Global Peeks with Brian E. Muhammad

A thought on Gratefulness

2011-12-29T19:43:00.003-05:00

Global Peeks is closing out 2011 with a note on gratefulness

Originally published in the Islam Times blog, 22 October 2009

Gratefulness: The Essence of Islam

One of the best gifts Allah (swt) has granted mankind is the ability to feel and express gratitude. Being grateful at the most basic level is very simple and very beneficial. It is simple because it requires no special knowledge, skill, equipment, or preparation - anyone can access the gift of thankfulness. Yet most of us fall short of the mark in expressing due thanks for what others do, and probably all of us owe far more thanks to Allah (swt) than we even understand. However, improvement is also simple: just make it a practice to notice blessings and kindnesses, to think about them, and to honor them.

One reason gratitude is beneficial is because it improves relationships, - whether interpersonal or with our Creator. When we can feel and express appreciation for God's blessings or others' kindnesses, affection grows. But the personal benefits are also great; a thankful heart is a content and awed heart. Even in times and circumstances of hardship, we always have much to appreciate. When we acknowledge this, our burdens are easier to bear.

Imam Sadiq (as) wrote in Lantern of the Path, "With every breath you take, a thanksgiving is incumbent upon you, indeed, a thousand thanks or more. The lowest level of gratitude is to see that the blessing comes from Allah irrespective of the cause for it, and without the heart being attached to that cause. It consists of being satisfied with what is given; it means not disobeying Him with regard to His blessing, or opposing Him in any of His commands and prohibitions because of His blessing."

Our breathing comes without thought, and yet each breath is a blessing. The struggle for breath is an agony that we are usually spared thousands upon thousands of times without thanking for it. If the gift of breath is taken from us, we will die; breath is life. It is but one of countless examples of blessings from God we owe thanks for. At the very least, we should appreciate that it is a gift from God, be satisfied with the gift, and never use the gift of breath for anything opposing Allah (swt). One could possibly say that if we truly wish to express gratitude for the gift of breath, we must never allow ourselves to purposely breathe in any haram substances and we must never use our breath to utter any lies, backbiting, or other haram speech. For even if we claim to feel gratitude, the proof of real thankfulness comes in our actions. If we are thankful for a gift, we will not be careless with it. If someone gave you a birthday present you really loved, you would use it with caution in order to protect it. Similarly, if we are truly grateful for the blessing of breath, we will use it with caution, too.

Imam Sadiq (as) continues:
"Be a grateful bondsman to Allah in every way, and you will find that Allah is a generous Lord in every way. If there were a way of worshiping Allah for His sincerest bondsman to follow more excellent than giving thanks at every instance, He would have ascribed to them the name of this worship above the rest of creation. Since there is no form of worship better than that, He has singled out this kind of worship from other kinds of worship, and has singled out those who practice this kind of worship, saying,

وَقَلِيلٌ مِّنْ عِبَادِيَ الشَّكُورُ

Very few of my servants are grateful. (34:13)"

Expressing thanks to God is a great form of worship, and at the minimum is part of our daily prayers. Allah (swt) has taught us that when we give thanks, blessings increase. Not only is this true about the blessings directly from God, but it applies for gratitude to the blessings of Allah (swt) that come from people as well. For example, a child who demonstrates true appreciation for Eid gifts or quality time spent with daddy inspires the giver to happily continue to give to that child, while a child who seems to take a gift for granted or does not seem to like or appreciate it may find the giver less generous in the future. God is not in need of our thanks and is not hurt in the least by our ingratitude, but gratitude enriches us immeasurably. "Allah is not in need of the obedience of His bondsmen, for He has the power to increase blessings forever. Therefore be a grateful bondsman to Allah, and in this manner you will see wonders." (Ibid.)

Even feeling and expressing gratitude is itself a merciful blessing from God.
"Complete thankfulness is to sincerely repent your inability to convey the least amount of gratitude, and expressing this by means of your sincere glorification of Allah. This is because fitting thanks is itself a blessing bestowed upon the bondsman for which he must also give thanks; it is of greater merit and of a higher state than the original blessing which caused him to respond with thanks in the first place. Therefore, every time one gives thanks one is obliged to give yet greater thanks, and so on ad infinitum, and this while absorbed in His blessings and unable to achieve the ultimate state of gratitude. For how can the bondsman match with gratitude the blessings of Allah, and when will he match his own action with Allah's while all along the bondsman is weak and has no power whatsoever, except from Allah?" (Ibid.)

The world would be a better place if we were more grateful to Allah (swt) and to others. Therefore, I would like to publicly thank God for His continued mercy toward me, and to thank my parents for their love. Those few words are not adequate at all, but should not be left unsaid. I invite readers to use the comments section to thank Allah (swt) and/or any person.

(May Allah bless all of you with a blessed 2012 and beyond---Brian E. Muhammad)

West Africa and Oil

2011-12-09T23:31:00.002-05:00

West Africa sees new oil rush

By Meena Bhandari

www.finalcall.com

Nigerian workers of Fenog company a contracting fi rm to Chevron Oil at their site in Escravos, 56 miles from Warri in the oil rich Niger delta region of Nigeria Aug. 17, 2010. Nigeria is the fi fth largest exporter of oil to the United States and the largest producer of oil in Africa. For decades, thousands of spills across the fragile Niger Delta have hampered the livelihoods of fi shermen and farmers, contaminated water sources and polluted the ground and air. Approximately 300 spills are estimated each year. Some are small and some are continuous leaks but compounded they continue to pollute the delta. Photo: EPA/GEORGE ESIRI

FREETOWN (IPS/GIN) - There is a new oil rush off the coast of West Africa. But there are fears that the sector is not sufficiently regulated, and watchdog groups are raising concerns about transparency and governance in the region.

Anticipation is building in Sierra Leone after African Petroleum, an oil and gas exploration company focused on offshore West Africa, said they would begin drilling in the Sierra Leone-Liberia Basin next year after oil was discovered here in 2009. Civil society groups in Sierra Leone say they are just catching up with the oil discovery. “It’s very new—we’re still learning,” says Mohamed Toray of the National Movement for Justice and Development.

He says the country’s Petroleum Act, which was guided by agreements with oil companies, was rushed through as an emergency bill by the president’s office in July, and few people were consulted.

“Government agreements with oil companies guided the wording of the law. But, the law should have guided agreements with oil companies,” he says.

He also says Sierra Leone has a lot to learn from Ghana’s government, which engaged with civil society and the public when oil was found off its shores in 2007.

He says lessons can also be learned from Nigeria’s troubled history with oil. A recent report by the European Union Parliament says varying figures of 93 to 716 barrels a day were lost in Nigeria due to conflict, based on best and worst case scenarios.

Now Liberia is garnering attention—with expectations high that oil will be found soon. Major U.S. oil giants Chevron and Anadarko Petroleum Corp. (one of the world’s largest independent oil and gas exploration and production companies) are all searching hard in Liberia’s waters. The relatively unknown African Petroleum is also conducting explorations.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the West African Coastal Province—which includes Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea—has an estimated 3,200 million barrels of oil and 23,629 billion cubic feet of gas.

Translated into hard cash, that is hundreds of billions of dollars. “But, nobody knows for sure what it’s worth,” says Natalie Ashworth from Global Witness, the campaigning organization that uncovered links to how the wars in Sierra Leone and Liberia were fuelled by natural resources.

“Anadarko, the company that found reserves in Sierra Leone’s waters, is apparently keeping its data close to its chest,” she says.

Oil discoveries should be a boon to this region—boosting gains made from the war recovery efforts with millions of donor dollars, and increasing foreign investor confidence.

Liberia’s current GDP per capita is a minute $247, and Sierra Leone’s is $325—so any oil find would make a serious impact in two of the poorest countries in the world. Both Liberia and Sierra Leone rank amongst the worst places in the world for mothers to give birth, for example, despite both burgeoning with natural resources.

The implication is that a lack of transparency means a loss of potential revenue, and possibly depriving these economies of desperately needed social spending.

Liberia’s oil could turn out to be a blessing for some, and a curse for most, unless the government commits to an open reform process, says Global Witness. Oil exploration began in August off the coast of the West African country. However, the international organization says that unless the country cleans up its oil sector, they will not be ready for oil.

In a September report by Global Witness, the watchdog organization says it has already uncovered discrepancies, bad practices and even corruption in Liberia.

“Our investigations have shown that, even before a discovery is made, there are deep-seated problems in Liberia’s oil sector: government officials and at least one company have paid bribes, contracts have been awarded illegally, and companies with little experience in the oil sector have received concessions,” says Ms. Ashworth.

The group claims that a government agency paid bribes to the legislature so that oil contracts would be ratified. It also found the sector was not independently regulated.

Global Witness says that reforms in Liberia, like passing the groundbreaking Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative law that publishes extractive industry contracts and revenue data to improve resource governance, have not gone far enough in practice.

Global Witness goes as far as to say that Liberia is “not ready for oil” with its current governance and lack of transparency and needs wider reforms in its resource sector before people can actually benefit from any new finds.

Indeed, the history of oil in Africa has so far been a tumultuous one. A recent EU report found that the negative impacts of the oil industry in sub-Saharan Africa were a major concern, for the health and livelihoods of local communities.

It also stressed the need for better accountability, transparency and governance, and came hot on the heels of the United Nations findings highlighting the impact of oil spills in the Niger Delta.

The Niger Delta is said to be one of the most polluted sites in the world with oil spills over the last 50 years, having a devastating impact on human and wild life. A clean up is estimated to take 30 years at a cost of around $1 billion, according to the UN.

Meanwhile, Ian Gary of Oxfam International says the oil transparency and governance situation in Ghana at least is stronger than in the case of its neighbors, citing the fact that petroleum agreements are posted on the Ministry of Energy’s website.

“There were months of debate with heavy input from the public and civil society to develop the Petroleum Revenue Management Act,” he says. Ghana also recently inaugurated the Public Interest and Accountability Committee, a civil society watchdog required by the new law.

Despite this progress, Oxfam International says constant vigilance from civil society will be needed to ensure laws are upheld in practice.

Laurent Gbago Jailed at the Hague

2011-12-01T20:29:00.004-05:00

Ivory Coast's Gbagbo handed over to world court

Gbagbo has been under arrest in Ivory Coast since April

THE HAGUE (AFP) - Ex-Ivorian president Laurent Gbagbo was handed over to the world court on Wednesday to face charges of crimes against humanity, the first former head of state to stand before the body.

The prosecutor at the International Criminal Court vowed that the 66-year-old would not be the only person to be brought to account over post-election violence that killed 3,000 people in the west African country.

Gbagbo was remanded in court custody early on Wednesday after flying into the Netherlands by chartered plane from Ivory Coast, where he had been under arrest since April.

Read full article

Demons Unleashed--Libya Now

2011-11-30T12:58:00.003-05:00

Demons Unleashed in Libya:
NATO’s Islamists Continue Program of Ethnic and Ideological Cleansing

By Gerald A. Perreira

This is the dark time, my love,
All round the land brown beetles crawl about
The shining sun is hidden in the sky
Red flowers bend their heads in awful sorrow
This is the dark time, my love,
It is the season of oppression, dark metal, and tears.
It is the festival of guns, the carnival of misery
Everywhere, the faces of men are strained and anxious
Who comes walking in the dark night time?
Whose boot of steel tramps down the slender grass
It is the man of death, my love, the stranger invader
Watching you sleep and aiming at your dream.

--Martin Carter

All of the good that Muammar Qaddafi did for his people, and the immeasurable contribution he made to the oppressed peoples of the world is catalogued everywhere for those who have eyes to see. NATO’s war crimes are also catalogued – they went viral, so even in the absence of a court where NATO and their mercenaries can be tried, millions of people worldwide watched, at their computers and TV screens, the horrific war crimes that unfolded in Sirte and elsewhere in Libya. The verdicts are in. The question is what can be done about it?

The world was quite literally watching and still can watch, anytime they care to google the litany of obscene crimes committed, when a coalition of the most powerful nations on this earth, backed up by the vast majority of Arab and African misleaders, deployed the most sophisticated arsenal of weaponry in the history of the world against a small bastion of African resistance. In the now famous cities of Sirte and Bani Walid, Colonel Muammar Abu Minyar al-Qaddafi led his people in a courageous battle which lasted for months. The battles of Sirte and Bani Walid have surely earned their place in the annals of African history.

At his side were his son, Mutassim Qaddafi and Libya’s Minister of Defense, and one of the leaders of the 1969 Al Fateh revolution, Major General Abu-Bakr Yunis Jaber. Decades ago, he and the young Muammar were in the same class at the Military Academy in Benghazi and were co founders of the Free Officers’ Movement which overthrew King Idris.

Both men, spiritual heirs of Omar Al Mukhtar’s armed resistance against the Italian invaders in 1911, were in their 70s. Having to witness such a savage attack on them and not being able to do anything to defend them against NATO’s jackals, was traumatizing.

The core group of revolutionaries, who led the Al Fateh revolution in 1969 in their twenties, all now in their late 60s and 70s, chose to stay at their posts and fight alongside the people, despite having received many offers for safe passage out of Libya.

A Picture Tells 1000 Words

This picture of Sirte, after NATO’s bombardment, is worth more than a thousand words when it comes to understanding what actually took place in this once beautiful and prosperous African city. And all in the name of ‘protecting civilians’ – clearly with the exception of civilians loyal to Muammar Qaddafi and the Al Fateh revolution. We salute all of those who fought to defend Al Fateh and the Pan African project in Sirte, Bani Walid and throughout Libya. They are the real Jihadists – the true Pan-African Army.

Julius Malema, ANC Youth Leader, in reference to the North Atlantic Tribes, asked the question – why are these people so bloodthirsty? He pointed out that they did not seem to understand anything other than war.

It is no surprise that Julius Malema has been banned by Jacob Zuma’s ANC. Zuma is one of those African misleaders who signed Qaddafi’s death warrant, when South Africa, along with Nigeria and French controlled Gabon, all temporary members of the so-called Security Council at the time, agreed to the implementation of a ‘No Fly Zone’, which unleashed the demons of war.

Let us not imagine that they did not know what would ensue – the entire world has just witnessed the destruction of Iraq and Afghanistan. It was a painful blow to many Africans in Africa and throughout the world. We remembered Nelson Mandela’s now famous speech, when on the world stage he called Muammar Qaddafi ‘one of the great freedom fighters of the 20^th century’ and he publicly thanked the Brother Leader and the people of Libya for the material and moral support provided to the ANC when, as Mandela put it – their ‘backs were up against the wall’. The half hearted attempts by the AU to take the necessary action to defend Libya were shameful and demoralizing.

There was a time…

Some of it in my lifetime, when we had visionary, principled and courageous African leaders - Shaka Zulu, Queen Nzingha, Cetshwayo, Dedan Kimathi, Julius Nyerere, Ahmed Sekou Toure, Kwame Nkrumah, Gamal Abdul Nasser, Marien Ngouabi, Ahmed Ben Bella, Samora Machel, Thomas Sankara, Murtala Muhammad, Laurent Kabila to name but a few. Had leaders such as these been in power today, NATO could not have gotten away with invading Libya. The fact is, with few exceptions, the current bunch of African leaders; many of them put in place by the forces of white supremacy were just not up to the job.

Those who are misleading Africa today – ‘who the cap fit let them wear it’ – have paid a dear price. What is coming our way will be punishment for such a colossal betrayal. And sadly, we will all suffer for their sins.

The murder of Muammar Qaddafi plunged us into despair. We mourned his death as sons mourn their father - he called us his sons and we responded as such because we understood his sincerity.

Those who worked with Qaddafi can testify that the Brother Leader’s efforts were motivated by a strong and uncompromising faith in God, his deep love for humanity and a sincere desire to assist all those engaged in the struggle to end injustice and oppression. If anyone epitomized Che’s (Guevara) famous quote, it was our brother: ‘Revolutionaries are first human beings, and at the risk of sounding utterly ridiculous, revolution is based upon supreme feelings of love’.

Those among the leadership of Al Fateh who were not murdered, were captured. Dr Ahmed Ibrahim, one of the foremost exponents of the Third Universal Theory, an intellectual warrior and committed Pan-Africanist, was captured while defending Sirte. The uncle of Moussa Ibrahim, who over the past months became known as the spokesperson for the legitimate government of Libya, he is currently being held in Misurata, and his son, Yurub Ibrahim, has also been arrested. The well known Islamic scholar Sheik Khaled Tantoush, has been abducted from his home in Sirte and is also being held in Misurata. These elderly men are being subjected to constant taunting, beatings and torture and their condition is deteriorating rapidly. Global campaigns have been launched to demand the protection under international law and conventions, regarding prisoners of war, for high profile prisoners Saif-al Islam Qaddafi, Abdullah Senussi, Ahmed Ibrahim, Khaled Tantoush and the thousands of prisoners held by the NTC. (see websites Libya SOS, Libya 360 and Mathaba.net for ways you can assist the campaign and video footage of how these elderly prisoners are being treated).

In addition to loyalty to the Leader, and defense of their country against foreign invaders, having black skin and asserting one’s Africanity has become a crime in the new Libya. Ethnic cleansing is continuing unabated. Every day Black Africans from Libya and other parts of Africa are hunted down. Thousands have been brutally tortured and executed. Rape of Black women is a favored weapon of NATO’s Islamists. Many of the female bodies found show signs of rape, beatings and torture. Large numbers of Black Africans make up the ranks of the Green Resistance.

NATO’s Living Hell

One Tripoli resident, who cannot be named, told me:

‘Everyone is terrified of the NTC and their armed gangs. We have seen with our own eyes what they are capable of – they are animals. All around us people are being rounded up and imprisoned. We have no way of knowing how many have been murdered. Anyone who is associated with Qaddafi or suspected of loyalty to him is at risk. Even people who have worked for people who are known supporters of the leader have been rounded up and tortured. I personally know of many persons who were just working for people associated with the leader who have been taken away and never seen again. If you are black you are an immediate suspect – these rebels call black Libyans ‘abd’ means slave and they are rounding them up just because they are black – it is making me sick and ashamed.

What these rebels have done to their own people is disgusting – some of the acts of torture I can’t even speak about. There has been a lot of rape. I wept when I learned of what these animals did to the leader’s female body guards – they are not human and that is why there is so much fear. Any known Qaddafi loyalists who have not been able to get out of Libya have to stay underground. Libyans are afraid to talk to other Libyans – anyone could be an informer. It feels like the last days are upon us – Libya has been turned into a living hell.’

There is now a complete whiteout by the corporate media regarding all news from Libya. And of course, although genocide is unfolding right before our eyes, there will be

no outcry from the UN, Amnesty International or that euphemistic chorus known as ‘the

international community’, that bleats on ad nauseum about ’democracy, human rights and the rule of law’? No time or motive for outcry – having shared the spoils, they have already moved on to their next victims – Syria and Iran.

Demons Unleashed

To do their dirty work, NATO employed the most barbaric marauders they could find. These Islamist mercenaries are programmed, sadistic fighters – they have been on the battlefields in Iraq, Afghanistan and now Libya. They have been hired many times over by NATO, who characteristically plays all sides, and that is why they need to sprinkle stimulant powders on their food - to keep them in killing mode.

Shouting Allahu Akhbar, like robots, they go from town to town, city to city, ransacking, beating, torturing, raping and murdering, and then, in their crazed state, with inflated feelings of omnipotence, they actually take footage of themselves committing heinous war crimes and post them on youtube.

As the people bury their dead, they defiantly whisper, ‘Allah, Muammar, Libya and nothing else’. Amidst the screams that can be heard deep into the night, a shell shocked population tries to understand what happened to them, and struggles to come to terms with the obscene end inflicted on a man they loved. Now they must try to find a way to confront the ‘brave new world’ that has been imposed upon them by this foreign invasion. In an instant, they have been transported back in time to when Europeans last occupied their country.

Green Resistance – It is only a matter of time…

The war in Libya is far from over. The corporate media continues the lie that Libya has been ‘liberated’ and that life there has ‘returned to normal’. In truth, chaos reigns. Rumors about NATO’s plans to carve up the country are rife and Libya remains engulfed in warfare.

People are being systematically hunted down. Truck loads of bodies are being carted away, as the now feuding armed gangs, each with their own command structure, and none adhering to anything the NTC says, introduces the only policy they ever had – exterminate Qaddafi and all those loyal to him. That numbers in the millions and they are stopping at nothing to track them down.

The Green resistance referred to as the Libyan Liberation Army (LLA) or the Libyan Liberation Front (LLF) is regrouping and growing stronger by the day. Street battles are commonplace, explosions can be heard all over Tripoli and in other regions, and NATO’s mercenaries are facing fierce resistance.

Libya’s powerful Warfalla Tribe, comprising more than a million Libyans, have stated that ‘they are thirsting for revenge’, many of them having fought in the battle of Bani

Walid.

One Green resistance fighter summed up the feeling of all:

‘It does not matter how long it takes, we will rise again as sure as the sun rises. It is only a matter of time. It may not be today – we are a patient people. Right now, many of us have to lay low while the leaders regroup and put certain things in place so that we can take our resistance to the next level, but we know our time will come and we are only waiting for the word to take up our arms.

We have to be organized and this takes time, especially under the present conditions of occupation. Our people are being tortured and raped and murdered for supporting the leader and defending their revolution. We have had to leave our homes and watch these dogs destroy them and steal everything from us. But our day will come – we can never forget the crimes committed against us by NATO and these murdering thieves who call themselves revolutionaries and Muslims.

What I have seen with my own two eyes is unbelievable – people committing the cruelest acts - crimes against humanity while they cry out Allahu Akhbar. They are like drugged people. We have uncovered mass graves of Qaddafi loyalists – with their hands tied behind their backs - all executed. I want to tell them that every person they tortured, every person murdered, every woman they raped, every home they destroyed and looted and everything they did to our dear leader and his family will be avenged.

This is not the first time this has happened to us Libyans – this is exactly what happened to us when the Italians occupied our land – thanks to the leader we are a very educated people now – we know our history and our heroes. The NTC has already taken the picture of Omar Al Mukhtar off the Libyan dinar but it does not matter – they can destroy every picture of Omar Al Mukhtar and the leader, because the story of his bravery and the bravery of his son Muammar Qaddafi is in our hearts – these men can never die - and this gives us the belief and certainty that we will overcome these thieves again – believe me, it is only a matter of time.’

A Frenzied Phase

The invasion of Libya and the murder of Muammar Qaddafi ushered in what can be described as the empire’s ‘frenzied phase’. Capitalism and imperialism are taking their last hideous gasps, and in this phase we will see their evil laid bare. NATO will continue to become ever more brazen with its ‘shock and horror’ tactics, believing that they are unstoppable and invincible, as once did Rome. In other words, with the imperialists in panic mode, we can expect their behavior to become all the more barbaric, savage and uncivilized, as has been prophesied.

The Twilight Zone – Vampires of Empire

The additional dimension in this new phase is that capitalism, White supremacy’s socioeconomic system, has entered a period of unprecedented crisis – it is on its last legs and the system is turning in on itself. The vampires of empire do indeed ‘suck the blood of the sufferer’. They are desperate now and quite literally don’t care if they are seen to be dripping in our blood. Their global economic arrangement is crumbling faster than they can hold their next summit, and we cannot be caught off guard.

We have watched Europe and the US forestall their collapse for a number of years, to the point where they are frantic and fast running out of ideas. As fast as they share the spoils of one war – they need another to quench their insatiable appetite for plunder. Our trouble is, that many of us are too slow to follow the visionary leadership in their midst. Had African leaders shared the vision, united and worked together toward a United States of Africa as Qaddafi pleaded, the world would have been a very different place today. Muammar Qaddafi and the Libyan revolution were on the verge of bringing about a total shift in the global balance of power, and giving Africa its rightful place in the world. We have never been so close to reasserting African power. He was truly a Lion of Africa.

A Ruthless Enemy – Know Them

The North Atlantic Tribes are an extremely ruthless enemy. It is necessary to study and understand their mentality in order to build an effective resistance. Indisputably, there is good and bad in every race. However, also indisputably, the historical and cultural continuum known as Europe has specificities that no other group on the face of this earth has demonstrated. Their will to dominate, consume and destroy is unparalleled.

Marimba Ani, in her seminal work, Yurugu- An Afrikan-Centered Critique of European Cultural Thought and Behavior, offers an incisive analysis of the European mindset. In her words:

‘All modes of European behavior and dominant styles of action act to increase and ensure material control…The power ideology that defines the total culture keeps it off- balance. The culture itself – always ‘progressing’, never ‘progressed’ – is unidirectional, one dimensional, fanatical, and atrophied; a culture that must consume others. But ultimately this ideology is incoherent; it literally lacks human meaning. It is the compulsiveness, the drive, the insatiable appetite of the culture that are its distinguishing features…it is as well-constructed as a power machine can be…For success it has sacrificed ‘soul’. What is left is profane. Aesthetically, and in terms of self-image, it identifies as white. Europe is the cultural home of a people who identify as one race; i.e., banding together for survival and destruction of others. They would destroy each other if there were not others to destroy. They fear and hate blackness, which they associate with spiritual power – a power which they can neither possess, create nor control.’

In White Racism: A Psychohistory, Joel Kovel describes this drive to conquer and destroy as a ‘cosmic yearning’, ‘a bottomless longing’. Samuel Huntington, author of the Clash of Civilizations reminds us of something that we should never forget: ‘The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion, but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence.’

That is the reason why the enemy gets so agitated when we organize armed resistance, because they know how powerful organized violence can be.

The invasion of Libya and the murder of Qaddafi is what happened to a nation and its leader when they give up their program to develop ‘weapons of mass destruction’ and opted for a path of peaceful coexistence. In an interview at the beginning of the war, Saif Qaddafi admitted that Libya had been caught ‘unprepared for war’, having not even upgraded their conventional weaponry. No nation will ever make that fatal mistake again. The North Atlantic Tribes can never be trusted. Deterrents of any kind are better than no deterrents at all.

The North Atlantic Tribes have mastered the art of war and perfected weaponry like no other peoples in history. They are the quintessential warlords.

In order to carry out this re-grab, in their desperate and frenzied attempt to hasten their plunder of Africa and the global south’s wealth, it is imperative for the imperialists to get rid of all revolutionary nationalist regimes that might stand in their way, and ensure that compliant regimes are firmly in place. We must prepare ourselves for what is to come. In his last message, the Brother Leader warned us to ‘hold down our corners’ because if they get past Libya they are coming for all of us. The challenge in this phase is to find ways to cope with the Empire’s collapse and to strengthen our resistance in order to confront the frantic and barbaric behavior which will inevitably characterize their demise.

Their House is Burning - Not Ours

At a global economic summit in 2009, former President of Brazil, Lula Da Silva, when commenting on the global economic crisis, stated, ‘This was a crisis that was fostered and boosted by the irrational behavior of people who were white and blue-eyed, who before the crisis looked like they knew everything about economics, but now have demonstrated they know nothing about economics’ He added, ‘The part of humanity that is responsible should be the part that pays for the crisis.’

Too many of us are still, as Malcolm X put it, ‘house negroes’. The house negro lived in the master’s house and when the master’s house was burning, he said ‘we house burning’. If the master was sick, the house negro said ‘we sick’. And then there was the field negro. When he saw the master’s house burning he said ‘Let it burn’.

In Africa, South America, the Caribbean and throughout the global south, we have been in crisis for centuries as a result of the imperialists endless thirst for domination, plunder and war. It is the master’s house that is burning this time. And we say – ‘let it burn’. The demise of this empire is a welcome thing. We don’t need to concern ourselves with bringing Babylon down, for it is surely crumbling – politically, economically, ideologically and morally, due to its own internal contradictions. In the meantime, as Muammar Qaddafi urged, ‘we must build the new as the old crumbles around us’. Only then can we be ready. It is not the end of the world – it is the end of their world.

Gerald A. Perreira is a founding member of the Guyanese organizations Joint Initiative for Human Advancement and Dignity and Black Consciousness Movement Guyana (BCMG). He lived in Libya for many years, served in the Green March, an international battalion for the defense of the Al Fateh revolution and was an executive member of the World Mathaba based in Tripoli.

America admits Mubarak was a Dictator

2011-11-23T23:35:00.002-05:00

Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak

Originally Posted on PressTV

The United Stated has for the first time admitted that former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, a close ally of Washington in the Middle East for decades, was indeed a dictator.

White House spokesman Jay Carney made the remarks in Washington on Monday while commenting on the latest spate of violence that has hit Egypt.

He said the US is deeply concerned about the violence, adding it was "important to step back and remember how far Egypt has traveled this year. And it's important that Egypt continues to move to make that transition to the democracy that the people of Egypt demanded. And, as a result of their demands, they ended a multi-decade dictatorship," AFP reported.

Carney's comments came on the third day of clashes in Cairo's Tahrir Square that has left scores of people dead.

Egyptian Health Ministry said, 24 people have been killed in clashes between Egyptian protesters and military forces in Cairo whereas the country's medical sources put the death toll at 35.

Egyptian police have been firing rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse thousands of protesters in the iconic square, leaving hundreds injured.

Political forces behind the Egyptian revolution that toppled Mubarak in February this year have called for mass demonstrations on Tuesday to demand that the ruling military junta hand over power to civilian leaders.

Comments:

Brian E. Muhammad

Nov 23, 2011 6:11 AM

Mubarak was America's dictator and the Military was America's as well. It was U.S. tax payers money that supported Mubarak and the wealthy CIA backed Generals who were his partners in crime. The Million Man March on the streets of Cairo is in order and justified to now oust the military.

Mumia-What Do they Want?

2011-11-16T10:45:00.004-05:00

'What Do They Want?'

Mumia Abu-Jamal

With few exceptions, major corporate outlets, networks, national newspapers and the like, have treated the month long protests such as Occupy Wall Street as something akin to a UFO: odd, alien and inscrutable.

From microphones nationwide come questions: "What do they
want?"; "What are their demands?";or, "Why are they doing this?"
By so doing, they have spread more confusion than information, and performed a serious disservice to their listeners, viewers and readers.
They have become purveyors of misinformation, and are, at the very least, disingenuous.

For, the Occupation movement could not be more clear about their goals and objectives. Indeed, within days of the demonstration's debut, they published a 4-page, full-color newspaper, called The Occupied Wall Street Journal, with a statement on page 3 announcing exactly what brought them together, and why.
It's titled: "Declaration of the Occupation", which in language and tone rings with similarities to the Declaration of Independence. It speaks of "solidarity" with others, and seeks an end to the "mass injustice" being faced by millions of Americans (and others) who "feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world."

In a nutshell, they speak out against corporate greed, Illegal foreclosures, bailouts for Wall St., discrimination, exorbitant student loans, political corruption, environmental degradation, the wars abroad--and the corporate control of the media which "keeps people misinformed and fearful.

Huh.

There it is.

It ain't rocket science. It couldn't be clearer.

It's given away freely.

If media couldn't take the time to travel to downtown Manhattan (or their own down towns in over a thousand cities!) to pick up a copy, they could see it on their computer, at: occupywa!!st.org

Seriously.

Now, I don't have computer access. It's not only disallowed on Death Row--It ain't In Pennsylvania prisons period.
Yet, a fellow mailed me a copy of The Occupied Wall Street Journal. And I read It.
Why couldn't reporters for major media outlets have done so?
Unless they wanted to "keep people misinformed?"

(c) '11 maj
=========================

The Power of Truth is Final -- Free Mumia!

Mumia's audio and podcasts

http://www.prisonradio.org

http://mumiapodcast.libsyn.com/

Mumia's got a podcast! Mumia Abu-Jamal's Radio Essays - Subscribe at the website or on iTunes and get Mumia's radio commentaries online.

Mumia Abu-Jamal's new book:

JAILHOUSE LAWYERS: PRISONERS DEFENDING PRISONERS V. THE USA, featuring an introduction by Angela Y. Davis -- has been released! It is available from City Lights Books: http://www.citylights.com/book/?GCOI=87286100448090

Please make a contribution to help free Mumia. Donations to the grassroots work will go to both INTERNATIONAL CONCERNED FAMILY AND FRIENDS OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL and the FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL COALITION (NYC).

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Please mail donations/ checks to:
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PO BOX 16, NEW YORK,
NY 10030
(CHECKS FOR BOTH ORGANIZATIONS PAYABLE TO: FMAJC/IFCO)

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Send our brotha some LOVE and LIGHT at:

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lcol. writ. 11/2/11 (c) '11

2011-11-14T13:42:00.001-05:00

The plot to dilute the Black vote

By George E. Curry

(FinalCall.com)After decades of trying to ease voting restrictions that suppress voter turnout in the U.S., already among the lowest among industrialized nations, Republican-led state legislators and GOP governors have quickly implemented or proposed a series of changes aimed at reducing Black political clout.

Among the recent developments to limit Black voter participation: At least 34 states have introduced legislation that would require voters to show photo identification in order to vote.

Read Full article

Western Hegemony suffers Blow

2011-11-08T20:18:00.002-05:00

Zimbabwe has won a decisive victory in Africa's war against Western economic hegemony. The Government has a responsibility to ensure that the diamond income enhances our people's quality of life.

(This article can be read in its entirety on Pan-African News Wire...)

A Superpower Can Be Tamed...Is This A Turning Point In EU-Zimbabwe Relations?

By Brezhnev Malaba recently in Kinshasa, DRC
Zimbabwe Herald

DID you ever imagine that the day would come when the United States would be forced by geo-strategic realities to undermine and subvert its own sanctions on Zimbabwe?

This is exactly what happened at the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme plenary in Kinshasa last week.

The battle for African resources between Western nations and China is throwing up some surprising outcomes. Desperate to thwart China and cornered by African diamond producers, who vowed to back Zimbabwe all the way, the outfoxed and out punched superpower staggered dramatically, slumped into a corner and waited for the inevitable 10-count.

It was game over!

Full article @ Pan-African News Wire...

2011-11-03T23:13:00.001-04:00

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WWW.NOI.ORG

STORE.FINALCALL.COM

Blacks in Iraq

2011-11-01T13:37:00.001-04:00

Blacks in Iraq face racial hurdles

By Karlos Zurutuza

BASRA (IPS/GIN) - “Before being deployed to Iraq, I never thought I'd come across people who physically resemble my friends and family back in Buffalo,” says U.S. marines sergeant William Collins on a rare patrol around Basra's Zubeir district.

The American marine arrived four months ago in Iraq's second largest city. Sgt. Collins admits that nobody in his battalion knew of the existence of an Afro-Arab community in Iraq, not even the Afro-Americans like him.

“If I dressed the local Arab garb, I would be able to walk across these streets and nobody would take me as a foreigner,” says Sgt. Collins. He adds that he'd probably feel safer that way than with the bulletproof jacket and the helmet he's wearing.

There are many Black people in Basra and especially in Zubeir district—an area of crumbling mud-brick buildings that is home to 300,000. Most Black people in Zubeir claim to be descendants of slaves brought to the Gulf from Africa at least since the ninth century. And some old habits seem to have survived for a whole millennium.

“The Arabs still call us “abd” (‘slave' in Arabic),” says 46-year-old Zubeir resident Amin Tarik. “Luckily enough, there are not aggressions against us, but we face discrimination in almost every aspect of life,” adds Mr. Tarik, speaking in the courtyard of his humble mud house.

Iraqi Blacks hardly speak any language but Arabic, and they are overwhelmingly Muslim, like the majority in the country. Slavery was abolished here in the 19th century but the color of their skin literally closes many doors.

Twenty-five-year-old Jihad Hail knows that well. “I fell in love with a White woman and even managed to marry her against all odds. But we finally split as she couldn't cope with the massive pressure her family was putting on her,” recalls the young Afro-Arab, today in another relationship. “She's Black, I've learned the lesson well.”

It's almost impossible to spot mixed couples on the streets of Basra. Women who marry a Black man—it's never the other way round—have to walk under the eyes of Iraqi tribal society.

“I know a mixed couple,” says Doha Abdulreda, a 20-year-old Black hostess at Basra's trade fair. “She'll always hide under her Niqab (the Muslim covering over the face) when she walks next to her husband. Her family rejected her, that's not uncommon here.”

While many call the Afro-Arabs “abd,” they still call the local Arabs “free men.”

Among the latter, there are all sorts of views on discrimination. “The Black people have always been fully integrated in our community,” says resident Said Al Mehdi. “Even my grandfather's fourth wife was a Black woman. I'd always kiss her hand with great devotion,” recalls this 72-year-old man, hair covered with a green scarf to suggest he's a direct descendant of Prophet Muhammad.

Not everybody would agree. “These people have been facing discrimination since the very day their ancestors were brought from Africa to build canals and to turn marshlands into fields for cotton and other crops,” says Saad Salloum, editor of Masarat, a magazine focused on the minorities issue in Iraq.

“Unlike the Christians, the Bahai or other religious minorities, the Iraqi Blacks haven't suffered prosecution because of their faith. On the other hand, they don't enjoy recognition as an Iraqi minority as that is still based on religious grounds.”

But they have found a political voice to speak for them. “We celebrated Obama's victory in the streets as ours in 2009, and it really encouraged us to fight for our rights,” says Salah Ruhais Salman, vice-president of the Iraqi Freedom Movement, a political party established to defend the rights of Iraqis of African descent.

Mr. Salman says Iraqi Blacks have been forced to keep a low profile since the invasion of the country in 2003. But now they are asking for recognition as a national minority, something that would grant them a seat quota in Parliament.

But the unpaved road ahead seems to be endless, going by the eloquent figures provided by the 50-year-old activist.

“There are around 1.5 million of us in Iraq but none of us occupies any position in the Iraqi administration. I ran for the local elections back in 2009 with seven other colleagues. Despite Basra hosting Iraq's most significant Black community, none of us was elected. Can you believe that?” Mr. Salman has no doubts that the vote was “blatantly rigged.”

In a cable leaked by Wikileaks last September, Ramon Negron—director of the U.S. regional embassy in Basra—reported that “the Black community suffers disproportionately under the government's patronage-based political system,” adding that “they would easily have enough votes to win at least one seat in Basra's Provincial Council.”

Many Iraqi Blacks make a living as musicians. A wedding in Basra is never complete without drummers called in from Zubeir district.

Wafa Majid volunteers there as director of the women affairs section at the community meeting center. The place was established at the beginning of this year and today it hosts computing and sewing workshops, as well as a reading and writing centre in order to tackle the high illiteracy rate—well over 90 percent among the local Black women, according to local NGOs.

“It's not easy to be Black and a female in Iraq but we cannot just sit down and watch our husbands play bongos,” says Ms. Majid. Behind her, a group of 20 women sitting in front of a set of computers prepare for the massive challenges ahead.

2011-10-27T01:24:00.002-04:00

Critics question US Military deployment in Central Africa

By Brian E. Muhammad

At a time of intense dissatisfaction and growing discontent among the American people over the current state of affairs and a bleak future, the Obama administration has embarked on another military intervention on foreign soil. In an Oct. 14 letter to Congress, President Barrack Obama announced his authorization to send U.S. troops into the central African nation of Uganda.

The letter stated the move is to help end a long running insurgency by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a rebel group led by Joseph Kony, an opposition leader to the government of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni—a faithful U.S. ally. However, critics question U.S. involvement in the matter asking why Uganda, why now and what is America’s strategic interest in committing more soldiers and spending more money at a time of high unemployment, stringent U.S. economic constraints and engagement in several other conflicts like Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia—albeit via its surrogate, Uganda. Moreover, what will be the cost for American tax payers’ to track down Joseph Kony?

“For more than two decades, the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) has murdered, raped, and kidnapped tens of thousands of men, women, and children in central Africa. The LRA continues to commit atrocities across the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and South Sudan that have a disproportionate impact on regional security,” Pres. Obama said in the congressional letter.

“Since 2008, the United States has supported regional military efforts to pursue the LRA and protect local communities. Even with some limited U.S. assistance, however, regional military efforts have thus far been unsuccessful in removing LRA leader Joseph Kony or his top commanders from the battlefield.”

President Obama described the military presence as advisory in nature and although the troops are “combat ready,” they will only engage the LRA in “self defense.” But observers who follow Ugandan politics reject the White House stated intention.

“Who are you trying to fool? I mean you can only do that and hope to get away with it, knowing that the American public is so uninformed when it comes to Africa…if you were discussing a European setting you wouldn’t be selling this kind of nonsense to the public,” countered writer and Ugandan native Milton Alimadi to the Final Call.

Mr. Alimadi also raised questions about U.S. hypocrisy in prioritizing Mr. Kony in the face of its partnership with Mr. Museveni in the carnage demonstrated in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

“Why now when in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) worst atrocities occur daily; committed by militias far more brutal than the LRA, which were created and sustained by Uganda's Yoweri Museveni and Rwanda's Paul Kagame.”

Pres. Museveni and Pres. Kagame were willing participants as U.S. backed proxies to wage war in the DRC since the Bill Clinton years resulting in 6 Million Congolese killed in what analysts call Africa’s world war.

“These two U.S.-backed dictators have been able to siphon billions of dollars of Congo's wealth by sponsoring mayhem -- massacres, mass rapes, and mutilations-- in the vast country through their allied militias,” said Mr. Alimadi.

“There are people who are in Eastern Congo, in Central Africa under the guise of looking for Kony but they are there to steal Congo’s wealth,” said Lawrence Kiwanuka, former chairperson of The Ugandan Democracy Party—USA. Mr. Kiwanuka told the Final Call that America’s involvement will give credibility to an “international criminal activity” in the eyes of the guilty which he said are regional forces from within Uganda.

“They will claim that Uncle Sam, the international police is with us.”

U.S., Museveni, Kony-three bad actors

The LRA is reputed to be a Christian fundamentalist group who has been waging a gory armed struggle to overthrow the Ugandan government. Presently Mr. Kony is under warrant by the International Criminal Court for years of atrocities and human rights abuses and thus far has eluded capture. However Pres. Museveni is a former bush fighter himself who came to power in 1986 amid a protracted civil war against his predecessor, former dictator Milton Obote and has successfully positioned himself as an influential minion for U.S. interests and foreign policy objectives on the African continent.

The LRA rebellion is considered one of the world's most brutal crises in modern times according to some rights groups who welcome the intervention and see it as a positive step for human rights abuse issues stemming from such conflicts. But conversely, American boots on the ground in Africa—small or large—is problematic to some Africa watchers who maintain that there is an agenda of re-colonization, militarization and a renewed scramble for the precious resources of the continent from within and without.

Furthermore in light of Western imperialist aggression in the North African country of Libya that ousted its long time leader Muammar el-Gadhafi under the guise of “protecting civilians,” critics are skeptical to believe U.S. military commitment to Uganda is really about uprooting a regional trouble maker like Kony to aid an old U.S. regional puppet like Museveni.

Get Kony: A smoke screen for other sinister reasons

As terrible as the LRA and its eccentric Mr. Kony is, some see the “get Kony” scenario as a facade for more sinister objections such as American economic interests like oil and protecting its continental influence.

“It’s a smokescreen, because they don’t need American soldiers to capture Kony; and what is the international implication for what Kony is doing on the world,” asked Akbar Muhammad, International Representative of the Nation of Islam and The Hon. Minister Louis Farrakhan.

“Why is it America has to get involved in that when it’s a local problem between a small rebel group that want to make Uganda a Christian country, as you have these Muslims who want to make Egypt a Islamic country,” he continued.

Mr. Muhammad opined the decision may actually concern oil found in Uganda on one hand and the dilemma of re-routing crude out of Africa’s newest country, South Sudan on the other hand. Currently the oil from the South goes through the North; however, since the South Sudan succession from Sudan and their ongoing conflict coupled with a Western agenda for regime change in Khartoum; they may be looking to secure alternative oil routes through Uganda and Kenya.

Whatever the motivations are behind US intervention, observers say Ugandans are suffering from inflation and higher costs of living caused largely by corruption and the vices of a government led by a Western favorite.

At Final Call press time demonstrators protesting in the streets of Kampala were met with tear gas, rubber bullets and arrests by the Ugandan police. Mr. Kiwanuka said capturing or killing Mr. Kony—who is not on the mind of Ugandans—is like only treating a symptom and disregarding the disease.

“The disease is the failed governance in the region, but mainly in Uganda,” he said.

Farrakhan speaks on Qadhafi's Death

2011-10-26T01:43:00.002-04:00

Farrakhan: Nation of Islam mourns assassination of Muammar Gadhafi

By FinalCall.com News

The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan and radio host Cliff Kelley on Oct. 25, 2011 at WVON 1690AM Studio in Chicago. Photo: Timothy 6X

CHICAGO (FinalCall.com) - In his first major national interview since the death of Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan sat with prominent radio personality Cliff Kelley in studio at WVON 1690AM.

Minister Farrakhan entered the studio with an extremely serious look on his face and was very focused as Mr. Kelley asked him the how he was feeling.

“I feel like I have lost a very, very important member of my own family. I can't take the assassination of Muammar Gadhafi lightly, as I could not take the assassination of my brother, or my mother, or my wife or my children lightly. That's the kind of relationship that we had and that we have,” said Min. Farrakhan. “I come to say to the world that the Nation of Islam mourns the loss of a great brother leader, the Lion of the Desert, the Lion of Africa, and those who rejoice at his death, your laughter will turn to tears and your joy will turn to sorrow and great pain because of what the Western world and those collaborators will lose as a result of his betrayal and his ultimate assassination.”

A full media contingent was present for the interview and thousands viewed live via internet webcast as Minister Farrakhan described his close relationship with Col. Gadhafi, exposed the backstabbing skullduggery of international leaders and foretold the future of the United Nations. He also had sharp words of warning for President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

“You're blinded by your arrogance and your military power and it is leading you step by step into your destruction,” he said.

Minister Farrakhan also agreed to return next week on the Cliff Kelley Show to discuss issues critical to the survival of the Black community.

(Look for more coverage and important updates here @ FinalCall.com News. CD & DVD of this interview is also available @ http://Store.FinalCall.com)

Killing Gadhafi

2011-10-25T03:52:00.004-04:00

WWW.FINALCALL.COM

The Death of Muammar Gadhaffi

2011-10-20T23:30:00.001-04:00

LION OF AFRICA KILLED IN COMBAT

“And say not of those who are slain in the way of Allah ‘they are dead’. Nay, they are living, though you perceive it not…finding their sustenance in the presence of their Lord.”
Quran 3:169

Today, Friday October 21st, our beloved Brother Leader and one of the world’s greatest freedom fighters, revolutionary pan-Africanist, Muammar Al Qaddafi was martyred in combat by the North Atlantic Tribes, organized under the banner of NATO, bolstered by the Arab sheikhdoms, including Al Jazeera’s boss, the Emir of Qatar, the pseudo Islamic House of Saud and the US’s own hideous creation, Al Qaeda. These North Atlantic Tribes constitute the same forces that have murdered our leaders, invaded our lands and plundered and ransacked our resources for more than 500 years. Muammar Qaddafi bravely stood against them all, making his last stand today, after a lifetime of struggle, in Sirte.

In the early 80s, I was selected from the International Revolutionary Committees Movement to be a member of an international battalion to defend the Al Fateh revolution. I was also a founding member of the World Mathaba based in Libya. I am proud and honored to have served under the Brother Leader and have had the opportunity to play a part in the noble struggle he represented. I knew Muammar Qaddafi and the man I knew was no tyrant. He was brilliant and profound, a man of honor, courage, strength and great integrity. He spent his entire life fighting on the side of oppressed humanity – the poor and the powerless worldwide. He assisted all those who asked for help with their just struggles. His decision to assist was never based on Libya’s geo-political interests, but rather on the Quranic injunction which commands all Muslims to assist those fighting a just cause. Under his guidance, organizations and movements that had never before been included in any international formation, or given any international recognition or assistance became members of the World Mathaba, including indigenous organizations from throughout the Americas and worldwide and groups such as the Rumanian Gypsies.

Muammar Al Qaddafi stood against all forces of tyranny, tirelessly campaigning for human emancipation and dignity from the age of 27, murdered in combat at his post, age 69. The Lion of Africa is dead, but like the Hon. Marcus Mosiah Garvey before him, he has left millions of cubs in the bushes and in the desert. They can kill the man but they can never kill his profound ideas. His legacy is only made stronger by his martyrdom.

We, the millions worldwide, who loved him and supported him in life, will continue to fight on after his death for the noble cause he stood for. His martyrdom does not weaken us but only serves to inspire. We knew this man well enough to know that he would never run and would stand with his people at his post until the end. We salute his bravery, even at his advanced age, he never once wavered.

We say to the representatives of ‘the Beast’, Obama, Sarkozy, Cameron, Clinton who only a day ago ordered the murder of Qaddafi, and the Arab minions who gave credence to this war, that you will surely find your rightful place in the bowels of hell. You dared to take our most beloved and heroic African elder and murder him mercilessly and then show grotesque depictions of your evil deed on TV screens worldwide, and in the same breath preach democracy and civilization to us. With your murderous war machine you killed thousands in cold blood in Sirte and throughout Libya, hiding behind a few thousand rebel rats and lying to the world about a civil war and humanitarian intervention. You brazenly imposed a regime in Libya that is anything but democratic, but know this: the battle is not over – this struggle continues and with greater impetus following the martyrdom of our leader. The Muammar Qaddafi that I knew would not want us to mourn him but rather to organize and carry forward his mission. And make no mistake, as your empire crumbles, our day will come in his name.

On this day, on behalf of the Black Consciousness Movement of Guyana and in the memory of revolutionary Pan-Africanists Kwame Ture, Cleo Hancilles, Michel Kapel, Tim Hector and many other brothers and sisters who are no longer with us, all of whom loved Muammar Al Qaddafi and fought for the realization of his vision, we send our deepest respect to his wife Safia Qaddafi and his entire family. Our prayers are with you. He is father to us all – he called us his sons and daughters.

May he and all the martyrs from Libya and across Africa murdered with him, rest in peace. Rest assured that their sacrifice will not be in vain.

Tutashinda in his name (We will conquer in his name)

Al Fateh Forever!

Gerald A. Perreira
International Coordinator
Black Consciousness Movement Guyana

The Gadhafi I Know.....

2011-10-13T12:09:00.005-04:00

“The Gadhafi I Know”

A. Akbar Muhammad

(Guest Blogger)

GlobalPeeks-----Listening and looking at the news reports on Libya since the turmoil began earlier this year, the corporate media portrayal of the North African country and its unjustly deposed leader is a depiction that’s nowhere near the Muammar Gadhafi I know. I traveled to Libya for the first time in February, 1977 with Minister Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam and reflecting on our relationship with Muammar Gadhafi and the Libyan people that spans decades, it is disheartening to hear reports implying that in 42 years, Muammar Gadhafi has done nothing for Libya and his people. I thought long and hard about how the Western press shaped how Muammar Gadhafi is seen by the world since the uprisings against the Libyan government started in March.

I was a member of the Nation of Islam for nine years when Muammar Gadhafi came to power on September 1, 1969 in what later became known to the world as the Great Al-Fateh Revolution. Young people engaged in struggle worldwide were proud of the group of army officers led by the 27 year old Muammar Gadhafi. He was inspired by Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt and the Free Officer Movement that swept King Farouk out of power who was more concerned with pleasing England and Western interests than caring for the needs of his people. So it was in Libya where the young officers took power from its monarch, King Idriss Al-Sanousi, another minion of foreign powers.

At the time of the Al-Fateh revolution the Libyan people were poor and only 15% of the people had an education. We all took notice when the young officers led by Brother Gadhafi nationalized the oil industry in Libya; boldly closed the American and British military bases there and banned alcohol because the Libyans were an Islamic people.

The Gadhafi I know is the Gadhafi who came to power to change the power equation where outside forces were taking advantage of Libya’s rich oil deposits for their own benefit while the Libyan people suffered in abject poverty and squalor.

The Gadhafi I know sent young Libyans to school all over the world as he strengthened and established schools all over Libya. The Gadhafi I know made free housing available to the masses of his people in Libya. The Gadhafi I know embarked on a great agricultural project called the “Green of the Desert” to grow produce to feed his people and cut down on importing food, taking Libyan mouths out of foreigners kitchens. The Gadhafi I know embarked on one of the greatest engineering feats of the world called the “Great Man-Made River.”

The Gadhafi I know reached out to those who were struggling against oppressed rulers in the Arab and African world as well as other parts of the world. In generosity and solidarity, he used proceeds from the wealth of Libyan resources to support the movements, giving many of their cause’s international exposure. The Gadhafi I know gave international recognition to the plight of Indians in the western hemisphere and gave support for the Native American cause.

After being in power for only three years—because of the notoriety of Muhammad Ali, especially in the Muslim world—the work of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad came to Brother Gadhafi’s attention. In 1972, he made available a loan to the Nation of Islam to purchase what is now known as Mosque Maryam, the Nation of Islam headquarters and flagship mosque—this is the Gadhafi who I know. The Gadhafi I know continued to open his hands and country to the Honorable Elijah Muhammad through his students, Imam Warithudeen Mohammed and the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan. He loaned the Nation of Islam $5 Million dollars for economic development projects in the 1980’s. He helped finance “World Friendship Tours” that aided Minister Farrakhan to globally spread the message of atonement, reconciliation and responsibility that under-girded the 1995 Million Man March.

The Gadhafi I know wrote in his green book about the rise of the black man, a vision that many of his own people disagreed with which is reflected in the current war against his government. Black workers in Libya are now suffering persecution from racism under the guise of being accused of being mercenaries hired by Muammar Gadhafi.

There are hundreds of thousands of Libyans in a population of 6 million who are black. The Gadhafi I know reignited an idea of the great Africans like Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, Sekou Toure of Guinea and others, who yearned for the United States of Africa. Brother Gadhafi pushed the transformation of the former Organization of African Unity into the African Union as a necessary first step towards a United States of Africa. Who will pick up this banner now that the Transitional National Counsel backed by foreign powers has waged a war that removed Bro. Gadhafi from his seat of power?

The Gadhafi I know is a leader who is responsible for many African leaders being in power in today. Those leaders know who they are and without the help and encouragement from Muammar Gadhafi they never would have achieved becoming leaders of their nations.

The Gadhafi I know gave recognition to African Traditional leaders and for the first time in history brought them all together at conferences held in Tripoli and other African nations. The Gadhafi I know brought hundreds of thousands of people together to celebrate Mawlid al-Nabi, the birthday of Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be upon Him). In the midst of volatile social and political climates he called hundreds of thousands of Muslims together in places like Niger and Nigeria, leading them in prayer and preaching the importance of their unity.

The Gadhafi I know survived the most expensive assassination attempt in history by the United States government in April 1986 when America bombed Tripoli in an attempt to kill him. The Gadhafi I know suffered 14 years of devastating sanctions that his people survived, yet he opened his borders to all that would come.

The Gadhafi I know financed the great film called “The Lion of the Desert” about the Libyan liberation fighter Omar Mukhtar who led and won the war for independence against Italy. He also financed the classic movie called “The Messenger” on the life of Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be upon Him).

The Gadhafi I know opened an Islamic college and brought students from every corner of the Muslim world, mostly from African nations and gave them a free education so they could return to their countries and contribute to the development and advancement of their societies.

The Gadhafi I know may not have been perfect as no man is perfect. Perfection is only found with God, but he struggled to do what he believed was right to assist the suffering masses and encourage them in their opposition to unjust rulers and colonial masters who exploited and oppressed them. The corporate controlled media has branded Gadhafi, so people who don’t know him will think the worse of him.

I recently returned from a conference in Iran, where one of the speakers from the TNC of Libya accused Gadhafi of killing 400 children by infecting them with Aids. These are the kind of vicious lies that people let stand and allow others to attack a man who tried doing the best he could for his own people. I challenged this speaker by asking him, “Are you saying to this audience that Gadhafi infected 400 children with AIDS? And his answer was “Yes.” The world knows what happened to those children and how they contracted AIDS. His phony charge was vicious and in gratuitous, that he can falsely accuse the man responsible for his education. This is not the Gadhafi I know.

For comments, you can reach Akbar Muhammad at aakbar314@yahoo.com

Poverty Stats tells part of the story

2011-10-02T19:29:00.001-04:00

The truth behind the poverty statistics

Overall poverty statistics blur reality that African community bears brunt of economic crisis

African People's Solidarity Committee

Published Sep 18, 2011

The poverty data released this week obscures the fact that the brunt of the current U.S. economic crisis falls squarely on the shoulders of the African and Latino communities.

Unemployment claims rose to 428,000 last week with a staggering 7.14 million people now receiving benefits. Millions of others are no longer looking for jobs, have maxed out their unemployment or work from time to time in low paying temp jobs that cannot meet their needs.

Last year 48 million people ages 18 to 64 did not work even one week out of the year.

Census data released earlier this week show that 50 million people now have no health insurance and 46.2 million—about 15.1 percent of the U.S. population—are living below the poverty line of about $17,000 a year for a family of three.

Of that 46.2 million, 44 percent of them have now sunk into deep poverty defined as earning less than half of the income needed to escape poverty.

Forty-five million people in the U.S., a number greater than the population of many countries of the world, are now forced to live with the meager support of food stamps.

About 1 in every 6 people of the U.S. population lives below the poverty line as people are doubling up in housing with other family members more than ever before.

These are stark statistics overall but the reality for African people is in fact far more severe and tempers the effects of this current crisis on the white community.

According to the New York Times, ("Soaring Poverty Casts Spotlight on ‘Lost Decade,’” 9/13/11), African people experience the highest poverty rate in the U.S., at 27.4 percent, compared to 13 percent of white households, with Latino people now at 26 percent in poverty.

The poverty rate for white people is only 9.9 percent.

The African poverty rate in the U.S. is now the highest ever in the 52 years since the Census Bureau started tracking poverty.

Recent employment figures show that the African community is now unemployed at a rate of 16.7 percent, with 18 percent of African men and 45 percent of African teenagers officially jobless. White unemployment is only 8 percent overall and 23 percent for teens.

This does not count the more than 1.3 million African people who have been taken out of the workforce in the discriminatory Jim Crow prison system, with additional millions of Africans on parole, probation or awaiting trial.

With millions of Africans unable to provide for their families because they are tied to a prison system that makes billions of dollars for the mainstream white economy every year on the criminalization of African people and on their enslaved labor, it is no surprise that 40 percent of African children live in poverty, compared to only 12.4 percent of white children.

Comparing the stark conditions of African people to conditions in the white community reveals the reality of colonialism inside this country.

So while the poverty rate is one in six overall, it’s only about one in ten for white people but nearing one in three for African people.

While median white household income in the U.S. is $51,846 (down from $52,717 last year), for African families it is nearly $20,000 a year less, currently at $32,068 (down from $33,122), according to Huffington Post, “Black Voices,” by Trymaine Lee, Sept. 15, 2011.

These statistics make it clear that African people live in colonialism inside U.S. borders, and are catching unmitigated hell. An article in the Philadelphia Inquirer from June 2011 stated that many black men in their 30s, 40s and 50s can expect to never work again.

Clearly African people are bearing the brunt of this crisis. While white people are now facing “job insecurity” for the first time in their lives, African people have no jobs, no food, no money and no future under this system but prisons, poverty and police occupation.

The U.S. government is using African people as a buffer to keep the worst economic crisis since the 1930s from seriously affecting the majority of the white population.

It is clear that white people’s security, opportunity and standard of living exists on a pedestal built on the enslavement of African people, theft of the land of the Indigenous people and colonial plunder, genocide and domination of oppressed peoples around the world.

It is the resistance of African, Arab and oppressed peoples, rising up throughout the entire world against U.S. and European domination and violence that has created the crisis that is reverberating throughout the industrialized, affluent centers of imperialism.

The Uhuru Movement, led by the African People’s Socialist Party is not only building organized African resistance worldwide, it is building real programs for economic self-sufficiency and self-determination for African people—programs such as community gardening and a health and fitness gym in St. Petersburg, FL, a maternal and infant wellness center in Sierra Leone, and an education and youth program in California.

Ultimately the resistance of African and oppressed people will bring this crisis-ridden, parasitic system to its knees, as the peoples of the pedestal rise up to recapture their own land, resources and self-determination.

Imperialism, the enemy of the majority of humanity, must go.

We in the Uhuru Solidarity Movement are calling on other white people like ourselves to break our alliance and unity with the unjust and unsustainable white power system that has given us prosperity at the expense of everybody else for so long.

We call on you to put your future on the side of African people and others who are building a new world that will end poverty, injustice, war and imperialist violence.

We understand that to join this new world built on justice we must be part of righting the historic wrongs that are responsible for these statistics and for the anger of the rising peoples of the world.

We recognize that genuine reconciliation with African people requires reparations for centuries of white terror and stolen African labor and resources.

We are calling on you to Take the Pledge of Solidarity with African People, support the campaign to build the Days in Solidarity with African People and contribute towards the $10,000 goal for the work of the Uhuru Movement to unite and liberate African people everywhere.

Pity for Obama on Palestine

2011-10-01T14:16:00.002-04:00

I feel sorry for the President

By Professor Kelly Shafey

Manchester University

I feel sorry for Obama, to play for the ears of the Jewish lobby in an election year, he forgot what he said in Cairo. He forgot what he said in the United Notions last year that he hopes the Palestinian flag will be raised here in the United Nations.

After 60 years of occupation Obama offers hope in a state without justice and peace without freedom. President Sarkozy, on behalf of the US, also offers the solution. He said in his address to the United Nations, that, after 20 years of negotiations we offer hope of a state for the Palestinians. What Sarkozy in fact is offering is an observer status in the UN. He goes on to put a condition, which goes with it; a condition that this status should not allow the Palestinians to take the Israelis who committed murder and killing of Palestinians to the International Criminal Court of Justice.

If it takes 20 years to offer hope, how long it will take to offer a state for the occupied and displaced Palestinians? Sarkozy forgot that the PLO has already got an observer status in the United Nations, so what is new for the Palestinians?

The tactics of delay have been used for decades and what do we have since the famous Cairo address of president Obama? Israeli settlements have been quadrupled, and by the time another round of negotiation started, there will be no land left for the Palestinians to negotiate for. Then what do we expect? Hate and disgust from the Arab and Muslim Street towards the United States and its allies. We would expect violence and terror attacks and more of the same. The puzzling question is why we all have to pay for unjust situation only to satisfy the Israeli lobby in the United States?

Israel had disregarded every single UN resolution regarding the Palestinian issue with the explicit support of the United States, sometimes with a strong veto to block any decision condemning Israel’s brutality. Israel did not abide by the 89 United Nations resolutions that condemn its occupation to Palestine.

Arab and Muslim heads of states don't represent their people, they represent the interest of their masters, the United States and it's allies.

The Israeli lobby in America and its sister in the United Kingdom use their powerful financial muscle to buy political influence. They install their allies in the congress and the upper house in the United States. In the UK they install their allies in the house of common and House of Lords. In that they have complete Hold on the political decision making machine. They control the financial power houses in both countries, banks and financial institutions, which we all know have brought the whole world to it's knees. They also control the media, so they shape the public perception with it's bias to Israel. The Federal Reserve Bank is a consortium of 9 Jewish-owned and associated banks with Rothschild at the helm. They lend to the American Government and they dictate the economic policies in the USA and in the world.

What leverage do the Arab and Muslim leaders have? They have the oil and with it come enormous wealth, personal wealth that they invested in the financial and banking institutions controlled by the Jews. Watch the big names, those who brought the world financial system to the point of collapse, and took the Arab oil money down with them; Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch.

Most of the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia invested heavily with the four collapsed banks. Even Gaddafi with his rhetoric against the West, had invested billions of dollars in the financial institutions in the West instead of investing in his people and in his country's health, education, information and technology, telecommunication, housing and infrastructure.

Egypt was getting 2.3 billion dollar as a conditioned aid from the United States as a price for the Camp David Agreement. This aid is given to the Egyptian military to buy American jets and tanks, thus creating jobs in America and adding power and wealth to the military-industrial complex.

I wonder what the Egyptian army would use these arms for. We have seen fighter jets flying low over the heads of the protesters in Tahrir square. I assume this military stockpile would not be used to assert Egypt sovereignty over Sinai, a demilitarized zone, thanks to Sadat and his Camp David Agreement.

The Arab and Muslim leaders have more financial and natural resources than the Jewish lobby in both the UK and the United states, but they don't have the will to serve their people.

If the oil from Arab and Muslim countries stops to flow to the West for a month, the Western economy will collapse, and no Jewish lobby can save it. America and its allies with their military might cannot occupy all the oil producing countries in the Arab and Muslim world, specially if the oil supply to Russia and China will continue to flow.

If that seems a logical course of action to the Arab and Muslim heads of states, the rights of drilling and producing oil should be withdrawn from western companies. Remember, Tony Blair went on his hands and knees to ask the dictator Gaddafi to allow BP to work in Libya. France and the UK now are cozying up to the new leadership in Libya. Both Cameron and Sarkozy were the first to visit Benghazi and Tripoli looking for the spoils of war and the drilling of oil and other reconstruction contracts. A couple of days later the US ambassador was back in her office in Tripoli to have her share of the pie. The price of bombs and missiles that helped to topple the dictator will be paid back by Libyan oil; just like what happened in Iraq. There is no such a freed lunch.

The fallacy of NATO’s claim that they went to Libya only to protect the Libyans will be laid bare when the extent of the western interest will become public.

But the double standard and hypocrisy with regard to the Palestine issue cannot be justified. Removing Israel from occupied territories should be done even by force. It is a brutal occupying power interrogated children by dragging them out of bed at night, erecting check points in Palestinian land denying its inhabitants their right of free movement. There are over 10,000 Palestinians in Israeli jails without charge or trials. This is a barbaric state, a sadistic nation that wanted to take its revenge for the holocaust from the Palestinians.

There must be a price to pay for Arab oil. That price is a just and secure place for a Palestinians to live free of occupation with their human rights protected and their land secured. The Turkish PM in his speech to the UN mocked the fact that if he wanted to sent a box of tomato to Gaza he had to have Israeli permission. Israel blockade though illegal and against international law is supported by the United States and Britain.

Western leaders and the United States administration always talk about security of Israel, they don't acknowledge any one else's security. They keep telling us that hostile countries surround Israel, and it will be thrown into the sea. They don't realize that this small country had one of the most powerful military machines in the world, equipped and maintained by the American taxpayers money while the America economy is broke; and they occupy land in three neighbouring countries, Lebanon, Syria and Palestine. Needless to say that Sinai is a demilitarized zone, in other words it is not under the full sovereignty of the Egyptian government.

What we have seen in Egypt recently when the people demolished by their bare hands, a concrete fence protecting the Israeli embassy in Cairo, is a telling episode in the future relations between Egypt and Israel. Israel must take notice of the unstoppable change in the Middle East and the Arab and Muslim world. The support of Unites states to the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the threat of the American veto for a Palestine bid of their seat in the United Nations will have dire consequences for America and Israel. Cracks

started to happen in the relationship between America and Pakistan. The differences, which were once hidden, became now a public disagreement between the American Administration and its puppet PM in Pakistan. Now, with Pakistan paying a heavy price for supporting the United States in what it calls the war in terror which in fact a war on Muslims and Islam, the Pakistani people have demonstrated and a revolt, Egyptian style is on the cards. The Pakistani PM started to wake up and to his countrymen shouting down with America.

Saudi Arabia, the best ally of the United States will have to rethink its relationship with America; not least for antagonizing its own population and the possibility of increased violence within the kingdom. A sea of unrest and violence will be unleashed against American interest in the Middle East. Yet the US administration stayed fully behind Benjamin Netanyahu. President Obama could not stand to Netanyahu to ask him to freeze the building of new settlements. The Israeli Prime Minister knows well that if he got the Senate behind him, he can ignore Obama’s plea. Obama becomes an insignificant player with the approach of presidential election not in the very far future. He has sold his principles and promises for the sake of a second term in the White Office.

In his speech to the UN Netanyahu asked the world body to challenge Iran and preventing it from obtaining nuclear weapons. The Prime Minister forgot to mention that Israel is the only country in the Middle East that posses hundreds of nuclear warheads. Israel had not even admitted this open secret. After all, during the 1973 Yom Kippur war and after great losses of the Israeli army, Golda Meir threatened to use nuclear bombs. That threat prompted President Nixon to throw all America’s military weight behind Israel. And the rest is known in the history books.

The Middle East Envoy Tony Blair joined the Jewish choir of attacking the Palestinian bid for statehood. He claims that he is working to secure an independent state for the Palestinians, yet he is the one who lobbied in the corridors of the United Nations to secure as many votes as he could against the Palestinian bid for statehood.

We must remember that Tony Blair is a senior consultant to Morgan Stanly and promotes his own business interest before the interest of justice and fairness. He would not scape the Arab Spring.

Obama and the Palestinians

2011-09-27T11:02:00.004-04:00

IS TREATMENT OF THE PALESTINIANS FAIR?

By William Reed

(Buisness Exchange)--During a formal address before the United Nations President Mahmoud Abbas requested that they acknowledge Palestine as a member of the world body. Abbas said, “It’s time to end the suffering and plight of millions of Palestinians.” President Abbas received a standing ovation from the General Assembly, while back in the Palestinian Territories; activists burned pictures of President Barack Obama.

In his addresses before the General Assembly, Obama, pledged to veto the Palestinians’ statehood request. The question of voting for Obama again goes to a matter of character: Is the way Obama dealt with the Palestinians fair, or correct? American presidents have never been “even-handed” with the Palestinians and Obama is no different. It was U.S. favoritism toward Israel that caused Palestinians to approach the United Nations in the first place. Had Obama played the “honest broker” that many expected after his Cairo speech, the Palestinians would have stuck with bilateral negotiations. Once Obama abandoned any pretense of neutrality, the Palestinians had little choice but to find another way to resolve its conflict.

The “first Black President” is the latest in a series of American presidents “short-shafting” the Palestinians. These days, Obama is simply the one sitting in the presidential seat as the world more closely monitors ways the Palestinians are treated. The Palestinian-Israeli problem has evaded solution since Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize-winning predecessor; Dr. Ralph Bunche helped establish the Israeli state in 1948. It was Bunche’s and the United Nation’s intention that Palestine be made into a place of refuge for Jews after World War II, as well as a place for Arabs. However, when Palestine was made into a country known as “Israel” for the Jews, conflicts began, and from the wars that occurred, Israel obtained more land and the Palestinian-Arabs lost most of theirs. Issues involving: mutual recognition, borders, security, water rights, control of Jerusalem, settlements, Palestine freedom of movement and legalities concerning refugees has spawned a humanitarian crisis in the occupied Palestinian territories, reflected by the world’s leading poverty rates, unemployment and malnutrition.

Blacks should expect more of Obama on this issue. Almost every statement Brother Barack made at the United Nations concerning the Israelis-Palestinians was false and slanted. They were lies that both Obama and the audience knew were falsehoods. At the United Nations, Obama sold out his character and America’s fundamental national and moral interests in a blatant ploy for a second presidential term. In the tradition of past presidents, Obama says that “the Palestinians should have a state of their own”, but they shouldn’t be pushy, not embarrass the U.S., or come to the United Nations. In the Obama plan, the Palestinians must sit with the Israelis, like reasonable people, and work it out with them – like reasonable sheep must sit down with the reasonable wolf and decide what to have for dinner, and foreigners should not interfere.

Over the decades, America has made Israel the largest total recipient of direct U.S. economic and military assistance. Israel receives about $3 billion in direct foreign assistance each year – one fifth of America’s entire foreign aid budget. American money toward Israel is a direct subsidy worth about $500 per year.

“Peace deals” recent American presidential administrations want the Palestinians to embrace are Bantustans on less than 22 percent of historic Palestine. But, due to President Abbas’ deft move, Palestinians’ long-ignored problems are now the center of international attention. President Obama’s miserable performance at the UN put the nail in the coffin of America's status as a neutral facilitator. Different from African-American voters willing to forgive him; few of the world’s people of color are expected to forgive the way he threw the helpless Palestinians under the bus at the UN. The matter will be addressed by the UN Security Council and General Assembly. The United States holds veto power on the Security Council and pledges to vote down the statehood bid, but in the General Assembly the Palestinians enjoy the support of more than 120 of the 193 members which assures passage of the resolution.

(William Reed is available for speaking/seminar projects via BaileyGroup.org)

Libya and now Syria.....

2011-09-15T21:33:00.005-04:00

Western Assertion on Syria

By Brian E. Muhammad

Western hegemony and expansion persists with a worsening turn of events in Libya, stronger attempts to eliminate Muammar Gadhafi, if they find him--and now a focused effort to break the government of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria. Sticking to a consistent strategy with Syria, the United States, Britain and France have cranked up a propaganda war against another Arab nation that calls for its head of state to step down.

The play book opened with President Barack Obama signing an Executive Order condemning the embattled President al-Assad and placing severe economic sanctions and political isolation on Syria. The European Union (EU) and several Arab nations have joined the U.S. demand that al-Assad “must go,” echoing the new mantra for regime change. The United Nations added to the fray by pushing for a recommendation to indict Syria’s leaders at the International Criminal Court for human rights violations over the harsh crack down on anti-government protestors in the last several months. Furthermore invasion on Syrian soil is now being debated as a real possibility.

In a statement, President Obama accused President Al-Assad of being an obstruction in the way of a “transition to democracy” and said it’s time for Al-Assad to “get out of the way.”

“My Administration is announcing unprecedented sanctions to deepen the financial isolation of the Assad regime and further disrupt its ability to finance a campaign of violence against the Syrian people,” said President Obama.

The Executive Order implements an immediate freeze on all assets belonging to the Syrian Government subject to U.S. jurisdiction and prohibits American citizens from engaging in any transactions involving the country. According to the U.S. State Department, the actions strike oil, the regime’s life blood and main revenue source for the small country. The EU sanctions are more significant because 94 percent of Syrian oil exports go to European capitals.

U.S. sanctions is a gamble

In an August 18 National Journal article, writer Yochi Dreazen wrote that America has "limited leverage" over the al-Assad government and is gambling on sanctions, contrasting Syria to Libya as an example of its difficulty. Sanctions forcing Al-Assad out “may be wishful thinking,” he wrote.

Bashar Al- Assad, different from Muammar Gadhafi, never kept much money in U.S banks. The Treasury Department froze $30 billion of Libyan funds earlier this year after the Obama administration declared Gadhafi lost legitimacy. In comparison, U.S. officials located only a few hundred million dollars connected to Al-Assad according to reports.

Dismissing the calls for President Al-Assad to resign, Reem Haddad, Syrian information ministry director of external relations criticized the US and other governments for prying in Syrian affairs.

"It is strange that instead of offering [Damascus] a helping hand to implement its program of reforms, the West and Obama are seeking to stoke more violence in Syria," Haddad told the AFP news agency.

Bashar al-Assad, a dilemma for U.S. meddling

Obama administration critics agree that it appears the U.S. is setting the stage for another rendezvous in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation. The leader “must go” stance of the U.S. and the EU, alongside UN legal threats was the same posture used against Leader Muammar Gadhafi days ahead of NATO’s invasion into Libya masquerading as protecting civilians. However some analysts say demanding Al- Assad abdicate his presidency will prove counterproductive and may actually work in his favor.

"In Syrian eyes, he will be seen as the leader that defies the 'Great Satan,'" predicts Council of Foreign Relations analyst Ed Husain. "Worse, a weak and divided Syrian opposition movement will now be presented as 'American stooges,'" opined Mr. Husain in a CFR.org article.

According to analyst Andrew Tabler the Syrian opposition has been very careful to keep a low profile until the uprisings. “So you have a protest, you have traditional opposition leaders in the country, then you have the protesters themselves on the ground who are being driven by local leaders, as well as Internet activists, and what they call local coordinating committees,” said Mr. Tabler to CFR.ORG.

The violence in Syria intensified since the spate of popular revolts against Arab governments that began earlier this year. According to reports, thousands of Syrians have died in the turmoil and observers are questioning the weight of Western claims against Al-Assad’s legitimacy.

The Conspiracy of Outside Interests

President Al-Assad blamed armed opposition groups backed by “external components” for instigating the mayhem in his country and accused them of distorting Syria’s image in the outside world and opening the way for foreign intervention.

“There are people who are well paid to carry out video cameras, film and collaborate with the media,” Pres. Al-Assad charged in a June 20 speech.

“In some cases, peaceful demonstrations were used as a pretext under which armed men took cover; in other cases, they attacked civilians, policemen and soldiers by attacking military sites and positions or used assassination. Schools, shops and highways were closed by the use of force, and public property was destroyed, ransacked and put to fire deliberately.”

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton acknowledged the Syrian people’s aspiration for self determination and desire that foreign powers stay clear of intrusion. But in the same breath, the American chief Diplomat committed to also establish the US aspiration for al-Assad’s ousting.

“We understand the strong desire of the Syrian people that no foreign country should intervene in their struggle, and we respect their wishes. At the same time, we will do our part to support their aspirations for a Syria that is democratic, just, and inclusive. And we will stand up for their universal rights and dignity by pressuring the regime and Assad personally to get out of the way of this transition,” she said, restating Pres. Obama’s position.

However some critical voices of U.S. foreign policy see the pressure on Syria as a continuation of political hypocrisy and ill motivation. The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan described it as an imperialist mode of operandi to destabilize governments by empowering opposition groups.

“They set up puppet governments; and they legitimized factions or groups of rebels that would serve the objectives of the attacking nations under the noble cause of “protecting the people”—all this while bombing and wasting the land and lives of the people that America claims to be so concerned about,” explained Minister Farrakhan to an August 13 Millions March on Harlem rally.

Moreover the Western line of being “for the people" and against Mr. Al-Assad is being challenged by a counter-narrative supporting the 47 year old leader from governments like Iran, Venezuela and Russia. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called on negotiations between the Syrian government and its people to avoid a Western induced blood bath as witnessed in Libya.

"Western powers are hoping to attack Syria as they did in Libya. Syrian people and the government must negotiate and reach a compromise about reforms," Pres. Ahmadinejad told Hezbollah’s news channel, Al Manar.

For now the world stage is being organized for the demise of the Syrian government with an eager opposition waiting in the wings for their turn to make a pact with the devil as in Libya, leaving the Syrian people holding the ball of uncertainty.

Deposed Hosni Mubarak on Trial

2011-09-07T15:57:00.000-04:00

The implications ofthe Mubarak trial

By Brian E. Muhammad

There were mixed feelings and controversy when formerEgyptian ruler Hosni Mubarak was rolled into a Cairo court on a hospital gurneyclad in prisoner whites for the opening of his trial on murder and corruption charges.The former president is standing trial alongside his sons Gamal and Alaa aswell as ex -Interior Minister Habib al-Adly and several state security officers, stemming from his30 year rule and the subsequent uprisings that ousted him.

The full trial was originally aired live Aug. 3 on state televisionin what analysts say is unprecedented for the Arab world where autocrats,monarchs and dictators rule for life or simply escape accountability. Egyptianofficials later stopped broadcasting the trial.

In a telephone interview with the Final Call aboutthe trial’s significance, Phyllis Bennis, director of the New InternationalismProject at the Institute for Policy Studies, called it “hugely important” andcan mark a turning point for Middle East politics, although wrought withchallenges.

“This is one of thekey demands that the revolutionary process that was the ‘Arab spring’ wascalling for right from the beginning—put Mubarak on trial,” said Ms. Bennis.

The trial startedfollowing months of public doubt whether a trial was really going to happenamid suspicions that a deal were struck between Mubarak and his formercolleagues and generals who now make up the ruling council.

However, as violence has escalated in Arabcountries such as Yemen and Syria where pressure is mounting for the overthrowof their presidents, analysts maintain that Mubarak’s trial—althoughflawed—could be an indicator of fate to leaders throughout the troubled region.

Mubarak, an Examplefor World Leaders?

The trial is alsocause of concern for other world leaders like Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel andBritain Prime Minister David Camaron who faced massive popular protests againsttheir governments on the streets of Israel and London. For some, Egyptiansreturning to Tahrir Square coupled with Mubarak’s trial symbolizes a new day ofawakening where ex-Presidents can be arrested and tried for crimes committedwhile in office.

“The fact that it’s happening was critical in making itclear that there’s no going back, that’s the symbolism of it, that there’s nogoing back,” said Ms. Bennis.

There is a growing chorus of voices calling for anaccounting of former presidents and members of their governments to be triedfor crimes committed while in power. During an August 13 Millions March on Harlem, International LawyerLennox Hines advanced a precedent for the arrest and trial of former, U.S.President George W. Bush, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary ofState Condoleezza Rice for war crimes.

Ms. Bennis also pointed out that there’s talk among somepolitical observers that the putting ‘Mubarak on trial’ and the use of the legalprocesses could have the effect of discouraging other leaders from standingdown.

She said however, away around that is to raise the risks level of those in the power structuresurrounding the leaders.

“Make sure that notonly the central dictator, but that everybody in their circle,” especially themilitary people is put on trial, Ms. Bennis added.

“As an Egyptian and a human rights activist, I had feltpride the day the public prosecutor announced that he was investigating Mubarakon charges of killing protesters and corruption,” wrote Heba Fatma Morayef, a Researcher with Human Rights Watch, in a Times ofLondon article.

She further wrote that “no trial can ever fully address allthe crimes of a head of state such as Mubarak or secure a country’s transitiontoward human rights and democracy. It will take years to eradicate thesystematic torture and impunity that Interior Ministry forces relied on, andensuring accountability is only one aspect of the urgently needed reforms.”

However, other Mubarak critics are calling it a sham and apolitical side show of the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, who havebeen the target of renewed protests over the slowness of promised reforms. TheCouncil took power after the forced resignation of Mr. Mubarak in February.

The undercurrent for theprotestors returning to the streets of Cairo has expanded beyond Mubarakaccording to Hesham Tillawi, host of Current Issues TV & Radio. “It is theremoval of this military council... that's what the people want,” he toldPressTV.

Welcome to the new Egypt; just like the old Egypt!

The dilemma of the once popularmilitary is that many see it as an extension of Mr. Mubarak, and view the trialas an effort to pacify the Egyptian street who are dissatisfied with the counciland its head, Mohammed Hussain Tantawi . But using the images of the Mubaraks ina jailed cage of wire and bars, wearing prison uniforms, the council was hopingto send a signal that the people actually won and thus can abandon theirdemonstrations.

“What we are watchingnow is basically a Hollywood made movie... this is nothing but a choreographedtrial to basically accomplish political domestic needs,” Mr. Tillawi said.

The reality of thetrial, conducted by the military council, is to give them the “big catch” ofthe 83 year old defendant, hoping to calm down the situation, “but I don'tbelieve that this is going to work.”

The commissioninvestigating the violence against the demonstrators earlier this year reportedthat over 800 people were killed by the security forces and Mubarak was complicitfor not stopping the carnage. Mubarak is the second ousted leader to stand trialsince the beginning of the “Arab Spring” revolts that swept North African andMiddle Eastern countries; if found guilty the former American ally can be putto death.

Before Mubarak received his day in court, thedeposed Tunisian President Zineel-Abidine Ben Ali was tried, convicted and sentenced in absentia to 30 yearsin prison on corruption charges with members of his family currently on trialin Tunisia. At present the pro-American Ben-Ali is comfortably exiled in SaudiArabia.

Few observers disagree that thetiming of Mubarak’s trial is politically motivated. However the focus on his regimesviolations during the uprisings is not enough opined Ms. Morayef. She said Egyptneeds a public accounting of the “broader legacy,” of three decades of abuseand have “strategic prosecutions” and “truth mechanisms,” as a more lastingsolution.

“But this needs to be part of asystematic process, and not just ad hoc responses to anger on the street,” she said.

(published in August 23, 2011 edition of The Final Call Newspaper)

2011-09-03T21:17:00.001-04:00

The place of the heart is the center of our thinking. Lets clean up our thinking to clean up our hearts.
- Brian E. Muhammad

Ramadan Reflection- Imam Khalid Latif

2011-08-24T06:19:00.003-04:00

Ramadan Reflection Day 23: Cutting The Excess of Ego

By Imam Khalid Latif

Imam Latif is blogging his reflections during the month of Ramadan, featured daily on HuffPost Religion. For a complete record of his previous posts, click over to the Islamic Center at New York University or visit his author page, and to follow along with the rest of his reflections, sign up for an author email alert above.

Both being forgiving and seeking forgiveness are strongly emphasized in most religious traditions. This includes Islam. The guidelines for both can be somewhat ambiguous though. Time and time again I run into people who say they've tried to be apologetic, and the onus of the acceptance now lies on the one that has felt wronged. My saying of I'm sorry should suffice, despite feelings of hurt and pain that I've put you through. What more can I do? Similarly, I've met many who have felt wronged and hurt and despite best attempts of those who are seeking forgiveness, it's just not good enough. You said you were sorry but I think you don't really mean it or I think that you can do better. In the end, it's our subjective standard that usually dictates what is acceptable and what isn't.

We may or may not acknowledge it, but most expect to be treated a certain way, but then fail to treat others in a similar fashion. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you is a mindset that escapes many of us. We become quite selfish in our worldview and see our efforts as being acceptable but the efforts of others as lacking. We always expect more for ourselves, but not from ourselves. But Ramadan is about learning to cut out the excess, not just in terms of food and drink, but from all facets of our life including the needs of our egos. Our own sense of entitlement becomes a main thing that keeps us from seeking forgiveness when we hurt others, or accepting people's apologies when we have been wronged. I can somehow always justify why things went the way that they did. I am always willing to make excuses for myself, but so rarely willing to make excuses for others.

The month of Ramadan on a whole is about understanding yourself and learning to see the world through a lense of compassion, mercy, and forgiveness. The last 10 days of it emphasize these values even moreso. Meanwhile, Muslims all over the world will stand for hours and hours in prayer seeking God's forgiveness and asking of Him that which their hearts desire. But how can one expect forgiveness when we are ourselves are not forgiving? How can one seek forgiveness when we do not seek forgiveness from each other?

The Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, said "Allah is not Merciful to those who are not merciful to mankind."

That mercy and forgiveness has to be as unconditional as possible. One that applies to people of all races, cultures, social classes, and skin colors -- not just those that match my own. It applies to people whom I love and who love me just as it applies to those whom l have wronged and who have wronged me. If I have room to fix it, what keeps me from doing so?

In these last nights of Ramadan, if you have hurt someone, apologize to them. If someone has hurt you, try your best to forgive them for it. This world has enough rage, anger, and egos in it. Now it's in need of some mercy, given and upheld to the best of our abilities. A kind of mercy that doesn't make us feel better, but makes the world better.

Follow Imam Khalid Latif on Twitter: www.twitter.com/KLatif