation
specialists from private defense contractors were hired to humiliate and
break detainees identified by Hersh as common criminals, security detainees
suspected of crimes against the occupation, and a small number of suspected
high-value leaders of the resistance against the occupation....
Following Hersh's explosive revelations, the Guardian filled in conspicuous
gaps and reported companies contracted at Abu Ghraib include CACI International
and the Titan Corporation. CACI's website claims its mission is to "help
America's intelligence community collect, analyze and share global information
in the war on terrorism." Titan describes itself as "a leading
provider of comprehensive information and communications products, solutions
and services for national security."...
Torture is News But it's Not New
by John Pilger (05.2004)
When I first went to report the American war against Vietnam, in the 1960s,
I visited the Saigon offices of the great American newspapers and TV companies,
and the international news agencies.I was struck by the similarity of
displays on many of their office pinboards. "That's where we hang
our conscience," said an agency photographer.
There were photographs of dismembered bodies, of soldiers holding up severed
ears and testicles and of the actual moments of torture. There were men
and women being beaten to death, and drowned, and humiliated in stomach-turning
ways. On one photograph was a stick-on balloon above the torturer's head,
which said: "That'll teach you to talk to the press."...
The Prisoner of
War Protection Act of 2003
A Bill by The Orator.com (neocon's, Hoover & Cato)
108th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. R. 2224
To provide for the payment of claims of United States prisoners of war
in the First Gulf War, and for other purposes.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
May 22, 2003
Mrs. CAPITO (for herself, Mr. GOODE, and Mr. CAMP) introduced the following
bill; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, and in addition
to the Committee on International Relations, for a period to be subsequently
determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions
as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned
A BILL
To provide for the payment of claims of United States prisoners of war
in the First Gulf War, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the `Prisoner of War Protection Act of 2003'.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
The Congress makes the following findings:
(1) The mistreatment of prisoners of war of the United States has been
a serious recurring problem in war after war, and is of immediate concern
to the Nation.
(2) The United States takes great pride in the protection of its service
men and women, and finds intolerable the recurring pattern of mistreatment
of its prisoners of war.
(3) The Third Geneva Convention mandates that prisoners of war must at
all times be treated humanely, and that the willful killing, torture,
or inhuman treatment or willfully causing great suffering or serious injury
to body or health are `grave breaches' of the Convention.
(4) Article 129 of the Third Geneva Convention mandates that `Each High
Contracting Party shall be under the obligation to search for persons
alleged to have committed, or to have ordered to be committed . . . grave
breaches, and shall bring such persons, regardless of their nationality,
before its own courts.'.
(5) Article 131 of the Third Geneva Convention provides that `No High
Contracting Party shall be allowed to absolve itself or any other High
Contracting Party of any liability incurred by itself or by another High
Contracting Party in respect of [grave] breaches . . .'.
(6) Both the United States and the Republic of Iraq are High Contracting
Parties to the Third Geneva Convention, and more than 170 countries, as
state parties to the convention, have assumed its obligations.
(7) The Third Geneva Convention mandates that prisoners of war `must at
all times be protected . . . against insults and public curiosity'; the
Iraqi practice in both the First and Second Gulf Wars of subjecting United
States prisoners of war to coerced propaganda videotapes is therefore
a violation of the Convention...
Israel
et l'arme nucleaire by COMAGUER
Israël et l'arme nucléaire
Mordechaï Vanunu, technicien nucléaire israélien a
été libéré le 20 Avril après avoir
effectué la totalité de sa peine : soit 18 ans, dont onze
ans au secret. Après avoir travaillé au centre nucléaire
de Dimona dans le désert du Néguev, il avait au cours d'un
voyage en Angleterre révélé à la presse britannique
que, contrairement aux affirmations officielles, ce centre n'était
pas destiné à des travaux de recherche sur le nucléaire
civil mais au contraire à la production du plutonium nécessaire
aux armes nucléaires.Séduit comme dans les livres d'espionnage
par une belle employée des services secrets israéliens,
il la retrouve à Rome pour un voyage en amoureux. Là ils
est drogué et enlevé, endormi, par les agents du Mossad.
Quand il se réveille il est en prison en Israël !
Il est ensuite condamné à 18 ans de prison pour trahison.
Il a donc payé très cher son acte individuel courageux consistant
à révéler au public ce que savaient tous les services
de renseignement et tous les gouvernements. Il a payé pour avoir
rompu le silence que l'Etat Israël entretient, farouchement et avec
une persévérance jamais démentie depuis l'origine,
sur son programme d'armes nucléaires.
Car la politique nucléaire d'Israël est quasiment constitutive
et fondatrice de cet Etat.
Dés 1949, les savants atomistes israéliens collaborent avec
leurs homologues français et se mettent à fouiller le désert
du Néguev pour y trouver de l'uranium.Cette connivence franco israélienne,
qui va durer jusqu'au début des années 60, a plusieurs raisons...
A Muddled
Attack
(Israeli assassination of Sheikh Yassin) by Nyck Frayn (03.2004)
he Israeli assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, spiritual leader of the
Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, brings Israel's war on terror back on
to the front pages. Indeed, it has provoked UK foreign secretary Jack
Straw, who was attending the European Union's own anti-terror conference,
to condemn the attack as 'unjustified' ...
Israel's Hamas
by George Szamuely (CRG,04.2002)
This has been longstanding Israeli policy. Starting in the late 1970s
Israel helped build up the most fanatical and intolerant fundamentalist
Muslims as rivals to the nationalist PLO. The terrorist organization Hamas
is largely an Israeli creation. A UPI story last year quoted a U.S. government
official as saying: "The thinking on the part of some of the right-wing
Israeli establishment was that Hamas and the other groups, if they gained
control, would refuse to have anything to do with the peace process and
would torpedo any agreements put in place."...
Sharon War
Plan Exposed : Hamas Gang Is His Tool by Jeoffrey Steinberg
(EIR.CRG, 07.2001)
Highly placed U.S.-based sources have provided EIR with details of Israeli
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plans for a new Mideast war, plans that
were set in motion within days of his taking office earlier this year,
and which are now set to be activated. According to the sources, shortly
after he was elected, Sharon met with a group of trusted political and
military allies, and spelled out, in several confidential memos, a war
plan targetting the Palestinian Authority, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,
and other Arab neighbors.
Sharon's ability to use the Hamas group as a tool for destabilizing Jordan,
ultimately overthrowing King Abdullah II and establishing Jordan as a
"Palestinian homeland" under Hamas control. To this end, Sharon,
who was instrumental in launching the Hamas movement, has dispatched his
son as an emissary to the Islamist group. Key Hamas personnel have already
been infiltrated into Jordan, in preparation for Sharon's provocation
of war in the days or weeks ahead, the sources said.
In many ways, the Sharon-backed Hamas targetting of Jordan is a replay
of 1970's "Black September" destabilization which involved Abu
Nidal, long suspected of being an asset of British and Israeli intelligence.
In the 1970s, Hamas was built up by Israeli occupying forces as a "countergang"
to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) of Yasser Arafat. Individuals
who later emerged as Hamas leaders were granted licenses by Israeli authorities
to set up food kitchens, clinics, schools, and day-care centers, to create
a governing structure alternative to Arafat's Fatah...
Hamas and Israel Unite Against Arafat
by Dmitry Litvinovich (Pravda/CRG, 04.2002)
What is the power that the Israeli prime minister stakes on? No matter
how strange it may seem, he has chosen Hamas. Let me remind you of the
organization. It was founded by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin on December 14, 1987
on the basis of two Islamic groups, officially registered as cultural
and educational movements. The HQ is located in Teheran. Hamas consists
of political and fighting organizations. The Hamas leader was arrested
and convicted in 1991, and Moussa Abu-Marzuk (who had been living in the
USA and performed Hamas financial provision since 1974) then took over.
After that, Hamas subdivisions appeared and still function in the USA,
Europe, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iran. There are shahid
groups in Hamas, consisting of young suicide terrorists between the ages
of 18-27, mostly from poor families. Israel believed the terrorists to
be a counterbalance to the Palestine Liberation Organization and Yasser
Arafat, which is why Israel has rendering financial support to the terrorist
group for a very long period. Today, Hamas subsists on its own and holds
the position of the key Islamic terrorist group in the world...
International d'avocat pour Saddam Hussein
by Le Monde (03.2004, voir plus haut procès internationaux "lire
plus" IADL-JALISA) 
Lawyers
seeks U.S. approval to visit Hussein
by A.P. (12.2003)
Lawyers Queue To Defend Saddam
by A.P./Toronto Star
IRAQ
by James Longley
A Warning From
History
by John W. Dower (2003)
Starting last fall, we began to hear that U.S. policymakers were looking
into Japan and Germany after World War II as examples or even models of
successful military occupations. In the case of Japan, the imagined analogy
with Iraq is probably irresistible. Although Japan was nominally occupied
by the victorious “Allied powers” from August 1945 until early
1952, the Americans ran the show and tolerated no disagreement. This was
Unilateralism with a capital “U”—much as we are seeing
in U.S. global policy in general today. And the occupation was a pronounced
success. A repressive society became democratic, and Japan—like
Germany—has posed no military threat for over half a century.
The problem is that few if any of the ingredients that made this success
possible are present—or would be present—in the case of Iraq.
The lessons we can draw from the occupation of Japan all become warnings
where Iraq is concerned....
Is Iraq the New Vietnam ?
by Brendan O'Neil (2003)
There are so many echoes of Vietnam in Iraq'…. 'Iraq is Vietnam
revisited'…. 'The parallels between Iraq and Vietnam'…. 'Mistakes
of Vietnam repeated in Iraq'…. 'Ghosts of Vietnam haunt a nation
in mourning'…. The headlines say it all. Anti-war activists, commentators,
American military veterans and even some Pentagon officials claim that
Iraq is becoming the new Vietnam, with US troops getting bogged down in
a bloody war and occupation of a hostile land...
Letter to President Bush
by The Alternative Information Center (O5.2004)
International
Response to the Bush Declaration on the Palestinian Right to Return
by The Alternative Information center (05.2004)
KOFI ANNAN'S
Pro-Israel Policy Discredits the U.N.
by Ali Abunimah (05.2004)
Peace negociations,
Sharon's Gaza Disengagement Plan, Documents & Analysis
(02.2004)
Centre for Research on Globalization
The
Desinformation of Richard Clarke by Scoot Loughrey (CRG, 26/03/04)
Former
terrorism aide charges Bush manufactured case for Iraq war by Patrick
Martin
(World Socialist Web Site and Fourth International, 23/03/04)
Site Institute
leaded by Steven Emerson and Rita Katz
(principale source de désinformation ou de manipulation néocon
de R.Clarke, ancien chef du contre-terrorisme de G.W.Bush)
The Destabilization of Haiti
This article was written in the last days of February 2004 in response
to the barrage of disinformation in the mainstream media. It was completed
on February 29th, the day of President Jean Bertrand Aristide's kidnapping
and deportation by US Forces.
US Sponsored Coup d'Etat 29/2/04
The Role of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED)
In Haiti, this "civil society opposition" is bankrolled by the
National Endowment for Democracy which works hand in glove with the CIA.
The Democratic Platform is supported by the International Republican Institute
(IRI) , which is an arm of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).
Senator John McCain is Chairman of IRI's Board of Directors. (See Laura
Flynn, Pierre Labossière and Robert Roth, Hidden from the Headlines:
The U.S. War Against Haiti, California-based Haiti Action Committee (HAC),
http://www.haitiprogres.com/eng11-12.html ).
G-184 leader Andy Apaid was in liaison with Secretary of State Colin Powell
in the days prior to the kidnapping and deportation of President Aristide
by US forces on February 29. His umbrella organization of elite business
organizations and religious NGOs, which is also supported by the International
Republican Institute (IRI), receives sizeable amounts of money from the
European Union.
(http://haitisupport.gn.apc.org/184%20EC.htm ).
It is worth recalling that the NED, (which overseas the IRI) although
not formally part of the CIA, performs an important intelligence function
within the arena of civilian political parties and NGOs. It was created
in 1983, when the CIA was being accused of covertly bribing politicians
and setting up phony civil society front organizations. According to Allen
Weinstein, who was responsible for setting up the NED during the Reagan
Administration: "A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years
ago by the CIA." ('Washington Post', Sept. 21, 1991).
Bush or Kerry ? Look Closely and the Danger is the Same
by John Pilger (6/3/04)
John Kerry supported the removal of millions of poor Americans from welfare
rolls and backed extending the death penalty. The "hero" of
a war that is documented as an atrocity launched his presidential campaign
in front of a moored aircraft carrier. He has attacked Bush for not providing
sufficient funding to the National Endowment for Democracy, which, wrote
the historian William Blum, "was set up by the CIA, literally, and
for 20 years has been destabilizing governments, progressive movements,
labour unions and anyone else on Washington's hit list". Like Bush
- and all those who prepared the way for Bush, from Woodrow Wilson to
Bill Clinton - Kerry promotes the mystical "values of American power"
and what the writer Ariel Dorfman has called "the plague of victimhood...
Nothing more dangerous: a giant who is afraid."
Brin d'espoir pour les dalits en Inde, porté par le FSM
(Pierre Beaudet, Olik Valera -Alternatives)
L'Inde
en voie de devenir le gendarme de l'Orient ?
(Eric Martin - Alternatives)
Un pour tous, et tous contre un. L’Inde, les États-Unis et
Israël seraient en voie de former une nouvelle « triade »
pour mater « l’ennemi » commun qu’est
le « terrorisme musulman ». D’après
les experts rassemblés lors d’une conférence organisée
par Alternatives, dans le cadre du Forum social mondial de Mumbai, l’Inde
est appelée à devenir le nouveau « gendarme »
de l’Asie et pourrait bien être la clé de la stratégie
américaine sur ce continent dans les prochaines années.
« On assiste à quelque chose de nouveau, explique le
directeur d’Alternatives et enseignant en géopolitique à
l’Université du Québec à Montréal, Pierre
Beaudet. Une réorientation stratégique et géopolitique
de la politique américaine dans le monde. En Asie, en particulier,
par rapport à l’Inde ». Un rapprochement s’opèrerait
actuellement entre les États-Unis, lsraël et l’Inde,
qui déclasserait le Pakistan comme allié principal en Asie
centrale.
D’après le politologue américain Jason Erb, les trois
États trouvent une communauté d’intérêt
dans leur animosité envers le monde musulman : « Depuis
le 11 septembre, l’islam est le nouvel épouvantail idéologique
des Américains, explique M. Erb. Nous assistons à une
montée simultanée de la droite en Israël [Le Likoud,
les colons], en Inde [hindutva] et aux États-Unis [les fondamentalistes
chrétiens]. Tous partagent une haine de l’islam ».
« On les retrouve du même côté dans le combat
contre l’Islam, le Moyen-Orient et le terrorisme », constate
aussi Pierre Beaudet...
