Rising Power Qatar Stirs Unease Among Some Mideast Neighbors

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By Peter Apps and Regan Doherty

DUBAI/DOHA (Reuters) – In the center of Cairo, young men hold up a burning flag for the cameras to show their fury at a nation they believe is meddling in their country and the wider Middle East.

It’s a familiar image. But it’s not the U.S. flag they are waving, it is that of Qatar, the Gulf state that has used its billions to spread its influence in the wake of the Arab Spring.

For most Western governments and officials, the influence of Qatar emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani’s government is seen as broadly positive.

Qatar’s neighbors are uneasy, however.

In Egypt, Libya and Syria, where Qatar tried to play a role post-Arab Spring, it finds itself blamed for much that has gone wrong on a local level. Close ties to Egypt’s new leaders, the Muslim Brotherhood, have alarmed countries like the United Arab Emirates, where the Islamist group is still banned and which in January said it had foiled a Brotherhood-linked coup plot.

Senior officials in the UAE have long believed Qatar has long-term strategy to use the Brotherhood to redraw the region.

“There is both greater apprehension and appreciation for Qatar two years after the Arab awakening in the region,” said Taufiq Rahim, Executive Director of Dubai-based geopolitics consultancy Globesight.

“While prior to the revolutions, Qatar was seen more as a mediator, its foreign policy recently has been much more proactive and in some cases partisan.”

Some Western analysts and diplomats believe Qatar’s leaders have been effectively improvising their way through the new landscape, experimenting to see what they can achieve with the massive wealth generated by its natural gas reserves over the past 15 years. An estimated $17 trillion in monetisable natural gas riches still remain in the ground.

Others, however, see a much more deliberate strategy.

“What we are seeing here is a high-stakes poker game for the future of the Middle East,” said one Gulf-based Western diplomat on condition of anonymity.

Even supporters are concerned the country may be overstepping its boundaries and getting a reputation for playing favorites.

“There is widespread appreciation of the positive role that Qatar has played in the region,” said Ari Ratner, a former advisor on the Middle East at the State Department and now fellow at the Washington-based Truman National Security Project.

“At the same time there is a broad consensus that the Qataris themselves would be better served by fully delivering on their pledges of aid and working through established governments rather than their preferred factions.”

MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD?

The emirate has long been a country of sometimes baffling contradictions. While in many ways one of the most conservative of the Gulf states, it has also proved the most enthusiastic about the changes wrought by the Arab Spring.

Of the 1.9 million people who live there, only some 250,000 are ethnic Qataris, most of whom practice Wahhabism, the austere form of Islam also practiced in Saudi Arabia.

Sheikh Hamad and his glamorous second wife Sheikha Mozah have gained a reputation as modernizers in recent years, however, raising the country’s profile significantly with the launch of the Al Jazeera television network and successful hosting of the 2006 Asian Games, as well as initiating the country’s World Cup bid.

The emirate has always made a point of keeping as many diplomatic doors open as possible and has relished its role at the center of regional diplomacy. Of all the members of the regional Gulf Cooperation Council, it has long been the closest to Iran even as it courted Washington and hosted U.S. forces. It has been trying to inject new life into peace efforts between Sudan and rebel groups in Darfur with offers of development aid.

Its links to the Muslim Brotherhood may be similarly pragmatic and flexible. But some believe Qatar has made a risky bet to put the movement at the heart of its regional strategy.

The emirate has clearly emerged as something of a focal point for the group, originally founded in Egypt in 1928 and now with national chapters across much of the Islamic world.

Several key current or former members – including televangelist Yousef Al-Qaradwi, a former senior Brother widely watched across the region – reside in the country having fled other states. Western officials who have worked with the Qataris in Libya and Syria say they have invariably favored groups with Brotherhood connections.

Sandhurst-trained Sheikh Hamad is seen broadly sympathetic to the movement, diplomats say, while heir apparent Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani is widely believed to be closer still.

As early as 2009, senior officials from the UAE were briefing their U.S. counterparts that they believed Doha’s rulers were using the group to destabilize their neighbors. According to a diplomatic cable released by Wikileaks, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahayan told U.S. officials Qatar was simply “part of the Brotherhood”.

ARMS, AL JAZEERA

Senior Brotherhood officials deny any regional conspiracy; national chapters in different countries say they share ideology but have no direct links.

In their very occasional public statements, Qatari officials deny any special relationship with the group. Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr al-Thani also rejected suggestions of a wider regional agenda from Qatar.

“We have a clear policy which is not to interfere in the internal affairs of any state,” he told Kuwait’s al-Rai newspaper in a September 2012 interview.

Few take that statement at face value, however.

Qatar’s funding and direct support – including weaponry and the deployment of special forces – were key to building the capacity of opposition fighters first in Libya.

As President Mohammed Mursi’s government in Egypt has struggled with mounting economic woes, Qatar has stepped up as an increasingly vital financial backer. In Syria, it has been a leading supplier of rebel arms.

But already, Qatar is feeling the heat for its actions. In Libya, Qatar is being blamed for an increasingly destabilizing rise in Islamist intolerance and violence. In Egypt, it finds itself caught up in the popular dissatisfaction with Mursi and accusations of economic imperialism: a multibillion dollar Suez Canal investment deal was described by protesters as a foreign attempt to seize control of vital national assets.

In Syria, critics say its shipments of arms to rebels has become a chaotic free-for-all. Current and former Western officials say Qatari officials and rich Arabs from Saudi Arabia and elsewhere have been cutting ad hoc deals on the Turkish-Syrian border with a disparate collection of opposition groups.

Even Al Jazeera – which played a crucial role in spreading the word of the 2011 unrest – is facing complaints of mounting and usually pro-Brotherhood bias. While the English-language service is seen as more neutral, the station’s Arabic service is widely viewed as openly espousing a pro-Muslim Brotherhood agenda.

FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE?

Diplomats say Qatari officials have been surprised at the pushback.

One problem, those who watch Qatar closely say, is that with only a handful of senior royals and officials controlling policy it is all but impossible for the outside world to know what their strategy is.

Officials rarely answer media requests for information and there is no foreign ministry or government spokesman. For the handful of foreign media based in Doha, the only way of getting official comment is to accost officials at public events, and even then they are often tight-lipped.

No Qatari official was available to comment on this story.

“They are simply not explaining what they are doing properly,” said one Doha-based analyst on condition of anonymity. “Conspiracy theories are rife.”

Western governments and corporations with an eye on Qatar’s vast gas wealth and investment portfolio have so far tended not to concern themselves too much with its politics. A higher profile is bringing with it greater scrutiny, however.

The arrest and sentencing of a local poet to life imprisonment late last year for writings critical of the government spurred widespread international condemnation and accusations of double standards.

Indeed, Qatar’s problems with its neighbors may be only just beginning.

“People asking questions are met with walls of silence,” said the Doha-based analyst. “That doesn’t wash very well with an Egyptian who has just been shot in the leg in Tahrir Square.”

(Additional reporting by Sami Aboudi; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

15-9

Egypt In Political Clinch As Economic Cliff Looms

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By Paul Taylor

EGYPT-MUBARAK/TRIAL

Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak sits inside a cage in a courtroom in Cairo June 2, 2012. An Egyptian judge convicted Mubarak of complicity in the killings of protesters during the uprising that ended his 30-year rule and sentenced him on Saturday to life in prison.  

REUTERS/Stringer

CAIRO (Reuters) – Two years after a pro-democracy uprising, Egypt resembles a rickety bus rolling towards a cliff, its passengers too busy feuding over blame to wrench the steering wheel to safety.

Foreign exchange reserves are dwindling. Tourism is moribund. Investment is at a standstill. Subsidised diesel fuel and fertilizer are in short supply, while the cost of subsidies is swelling the budget deficit unsustainably.

The Egyptian pound has lost 14 percent of its value since the 2011 revolt. Dollars are scarce. An IMF loan that could unlock wider aid is on hold. Unemployment is rising. Public security has deteriorated, and arms smuggling is rife.

With little regard for the looming economic cliff, politicians in the most populous Arab nation are trading blows over an Islamist-tilted constitution, political violence and an alleged power grab by the Muslim Brotherhood.

To President Mohamed Mursi and his supporters in the Freedom and Justice Party, the Brotherhood’s political arm, this is just a tough home stretch in Egypt’s delayed transition to democracy.

With the strongest national machine, they confidently expect to win parliamentary elections in April or May, completing their conquest of the new democratic institutions, then set about reforming the country along conservative Islamic lines.

“We are going through a bottleneck,” said Essam Haddad, the president’s national security adviser. “We’d like to get through this bottleneck as quickly as possible, and without cracking the bottle.”

Cash injections from Qatar, the Brotherhood’s main foreign backer, are holding the country’s head just above water, and Haddad says a big informal economy will keep Egypt going.

IMF LOAN UNSURE

Others are less sure. U.S. ambassador Anne Patterson warned this month that the dearth of foreign currency could cause food and fuel shortages and put social stability at risk in a country where two-fifths of the population lives on less than $2 a day.

Contacts with the International Monetary Fund continue by telephone and email, but there is no sign of an IMF mission returning to Egypt to conclude a $4.8 billion loan agreement vital to stabilize the economy.

The IMF demanded in December that Egypt amend its economic adjustment program to qualify for the loan. Diplomats say an IMF deal could unlock up to $12 billion in funding from a range of sources including the World Bank, the European Union, the United States and Gulf Arab countries.

Haddad made clear the government would not risk implementing before polling day the unpopular subsidy cuts and austerity measures required by the global lender.

“It is very well known by the IMF that nobody would do such an action just before the elections,” he said. “However, our message is very clear. These reforms are essential for the economic recovery. There is no other choice.”

Some liberal opposition leaders, who have failed to pressure Mursi into amending disputed articles in the constitution or replacing a weak cabinet led by pale Prime Minister Hisham Kandil with a national unity government, are now offering a pact on a platform of economic priorities.

Hassan Malek, the Muslim Brotherhood’s top business leader, played down that idea, saying opposition politicians Mohamed ElBaradei, a former U.N. nuclear agency chief, and Amr Moussa, a former head of the Arab League, were only speaking for themselves and could not deliver their National Salvation Front.

The leftist Popular Current party of Nasserite firebrand Hamdeed Sabahi, a key member of the NSF, and hard-line Islamist Salafi parties have distanced themselves from the IMF program.

Malek said in an interview the economy was going through a sticky patch because the transition to democracy launched by the 2011 revolt that toppled former President Hosni Mubarak was not yet complete and institutions were not working fully.

“The Egyptian economy is not going to collapse,” he said.

Malek is trying to lure home Egyptian billionaires and Mubarak-era economic reformers, some of whom had their assets seized or were convicted in absentia after the uprising.

The opposition intelligentsia in Cairo and young street activists who spearheaded the anti-Mubarak uprising and feel their revolution has been confiscated, denounce what they call a growing “Brotherhoodisation” – a drive to infiltrate and control all institutions.

In one example, veteran al-Ahram journalist Hani Shukrallah, a respected commentator, blamed Brotherhood pressure on the government-owned media group for his enforced retirement. The paper’s new management denied political motives.

Yet there is little sign of any monopolization of state power or civil society so far. It looks more like the kind of rotation of elites that occurred in Turkey when the mildly Islamist AK party won election a decade ago.

The armed forces and to some extent the Interior Ministry and security services remain autonomous power centers that appear to have reached a modus vivendi with Mursi based on mutual non-interference rather than being under his thumb.

A vibrant independent media forced the president’s son this week to forgo a job with a state-affiliated company by raising accusations of nepotism. Shrill late-night television talk-shows offer a wide range of trenchant opinion.

The judiciary is still full of Mubarak-era holdovers who show little inclination to do the Brotherhood’s bidding. Neither the government nor opposition parties control the young street.

And a clumsy effort to gain more sway over the religious authorities failed last week when senior Muslim scholars picked an apolitical Islamic lawyer as Egypt’s top cleric in preference to the Brotherhood’s preferred candidate.

Haddad said any talk of Brotherhoodisation was “black propaganda trying to exclude a whole sector of society”. He noted that Brotherhood members had been excluded from many state institutions and the armed forces under Mubarak.

Ziad Bahaa el-Din, a former investment authority chief who is now vice-president of the opposition Social Democratic party, says the Brotherhood, like past Egyptian rulers, is trying to secure its grip on power before tackling the country’s problems.

“This has happened ever since (Ottoman pasha) Muhammad Ali slaughtered the Mamluks in the early 19th century,” he said in an interview. “(Gamal Abdel) Nasser locked up the Muslim Brothers and the Communists in 1954. (Anwar) Sadat locked up his opponents in 1971.

“The difference now is that people’s acceptance is no longer there. You cannot control public opinion, and the kind of economic problems we are facing cannot be postponed for a couple of years,” he added.

Dan Kurzer, a former U.S. ambassador to Cairo now teaching at Princeton University, said Egypt was only in “round three of a 15-round heavyweight contest”.

Among the players in the ring, he sees the Brotherhood, the military, the internal security forces, the revolutionary street, and what he called “the fourth heavyweight – old regime loyalists who may be off balance, in jail or in exile but who will be energized if the economy collapses”.

15-9

Plan to Allow Knowledge transfer Private to Public

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By Ilyas Choudry, TMO

images (1)

Legislation filed to allow agencies to hire private sector entrepreneur-in-residence

The term “public-private partnerships” between state agencies and the private sector could soon become more than just financial arrangements that construct roads and buildings.

Legislation has been filed during the current session of the Texas Legislature that would add a new mechanism to existing law that will partner the public and private sectors. The bill would allow Texas state agencies to participate in an entrepreneur-in-residency program. While the Texas Entrepreneurship Network already exists, it is designed to encourage entrepreneurs in the private sector. The new legislation, filed in the Senate by Sen. John Carona and in the House by Rep. Larry Gonzales, provides a mechanism for the transfer of private sector knowledge to the public sector.

Generally speaking, new technology, innovation and efficiency methods find their way to the private sector much faster than they do to the public sector. But the state does maintain a good working relationship with the private sector, through procurement and contracting relationships and public-private partnerships. And, sharing the knowledge of the private sector after it has studied and tested new technology, new programs and new ideas and developed best practices that can often save time and money could be a boon for the public sector.

This legislation is seen as a way of allowing – and encouraging – the transfer of information, whether proven best practices or state-of-the-art knowledge, from the private to the public sector. It would allow state agencies to use open full-time employee positions to employ an entrepreneur-in-residence (EIR). The goal would be to strengthen coordination and interaction between state government and the private sector, facilitate the use of new technology to make state government more transparent and interactive and implement best practices used in the private sector to ensure simple, easily accessible and more efficient programs that are used by Texans.

While an entrepreneur-in-residence program already exists in the private sector, this legislation would create a similar program in which any state agency, commission, department, office or other agency in the executive branch, including institutions of higher education, could participate. The bill calls for only 10 entrepreneurs-in-residence in state agencies per fiscal year, with those appointed serving no more than two years. Candidates must have demonstrated success in their fields, success in working with small business concerns and entrepreneurs and must have successfully developed, invented or created a product and brought that product to the marketplace.

15-9

Community News (V15-I9)

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Umair Khan wins advertising award

BIRMINGHAM,AL–University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Umar Khan won  a silver medal in the Student Packaging category at the Birmingham Addy Awards. The awards honor the best in advertising.
Khan had many honors under his belt. He also designed the new State of Alabama auto tag for the Cahaba River Society. The tag was created as part of a class project to create a new tag for the Society. Many great designs were created but this is the final design that was chosen for production. The tag features the Cahaba Lily and an Otter holding the Alabama State heart in the left corner.

St.Louis mosque adds prayer space, funeral home

ST.LOUIS,MO–The Islamic Foundation of Greater St.Louis held a ground breaking ceremony last week to begin construction of the first Muslim-operated funeral home in Missouri.The funeral home and additional prayer space from woman will be built at Dar Al Islam masjid in West County. The funeral home was a long-standing need of the area’s thriving Muslim community.

Abdul Munshi, chairman of the construction committee for Islamic Foundation of Greater St. Louis, told the Stltoday.com, news portal that the current 23,000-square-foot masjid on five acres was opened in 1995, with a 40,000-square-foot school building added in 2005. Its prayer area for women was getting crowded, especially during Ramadan, and therefore had to be expanded.

The new 700-square-foot funeral facility is expected to start construction in a few weeks and  cost is expected to be $160,000, he said.

Bengali Muslims history in America documented in new book

In the final years of the nineteenth century, small groups of Muslim peddlers arrived at Ellis Island every summer, bags heavy with embroidered silks from their home villages in Bengal. The American demand for “Oriental goods” took these migrants on a curious path, from New Jersey’s beach boardwalks into the heart of the segregated South. Two decades later, hundreds of Indian Muslim seamen began jumping ship in New York and Baltimore, escaping the engine rooms of British steamers to find less brutal work onshore. As factory owners sought their labor and anti-Asian immigration laws closed in around them, these men built clandestine networks that stretched from the northeastern waterfront across the industrial Midwest.

The stories of these early working-class migrants vividly contrast with our typical understanding of immigration are documented in Bengali Harlem and the Lost Histories of South Asian America. Vivek Bald’s meticulous reconstruction reveals a lost history of South Asian sojourning and life-making in the United States. At a time when Asian immigrants were vilified and criminalized, Bengali Muslims quietly became part of some of America’s most iconic neighborhoods of color, from Tremé in New Orleans to Detroit’s Black Bottom, from West Baltimore to Harlem. Many started families with Creole, Puerto Rican, and African American women.

As steel and auto workers in the Midwest, as traders in the South, and as halal hot dog vendors on 125th Street, these immigrants created lives as remarkable as they are unknown. Their stories of ingenuity and intermixture challenge assumptions about assimilation and reveal cross-racial affinities beneath the surface of early twentieth-century America.

15-9

Dhaka Alters Law to Reflect Public Fury at 1971 Atrocity

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BANGLADESH-VERDICT/

A man holding a Bangladesh national flag chants slogans during a mass demonstration demanding the execution of all war criminals. Millions of people across the country expressed their solidarity with the Shahbagh movement by a candlelight vigil from wherever they were at 7pm local time Thursday to press for execution of all war criminals.

REUTERS/Andrew Biraj

Dhaka, Feb. 17 (Agencies): The Bangladesh parliament recently amended a law that effectively allows the state to seek the death penalty for a 1971 war crimes convict and defuse a popular uprising ignited by lenient punishment and the murder of a blogger.

Some analysts felt that the amendment could also be used for outlawing the Jamaat-e-Islami, Bangladesh’s largest Islamic party.

Reminiscent of the Delhi protests against the gang rape, tens of thousands of demonstrators have been jamming the central Shahbag Square in Dhaka for the past 13 days.

They were seeking the death sentence after a tribunal sentenced prominent Islamist Abdul Quader Mollah to life in prison in connection with the 1971 war of independence from Pakistan.

The life sentence had stunned many Bangladeshis who were expecting the death penalty as Mollah, assistant secretary-general of the Jamaat-e-Islami, was convicted for murder, rape and torture.

Jamaat, a key ally of the main Opposition party led by Khaleda Zia, had campaigned against Bangladesh’s war of separation from Pakistan, but it denies committing atrocities.

Amid the popular upsurge, an anti-Islamist blogger was killed on Friday.

The protesters burst into cheers amid driving rain as parliament today approved the amendments to a 1973 law.

The amendments do not mention the specific case but empowers the state to appeal any verdict in war crimes trials it deems inadequate and out of step with public opinion.

Before the amendments were incorporated, only a defendant could appeal against a sentence. State prosecutors were not empowered to call for a retrial except in the case of acquittals.

The amendment will “empower the tribunals to try and punish any organisation, including the Jamaat, for committing crimes during country’s liberation war in 1971”, law minister Shafique Ahmed said.

In a coincidence, Indian foreign minister Salman Khurshid was in Dhaka today. Khurshid expressed the hope that the Teesta river water issue could be resolved by September when Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is scheduled to visit India. Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee is opposed to the treaty in its current form.

Lawyers said the Dhaka amendment sets a timetable for the government to appeal against Mollah’s sentence and secure a retrial.

The Opposition benches were empty as the Bangladesh Nationalist Party of former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia and its allies have been boycotting sessions almost since her arch rival, Sheikh Hasina, leader of the Awami League, took office in 2009.

In its first verdict last month, the tribunal sentenced a former Jamaat leader, Abul Kamal Azad, to death in absentia for murder and torture.

Eight other Jamaat leaders, including its current and former chiefs, are being tried for war crimes during the 1971 conflict. Three million people were killed and thousands of women raped.

The government is facing growing pressure from the protesters to ban Jamaat and groups linked to it. Law minister Ahmed said the government was considering such a ban.

Jamaat activists have called a countrywide strike on Monday but many shopkeepers have pledged to resist any attempt to enforce a shutdown.

New York-based Human Rights Watch has criticised the amendments, saying passing retroactive laws to overturn unpopular verdicts violates the country’s commitment to protect the rights of defendants.

15-9

Dhaka Alters Law to Reflect Public Fury at 1971 Atrocity

by
BANGLADESH-VERDICT/

A man holding a Bangladesh national flag chants slogans during a mass demonstration demanding the execution of all war criminals. Millions of people across the country expressed their solidarity with the Shahbagh movement by a candlelight vigil from wherever they were at 7pm local time Thursday to press for execution of all war criminals.

REUTERS/Andrew Biraj

Dhaka, Feb. 17 (Agencies): The Bangladesh parliament recently amended a law that effectively allows the state to seek the death penalty for a 1971 war crimes convict and defuse a popular uprising ignited by lenient punishment and the murder of a blogger.

Some analysts felt that the amendment could also be used for outlawing the Jamaat-e-Islami, Bangladesh’s largest Islamic party.

Reminiscent of the Delhi protests against the gang rape, tens of thousands of demonstrators have been jamming the central Shahbag Square in Dhaka for the past 13 days.

They were seeking the death sentence after a tribunal sentenced prominent Islamist Abdul Quader Mollah to life in prison in connection with the 1971 war of independence from Pakistan.

The life sentence had stunned many Bangladeshis who were expecting the death penalty as Mollah, assistant secretary-general of the Jamaat-e-Islami, was convicted for murder, rape and torture.

Jamaat, a key ally of the main Opposition party led by Khaleda Zia, had campaigned against Bangladesh’s war of separation from Pakistan, but it denies committing atrocities.

Amid the popular upsurge, an anti-Islamist blogger was killed on Friday.

The protesters burst into cheers amid driving rain as parliament today approved the amendments to a 1973 law.

The amendments do not mention the specific case but empowers the state to appeal any verdict in war crimes trials it deems inadequate and out of step with public opinion.

Before the amendments were incorporated, only a defendant could appeal against a sentence. State prosecutors were not empowered to call for a retrial except in the case of acquittals.

The amendment will “empower the tribunals to try and punish any organisation, including the Jamaat, for committing crimes during country’s liberation war in 1971”, law minister Shafique Ahmed said.

In a coincidence, Indian foreign minister Salman Khurshid was in Dhaka today. Khurshid expressed the hope that the Teesta river water issue could be resolved by September when Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is scheduled to visit India. Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee is opposed to the treaty in its current form.

Lawyers said the Dhaka amendment sets a timetable for the government to appeal against Mollah’s sentence and secure a retrial.

The Opposition benches were empty as the Bangladesh Nationalist Party of former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia and its allies have been boycotting sessions almost since her arch rival, Sheikh Hasina, leader of the Awami League, took office in 2009.

In its first verdict last month, the tribunal sentenced a former Jamaat leader, Abul Kamal Azad, to death in absentia for murder and torture.

Eight other Jamaat leaders, including its current and former chiefs, are being tried for war crimes during the 1971 conflict. Three million people were killed and thousands of women raped.

The government is facing growing pressure from the protesters to ban Jamaat and groups linked to it. Law minister Ahmed said the government was considering such a ban.

Jamaat activists have called a countrywide strike on Monday but many shopkeepers have pledged to resist any attempt to enforce a shutdown.

New York-based Human Rights Watch has criticised the amendments, saying passing retroactive laws to overturn unpopular verdicts violates the country’s commitment to protect the rights of defendants.

15-9

Difference Between Success and Failure

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By Imam Abdullah El-Amin , TMO

El-Amin portrait 90dpiHave you set out on a difficult course lately? Are there things that you want to do, haven’t done, and are afraid to attempt because of fear of failure? Don’t feel alone. There are a great number of people with the same self-doubt lurking in their brains. Maybe you want to go back to school and study. Maybe you want to change careers or go into your own business. Maybe you just want to get that exercise program started. These things will be all but impossible if you posses a negative mind from the start. That negative mind will have you moving in slow motion.

There was a lady that bought a new car and didn’t know how to drive. The salesman got her started on a few things and then sold her the car. (A car salesman is not going to turn down a sale.) Anyway, the lady came back and complained that the car would not operate well. Finds out she was driving in low gear. When she changed gears, the car worked well.

There are many people in this world still driving in low gear. They are struggling, just crawling along through life, getting more and more bitter, more and more frustrated, and more and more discouraged because life is so hard for them. But there is a remedy for this. I don’t doubt that life is difficult. Everyone has obstacles, but what we should concentrate on is the great powers we have within us to overcome the perceived weaknesses.

We must change gears in our thinking. We must change gears in our faith. We must ask ALLAH to allow us to partner with Him so that we are aware that we are constantly in His sight (Ihsan). Somewhere in our mind we are aware of what we can really do. I believe we have an innate knowledge of the real power within us. But it has never been let loose. So we go along in low gear, never realizing our potential. If we let Almighty ALLAH release these powers from Him, no situation of any kind, can be to great for us because there is a balance in the creation. ALLAH never allows a situation to exist for which there is no corresponding solution

1. By the time. 2. Surely mankind is in loss. 3. Except those who have faith, and do good deeds, and join with one another in truth, and have patience and constancy.” 103:1-3
This last word of the above sura, sabr (patience and constancy) sums up the necessary ingredients for success. You must not quit just because you run into a little difficulty – because you WILL run into some problems. The difference between success and failure is one more try.

This is a very profound statement. You can fail 100 times and the 101st time you may succeed. But if you quit after failure it is guaranteed that you will not be a success. In American baseball, Babe Ruth was known as the home run king. He hit more homeruns than anybody and the record stood for many decades. But he also made more strikeouts than anybody. If he had quit, or become disillusioned from those strikeouts, he would never have been successful with the homeruns. That is Sabr on a high level. You can do the same thing with your projects.

So let us have faith that ALLAH has put greatness in us. Let us go into high gear in our opinion of ourselves. Let us remember that with difficulty, there is relief. And always remember, the difference between success and failure is ONE MORE TRY.

As Salaam alaikum
(Al Hajj) Imam Abdullah El-Amin

15-9

The Republican Obsession

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By Patrick J. Buchanan

2013-02-15T010335Z_4_CBRE91C1NP100_RTROPTP_4_NEWS-US-OBAMA-NOMINATIONS-HAGEL

Former U.S. Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) testifies during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on his nomination to be Defense Secretary, on Capitol Hill in Washington, January 31, 2013. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

If last week’s hearing for Chuck Hagel raised questions about his capacity to be secretary of defense, the show trial conducted by his inquisitors on the tribunal raised questions about the GOP.

Is the Republican Party, as currently constituted, even capable of conducting a foreign policy befitting a world power? Or has it learned nothing and forgotten nothing since George W. Bush went home and the nation rejected John McCain for Barack Obama?

Consider the great foreign issues on the front burner today.

Will the Japan-China clash over islets in the South China Sea, now involving warplanes and warships circling each other, lead to a shooting war that could, because of our security treaty with Japan, drag in the United States?

Is China an economic rival and trade partner? Or is Beijing seeking strategic and military hegemony in East Asia and the Western Pacific? Is engagement or containment of this emerging superpower the way to go?

Is Vladimir Putin’s Russia friend or foe? Has the “reset” failed?

How many troops should we leave in Afghanistan to prevent its receding into the Taliban darkness, as it did when the Red Army departed in 1989?
Is Iraq, where we lost 4,600 soldiers and 35,000 wounded in a misbegotten war to strip that country of WMD it did not have, about to disintegrate into civil, sectarian and ethnic war? After Bashar Assad falls, will Syria fall to Islamists — or fall apart?

Is Egypt’s military chief correct when he said that the violent eruptions after President Mohammed Morsi’s attempted seizure of dictatorial power could imperil the state itself?
Should the presence of al-Qaida in Mali cause the United States to deepen its military involvement in sub-Saharan Africa? Or does the rancid fruit of NATO’s intervention in Libya to save Benghazi, now an Islamist no man’s land for Westerners, argue for staying out?

Before going ahead with a sequester of Pentagon funds, ought we not first review and reduce the treaty commitments our military is required to honor, many dating back over half a century? All these issues were there to be discussed with Hagel.

Yet, according to Jim Lobe of Inter Press Service, who reviewed the transcript of Hagel’s eight hours of testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, there were more mentions of Israel, 178, than of Iraq, Afghanistan, Russia, Palestine and Palestinians, North Korea, Syria, Pakistan, Egypt, China, NATO, Libya, Bahrain, Somalia, al-Qaida, Mali, Jordan, Turkey, Japan and South Korea combined.

In the runup to the Hagel hearings, North Korea tested an intercontinental rocket and indicated a third nuclear bomb test may be imminent. Dictator Kim Jong Un said the “target” of these tests is that “sworn enemy of the Korean people,” the U.S.A.

Yet North Korea was mentioned only 11 times in Hagel’s day-long testimony, while Iran was mentioned 170 times.

But Iran has no missile that can reach the United States, has never tested a nuclear device or bomb, has no nuclear weapons program, according to the unanimous verdict of our 16 intelligence agencies, has never enriched uranium to weapons grade, and has all of its nuclear facilities under constant U.N. surveillance and inspection.

Far from threatening America with nuclear fire like North Korea’s 20-something dictator, the Ayatollah Khamenei has declared a fatwa against Iran’s ever possessing atomic weapons.

Whom has Iran attacked in the 33 years since the old ayatollah came back from Paris, while Uncle Sam has attacked or invaded Grenada, Panama, Haiti, Libya twice, Iraq twice, Afghanistan and Serbia?

Query: What is behind this Republican preoccupation, bordering on obsession, with Israel and its nemesis Iran, to the near exclusion of other threats and dangers faced by our country all over a world that is a good bit larger than one small corner of the Middle East? Has Sheldon Adelson replaced Henry Kissinger as the eminence grise of the GOP?

Sen. Lindsey Graham implied it was an outrage to suggest any senator may have been intimidated by an Israeli lobby that has on its wall the scalps of two chairmen of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: J.W. Fulbright and Charles Percy.

Who is Lindsey kidding?

Did Bibi Netanyahu, after dissing the U.S. president in the Oval Office, receive those 29 standing ovations at a joint session of Congress, thereby breaking Stalin’s all-time record before the Supreme Soviet, because Bibi gave one helluva speech?

In this city, the Israeli lobby is regarded as right up there with the National Rifle Association as a crowd that rewards its friends and punishes its enemies, with this exception: Far more congressmen and senators are willing to stand up to the NRA than to defy AIPAC.

Where there is no vision, the people perish. Where is the vision that Republicans had in the time of Reagan?

Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of “Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025?” To find out more about Patrick Buchanan and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

15-9

Placing Your Adult Child Joint on Your Home – Joint Ownership

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By Adil Daudi, Esq.

As children get older it sometimes becomes enticing for parents to have their now adult child joint on their home property. There are many reasons for parents to use this strategy because under the right situation, the home can automatically be transferred upon both parents’ death.

For some, this approach tends to be used to substitute for actual estate planning, as it does avoid probate. However, creating joint ownership should never be the solution to drafting an actual estate plan. Moreover, unfortunately, joint home ownership can also create some unexpected and unintended consequences that could easily be avoided if planned properly ahead of time.

Some of the unexpected consequences include:

1.    Loss of Control: After putting your child joint on the home, many parents fail to realize that the level of control they possessed before no longer remains. For example, parents can no longer sell or mortgage their property without their child’s approval.

2.    Taxes:

a.    Capital Gains: One of the advantages of having the home pass to your children upon your death is that the property transferred receives a stepped-up basis equal to its current market value. However, by placing the child’s name on the property during your life, you are forcing the child to lose that stepped-up basis and possibly paying capital gains on the entire value.

b.    Gift: Placing your child’s name on your home property could also be seen as a taxable gift for a portion of the home value. This can also trigger a gift tax liability or use a portion of your lifetime gift tax exemption.

3.    Creditors: If you add your child’s name to your home property, it automatically and immediately becomes exposed to outside creditors. However, this can be avoided if proper estate planning occurs.

Without a doubt, placing your child’s name as a joint holder of your home property is a much simpler way of avoiding probate. However, the actual consequences that come of it can be severe. Please seek professional advice on the best approach and strategy of transferring property to your children upon your death. In most cases, drafting a Revocable Living Trust or even a Will can achieve better results. Please consult with an Attorney prior to making any changes to the title of your home.

Adil Daudi is an Attorney at Joseph, Kroll & Yagalla, P.C., focusing primarily on Asset Protection for Physicians, Physician Contracts, Estate Planning, Shariah Estate Planning, Health Care Law, Business Litigation, and Corporate Formations. He can be contacted for any questions related to this article or other areas of law at adil@josephlaw.net or (517) 381-2663.

15-9

Time is the Medicine & Direction is the Medicine

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THE AMERICAN NOTEBOOK
By Asif Jamal

AJ-Pic_1There is much hue and cry about poor functioning of the present government, collapsing economy, escalated law and order situation, corruption to the limit, worst foreign policy, spiraled joblessness and continuous decline in education system etc. etc.  Observing the gravity of situation, all those not in the power raised a common slogan of change – the face, the system, the functioning, the policy, the strategy, a complete change in Pakistan.  At least, for the first time, all political parties, of course, minus the ruling party, were found on one platform, that is ‘change’.

There are only five ways to really bring about a change in the trouble-land and they are, democracy; revolution; coup d’état and natural catastrophe.

Democratic way change is obtained through free and fair elections where people elect their favorite representatives based upon their profile, service history, honesty, integrity and willingness to work selflessly and dedicatedly.  This is where people exercise their rights to vote as per their free will, without any pressure or obligation.  The second type is revolution, and that happens when people are fed-up with the present government for a variety of reasons such as the government’s incompetency, incapability, corruption, augmented joblessness, escalating lawlessness, price hike etc, in some situation religious sentiments are also a cause.  Thirdly, martial law – to save the country from anarchy and civil war, army takes over the control through force until the nation is ready for the next change.  Lastly, through the act of God, if in case, natural calamity hits the area or if the leadership strikes some unfortunate episodes due to ailment, accident or so but this is very unlikely and changes through this reasons are in fact, seldom.

However, such is not the case when we talk about democratic setup in Pakistan.  Seems like word democracy is now merely restricted to the books as it is gradually losing the sanctity and its efficacy.  The irony is when this ill-fated country is being govern by the uniform, the entire political setup and people rise against it and start talking about democracy but the moment, elected officials come to power, the entire country becomes a subject of nothing but a money making business.  Well, thanks to mass media that corruption is no longer a case that can be a secret but the irony is, still those involve cannot be brought to justice.  Might is right is still the case there in spite of formation of various accountability bureaus that appear more like the department merely functioning under influence.

History is the evident that anyone who had enjoyed the position of head of state, didn’t retire for the next able leadership.  In other words, the people didn’t witness an amicable transformation of power.  Rather, due to the highest level of corruption and failed foreign policy their government had been toppled down for a better leadership.

In a situation where respect and integrity are considered assets, being thrown out of the government is ruminated a disgrace, but unfortunately, not in the case of our politicians rather one becomes even more desperate to become the head of the state again and the quest and thirst of power doesn’t end rather becomes endless or I should say, perpetual. 

This analogy is not restricted to only the elected leaders but in fact, the military leaders as well who generally take over the control for 90 days that last for years and years.   It is like a swamp, once you put your foot in it, you cannot come out or if I should say, one doesn’t want to come out.  The absolute power, the salute, the authority, the control, the protocol and vvip culture is for sure too mesmerizing.  Back in the days only political leaders were considered power-mongers but now for the first time it is seen that even ex-military leader who have ruled for over for good nine long years, want to take the control back.  Well this time it could be a bit different, taking over reign without uniform is as complicated and difficult as it may sound. 

Pakistan is a kind of country where military has ruled over more than the elected democratic governments but to a certain degree, they had better control and less corruption under their rule versus the elected governments.

When there is a dictatorial government in place, all the political parties, be it small, medium or large, they all put their heads together to regain democracy in the country but after the democratic setup has been achieved, all other parties who remained unable to gain power forms an alliance to defame and bring the existing government down as opposed to working together as a team for the betterment of the country.  So in this case, doesn’t it seem that they are there for their own vested interest? 

So the questions for the topic are; what type of government is really the nation need?  If Pakistan has been unfortunate of finding virtuous leaders then does this mean that the nation is itself responsible for having its bad masters as rulers?  Lastly, what is the medicine that can bring about a change, a good change in Pakistan? 

As per the format, I have asked the above questions to the following two outstanding thought provoking individuals, let’s see what they have to say:

Mr Saleem Rizvi, an attorney at laws by profession from New York, and a legal analyst, says: “Nations are built on what its people has to offer. A nation is the reflection of the total character of its people. You can’t build a strong nation with a weak people. It’s a long journey which requires clear vision, undivided attention, lots of discipline and back breaking hard work to reach higher grounds.”

Mr Rizvi further ads:  “One of the objectives is to establish good governance and in order to have good governance, you need an educated civil society, organized civic and professional organizations, in addition to well-functioning public and private institutions.  If a nation lacks all this, you need a group of highly motivated visionaries who can lay the foundation and get the ball rolling. The more people the shorter the journey. Otherwise, it might take very long to see the light at the end of the tunnel.”

Mr. Kamal Zafar, a NY based community activist and an analyst, while commenting on the above questions, says:  “Well, regardless of how worst the situation is in the country, elected government is one and only solution.  The military rule is never a solution rather it brings other types of complications pertaining to the governance and prosperity.  The country and the nation need a fair and just democratic setup, which cares about the people and not about themselves.  I stress again that elected government is the solution to compete with powerful and developed countries. “

“The quick medicine is to introduce the caretaker government, consisting of all major political parties and in the interim, introduce such plans that can directly benefit the people and specially make institutions like NAB free from all influence so that they can play their role justly and bring about those who are responsible of stealing the national wealth.  But at the same time, I have a firm believe that no change will occur overnight, it’s a slow process, just like chemotherapy, which will cure the cancer eventually, but it will take time,” Mr Zafar ended.

In conclusion, literacy is one important factor that plays a crucial role in change, mainly because it creates awareness and I sort of agree with Kamal here that change will take time and it’s a slow process, indeed.  In this way, time is the medicine and direction is the medicine. 

– The scribe of this article is a New York based analyst working at ARY Digital Network as a senior executive.  To participate in this column or for comments and suggestions, please email at theamericannotebook@gmail.com

15-9

Rep. Keith Ellison Visits Somalia to Address Refugee Issues

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Somalia_meeting

Rep. Keith Ellison Meets with President Hassan Sheikh Mohamad.

MOGADISHU—Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) arrived in Mogadishu, Somalia today on a humanitarian trip to discuss the status of Somali refugees and U.S. remittances with President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and leaders of the new Somali government. Rep. Ellison is the first Member of Congress to visit Somalia since the United States recognized the Somali government earlier this year.

Ellison traveled to Somalia with the American Refugee Committee, an NGO based in his district, after receiving numerous requests from his constituents to visit Somalia.

“We are at a critical juncture for the people of Somalia and their families in Minnesota and throughout the United States,” Rep. Ellison said. “The election of Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and a renewed U.S. relationship may be our best opportunity in decades to ensure peace and stability for the Somali people, and combat terrorism in the region. This visit provided an unparalleled opportunity to learn firsthand about issues facing the country, and the role the United States plays in promoting a stable Somalia.”

Ellison also met with the country director of the American Refugee Committee, the Mayor of Mogadishu, the Somali Chamber of Commerce, and Somali-Americans from Minneapolis.

Rep. Ellison represents the 5th District of Minnesota, home to one of the largest Somali populations in the United States. More than 32,000 Somali-Americans live in Minnesota, according to 2011 Census figures.

15-9

As Obama Goes to Palestine

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By Geoffrey Cook, TMO

sealcookSunnyvale (Calif.)–(Silicon Valley)–I am basing this article on an interactive presentation that Anna Baltzer of the (U.S.) End the (Israeli) Occupation gave here close to a year ago, but only has become relevant with the news of the President Obama’s journey to Israel/Palestine in hopes of personally enforcing a peace through the principle of the Pax Americana.  In reality, the United States’ pro-Israel policy has been for domestic consumption, but in recent years Tel Aviv’ foreign policy has become an albatross around Washington’s neck obstructing the U.S.A.’s greater interests in the region.  Basically, the Obama Administration wishes to fulfill the U.S.’ moral support for Israel while solving the most dangerous epicenter for a larger strife. To that end a path to justice for the Palestinians must be achieved.  This article has been written with extensive updating and analysis (in parenthesis), because this interchange at this Sabel Conference in 2012 has become most relevant now.

Jewish-Americans are undergoing a sea change of perspective on the Middle East as a whole (closer to the Muslim-American perspective).  This is, also, true in Israel itself.  (What is preventing change is the Settler vote, though, in Israel itself and the misperception of the make-up of the Jewish-American vote here in the States by former Administrations due to the fear and misinformation spread by AIPAC [American Israel Public Affairs Committee]). 

Most Jews stuck with the Democratic Party in this last election, and for the first time the Islamic vote did matter in that it offset the portion of the electorate that voted based on a narrow sectarian or intolerant basis.  This shows a need for the deepening of Muslim-American presence in the American political process.

A dialogue should be established between American Muslims and liberal Jews for both parties’ hopes and aspirations have similarities and are not exclusive to each other.  Civil society [“grass roots”] will ultimately solve the antagonisms in the Middle East, and since the United States is a key protagonist in the region, what better place than in the States for the Palestinian and Jewish diasporas to sit down, and find workable solutions. ) U.S. Judaism is most plural in its attitude towards Zionism (which has become an embarrassment for many of them although, ultimately, they support the existence of Israel, (but under different principles.)  The first of which to Jewish civil society (versus the Zionist government there, who pander to the settler vote) is to find peace with their immediate neighbors.  Now, the form envisioned for that peace by liberal Judaism does differ from that envisioned by the Palestinian Arabs, but it is close enough to be a basis for negotiation if the Hebrew right-wing can be forced to step down.  This is something that Obama’s team should grasp thereon.

The Israelis have placed a system of segmentation in their Occupied Territories:  “A classic Apartheid systemization.”  (Your commentator has always thought the concept of Apartheid and Bantuization is an oversimplification of Zionist repression – the Levant’s repression is more insidious!)  Obnoxious checkpoints abound within Palestinian regions (preventing continuity to the rightful residents of their land and their livelihood). 

Teachers and students cannot proceed to their schools.  The presence of Jewish State on Arab space disturbs the whole of the latter’s social fabric, (and is eating away the moral fabric of the former Jewish people garnered from the European holocaust). Despite this, the Palestinians are amongst the best educated within the Middle East (through seeking foreign opportunities to education although this has led to a diaspora, and has drained the homeland of the best and brightest; thus, the demand for the right of return).

Many of the Settlers believe they have a right to their land (through their rigid reading of their basic texts).  They kill the Palestinians wantonly, free of punishment with guns that those same Palestinians are disallowed to possess!

The Palestinian nation only has twenty-two percent of their historical lands left to them; (so, it will be hard for Barack Hussein Obama to achieve a two-State solution).  Occupation is not defined by the Settlements, but it is the controlling factor to it.  The blockade has still insured that the mini-State of Gaza is under Occupation, too.

The various American media portray Israel in the same light. 

(There is a basic pro-Zionist capital controlling those outlets, and that has been documented.)  Foreign media covers the Israeli-Arab contention more even-handily, but, if there is a U.S. edition, it is edited out here. 

Succinctly, we have a media blackout on the struggle here in the “Metropole.”

Historically, “Jews were treated better in the in the Arab realm than in the West” until the creation of the Jewish State Israel.

The Walls currently being built do not separate the Palestinians from an “innate” Hebrew nationality, but as a means towards economic territorial acquisition; e.g. the Settlements have stolen near a hundred percent of the Palestinian aquifer by means of those very Walls.  Concisely, in no manner, does the Wall contribute to the security of the Israeli State.  What it does do is to keep the Palestinians from their rightful resources.  Contrarily, Israel’s expansionism is merely for its own security.  Yet, because of this policy, if the Israel Defense Force (IDF) leaves, the illegal settlers will be exposed to rightful retribution.  (In other words, by creating the Settlements in the first place, the Center is now committed them.)  Zionist secular and often racist ideology is at fault.

The U.N. (United Nations) had offered fifty percent of the acreage of the former Mandate of Palestine to the Arabs and Jews each, but Israel forced the majority of the Christians and Muslims off their traditional spheres in 1948 taking a much larger percentage permitted by that international organization.

Now, Tel Aviv is attempting to take over East Jerusalem for the purpose of moving their capital to that symbolically highly charged city.

The Jews in the Diaspora have a “right” under Israeli law and are often paid to immigrate into “Israel” — often displacing the Arab residents there.

Importantly, the West Bank is denied access to the sea.      

Baltzer encouraged divestment.  This involves the divestment of large institutional investors from Israeli companies or those foreign companies who do business with Israel.  American (Christian) Methodists and Presbyterian Churches have taken the moral high road by divesting their endowments from the taint of Israel.  This very act demonstrates that mainline American Christianity does support Muslims under repression, and each group should look upon the other as natural allies.

Whatever, Palestinians will resist Settler Colonialism.  That should be the first fact held in mind by the U.S. President as he deplanes in the only (Israeli) airport for Palestine.

15-9

“Consider Your Identity”–Ingrid Mattson, Leading Scholar

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Dr. Mark G. Toulouse and Dr. Ingrid Mattson

Canadian Muslims should join the discussion on what having a Canadian identity means, according to Dr. Ingrid Mattson, a well-known academic and Muslim leader.

“I think part of rooting Muslims in a healthy way in Canada is to have Muslims engage in this discussion of what is Canadian identity,” said Dr. Ingrid Mattson. “What is our history, what has been the good part, what has been the bad part?”

Dr. Ingrid Mattson is the London and Windsor Community Chair in Islamic Studies at Huron University College at the University of Western Ontario in London, Canada. She made the remarks on January 22 at Emmanuel College’s official opening of a new, dedicated prayer space and special ablution facilities to accommodate the needs of Muslim students at the University of Toronto.

“Canadian Muslims need to be like other Canadians and be able to say that there are parts of this identity and history that I find repulsive or problematic and there are parts of it that I can embrace,” she said. “Being a Canadian means that I am going to claim that and continue to be involved in the discussion of what these values are.”

Emmanuel College is associated with the United Church of Canada and is a constituent college of Victoria University in the University of Toronto. The public event marking the opening of the prayer space included Dr. Mattson’s lecture on “Rooting a Canadian-Muslim Identity.”

Dr. Mattson noted that there is a preoccupation by North American Muslims with identity politics.

“Identity is probably one of the most commonly employed or engaged terms used by the Muslim community in North America and this is quite interesting,” she said. “If we look at centuries of scholarly text, I don’t see that much about identity – this phrase ‘Muslim identity’ is not something that we see appear or as a focus of attention – they were concerned with the law, ethics, and behavior.”

Dr. Ingrid Mattson, a Canadian, recently returned to the country from the United States where she held a number of high profile positions. She is the former director of the Chaplaincy Program at Hartford Seminary in Connecticut and the former President of the Islamic Society of North America.

In her lecture, she said that the demographic makeup of the American Muslim community has influenced how Muslims there understand their identity. 

“The reason why I think American Muslims have been able to extract themselves a little bit from simply making American Islam into an anti-Western discourse is for one simple reason and that is approximately 25 percent of the American Muslim community is African American,” Dr. Mattson told the audience. “The priorities of African Americans, in terms of justice, and seeking justice and identifying what is not just, are different than immigrants.”

“African Americans are looking at their lives in terms of the structural injustices within the United States, as Americans, and they see an economic system, a legal system that has resulted in the highest incarcerated population in the world, in terms of percentages, and that African Americans are incarcerated in far greater numbers,” she added. ”They see all around them, not only their history of repression within the United States, but also current legislation and practices.”

She opined that the African American Muslims have pushed the Muslim community to question their understanding of justice.

“So they were the ones that turned the question around to their immigrant brothers and sisters and said wait a minute – you talk about injustice but ignore the injustices being done to us; you talk about injustice yet you ignore the fact that there are people in your own community who are contributing and participating in systems that oppress us, who are participating in economic systems in the inner-city that take advantage of poor African Americans.”

Dr. Mattson went on to tell the audience that this interaction between African American Muslims and immigrant Muslims has resulted in the discourse moving beyond identity politics to ethics.

“So I think for American Muslims, African Americans really elevated the issue of justice and generalized it and made it a universal principle and brought it out of simply identity politics – the West versus Islam,” she said “They made us look more deeply at systematic injustice and understand that justice is not about identity but it is about ethics that we should carry wherever we were and we needed to start prioritizing our issues differently.”

She then proposed that, for the Canadian Muslim community, First Nations people can be the challenging conscience for Canadian Muslims as African Americans were for U.S. Muslims.

“I think this is something that Canadians have lacked in terms of having these role models that African Americans have been for us – the challenging voice that African Americans have been for American Muslims,” she said. “But I do think there is an opportunity – I think there is a great opportunity right now and this is something that I have been saying for many years – the First Nations issues in Canada can provide for the Muslim community the kind of mirror through which we can see our own – whether our idea that Islam is just, our statement that Islam is about justice hold water, whether it is a value or ethic we embrace or whether it is simply about us and them, about identity politics.”

Dr. Ingrid Mattson then asked the audience some provocative questions, “What is the Canadian Islam that we want? What is the Canada that we are trying to be part of? What are we rooting ourselves into?”

“I think the reality is that if Canadian Muslims are trying to squeeze ourselves always into a kind of Anglo-Canadian or French-Canadian identity, justifying ourselves in those cultural terms, it would be problematic, it would always be a little bit of an awkward fit,” she proposed.

“We should examine this third founding (Aboriginal) identity, in fact the original founding identity,  and I think, if we do that, we will find that there are values and practices and beliefs that are often more amenable to us as Muslims.”

Dr. Mattson said that the Canadian Muslim community would need to come to terms with how they want to define themselves.

“Why hasn’t Muslims rushed to that (consider Aboriginal identity) before? I think the reason why we haven’t rushed to that before is that we don’t want to affiliate ourselves with an oppressed people,” she said. “So this is why we want to present our identity in terms of Judeo-Christian or Abrahamic.”

“But if we want to be Muslim – if our identity means living our values and beliefs – should we be always trying to get in with the most privileged people if the system that they have established is always not just? Or do we go and look instead at another form that I may call counter-culturalism?

Prayer space at Emmanuel College

Earlier in the evening’s program, Dr. Katherine Bullock, Coordinator of the Certificate of Muslim Studies Program at Emmanuel College, commented on the significance of the event.

“This is a historic evening – the opening of the first Muslim prayer room on the east side of the University of Toronto campus,” she said. “As time passes, we will all remember being here tonight to listen to Dr. Ingrid speak and share in this launch of the prayer room – Dr. Ingrid Mattson is one of the Greater Toronto community’s favorite lecturers.”

Emmanuel’s Principal, Dr. Mark G. Toulouse, in his welcoming remarks told the gathering that the college’s aim is to provide forums for faith communities to engage and appreciate each other.

“Muslim Studies at Emmanuel is part of our own effort to create forums where persons representing diverse faiths can engage one another, discover common concerns and interests and learn to respect and appreciate the differences that provide fullness to our experiences of what it means to be human,” he said.

15-9

Violence Against Shi’as: An Assault on Islam

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By Aslam Abdullah, TMO Editor-in-Chief

imagesIt is another day in Pakistan and it is another assault on Shias in Pakistan. It does not matter how many have died, because the life of every human being is sacred. What matters is the continued helplessness of those who stand for human dignity and life. Fourteen-hundred years, have passed and the Muslim community and its scholarship, by and large, has failed to effectively develop a method to resolve its political, social cultural and theological differences. On the contrary the idea that the opposition must be eliminated physically has gained more popularity. It is a sad situation for every sincere and serious follower of the Quran and its eternal message of peace, freedom, unity and justice for all.

The Prophet (s) and his closest supporters including the first four Caliphs did not identify them as Shias or Sunnis. They had differences over their style of governance and their interpretation of Quran, but rarely did they demonstrate violent tendencies towards each other to settle them. Imam Ali (kw) did not exhort his supporters to take up arms against Caliph Abu Bakr (ra) or Omar (ra). Rarely did we find any reference in his or their sermons of cussing or cursing those who are often accused of usurping his right to leadership or challenging their authority.

The Shia and Sunni differences rest upon the issue of political and spiritual leadership of Umma. For 1.1 billion Sunnis the Khilafat that is important and for 350 million Shias it is the Imamat that is significant. Even though the majority of religious leaders of the two communities (leave alone the masses) would not be able to clearly identify the differences between the two approaches of governance and succession of the Prophet (s). For over 6 billion of people of the world, this debate is irrelevant. A great majority of non-Muslims have adopted political ideas that negate the philosophy of Imamat and Khilafat altogether. And in the most world, including the predominantly Shia Iran or Iraq or Sunni dominated Saudi Arabia or Pakistan, no one takes the khlafat or imamat seriously in political realms.

All other differences have stemmed from this basic issue that emerged in a tribal culture and played out in an despotic environment that was still adjusting to divine teachings pertaining to the sanctity of human life and dignity, equality, rights of women and the right to dissent.

People usually interpret violent events such that took place in Pakistan with political spectacles. Some have already argued that India’s intelligence RAW, or CIA or Mossad might be involved in them as they want to destabilize Pakistan specially at a time, when China and Pakistan are increasing their level of cooperation in the upcoming port of Gawadhar in Baluchistan.

Regardless, the fact is that the seeds of hatred often leading to violence are sown by those who claim to speak in the name of God and his prophets. They could have come together to look at the differences to decide that they would not resolve to violence to settle them, that they would refrain from using vulgar language to denounce each other and that they would deal the opposing viewpoints with respect.

The Divine teachings do not promote violence or terror. Their purpose is to help individuals to control their anger to create a peaceful environment so that people can learn to grow out of their differences. By emphasizing the differences, the clergy is not only defying the Divine teachings but rebelling against it, a sad reality that most of us has accepted and cherished.

The only way out is to stand up against these differences and assert that Muslims will not identify them with either Shia or Sunni or Hanafis, Maliks, Ibadis, Ismaelis, Hanbalis, Shafais,  Malikis, Deobandis, Barelvis. The malice of disunity and conflict has pervaded our culture for long and it would take long before its impact can be reduced. The first thing we need is to have people who can say boldly and clearly that we are Muslims and we are part of the Umma of the Prophet (s). It means that we stop asking the question: are you a Sunni or Shia or this or that? It means that we stop fighting over differences that we see among ourselves. It means showing respect to differences even if the opponent is not willing to show respect to us.

If we do not change ourselves, both Shias and Sunnis would become irrelevant to Islam as they have already become irrelevant to the world. They would have only a nuisance value that through these killings they have been demonstrating. In the words of the Quran: “while that which is for the good of mankind remains on the earth. Thus Allah sets forth parables.” (13:17)

15-9

Review: Muslims and the Making of America

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A book by Precious Rasheeda Muhammad

Reviewed by Susan Schwartz, TMO

MuslimsMakingofAmericaCoverScreen-300x200In an era when Islamophobia is rampant and has become a widespread and profitable industry, a publication which details important truths about a little discussed aspect of Islam should be celebrated. Muslims and the Making of America” by Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) intern Precious Rasheeda Muhammad is such a publication. Ms Muhammad has produced an exquisitely researched, artfully crafted, and scrupulously documented work. She has accessed public records and private collections of writings.It is available on the MPAC web site www.mpac.org under publications, and it is to be hoped that MPAC will make it available in print form.

History tells of Muslim accomplishments with primary focus in the fields of Mathematics, Science and Medicine. Islamophobes have tried to detract from them but before long have run into the brick wall of established historical facts. Misinformation has been more successful when Islamophobes and their sycophants claim that Muslims were absent from any contribution to the life of the American republic. Here they will run into Ms Muhammad and her publication.

Herewith the story of Muslims and the Making of America.

The synopsis which follows does, of course, not do justice to the publication in its totality. It begins in colonial America and ends in the present. A theme runs through the work and that theme is: whatever individual accomplishments there were on the part of Muslims – and there were many – Muslim influence was greatest through quiet piety; insistence on the oneness of God; ethical values of the Quran; shared values with Americans, and the shining examples of individual Muslim behavior. Muslims entered into the fabric of American life and became interwoven with its fabric as sunshine enters a room and fills it with light and warmth.

We will begin with Job Ben Solomon (Ayuba Suleiman Diallo), a respected Imam in what today is Senegal. He was captured as a slave and soon found himself in Maryland colony on a plantation . He knew nothing of the language (he was a highly educated man and was fluent in Arabic, both spoken and written and in several other languages). He escaped and was recaptured and put in jail. Eventually he made contact with an African and made his predicament known. He was returned to his master who then understood his need to pray five times a day – free from derogatory observations. He provided Job with such a place and thus established the first Muslim place of worship in the American colonies.

His influence was not limited to the colonies. Job came to the attention of General James Oglethorpe, the founder of the Georgia colony. In a letter written by Job that was read by Oglethorpe, the latter was so impressed that he arranged for his freedom and return to Africa via England. While in England Job impressed and became close to many influential persons including the royal family. Job became an important influence on Oglethorpe’s vociferous opposition to slavery.

Job through his piety and practice also impressed Christian missionary, Thomas Bluett. Long after his death, Job’s name surfaced among Christian missionaries.

Benjamin Franklin was opposed to the slave trade and to slavery in general. Soon after the inauguration of President George Washington, Franklin wrote to Congress asserting that the blessings of liberty must include all men. He specifically mentioned Muslims, at that time estimated to be from 15 to 30% of slaves held in America. Franklin, aghast at the massacre of Native Americans by Scotch-Irish frontiersmen in Pennsylvania, quoted the Prophet Mohammed (s) on kindness toward captives.

Franklin established the “preaching house’ to be open to all faiths. He specifically mentioned the Islamic faith. Franklin was familiar with the life of the Prophet Mohammed (s) and was an admirer of his values.

Thomas Jefferson had a copy of the Quran and studied it. He drafted the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom which became a template for the First Amendment. Jefferson specifically mentioned Muslims in his discourses on religious freedom as had his mentor, John Locke.

James Madison who followed Jefferson into office and is considered the primary author of the Constitution, expressed doubt as to the wisdom of the Bill of Rights at the time it was being considered. He did so not because he did not believe in the rights they protected. On the contrary, he felt that the rights enumerated were implicit in America’s documents. To put them in writing might be to make them prey to future statutory action which would place limits on them. He specifically feared that Jews and Muslims might be targeted.

Baptist minister John Leland pressed Madison for approval of the Bill of Rights which he felt was necessary for the preservation of religious freedom. Again the Muslim faith was cited. Again the quiet piety and practice of Islam by its adherents had made an impression that motivated men in power.

Freed African Muslim slave, Yarrow Mamout, became an investor in a major bank. His portrait was painted by Charles Willson Peale, renowned as a painter of famous and revered men. Yarrow’s daughter-in-law became a beloved mid wife (until modern times midwives attended pregnant women, usually the well to do). The town of Yarrow, Maryland is named after the family.

Most Americans are familiar with the Amistad case which was argued before the Supreme Court by John Quincy Adams. The Amistad was a Spanish schooner carrying captured African slaves. It had drifted into American waters, and there was a disagreement as to whether the slaves should be freed or sent to Spain. Adams prevailed, leaving his audience, including the Justices, in tears. In citing American values – and the fact that the slave trade had been outlawed – Adams told of speaking to one of the African slaves on the Amistad in Arabic, using part of an Islamic prayer and of being answered by that slave who responded in Arabic, with more of that prayer. Clearly Adams was profoundly impressed by the experience.

Omar ibn Said was another prominent African slave brought to the United States, When he wrote his biography, abolitionist Theodore Dwight noted that this was an example of a slave being more civilized and educated than his master. Dwight – while countering pro slavery arguments- would point to the high degree of civilization Africans reached under Islamic rule.

President Andrew Johnson after the Civil War invited an envoy from Tunisia to congratulate his nation through him for its principled stance against slavery.

Islamophobes might wish to search the story behind the naming of Alkader, Iowa. The city was named after a Muslim Hero, a superbly educated multilingual freedom fighter who is credited with saving thousands of Christians in Damascus. Abd El-Khader was praised by Pope Leo IX, Queen Victoria, and President James Buchanan.

The abolition of slavery in Tunisia had a profound effect on American thinking.

Muslims risked their lives to fight for the United States in war beginning with the revolutionary war.The Ottoman Empire supported the North during the Civil War.

President Reagan in his correspondence spoke of Roger Williams, founder of the Rhode Island colony and a staunch advocate of religious freedom. The President appointed Muslims to public service positions and included them in the vast quilt that is America.

President Bill Clinton often spoke of shared values between Muslims and Americans.

W. D. Mohammed was called “America’s Imam”. His motto was: Elevate Humanity. He spoke at the 1993 Inaugural Prayer Service. W. D.’s father was the founder of the Nation of Islam (NOI).

Keith Ellison, a revert to Islam, became the first Muslim elected to Congress and has served since 2007.. He has been an outspoken advocate for human rights and is a popular speaker.

If this review has been tantalizing, that was the objective. Muslims and the making of America should be read and reread in its entirety.

15-9

Shahzia Sikander Awarded US Medal of Art

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shahziasikander_wideweb__470x3070Pakistani-American artist Shahzia Sikander has been honoured with the US State Department’s inaugural Medal of Arts for her “outstanding commitment” to the “Art in Embassies” programme.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton conferred the award on Sikander at a ceremony in Washington last month.

With an eye on cultural exchange and visual diplomacy, the “Art in Embassies” creates permanent and temporary art exhibitions in over 200 diplomatic venues worldwide.
Sikander’s works have been on permanent display at the US Consulate in Karachi since 2011.

The award acknowledged the artist’s commitment to the “Art in Embassies” programme and to international cultural exchange.

Shahzia Sikander was born  in Lahore, Pakistan, and currently lives and works in New York City. She holds a BFA from the National College of Arts, Lahore, Pakistan, and an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. Her work spans a variety of mediums including drawing, large-scale wall installations, animation and video. Sikander has successfully brought Indo-Persian miniature painting into the realm of contemporary art through subverting her training in the genre with commentaries on lived experience, art history and pop-culture. Sikander’s work is included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, among many others. Her work has been exhibited at venues world wide including major solo surveys at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin and at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney Australia (both 2007).

She also participated in the 1997 Whitney Biennial and the 2005 Venice Biennial. Among her many recognitions, Sikander was appointed a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in 2006. She is also the recipient of The Louis comfort Tiffany Foundation Award (1997), the Tamgha-e-imtiaz, Medal of Excellence award from the Government of Pakistan (2005), and a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship Award (2006).

15-9

Palestinian Hunger Strike Mom Faints at Hearing

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Message from Samer al-Issawi

By Karin Friedemann, TMO

momfaints

The mother of hunger striker Samer Issawi faints after an Israeli court refuses to release him.

Emaciated and wheelchair-bound, Samer al-Issawi appeared at a hearing before a Jerusalem civil court on Tuesday, February 19, called as a result of worldwide pressure, protests, and solidarity fasting for his release. Palestinian news agency WAFA quoted Director of the Prisoners’ Club in Jerusalem, Nasser Qaws, who said Israel decided on the emergency court session without prior warning.

Over 200 Palestinians were injured by Israeli troops this week while protesting outside Ofer prison, demanding Issawi’s release. The health condition of hunger striking prisoners, Ayman Sharawneh, Jaafar Ezzedine, and Tareq Qaa’dan, has also instigated demonstrations drawing thousands of protesters throughout Palestine and abroad.

The Israeli court rejected the release of Palestinian hunger striker Samer Issawi during this “emergency” hearing. Issawi will remain behind bars until his next scheduled hearing on March 14, 2013. Issawi’s mom Um Ra’fat collapsed during the court decision, reports Gaza News, while other relatives screamed helplessly at the judge.

Samer al-Issawi has been refusing food, intermittently, for more than 200 days.

Issawi was among 1,027 jailed Palestinians freed by Israel in 2011 in exchange for Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier who was taken prisoner by Hamas. Issawi was re-arrested shortly afterwards for allegedly disobeying court orders to remain in Jerusalem.

“It is disputed whether the location of the arrest was considered Jerusalem or the West Bank,” his lawyer explained.

Reuters reports: “Israel has defused previous long-term hunger strikes among the some 4,700 Palestinians in its jails by agreeing to release individuals or deporting them to Gaza – a prospect rejected by the four prisoners, who hail from Jerusalem and the West Bank. The Quartet of Middle East negotiators – the United States, Russia, the United Nations and European Union – have expressed concern at the hunger strike.”

On February 16, EU foreign policy chief Catherin Ashton called on the Tel Aviv regime to bring “formal charges” against detainees and “allow for the immediate restoration of their family visiting rights” and called for “the full respect of international human rights obligations” towards them.

Al-Issawi, 33, has been on hunger strike since August 2012 to protest against his administrative detention.

“Administrative detention is a sort of imprisonment without trial or charge that allows Israel to incarcerate Palestinians for up to six months. The detention order can be renewed for indefinite periods of time,” reports Press TV.

“Being on hunger strike; losing more than half of your weight; suffering uncountable kinds of diseases; living in a two-meters-square room; not knowing when you will be released: it could be 1 year or 10 years or less or even more, you just have to wait. This is not only Samer Issawi’s story but also that of many other administrative detainees and unjustly held Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails,” laments Malaka Mohammed, a freelance writer in Gaza.

Issawi’s mother told Mohammed, “He is now living in an isolated cell at Ramlah prison hospital; no one can see him, not even his loved ones. The only human contact he has is the guards. His legs are tied with shackles that look even bigger given to his tiny skeleton.”

On Dec 13th, 2012, Issawi was attacked brutally three times inside the courtroom and in front of the judge where soldiers kicked on his chest. Since then, he is vomiting blood and having pain in his chest in addition to the symptoms of starvation.

“He has recently started suffering from severe pain especially in his muscles, abdomen and kidneys. He has an acute vitamin B-12 deficiency and his body has begun to eat his muscles and nerves. Also, his sight is weak, he is fainting around six times a day and his body is covered with bruises… His health continues to deteriorate and his body is eroding and he has lost sense of the extremities (the hands and feet) as well as in his lips and he has lost a great deal of hair,” said his mother, crying.

Shireen Issawi, Samer’s sister, went on hunger strike protesting his brother’s illegal detention over a month ago. She says she will not stop until her brother is free. Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association has documented the medical neglect he and other prisoners are subject to:

“Like the other prisoners, Samer is not being treated as an ill patient by the Ramla prison clinic. On Saturday December 1st, 2012 during an examination with the prison clinic doctor, Samer tried to stand and lost consciousness. Instead of assisting him, the doctor left him lying on the floor and exited the room. We express our deep concern for the health of Samer and the other detainees who are on hunger strike protesting their unlawful custody.”

On Dec 30th, Samer made a statement via his lawyer, “My detention is unfair and my demands are nothing but just. Thus I will not withdraw from the battle for freedom. I am waiting for either victory and freedom – or martyrdom. I was able to achieve 90% of my objectives that were to deliver my voice to the Egyptians, to maintain the achievements of the deal by preventing the re-arrest of prisoners liberated in the exchange; I maintained the prestige of Egypt as a mediator in the deal and to preserve the blood of the martyrs in Gaza. So there only still remains 10% from my goals, which is very small: my freedom.”

Unfortunately, his Egyptian negotiators have now stated that they are not responsible for the outcome of Issawi’s court case. The Arab League issued a statement that Israel is responsible if Issawi dies.

Samer Issawi issued another public message on February 17, which was circulated widely on Facebook: “Do not be afraid for my heart if it will stop, don’t be afraid for my hands if they will be paralyzed. I am still alive now and tomorrow and after death, because Jerusalem is moving in my blood, in my devotion and my faith.”

ENTIRE MESSAGE FROM SAMER AL-ISSAWI – 16.02.13 – ‘I turn with admiration to the masses of our heroic Palestinian people, to our Palestinian leadership, to all forces, parties and national institutions. I salute them for standing by our fight to defend our right to freedom and dignity.

I draw my strength from my people, from all the free people in the world, from friends and the families of the prisoners who continue day and night chanting for freedom and an end to the occupation.
My health has deteriorated dramatically and I’m hung between life and death. My weak body is collapsing but still able to be patient and continue the confrontation. My message is that I will continue until the end, until the last drop of water in my body, until martyrdom. Martyrdom is an honor for me in this battle. My martyrdom is my remaining bomb in the confrontation with the tyrants and the jailers, in the face of the racist policy of the occupation that humiliates our people and exercises against us all means of oppression and repression.

I say to my people: I’m stronger than the occupation army and its racist laws. I, Samer al-Issawi, son of Jerusalem, send you my last will that, in case I fell as a martyr, you will carry my soul as a cry for all the prisoners, man and women, cry for freedom, emancipation and salvation from the nightmare of prisons and their harsh darkness.

My battle is not only for individual freedom. The battle waged by me and by my heroic colleagues, Tariq, Ayman and Ja’affar, is everyone’s battle, the battle of the Palestinian people against the occupation and its prisons. Our goal is to be free and sovereign in our liberated state and in our blessed Jerusalem.

The weak and strained beats of my heart derive their steadfastness from you, the great people. My eyes, which started to lose their sight, draws light from your solidarity and your support of me. My weak voice takes its strength from your voice that is louder than the warden’s voice and higher than the walls.

I’m one of your sons, among thousands of your sons who are prisoners, still languishing steadfasting in the prisons, waiting for an end to be brought to their plight, their pains and the suffering of their families.

The doctors told me I became exposed to stroke because of the disorder of my heartbeats, the shortage of sugar and the drop in blood pressure. My body is full of cold and I can’t sleep because of the continued pain. But despite the extreme fatigue and chronic headaches, as I move on my chair, I’m trying to summon all my resources to continue on the road till its end. There is no going back, only in my victory, because I’m the owner of Right and my detention is invalid and illegal.

Do not be afraid for my heart if it will stop, don’t be afraid for my hands if they will be paralyzed. I am still alive now and tomorrow and after death, because Jerusalem is moving in my blood, in my devotion and my faith.

15-9

BDS Panel at Brooklyn College Draws Crowd

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By Karin Friedemann, TMO

Karin_April_2,_2009_008Judith Butler began her February 7 talk at Brooklyn College in support of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel by saying, “Usually one starts by saying that one is glad to be here, but I cannot say that it has been a pleasure anticipating this event. What a Megillah! I am, of course, glad that the event was not cancelled, and I understand that it took a great deal of courage and a steadfast embrace of principle for this event to happen at all.”

In response to the public furor of last week, the Mayor of New York spoke out in defense of Brooklyn College.

Bloomberg said he “couldn’t disagree more violently” with the BDS movement, but “if you want to go to a university where the government decides what kind of subjects are fit for discussion, I suggest you apply to a school in North Korea.”

“The last thing we need is for members of our City Council or State Legislature to be micromanaging the kinds of programs that our public universities run and base funding decisions on the political views of professors,” said the mayor. “I can’t think of anything that would be more destructive to a university and its students.”

Bloomberg’s decisive words effectively ended the New York City Council’s campaign against Brooklyn College for holding the Students for Justice in Palestine event.

Political Science teacher at Brooklyn College Robin Corey reported delightedly: “Now that the mayor, the New York Times, and just about everyone else have come down hard on all the government officials and politicians who tried to force my department to withdraw its co-sponsorship of the BDS panel, the “progressive” politicians have issued a second letter to Brooklyn College President Karen Gould, in which they backpedal, backpedal, backpedal pull back from their earlier position. No longer, it seems, must we “balance” this panel or withdraw our co-sponsorship.”

BC Philosophy professor Samir Chopra sighs, “That it took a billionaire mayor to explain these simple matters to our progressive leaders is, well, what can one say?”

“While it was gratifying to see Dershowitz forced into retreat it is important not to exaggerate Bloomberg’s role,” writes commentator John Halle.

“Some of those targeted by Dershowitz turned out to be experienced organizers and more than a little media savvy, deluging the twitter accounts of the officials, demanding answers from them and circulating via facebook a petition which quickly received over 2,500 signatures. Within days those local officeholders concerned with maintaining their reputations among their liberal constituents withdrew their names from the Fidler letter clearing the way for Bloomberg and the Times to issue ringing endorsements of academic freedom. And so what began as a potential fiasco ended as an inspiring lesson in grassroots organizing.”

As the instigator of the threats against Brooklyn College, Alan Dershowitz found himself at the brunt of not only mockery but the public shredding of his arguments.

Opined fellow New York attorney David Samel on Mondoweiss: “People often comment that Dershowitz is a clown who does not deserve the time and effort to discredit him. I could not disagree more… His brazen hypocrisy and serial dishonesty should be challenged regularly.”

“The outside agitators, like Alan Dershowitz, did us a favor. If they hadn’t tried to shut it down with City Council members, it would have been just another ho-hum event on campus,” said Jane Hirschmann, a member of Jews Say No (to occupation).

As a result of all the publicity, the panel discussion between Judith Butler and Omar Barghouti drew hundreds to the audience, filling the room to capacity, with more people turned away.

Butler exclaimed, “I thought it would be very much like other events I have attended, a conversation with a few dozen student activists in the basement of a student center.”

Gail Sheehy reported in the Daily Beast that “the forum went off without a single hateful word. At most, 100 protesters stood across from the Student Center… Police, out in force, were confined to directing traffic.”

BDS, the largest pro-Palestine civil movement, states three goals: end the occupation, end apartheid, and guarantee the right of return of Palestinians to their homeland. When Barghouti characterized the Israeli apartheid as more brutal than what American blacks went through before Martin Luther King Jr., he received a standing ovation.

Chemi Shalev reports in Haaretz, Israel: “Overzealous Israel defenders used a five-megaton bomb to swat a fly, and it blew up in our faces…The result of all of this surfeit and excess was a clear-cut, perhaps unprecedented PR coup for BDS and a humiliating defeat for Israel’s interests… the “pro-Israel camp” found itself, not for the first time, portrayed not only as heavy handed but a bit unhinged as well.”

Shalev concludes that “far too much of the public discourse on Israel has been dominated and dictated by super-conservatives and ultra-nationalists and the billionaires who fund them… who view any measured or nuanced debate about Israel as treason, who are hell bent on making their observation that liberals are turning away from Israel into a self-fulfilling prophecy… and will eventually erode the genuine bedrock of support that Israel enjoys in America.”

Professor Chopra is not so sure. “The pressure brought on Brooklyn College from the outside was an attempt to regulate discourse on campus. And in that, I fear it has succeeded in many ways. For one, this event does not make the controversial panel discussion on campus more likely. It makes it more unlikely. Which department or university administration wants to go through this fiasco again?”

This author does not share Chopra’s pessimism. For decades, BDS and other Palestine Solidarity groups have been kicked off campuses around the US due to angry threats from pro-Israel activists. The academic attack on Brooklyn College is standard. What is new is that the administration remained strong and refused to cancel the event.

Meanwhile, Gaza farmers are renewing a call for boycott of Israel to protest the destruction of their land and property as well as the 2006 Israeli ban on Palestinian exports, which devastated Palestinian agriculture, reports Electronic Intifada.

Palestinian farmers joined together with protesters Saturday to plant olive trees on Israeli-razed farmland and to implore international supporters to join the boycott of Israeli agricultural produce. They say the boycott is the “only hope for justice for Palestinian farmers being targeted by the Israeli army and oppressed by Israel.”

“We hope that it will put pressure on Israel to stop targeting us and allow us to farm our land as we used to.”

15-8

Antibiotics

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tufailAntibiotics are substances that inhibit the growth of or destroy bacteria that cause infection. Antibiotics do not work against viral diseases such as the common cold or influenza. The word “antibiotics” comes from the Greek anti(“against”) and bios(“life”). Antibiotics have been used since the 1930s to prevent or treat a wide variety of infections in plants, animals,and humans. Before that time, there were few effective ways of combating microbial infections (infections caused by microorganisms). Illnesses such as pneumonia, tuberculosis, and typhoid fever were essentially untreatable. Even minor infections could be deadly.

The years between 1928 and 1940 were the most productive in the discovery and development of antimicrobial drugs. In 1928 Sir Alexander Fleming, a Scottish physician, was working on ways to kill bacteria isolated from infected wounds. He observed that a mold growing in a laboratory culture was able to destroy that culture’s bacteria. Since the mold that produced the bacteria-killing substance was a species of Penicillium, Fleming named the substance penicillin.

It is not known when the first antibiotic was used; folk medicine has used various molds to fight infections for centuries. In 1935 a German chemist named Gerhard Domagk discovered the first class of antibacterial agents, the sulfonamides. Sulfanilamide (the parent compound of the sulfonamides) was originally part of a leather dye compound that was being screened for its potential ability to kill bacteria. It was found to be relatively nontoxic and when the dye was broken down in the body, it was converted to the compound sulfanilamide.

By 1941 penicillin had been tested in humans and was being used to treat serious infections. The results were dramatic; patients who received the drug made rapid and complete recoveries. Bacitracin, chlortetracycline, and streptomycin, naturally occurring antibiotics, were discovered by 1948. The penicillin ring (chemical structure) was finally isolated in 1959 by scientists from Britain and the United States, and the door was open for the development of made-made (synthetic) antibiotics. Since 1948, a wide variety of substances that inhibit or kill bacteria have been discovered.

How Antibiotics Are Made

The overwhelming majority of antibiotics are made from living organisms such as bacteria about 90% of antibiotics are isolated from bacteria fungi, and molds. Others are produced synthetically, either in whole or in part.

At one time all antibiotics were made from living organisms. This process, known as biosynthesis, is still used in the manufacture of a number of antibiotics. In this method, it is actually the organisms themselves that manufacture the antibiotic. The laboratory technician merely provides favorable conditions for the organisms to multiply, and then extracts the drug. For example, mold organisms are placed in a medium (a substance used for the growth of microorganisms) such as corn liquor to which milk sugar has been added. This mixture forms a liquid that is put into a tank, which is kept at a temperature of25 degrees Centigrade (77 degrees Fahrenheit) and shaken for over 100 hours.The mold organisms multiply rapidly in this warm liquid, producing penicillin in the process.

All types of penicillin have an identical ring. However, in each type of penicillin, the chemical chain attached to the ring is different. By modifying the molecules of the chain, scientists are able to create drugs with a wide range of effects on a variety of organisms. Some of these drugs are useful in treating infections.

Pharmaceutical companies use computer-generated images of the rings and experiment with a countless variety of possible chains. Researchers have developed antibiotics with long half-lives (period of effectiveness), which means that the medication can be taken every 24 hours instead of every few hours. The newer antibiotics are also more effective against a wider range of infections than were earlier drugs.

How Antibiotics Work

The body’s balance between health and illness is called homeostasis. Homeostasis largely depends on the relationship of the body to the bacteria with which it lives. For example, bacteria are always present on human skin. When theskin is cut, the bacteria are able to enter the body and may cause infection.The invading bacteria are usually destroyed by blood cells called phagocytes and by various actions of the immune system. However, when there are too many bacteria for the system to handle, illness results and antibiotics are needed to help restore homeostasis.

Antiobiotics can be bacteriostatic (prevent bacteria from multiplying) or bactericidal (kill bacteria). For most infections, these two types of antibiotics appear to be equally effective, but if if the immune system is impaired orthe individual has a severe infection, a bactericidal antibiotic is usually more effective. Bactericidal drugs, however, may be bacteriostatic against certain microorganisms, and vice versa.

In most infections, including certain types of pneumonia (pneumococcal) and urinary tract infections, there seems to be no advantage of bactericidal over bacteriostatic drugs. However, bactericidal activity seems to be necessary in infections in which host (the organism from which the bacteria obtains its nourishment) defense mechanisms are at least partially lacking locally or systemically (in the whole system), for example, endocarditis (inflammation of the lining membrane of the heart), meningitis (inflammation of the membranes of the spinal cord or brain), or serious staphylococcal infections.

Each of the various types of antibiotics kill microorganisms in a unique way.Some disturb the structure of the bacterial cell wall; others interfere with the production of essential proteins; and still others interfere with the transformation (metabolism) of nucleic acid (substances found in the cells of all living things).

It is believed that antibiotics interfere with the surface of bacteria cells,causing a change in their ability to reproduce. Testing the action of an antibiotic in the laboratory shows how much exposure to the drug is necessary to decrease reproduction or to kill the bacteria. Although a large dose of an antibiotic taken at one time might kill the bacteria causing an illness, the dose would most likely cause severe side effects. Therefore, antibiotics are given in a series of smaller doses. This method assures that the bacteria are either killed or reduced enough in number so that the body can repel them. On the other hand, when too little antibiotic is taken, bacteria can develop methods to protect themselves against it. Thus the next time the antibiotic is needed against these bacteria, it will not be effective.

Classes of Antibiotics

Although there are thousands of antibiotic substances that have been produced naturally or synthetically, relatively few varieties have been proven safe and effective. Sulfonamides, the earliest drugs to be used as antibacterial agents, have largely the same effects as those of the later-developed penicillins. However, sulfa drugs can have harmful effects on the kidneys, although they are effective in combating kidney infections. Thus, the sulfa drugs are always taken with large quantities of water to prevent the formation of drug crystals. Gantrisin is among the most useful of the sulfa drugs.

Although there are 160 varieties available, the following are the most commonly used types of antibiotics:

•    penicillins
•    cephalosporins
•    fluoroquinolones
•    aminoglycosides
•    tetracyclines
•    macrolides
•    polypeptides

Penicillins encompass a large group of bactericidal agents. They include:

•    penicillin G
•    penicillin V
•    cloxacillin
•    nafcillin
•    oxacillin
•    ampicillin
•    amoxicillin
•    ticarcillin

Penicillins work by damaging the cell walls of the invading bacteria as the bacteria are in the process of reproduction. Penicillin G and V, for example,are widely used for streptococcal infections as well as for other types of bacterial infection.

Antibiotics are classified as narrow-spectrum drugs when they work against only a few types of bacteria. Broad-spectrum antibiotics, on the other hand, attack many types of bacteria. However, the danger with broad-spectrum antibiotics is that they are more likely to promote antibiotic resistance. For that reason, narrow-spectrum antibiotics, which often cost less, are used wheneverpossible. Broad-spectrum antibiotics are generally reserved for infections that are unresponsive to narrow-spectrum drugs.

Broad-spectrum penicillins, such as ampicillin and amoxicillin, are used on infections caused by what are called gram-negative organisms. In Gram’s method(named after Hans C.J. Gram, a Danish physician), bacteria are identified by staining them with dye and placed them on slides. Gram-negative bacteria take up a red color; gram-positive bacteria retain the gentian violet stain.

Hypersensitivity reactions (such as rash or fever) to penicillin are relatively common side effects. However, severe life-threatening allergic reactions (such as anaphylactic shock) are rare. Penicillins are often given in combination with other types of antibiotics.

Cephalosporins are broad-spectrum antibiotics. They include:

•    cefadroxil
•    cefazolin
•    cephalexin
•    cephalothin
•    cephapirin
•    cephradine

Like penicillins, the cephalosporins work by interfering with bacterial cellwall formation. The cephalosporin cefotaxime sodium is particularly effectivein treating deep infections such as those occurring in bones or resulting from surgery. The cephalosporins are often administered when a sensitivity to penicillin is known or suspected. Occasionally, however, individuals allergicto penicillins will also be allergic to the cephalosporins. Adverse side effects of the cephalosporins may include rash or fever.

Fluoroquinolones are the newest class of antibiotics. They include:

•    ciprofloxacin
•    enoxacin
•    levofloxacin
•    norfloxacin
•    ofloxacin

The fluoroquinolones are well absorbed, have a broad spectrum of attack, and are considered relatively safe. These antibiotics interfere with bacterial enzymes and are most often used for treating urinary tract infections. Since fluoroquinolones may affect bone growth, however, the use of this class of antibiotics is not recommended in children or pregnant women.

Aminoglycosides work by impeding the protein formation of bacteria in invading cells. This class of antibiotics includes:

•    gentamicin
•    streptomycin
•    neomycin

The aminoglycosides are effective against a wide variety of bacteria and other organisms and are believed to prevent the production of proteins in the invading bacterial cells. These drugs are effective against pneumonia, typhus, and other bacteria-caused illnesses but can impair liver and kidney function.Thus they are usually administered with caution. Tetracycline in a special gel base is used to treat a number of eye infections.

Tetracyclines include:

•    tetracyline
•    doxycycline
•    minocycline

The macrolides also interfere with the protein formation of invading bacteria. The macrolides are often used in patients who are known or suspected to besensitive to penicillin. Some of the side effects of the macrolides are gastrointestinal discomfort.

The macrolides include:

•    azithromycin
•    clarithromycin
•    erythromycin

Polypeptides are a class of antibiotics that is quite toxic and is used primarily on the skin surface. These drugs include:

•    bacitracin
•    colistin
•    polymyxin B

Choosing an Antibiotic

Physicians are usually able to determine the type of organism responsible for causing the most commonly seen infections and know which class of antibiotic will be the most effective in combating it. If the agent causing illness isnot known, a culture from the infection is usually examined under a microscope to identify the invading organism. However, even when the bacteria have been identified and their sensitivity to antibiotics have been determined, the choice of antibiotic is not always an easy one.

The effectiveness of the treatment depends on a variety of factors, such as how well the drug is absorbed into the bloodstream, how much drug reaches various body fluids, and how quickly the body eliminates the drug. Also, drugs selection must take into account the nature and seriousness of the illness, the side effects of the drug, the possibility of allergies or other serious reactions to the drug, as well as the cost of the drug.

Administering Antibiotics

To work against infecting organisms, an antibiotic can be applied externally,such as to a cut on the skin’s surface, or administered internally, throughthe bloodstream. Antibiotics are manufactured in several forms and are administered in a variety of ways: topically, orally, or parenterally.

Topical application means “to a local area” such as on the skin, in the eyes,or on the mucous membrane. Antibiotics for topical use are available in theform of powders, ointments, drops, or creams.
Antibiotics in the form of tablets, liquids, and capsules are swallowed. Theantibiotic is released in the small intestine and absorbed into the bloodstream. Troches (lozenges) dissolve in the mouth, where the antibiotic is absorbed through the mucous membrane.

Applications outside the intestine are called parenteral. One form is an injection, which can be subcutaneous (under the skin), intramuscular (into a muscle), or intravenous (into a vein). Parenteral administration of an antibioticis used when a physician requires a strong, rapid concentration of the antibiotic into the bloodstream.

For severe bacterial infections, antibiotics are usually are given by injection first (typically intravenously). When the infection is under control, antibiotics can be taken orally. Antibiotics must be taken until the infecting organisms is eliminated from the body, which may be days after the symptoms disappear. Thus, stopping treatment too soon may result in a relapse or may encourage the development of resistant bacteria. For this reason, the antibioticis usually taken for several days after all evidence of the infection is gone.

Read more: http://www.faqs.org/health/topics/59/Antibiotics.html#ixzz2Kk3vSJoI

15-8

Study Documents American Muslim Entrepreneurship

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By Ayub Khan, TMO

A study released last year by the Strategic Research Circle reveals some great insights into American Muslim entrepreneurship for the first time. It has tallied 81,000 Muslim-owned businesses in the US and half of them are located in New York, Chicago, and Houston.

Around half of Muslim dentists and physicians are located in New York and Chicago. The data tabulated in the study shows that around two percent (23,000) Muslims in the total US population of physicians. Nearly eighty percent of Muslim owned or managed pharmacies are located in New York.

The study also found that sixty five percent of Muslim attorneys are practising in New York, Chicago, and Washington D.C.

There are around 8,000 Muslim owned or managed restaurants in the US and majority of them are located in Chicago and New York.

Interestingly, it found that there are 900 service stations in Houston that were owned or managed by Muslims. The report didn’t explain the reason behind this statistic.
Such insights will be revealed in a second instalment of the report which according to the SRC will probably be published in eight to nine months.

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