On Al Jazeera this weekend, a very interesting debate took place hosted by Avi Lewis regarding The Color of Recession.  According to statistics, the unemployment rate for minorities is around 34%, while unemployed white Americans are only at 7.2%, says the NY Times.

The programme featured four panellists who debated the issue of race, including ‘Jesse Jackson of the Rainbow Coalition; Rosa Clemente, an activist and former Green Party Vice Presidential candidate; Linda Chávez, director of the conservative Center for Equal Opportunity and the Reverend Greylan Hagler of the United Church of Christ.’

The discussion focused a great deal on the Obama administration, at times criticizing the new president’s failure to focus on helping minorities, who have been affected more strongly by the economic downturn.  Referring to Obama’s focus as a ‘colour blind approach’, Lewis puts the question to the panellists: Is Obama letting down people of colour?

The answers, surprisingly, are more varied than one might expect.  Rosa Clemente, for example, was dissatisfied with Obama’s actions so far, criticizing that the President has not focused his energies on minority unemployment issues.  Linda Chavez agreed, but also added that Obama is offering the ‘same old solutions’ to the economic crisis.  She believes this will only cause more problems for America in the future.

Reverend Jackson, who in many ways represents more traditional ideas about racial inequality, didn’t show any great opposition to President Obama.  Jackson did, however, disapprove of banks investing from the ‘top down’ rather than the ‘bottom up.’

Obama’s only supporter seemed to be Reverend Hagler, who suggested that people support the President rather than holding him to ridiculous standards.   He reminded the audience that Obama is a president, who must answer to and work with other groups such as the legislative branch.  ‘He is not a king,’ said Hagler.

Reparations

Though the discussion centred around the effects of the economic crisis on minorities, there was ultimately an argument about reparations to people of colour.  Should reparations be made?  All but one believed there should be.  Chavez maintained that the generation of minorities existing in America today are so disconnected from those who suffered from racial discrimination that there would be no point to making reparations. 

What was most disturbing about the discussion is that in almost everyway it seemed to undermine what President Obama is trying to do.  And what is Obama’s goal?  Is it simply to get a nation through one of the worse economic crises it has ever experienced?  Is it to end a war, while ensuring that Afghanistan is not left in such a weak state that the Taliban can easily overtake it again?  While all of these goals are no doubt part of Obama’s plans, it becomes clear from his campaign that a loftier goal is in place: Saving a nation from their own short-sidedness in regards to race.

So much of Obama’s presidential campaign appears to have focused on race.  And it seems clear that Obama understood what Europe has known for many years; Race is America’s greatest problem.  The children of oppressors and the oppressed have been taught by their ancestors that race is indeed, a huge subject and should be treated as such.  And while this poses no problem for the American who is accustomed to making race a very big issue, it consistently undermines the great cultural theorists of this generation who wisely maintain that the only way to overcome racism, sexism and the classification of ‘Otherness’ is by giving absolutely no respect to the ideology of classification.  In other words, ignoring the idea of race forces or at least impels others to deal with a person’s humanity rather than their skin colour.  It is a reminder of that which makes us similar, rather than what makes us different.

President Obama is, no doubt, a part of this new school of thought at least to some degree.  While he does not ignore race, he certainly has committed himself to making decisions that do not focus on the race of the American in crisis.  His proposals for healthcare, economic solutions and war will likely not include reparations to any race in particular.

Is this a good plan of action?  It may be more accurate to say that it is a necessary plan of action.  Who among us wants a leader, who makes decisions based on skin colour?  It was morally wrong when it was done by those who formerly held positions of power.  It would be wrong now.  In fact, it might further destroy the task of healing the wounds between races in America.  The ‘what about me’ syndrome exists on both sides.   

People are discriminated against for all sorts of reasons including gender and race.  It is ridiculous to believe that an epoch of racial prejudice has not been passed down to both black and white Americans the way family heirlooms are passed down to grandchildren.  Why would you believe even the most righteous of equality leaders over your own parents unless you were ready to challenge everything you had ever been taught?  Yet, it is equally ridiculous to believe that the consequence of such programming does not also include a fundamental fear and mistrust of anyone who is different.  Even small children teach us this in grade school where the slightest abnormality causes a student to be the focus of ridicule and cruelty.

Beyond Race

Still, what is crucial here is whether or not Obama’s regime of ‘colour blindness’ seeks to be an example by teaching people to function beyond the idea of race.  If the goal of the current administration is to eliminate the need for classification, the very idea of discrimination, therefore, is called into question. After all, is it productive to use classification as a defence?  For example, is it effective for someone to say, ‘He is treating me inappropriately because I am Indian and a woman?’  Or is it more effective to say, ‘He is treating me inappropriately?’  How much more useful would it be to focus on the issue of mistreatment, rather than the issue of race or gender?

There is no doubt that if Obama is a student of the school of thought that seeks to take the focus from classifications, therefore eliminating the power of ‘Otherness’, he has his work cut out for him.  Enticing people from a lifetime of programming is not something that can be done in four or even eight terms of a presidency.  Yet, Obama’s biggest followers have often interpreted his message as one of hope.  And since a minority has managed to obtain the highest position in America, then we can only imagine that change is possible and that perhaps, Americans are on the cusp of that change.

For NY Times statistics on unemployment in America, please go to http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/11/06/business/economy/unemployment-lines.html

Asalamu Alaikum.

Please check out this link below!

http://hondurasoye.wordpress.com/2009/10/15/al-jazeera-video-honduras-the-resistance-and-the-political-elite/

I have blogged about the situation in Honduras before, but here is video from acclaimed director Avi Lewis.

Avi Lewis, Alhamdulillah was also involved in the creation of The Take, which is another film I have promoted on this blog as well!

Insh’Allah everyone who reads this blog supports the resistance in Honduras against the coup-regime (or in Spanish, “los golpistas”).

Insh’Allah, the struggle against los golpistas can not only overthrow the right-wing regime, but insh’Allah it can also train and embolden the Honduran working class to trust in it’s own ability to self-organize and its own power to fight back against oppression and exploitation!

Jazak Allah Khair to Avi Lewis and HondurasOye!

7:00PM

 Guess this is turning out to be “video” day.

>State Department Daily Briefing, Thursday, October 15 – Video

Discussion of Honduras begins at minute 10:16. A reporter presses Deputy Spokesman, Robert Wood, about what’s going on in Honduras negotiations and what is the US policy on Zelaya’s restitution. Wood gives her the typical “Statespeak” propaganda and the reporter slings it back at him.

 Try to overlook the reporters mispronunciation of Zelaya’s name.

 Just as I posted this, the transcript became available.  You still might want to check out the video to see the reporter who presses back on Wood — she asks the right questions.

Honduras Excerpt from State Department Daily Briefing, Thursday, October 15

“QUESTION: What’s the status of the talks in Honduras? I mean, there seems to be some movement perhaps. And where does the U.S. stand on President Zelaya’s return?

MR. WOOD: Well, let me just say at the beginning here, this is a moment of great opportunity for Hondurans. My understanding is that the two sides have basically reached agreement on most aspects of the San Jose Accords. And so right now, the bottom line is they need to close the deal. And we encourage them to roll up their sleeves, continue their efforts. They’re certainly making progress. But this is a great moment, and they need to seize it. And so that’s where our efforts will be with our other colleagues in the OAS – to encourage the two sides to, as I said, just get to work and make this happen.

QUESTION: But I mean, it doesn’t sound like – I mean, even if you have some interpretation of the San Jose Accords, it doesn’t sound like President Zelaya would return in any meaningful way as president for any length of time. Is that right?

MR. WOOD: Well, look, they’re in the midst of negotiations in dealing with elements such as this one. And they – basically, they’re pretty close to – as I said, to getting this deal closed. And we’re just trying to encourage them – just make the hard decisions and close the deal. But I – it’s really – it wouldn’t be good for me to get into the details of the negotiations while they’re ongoing.

QUESTION: But hasn’t the U.S. kind of backtracked on its demand that President Zelaya return for the remainder of his term?

MR. WOOD: We have not backtracked on our –

QUESTION: So you still think he should return and serve out the full remainder of his term as president?

MR. WOOD: All of those things are being worked out by the negotiators, Elise. And I don’t think it’s good for me right now to talk about – from the podium here about what we think. We want the negotiators – they’re close, let them close the deal so that we can move forward. The Honduran people deserve nothing less. And this has been going on for quite some time, as you well know. And we’ve made very clear what our policy has been with regard to –

QUESTION: Well, you haven’t been really clear about what your policy is –

MR. WOOD: I think we have.

QUESTION: — because one day it’s one thing, and the other day it’s another thing. You said you wouldn’t accept the results of an election unless President Zelaya was returned for the remainder of his term. And now if he returns in some kind of way for, like, some small period of time and then hands over, that’s not really returning for the full length of his term.

MR. WOOD: Well, let’s see what is agreed by the negotiators. President Zelaya, and his designated negotiators are trying to work on these issues right now with the de facto regime. And I just don’t think it would be appropriate for me to start weighing in publicly on what we want to see and what we don’t want to see. Let them work it out, they’re close to a deal. Let’s try to help them make it happen.

QUESTION: On the same subject?

MR. WOOD: Yeah.

QUESTION: How much involvement – how much American involvement is in these negotiations? In theories, the Arias people and the Zelaya people and the Micheletti people, but there must – there is probably some American involvement too. How much is it?

MR. WOOD: Look, when we’re called on to provide advice, that type of thing, from the two sides, we’re certainly there and willing to do that, but this is something that’s being led by the OAS. And the two sides, as I said, have been making great progress. And what we’re trying to do right now, from the U.S. side, is to encourage them to continue because, as I said, we’re close and we want to see this deal happen. And they need to just make those difficult decisions and close the deal, and that’s where we are.

So we’re obviously there to provide whatever type of assistance, advice that we can give right now. But the OAS has the lead on it. The two sides are sitting down trying to work this out. And it’s a positive thing, they’re making progress, and let’s just hope that they can reach the deal and reach it soon.”
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2009/oct/130583.htm

>Video of Telesur interview with Juan Barahona today, 10/15.

 After you get to the Telesur website, you will see videos on the upper right part of the webpage. Click on “mas videos” and scroll down a tad and you will see Barahona’s video.

11:00AM

>AL JAZEERA – 2 VIDEOS: The Resistance and the Political Elite of Honduras 

Avi Lewis, husband of Canadian author Naomi Klein, reporting for Faultlines, provides comprehensive and compelling coverage of the Honduras story. 

The following two Al Jazeera videos, in a total time of under 25 minutes, cover most of the ground needed for the uninitiated to determine what is going on in Honduras.

Avi Lewis, husband of Canadian author Naomi Klein, reporting for Faultlines, provides comprehensive and compelling coverage of the Honduras story. 

The first video is devoted to the Resistance and the brave Hondurans who keep it burning day in and day out.  Avi shows that the threat of death always hovers over members of the Resistance and tells the immensely painful stories of two who died. 

The second video focuses on the political elite in Honduras and the Washington manipulators who have kept this repressive coup churning.  Avi is always sure to point out the hole in the political elite’s arguments.

Sombreros off to Avi Lewis!

FAULTLINES – AL JAZEERA: PART 1  – THE HONDURAN RESISTANCE

FAULTLINES – AL JAZERRA:  PART 2 – THE HONDURAN POLITICAL ELITE

The Atlantic this month gives the network high praises:

Overlying Al Jazeera’s pro-Palestinian and anti-Bush sentiment is a breezy, pacifist-trending internationalism. In too many of its reports, the subliminal message appears to be that compromise should be the order of the day. According to Al Jazeera, the politically weak, merely by being so, are automatically in the right. A certain kind of moral equivalency is Al Jazeera’s lifeblood. The history of human suffering seemingly begins and ends with that of the Palestinians under Israeli occupation and that of the Iraqis under erstwhile American occupation.

Yet Al Jazeera is forgivable for its biases in a way that the BBC or CNN is not. In the case of Al Jazeera, news isn’t so much biased as honestly representative of a middle-of-the-road developing-world viewpoint. Where you stand depends upon where you sit. And if you sit in Doha or Mumbai or Nairobi, the world is going to look starkly different than if you sat in Washington or London, or St. Louis for that matter. By contrast, in the case of the BBC and CNN, you are explicitly aware that rather than presenting the world as they find it, those channels are taking a distinct side—the left-liberal internationalist side—in an honest and fundamental debate over foreign policy.

The CNN here referenced is of course not exactly the same CNN as Americans see, but the one broadcast overseas. “Just sayin’,” I’ve found it considerably less offensive than its American iteration when I’ve had the chance to watch it. It’s much more sober. But that only strengthens the praise of the passage quoted above.

Canadian of note working for Al Jazeera: Avi Lewis, son of Stephen Lewis and husband of Naomi Klein. I find his activism (like Naomi’s) a bit precious, but he’s a thoughtful interviewer. He hosts Faultlines USA for Al Jazeera.

I am sure anyone who has recently done no more than take a brief glance outside of the front door, or into the computer screen, knows about the anti-Israel boycotts going on around the world right now. They are done by high profile celebrities, leftist and neo-Nazi activists, unions such as CUPE, student organizations at universities (some of these, especially at York, have actually been bordering on anti-Jewish riots and have included physical violence against Jews), and it is even under consideration by certain religious organizations, such as local branches of the Anglican Church. The boycotts cover everything from Israeli products to academics to films.

Yes, films. The most prominent anti-Israel boycott going on right now is at the TIFF, or Toronto International Film Festival. At the heart of this particular one is a certain Naomi Klein. If you’re a rightist with any connection to Canada you probably already know and loathe this name. For the rest of you, Naomi Klein is an left-NDP type socialist, married to Avi Lewis, and the author of No Logo and Shock Doctrine. While of a Jewish background herself, the Jerusalem Post has described her various remarks as the “most perverse of aspersions on Jews, an age-old stereotype of Jews as intrinsically evil and malicious.”

So there you go. Her and a few other people, who apparently dislike the films produced by Israeli filmmakers in Tel Aviv, have launched this campaign to boycott the film festival. The sheer stupidity in doing this and in the logic behind it is something I do not need to explain, as people much more eloquent than I have already done so here and here. I do not need to point out her hypocrisy in choosing Israel when films from China, Malaysia, and Iran may play unmolested by her and her cronies.

I write this piece, rather, so I may suggest something. I have made it clear that I dislike when organizations that should not be political launch political operations, especially against Israel. I disagree with Klein’s desire to repress free speech by wanting the Israelis shut out of the Toronto International Film Festival. I also disagree with forbidding individuals such as Klein to state their points, however ridiculous those points may be. But while Klein continues to do such things, I think I’ll take a personal, private stand.

I am going to boycott Naomi Klein.

This does not mean that I want – as she desires of Israel – her opinions to be shut out. It simply means that I refuse to support her in any way. I will not buy books that she publishes. I will not give her website traffic (and her advertising money) from my browser. I will engage in democratic and positive debate on the inaccuracy of her views.

And I hope I am just the start.

I invite all fellow boycotters to use this sticker on their blogs. If you can make a better one than me for others to use, please let me know.

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We heard rumors of a new kind of economy emerging in Argentina. With hundreds of factories closing, waves of workers were locking themselves inside and running the workplaces on their own, with no bosses. Where we come from, a closed factory is just an inevitable effect of a model, the end of a story. In Argentina today, it’s just the beginning. In suburban Buenos Aires, thirty unemployed auto-parts workers walk into their idle factory, roll out sleeping mats and refuse to leave.

All they want is to re-start the silent machines. But this simple act – The Take – has the power to turn the globalization debate on its head. In the wake of Argentina’s dramatic economic collapse in 2001, Latin America’s most prosperous middle class finds itself in a ghost town of abandoned factories and mass unemployment. The Forja auto plant lies dormant until its former employees take action.

They’re part of a daring new movement of workers who are occupying bankrupt businesses and creating jobs in the ruins of the failed system. But Freddy, the president of the new worker’s co-operative, and Lalo, the political powerhouse from the Movement of Recovered Companies, know that their success is far from secure. Like every workplace occupation, they have to run the gauntlet of courts, cops and politicians who can either give their project legal protection or violently evict them from the factory.

The story of the workers’ struggle is set against the dramatic backdrop of a crucial presidential election in Argentina, in which the architect of the economic collapse, Carlos Menem, is the front-runner. His cronies, the former owners, are circling: if he wins, they’ll take back the companies that the movement has worked so hard to revive. Armed only with slingshots and an abiding faith in shop-floor democracy, the workers face off against the bosses, bankers and a whole system that sees their beloved factories as nothing more than scrap metal for sale.

With The Take, director Avi Lewis, one of Canada’s most outspoken journalists, and writer Naomi Klein, author of the international bestseller No Logo, champion a radical economic manifesto for the 21st century. But what shines through in the film is the simple drama of workers’ lives and their struggle: the demand for dignity and the searing injustice of dignity denied.

RunTime: 87 min

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Watch the Full Documentary Now

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[ Full Screen ]

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although i tried to work it out so that my internet would be up and running by the time i got back to jordan, that has not turned out to be the case. i have tried two different companies here–one kuwaiti, one jordanian–and neither gives me a singal. the third and fourth option, well that’s my next post so you’ll have to wait to read about that. but all this is to day that for the next couple of weeks in particular, if you want to follow boycott news you should follow the u.s. campaign for the academic and cultural boycott of israel site via your news readers and twitter. many of you know that i also do that website; given that internet cafe time is challenging during ramadan (don’t forget to boycott those zionist terrorist colonist dates! ) for a number of reasons, on days when i can only manage a couple of hours that’s the blog i’ll be updating first.

but while i am on the subject of boycott i have a confession to make. since i was about fourteen years old i have had a secret love of madonna’s music. not all of it. not all of the time. but it was one of my closeted guilty pleasures in life. (i don’t have many.) over the past few years, enabled by the invention of mp3s and also the fact that i move so much, i no longer have any cds, just mp3 files of music i like (most of which is political). so, when macy gray had her event with the zionist terrorist colonist consolate in los angeles last year, i deleted her from my computer. likewise i did the same for madonna a few weeks ago. and here’s why:

1. During Monday’s whitewashing concert appearance in Tel-Aviv, Madonna made empty references to peace, before wrapping herself in the Israeli flag:

“I truly believe that Israel is the energy center of the world. And I also believe that if we can all live together in harmony in this place, then we can live in peace all over the world.”

Meanwhile in Gaza on Monday, fishermen were attacked by Israel “Defense” Forces for…fishing. Apparently, they failed to live “in harmony” well enough.

here is the above-referenced appalling video (if you can hold your cookies…) :

2. Any political malaise that she may have risked evoking among Israelis dissipated when she was handed an Israeli flag by one fan. Madonna used it to make her final parade on the stage draping herself in Israel’s national blue-and-white colours and displaying where her sympathies lie.

There was certainly none of the controversy she had aroused on her previous two stops, in Romania and Bulgaria.

In Sofia, the Orthodox clergy berated her for showing disrespect to Christianity. In Bucharest, she was booed for criticising discrimination against the Roma (gypsies) of Eastern Europe.

Midway through the show, breaking away from the carefully scripted performance, Madonna expressed her deep affection for Israel: “I shouldn’t have stayed so long away,” she told the adoring crowd. Her last concert here was in 1993.

The 51-year-old entertainer has long claimed a special bond with the Jewish state. For more than a decade, she’s been flirting with the Kabbalah, the essence of Jewish mysticism, and has even adopted a Hebrew name, Esther.

In the run-up to the first of her two shows, Israeli radio stations played Madonna hits round the clock. On Army Radio, a DJ quipped, “Tonight, Aunt Esther is playing at Yarkon Park.”

Brought up as a Roman Catholic, Madonna wrote in advance of her Israeli tour in an article for Israel’s best-selling newspaper, Yediot Achronot, that the study of Kabbalah helps her understand life better.

3. Madonna is reportedly spending the Sabbath eve at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s home.

Y-Net reported Friday that Madonna will light the sabbath candles and will spend time with Netanyahu’s children at the official residence in Jerusalem.

The pop singer, who sold out two Tel Aviv concerts, this week toured Jerusalem’s Old City and Tsfat, the seat of Jewish mysticism in northern Israel.

and this is why i’m psyched about artists against apartheid’s new propabanda site (basically a shit list of musicians who don’t abide by the boycott):

The artists listed here have committed to performing in Apartheid Israel, in disregard of the Cultural Boycott of the State’s ongoing human rights violations, apartheid rule, and expropriation of land from indigenous inhabitants.

To cover its extreme racism, massacres, and flagrant violations of Human Rights and International Law, the Zionist State of Israel relies heavily on propaganda “Branding Efforts”, spending Millions of Dollars per year on public relations campaigns, and encouraging “whitewashing” events such as concerts by these International Artists:

Leonard Cohen
Sponsor: Israel Discount Bank (which also finances settlements on stolen Palestinian land)

MGMT

Madonna

Faith No More

Dinosaur Jr.

Lady Gaga

Kaiser Chiefs

Calexico

Depeche Mode

Pet Shop Boys

Macy Gray

Suzanne Vega

Steve Vai

These artists may be drawn by extraordinarily high performance fees, or the desire to “sing for peace”. However, the cultural effect of their appearance is to assist the Israeli ministries in their efforts to normalize of Israeli Apartheid, while disregarding the non-violent struggle for equal rights and justice in Palestine-Israel.

If you are an artist interested in coordinating with the non-violent resistance to colonialism and apartheid, please refer to the Guidelines for Applying the International Cultural Boycott of Israel recommended by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) before booking your tour.

i can proudly say i do not have a single mp3 song with any of the above apartheid supporting musicians.

and, the other big story on the boycott news front–with those adhering to it and respecting it, that is–is about the toronto film festival:

The Toronto Declaration: No Celebration of Occupation

An Open Letter to the Toronto International Film Festival:

September 2, 2009

As members of the Canadian and international film, culture and media arts communities, we are deeply disturbed by the Toronto International Film Festival’s decision to host a celebratory spotlight on Tel Aviv. We protest that TIFF, whether intentionally or not, has become complicit in the Israeli propaganda machine.

In 2008, the Israeli government and Canadian partners Sidney Greenberg of Astral Media, David Asper of Canwest Global Communications and Joel Reitman of MIJO Corporation launched “Brand Israel,” a million dollar media and advertising campaign aimed at changing Canadian perceptions of Israel. Brand Israel would take the focus off Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and its aggressive wars, and refocus it on achievements in medicine, science and culture. An article in Canadian Jewish News quotes Israeli consul general Amir Gissin as saying that Toronto would be the test city for a promotion that could then be deployed around the world. According to Gissin, the culmination of the campaign would be a major Israeli presence at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival. (Andy Levy-Alzenkopf, “Brand Israel set to launch in GTA,” Canadian Jewish News, August 28, 2008.)

In 2009, TIFF announced that it would inaugurate its new City to City program with a focus on Tel Aviv. According to program notes by Festival co-director and City to City programmer Cameron Bailey, “The ten films in this year’s City to City programme will showcase the complex currents running through today’s Tel Aviv. Celebrating its 100th birthday in 2009, Tel Aviv is a young, dynamic city that, like Toronto, celebrates its diversity.”

The emphasis on ‘diversity’ in City to City is empty given the absence of Palestinian filmmakers in the program. Furthermore, what this description does not say is that Tel Aviv is built on destroyed Palestinian villages, and that the city of Jaffa, Palestine’s main cultural hub until 1948, was annexed to Tel Aviv after the mass exiling of the Palestinian population. This program ignores the suffering of thousands of former residents and descendants of the Tel Aviv/Jaffa area who currently live in refugee camps in the Occupied Territories or who have been dispersed to other countries, including Canada. Looking at modern, sophisticated Tel Aviv without also considering the city’s past and the realities of Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza strip, would be like rhapsodizing about the beauty and elegant lifestyles in white-only Cape Town or Johannesburg during apartheid without acknowledging the corresponding black townships of Khayelitsha and Soweto.

We do not protest the individual Israeli filmmakers included in City to City, nor do we in any way suggest that Israeli films should be unwelcome at TIFF. However, especially in the wake of this year’s brutal assault on Gaza, we object to the use of such an important international festival in staging a propaganda campaign on behalf of what South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, and UN General Assembly President Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann have all characterized as an apartheid regime.

This letter was drafted by the following ad hoc committee:

Udi Aloni, filmmaker, Israel; Elle Flanders, filmmaker, Canada; Richard Fung, video artist, Canada; John Greyson, filmmaker, Canada; Naomi Klein, writer and filmmaker, Canada; Kathy Wazana, filmmaker, Canada; Cynthia Wright, writer and academic, Canada; b h Yael, film and video artist, Canada

Endorsed by:

Ahmad Abdalla, Filmmaker, Egypt

Hany Abu-Assad, Filmmaker, Palestine

Mark Achbar, Filmmaker, Canada

Zackie Achmat, AIDS activist, South Africa

Ra’anan Alexandrowicz, Filmmaker, Jerusalem

Anthony Arnove, Publisher and Producer, USA

Ruba Atiyeh, Documentary Director, Lebanon

Joslyn Barnes, Writer and Producer, USA

John Berger, Author, France

Dionne Brand, Poet/Writer, Canada

Judith Butler, Professor, USA

David Byrne, Musician, USA

Noam Chomsky, Professor, USA

Guy Davidi Director, Israel

Na-iem Dollie, Journalist/Writer, South Africa

Igor Drljaca, Filmmaker, Canada

Eve Ensler, Playwright, Author, USA

Eyal Eithcowich, Director, Israel

Sophie Fiennes, Filmmaker, UK

Peter Fitting, Professor, Canada

Jane Fonda, Actor and Author, USA

Danny Glover, Filmmaker and Actor, USA

Noam Gonick, Director, Canada

Malcolm Guy, Filmmaker, Canada

Mike Hoolboom, Filmmaker, Canada

Annemarie Jacir, Filmmaker, Palestine

Fredric Jameson, Literary Critic, USA

Juliano Mer Khamis, Filmmaker, Jenin/Haifa

Bonnie Sherr Klein Filmmaker, Canada

Paul Laverty, Producer, UK

Min Sook Lee, Filmmaker, Canada

Paul Lee, Filmmaker, Canada

Yael Lerer, publisher, Tel Aviv

Jack Lewis, Filmmaker, South Africa

Ken Loach, Filmmaker, UK

Arab Lotfi, Filmmaker, Egypt/Lebanon

Kyo Maclear, Author, Toronto

Mahmood Mamdani, Professor, USA

Fatima Mawas, Filmmaker, Australia

Tessa McWatt, Author, Canada and UK

Cornelius Moore, Film Distributor, USA

Yousry Nasrallah, Director, Egypt

Rebecca O’Brien, Producer, UK

Pratibha Parmar, Producer/Director, UK

Jeremy Pikser, Screenwriter, USA

John Pilger, Filmmaker, UK

Shai Carmeli Pollak, Filmmaker, Israel

Ian Iqbal Rashid, Filmmaker, Canada

Judy Rebick, Professor, Canada

David Reeb, Artist, Tel Aviv

B. Ruby Rich, Critic and Professor, USA

Wallace Shawn, Playwright, Actor, USA

Eyal Sivan, Filmmaker and Scholar, Paris/London/Sderot

Elia Suleiman, Fimmlaker, Nazareth/Paris/New York

Eran Torbiner, Filmmaker, Israel

Alice Walker, Writer, USA

Thomas Waugh, Professor, Canada

Howard Zinn, Writer, USA

Slavoj Zizek, Professor, Slovenia

and if you want a real treat check out an amazing artist and musician who has an amazing vision and history. here is an interview with the incomparable harry belefonte and avi lewis on al jazeera’s fault lines:

i’ve been reading the selected writings of eqbal ahmad this week. there are some excellent, insightful essays about palestinian politics and resistance strategies in this volume, which are especially interesting given ahmad’s history–as someone who lived in algeria and tunisia during the algerian revolution that kicked out the french colonists and although he was born in bihar, india his family had to move lahore after the 1947 partition of india and his family was split by the new border. so he has a particularly interesting take on things. but he also has an essay entitled “iran’s landmark revolution: fifteen years later.” the essay was published in 1994 and given the situation in iran right now and all the comparisons i see people making between the current situation in iran and previous events in iranian history i find the essay a useful read. ahmad starts by reminding us that it was “the first fully televised revolution in history” (81). He opens the essay by comparing the french and iranian revolutions in the sense that both marked a new era regionally. he says:

…the Iranian was like the French a unique and perhaps seminal revolution for the postcolonial era as the French had been for the industrial age. The uprising that began in January 1978 and ended successfully on February 11, 1979, was the first major break in the postcolonial world from the revolutionary model of protracted armed struggle experienced in China, Algeria, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau. Iran’s, by contrast, was a mass insurrection, by far the most popular, broad-based, and sustained agitation in recent history. During a single year–1978–some thirty thousand protestors were killed in Iran while its economic institutions and public services were intermittently shut down. The movement was quite unparalleled for its militant but nonviolent character and for its discipline and morale in the face of governmental violence. As such, it deserves to be studied for its lessons in mass mobilization and agitational politics.

The Iranian Revolution pointed toward a shift in the focus of revolutionary struggle in the so-called Third World from the rural to the urban sector. Until 1978, almost all Third World revolution had been primarily peasant revolutions, centered in rural areas and involving guerrilla warfare. Even in those countries (e.g., Algeria and Cuba) where support of the urban population held great importance in revolutionary strategy, the rural population was from the outset viewed as being central to the revolutionaries’ success.

The Iranian Revolution represented the first significant departure from this pattern. It was predominantly urban in composition and entirely so in its origin and initiation. Its cadres came from the middle, low middle, and working classes. Its following was swelled by the lumpenproletariat, mostly rural migrants driven to the cities by the shah’s “modernization” of agriculture. The capital-intensive commercial farm strategy of economic development which the shah initiated in the 1960s–and which Ms. Bhutto’s “agricultural task force” has now recommended for Pakistan–led to rapid urbanization, cultural dislocation, and grossly augmented and visible inequality. These conditions created the mass base for the uprising, and increasingly they are appearing in other Third World countries, especially in those which are seeking links with the commercial market as uncritically as they once sought to imitate socialism.

Iran yielded a textbook example of the general strike as a primary weapon in revolutionary seizure of power. The strike, which lasted nearly six months in Iran, was one of the longest and by far the most effective in history. The turning point in the struggle against the shah came during September and October 1978, when the oil workers in Abadan and Ahvaz proved the weapon of the general strike to be powerful beyond the dreams of the nineteenth-century Marxists and syndicalists, who had viewed it as the lynchpin of revolutionary strategy. Subsequently, events in South Korea, South Africa, Nicaragua, and Brazil, among others, suggested that what we witnessed in Iran was a trend….

The fall of the shah revealed that, in the Third World, deployment of advanced weapons promotes internal contradictions and subjects the state apparatus to unbearable strains. When confronted by a sustained popular uprising, Iran’s 450,000 strong, superequipped military establishment disintegrated. Significantly, the noncommissioned officers and technicians, whose numbers had swelled since 1972 as a result of large infusions of sophisticated arms, were the first to defect en masse; their defection proved crucial in the disintegration of Iran’s armed forces. The military’s open and mass defections, which began in December 1978, were spearheaded by technicians and cadets of the air force and armoured divisions. They sealed the Pahlavis’ fate.

Herein lies an extraordinary irony. In terms of intensity, scope, and the social forces which were involved in it, the Iranian was by far the most modern and objectively advanced revolution in the Third World. Yet revolutionary power in Iran was seized by a clerical leadership of theocratic outlook, medieval culture, and millenarian style. Most scholars have attributed this remarkable phenomenon to the shah’s repression (only in the mosque one found the freedom of association and speech…) and to Iran’s Shia traditions (of martyrdom and clerical power). (81-84)

the events of 1979 is, of course, one of the flashpoints being used as a point of comparison right now. so is the 1953 american coup which led to the overthrow of mohammed mossadgh, and the installment of the shah as the american puppet in iran, which of course led to the 1979 events that ahmad discusses above. here is chris hedges reminding of the american coup in 1953:

Iranians do not need or want us to teach them about liberty and representative government. They have long embodied this struggle. It is we who need to be taught. It was Washington that orchestrated the 1953 coup to topple Iran’s democratically elected government, the first in the Middle East, and install the compliant shah in power. It was Washington that forced Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh, a man who cared as much for his country as he did for the rule of law and democracy, to spend the rest of his life under house arrest. We gave to the Iranian people the corrupt regime of the shah and his savage secret police and the primitive clerics that rose out of the swamp of the dictator’s Iran. Iranians know they once had a democracy until we took it away.

in all of the news going on in iran i have been thinking about one of the most insightful statements i read on as’ad abukhalil’s blog early on in relation to a statement barack obama made:

You need to read Obama’s statements on Iran carefully. There is one particular statement in which he said that the US (for historical reasons) can’t “appear to be meddling”. The statement does not say that the US is not meddling, but that it does not want to appear to be meddling. Similarly, the US in 1953 meddled but it did not appear to be meddling.

here is obama’s original quote from the los angeles times by paul richter:

“It’s not productive, given the history of the U.S.-Iranian relationship, to be seen as meddling,” Obama said Tuesday.

the image above is a screenshot i took of the white house website. if you click on the link you can watch a video of obama’s press conference and read a transcript in english, farsi, and arabic. if obama did not want to seem to be meddling last week, this week he is blatantly meddling. what i find most hypocritical about his remarks are on the subject of justice:

The Iranian people can speak for themselves. That’s precisely what’s happened in the last few days. In 2009, no iron fist is strong enough to shut off the world from bearing witness to peaceful protests [sic] of justice. Despite the Iranian government’s efforts to expel journalists and isolate itself, powerful images and poignant words have made their way to us through cell phones and computers, and so we’ve watched what the Iranian people are doing.

This is what we’ve witnessed. We’ve seen the timeless dignity of tens of thousands of Iranians marching in silence. We’ve seen people of all ages risk everything to insist that their votes are counted and that their voices are heard. Above all, we’ve seen courageous women stand up to the brutality and threats, and we’ve experienced the searing image of a woman bleeding to death on the streets. While this loss is raw and extraordinarily painful, we also know this: Those who stand up for justice are always on the right side of history.

part of what has been unnerving about the situation in iran is the zionist entity’s press over the protests. they seem to be foaming at the mouth over the post-election protests. indeed, the majority of the articles in ha’aretz and ynet have been on iran, which is unusual. there have also been many rumors spread on the internet which are difficult to verify at this point with respect to zionists meddling in iran. in the guardian rory mccarthy, martin chulov, hugh macleod, and ian black report precisely why the zionist entity is up in arms about the protests:

In private, Israeli officials appeared to be hoping for an ­Ahmadinejad victory even before the polls opened, despite his vitriolic ­criticism of Israel, his denial of the ­Holocaust and his apparent eagerness for a nuclear weapons programme.

but there does appear to be evidence of the united states meddling in iran as jeremy scahill reported today:

As violence continues on the streets of Tehran, RebelReports has learned that former US National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft has confirmed that the US government has spies on the ground in Iran. Scowcroft made the assertion in an interview to be broadcast on the Al Jazeera program “Fault Lines.” When asked by journalist Avi Lewis if the US has “intelligence operatives on the ground in Iran,” Scowcroft replied, “Of course we do.”

While it is hardly surprising that the US has its operatives in Iran, it is unusual to see a figure in a position to know state this on the record. New Yorker journalist Seymour Hersh and Former Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter both have claimed for years that the US has regularly engaged in covert operations inside of Iran aimed at destabilizing the government. In July 2008, Hersh reported, “the scale and the scope of the operations in Iran, which involve the Central Intelligence Agency and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), have now been significantly expanded.”

In the Al Jazeera interview, Scowcroft defended President Obama’s position on Iran, which has been roundly criticized by Republicans as weak and ineffective with some characterizing Obama as a “de facto ally of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.”

Scowcroft tells Al Jazeera: “We don’t control Iran. We don’t control the government obviously. There is little we can do to change the situation domestically in Iran right now and I think an attempt to change it is more likely to be turned against us and against the people who are demonstrating for more freedom and, therefore, I think we need to look at what we can do best, which is to try to influence Iranian behavior in the region, and with nuclear weapons.”

the video footage of the interview can be seen here (though it is josh rushing and not avi lewis doing the interview as scahill claimed):

and why exactly might the u.s. be meddling? to what end? here is abukhalil’s “abcs of iranian developments”:

Let me explain the ABC of Iranian developments to you. Rafsanjani (the wealthiest and most corrupt man in Iran) represents reform, and Moussavi (who led one of the most repressive eras in the Iranian revolutionary era and who sponsored Hizbullah in its most horrific phases) represents democracy. Did you get that? Write that down NOW.

but it is not just the meddling that is disturbing. it is also the hypocrisy. obama goes off about people fighting for justice being on the right side of history. the palestinians have been doing this for over 61 years and yet where is obama when it comes to speaking about their rights and justice here? abukhalil’s takes this a step further with some important observations:

The hypocrite in speech is invoking an argument that he himself so blatantly ignores and will continue to ignore to the last day of his presidency. Does he really believe in that right for peoples? Yes, but only in countries where governments are not clients of the US. Will he invoke that argument, say, in Saudi Arabia or Egypt or Morocco or Tunisia or Libya or Jordan or Oman, etc? Of course not. This is only an attempt to justify US imperial policies. And even in Iran, the Empire is nervous because it can’t predict the outcome. But make no mistake about it: his earlier statement to the effect that the US can’t for historical reasons “appear to be meddling” sets the difference between the Bush and the Obama administration. The Bush administration meddled blatantly and crudely and visibly, while the Obama administration meddles more discreetly and not-so-visibly. Tens of thousands of pens equipped with cameras have been smuggled into Iran: I only wish that the American regime would dare to smuggle them into Saudi Arabia so that the entire world can watch the ritual of public executions around the country.

my friend matthew cassel also commented on the western media coverage of the protests in iran in electronic intifada today as compared to other parts of the world this week–namely georgia and peru–as well as to palestine to unveil this american hypocrisy:

However, Iran is different than both Georgia and Peru. Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad has probably overtaken Osama Bin Laden as the most hated individual in the US. Over the past several years, many officials in Washington have called for more aggressive actions to be taken against Iran. More recently, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave US President Barack Obama an ultimatum that the US president better take care of Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program, or else Israel would. It’s no coincidence then that the protests in Iran are receiving around-the-clock media coverage and are also one of the only examples in recent years where US government officials have showed support for demonstrators like Obama did when he called on Iran to “stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people.” They are certainly not the only protests that have been met with violent government repression.

For years, Palestinians have organized weekly nonviolent demonstrations against Israel’s wall in the West Bank. Each week protestors face the heavily-armed Israeli military and are beaten and shot at with rubber-coated steel bullets and tear-gas canisters, sometimes fatally. Yet, during his recent speech in Cairo to the Muslim world, Obama made no reference to these protests and instead called on Palestinians to “abandon violence” and adopt nonviolent means. Days after the speech a Palestinian was killed and a teenager wounded during the weekly protest, yet there has been no call by the US administration for Israel to “stop all violent and unjust actions” against the Palestinian people. And the media has followed and remained silent, even though covering the demonstrations would be as easy as a 30-minute drive from most Jerusalem-based news bureaus on any given Friday.

and here is another important moment of hypocrisy that abukhalil pointed out on his blog:

“(Editors’ note: Reuters and other foreign media are subject to Iranian restrictions on their ability to report, film or take pictures in Tehran.)” Did Reuters use that disclaimer when reporting on the Israeli massacres in Gaza?

i do not claim to be an expert on iran. but post-1979 revolution i found my home town of los angeles suddenly populated with iranians. these iranians, many of whom i went to school with and some of whom i was friends with, were decidedly pro-shah. this community gave me a very distorted view of iran growing up. but as i got older and met other iranians in the u.s., and the later around the world, and then began reading more i started to understand more. in the u.s. i hear about media reports on the mainstream news that feature the shah’s family members as abukhalil noted:

The media coverage went from crazy to insane this week. Now, they are–KID YOU NOT–reporting on the reactions of the Shah’s family. Some of them at CNN in fact think that the Iranian people are demonstrating to restore the Shah’s son to power. I heard that the Shah’s widow–taking time from enjoying the wealth of the Iranian people which was embezzled with full American cooperation and complicity–was tearing up on national TV. The plight of the Shah’s family will be similar to that of the descendants of the Iraqi Hashemites after the overthrow of Saddam. The royal dude went back to London when he discovered–against Amerian neo-con assurances–that he has no chance on earth.

aside from this american media distortion machine there are a number of bloggers and scholars speaking about iran from a variety of perspectives. there are some good tweeters out there who are reporting responsibly, but the fact that new media is one of the vehicles for getting information out about iran means that there is all sorts of noise one must filter out. maximillian forte has a great long post on the use of twitter that is worth reading. forte offers some important analysis including on the subject of tweeters from the zionist entity:

It may be wrong to single out Americans here, since there is every likelihood, given the current geopolitical context, that Israeli Twitter users (among the heaviest Twitter users one can find) have a vested interest in manipulating the discussion to serve the ends of the Israeli state, as do many Americans. One thing to do is to try to foment a division between Iran and Hezbollah, thus one posted: “large number of armed forces are lebanese/arab hired to beat down the brave iranians” — completely without substance. Another Twitter user I spoke to chose to quote the Talmud to the Iranian protesters. Interestingly, the Jerusalem Post was immediately “aware” of three “Iranian” bloggers (who post only in English), almost as soon as they joined, claiming without support that their Twitter feeds were from Iran (see here and here).

That the U.S. government has an active interest in the unfolding of the “Twitter revolution” for Iran, is an established fact. The U.S. State Department intervened to ask Twitter to delay a scheduled maintenance break so as to not interrupt tweets about Iran — “Ian Kelly, a state department spokesman, told reporters at a briefing that he had recognized over the weekend the importance of social media ‘as a vital tool for citizens’ empowerment and as a way for people to get their messages out’. He said: ‘It was very clear to me that these kinds of social media played a very important role in democracy – spreading the word about what was going on’” (see “US urges Twitter to delay service break,” by Chris Nuttall and Daniel Dombey, Financial Times, 17 June 2009, and “U.S. State Department speaks to Twitter over Iran,” Reuters, 16 June 2009). What the U.S. State Department is also doing, of course, is reinforcing the unproven claim that this is important to Iran, while careful not to specify whose citizens are being empowered, whose word is being spread, and “out” from where. At the same time, the Obama regime claims that it is not meddling in Iranian affairs.

forte also has a really important blog entry on the necessity of sharing accurate sources when using social media that i think is necessary reading for anyone active on the internet in general, not only in relation to iran. blogger mo-ha-med has a different take on the subject of sourcing that is equally important and interesting in the current climate.

scahill has been particularly annoyed by the discourse of the so-called “twitter revolution” that even al jazeera has used. here is his entertaining rant on the subject:

I’m really sick of people in the US talking about the “twitter revolution” in Iran. I especially hate when it’s US liberals who would NEVER get off their asses and away from their computers to protest anything in their own country. They’d never face down tear gas or baton-wielding thugs at home. Some of these liberals (you know who you are) were poo-pooing activists protesting at the Republican and Democratic Conventions and scorn activism in general. This whole commentary about the “twitter revolution” when it comes from these lizards is narcissistic crap.

but even more importantly, i love scahill’s short post on this phenomenon i’ve seen on facebook and twitter with people turning their avatar green to support iran:

Seeing some of these people online turning their profile pictures green “for Iran” makes me want to create a Facebook and Twitter application that turns profile pictures blood red, in solidarity with all of the Afghans and Iraqis and Pakistanis being killed by US wars today; wars that people in the US failed to stop and whose representatives continue to fund to the tune of $100s of billions.

the is the essential thing about bloggers: they point out the points that most journalists cannot or will not point out–the hypocrisies, the context (of course scahill is an exception to the rule). m. monalisa gharavi’s blog south/south has had a number of important observations and posts on post-election iran, including with the help of journalist alireza doostdar, a full breakdown of the iranian elections by the numbers. on the protests gharavi has this to say:

It is becoming clear that the events in Iran are no longer about actual behind-the-scenes political machinations but about manifestations of built-up (and real) public grievance and emotion, a Carnival in the best and most political use of that word. When I use the word ‘Carnival’ I am not talking about the naked, topless women in the Sambodramo, but about the Portuguese verb ‘desabafar’ for the venting of political anger about social and economic grievances that people exercise in sequins and costumes for three days a year. It is an affirmation, not a dismissal, of grievances.

On a personal angle, that the perception of fraud has become much more important than the actual existence of fraud has revealed some major complexities about solidarity. Now as ever I’m with the people of Iran: not only with cousins, friends, and fellow Tehranis facing enormous consequences to their protests and arrests, but also the people who voted for the incumbent, people who cannot butter their bread and face even graver livelihood injustices in other regions of Iran.

How could anyone dismiss the protests, especially in the past few days when there have been deaths? Who is not revolted by riot cops? (The majority of the violence against unarmed protesters–and many of them women, who are leading so many of the protests–are by the armed and plain-clothes Basiji militiamen.) The right of assembly got suspended (and again, the dance: reinstated) many times and in reactive and preventative fashion. I am extremely glad people are openly disobeying permit orders: they should be disobeyed anywhere in the world where they are illegitimate.

But in the U.S. almost every protest large and small requires a permit, and in my own participation at anti-capitalist demos like the World Economic Forum in New York or the FTAA meeting in Miami, military riot gear/tear gas/tanks/undercover officers were unleashed on ‘permitted’ protests to zero accountability. The Republican National Convention in New York in 2004, where I shot video for Steve Stasso’s film Situation Room #2, saw almost 2000 people arrested, beaten, and jailed (the highest number at a political convention to date) with the near-total silence of the favorite ‘non-governmental’ liberal newspaper, the New York Times.

on the monthly review zine website there is another interesting take on the protests by arshin adib-moghaddam which picks up where the ahmad bit i quoted at the beginning of this post left off:

Iran’s civil society is fighting; it is giving blood for a just cause. It is displaying its power, the power of the people. Today, Iran must be considered one of the most vibrant democracies in the world because it is the people who are speaking. The role of the supporters of the status quo has been reduced to reaction, which is why they are lashing out violently at those who question their legitimacy.

In all of this, the current civil unrest in Iran is historic, not only because it has already elicited compromises by the state, but also because it provides yet more evidence of the way societies can empower themselves against all odds. These brave men and women on the streets of Tehran, Shiraz, Isfahan, and other cities are moved by the same utopia that inspired their fathers and mothers three decades ago: the utopia of justice. They believe that change is possible, that protest is not futile. Confronting the arrogance of the establishment has been one of the main ideological planks of the Islamic revolution in 1979. It is now coming back to haunt those who have invented such slogans without necessarily adhering to them in the first place.

And yet the current situation in Iran is profoundly different from the situation in 1978 and 1979. First, the Islamic Republic has proven to be rather responsive to societal demands and rather flexible ideologically. I don’t mean to argue that the Iranian state is entirely reflective of the will of the people. I am saying that is it is not a totalitarian monolith that is pitted against a politically unified society. The fissures of Iranian politics run through all levers of power in the country, which is why the whole situation appears scattered to us. Whereas in 1979 the bad guy (the Shah) was easily identifiable to all revolutionaries, in today’s Iran such immediate identification is not entirely possible. Who is the villain in the unfolding drama? Ahmadinejad? Those who demonstrated in support of him would beg to differ. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei? I would argue that he commands even stronger loyalties within the country and beyond. The Revolutionary Guard or the Basij? Mohsen Rezai, one of the presidential candidates and an opponent of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who is contesting the election results, used to be the head of the former institution.

The picture becomes even more complicated when we take into consideration that some institutions of the state such as the parliament — via its speaker, Ali Larijani — have called for a thorough investigation of the violence perpetrated by members of the Basij and the police forces in a raid of student dormitories of Tehran University earlier this week. “What does it mean that in the middle of the night students are attacked in their dormitory?” Larijani asked. The fact that he said that “the interior ministry . . . should answer for it” and that he stated that the “parliament is seriously following the issue” indicate that the good-vs-bad verdict in today’s Iran is more blurred than in 1979.

There is a second major difference to 1979. Today, the opposition to Ahmadinejad is fighting the establishment with the establishment. Mir Hossein Mousavi himself was the prime minister of Iran during the first decade of the revolution, during a period when the current supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, was president. Mohammad Khatami, one of the main supporters of Mousavi, was president between 1997 and 2005. Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, another political ally, is the head of the Assembly of Experts and another former president. They are the engineers of the Islamic revolution and would never devour their project. When some commentators say that what we are witnessing is a revolution they are at best naive and at worst following their own destructive agenda. The dispute is about the future path of the Islamic Republic and the meaning of the revolution — not about overthrowing the whole system. It is a game of politics and the people who are putting their lives at risk seem to be aware of that. They are aware, in other words, that they are the most important force in the hands of those who want to gain or retain power.

Thus far the Iranian establishment has shown itself to be cunningly adaptable to crisis situations. Those who have staged a revolution know how to sustain themselves. And this is exactly what is happening in Iran. The state is rescuing its political power through a mixture of incentives and pressure, compromise and detention, due process and systematic violence. Moreover, when push comes to shove, the oppositional leaders around Mousavi would never question the system they have built up. As Mousavi himself said in his fifth and most recent letter to the Iranian people: “We are not against our sacred regime and its legal structures; this structure guards our independence, freedom, and Islamic Republic.”

and an iranian reader of abukhalil’s blog had this to say about the reactions to the elections early on, which is also revealing on a number of levels:

Alexander sent me this (I cite with his permission): “As an Iranian and avid reader of your blog, I wanted to share my thoughts on your “Iranian developments” post with you. First of all, your point about Western coverage of Iranian democracy vis-a-vis other countries in the region is spot-on. I think you are right to criticize the impact of Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric on Palestine, and I would like to explain a little about that. In the past, Palestinian liberation was a cause championed by the Iranian secular left, but nowadays it is strongly associated with the religious right. This is not due only to Ahmadinejad (every Iranian leader since Khomeini has expressed the idea that Palestine is a “Muslim issue” that Iranians should be concerned about) but it has gotten worse under Ahmadinejad. It’s not just the statements he makes in international settings, but more importantly the way the issue is used domestically in order to distract people from their own issues. People are told not to protest economic stagnation, repressive government, etc. because they shouldn’t complain when Palestinians have it so much worse. “Pray for Gaza” is shoved down their throats in the same breath as “fix your hijab.” In addition, many people resent the fact that the Iranian state spends so much money on Palestinian and Lebanese affairs when there is such poverty and underdevelopment at home. Incidentally, one of the popular (and hyperbolic) chants at the protests that are going on right now is “mardom chera neshastin, Iran shode Felestin!” (People, why are you sitting down? Iran has become Palestine!”).

Finally, I am glad that you are defending neither Ahmadinejad nor Mousavi. It is frustrating that everyone I talk to from Pakistan to Egypt loves Ahmadinejad and is shocked to hear that many Iranians think he is ineffective and embarrassing. Meanwhile every Westerner seems to think that Mousavi is a great reformist or revolutionary, and some kind of saintly figure beloved by all. He’s an opportunist crook. That being said, I support the students and protesters in Iran, even the ones chanting Mousavi’s name. I believe they are putting their lives on the line to fight for greater freedom, accountability, and democracy within the Islamic Republic, and they have to couch that in the language of Islam and presidential politics in order to avoid even greater repression than that which they already face. A friend who is in Iran right now confirms: “half the kids throwing rocks at the police didn’t even vote.” To me, that means that they are not fighting for a Mousavi presidency, but for more freedom, which they must hide under a green Mousavi banner in order to have legitimacy in the eyes of the state.”

on democracy now! today amy goodman spoke with professor hamid dabashi about his take on the situation in iran, which he frames in a civil rights context:

It’s based on my reading of what I believe is happening in Iran. This, in my judgment, is a post-ideological generation. My generation was divided into third world socialists, anti-colonial nationalists and militant Islamists. These are the three dominant ideologies with which we grew up. But if you look at the composition of Iranian society today, 70 percent of it is under the age of thirty—namely, born after the Islamic Revolution. They no longer are divided along those ideological lines.

And if you read their newspapers, if you watch their movies, if you listen to the lyrics of their underground music, to their contemporary arts, etc., which we have been doing over the past thirty years, this, to me, is a civil rights movement. They are operating within the Constitution of the Islamic Republic. They don’t want to topple the regime. If you look—come outside, from the right of the right, in the US Senate to the left, is waiting for yet another revolution to happen. I don’t think this is another revolution. This is a civil rights movement. They’re demanding their civil rights that are being denied, even within the Constitution of the Islamic Republic. From their chants that they are doing in the streets to their newspapers, to their magazines, to their websites, to their Facebook, to their Twitters, everywhere that you look, this is a demand for civil liberties and not—

There are, of course, underlying economic factors, statistically. The unemployment in the age cohort of fifteen to twenty-nine is 70 percent. So this is not a class warfare. In other words, people that we see in the streets, 70 percent of them, that a majority of them are young—70 percent of them do not even have a job. They can’t even rent a room, let alone marry, let alone have a family. So the assumption that this is a upper-middle-class or middle-class, bourgeois, Gucci revolutionaries on the side of Mousavi and poor on the side of Ahmadinejad is completely false.

finally one of the most brilliant posts i’ve seen online over the last week or so comes from mo-ha-med’s blog in which he responds directly to meddlers who become “experts” overnight and begin to write about iran entitled “to you, the new iran expert”:

Yes, you.

Who, until this morning, thought that ‘Shiraz’ was just the name of a wine

Who’s beaming with pride you can now write ‘Ahmadinejad’ without copy-and-pasting it from a news website

Who only heard of Evin prison when Roxana Saberi was there (Roxana who?)

Who changed your Facebook profile picture to a green rectangle saying “Where’s my vote?” even though you don’t actually vote in Iran

Who actually thinks that Mir-Hossein Mousavi is a secular
And that his election means that Iran will give up its nuclear claims
And allow you to visit Tehran for Christmas

Who joyfully makes Azadi/Tiananmen square comparisons
Who first heard of Azadi square last Sunday

Who’s quick to link to articles you haven’t read, debunking other articles you’ve barely heard of

Who has just discovered that Iran has a (quasi-)democracy, and elections, and the like

Who blinked in disbelief at the images of women – oh, they have women! and they’re not in burkas! – demonstrating

Who has never heard of Rezai or Karroubi before (hint: they ran for election in a Middle-Eastern country last Friday)

Who staunchly believes that the elections have been stolen – either by ballot box stuffing, (14 million of them!) or by burning some ballots, or both (somehow?), regardless of the absence of any proof (yet)

… But who nevertheless

Has been tweeting, and re-tweeting, and polluting cyberspace with what is essentially hearsay, rumours, and unconfirmed truncated reports or falsification coming from people who actually know about the realities of Iran’s political world and have an agenda:

You know nothing. Abso-fucking-lutely nothing about what happened, or is happening across Iran at the very moment. Most of us don’t, actually. What we see is a tiny slice of reality, mind you, what is happening on the main squares in the big cities, under camera lenses.

I hear your objection though:

Yes, you are entitled to an opinion, to formulating it, to blog it, and to discuss it. I do that too. (this my blog after all).

But do everyone, and you first and foremost, a favour.
Learn from the people who know a thing or two about the issue at hand.
Be selective about you read, listen to, and watch. A simple way is to follow an Iranian friend’s updates and the links they put up.

(Even the State Dept is reading tweets from Iranians.)

Ask questions more than you volunteer answers.

And when you get a tweet that says UNCONF or ‘can anyone confirm?’, for Pete’s sake, that says “This is potentially bullshit”. Don’t spread nonsense. Don’t spread unconfirmed or unsourced information.

And rather that getting all excited following live some current events taking place in a country you probably cannot place on a map, read analysis of what it means, what the candidates actually stand for, and what the result will mean for the Iranians and the world.

Then, I would be delighted, truly, to read what you have to say.
Until then, please, pretty please – SHUT UP.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

As for what I think? I don’t know. I think the results could be fake – and they also could be real. We probably will never know.

And I don’t think we’re watching a Ukraine ‘04 redux or a ‘Green revolution’.
And I think that the people on the street will tire of getting beaten up by a government that is currently revoking foreign media licenses and will forfeit. We’re – well, Iran is – likely stuck with Ahmadinejad for four more years.

And while the troubles on the street are unlikely to lead to a change of government, they’d have had the benefit of showing the Iranian people in a new light – they’re normal people, only with more courage than most of us have.

Fire the Boss!

Haymarket Books presents:

Fire the Boss: The Worker Control Solution from Buenos Aires to Chicago

With the authors and editors of Sin Patrón: Stories from Argentina’s Worker-Run Factories, Lavaca Collective, foreword by Naomi Klein and Avi Lewis (Haymarket Books)

7 pm, May 15, 2009, The Great Hall at Cooper Union, 7 East 7th Street at Third Avenue, New York City, New York

Free (seating is first come, first served)

With (list information) :

Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine and No Logo, writer of The Take Avi Lewis, director of The Take and host, Al Jazeera English “Fault Lines”

Claudia Acuña and Sergio Ciancaglini of Lavaca Collective in Argentina

Trabajadoras y Trabajadores de Republic Windows (Chicago, Illinois)

Leah Fried, United Electrical workers union

Brendan Martin, The Working World/La Base

Including a discussion, with clips of The Take by Naomi Klein and Avi Lewis and selections from a documentary about The Republic

Workers’ struggle

Translation provided for Spanish speakers

Followed by a book signing

Co-sponsored by The Cooper Union, The Indypendent, UE, Nation Institute, and Nation Magazine

To find out more about the event, please visit: http://www.haymarke tbooks.org/

Directions: Cooper Union Great Hall. 7 East 7th Street New York City, New York 10003 between Third Avenue and Cooper Square (just south of Fourth Avenue) 6 train to Astor Place R, W to 8th Street – NYU

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

The Ockress: http://www.theockress.com

jeremy scahill blogged this bit of important news yesterday about obama and the cia torture memos:

Just two days after President Obama publicly announced he would not seek prosecution of CIA torturers because they had “in good faith” obeyed the orders of the Bush administration in their torture of other human beings, the UN is weighing in. The world body’s rapporteur on torture, Manfred Nowak, told the Austrian paper Der Standard Obama’s refusal to prosecute is a breach of international law.

“The United States, like all other states that are part of the U.N. convention against torture, is committed to conducting criminal investigations of torture and to bringing all persons against whom there is sound evidence to court,” Nowak said.

Nowak, according to Reuters, “suggested an investigation by an independent commission before suspects were tried and said it would be important for all victims to receive compensation.”

This comes at the end of a week which can only be described as a victorious one for torturers. Not only did Obama, CIA Director Leon Panetta and Attorney General Eric Holder assure the CIA torturers that they would not be prosecuted (Obama said it was a time for “reflection not retribution”), but Spain’s Attorney General said his courts would not permit a prosecution of the “Bush 6” for their involvement in legally sanctioning US torture policy. In his first remarks on that case, Obama said he wanted to “look forward, not backwards.” The six include Alberto Gonzales, the ex attorney general, Pentagon official Douglas Feith and Justice Department lawyer John Yoo. Yoo is believed to be the co-author of the now infamous “Bybee memo,” which was among the four memos released on Thursday by the Justice Department (after the ACLU sued) and provided a legal justification for waterboarding, banging prisoners against walls, placing them in wooden boxes, sleep deprivation other forms of torture.

Meanwhile, Illinois Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky blasted the decision not to prosecute CIA torturers. “This notion that ‘I was just obeying orders’ — I don’t want to compare this to Nazi Germany, but we’ve come to almost ridicule the notion that when horrific acts have been committed that people can use the excuse that, ‘Well, I was just following orders,’” she said. Schakowsky, who is on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence says that if the committee chair doesn’t proceed with investigations, her staff will.

for some further context into american torturing i recommend watching al jazeera’s new program “fault lines” (terrific name) with avi lewis and josh rushing (fabulous team). lewis interviews richard armitage who seems to think that he is above the law because he was “just following orders.” meanwhile rushing interviews maher arar, the syrian canadian man who the united states flew to syria to be tortured in one of its more public extraordinary rendition cases. this program and its interviews are reminders why scahill’s pressing for the release of these torture memos–and for the prosecution of those who tortured and those who gave orders–must persist.

TWITTERBUG:  After almost half a century of film and TV work, Jane Fonda officially returns to Broadway tonight in Moisés Kaufman’s new play, 33 Variations. 

Fonda seems pretty sanguine about the fact that the critics are coming. “So what. Let them come,” says Jane. “We are so ready we’re about to burst like ripe fruit.”

REDFORD: Twitter target

 

Glenn Close and Arthur Laurents were among the well-wishers who stopped by during previews. “Thank God I didn’t know they were in the audience beforehand!”

And shhhh, it’s a secret – but guess who’s coming to see her this Wednesday?

Her favourite leading man, Robert Redford, who romance her in Barefoot In The Park and The Electric Horseman.

And how, you ask, did I manage to get such a scoop?

Two-time Oscar winner Ms. Fonda, now a mischievous 71, has become an avid Twitterbug. When she isn’t posting updates on her own excellent blog, she’s Twittering.

“Just heard that Redford will see the show next Wednesday,” she twittered last week, then added: “He’d hate that I twittered this.”

Probably.

At least, after he stops laughing.

* * *

DOANE: May days

 

PEOPLE:  Angel-voiced songstress Melanie Doane will perform an evening of songs by Irving Berlin, Leonard Cohen, Don Messer, Randy Newman, Stan Rogers, Tom Waits and Hank Snow when she headlines the final concert of Art of Time’s 2008-2009 season on May 26-27 at the Enwave Theatre at Harbourfront …  Marilyn Lightstone opens her new captured-by-camera exhibit, a homage to the Haida Gwai, at the Fairmont in Whistler on March 28. She’ll jet back to T.O. just in time to guest at the fifth annual Scrabble With The Stars on Monday April 6 … and despite rumours au contraire, D.L. Hughley has not, repeat, NOT been sacked by CNN. Yes, his weekly comedy show D.L. Hughley Breaks the News is ending, but CNN swears it’s because D.L. wants to work out of Los Angeles, where his family lives. So Hughley will soon be “a contributor for the network based in Los Angeles.” Meanwhile, his current show, which debuted last fall, will continue airing through March.

* * *

LITERATI:  Chapters Indigo chief Heather Reisman promoted all five books competing for the prize in this year’s Canada Reads sweepstakes on CBC Radio.  So naturally George

GHOMESHI: morning man

 

Stroumboulopoulos tried to corner her on camera on The Hour. Surely, he said, of the five books in the race — The Outlander by Gil Adamson, The Fat Woman Next Door Is Pregnant by Michel Tremblay, Fruit by Brian Francis, Mercy Among the Children by David Adams Richards and The Book Of Negroes by Lawrence Hill — she must have a personal favourite.

“Yes,” she confessed, “I do – The Book Of Negroes.”

Apparently Canada agreed with her.  Last week CBC Radio revealed that The Book Of Negroes, passionately aided, abetted and advocated by former CBC nowAl Jazeera journalist Avi Lewis,  “soared past its competitors” to win.

Maybe Ms. Reisman should consider a side career in handicapping?

Meanwhile, you can catch Avi and author Lawrence Hill with Jian Ghomeshi in the winner’ circle this morning on Q.

* * * 

A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME: Watch this space for names of Canuck newsmakers when nominees for the 2009 Rose d’Or awards are announced tomorrow in London at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA.)

TOMORROW:  Rick Mercer bears all

The results are in for CBC’s annual literary contest, Canada Reads. With broadcaster Avi Lewis’s great defence of Lawrence Hill’s important book, The Book of Negroes will reap the benefits of increased book sales. It’s well deserved. Congratulations.

Heather Reisman; president and CEO of Indigo/Chapters

shes rich, shes powerful, she supports literacy…

40% of Canadian adults are functionally illiterate! Thats crazy. She’s helping to bring this to the government’s attention. However, why we would need a bookstore owner to bring this to the government’s attention says a lot about our government.

The Hour did a fantastic job of representing all of her positive qualities… so we don’t have too. In fact , the last quarter of the  Reisman segment seemed just like a Chapters infomercial. 

Even a small dose of critical questioning was missing from this interview.  

Now, im not here to attack the woman (or The Hour), and anyone can question whether the activities of a CEO outside of her work are material to the conversation, but i think it was not only purposeful but boring to ignore the controversy that Reisman has faced in the past, and that is just plain bad journalism.

I also think that the activities of a CEO ARE material to the conversation. we’ve congratulated other CEOs on here before for their charity and green efforts, there should be equal opportunity to reflect the bad just the same.  Even a brief mention in her bio about her controversial support of the Israeli military would have been sufficient.

I also am not here to pick sides within the Israel-Palestine conversation, but I don’t think it should be completely ignored either. 

The following few sentences were completely copied from another site 

This interview also could have given her an opportunity to explain her position, give her side- maybe people are missing something in their critique of her foundation? The Hour is usually good at letting people explain their opinions.

Shes a powerful woman with alot of money, and we have said this before: CEOs must be responsible. What she does is relevant to us and the conversation when it is Chapter’s customer’s money that is giving her the ability to create a foundation like this.

I would not be so critical of this interview if Reisman had been there with something important to talk about, but the discussion on literacy was done after about 4 minutes, and much of the rest of the conversation was fluff. There was an opportunity to have a real discussion, and The Hour missed the boat.

Its funny that Reisman mentioned that her  ”2009 Canada Reads” choice is “The Book of Negroes”- A book being defended by Avi Lewis. Why is it funny? Because throughout the interview i was thinking: ‘Avi Lewis would not have let her get off so easy here’

It is also interesting that she said that her stores would never offer books that could “incite society toward the annihilation of one group” (i.e. Mein Kampf) and i think that is honourable… but slightly hypocritical considering her support of the Israeli military.

Its also Israeli Apartheid Week: 

http://www.nowtoronto.com/daily/story.cfm?content=167479

Today was the first day of Canada Reads 2009, is there a better day in the year?  I have my doubts.  It’s always exciting to hear what the defenders of each book has to say.  In case you don’t already know here are the books and their defender:

1. The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill defended by Avi Lewis
2. The Fat Woman Next Door is Pregnant by Michel Tremblay defended by Anne-Marie Withenshaw
3. Fruit by Brian Francis defended by Jen Sookfong Lee
4. Mercy Among the Children by David Adams Richards defended by Sarah Slean
5. The Outlander by Gil Adamson defended by Nicholas Campbell

As seems to be the most logical question when trying to select a book a whole nation, particularly one as vast Canada, should those defending the books were ask what makes a novel great, and why you would want all Canadians to read it?  This is a great question and it has made me think about what it is that makes a book stand out for me.  I really don’t know what it is, but I think there are couple of things that definitely contribute to greatness in novels.

First I think it has be entertaining.  If the novel isn’t able to keep my attention, and this can be difficult sometimes, I cannot finish it.  So, I guess this would be the most important aspect in making a great novel.  It also has to evoke some kind of emotion.  The books that are most memorable are ones that have stirred strong emotions.  I’m sure each of you could think of at least one thing that makes for a great novel.  What would that be?

It seems from the way the discussion progressed today that The Book of Negroes may not be the hands down winner I thought it would be.  When asked which novels were the ones they liked the least all but two were mentioned by the panelist.  Right now it seems that the front runners may be The Fat Woman Next Door is Pregnant (which is one of the two books I’m really rooting for) and The Outlander.

Tomorrow the voting starts.  Each book is eliminated until the winner is named.  I’m really excited to see who will join the pantheon of past winners.  Tomorrow should be another fascinating debate, until then keep reading.

A Canadian cable company is applying to the CRTC for the right to broadcast Al-Jazeera English. Although controversial, the station should be allowed in Canada – you may not agree with all their views, but that should be possible in a free society. In addition, since the station is already available on the Internet, the discussion is essentially moot.

Al-Jazeera is reviled by some and exalted by others – sometimes due to the person’s viewpoint, sometimes because the coverage shows the other side of the story, and sometimes due to purposely inaccurate accusations – like the accusation of affiliation with Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. Many feel that their coverage of the war in Gaza may be their debut (in the west) as a legitimate and balanced news station. Gideon Levy from Israel’s Haaretz newspaper has praise for Al-Jazeera English and especially forAyman Mohyeldin – the war correspondent from Al-Jazeera.

With the likes of Avi Lewis, Ayman Mohyeldin, and Tony Burman in their ranks, Al-Jazeera is primed to reach Canadian audiences who have the ability to dissect their news and form individual opinion. Others will continue to suppress fact, speech and opinion by using fear.

Out of inspiration?

About a month ago Stef was a guest at Studio Brussel’s Mekka and had the chance to recommend the listeners all those things we mentioned in the title… except for the man, but Stef’s recommendable, isn’t he

The book: The baron in the trees (De baron in the bomen) by Italo Calvino.
The movie (it’s actually a documentary): The Take by Avi Lewis (small take on youtube)
The record: Money Jungle by Duke Ellington, Max Roach and Charles Mingus. (jazz. soft and obstinate)
The city: Sevilla

listen to it here (in dutch)

The Take

Avi Lewis, 2004, 1:27

written by Naomi Klein