Year: 2009

By Jeremy Scahill, The Nation

At a covert forward operating base run by the US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, members of an elite division of Blackwater are at the center of a secret program in which they plan targeted assassinations of suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives, “snatch and grabs” of high-value targets and other sensitive action inside and outside Pakistan, an investigation by The Nation has found. The Blackwater operatives also assist in gathering intelligence and help direct a secret US military drone bombing campaign that runs parallel to the well-documented CIA predator strikes, according to a well-placed source within the US military intelligence apparatus.

The source, who has worked on covert US military programs for years, including in Afghanistan and Pakistan, has direct knowledge of Blackwater’s involvement. He spoke to The Nation on condition of anonymity because the program is classified. The source said that the program is so “compartmentalized” that senior figures within the Obama administration and the US military chain of command may not be aware of its existence.

The White House did not return calls or email messages seeking comment for this story. Capt. John Kirby, the spokesperson for Adm. Michael Mullen, Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told The Nation, “We do not discuss current operations one way or the other, regardless of their nature.” A defense official, on background, specifically denied that Blackwater performs work on drone strikes or intelligence for JSOC in Pakistan. “We don’t have any contracts to do that work for us. We don’t contract that kind of work out, period,” the official said. “There has not been, and is not now, contracts between JSOC and that organization for these types of services.”

The previously unreported program, the military intelligence source said, is distinct from the CIA assassination program that the agency’s director, Leon Panetta, announced he had canceled in June 2009. “This is a parallel operation to the CIA,” said the source. “They are two separate beasts.” The program puts Blackwater at the epicenter of a US military operation within the borders of a nation against which the United States has not declared war–knowledge that could further strain the already tense relations between the United States and Pakistan. In 2006, the United States and Pakistan struck a deal that authorized JSOC to enter Pakistan to hunt Osama bin Laden with the understanding that Pakistan would deny it had given permission. Officially, the United States is not supposed to have any active military operations in the country.

Blackwater, which recently changed its name to Xe Services and US Training Center, denies the company is operating in Pakistan. “Xe Services has only one employee in Pakistan performing construction oversight for the U.S. Government,” Blackwater spokesperson Mark Corallo said in a statement to The Nation, adding that the company has “no other operations of any kind in Pakistan.”

(Submitted by reader with following message:
Here we go again!
Jeremy Scahill first exposed the existence of Blackwater and its activities through a book he wrote on the subject two years ago. He is considered the foremost U.S authority on the subject of private security contractors like Blackwater. Now he has written the first authoritative account of Blackwater activities in Pakistan. Click on the link to read his article.)

By Benjamin Dangl

Reviewed: Sin Patron: Stories From Argentina’s Worker-Run Factories, edited by Lavaca, 320 pages, Haymarket Books, 2007.

Following the social upheaval in Argentina in 2001-2002 a book was published in Spanish that a lot of activists and independent journalists in the country began trying to get their hands on. It wasn’t in all of the bookstores, but news about it traveled like wildfire. Now the legendary book, Sin Patron: Stories From Argentina’s Worker-Run Factories, is translated and available to the English-speaking world.

The book includes a number of illuminating interviews and chapters by Lavaca, a journalism collective based in Buenos Aires that continues to produce some of the best analysis and stories on social movements in the country. With Sin Patron, Lavaca brings together dynamic voices and stories from the hearts of Argentina’s inspiring movements.

The timing couldn’t be better for the release of this book in English. Readers in the US seeking creative solutions to the current economic crisis may find some helpful suggestions in Sin Patron.

Workers in Argentina during that country’s crash figured out they needed to go beyond the law to survive. “For workers in Argentina there is no law. It only exists for the powerful,” said Eduardo Murua, President of the National Movement of Reclaimed Companies. “If we were stuck outside [of the factory] asking the judge to keep it open, we would get nowhere. If we were to ask politicians, we’d get even less. Only through occupation could we recover the jobs.”

One story of occupation and worker control told in Sin Patron is that of Sime Quarry, located in the province of Entre Rios. The owners of the quarry ran the business into the ground, but it was taken over by its workers and kept in operation under worker-control. Leading up to the closure the bosses abused the workers verbally and physically. María del Huerto, 45 years old, said that in December of 2002 the bosses of the quarry “gave us a 35-day unscheduled vacation.” The “vacation” lasted until January 20th, when the workers went back to the quarry to find it abandoned. It was “a pasture with no lights, running water, or telephone service. Nothing. It was desolate,” María said. Just a few machines were left.

María met with fellow workers and members of the Movement of Recuperated Companies, and they discussed taking over the quarry themselves. They decided to arm themselves before the takeover in case they ran into any resistance. “We took firearms, and some neighbors lent us shotguns. We announced that we didn’t want to shoot anyone, but wanted to defend our workplace and keep the bosses from stealing anything else.”

It was a terribly hot time of the year and mosquitoes were everywhere. No one had any money, so they used the guns to hunt. “To eat, the men hunted apereá rabbits – they’re brown; they look like big mice. They also fished caruchas from a nearby lagoon, and Don Joaquín would send us tarpon fish from the market. What had happened to us? We thought of ourselves as middle class, and here we were, begging and hunting to make ends meet,” María said. At one point, the workers were getting so desperate they had to sell furniture in order to buy meat.

Over time, they formed a cooperative and a judge ordered the plant be given over to them in April of 2003. Now the quarry is back in business, fully operational under worker-management.

The Zanon ceramics factory was also occupied and put under worker control around the same time. Reinaldo Giménez, a long time worker at Zanon, spoke of when the business was closing down and the boss refused to pay the workers what was owed to them. The boss “put everyone in the same boat, and the workers with the longest tenures said, ‘This scumbag should have paid me. I gave him my life, but he has no feelings, no compassion, and he makes no distinctions.’”

Upside Down World for more

By Matthew Cardinale

ATLANTA, Georgia, Nov 24 (IPS) – Activists from the U.S. and Colombia are targeting the World of Coca-Cola museum, located near its headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, accusing the company of “union busting”, paying its workers “poverty wages”, and engaging in environmentally destructive practices.

“We’re an unofficial coalition with the India Resource Center, focusing on Coca-Cola overusing waters in drought areas. We’re supporting Corporate Accountability International, that have been trying to stop the use of bottled water over tap water,” Lew Friedman, of Killer Coke, told IPS.

“We’re working on behalf of Sinaltrainal, the food workers in Colombia. They had eight union leaders murdered. We’ve been augmenting their legal suit,” Friedman said.

“There’s plenty of evidence that shows the plant managers were very cozy with the paramilitaries,” he added.

Sinaltrainal v. Coca-Cola was filed in 2001 by the United Steelworkers of America and the International Labor Rights Fund on behalf of the Colombian trade union Sinaltrainal, several of its members, and the estate of Isidro Gil, one of its officers who was murdered.

Coca-Cola bottlers “contracted with or otherwise directed paramilitary security forces that utilize extreme violence and murdered, tortured, unlawfully detained or otherwise silenced trade union leaders”, the lawsuit states.

In addition, Killer Coke claims that many of the Colombian paramilitary troops were trained at the controversial formerly-named School of the Americas, now called the U.S. Western Hemisphere Institute for Security and Economic Cooperation, in Fort Benning, Georgia.

In 2003, the U.S. District Court removed Coca-Cola as a defendant in the case because the murders took place in Colombia, not in the U.S. However, two Coca-Cola bottlers remained as defendants in the case. In 2006, the judge dismissed the remaining claims.

When IPS asked Coca-Cola about Killer Coke’s demonstration in Atlanta last week, the company replied in an email statement that it “was based on an uninformed and inaccurate portrayal of The Coca-Cola Company and independent Coca-Cola bottlers in Colombia and based on allegations that are over ten years old”.

“The unfounded allegations have been reviewed over the years by multiple courts in Colombia and most recently in the United States, as well as by the International Labor Organization, and outside law firms – all concluding that the Coca-Cola bottler employees in Colombia enjoy extensive, normal relations with multiple unions and are provided with safe working conditions there,” Coca-Cola said.

While much of Killer Coke’s focus seemed to be on the Colombian trade union issue, activists said other issues involved the alleged use of child labour in other countries and questions about the healthiness of Coca-Cola products in general.

“There are issues of health, the use of high fructose corn syrup,” Friedman said.

As part of their campaign, Killer Coke has been successful at getting over 50 U.S. colleges and universities to stop selling Coke, and at getting the Service Employee Industrial Union (SEIU) and teachers’ unions to stop carrying Coke in their offices.

Killer Coke decided to target Coca-Cola headquarters on its own turf, in Atlanta, in part by driving a mobile billboard around town that read, “Don’t Drink Killer Coke Zero: Zero Ethics, Zero Justice, Zero Health.” This is a pun on one of the company’s products, Coke Zero, which is a near-zero calorie beverage.

“The World of Coke is basically one large advertisement for Coca-Cola. It’s the centre of Coca-Cola, it’s a mile away from their headquarters, it’s basically their public image that’s there,” said Ian Hoffmann, a young activist from Minnesota.

“We’ve got people coming forward and saying it’s an anti-union company. Coca-Cola usually says ‘we’re an Atlanta-based company. What happens in Colombia is out of our control, and more importantly, not our responsibility’, even though they [the bottling plants] are bottling Coca-Cola products and helping the company with huge profits,” Hoffmann said.

“We want some accountability. From my end, I’d like them to acknowledge what’s going on there, explaining to us why after the union leader gets shot dead, that the next day no one signs a new contract with Sinaltrainal. How do they stand by that? How do you defend that?” Hoffmann said.

IPS for more

By Devinder Sharma

I think the eulogisation of Tata’s has gone too far. Behind all the glamour, sobriety and humanitariasm that we read and hear about Tata’s, there is a dark hidden side which is kept under wraps. It is time we look at the destructive role Tata’s have played over the years in uprooting thousands of poor families, and the resulting destruction of livelihoods and the environment.

To overcome their guilt, and that too aimed at pacifying the liberal voices in the urban centres, I am sure Ratan Tata would be thinking of setting up schools and funding some NGO activities in the tribal lands as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).

What a sophisticated way to cover your dark underbelly !

I was quite taken aback today to see a frontpage headline in The Hindustan Times: The biggest land grab after Columbus. As the blurb says: Government report criticises corporate exploitation of tribal lands; tribals turn to new friends: Maoist. And if you remember only a few days back, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had publicly accepted, and made a promise: “The systemic exploitation of our tribal communities can no longer be tolerated.”

Do you think Manmohan Singh will do anything to stop this? You bet, he will simply push for more such projects that will eventually destroy the social fabric of these tribal lands. If you think I am wrong, let us take the land-grab in Bedanji, a remote rural expanse in Bastar in Chhatisgarh, as a test case. The Tata’s plan to set up a Rs 19,500 crore steel plant for which ten villages have to be emptied.

Interestingly, a report of the PM-appointed Ministry of Rural Development committee on Land Reforms has succintly said: “This open declared war will go down as the biggest land grab ever, if it plays out as per the script.” The Hindustan Times report quotes the just-released government report warning against the corporate takeover in the Bastar hinterland: “The biggest grab of tribal lands after Columbus.”

You can read the full news report here:

I was reading another detailed field report from Pravin Patel, a human rights activist. It tells you how the State government is helping facilitate the process of the massive takeover of tribal lands. It tells you how the official machinery has actually been hand in glove with the industrial houses to ruthlessly exploit the tribals.

Zmag for more

By Alexander Sodiqov

Tajikistani President Emomali Rahmon’s state visit to Moscow in October resolved none of the major divisive issues marring the relations between Moscow and Dushanbe. The Tajik leader failed to convince President Medvedev to pay Tajikistan a rent for Russia’s military base in Tajikistan, and to participate in the Rogun power station project. Despite this, security considerations have pushed Dushanbe and Moscow to agree to step up military cooperation. This, however, is more a matter of necessity than choice for the both sides, and is unlikely to produce a lasting normalization of relations between the two countries.

BACKGROUND: Over the last two years, Tajikistan’s relationship with Russia has deteriorated to its worst level since independence. The major reason for Tajik frustration with Russia has been what many in Tajikistan view as a failure on Moscow’s part to honor its commitment to build the Rogun power station. Under the 2004 deal, Russian aluminum giant Rusal pledged to invest roughly US$2 billion in building the Soviet-planned power giant. In return, Dushanbe agreed to the reorganization of Russia’s 201st Motor Rifle Division stationed in Tajikistan into a permanent military base to be deployed in the country free of charge. Under the same deal, Moscow wrote off US$242 million of Tajik debt, and Dushanbe handed over a major space-surveillance facility to the Russian space forces.

Despite the signing of the deal, brokered personally by the then-president Vladimir Putin, Russia has not yet invested in the Rogun project. Facing strong pressure from Uzbekistan, Rusal attempted to persuade Dushanbe to change the height and type of the dam. Unwilling to agree to a lower dam project, Dushanbe cancelled the deal with Rusal in 2007 and pressed Moscow for an alternative arrangement to build the power station. These efforts have so far yielded no result.

Rising power demand, failing infrastructure and inability to negotiate transit of electricity from neighboring states through Uzbek territory during the last several winters led Dushanbe to introduce strict power supply rationing and leave entire regions without electricity and heating. The Rogun power station is currently seen as the only feasible project that could not only resolve Tajikistan’s electricity deficits but also make the country a net power exporter. Therefore, the construction of the Rogun power plant has become a matter of necessity rather than choice for Tajikistan. Dushanbe began building the power station on its own, investing US$120 million in the project in 2009, and planning to spend roughly US$150 million from the state budget in 2010.

Disappointed with Moscow’s reluctance to deliver the promised investment in the Rogun project, Tajik media, intellectuals and part of the political elite began demanding that the government revisit the 2004 deal and begin charging Russia for hosting its military base. Both Tajik and Russian media cited unnamed sources in Tajikistan’s defense ministry as suggesting that Dushanbe had demanded US$300 million in annual rent fees from Moscow. Moreover, as discussed in previous issues of the CACI Analyst, many in Tajikstan have felt offended by Moscow’s stance on water management issues in the region, an inability to stem the wave of ethnically motivated attacks on Tajik migrants in Russia, and media coverage they perceived as insulting.

Central Asia-Caucasus Institute for more

By Jaileen F. Jimeno

MIXED MESSAGES. Poverty and war hardware are a heady mix in Maguindanao. File Photo by Jaileen F. Jimeno, PCIJ
THERE was a time my colleagues at the PCIJ threatened to print shirts that said “I am not JJ” in front and “Neither is she my friend” at the back.

The (hopefully) feigned betrayal stemmed from the stories I was writing at the time about the Ampatuan clan, how its members wielded power, and the sorry state of public education in the province of Maguindanao.

Gallows humor made the fear bearable back then, but now it has become clear that what I was dealing with was no laughing matter. In one barbaric, gruesome Monday morning, the monster created by clan wars, warlords, and the tacit approval – and exploitation of it – by high government officials claimed the lives of over 40 people, among them women and journalists, in one of the province’s lonely roads.
Maguindanao is a beautiful province. But its clear rivers and streams and green fields are red with the blood of some of its own people, as these had been in far too numerous instances in the past.

For now, Frances Cynthia Guiani-Sayadi, solicitor general of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao or ARMM, of which Maguindanao is part, is calling on media to be fair and not to preempt the investigation into Monday’s carnage.

“We are looking at different angles,” she told PCIJ in a brief phone interview Tuesday. “We are looking for the culprit and let’s wait for the result of the investigation.” She declined to make any other comments.

PCIJ for more

The Whirlpool Galaxy. Image credit: Hubble.

With this essay by Steven Soter, Astrobiology Magazine presents the first in our series of ‘Gedanken’, or thought, experiments – musings by noted scientists on scientific mysteries in a series of “what if” scenarios. Gedanken experiments, which have been used for hundreds of years by scientists and philosophers to ponder thorny problems, rely on the power of one’s imagination to project these scenarios to logical conclusions. They do not involve lab equipment or, often, even experimental data. They can be thought of as focused daydreams. Yet, as in the famous case of Einstein’s Gedanken experiments about what it would be like to hitch a ride on a light wave, they have often led to important scientific breakthroughs.

Soter is Scientist-in-Residence in the Center for Ancient Studies at New York University, where he teaches a seminar on Scientific Thinking and Speculation, and a Research Associate in the Department of Astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History.

In this essay, Soter examines the Drake Equation, which asks how many technically advanced civilizations exist in our galaxy. He also looks at the Fermi Paradox, which questions why, if there are other technological civilizations nearby, we haven’t heard from them.

If civilizations exist in our galaxy with levels of technology at least equal to our own, we might be able to detect some of them using radio telescopes. And if civilizations exist with technologies far in advance of our own, we might expect them to have colonized millions of habitable worlds in the Milky Way, and even to have visited our own planet. Yet there is no evidence in the astronomical, geological, archaeological, or historical records that extraterrestrial civilizations exist or that visitors from other worlds have ever been to Earth. Does that mean, as some have concluded, that ours is the only civilization in the galaxy? Or could there be a natural self-regulating mechanism that limits the intensive colonization of other worlds?

In 1961 radio astronomer Frank Drake devised an equation to express how the hypothetical number of observable civilizations in our galaxy should depend on a wide range of astronomical and biological factors, such as the number of habitable planets per star, and the fraction of inhabited worlds that give rise to intelligent life. The Drake Equation has led to serious studies and encouraged the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). It has also provoked ridicule and hostility. Novelist Michael Crichton recently denounced the equation as “literally meaningless,” incapable of being tested, and therefore “not science.” The Drake equation, he said, also opened the door to other forms of what he called “pernicious garbage” in the name of science, including the use of mathematical climate models to characterize global warming.

Crichton rightly pointed out that any numerical “answers” produced by the Drake Equation can be no more than guesses, since most of the terms in the equation are quantitatively unknown by many orders of magnitude. But he is utterly wrong to claim that the equation is “meaningless.” An equation describes how the elements of a problem are logically related, whether or not we know their numerical values. Astronomers understand perfectly well that the Drake Equation cannot prove anything. Instead, we regard it as the most useful way to organize our ignorance of a difficult subject by breaking it down into manageable parts. This kind of analysis is standard, and a valued technique in scientific thinking. As new observations and insights emerge, the Drake Equation can be modified as needed or even replaced altogether. But it provides the necessary place to start.

When Drake first proposed his equation, we had no way to estimate any of its terms beyond the first one, representing the rate of star formation in our galaxy. Then in 1995, astronomers began to discover planets in orbits around other stars. These results now promise to sharpen our estimates for the second term in the equation, denoting the number of habitable worlds per star. Who knows what unforeseen discoveries will tell us about the other terms in the equation?

In Classical antiquity, when Aristarchus conceived the heliocentric view of the solar system and Democritus developed an atomic theory of matter, they had no possible way to test their ideas. The necessary observational tools and data would not exist for another two thousand years. Of course, the Crichtons of antiquity denounced such speculations as pernicious. But when the time finally came, the ancient ideas were still there, quietly waiting to inspire and encourage Copernicus and Galileo, and the pioneers of modern atomic theory, who took the first steps to test the theories. It may take centuries, but eventually the Drake Equation and all its elements will be testable.

We can express the Drake Equation in several ways, all of which are more or less equivalent. Here is one form:
N = Rs nh fl fi fc L

where N is the number of civilizations in our galaxy, expressed as the product of six factors: Rs is the rate of star formation, nh is the number of habitable worlds per star, fl is the fraction of habitable worlds on which life arises, fi is the fraction of inhabited worlds with intelligent life, fc is the fraction of intelligent life forms that produce civilizations, and L is the average lifetime of such civilizations.

The rate of star formation in our galaxy is roughly ten per year. We can define habitable worlds conservatively as those with liquid water on the surface. Many more worlds probably have liquid water only below the surface, but any subterranean life on such worlds would not be likely to produce an observable civilization. Recent discoveries of other planetary systems suggest that habitable worlds are common and that nh is at least one such planet in a hundred stars.

21st Century for more

The University of California, Berkeley is investigating allegations of police brutality against students and workers protesting fee hikes and budget cuts last week. 40 students were arrested Friday night after campus police entered Wheeler Hall, which the students had taken over earlier in the day. The students were part of a statewide movement protesting the UC Board of Regents decision to raise tuition by 32 percent. Independent journalist Brandon Jourdan, who was embedded with the students inside the occupied building on Friday, files a report for Democracy Now!

AMY GOODMAN: The University of California Berkeley is investigating allegations of police brutality against students and workers protesting fee hikes and budget cuts last week. The university also will request an independent investigation by the campus police review board. 40 students were arrested on Friday night after campus police entered Wheeler Hall, which the students had taken over earlier in the day. The students were part of a statewide movement protesting the University of California Board of Regents decision to raise tuition by 32%. Students at UCLA, UC Davis, UC Santa Cruz, and San Francisco State also took part by taking over campus buildings last week. On Monday, more than 200 students rallied at Wheeler Hall in Berkeley to protest against what they called overtly aggressive tactics by the police. Organizers say officers hit demonstrators with batons and fired rubber bullets. Independent journalist Brandon Jourdan was embedded with the students inside the occupied building on Friday and filed this report for “Democracy Now!” from inside the takeover at Wheeler Hall.

BRANDON JOURDAN: On November 20th at approximately 5:00 in the morning, students occupied Wheeler Hall, a main lecture hall at the school.

UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT 1: All right, now we’re locked in a building on campus. Wheeler Hall, probably the main campus building at UC Berkeley. There are tons of people in here, they’re all shuttling around making sure that doors are being held shut.

UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT 2: This is about solidarity, This is about not only students, but it’s about faculty members, it’s about workers, and it’s about all of us being fed up with this crisis of priorities that there is. They say that it is a financial crisis, but that’s not the truth. It is what they value and honor within the education system that is the problem. We are fighting for a public good. When students come to school in the morning, they will realize that class has been canceled.

Democracy Now for more

by Matbooat Chattan Lahore

Mahatma Gandhi with Maulana Azad and J.B. Kripalani in 1942

Congress president Maulana Abul Kalam Azad gave the following interview to journalist Shorish Kashmiri for a Lahore based Urdu magazine, Chattan, in April 1946. It was a time when the Cabinet Mission was holding its proceedings in Delhi and Simla. Azad made some startling predictions during the course of the interview, saying that religious conflict would tear apart Pakistan and its eastern half would carve out its own future. He even said that Pakistan’s incompetent rulers might pave the way for military rule. According to Shorish Kashmiri, Azad had earmarked the early hours of the morning for him and the interview was conducted over a period of two weeks. This interview has not been published in any book so far — neither in the Azad centenary volumes nor in any other book comprising his writing or speeches — except for Kashmiri’s own book Abul Kalam Azad, which was printed only once by Matbooat Chattan Lahore, a now-defunct publishing house. Former Union Cabinet Minister Arif Mohammed Khan discovered the book after searching for many years and translated the interview for COVERT

Q: The Hindu Muslim dispute has become so acute that it has foreclosed any possibility of rec-onciliation. Don’t you think that in this situation the birth of Pakistan has become inevitable?

A: If Pakistan were the solution of Hindu Muslim problem, then I would have extended my support to it. A section of Hindu opinion is now turning in its favour. By conceding NWFP, Sind, Balochistan and half of Punjab on one side and half of Bengal on the other, they think they will get the rest of India — a huge country that would be free from any claims of communal nature. If we use the Muslim League terminology, this new India will be a Hindu state both practically and temperamentally. This will not happen as a result of any conscious decision, but will be a logical consequence of its social realities. How can you expect a society that consists 90% of Hindus, who have lived with their ethos and values since prehistoric times, to grow differently? The factors that laid the foundation of Islam in Indian society and created a powerful following have become victim of the politics of partition. The communal hatred it has generated has completely extinguished all possibilities of spreading and preaching Islam. This communal politics has hurt the religion beyond measure. Muslims have turned away from the Quran. If they had taken their lessons from the Quran and the life of the Holy Prophet and had not forged communal politics in the name of religion then Islam’s growth would not have halted. By the time of the decline of the Mughal rule, the Muslims in India were a little over 22.5 million, that is about 65% of the present numbers. Since then the numbers kept increasing. If the Muslim politicians had not used the offensive language that embittered communal relations, and the other section acting as agents of British interests had not worked to widen the Hindu-Muslim breach, the number of Muslims in India would have grown higher. The political disputes we created in the name of religion have projected Islam as an instrument of political power and not what it is — a value system meant for the transformation of human soul. Under British influence, we turned Islam into a confined system, and following in the footsteps of other communities like Jews, Parsis and Hindus we transformed ourselves into a hereditary community. The Indian Muslims have frozen Islam and its message and divided themselves into many sects. Some sects were clearly born at the instance of colonial power. Consequently, these sects became devoid of all movement and dynamism and lost faith in Islamic values. The hallmark of Muslim existence was striving and now the very term is strange to them. Surely they are Muslims, but they follow their own whims and desires. In fact now they easily submit to political power, not to Islamic values. They prefer the religion of politics not the religion of the Quran. Pakistan is a political standpoint. Regardless of the fact whether it is the right solution to the problems of Indian Muslims, it is being demanded in the name of Islam. The question is when and where Islam provided for division of territories to settle populations on the basis of belief and unbelief. Does this find any sanction in the Quran or the traditions of the Holy Prophet? Who among the scholars of Islam has divided the dominion of God on this basis? If we accept this division in principle, how shall we reconcile it with Islam as a universal system? How shall we explain the ever growing Muslim presence in non-Muslim lands including India? Do they realise that if Islam had approved this principle then it would not have permitted its followers to go to the non-Muslim lands and many ancestors of the supporters of Pakistan would not have had even entered the fold of Islam? Division of territories on the basis of religion is a contraption devised by Muslim League. They can pursue it as their political agenda, but it finds no sanction in Islam or Quran. What is the cherished goal of a devout Muslim? Spreading the light of Islam or dividing territories along religious lines to pursue political ambitions? The demand for Pakistan has not benefited Muslims in any manner. How Pakistan can benefit Islam is a moot question and will largely depend on the kind of leadership it gets. The impact of western thought and philosophy has made the crisis more serious. The way the leadership of Muslim League is conducting itself will ensure that Islam will become a rare commodity in Pakistan and Muslims in India. This is a surmise and God alone knows what is in the womb of future. Pakistan, when it comes into existence, will face conflicts of religious nature. As far as I can see, the people who will hold the reins of power will cause serious damage to Islam. Their behaviour may result in the total alienation of the Pakistani youth who may become a part of non-religious movements. Today, in Muslim minority states the Muslim youth are more attached to religion than in Muslim majority states. You will see that despite the increased role of Ulema, the religion will lose its sheen in Pakistan.

Q: But many Ulema are with Quaid-e-Azam [M.A. Jinnah].

A: Many Ulema were with Akbare Azam too; they invented a new religion for him. Do not discuss individuals. Our history is replete with the doings of the Ulema who have brought humiliation and disgrace to Islam in every age and period. The upholders of truth are exceptions. How many of the Ulema find an honourable mention in the Muslim history of the last 1,300 years? There was one Imam Hanbal, one Ibn Taimiyya. In India we remember no Ulema except Shah Waliullah and his family. The courage of Alf Sani is beyond doubt, but those who filled the royal office with complaints against him and got him imprisoned were also Ulema. Where are they now? Does anybody show any respect to them?

Q: Maulana, what is wrong if Pakistan becomes a reality? After all, “Islam” is being used to pursue and protect the unity of the community.

A: You are using the name of Islam for a cause that is not right by Islamic standards. Muslim history bears testimony to many such enormities. In the battle of Jamal [fought between Imam Ali and Hadrat Aisha, widow of the Holy Prophet] Qurans were displayed on lances. Was that right? In Karbala the family members of the Holy Prophet were martyred by those Muslims who claimed companionship of the Prophet. Was that right? Hajjaj was a Muslim general and he subjected the holy mosque at Makka to brutal attack. Was that right? No sacred words can justify or sanctify a false motive.

Covert Magazine
(Submitted by a Reader)

“Self-Defense Force service members recruitment: We appreciate it – young strength. There is a future to which I want to connect. There are people I want to help. There is a land I want to protect” (Self-Defense Forces recruitment poster, 2005. Photographed by Jennifer Robertson).

By Sabine Frühstück

Amongst you, are there those
who wish to join Jieitai?
who wish to try your chance?
Jieitai’s looking for capable men.

[refrain]
Let’s join, join, join Jieitai
If you join Jieitai, this world is paradise.
The manliest of men all join
Jieitai and scatter like blossoms.

Those of you who wish to do sports,
you are always welcome to Jieitai.
Spears, guns, we have everything.
Anyway, the body is your capital.
[refrain]

Those of you who take interest
in guns and tanks and planes,
you are always welcome to Jieitai.
We’ll teach you with kindly care.
[refrain]

To protect Japan’s peace
we need guns and rockets.
We’ll also have America to help us;
let’s beat the evil Soviets and China.
[refrain]

Jieitai’s looking for capable men,
regardless of age or educational background.
We look for those who, for the sake of
the fatherland, are meek to the end.
[refrain]

“Let’s Join Jieitai,” anti-war lyrics by Takada Wataru, 1969, set to Pete Seeger’s tune (original lyrics by Malvina Reynolds, Andorra, 1962)

The original tune quoted above, “Let’s Join Jieitai,” was mockingly performed and recorded by Takada Wataru in 1969 as an anti-war song. The National Broadcasting Corporation immediately banned the song as Japan mobilized in support of the US in the Vietnam War, an incident that became emblematic of the fraught relationship between the Self-Defense Forces and Japanese popular culture since the end of the Asia-Pacific War.

While popular culture across the political spectrum has dealt with the imperial armed forces and the Asia-Pacific War (Penney 2008, Gerow 2006), it has been hesitant to embrace the Self-Defense Forces, however, the Self-Defense Forces’ public relations apparatus has long acknowledged the power of popular culture. This essay is about how the Self-Defense Forces tap into Japan’s popular culture and try to fill a void of military representation by employing the techniques and strategies of popular cultural production in their public relations, image-making and self-presentation efforts. Like armed forces in most democratic countries today, the Self-Defense Forces engage in a variety of such efforts. And like most public relations efforts of armed forces around the world, these activities in Japan are culturally and historically specific, due to the experience of militarism and war; the present-day social, political and economic roles of a military establishment in the country in which it is supposed to organize, control and possibly exercise violence in the name of the state; and by the popular culture within which these efforts are embedded.

At least since the Gulf War of 1990–1991, the separation of the military from the civilian sphere that had characterized most of the postwar era has begun to seem obsolete to the Self-Defense Forces leadership. For the most part, they have symbolically “disarmed” the Self-Defense Forces by normalizing and domesticating the military so that they would look like other (formerly) state-run service organizations such as the railway and postal systems. They have also aimed at individuating and personalizing Self-Defense Forces service members. At the same time, they made conventional notions of militarism appear spectacular within the confines of carefully choreographed live-fire performances. At a time when their mission has been extended—to Cambodia, the Persian Gulf, Iraq and Afghanistan—the Self-Defense Forces also have begun to utilize, appropriate, and manipulate popular culture, in order to glamorize their image and align themselves domestically with other state agencies and globally with other internationally operating armed forces and other organizations. For the Self-Defense Forces, these attempts have been major tasks that have been pursued almost in a vacuum, due to the disjuncture between the Self-Defense Forces and Japanese popular culture.

Japan Focus