Author Archives: Effendi

Disappearing stories and evidence

Gita Sahgal on on Bangladesh’s struggle against the impunity of 1971 war criminals and historians who want to preserve their impunity. In particular, the historical revisionist, Sarmila Bose.

At a December 8th presentation at SOAS, London, Sarmila Bose presented a talk “The legacy of 1971 – 40 years on,” at the invitation of the Center for the Study of Pakistan. During the Q&A session I asked her directly why, in her book Dead Reckoning, she had been dismissive about Razakars, as if it was a figment of fevered Bengali imaginations. She had treated them as a “discourse” rather than a fact on the ground that needs examination. Why was there no discussion of their actions, no mention of peace committees or their political linkages to the Jamaat e Islami? In reply, she simply said that these issues were not her concern and the book dealt with only certain incidents. This evasive response is elaborated in her just-published essay “The question of genocide and the quest for justice in the 1971 war” (Journal of Genocide Studies, November 2011), where she states: “It may be argued that the groups doing the killings were the creation of the regime, but their exact identity and motives remain shrouded.”

Posted in 1971 War | 8 Comments

Farewell Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens has died at the age of 62. An obituary here, there are many more.

Posted in Uncategorized | 13 Comments

On Pakistan and the creation of Bangladesh on Radio 4

On the eve of the 40th anniversary of  the 1971 War of Independence and the break up of West and East Pakistan, BBC Radio 4 has produced two remarkable programmes which are still available on iPlayer and are both well worth a listen.

The first is ‘The Blood Telegram

In 1971 U.S. diplomat Archer K. Blood took a heroic stand against Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger. Blood was the U.S consul general to East Pakistan – now the independent nation of Bangladesh. Blood and his team were witnesses to a brutal military crackdown and asked for the U.S to denounce the atrocities on humanitarian grounds, but the Nixon team remained silent. Finally Blood’s team sent a dissent telegram accusing the government of being “morally bankrupt”. The ‘Blood Telegram’ marked the first time a whole U.S mission had dissented from their own government.

Posted in 1971 War | 3 Comments

Hamza Yusuf: ‘If you hate the west, emigrate to a Muslim country’

Hamza Yusuf is probably one of the pre-eminent Muslim scholars alive today. So it is pleasantly surprising when he talks straight and honestly about the situation as it stands. There is nothing he says in this interview which contains any of the postmodernist dissimulation, the special pleading, the theological victimhood and the question begging we get by the bucketload from Muslims across the board from extremists, moderates and their apologists.

In an interview with the Guardian, he makes a series of cogent but knockout statements about the status quo, the collapse of a body of theology to square with the modern world, the intellectual capitulation to extremists and the preponderance of ignorance and conspiracy-theory mindsets. No doubt he will now be vilified and his good name associated with everything from a “neocon”, a “fitnah spreader”, a “sell-out” (but maybe not a “coconut” since he is white) and any number of other knee-jerk (but “halal”) epithets will follow.

Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments

The Rise of the Salafists

The unexpected victory of the Salafists in the Egypt and Tunisia elections has caught many by surprise, not least the Muslim Brotherhood who once thought that they would clean up, but now are faced with the prospect of having to share power with a segment they regarded as marginal. The rise of the Salafists is seen by some as the authentic reaction to the repression of Islamic practice by secular Arab despots. The Salafists regard the first century of Islamic history as the perfected state for humanity,  and now they see themselves as the real inheritors of the voice of the repressed Muslim majority. Their stake has been under-reported because attention has always been directed on the Muslim Brotherhood as the stakeholders of the Islamist vote.

The rise of the Salafists is arguably the most alarming dynamic unleashed by the Egyptian revolution.

Posted in Democracy, Islamism | 3 Comments

Why Press TV Should be Closed Down

Nick Cohen spells it out:

If whites ran Press TV, one would have no difficulty in saying it was a neo-Nazi network. It welcomes British Holocaust-deniers such as Nicholas Kollerstrom, fascist ideologues such as Peter Rushton, the leader of the White Nationalist party – an organisation that disproves the notion that the only thing further to the right of the BNP is the wall – along with, until recently, Ken Livingstone, Labour’s candidate for mayor of London, who showed no embarrassment about the company his Iranian paymasters kept.

Press TV is not just a home for those with exterminationist fantasies about wiping Israel off the map, but a platform for the full fascist conspiracy theory of supernatural Jewish power. Other fantasies follow. The 9/11 attacks on Washington and New York and 7/7 attacks on London were inside jobs, according to its commentators. Plots emanating from Buckingham Palace, and orchestrated by that sinister figure, the Queen, threaten its journalists.

Posted in Fascist Propganda | 10 Comments

‘Honour’ crimes against women under-reported but rising rapidly in UK

The numbers of women and girls in the UK who are suffering violence and intimidation at the hands of their families in phenomena known as “Honour” crimes is increasing rapidly in the UK. And according to campaigners, we are only seeing a fraction of the full picture since most crimes go unreported.

Statistics obtained under the Freedom of Information Act about such violence – which can include threats, abduction, acid attacks, beatings, forced marriage, mutilation and murder – show that in the 12 police force areas for which comparable data was available, reports went up by 47% in just a year.

The figures, shared with the Guardian by the Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation (Ikwro), also reveal that a small number of forces – including four in Scotland – are still not collecting data on how often such violence occurs.

Posted in Misogyny | 1 Comment

“Those who support democracy must welcome the rise of the Islamic far right”

Let’s suppose that, hypothetically speaking, far right religious nationalists were  to win the next elections in Hungary and proceed to take over the country.

Would you be just a little bit concerned by that prospect or would you rather be celebrating it as a victory of “the democratic process”? Over at the Guardian (naturally) the Director-General of al-Jazeera Wadah Khanfar goes for the latter option in the case of Arab countries from Egypt to Tunisia.

It’s titled “Those who support democracy must welcome the rise of political Islam”. Should we really? It also contains this execrable pre-emptive get-out clause:

However, political Islam has also faced enormous pressures from dictatorial Arab regimes, pressures that became more intense after 9/11. Islamic institutions were suppressed. Islamic activists were imprisoned, tortured and killed. Such experiences gave rise to a profound bitterness. Given the history, it is only natural that we should hear overzealous slogans or intolerant threats from some activists. Some of those now at the forefront of election campaigns were only recently released from prison. It would not be fair to expect them to use the voice of professional diplomats.

Posted in Islamism | 2 Comments

Statement by Ambassador Rapp

This is the statement by Ambassador-at-large for War Crimes, Stephen Rapp in Dhaka about the Bangladesh International Crimes Tribunal. This is taken from David Bergman’s blog, who is reporting the events of the tribunal from Dhaka.

This is my third visit this year to Bangladesh to learn about your International Crimes Tribunal and to offer ideas to ensure that the trials it holds will be fair and open.

I know of the horrible crimes committed in the country in 1971– of the hundreds of thousands of victims who were murdered and raped, of the pain inflicted and the property destroyed. The victims of these crimes deserve justice, and those accused of these acts deserve trials where they can test the evidence and present witnesses on their own behalf. Those who are innocent should be found not guilty and be freed. Those who are responsible for these crimes should be found guilty and punished. Given the historic importance of these trials to Bangladesh, the region, and the world, the proceedings should be conducted in a manner that is open and accessible to all.

Posted in War Crimes | 1 Comment

Mona Eltahawy Assaulted in Cairo

Here’s Mona Eltahawy discussing being physically and sexually assaulted by the Cairo police yesterday:

My right hand is so swollen I can’t close it.

5 or 6 surrounded me, groped and prodded my breasts, grabbed my genital area and I lost count how many hands tried to get into my trousers.

They are dogs and their bosses are dogs. Fuck the Egyptian police.

Yes sexual assault. I’m so used to saying harassment but those fuckings assaulted me.

The past 12 hrs were painful and surreal but I know I got off much much easier than so many other Egyptians.

God knows what wuld’ve happened if I wasn’t dual citizen (tho they brought up detained US students) & that I wrote/appeared various media.

The whole time I was thinking about article I would write; just you fuckers wait.

Posted in Democracy | Leave a comment
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