by Rootsie rootsie.com
 
Review The Black Man’s Burden:
Africa and the Curse of the Nation-State by Basil Davidson

We take the idea of sovereign nation states for granted. Nationalism is the religion of nationhood, and its ‘uplifting’ emotional rhetoric can lead us to assume that the ‘sense of nation’ is as integral a part of the human make-up as city-building and trade, and has been around forever and forever shall be… But consider: before World War I, there were only a handful of nations in Europe; after, there were over two dozen. The first ‘nation’ in Europe was England, and it likes to date its nationhood from the Glorious Revolution of 1686. France became a nation in 1789 with its own revolution, and the United States in 1791. The nation state is a very recent phenomenon, and a uniquely European construct. Its devlopment goes hand in hand with the rise of capitalism.The countries of Central and Eastern Europe were constituted a mere 40 or so years before the nations of Africa. And in case we didn’t notice, Davidson reminds us that much of Europe, particularly the Balkans, is in many respects in as much of a mess as Africa. The difference lies in the magnitude of the pillage to which Africa was and still is subjected.

As Davidson considers the question of ‘what’s gone wrong in Africa,’ he lays the blame squarely on a virulent Western ‘neocolonial nation statism.’ The idea that the modern nation state was the machine that would power decolonization in Central and Eastern Europe and Africa was taken for granted. Sovereign African governments would take the place of colonial ones, and few gave the issue much more thought than that. He does not blame Africans for this. African leaders like Nyerere of Tanzania saw the potential for disaster in Africa’s instant move from colonies to numerous and competing nations. He and others proposed federalist systems as the alternative: “unities of sensible association across wide regions within which national cultures, far from seeking to destroy or maim each other, could evolve their diversities and find in them a mutual blessing.” (286) Suggestions such as these were swept away by the tide of nationalist self-assertion that washed over Africa as it threw off colonialism. Unfortunately, applying European ‘solutions’ (which proved not even to work in Europe) to African challenges spelled disaster absolutely everywhere.

Rwanda
The Graves Are Not Yet Full

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Associated Press
AMMAN, Jordan (AP) — Three Jordanian lawyers who claim to represent Saddam Hussein left Monday for Libya to enlist attorneys there for the defense team.

Ziad al-Khasawneh told The Associated Press the two-day visit also was aimed at “coordinating President Saddam’s defense strategy with the daughter of the Libyan leader, Moammar Gadhafi.”

Aicha Moammar Gadhafi, a law professor in her late 20s, told the lawyers Friday that she was joining the Jordan-based defense team. She will also form a team of legal experts in her country to help in the defense, said al-Khasawneh, one of the 20 lawyers appointed by Saddam’s wife Sajida. the group includes lawyers from Jordan, Lebanon, Tunisia and Western countries such as the United States, Britain, France and Belgium.

…Al-Khasawneh said the Jordanian lawyers received a telephone call Saturday from Salem Chalabi, general director of the Iraqi court, telling them non-Iraqi lawyers will not be allowed to defend Saddam.

“We told him he was wrong and that he must read the regulations of the Iraqi Bar Association which allows Arabs to represent defendants in Iraqi courts,” al-Khasawneh said.

The lawyers had planned to dispatch Jordanian team member Ziad Najdawi to Iraq but later said the trip was suspended, apparently for safety concerns. Najdawi had planned to make the trip to present Iraqi authorities with the power of attorney signed by Saddam’s wife and to try to meet Saddam.

The defense lawyers have claimed that Iraqi authorities have warned them not to travel to Iraq.

Members of the defense team say they have received anonymous death threats.full article

Associated Press
JERUSALEM (AP) — Rabbis representing Jewish settlers accused Israel’s internal security chief Monday of “incitement” after he warned that opponents of the planned dismantling of settlements are growing increasingly militant.

…The Council of Yesha Rabbis, an umbrella group representing rabbis in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, complained that Dichter’s remarks, in a closed-door Cabinet meeting, amounted to “incitement” and an “instigation to war.”

“This is an attempt to slander the rabbis,” said Rabbi Yishai Babad, the secretary of the Yesha rabbis’ council.

…Last week, an eminent rabbi in Jerusalem said that anyone who removes Jewish settlements would be subject to the death penalty under biblical Jewish law, although he said the death sentence isn’t possible in modern times.

Last month, settler leader Uri Elitzur, who was a top aide of former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said violent resistance to settlement evacuations is legitimate.

…Israel’s Channel 10 TV on Sunday showed a group of some 20 settlers at a Gaza Strip synagogue, listening to the guidance given by the Kach activists on protesting an evacuation.

“You think you’re right, go for it. … Anything goes,” said Itamar Ben-Gvir, a prominent Kach activist.full article

Slander and incitement. Who is inciting who? The guy was making a simple observation. Netanyahu will be the next Israeli PM. If you think Sharon is bad…

by Forrest Hylton counterpunch.org
Having been asked to comment on the US and the meaning of its power in Latin America, I begin with a triptych of historical references. When John F. Kennedy, Jr., was assassinated more than forty years ago, Malcolm X saw it as a case of chickens coming home to roost. If I understand him, he meant that the US government could not systematically promote, employ, and/or condone violence against African Americans at home and colored peoples abroad, and expect to remain immune from its effects. Speaking at a press conference the year after Martin Luther King, Jr., had been assassinated, H. Rap Brown, a spokesperson for “the sons [and daughters] of Malcolm X,” the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, said, “Violence is as American as cherry pie.” The foundational facts of US history– the genocide of Native Americans and the enslavement and terrorizing of Africans and their descendents –preceded the subjugation of the Philippines and the Caribbean by more than two centuries. Hence, as Rap Brown implied, US imperial violence needs to be viewed in proper historical context. The final reference points not to words, but deeds. As tanks rattled through Santiago streets and people were herded into stadiums by the thousands, on September 11, 1973, Salvador Allende committed suicide in the presidential palace, having refused to renounce his democratic socialist principles. Thus began what later became a worldwide transition to neoliberal capitalism under US imperial auspices.full article

By Elaine Cassel AlterNet
Many are calling this week’s Supreme Court rulings a victory for civil libertarians. It may be a hollow victory.

Forget what the media’s talking heads have told you about the cases of Hamdi, Padilla, and Rasul representing a victory for civil liberties and a curb on Presidential power. While it is significant that the court ruled that the prisoners have some access to U.S. courts, the President won far more than he lost. Taken together, the decisions are more important for what they did not do and their significance for the future cannot be underestimated.

Rumsfeld v. Padilla

To begin with, the Court dodged the most important case, that of Jose Padilla. Padilla, recently vilified by a highly-placed Department of Justice attorney, is the American citizen arrested on a material witness warrant in Chicago two years ago. The government’s story then was that he was planning to detonate a dirty bomb. Attorney General John Ashcroft held a press conference and announced the incarceration of Padilla and told us what a dangerous man he was. Of course, if they had evidence that he was planning to detonate a dirty bomb, they would have charged him with a host of crimes, and tried him. But they never charged him with anything. What does that tell you? A couple of weeks ago, Ashcroft sent out one of his top deputies to change the story on Padilla. That story may have influenced the Court’s decision, though we will never know this. The official denied that the press conference at which he announced that Padilla had “confessed” to plotting to blow up high-rise apartment buildings may have been held to punctuate the government’s belief that Padilla was a very, very dangerous man. So if he is so dangerous, why is he not being charged? Or, you have to love this reason: Because the government denied him his rights and repeatedly interrogated him without an attorney (and, maybe even tortured him, for all we know) his confession is no good! Can’t be used in court. So since we denied him his rights, we cannot try him, but we can hold him without charging him forever. Because we say he is dangerous.full article

Jo Tuckman in Mexico City Guardian UK
The Observer

Deep in the heart of the no-go Mexico City barrio of Tepito, a long queue of men, women and children wait patiently to get closer to a 6ft image of Saint Death and seek a favour.

Small-time drug traffickers wanted a guarantee against violent death or arrest, children asked for their fathers’ release from jail, sick people sought a cure, shopkeepers prayed for higher sales, prostitutes looked for protection from disease and grannies begged for grandchildren to stay out of trouble.

These motley devotees of La Santa Muerte bore gifts of chocolates, tequila and cigarettes. One held a single red rose and candles for the fine ‘lady skeleton’ in flowing robes which clutches a scythe in one bony, bejewelled hand and the world in the other. When they reached the front of the queue they paused to kneel and kiss the saint’s glass case.

‘I have always prayed to the Virgin, but recently we began going to the Santíssima first,’ said Ernesto López, a burly salesman of pirate DVDs who proudly raised his shirt to reveal a chest tattoo of the new object of his devotion. ‘She understands us the best.

The cult of the Santa Muerte is booming in Mexico’s jails and tough barrios, with their reputation for drug trafficking and violent crime.

There are no rules about how to worship her. At this Tepito shrine outside a run-down block of flats, a ‘mass’ and collective blessing is held on the first night of every month. It drew just a few dozen people a few years ago, but now there is no room to move.

The Catholic authorities are dismayed, but fear they will lose their congregations if they threaten expulsions. ‘It is turning into a plague,’ said Father Sergio Román, whose parish is in Tepito. He acknowledged he is powerless to stop the cult spreading: ‘The church learnt a lot in the Inquisition. We know we have to respect other beliefs. They adore the Santa Muerte because of ignorance, not malice, and it is our fault for not preaching better.’

Anthropologists date the origins of the cult to the Spanish conquest that brought Christianity in contact with Aztec death worship. Church repression kept the tradition dormant for centuries until it resurfaced in poor urban areas.

Father Román said it returned to Tepito seven years ago as violent crime soared. This ‘pushes people into the arms of the lady of death because they feel they need help staying alive’.

Miracles claimed by the Tepito devotees back this. Ricardo Romas was there, he said, to thank the Santa Muerte for jamming the trigger on a gun pointed at him. Claudia, a prostitute, wanted to keep her clients docile and Aids at bay. Guillermina Díaz’s told how St Death multiplied the pieces of chicken she had to feed a hungry family.

Others insisted they were most attracted by the Santa Muerte’s tolerance. Living on the edge of the law, they saw no reason to respect the religious authorities.

‘When you go to church you get told off,’ said López, the DVD salesman. ‘But she does not discriminate. Here nobody cares who you are or what you do.’

“Anthropologists date the origins of the cult to the Spanish conquest that brought Christianity in contact with Aztec death worship”
O really?? How about “the Spanish conquest that brought the Aztec people into contact with Christian death worship?” They worship the image of a dead tortured guy on a cross, after all. I am sure that the people of Mexico are glad to hear that the Church learned from the Inquisition to be ‘tolerant.’ It tolerates the grinding poverty of non-white people the world over, after all, and looks to solve the problems of racism and injustice by ‘preaching better.’ At least la Santa Muerte does not discriminate. All are equal before her. It seems to me that these people from the slums of Mexico City have gotten to the very heart of the Christian teaching. As they should, having borne the brunt of it for all these centuries.

by Patrick Walters Guardian UK

PHILADELPHIA (AP) – Hamid Karzai, the U.S.-backed leader of Afghanistan who took over after the Taliban regime was ousted in 2001, accepted the Philadelphia Liberty Medal on Sunday at a ceremony at Independence Hall.

Karzai broke with the Taliban in 1995 and was appointed to lead his country after the U.S.-led invasion aimed at evicting the Taliban and tracking down Osama bin Laden.

“We have paid for it with our lives and we will defend it with our lives,” Karzai said.

The medal’s $100,000 prize will go to support Afghan orphans, he said.

The award, first presented in 1989, is given each July 4 by the nonprofit, nonpolitical Philadelphia Foundation to recognize leadership in the pursuit of freedom. The selection of Karzai was announced in May.

Philadelphia Mayor John F. Street, before presenting the medal, said the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and other recent events have led Americans to understand the importance of promoting democracy worldwide.

“Your fight is our fight. Your people are our people. And your future is our future,” Street told Karzai.full article

Here is the Nicaraguan Contras’ successor to the title ‘moral equivalent of the Founding Fathers’.Did he accept the medal on behalf of Unocal, the energy corporation he worked for before he became President and signed the pipeline deal with them? Well at least the prize money will go to orphans created by American aggression. He won the medal for “pursuing freedom,” which is far more difficult than the pursuit of Osama bin Laden. Poor Afghanistan.

Reuters

VIENNA (Reuters) – The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog, Mohamed ElBaradei, goes to Israel on Tuesday to try to persuade the Jewish state to open up its nuclear program, but officials said Israel was not ready to scrap its atomic arsenal.

Under its policy of “strategic ambiguity,” Israel neither admits nor denies having nuclear weapons. But it is assumed to have up to 200 warheads, based on estimates of the amount of plutonium Israeli reactors have produced.

While no breakthroughs are expected, one Western diplomat close to the IAEA said ElBaradei would meet senior Israeli officials, possibly including Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky said it would be partly a “routine visit,” but added that ElBaradei intended “to promote the concept of a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East” — clearly the central point of his talks.

Israel welcomes the idea of a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction but says disarmament has to come after peace has been achieved in the region, which has been plagued by violence and conflict for decades.

“We need … to rid the Middle East of all weapons of mass destruction,” ElBaradei said recently. “Israel agrees with that, but they say it has to be after peace agreements. My proposal is maybe we need to start to have a parallel dialogue on security at the same time when we’re working on the peace process.”

A diplomat close to the IAEA went even further: “No Middle East peace process can work until we deal with the issue of weapons of mass destruction.”

Until recently, diplomats in Vienna said ElBaradei might try to persuade Israel to acknowledge it has nuclear weapons as a first step toward disarmament. But Israeli officials and diplomats in Vienna now say this will not happen.full article

How coy. ‘Strategic ambiguity.’ Well this has got to be the worst-kept secret in the world. Also notice that mild remark: “the region, which has been plagued by violence and conflict for decades..”as if some baffling impersonal force descended onto the Middle East and made it a violent place, or perhaps it is a flaw in the make-up of those Arabs…It will be a great day when a sentence like that ends: “…due to European imperialism.” Oh well. I won’t hold my breath.

by Toni Solo counterpunch.org
“Negotiating a free-trade agreement with the U.S. is not something one has a right to – it’s a privilege.”1

This quote from US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick came to mind when the BBC reported former head of Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, US army General Karpinski on policy at the US concentration camp in Guantanamo. Karpinski quoted former Guantanamo commander Major General Miller saying , “At Guantanamo Bay we learned that the prisoners have to earn every single thing that they have.” She went on, “He said they are like dogs and if you allow them to believe at any point that they are more than a dog then you’ve lost control of them.”

Lessons from that kind of psychological and physical torture are very evident in US government efforts to force through coercive “free trade” deals on weaker trading partners in Latin America. Disorientating high-pressure timetables, meagre incentives and seriously damaging penalities underlie the superficial, businesslike bonhomie. Over these trade-in-your-sovereignty negotiations hangs constantly the perennial imperial Damocles’ sword – “comply…. or else”. In the background, national and international media sound the endless confidence-eroding drip, drip, “there’s no alternative….what choice do you have?….no alternative…..”.

The idea that the poor majority in Latin America are unaware of the crude aggression and blunt contempt for their needs and interests on the part of the United States or complacent at their own governments’ canine roll-over responses is false. Resistance is widespread to US government attempts to extend and consolidate imperial control of Latin America’s resources on behalf of giant multinational corporations. One would never know that from the corporate-owned mainstream media.full article
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by Edward Wong New York Times
BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 2 — With the chaos of the occupation and now the loosening of American control here, Iran has moved into its best position in decades to influence the political shape of Iraq, Western and Iraqi officials say.

Already, the Iranian government has quietly strengthened its presence in Iraq by providing financial backing to a range of popular Shiite Muslim groups and by flooding the country with intelligence agents, the officials say.full article

US General Says She Met Israeli Interrogator in Iraq
LONDON (Reuters) – The U.S. general who was in charge of Baghdad’s notorious Abu Ghraib prison said on Saturday she had met an Israeli interrogator in Iraq, a claim Israel denied but which was likely to irritate many in the Arab world.

Brigadier-General Janis Karpinski, who was responsible for military police guarding all Iraqi jails at the time prisoners were abused by U.S. troops there, told the BBC she met the Israeli at a Baghdad interrogation center.

“He was clearly from the Middle East and he said: ‘Well, I do some of the interrogation here and of course I speak Arabic, but I’m not an Arab. I’m from Israel’,” she said.

“My initial reaction was to laugh because I thought maybe he was joking, and I realized he was serious,” said Karpinski who has been suspended from her command for failings at Abu Ghraib but has not been charged with any wrongdoing.

A U.S. military spokesman in Washington said he had no information and Israel denied it.Posted in General | No Comments »