Monday 31 March 2008

What Moqtada Al Sadr of Iraq trying to prove?

A macho culture such as Arabs’ or Muslims’ culture or a culture plagued with blindness to the usefulness of pragmatism may get men into battles that don’t serve Iraq or its people. Al Sadr and his followers worrying to be seen betraying their country if they stay quite without fighting the elected government as opposed to the Sunnis who proclaimed heroism fighting the occupiers is getting Al Sadr’s gangs into proving their patriotism regardless how hampering their activities to the development of Iraq.

Iraq is a country that’s plagued with disabling machoism and its young men are more absorbed in proving their virility or their ability to fight rather than thinking and taking courses of action that serve Iraq and its people. This may suggest that the root of dictatorial regimes dominating Iraq through history.

As an Iraqi I am very angry about Iraq being shattered by fanatic and savage factions bogged down into power struggle to monopolise the political arena through the elimination of each other. When this nation gets out of its tribal and backward mentality and does something that helps itself developing a stable democracy?

Tuesday 18 March 2008

The Battle for Haditha by Nick Broomfield

Western leftists try very hard to locate heroes from other cultures to sympathise with them; Nick Broomfield is not an exception. If we examine closely this identification with heroes from other cultures, we find that western leftists pick their heroes from groups that they think are the underdogs and in “The Battle for Haditha” it happens to be the Sunnis and subsequently support their cause and stories they come up with. So what makes the leftists sympathise with what they believe the underdogs from other culture? The answer can be as simple as they believe that they are the underdogs in their on societies and identification with other underdogs is justified.

In “The Battle for Haditha”, although Broomfield tries to portray an unbiased picture of the events by telling accounts from both sides, but one can see that he sympathises with Sunnis and portrays their violent reaction as a natural reaction of the American troops’ behaviour forgetting that those Sunnis have lost a privileged life under Saddam regime and are not interested in patriotism as Broomfiled try portray them rather than loyalty to the dead brutal regime.

This western leftists’ obsession with Sunnis has to stop and they should focus on how Iraqis are suffering now including the Shia and come up with solutions to the current situation.

Final word, regarding human brutality I always wondered and ask the following question: why people like Naomi Klein, Broomfield and other western leftists come with detailed accounts of American and western oppression but never wrote, argued or display images of the brutal torture of Saddam regime of the Iraqis?

Sunday 16 March 2008

Interventionism and British troops withdrawal

Iraqis are protesting against the withdrawal of British troopsAndrew Marr in his Sunday morning program announced to his Sunday audience that Iraqis are not happy with the idea of withdrawing British troops from south of Iraq therefore protesting by marching in the streets of Basra. Then in an interview with William Hage he asked him if the timing of withdrawal is the right. Mr Hage replied yes because we need to let the Iraqis to take over controlling the south and because there have been more attacks by Al Qaeda on British troops recently. We need to look at the situation closely from different angle and conclude.

The first scenario is that if Iraqis police and army are given control of the south then there won’t be attacks on British troops but still possible that attacks on Iraqi police continues and Al Qaeda or Shia militias will gain more ground to enforce the backward Shariaa laws. So we save the skin of the troops but get religious fanaticism in all shapes or forms taking control and abusing human right and this is in reality what’s happening.

The second scenario is that if British troops withdraw then Iraqis would appreciate the presence and the protection of the troop compared with the oppression of religious fanatics and will do something about it, but then how can they do something about it without the help of the international forces?

The third scenario is that the troops stay and support and protect the majority who are protesting against the oppressive practices of those religious groups regardless of the possible increase of attacks on British troops and Iraqi police and army, but the they [British troops] can take a supportive role to Iraqi police and army rather than planning to abandon them after making huge difference in the lives of Iraqis through the removal of most brutal regime on the face of planet, i.e. Saddam’s regime. Of course there are so many scenarios one can envisage, but one may conclude that in complex situation such as the one in Iraq direct interventionism can be a good option. Interventionism has the capacity to focus on parameters that aid achieving planned outcomes and produce desired results, on the other hand exhaustive calculated planning may end up with doing nothing but exhaustive planning and nothing to stop the oppression human beings in Iraq and around the world.

Thursday 6 March 2008

Racism in the Arab world

The following link leads to an article written by a brave sudanease women:

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/nesrine_malik/2008/03/a_paler_shade_of_black.html

Racism in Arab countries comes in different dress. In Iraq, I experienced it in the form of not belonging to an Arab clan. For example if someone like me of Iranian ancestors he won’t be welcomed in his attempt to belong to Iraq; Iraq is insignificant before belonging to an Arab tribe.

I remember scoring very high in my Baccalaureate examinations [equivalent to the A level] and I was entitled for a scholarship to Britain to study engineering but I was refused a place through twisted game of the authorities which lasted weeks subsequently missed the deadline.

I admire people like the writer who is from that part of the world and have the courage to speak of negative cultural issues of their origin. I applaud the writer.


Wednesday 5 March 2008

Fresh view on Islam and secularism

An argument on how Muslims mustn't be indoctrinated not to accept secularism Interesting argument on Islam and secularism by Ali Eteraz of the Guardian newspaper: http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ali_eteraz/2008/02/the_prophet_and_politics.html

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