Month: March 2010

by ISAURA DANIEL

Ibn Battuta, a Moroccan Muslim scholar and traveler who lived in the 14th century and spent 30 years of his life traveling and talking about his travels on the African continent is going to be a character for the teaching of African History at schools in Brazil.

The Ministry of Education (MEC) should distribute still this year, teaching material using Ibn Battuta. It will be included in a video documentary, called “Viajando pela África com Ibn Battuta” (Traveling around Africa with Ibn Battuta), a teacher’s book, a student’s book and a site.

They were elaborated by historian José Rivair Macedo, from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), with funds granted by the MEC.

According to information disclosed by the ministry, the video, book and booklet should be made available on the MEC Portal and at TV Escola by June. The material will be printed and the film reproduced for distribution by the end of the year.

The idea is for them to serve as subsidies for lessons about Africa. “Rebuilding Ibn Battuta’s trip to Mali seemed a different proposal for the teaching of History, as it is a different focus from the traditional one, a change in the form of eyeing the Old World,” said Macedo.

In the film, amidst interviews, images and historical information, Ibn Battuta narrates part of his impressions of the trip he took, between 1352 and 1353, crossing a region of the Sahara Desert, then known as the Mali Empire. The area currently includes countries like Mauritania and Nigeria, as well as Mali itself.

Protected by the sultan of Morocco, Ibn Battuta traveled with a caravan seeking gold, salt and slaves for a period of two months. “The report by Ibn Battuta is the only eye-witness of the period of splendor of the Mali Empire. Other Arab writers wrote about the African kingdoms, but they did not travel there,” said Macedo.

Brazzil for more

by JUAN COLE

Martin Kramer revealed his true colors at the Herzliya Conference, wherein he blamed political violence in the Muslim world on population growth, called for that growth to be restrained, and praised the illegal and unconscionable Israeli blockade of civilian Gazans for its effect on reducing the number of Gazans.

M. J. Rosenberg argued that Kramer’s speech is equivalent to a call for genocide. It certainly is a call for eugenics.

It is shocking that Kramer, who has made a decade-long career of attacking social science understanding of the Middle East and demonizing anyone who departs even slightly from his rightwing Israeli-nationalist political line, should be given a cushy office at Harvard as a ‘fellow’ while spewing the most vile justifications for war crimes like the collective punishment of Gazan children.

Kramer is after all not nobody. He was an adviser to the Giuliani presidential campaign. He is listed as an associate of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the influential think tank in Washington of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. He is associated with Daniel Pipe’s ‘Middle East Forum,’ a neo-McCarthyite organization dedicated to harassing American academics who do not toe the political line of Israel’s ruling Likud Party.

Kramer’s remarks are wrong, offensive and racist by implication. He is driven to them by his nationalist ideology, which cannot recognize the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians by Israelis in 1948, cannot see that most Palestinians have been deprived by Israeli policies of citizenship rights (what Warren Burger called ‘the right to have rights’, as Margaret Somers pointed out), and that Palestinians are even at this moment being deprived of basic property and other rights by Israeli occupation. To admit that any of these actions produces a backlash is to acknowledge the Palestinian movements as forms of national liberation activism, and to legitimize Palestinian aspirations. Rightwing Zionism is all about erasing the Palestinians from history. And now Kramer wants to make it about erasing future Palestinian children!

Juan Cole for more

by CHRISTINE AHN and GWYN KIRK

This March, the Obamas will touch down in the U.S. territory of Guam, en route to Australia and Indonesia. It’s a big deal for this tiny Pacific island seven-and-a-half hours by plane from Hawaii and, according to airport placards, “where America’s day begins.” Two senators from Guam, Judith P. Guthertz and Rory J. Respicio, have already written to ask the president “to meet a few of your fellow Americans,” instead of the typical orchestrated “pit stop” behind the gates of Andersen Air Force Base.

Obama’s stop-over may be designed to smooth the difficult road ahead for the U.S. military. The Pentagon is shifting bases and soldiers in the Asia Pacific — not surprisingly, without consent of the residents of these countries. But it’s not just local people in Guam, South Korea, Okinawa, and elsewhere who are affected by the increased militarization of the region. The natural environment is at risk through military contamination and through the high military use of oil, an important factor in climate change.

Foreign Policy in Focus for more

by DAVE ZIRIN

It was called the “Own the Podium” campaign, Canada’s efforts to win enough gold medals to make Ron Paul defect. Its zeal for gold meant such sporting practices as locking athletes from other countries out of the practice facilities. Anything for an edge. This lockout included the luge sliders at the whip-fast run in Whistler. As a result, a Georgian luger by the name of Nodar Kumaritashvili had only one-tenth the practice runs as his Canadian opponents when he lost control and sped to his death.

Poor sportsmanship doesn’t always kill. But it has been evident at every corner of the games, and not just from our neighbors from the North. There was Russian skater Evgeny Plushenko, who, after earning the silver medal, first climbed up to the gold medal spot. “I stepped on the gold medal position because I forgot that I came second,” he said. “To be fair, I felt that I’d stepped on to my position. It wasn’t planned, of course. It’s just that in my brain, I’d won.”

He also decided to go “figure skating macho” by criticizing gold medal winner Evan Lysacek’s gold medal, saying, “If [the] Olympic champion doesn’t know how to jump quad. . . . I don’t know. Now it’s not men’s skating. Now it’s dancing.”

Then there’s the Russian ice pair, Maxim Shabalin and Oksana Domnina, who performed a dance they called a “tribute” to Australian Aboriginal culture. It was a tribute only if you consider Amos & Andy to be a tribute, as well.

Stephen Page, the artistic director of the Bangarra Dance Company, told the AFP news service that their accompanying music was more African or Indian than Aboriginal Australian and their body paint seemed as though “a three-year-old child had drawn it on.” “It looks more like they were trying to emulate the token savage cave man,” he said.

At least Shabalin and Domnina didn’t use their “brown-face” makeup, which they had used in previous routines.

Lest anyone think I’m picking on just the Canadians and the Russians, we also had U.S. skater Johnny Weir say, after coming in sixth, that he lost “not because I wasn’t good enough, just that politically, no one was thinking of me [as a medalist].”

Then there was South Korean gold medalist Lee Jung-Su, who slammed the U.S. speed skater Apollo Ohno as “too aggressive” in a post-race news conference. Even though Lee won the gold and Ohno the silver, Lee said, “Ohno didn’t deserve to stand on the same medal platform as me. I was so enraged that it was hard for me to contain myself during the victory ceremony.” In South Korea, you can buy toilet paper with Ohno’s face on it.

The Progressive for more

A new initiative where government officials in Uzbekistan must promise not to engage in corrupt practices seems doomed to fail. Both the recipients and givers of bribes say the practices is widespread and impossible to root out.

In early February, local government staff in 22 districts of Tashkent province were required to submit written statements that they would not accept bribes.

“The [provincial] governor was obliged to take this step soon after two of his staff members were arrested in the act of taking bribes,” said a local government employee. “They are in custody and an investigation is under way.”

Uzbekistan has legislation designed to counter corruption and its police have special anti-corruption units, but to little effect.

The international watchdog Transparency International places Uzbekistan 174th on a list of 180 countries listed on its Corruption Perceptions Index for 2009.

The “honesty pledge” campaign began last summer when the higher education minister, Azimjon Parpiev, forced all university lecturers to make written statements that they would not take illicit payments from their students. Next up were the police and other law-enforcement agencies, who are now required to produce such statements every three months.

Institute for War & Peace Reporting for more

XINHUA

BEIJING: China’s Ministry of Public Security has vowed to step up crackdown on online gambling.

Initial statistics show more than 2,000 foreign and domestic gambling websites target Chinese gamblers, said Gu Jian, vice director of the ministry’s cyber security bureau.

Gu said online gambling exists in all Chinese provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions to “varying degrees.”

Online gambling is common in the Pearl and Yangtze river deltas — China’s export-oriented industrial heartland — and the border areas of Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region and Yunnan province, he added.

Gu said police investigation showed most domestic online gambling operations are controlled by institutions abroad.

Nearly all major international gambling groups have Chinese-language websites to target Chinese gamblers, and some even send operatives into China to recruit agents.

Conservative estimates show tens of billions of yuan flow out of China via online gambling annually.

Online gambling is also often linked to other mafia-style criminal activity, including violent crimes, kidnapping, blackmail, economic crimes and corruption, Gu said.

Chinese police cracked 210 online gambling cases and arrested 918 suspects in the 13 days ending February 20, after eight Party departments, government ministries and financial regulatory bodies launched a seven-month nationwide campaign to curb online gambling on February 8.

China Daily

via 3 Quarks Daily

by BEENA SARWAR

Howard Zinn and Beena Sarwar. PHOTO/B. J. Bullert

“To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of a cruelty but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness” Howard Zinn

Howard Zinn’s death on Jan 27 came as a shock to his friends and admirers around the world. The iconic historian, activist, and academic (Professor Emeritus, Boston University) was 87, frail, but in reasonable health. He had a heart attack while swimming, an activity he loved. As Arundhati Roy put it when she called his old friend David Barsamian of Alternative Radio: “Howard lived a glorious life and accomplished so much and to die swimming — what a way to go”.

David writes that Howard had rented a place with a swimming pool near the ocean for three weeks and “was thrilled to be escaping the dreaded Boston winter.”

A fluent Urdu/Hindi speaker, David sent this note to friends: “A light has gone out. There are new lights to be lit,” adding the following verse from Iqbal’s poetry:

Sitaron se aage jahan aur bhi hain
abhi ishq ke imtehan aur bhi
(Beyond these stars there are other galaxies
The real test of love is yet to come)

In November when he visited Howard David noticed a mug in his kitchen with these words: ‘Sooner or later the American people are going to wake up’ – Emma Goldman, Detroit 26 Nov 1919. “

It was going to be my lead question to him in the interview we were going to do,” wrote David. “I was to have left here on Thurs to join him.” (Howard died on Wednesday)

David sent a link to his radio tribute to Howard adding, “Please listen and of course feel free to distribute. It’s about 30 minutes.” His note ended rousingly: “Onward/Adelante/Howard Zinn Presente!”

Journeys to Democracy for more

(Submitted by reader)

by JONAH LEHRER

The Victorians had many names for depression, and Charles Darwin used them all. There were his “fits” brought on by “excitements,” “flurries” leading to an “uncomfortable palpitation of the heart” and “air fatigues” that triggered his “head symptoms.” In one particularly pitiful letter, written to a specialist in “psychological medicine,” he confessed to “extreme spasmodic daily and nightly flatulence” and “hysterical crying” whenever Emma, his devoted wife, left him alone.

While there has been endless speculation about Darwin’s mysterious ailment — his symptoms have been attributed to everything from lactose intolerance to Chagas disease — Darwin himself was most troubled by his recurring mental problems. His depression left him “not able to do anything one day out of three,” choking on his “bitter mortification.” He despaired of the weakness of mind that ran in his family. “The ‘race is for the strong,’ ” Darwin wrote. “I shall probably do little more but be content to admire the strides others made in Science.”

Darwin, of course, was wrong; his recurring fits didn’t prevent him from succeeding in science. Instead, the pain may actually have accelerated the pace of his research, allowing him to withdraw from the world and concentrate entirely on his work. His letters are filled with references to the salvation of study, which allowed him to temporarily escape his gloomy moods. “Work is the only thing which makes life endurable to me,” Darwin wrote and later remarked that it was his “sole enjoyment in life.”

New York Times for more

by MYTHRI JEGATHESAN

Up-country Tamil plantation workers remain a subjugated community, treated as little more than bonded labour. The current political foment includes opportunities for change.

In September 2009, three estate trade unions and the Employers’ Federation of Ceylon (EFC) signed a collective wage agreement with representative of tea- and rubber-plantation workers that raised their daily wage from 290 to 405 rupees (roughly USD 3.5). Despite this increase, however, the new wage is still unable to meet cost-of-living demands, thus continuing the chronic poverty and socioeconomic stagnation that the Up-country Tamil estate workers have long experienced. The reason for all of this is, of course, political marginalisation.

Post-Independence nationalist movements and the subsequent conflict between the government and LTTE have continually overshadowed the historical subjugation and disenfranchisement of the Up-country Tamils (those descended from South Indian migrant labourers). Consequently, this group has been unable to effect any sustained political change in support of its power-sharing rights, and its members are often marginalised within the debates of nationalist ideologies. In fact, Up-country Tamil political parties are often perceived as minority ‘wild cards’, because they work within a system of political patronage that forces them to shift allegiances between the majoritarian Sri Lankan state and various nationalist parties. With tenuous political traction, Up-country Tamil leaders must reflect on the historical reasons for their marginality and strategise beyond the presently missed opportunities, in order to secure a firm place for their constituencies in post-war Sri Lanka.

The Upcountry Tamils are descendents of labourers who came to Ceylon under British rule and worked during the industrial boom as ‘coolies’ during the early 1800s. Beginning as labourers on the roads and railroads and, later, on the coffee plantations, this minority group became a permanent work force with the cultivation of tea. In 1948, the first government of independent Ceylon disenfranchised so-called Indian-Origin Tamils, leaving a majority of Up-country Tamils stateless and without citizenship rights. In 1964, President Srimavo Bandaranaike and India’s then-Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri completed the arbitrary exercise of dividing 975,000 stateless Indian-Origin Tamils into three entities: 525,000 Indian-resident repatriates; 300,000 to be entitled to Ceylonese citizenship by application; and a remaining 150,000 residents, whose statelessness would be addressed at a later date.

Himal for more