Mois : février 2008

Index February 2008

Olivier Roy – France

Linked with Secularism confronts Islam, and with Neo-Fundamentalism. Added March 29, 2008: linked also with Gruesome Islam-video.

Olivier Roy (born 1949) is a research director at the French National Center for Scientific Research CNRS and a lecturer for both the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences EHESS and the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris IEP. Since 1984, he has acted as a consultant to the French Foreign Ministry. In 1988, Roy served as a United Nations Office for Coordinating Relief in Afghanistan UNOCA consultant. Beginning in August of 1993, Roy served as special OSCE representative to Tajikistan until February of 1994, at which time he was selected as head of the OSCE mission to Tajikistan, a position he held until October of 1994. Roy received an « Agregation » in Philosophy and a Master’s in Persian language and civilization in 1972 from the French Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales. In 1996, he received his PhD in Political Science from the IEP … (full text).

Islamism’s failure, Islamists’ future.

He writes: Today’s religious revival among Europe’s Muslims is no importation of religious traditions born in the Middle East or the wider Muslim world. Rather, it reflects many of the dynamics of contemporary American evangelical movements. No surprise then that, instead of being tolerant and liberal, it is a movement based on dogmatism, communitarianism, and scripturalism … (full long text).

A website in french with some of his publications.

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Olivier Roy – France

His website in french at Science-Po.

Watch the video: Conversations with History, The Political Imagination of Islam, with Olivier Roy interviewed by Harry Kreisler, on Berkeley, 55 min, 31 May 2007. On this edition of Conversations with History, UC Berkeley’s Harry Kreisler talks with Olivier Roy, senior researcher at the National Center for Scientific Research in Paris. Their discussion covers Islamic movements, the rise of fundamentalism, the failure of political Islam, and relations between the West and the Islamic world. Have the same title on University of California TV uctv, 54 min, 8/5/2002.

(March 29, 2008: Sorry, the original link here leaded to a video. The website shows now two links for an audio and a transcript). Please find instead this other video: The Future of Radical Islam in Europe, 59.27 min, Nov 6, 2007.
He says: « He (Anglican Archbishop Rowan Williams) was referring to civil law, which is essentially the issue of marriages, divorce, child allowance and things like that. The same way for instance that there is Catholic canon law and Jewish law on marriages, inheritance and things like that. There are some informal or at least not state-recognized Jewish orthodox courts. But the people who go to these courts do so on a voluntary basis of course, and the big issue with so-called Sharia courts in the West is: who will go to these courts? » … (full text).

The end of history and the long march of secularisation.

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Baba Amte – India (1914 – 2008)

(born Murlidhar Devidas Amte)

Linked with Love in the time of want, and with Take Heart India THI.

Baba Amte passed away at the age of 94 on February 9th, 2008. Baba never regretted anything in life and he faced death as usual with bravery and he passed away peacefully. He led series of lives in one life. He always cherished fulfillment in life and he will ever remain in our thoughts, actions and spirits. (baba.niya.org).

He said: « I believe in leading series of Lives in one life ». (take heart India).

Baba Amte (Marathi) (December 26, 1914 – February 9, 2008), born Murlidhar Devidas Amte, was a respected Indian social activist. He was the founder of several ashrams and communities for the service of leprosy patients and other marginalized people that were shunned by society. Anandwan (literally, « Forest of Joy »), located in the remote and economically less privileged district of Chandrapur, Maharashtra, is the most well-known amongst them and was his home … (full long text).

Baba Amte dedicated his life to various other social causes, the most notable of which were environmental awareness, wildlife preservation and the Narmada Bachao Andolan.

His blog ‘walking with you‘.

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Baba Amte (born Murlidhar Devidas Amte) – India (1914 – 2008)

Lok Sabha condoles death of MPs, Hillary, Baba Amte.

At first he let his hair and fingernails grow long, a holy man’s guise that looked odd in a lawyer. After that, when the scavengers came to him with grievances one week, he decided to try their work, scraping out latrines for nine hours a day. His family, landowner Brahmins who had given him a costly education and a sports car, were scandalised; and the more so when, in 1946, he married a Brahmin girl, Sadhna, who thought nothing of leaving her own sister’s wedding to help a servant-woman do the washing … (full text, Feb 25, 2008).

Baba Amte, 93; Champion of Lepers and Outcasts.

As became known on Saturday, 9 February 2008, the 1991 Right Livelihood Award Laureate Baba Amte from India died at the age of 94. Murlidhar Devidas Amte, popularly known as Baba Amte, received the Right Livelihood Award together with Medha Patkar and the Narmada Bachao Andolan ”…for their inspired opposition to the disastrous Narmada Valley dams project and their promotion of alternatives designed to benefit the poor and the environment.” Apart from his fight against the Narmada Valley dams project Baba Amte devoted his life to the care and non-discrimination of leprosy patients. India is in grief about the passing away of this popular Gandhian leader. (right livelihood).

Wisdom Song, the life of Baba Amte.

Find him on Google Video-search; on Google Book-search; on Google Scholar-search; on Google Group-search; on Google Blog-search.

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Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed – England & Bangladesh

Linked with Eumed.net, with UN Humanitarian Intervention in East Timor, a critical appraisal, and with Structural Violence as a Form of Genocide, the impact of the international economic order.

Nafeez Ahmed is a British-born Muslim of Bangladeshi ethnicity. He is the author of The London Bombings: An Independent Inquiry (London: Duckworth, 2006) and The War on Truth: 9/11, Disinformation and the Anatomy of Terrorism (New York: Olive Branch, 2005). His research on international terrorism was officially used by the 9/11 Commission in Washington DC, and on 22 July, 2005 he gave expert testimony in US Congress on the failure of Western security policies at the hearing, “9/11 Commission Report One Year Later: Did They Get it Right?”. In addition to his testimony, his written submissions on Western collaboration with Islamist terror networks were entered into the Congressional Record. Career: … (full text).

His favorite books and links (scroll down).

His blogs:

Afghanistan, the Taliban and the United States, the role of Human Rights in western foreign policy.

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Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed – England & Bangladesh

Listen to his video: Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed: The_Hidden_Holocaust, our Civilisational Crisis, 1 h 21 min, Nov. 27, 2007.
He says: « It was entirely predictable, in this context, that the [9/11] Commission would fail to pursue a meaningful investigation that might expose the alarming extent to which powerful political, military, and economic interests connected to the government are…  » … listen the rest in the following audio interview with Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed.

Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed on State Sponsored Terror, found on Famous for 15 megapixels, Steph’s blog.

As Ahmed demonstrates the attacks can only be fully understood in the ight of extensive co-operation between the Islamist extremists and Western Intelligence in Central Asia. The London bombings, much like the attacks on New York in 2001, were a widely predicted consequence of the West’s global strategy. If we do face a future of terrorism we should at least understand the extent to which our governments have accepted this as the price of business as usual. Looking beyond the platitudes and deceptions of the war on terror, Nafeez asks what exactly we mean by the national interest and whether we are really well served by policies that promote terror abroad and tolerate extremism at home. (full text).

Armageddon on the Horizon?

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Oddom Van Syvorn – Cambodia

She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

Oddom Van Syvorn (born 1962) is a Cambodian woman who has dedicated her life to promoting peace and non-violence through the annual peace walk to war-ravaged areas in Cambodia. She joined the first Dhammayietra, which literally means walking with dharma, in 1992 and has coordinated the pilgrimage since 1999. In her work, she teaches Buddhist precepts to the young, blesses and plants trees to raise awareness about environmental preservation and promotes compassion for people living with HIV/Aids.

She says: « The Dhammayietra is not waiting for the next war to begin but comes to spread information everywhere and to call all to a change of heart, a Khmer heart, a soft, kind, gentle heart ».

She says also: “Before the war, my father wanted us to leave for Thailand, his motherland. He said we will face difficulties in this country (Cambodia) when communists come. My mother refused to leave. They lived separately for three months before they reunited. I remember my father said ‘I would die without you seeing the smoke » (not having a funeral rite).

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Oddom Van Syvorn – Cambodia

She works for the Dhammayietra Center for Peace and Non-violence.

Oddom Van Syvorn, a small, quiet and humble Cambodian woman is an engaged Buddhist. She practices dharma in her daily life. She dresses simply – a long-sleeved plain shirt and a sarong. Her offices are temples, schools, and prisons. The soft-spoken Syvorn can be seen negotiating bad roads, pedaling her way to the villages to teach villagers about meditation. At other times, she meditates with older traditional midwives, visits the sick in her community, and plants trees to raise awareness about the environment.

But Syvorn is not an ordinary woman.

Underneath her smiling face and soft voice is a determined woman who won’t allow any hurdle to get in the way of her quest for peace. In contrast to her humility, Syvorn is fearless in her encounters with powerful figures when she seeks explanations for the delays in the approval of her requests to hold a peace walk.

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Mithre J. Sandrasagra – USA

Linked with NGLS – UN Non-Governmntal Liaison Service.

Mithre J. Sandrasagra has been covering the the United Nations for IPS since 1999. Before that he administered a sustainable development trust in Sri Lanka. As UN Correspondent, he has covered political wrangling at the UN, with regard to peacekeeping, disaster relief, health, human rights and gender. In 2007, he was appointed Editor at Large … He also serves as IPS Administrator for the North American region … (full text, IPS).

In the Nuba mountains region in Southern Kordofan, for example, the indigenous Nuba tribe expressed concern over the damaging of trees and other vegetation due to the recent presence of the camel-herding Shanabla tribe. Like many pastoralist communities, the Shanabla have been forced to migrate south in search of adequate grazing land lost in the north to agricultural expansion and drought. Some Nuba warned of « restarting the war » if this damage did not cease, according to UNEP. Many sensitive areas are also experiencing a « deforestation crisis » which has led to a loss of almost 12 percent of Sudan’s forest cover in just 15 years. Some areas are expected to undergo a total loss of forest cover within the next decade … (full text).

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Mithre J. Sandrasagra – USA

WATER DAY: Key Development Goals Stagnating.

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 29 (IPS) – A new treaty designed to promote and protect the rights of the world’s 650 million persons with disabilities opens for signature at the United Nations on Friday. At its core, the Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities ensures that persons with disabilities enjoy the same human rights as everyone else, and are able to lead their lives as fully-fledged citizens who can make valuable contributions to society … (full text).

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY: Women’s Lives Unraveling in Occupied Iraq.

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 18 (IPS) – The protection and well-being of children in Sudan are at a critical juncture, according to a report released Wednesday by Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict, a global network of non-governmental organisations. Despite the 2005 peace agreement that ended 21 years of civil conflict between the government of Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, Darfur remains host to one of the largest humanitarian operations in the world: 92 NGOs and Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and 14 UN agencies maintain a presence there … (full text).

DEVELOPMENT: Digital Divide Becoming a Vast Chasm.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that more than two million women are living with fistula in developing countries and an additional 50,000 to 100,000 new cases occur each year. These WHO estimates are based on the number of women seeking treatment, and are likely to be gross underestimates. The estimates were also made in 1989. There are no new statistics because « the problem of fistula is a neglected, under-prioritised issue », Kate Ramsey, project analyst of the Reproductive Health Branch of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), told IPS. « We suspect the number of victims is much higher, » Ramsey stressed, following a panel discussion on efforts to eliminate fistula that took place here on the sidelines of the 50th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women … (full text).

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Jerry Okungu – Kenya

Linked with Can an African Country Defy America And Get Away With It, with Nepad is Not in the Construction Business, and with ODM-K’s best bet is Raila.

Jerry Okungu is a political analyst and Media Consultant on African Affairs based in Nairobi. He is also media consultant, Nepad, Kenya secretariat.

A former Senior Staff of the Nation Media Group, he is currently a Director of Kenya Broadcasting Corporation, Media Consultant for the International Republican Institute while serving as the Communications Specialist for NEPAD Kenya Secretariat covering the Eastern Africa Region. (Afro Articles).

He writes: « I may be a pessimist, but as early as the Somali peace deal was signed in Nairobi and warlords elected Abdillahi as interim president, I predicted disaster and failure. I did not do so because I had known him. I did so when I saw the circumstances of his election against his track record as a warlord. Now, two years later, my prediction has come to pass. However, what worries me, and I hope other realists too, is why the international community, Africa and the rest of mankind cannot see that backing Abdillahi Yusuf to bring peace and stability to Somalia is like asking a goat to negotiate with a crocodile. (full text).

Who is a lesser devil? Robert Mugabe or IMF’s David Andrews?

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Jerry Okungu – Kenya

INTERESTING COMPARATIVE CDF FIGURES IN NYANDO DISTRICT, Nov 17, 2006.

He writes also: … When one talks of Kano (see the CIA World Fact-Book/Kenya/Background), one remembers Apondo Disi, Nduru dho Nam Lolwe, Migingo, Rabuor, Nyalunya, Nyan’gande, Nyachoda, Awasi Border, Oren, Ong’eche, Kaswa, Thur Dibuoro, Gee Liech, Olasi, Ayweyo, Kimira, Wang’anga, God Waradho, Sidho Gweng’ Lwanda Magere and Legio Maria Arch-Bishop Ondeto. The clans inhabiting Kano Plains are many and varied. They have over the centuries lived in harmony, inter married, mourned their dead and celebrated success together from time immemorial. There has never been conflict from among the Kano clans even with immigrants from Kisumo, Nyakach, Bunyore and Kisii who came and settled among them in the last 100 years, a remarkable peace record achievement if you ask me … (full text).

On Dr. Robert Mugabe, President of The Republic of Zimbabwe, May 8, 2005.

Jerry Okungu’s article titled “Kenya’s spoilt exiles have nothing to give this country” in “The Standard” of 5th January 2005 (east standard), was a candid and frank effort to address a subject that has been ignored for too long, and Jerry needs to be commended for this very brave move … (full text).

OKUNGU’S ATTACK ON KENYANS ABROAD WAS UNCOUTH, January 5 2005.

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Pélagie Nduwayo-Ndikuriyo -Burundi

Linked with Yvonne Ryakiye – Burundi.

She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

She says: … « I decided to come back. I came and stayed at Musaga. By then my daughter-in-law was dead. Only my uncles were there. I stayed with them. I met Yvonne again in the Association. She helped me once more. She is like a parent to me. She persuaded the Association to assist in rehabilitating my home. They built a house for me. They put on doors. I am very grateful … (full text, testimonies).
A student, adopted by Pélagie, says: « Nous sommes qui nous sommes grâce à elle » … « We are who we are, thanks to her ».

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Pélagie Nduwayo-Ndikuriyo -Burundi

She works for Solidarité pour Aider les Sinisterés Burundais SASB (no mention found).

Pélagie Nduwayo-Ndikuriyo works with women, students, girls and the disabled. She supports disadvantaged people in different ways with the aim of reducing poverty. She offers sewing courses for women and girls, provides seeds to ensure the survival of families, and pays for children to receive an education. She works with people of different ethnic groups.

In a refugee camp, she once met a woman who owned nothing except a paigne, the brightly coloured piece of cloth that is commonly worn in Africa, wrapped around the waist. The woman had her menstruation and was crouched in a corner. Without a change of clothes or another piece of cloth, she was messed up and could not move from that spot.

Uprooted from her relatively sheltered life as a Tutsi and wife of a former Burundi prime minister, Pélagie Nduwayo began to support individual women in the camp by distributing clothes, food and sometimes also money. This was at first merely a drop in the ocean, but eventually picked momentum. The women organized themselves into a group as they realized that this help might one day cease. So they asked Pélagie Nduwayo to assist become self-reliant.

Continuer la lecture de « Pélagie Nduwayo-Ndikuriyo -Burundi »

Yvonne Ryakiye – Burundi

Linked with Pélagie Nduwayo-Ndikuriyo – Burundi, with Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies, and with Twishakira amahoro.

She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

She says: « It makes me incredibly happy when I see people alive who I saved from death ».

… Mais Léonie refusa d’accepter la situation de tension montante, et avec son ex-voisine Yvonne Ryakiye elle osèrent traverser la rivière pour se rendre visite. Comme elles étaient sans armes d’autres personnes suivirent leur exemple … (full text).

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Yvonne Ryakiye – Burundi

She works for Twishakira amahoro (published on Africa Recovery, copied by UN.org), and for Search for Common Ground Burundi.

Yvonne Ryakiye lives at the foothills of Bujumbura, where many Tutsi families were killed or driven away during the 1993/1994 genocide. Yvonne, a Hutu, started her organization by hiding Tutsi refugees.

With the Hutu and the Tutsi entrenched on either side of the Kanyosha River, she took the initiative to re-establish contact with her former Tutsi neighbor Léonie Barakomeza. The two women risked their lives as they crossed the river to visit one another. This began the warming-up of the relations between two hostile ethnic groups.“As women, we have done our best to make the Hutus and Tutsis live together peacefully again, because we do not want to lose our husbands and children,” says Yvonne Ryakije, a Hutu farmer who lives in Busoro village at the foothills of Bujumbura, where the river Kanyosha flows through a deep gorge.

During the 1993 – 1994 genocide the Tutsi were driven to the other side of the river, while the Hutus had to flee from the opposite bank to Busoro. In the beginning, Yvonne hid Tutsi refugees in her house, but this soon became too dangerous. The river was considered a natural boundary. Recalls Yvonne, “It was like a wall protecting us from being murdered, because nobody dared to cross it.”

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Johann Hari – England

Linked with The battle for Labour’s soul.

Johann Hari (born January 21, 1979) is a British journalist and writer. He is a columnist for The Independent and the Evening Standard. His work has also appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, Le Monde and Ha’aretz. Hari was born in Glasgow and raised in London. He attended Aylward School, John Lyon School, North Cheshire Theatre School, Weald College and Woodhouse College. He graduated with a double first in Social and Political Sciences at King’s College, Cambridge in 2001 … (full text).

We’ll save the planet only if we we’re forced to.

He writes: In Kabul hospital, half the patients who need opiate-based painkillers are writhing in agony because they have none—while in the fields outside and across Afghanistan, farmers trying to grow opiates are having their fields trashed and livelihoods destroyed by western troops. This is just the most ironic intersection between the west’s « war on drugs » and what the World Health Organisation calls « an unprecedented global pain crisis … (full text).

His homepage.

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Johann Hari – England

Rowan Williams has shown us one thing – why multiculturalism must be abandoned.

Spielberg has taken a stand. We must too.

He writes also: Liberal America may be slapping itself on the back that the two main contenders for the Democratic ticket are a woman and a black man, but the elephant in the room is a pink one. Where is the gay candidate? The republicans are all heterosexual males – that goes without saying – but for those who had higher hopes for the Democrats, disappointment is the name of the game. When Bill Clinton first won the White House, Fleetwood Mac reformed and played at his inauguration. But hell will freeze over before the Village People get back together and sing YMCA while the Pink Prez and his First Boyfriend waltz into the Oval Office. (on public interest blogspot).

Jeremy Kyle, a moral hero of our time.

… We don’t need to speculate about what these British sharia courts would look like. They already exist in some mosques across Britain, as voluntary enterprises. Last month, a plain, unsensationalist documentary called Divorce: Sharia Style looked at the judgements they hand down. If a man wants a divorce, he simply has to say to his wife, « I divorce you » three times over three months. The wife has no right of appeal, and no right to ask for a reason. If a woman wants a divorce, by contrast, she has to humbly ask her husband. If he refuses, she must turn to a sharia court, and convince three Mullahs that her husband has behaved « unreasonably » – according to the rules laid out in a pre-modern text that recommends domestic violence if your wife gets uppity. Irum Shazad, a 26-year-old British woman, travels from her battered women’s refuge to a sharia court in East London. She explains that her husband was so abusive she slashed her wrists with a carving knife. The court tells her this was a sin, making her as bad as him. They tell her to go back to her husband. (They grant a divorce half a year later, after a dozen more « last chances » for him to abuse her.) … (full text).

Reshuffling the Deck Chairs on the National Review cruise.

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