Sunday, October 29, 2006

FW: What Israel can learn from Muhammad Yunus

What Israel can learn from Muhammad Yunus
IDA NUDEL, THE JERUSALEM POST Oct. 23, 2006
--------------------------------------------

I arrived in Israel almost 19 years ago to the day. I had left a Soviet Union where Zionist life was actually thriving. I came to the land of my dreams not as a refugee seeking just any place under the sun.

I knew why I had embarked on my journey of more than 17 years, often at great personal risk. I knew why I came to Israel as did so many other Russian Jews who shared my feelings and aspirations.

We had been led to believe, through the media, by the Jewish Agency and via the Voice of Israel that every Jewish citizen of Israel lives in his homeland in dignity. Sadly, very soon after I arrived, I discovered that most of the claimed advantages of the Jewish state belonged to its glorious past.

Even the word "Zionism" acquired a negative connotation in some Israeli circles.

The mass media and the country's intellectual elite inspire acrimony between different Jewish immigrant groups. They've obstructed the revival of a homogeneous Jewish people after 2,000 years of dispersion.

The media actively and cynically cultivate disdain of the weak and poor. Schools unbelievably select children according to their families' material means.

The-powers-that-be hinder the economic integration of young people, thus encouraging them to leave the country. After 2001, reference to national identity was removed from our Israeli IDs; the word "Jewish" has virtually disappeared not only from our official documents but also from the Hebrew press.

Even the anti-Semitic Soviet Union wouldn't dare strike such a blow to the national dignity of the Jews.

IN THE last decades of the 20th century the interests of the Jewish national revival and those of Israel's powers-that-be came into real conflict, thus endangering the idea of the Jewish national home. We have witnessed how a persecuted and humiliated people's dream of a resurrected Israel has been reduced by these forces to one of nurturing as many millionaires as possible.

The same people sit in the Knesset - for decades. Intellectuals appear concerned only with their personal success, while the media has turned into a mass brainwashing machine targeting poor, semi-literate and politically na ve citizens. New millionaires are appearing at a striking rate, while the reverse process of mass impoverishment is also accelerating. The middle class is gradually being squeezed out of the country's economic life.

At the same time, a new trend is gaining momentum among well-to-do population groups: acquiring alternative citizenship for themselves and their children. These "lucky" characters can now cynically look down at their former country assured of their own future.

LAST WEEK, Muhammad Yunus, a millionaire banker, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for pioneering a micro-credit scheme and his continuing efforts to eradicate poverty in his native Bangladesh.

He did this at his own initiative and in spite of the powers-that-be in his country. He was determined to defeat poverty and illiteracy in Bangladesh. His hard work and devotion have won him well-deserved international acclaim.

This great citizen of a very poor country has already saved 6 million of his compatriots from impoverishment and has given them a chance for a dignified life.

It sounds like a fairy tale - this story of a kind and resourceful wizard who makes poor people happy. But it demonstrates that even a lone millionaire - providing he is a genuine patriot - can begin to solve a problem of national proportions.

Instead of making money on the misfortune of poor people, as is often the case in our country, Muhammad Yunus disdainfully put bureaucracy aside and addressed the problem himself.

The myth that unemployment is impossible to eliminate has thus been finished off by this one-man initiative.

Now, in all likelihood, we cannot change the indifference and cynicism toward the people by our own powers-that-be, but perhaps we can aspire to do what needs to be done without them.

I wonder.

Can something like what Muhammad Yunus did happen in our country, among our people who have long dedicated themselves to being a light onto the nations?

Can it be done in a country in which one bank is profiteering - and perfectly legally, too - to the tune of almost 400 percent? Can it be done in a country in which new immigrants get saddled with huge montages? In which basic housing is sometimes unaffordable? Can it be done in a country that virtually sanctions childhood illiteracy, thus destroying an entire generation's chances for obtaining professional advancement?

After almost 60 years of national independence, the family and social fabric in this land seems governed by outdated laws and red tape.

Against the achievements of Muhammad Yunus in Bangladesh, and given the economic and moral travails in Israel, our powers-that-be have a lot to answer for.

The writer, a former Soviet Prisoner of Zion, is a Jabotinsky Prize winner.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=
1159193504509&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter

Friday, October 27, 2006

Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) : a new party in Bangladesh



----------------------------------------------
Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)president Badruddoza Chowdhury declared:
“From today, a new journey has begun against corruption, injustice, terrorism and failure. The prime minister's family members have amassed hundreds of crores of taka while corruption and essential prices remained unchecked. Her family has disgraced democracy. We have united today, but the alliance government has been clinically dead long since.”
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executive president of Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)Oli Ahmed in his speech said:
Fourteen members of the prime minister's family have looted the wealth of the country. We have to recover the country's lost wealth.
-----------------------------------------------

Financial Express
LDP leaders say in their letters to Khaleda
Corruption of ministers, MPs, led by Tarique, has broken all records

10/28/2006

Before the formal declaration came, the ministers and MPs, who formed the new party Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), wrote letters to BNP chief Khaleda Zia and resigned from the party. The constitution stipulates that the MPs lose their membership after resigning from the party they are elected from, reports BDNews.
In the resignation letters, the leaders said: "The corruption of some ministers, MPs and leaders, led by your son Tarique Rahman, has broken all previous records. This has tarnished image of the party. It is not possible for any person having personal dignity to continue with the party. The BNP established by President Ziaur Rahman is now controlled by Razakars, autocrats and corrupts. Against the principle of democracy, Tarique, without having any protocol, has been abusing the state power."
Oli, one of the founders of the party, said he floated the new platform in protest against the Khaleda-Tarique Rahman-led "unbridled corruption".
He blamed Tarique, some legislators and BNP leaders for damaging the party image by indulging in pervasive corruption.
"Tarique Rahman compelled the BNP lawmakers and leaders to work according to his [Tarique] whims although he has no government protocol," Oli said.
He also blamed the government for its failure to control the price hike of essentials.
Secretary-general of the LDP Abdul Mannan, a retired Major, read out the declaration that said the new party was floated "to protect the country from uncertainty and protest unbridled corruption, failure in running the country, state-sponsored terrorism, misrule, and price hike of essentials".
Some of the former MPs joining the LDP are: Salauddin Kamran, Arif Moinuddin, Nazim Uddin Al Azad, Syed Didar Bakht and Nurul Alam. Ainuddin, M A Salam, Mainul Islam and Didarul Alam are among retired officers of the armed forces. Political leader Noim Jahangir and Sanaul Haq Niru and former secretary Nazmul Alam Siddiqui also joined the party.
Badruddoza Chowdhury's Bikalpa Dhara Bangladesh has now merged with the LDP.
He and Oli jointly announced the launch of the party at around 10:45am amid raucous applause from hundreds of supporters carrying the party's symbol 'winnow'.

http://www.financialexpress-bd.com/index3.asp?
cnd=10/28/2006§ion_id=2&newsid=41743&spcl=no

Thursday, October 26, 2006

FW: Europe's Muslims





washingtonpost.com
Editorial

Europe's Muslims
A year after the French riots, their alienation is growing.

Wednesday, October 25, 2006; A16



AYEAR AGO this week, riots erupted in mostly Muslim suburbs of Paris and other French cities, underlining the alienation of a subculture that makes up 8 percent of the country's population but has suffered from chronic unemployment and discrimination. One year later, that alienation -- and the threat of violence that comes with it -- appears to have worsened, not only in France but across Western Europe. French police are facing what some call a "permanent intifada" in Muslim neighborhoods, with nearly 2,500 incidents of violence against officers recorded in the first six months of the year. Some of these now take the form of planned ambushes: On Sunday a gang of youths emptied a bus of its passengers, set it on fire, and then stoned the firefighters who responded.

In Britain, the London bombings of 2005, which were executed in part by native-born Muslims, have been succeeded by this summer's arrest of another group of native extremists who allegedly plotted to blow up airliners. Two Lebanese residents of Germany were accused of trying to bomb passenger trains. The threat of violence by Muslims angered by perceived insults, whether from the German-born pope or the director of a Mozart opera, has become more frequent.

Europeans are slowly growing more aware that a major part of the global struggle against Islamic extremism must take place in their own countries -- and not just in faraway Afghanistan or Iraq. But their governments, media and political elites still appear to be a long way from coming to grips with the challenge. Rather than seeking to address the larger alienation of mainstream Muslims, European leaders often appear to do the opposite -- by challenging the culture of Muslims and defending gratuitous insults of Islam.

One recent but hardly isolated example came from Britain's House of Commons leader, Jack Straw, who criticized Muslim women for wearing veils and said he asked those who visited his office to remove them, on the grounds that they impede "communication." It's hard to believe that veils are the biggest obstacle to communication between British politicians and the country's Muslims; and it's even harder to imagine Mr. Straw raising similar objections about Sikh turbans or Orthodox Jewish dress. True, the Labor Party MP was reflecting -- or maybe pandering to -- the concern of many in Britain about the self-segregation of some Muslims. But veils -- which are also under government attack in France and Italy -- are not the cause of that segregation, much less of terrorism. Attacks on Muslim custom by public officials are more likely to reinforce than to ease the community's alienation.

Mr. Straw and other European politicians could contribute far more to combating radical Islam if they focused on those who actually foment intolerance among European Muslims -- as well as those in the mainstream community who promote prejudice against Arabs and South Asians and their descendants. Muslims in Europe should be invited to embrace the countries where they live on their own terms. They should be expected to respect laws and freedoms. But politicians would do better to work on dismantling the barriers Muslims face in getting educations and jobs rather than those that distinguish Islam from the secular majority.

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn
/content/article/2006/10/24/AR2006102401148_pf.html

FW: Single-Sex Schooling

washingtonpost.com
Editorial
Single-Sex Schooling
Public education needs to look at all choices.

Friday, October 27, 2006; A22



STUDIES OF single-sex education are all over the map, with no one really knowing how effective it is. Still, the decision giving public schools greater freedom to offer all-boys and all-girls instruction is right because of one known certainty: Traditional schools just are not working for a large number of children.

Single-sex education largely disappeared from public schools as a result of the landmark 1972 Title IX law that banned sex discrimination in federally funded education programs. Single-sex instruction was largely limited to gym and sex education classes. Schools for one sex were allowed if a similar school existed for the other sex. The Education Department, in rules announced this week, opened up the field by saying schools can offer single-sex education as long as enrollment is voluntary and if "substantially equal" coeducation is offered to the excluded sex.

Civil rights groups and women's advocates are right to be concerned about possible abuses that could arise from differing assessments of what is "substantially equal," a phrase that, in truth, does give one pause. The past is rife with instances of separate not being equal. But with appropriate safeguards and oversight, communities should have the option to meet the growing demand for single-sex schools. Parents should be able to obtain the appropriate schooling for their children without always having to pay the high tab for private school.

No doubt same-sex schooling is not for everyone and should be offered only under well-thought-out conditions. There is, for example, serious dispute over who would benefit most. Some believe that girls are disadvantaged in traditional classrooms and perform better by themselves. Others contend that low-income children would be helped, while another school of thought argues that high school boys would do better if separated from girls. Such uncertainty points up the need for better research.

Local school districts that want to experiment with single-sex instruction should be encouraged to adopt a meticulous research protocol to demonstrate what works or doesn't work. Then a serious discussion can begin.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/
2006/10/26/AR2006102601507.html?nav=rss_opinion

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

A Hand Up, Not a Handout (By Muhammad Yunus)

(from THE WALL STREET JOURNAL Editorial Page)

NOBEL MEN

A Hand Up, Not a Handout
Why not microloans for Katrina victims?

BY MUHAMMAD YUNUS
Saturday, October 14, 2006 1:00 p.m. EDT

America's government and people brought charity to a new level last year in their response to Hurricane Katrina. The rebuilding has been particularly difficult, however, because it has involved lives as well as bricks and mortar. Many victims had been desperately poor all their lives. Helping them to self-sufficiency has proved just as difficult, if not harder, than putting homes and businesses back up again.

Having many very poor citizens, and more than its share of natural disasters, Bangladesh--my own country--has a great deal of experience facing both these challenges. We have a per capita gross national income of $440, with half the population living below the poverty line. We've little to start with, and much of that is repeatedly snatched away. In 1998, floods covered much of the country for over two months, affecting 30 million people; and a single cyclone killed 300,000 in 1970. Despite these catastrophes, more of our people are climbing out of poverty.

So at the risk of sounding presumptuous: What can the U.S. learn from Bangladesh about post-disaster economic recovery? Like many other countries, even Bangladeshis were quick with a handout after Katrina, giving the U.S. $1 million for the victims. But Americans might be surprised to learn that one of our most successful tools for rebuilding businesses is not government handouts, but rather, small loans packaged with practical business and social advice.

Microfinance is one of the biggest success stories of the developing world, and proponents like me believe it could be just as successful in helping the poor in wealthy countries such as the U.S. The basic philosophy behind microfinance is that the poor, although spurned by traditional banks because they can't provide collateral, are actually a great investment: No one works harder than someone who is striving to achieve life's basic necessities, particularly a woman with children to support. Sadly, it is also true that in catastrophic circumstances, very little of the cash so generously given ever gets all the way down to the very poor. There are too many "professionals" ahead of them in line, highly skilled at diverting funds into their own pockets. This is particularly regrettable because very poor people need only a little money to set up a business that can make a dramatic difference in the quality of their lives.

I started the Grameen Bank 30 years ago by distributing about $27 (no typo here!) worth of loans among 40 extremely poor Bangladeshis. Since the bank officially opened in 1983, it has loaned $5.7 billion in microfinance. Today, Grameen has 6.6 million borrowers in Bangladesh alone, borrowing $500 million a year in loans that average just over $100 each. The loans are entirely financed by borrowers' deposits and the bank recovers 98.85% of all money loaned. Notably, Grameen Bank has been profitable in all but three years since its launch. Our largely poor customers save $1.008 for every dollar they borrow, so the poor are truly funding the poor.

The bank supports businesses such as small services, stores, direct sales, furniture-making, cell phone stations and milling, all of which support the local economy. And it works. More than half of our borrowers have moved out of poverty, mainly through their own efforts. Most importantly, when you lend money to disadvantaged people, it gives them a sense of pride, rather than the humiliation they may feel over a handout. And just as helpful as the money is the guidance they get from the bank. Training and connecting poor, inexperienced workers to a reliable and ethical lending and savings service is a huge advantage for them that only gets stronger after a disaster. This is particularly true of women, who are often constrained by social and financial barriers. Grameen communities have also made tremendous strides on health and social issues, such as sanitation, and pushed aside discriminatory practices such as bridal dowries.





The impact of microfinance is spreading world-wide. As of December 2004, 3,100 microcredit institutions reported reaching 92,270,289 clients, 66,614,871 of whom were among the world's poorest when they took their first loan. Assuming five persons per family, the loans to the 54.8 million poorest clients affected some 330 million family members by the end of 2004.
Microfinance has worked so well that it has become a major instrument of reconstruction in post-tsunami Asia as well. A Sri Lankan conglomerate, Ceylinco, partnered with Grameen to provide small loans to 10,000 tsunami victims. These range from $300 to $10,000 and carry an interest rate of 6%, less than half the rate for similar small loans in Sri Lanka. The loans have a one-year grace-period, and Ceylinco takes no collateral, thereby heaping all the risk onto itself. But the company felt this was still a wise investment.

Because some countries that rely heavily on microfinance also happen to be disaster-prone, Grameen now has special disaster loan funds (DLFs) to help meet the urgent need for cash after a catastrophe. These funds also aim to offset the microlender's own losses. The funds were established in Bangladesh after the record flooding of 1998, which affected 20% of the population. Similar funds were set up in Central America in the wake of Hurricane Mitch, and in Poland after the floods of 1997. The DLFs are financial reserves and usually derived from the initial donor grant to the micro-credit lender.

Many people ask, Why not just give free cash, especially under such dire circumstances? In Bangladesh, we've learned that when aid is free, not only do the poor get the least of it, but everyone inflates their needs. While some handouts are clearly necessary in such times, we focus on lending small amounts of money. This lets us keep costs down and rebuild funds for the next disaster. Most importantly, our Grameen banks are ready to act at a moment's notice. They can respond to a disaster without waiting for anyone's permission, immediately becoming like humanitarian agencies by suspending loan payments, and providing cash, food and medicines. Once rebuilding starts, the bankers keep detailed records of the money lent, and people are allowed to repay bit by bit.

That is the strategy we followed after the 1998 flooding, which covered 50% of Bangladesh's land and affected customers at about 70% of our branches. More than 700 Grameen borrowers or their family members were killed and just over half (a million borrowers) were affected by the flooding. That represents a small percentage of the overall population affected, but the Bank and its staff where there right away to help with immediate needs. Later, microlenders helped people restructure their loans or gave out new loans on more favorable terms.

Microlending has already helped millions reach a better life through their own initiative. It has also given them valuable skills as well as crucial financial back-up in case they ever face a natural disaster like Katrina. So it might be time to think about another type of support for Katrina's victims: the microloan. As our small, flood-battered country has learned, giving someone a hand up doesn't always require a handout. The most important thing is to help people get back to work while letting them hold on to their self-respect. Microloans can do just that.

Mr. Yunus, who yesterday won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, is founder and managing director of the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh.

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Muhammad Yunus wins Nobel Peace Prize



From Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Yunus


CNN Money
Bangladeshi banker wins Nobel Peace Prize
Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank awarded prestigious prize for lending efforts to very poorest citizens of Bangladesh.

October 13 2006: 7:04 AM EDT
OSLO (Reuters) -- Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank he founded won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for grassroots efforts to lift millions out of poverty that earned him the nickname of "banker to the poor."

Yunus, 66, set up a new kind of bank in the 1976 to give credit to the very poorest in his native Bangladesh, particularly women, enabling them to start up small businesses without collateral.

In doing so, he invented microcredit, a system that has been copied in more than 100 nations from the United States to Uganda.

"In Bangladesh, where nothing works and there's no electricity," Yunus once said, "microcredit works like clockwork."

The Nobel committee awarded the prize to Yunus and Grameen Bank "for their efforts to create economic and social development from below," it said in its citation.

"Lasting peace cannot be achieved unless large population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty. Microcredit is one such means. Development from below also serves to advance democracy and human rights," it said.

Yunus and Grameen were surprise winners of the 10 million Swedish crown ($1.36 million) award from a field of 191 candidates. The prize will be handed out in Oslo on Dec. 10.

"This is fantastic, unbelievable. Thank you," Yunus, whose autobiography is called "Banker to the Poor," told Norway's NRK television after the announcement.

Returning from a Fulbright scholarship in the United States, Yunus was shocked by the 1974 Bangladesh famine and headed out into the villages to see what he could do.

He discovered the women were in severe debt to extortionate moneylenders, and Yunus's initial aim was simply to persuade a local bank manager to step in and offer the villagers regular credit. The banker said it was impossible without a guarantee.

Yunus set out to prove him wrong and has never looked back. Grameen - the word means village in Bengali - has now disbursed $5.72 billion since its inception. Of this $5.07 billion has been repaid -- a loan recovery rate of 98.85 per cent.

"Across cultures and civilizations, Yunus and Grameen Bank have shown that even the poorest of the poor can work to bring about their own development," the secretive five-member Nobel committee said in announcing the award.

Friday, October 13, 2006

FW: REFLECTIONS ON HISTORY AND RELIGION: Muhammad's Sword

(http://baltimorechronicle.com/2006/092506AVNERY.html)

REFLECTIONS ON HISTORY AND RELIGION:
Muhammad's Sword
by URI AVNERY

Every honest Jew who knows the history of his people cannot but feel a deep sense of gratitude to Islam, which has protected the Jews for fifty generations, while the Christian world persecuted the Jews and tried many times "by the sword" to get them to abandon their faith.SEPT. 23, 2006--Since the days when Roman Emperors threw Christians to the lions, the relations between the emperors and the heads of the church have undergone many changes.

Constantine the Great, who became Emperor in the year 306—exactly 1700 years ago—encouraged the practice of Christianity in the empire, which included Palestine. Centuries later, the church split into an Eastern (Orthodox) and a Western (Catholic) part. In the West, the Bishop of Rome, who acquired the title of Pope, demanded that the Emperor accept his superiority.

The struggle between the Emperors and the Popes played a central role in European history and divided the peoples. It knew ups and downs. Some Emperors dismissed or expelled a Pope, some Popes dismissed or excommunicated an Emperor. One of the Emperors, Henry IV, "walked to Canossa," standing for three days barefoot in the snow in front of the Pope's castle, until the Pope deigned to annul his excommunication.

But there were times when Emperors and Popes lived in peace with each other. We are witnessing such a period today. Between the present Pope, Benedict XVI, and the present Emperor, George Bush II, there exists a wonderful harmony. Last week's speech by the Pope, which aroused a world-wide storm, went well with Bush's crusade against "Islamofascism," in the context of the "Clash of Civilizations."

IN HIS lecture at a German university, the 265th Pope described what he sees as a huge difference between Christianity and Islam: while Christianity is based on reason, Islam denies it. While Christians see the logic of God's actions, Muslims deny that there is any such logic in the actions of Allah.

As a Jewish atheist, I do not intend to enter the fray of this debate. It is much beyond my humble abilities to understand the logic of the Pope. But I cannot overlook one passage, which concerns me too, as an Israeli living near the fault-line of this "war of civilizations."


* * *

In order to prove the lack of reason in Islam, the Pope asserts that the prophet Muhammad ordered his followers to spread their religion by the sword. According to the Pope, that is unreasonable, because faith is born of the soul, not of the body. How can the sword influence the soul?

To support his case, the Pope quoted—of all people—a Byzantine Emperor, who belonged, of course, to the competing Eastern Church. At the end of the 14th century, the Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus told of a debate he had—or so he said (its occurrence is in doubt)—with an unnamed Persian Muslim scholar. In the heat of the argument, the Emperor (according to himself) flung the following words at his adversary:

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." These words give rise to three questions:
Why did the Emperor say them?


Are they true?


Why did the present Pope quote them?
* * *

WHEN MANUEL II wrote his treatise, he was the head of a dying empire. He assumed power in 1391, when only a few provinces of the once illustrious empire remained. These, too, were already under Turkish threat.

At that point in time, the Ottoman Turks had reached the banks of the Danube. They had conquered Bulgaria and the north of Greece, and had twice defeated relieving armies sent by Europe to save the Eastern Empire. In 1453, only a few years after Manuel's death, his capital, Constantinople (the present Istanbul) fell to the Turks, putting an end to the Empire that had lasted for more than a thousand years.

During his reign, Manuel made the rounds of the capitals of Europe in an attempt to drum up support. He promised to reunite the church. There is no doubt that he wrote his religious treatise in order to incite the Christian countries against the Turks and convince them to start a new crusade. The aim was practical, theology was serving politics.

In this sense, the quote serves exactly the requirements of the present Emperor, George Bush II. He, too, wants to unite the Christian world against the mainly Muslim "Axis of Evil." Moreover, the Turks are again knocking on the doors of Europe, this time peacefully. It is well known that the Pope supports the forces that object to the entry of Turkey into the European Union.


* * *

IS THERE any truth in Manuel's argument?

Verse 257 of the Qu'ran says unequivocally: "There must be no coercion in matters of faith."The pope himself threw in a word of caution. As a serious and renowned theologian, he could not afford to falsify written texts. Therefore, he admitted that the Qur'an specifically forbade the spreading of the faith by force. He quoted the second Sura, verse 256 (strangely fallible, for a pope, he meant verse 257) which says: "There must be no coercion in matters of faith."

How can one ignore such an unequivocal statement? The Pope simply argues that this commandment was laid down by the prophet when he was at the beginning of his career, still weak and powerless, but that later on he ordered the use of the sword in the service of the faith. Such an order does not exist in the Qur'an. True, Muhammad called for the use of the sword in his war against opposing tribes—Christian, Jewish and others—in Arabia, when he was building his state. But that was a political act, not a religious one; basically a fight for territory, not for the spreading of the faith.

The treatment of other religions by Islam must be judged by a simple test: How did the Muslim rulers behave for more than a thousand years, when they had the power to "spread the faith by the sword"?Jesus said: "You will recognize them by their fruits." The treatment of other religions by Islam must be judged by a simple test: How did the Muslim rulers behave for more than a thousand years, when they had the power to "spread the faith by the sword"?

Well, they just did not.

For many centuries, the Muslims ruled Greece. Did the Greeks become Muslims? Did anyone even try to Islamize them? On the contrary, Christian Greeks held the highest positions in the Ottoman administration. The Bulgarians, Serbs, Romanians, Hungarians and other European nations lived at one time or another under Ottoman rule and clung to their Christian faith. Nobody compelled them to become Muslims and all of them remained devoutly Christian.

True, the Albanians did convert to Islam, and so did the Bosniaks. But nobody argues that they did this under duress. They adopted Islam in order to become favorites of the government and enjoy the fruits.

In 1099, the Crusaders conquered Jerusalem and massacred its Muslim and Jewish inhabitants indiscriminately, in the name of the gentle Jesus.In 1099, the Crusaders conquered Jerusalem and massacred its Muslim and Jewish inhabitants indiscriminately, in the name of the gentle Jesus. At that time, 400 years into the occupation of Palestine by the Muslims, Christians were still the majority in the country. Throughout this long period, no effort was made to impose Islam on them. Only after the expulsion of the Crusaders from the country, did the majority of the inhabitants start to adopt the Arabic language and the Muslim faith—and they were the forefathers of most of today's Palestinians.


* * *

THERE IS no evidence whatsoever of any attempt to impose Islam on the Jews. As is well known, under Muslim rule the Jews of Spain enjoyed a bloom the like of which the Jews did not enjoy anywhere else until almost our time. Poets like Yehuda Halevy wrote in Arabic, as did the great Maimonides. In Muslim Spain, Jews were ministers, poets, scientists. In Muslim Toledo, Christian, Jewish and Muslim scholars worked together and translated the ancient Greek philosophical and scientific texts. That was, indeed, the Golden Age. How would this have been possible, had the Prophet decreed the "spreading of the faith by the sword"?

When the Catholics instituted a reign of religious terror in Spain, the Jews and the Muslims were presented with a cruel choice: to become Christians, to be massacred or to leave. Almost all who escaped were received with open arms in the Muslim countries.What happened afterwards is even more telling. When the Catholics re-conquered Spain from the Muslims, they instituted a reign of religious terror. The Jews and the Muslims were presented with a cruel choice: to become Christians, to be massacred or to leave. And where did the hundreds of thousand of Jews, who refused to abandon their faith, escape? Almost all of them were received with open arms in the Muslim countries. The Sephardi ("Spanish") Jews settled all over the Muslim world, from Morocco in the west to Iraq in the east, from Bulgaria (then part of the Ottoman Empire) in the north to Sudan in the south. Nowhere were they persecuted. They knew nothing like the tortures of the Inquisition, the flames of the auto-da-fe, the pogroms, the terrible mass-expulsions that took place in almost all Christian countries, up to the Holocaust.

WHY? Because Islam expressly prohibited any persecution of the "peoples of the book." In Islamic society, a special place was reserved for Jews and Christians. They did not enjoy completely equal rights, but almost. They had to pay a special poll-tax, but were exempted from military service—a trade-off that was quite welcome to many Jews. It has been said that Muslim rulers frowned upon any attempt to convert Jews to Islam even by gentle persuasion—because it entailed the loss of taxes.

Every honest Jew who knows the history of his people cannot but feel a deep sense of gratitude to Islam, which has protected the Jews for fifty generations, while the Christian world persecuted the Jews and tried many times "by the sword" to get them to abandon their faith.


* * *

THE STORY about "spreading the faith by the sword" is an evil legend, one of the myths that grew up in Europe during the great wars against the Muslims—the reconquista of Spain by the Christians, the Crusades and the repulsion of the Turks, who almost conquered Vienna. I suspect that the German Pope, too, honestly believes in these fables. That means that the leader of the Catholic world, who is a Christian theologian in his own right, did not make the effort to study the history of other religions.

Why did he utter these words in public? And why now?

Not for the first time in history, a religious robe is spread to cover the nakedness of economic interests; not for the first time, a robbers' expedition becomes a Crusade.There is no escape from viewing them against the background of the new Crusade of Bush and his evangelist supporters, with his slogans of "Islamofascism" and the "Global War on Terrorism"—when "terrorism" has become a synonym for Muslims. For Bush's handlers, this is a cynical attempt to justify the domination of the world's oil resources. Not for the first time in history, a religious robe is spread to cover the nakedness of economic interests; not for the first time, a robbers' expedition becomes a Crusade.

The speech of the Pope blends into this effort. Who can foretell the dire consequences?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Uri Avnery is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He is one of the writers featured in The Other Israel: Voices of Dissent and Refusal. He is also a contributor to CounterPunch's hot new book The Politics of Anti-Semitism. He can be reached at: avnery@counterpunch.org. This story is published in the Baltimore Chronicle with permission of the author.

Rebiya Kadeer, Chinese Muslim activist, among candidates for Nobel


============ =========
---In the news---
============ =========
International Herald Tribune
Chinese Muslim activist, among candidates for Nobel, says prize would honor her people
The Associated Press
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2006

WASHINGTON A Chinese Muslim businesswoman who spent almost six years in prison without ever being told why says if she were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize it might help her people against "cultural genocide" that China is waging on her people.

Rebiya Kadeer is among an undisclosed number of nominees for the prize to be announced Friday in Oslo, Norway. While the five-member awards committee never gives clues to its thinking, even to confirming names of nominees, there has been speculation in Oslo that the award might go this year to Kadeer or another human rights figure.

"If I were given this Nobel Peace Prize it means so much to my people because my people are facing cultural genocide in this world," Kadeer said Thursday. It would be "recognition of the plight of my people," she said in an interview with Associated Press Television.

Kadeer is a member of the Uighur minority, Muslims from the Xinjiang autonomous region of northwestern China. They are ethnically related to Central Asians, not Chinese.

Kadeer was arrested in 1999 as she approached a hotel where staff members of the U.S. Congressional Research Service waited to meet with her. She was held in solitary confinement for three years and was released only last year after the United States and others agitated for her.

She said the only reason she was given for her arrest was that she had sent Chinese-language newspapers to her husband in the United States. She said, however, the reason probably had more to do with documents she had for the American officials.

"I have been campaigning for the human rights and freedom of the Uighur people peacefully and patiently. My hope is to conduct a dialogue directly with the Chinese government so that the Uighur problem will be resolved," she said in Thursday's television interview.

She said she believed that if her work were to be honored with the Nobel Peace Prize, it would "help the Uighur people to have freedom of speech and live like a human being."

(http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/10/13/
america/NA_GEN_Activist_Nobel_Candidate.php)

============ ========= ========
---Who is Rebiya---
============ ========= ========

Profile: Rebiya Kadeer
Rebiya Kadeer was a successful businesswoman and philanthropist in China's restive Xinjiang until her arrest in 1999 for allegedly endangering national security.
Her crime, the authorities said, was to send local newspaper reports about the activities of Xinjiang's ethnic Turkish-speaking Uighurs to her US-based husband, even though these were freely available.

It was a sharp reversal in fortunes for someone whose local achievements the Communist government had until then trumpeted.

Mrs Kadeer, twice-married and the mother of at least 11 children, grew up in poverty but at the time of her release was known locally as "the millionairess".

Human Rights Watch researcher Mickey Spiegel, who has met Mrs Kadeer's family several times, described her as "a very enterprising woman, who was able to bring herself up, in a sense, by her bootstraps".

After working as a laundress, Mrs Kadeer founded and directed a large trading company in Xinjiang, and used her wealth to provide fellow Uighurs with employment and training.


CHINA'S UIGHURS
Ethnically Turkic Muslims, mainly live in Xinjiang
Made bid for independent state in 1940s
Sporadic violence in Xinjiang since 1991
Uighurs worried about Chinese immigration and erosion of traditional culture


Partly as a result, she was appointed to China's national advisory group, the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), and sent as one of the country's delegates to the United Nations World Conference on Women in 1995.

But her treatment by the authorities changed, rights organisations say, when her Uighur husband and former political prisoner Sidik Rouzi fled China for the US in 1996.

He had previously been imprisoned for campaigning against China's treatment of the ethnic minority, which make up more than half the mainly Muslim population of Xinjiang.

Mrs Kadeer's passport was seized, she was harassed by police and, in 1998, barred from reappointment to the CPPCC.

Before her arrest, Mrs Kadeer was running the 1,000 Families Mothers' Project, which helped Uighur women start businesses.

Arrest

She was detained in August 1999, on her way to meet a visiting delegation from the United States Congressional Research Service to complain about political prisoners in Xinjiang.

She was convicted of endangering state security by the Urumqi Intermediate People's Court on 10 March, 2000.

Her eight-year sentence was set to expire on 12 August, 2007, but was cut by 12 months last year for good behaviour.

Her health had reported to have deteriorated in prison.

Her children who had visited her there have frequently commented on "how quiet, how morose she had become," Ms Spiegel said.

Mrs Kadeer was in hospital at the time of her release, though it is not clear what she was being treated for.

The US Congress had repeatedly voiced its concerns about Mrs Kadeer's imprisonment to the Chinese authorities.


Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/4357607.stm

Published: 2005/03/17 13:13:16 GMT

==================================
---In her own words---
==================================

National Review Online
September 14, 2005, 11:41 a.m.
Beijing & I
The Chinese government says I am a terrorist.

By Rebiya Kadeer

I am a terrorist. I would argue that I'm not, but because the Chinese government says I am a terrorist, it must be true. It will be interesting to see whether President Hu Jintao repeats this accusation against me — and by extension, tars all Uyghur people with the same brush — when he speaks at the United Nations on Thursday.

The Chinese government tries so hard to convince the world of its own infallibility that it must be terrifying when people dare to pull back the veil. And to that extent, if I terrify the Chinese government, then yes, I am a terrorist, and long may it last. I'm by no means the first — they've even called the Dalai Lama a terrorist — and I'm sure I won't be the last.

The Chinese authorities sent me to prison for eight years in 1999 because I'd sent newspaper articles to my husband in America about the plight of the Uyghur people. They accused me of "leaking state secrets to foreign organizations." I'd used my status as a successful businesswoman — once lauded by the same people who later imprisoned me — to work for the protection of Uyghurs' human rights. The Chinese government was so terrified I might say something that impugned their infallibility, they arrested me just as I was about to meet a U.S. congressional research committee in my hometown of Urumchi.

The U.S. government was instrumental in securing my early release from prison in March of this year — a fact that has forever indebted me and my family to the American officials and the people from all over the world who worked on my behalf. Most of all, my early release allowed the Uyghur people to hope that they haven't been overlooked or forgotten by those who believe in human rights and democracy for all.

When I was released, I was warned not to speak on behalf of the Uyghur people when I came to America, or my children and by business would be "finished." I think they were trying to scare me, and to give credit where credit is due, they did. True to their word, they consequently ransacked my office and dragged away two former colleagues who are still in detention. They accused me of owing millions in debts and taxes, and threatened to break every one of my son's ribs if he didn't sign a statement saying this was "true." Who wouldn't be scared by that?

I'm sure this has been said before, but there is a distinction between terror and horror. Terror is felt when we anticipate an horrific event; horror is felt when it actually happens. I am keenly aware of this difference: I have lived with a sense of terror for the fate of Uyghurs for the past few decades; and I have watched in horror as my worst fears have come true.

I have been terrified for young Uyghur mothers who become pregnant when the Chinese government say they shouldn't; and I have been horrified when their pregnancies have been forcibly terminated. I have been terrified for the Uyghurs' ancient culture; and watched horrified as the Chinese authorities have stooped to burning Uyghur books. I have been terrified for those Uyghurs who have stood up and objected; and been horrified when they have been executed as "terrorists." And yes, I have been horrified by the treatment of my friends and family.

And what of the Chinese government? I think the Chinese government is terrified of the day when their corruption, their brutality, their wanton destruction of the environment and neglect of the physical and spiritual health of the people will no longer be tolerated. The Chinese government has every reason to be terrified — it is a terrifying prospect for us all.

And so what can be done to avoid the horror? It will probably seem naĂŻve to suggest that the most important step the Chinese government could take is to start telling the truth, and not "the truth with Chinese characteristics," to coin a phrase. The constant denial of any wrongdoing serves no one: It is common knowledge from Beijing to Geneva to Washington, D.C., that the human rights of people living under Chinese administration are poor to say the least; for Beijing to say otherwise is to dig an ever-deeper moat around itself and to delay the time when human rights will genuinely be protected.

President Hu Jintao must set an urgent example to his administration, and speak the truth on Thursday. Such a top-down approach is far less terrifying than the prospect of more than a billion angry souls demanding the truth.

— Rebiya Kadeer is a businesswoman and human-rights advocate from the Muslim Uighur region in China.

(http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/kadeer200509141141.asp)

FW: Kiran Desai is youngest woman winner of Booker Prize

"Kiran Desai, daughter of prominent Indian origin writer Anita Desai, created literary history Tuesday night by becoming the youngest ever woman to win the prestigious Man Booker Prize for Fiction at the age of 35."

============================
--from wikipedia---
============================
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiran_Desai)
Kiran Desai was born in New Delhi. She spent her childhood in India before moving to England at the age of 14. One year later, the family relocated to the United States, where Desai completed her schooling in the state of Massachusetts.[2][3] She later attended Bennington College, Hollins University, and then Columbia University, where she took two years off to write her first book, Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard


Her first novel,Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard, was published in 1998 and received accolades from such notable figures as Salman Rushdie.[5] It went on to win the Betty Trask Award,[6] a prize given by the Society of Authors for the best new novels by citizens of the Commonwealth of Nations under the age of 35.[7]
Her second book, The Inheritance of Loss, has been widely praised by critics throughout Asia, Europe and the United States and won the 2006 Man Booker Prize.[1] It has been translated into Dutch and German.
She was born in Chandigarh, not in Delhi.

============================
---NYT book review---
============================

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/12/books/review/
12mishra.html?ex=1297400400&en=a3d469a1782b2d59&ei
=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

February 12, 2006
'The Inheritance of Loss,' by Kiran Desai
Wounded by the West
Review by PANKAJ MISHRA
ALTHOUGH it focuses on the fate of a few powerless individuals, Kiran Desai's extraordinary new novel manages to explore, with intimacy and insight, just about every contemporary international issue: globalization, multiculturalism, economic inequality, fundamentalism and terrorist violence. Despite being set in the mid-1980's, it seems the best kind of post-9/11 novel.

"The Inheritance of Loss" opens with a teenage Indian girl, an orphan called Sai, living with her Cambridge-educated Anglophile grandfather, a retired judge, in the town of Kalimpong on the Indian side of the Himalayas. Sai is romantically involved with her math tutor, Gyan, the descendant of a Nepali Gurkha mercenary, but he eventually recoils from her obvious privilege and falls in with a group of ethnic Nepalese insurgents. In a parallel narrative, we are shown the life of Biju, the son of Sai's grandfather's cook, who belongs to the "shadow class" of illegal immigrants in New York and spends much of his time dodging the authorities, moving from one ill-paid job to another.

What binds these seemingly disparate characters is a shared historical legacy and a common experience of impotence and humiliation. "Certain moves made long ago had produced all of them," Desai writes, referring to centuries of subjection by the economic and cultural power of the West. But the beginnings of an apparently leveled field in a late-20th-century global economy serve merely to scratch those wounds rather than heal them.

Almost all of Desai's characters have been stunted by their encounters with the West. As a student, isolated in racist England, the future judge feels "barely human at all" and leaps "when touched on the arm as if from an unbearable intimacy." Yet on his return to India, he finds himself despising his apparently backward Indian wife.

The judge is one of those "ridiculous Indians," as the novel puts it, "who couldn't rid themselves of what they had broken their souls to learn" and whose Anglophilia can only turn into self-hatred. These Indians are also an unwanted anachronism in postcolonial India, where long-suppressed peoples have begun to awaken to their dereliction, to express their anger and despair. For some of Desai's characters, including one of the judge's neighbors in Kalimpong, this comes as a distinct shock: "Just when Lola had thought it would continue, a hundred years like the one past — Trollope, BBC, a burst of hilarity at Christmas — all of a sudden, all that they had claimed innocent, fun, funny, not really to matter, was proven wrong."

There is no mistaking the literary influences on Desai's exploration of postcolonial chaos and despair. Early in the novel, she sets two Anglophilic Indian women to discussing "A Bend in the River," V. S. Naipaul's powerfully bleak novel about traditional Africa's encounter with the modern world. Lola, whose clothesline sags "under a load of Marks and Spencer's panties," thinks Naipaul is "strange. Stuck in the past. . . . He has not progressed. Colonial neurosis, he's never freed himself from it." Lola goes on to accuse Naipaul of ignoring the fact that there is a "new England," a "completely cosmopolitan society" where "chicken tikka masala has replaced fish and chips as the No. 1 takeout dinner." As further evidence, she mentions her own daughter, a newsreader for BBC radio, who "doesn't have a chip on her shoulder."

Desai takes a skeptical view of the West's consumer-driven multiculturalism, noting the "sanitized elegance" of Lola's daughter's British-accented voice, which is "triumphant over any horrors the world might thrust upon others." At such moments, Desai seems far from writers like Zadie Smith and Hari Kunzru, whose fiction takes a generally optimistic view of what Salman Rushdie has called "hybridity, impurity, intermingling, the transformation that comes of new and unexpected combinations of human beings, cultures, ideas, politics, movies, songs."

In fact, Desai's novel seems to argue that such multiculturalism, confined to the Western metropolis and academe, doesn't begin to address the causes of extremism and violence in the modern world. Nor, it suggests, can economic globalization become a route to prosperity for the downtrodden. "Profit," Desai observes at one point, "could only be harvested in the gap between nations, working one against the other."

This leaves most people in the postcolonial world with only the promise of a shabby modernity — modernity, as Desai puts it, "in its meanest form, brand-new one day, in ruin the next." Not surprisingly, half-educated, uprooted men like Gyan gravitate to the first available political cause in their search for a better way. He joins what sounds like an ethnic nationalist movement largely as an opportunity to vent his rage and frustration. "Old hatreds are endlessly retrievable," Desai reminds us, and they are "purer . . . because the grief of the past was gone. Just the fury remained, distilled, liberating."

Unlike Gyan, others try to escape. In scene after scene depicting this process — a boarding house in England, derelict bungalows in Kalimpong, immigrant-packed basements in New York — Desai's novel seems lit by a moral intelligence at once fierce and tender. But no scene is more harrowing than the one in which Biju joins a crowd of Indians scrambling to reach the visa counter at the United States Embassy: "Biggest pusher, first place; how self-contented and smiling he was; he dusted himself off, presenting himself with the exquisite manners of a cat. I'm civilized, sir, ready for the U.S., I'm civilized, mam. Biju noticed that his eyes, so alive to the foreigners, looked back at his own countrymen and women, immediately glazed over, and went dead."

Desai's prose has uncanny flexibility and poise. She can describe the onset of the monsoon in the Himalayas and a rat in the slums of Manhattan with equal skill. She is also adept at using physical descriptions to evoke complex states of mind, as when Biju gazes at a park while celebrating the great luck of being granted his American visa: "Raw sewage was being used to water a patch of grass that was lush and stinking, grinning brilliantly in the dusk."

Poor and lonely in New York, Biju eavesdrops on businessmen eating steak and exulting over the wealth to be gained in the new markets of Asia. Not surprisingly, he eventually becomes "a man full to the brim with a wish to live within a narrow purity." For him, the city's endless possibilities for self-invention become a source of pain. Though "another part of him had expanded: his self-consciousness, his self-pity," this awareness only makes him long to fade into insignificance, to return "to where he might relinquish this overrated control over his own destiny."

Arriving back in India in the climactic scenes of the novel, Biju is immediately engulfed by the local eruptions of rage and frustration from which he had been physically remote in New York. For him and the others, Desai suggests, withdrawal or escape are no longer possible. "Never again," Sai concludes, "could she think there was but one narrative and that this narrative belonged only to herself, that she might create her own mean little happiness and live safely within it."

Apart from this abstraction, Desai offers her characters no possibility of growth or redemption. Though relieved by much humor, "The Inheritance of Loss" may strike many readers as offering an unrelentingly bitter view. But then, as Orhan Pamuk wrote soon after 9/11, people in the West are "scarcely aware of this overwhelming feeling of humiliation that is experienced by most of the world's population," which "neither magical realistic novels that endow poverty and foolishness with charm nor the exoticism of popular travel literature manages to fathom." This is the invisible emotional reality Desai uncovers as she describes the lives of people fated to experience modern life as a continuous affront to their notions of order, dignity and justice. We do not need to agree with this vision in order to marvel at Desai's artistic power in expressing it.

Pankaj Mishra is the author of "An End to Suffering: The Buddha in the World. " His latest book, "Temptations of the West: How to Be Modern in India, Pakistan, Tibet, and Beyond," will be published this spring.

Thursday, October 12, 2006

FW: Jawed Karim:: Co-founder of YouTubes.com [with a Bangladeshi Link]!!




(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jawed_Karim)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jawed Karim is the co-founder of the popular video sharing website YouTube. His father is Bangladeshi and his mother German. He grew up in Germany, but graduated from Central High School (Saint Paul, Minnesota), and went on to attend the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.[1] He was an early employee at PayPal, where he met Chad Hurley and Steve Chen. The three later founded the YouTube video sharing website in 2005.[2] Karim continued his coursework with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, earning his bachelor's degree in computer science in 2004.

Karim acted as an advisor to YouTube and is a graduate student in computer science at Stanford University.





(http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/12/technology/12tube.html?_r=1&hp&ex=1160712000&en=c6ddbc2fdb0a4dea&ei=
5094&partner=homepage&oref=slogin)

New York Times
October 12, 2006
With YouTube, Student Hits Jackpot Again
By MIGUEL HELFT
Correction Appended

PALO ALTO, Calif., Oct. 11 — For Jawed Karim, the $100,000 or so he would have to spend on a master’s degree at Stanford was never daunting. He hit an Internet jackpot in 2002 when PayPal, the online payment company he had joined early on, was bought by eBay.

On Monday, still early in his studies for the fall term, he got lucky again. This time he may have hit the Internet equivalent of the multistate PowerBall.

Mr. Karim is the third of the three founders of the video site YouTube, which Google has agreed to buy for $1.65 billion. He was present at YouTube’s creation, contributing some crucial ideas about a Web site where users could share video. But academia had more allure than the details of turning that idea into a business.

So while his partners Chad Hurley and Steven Chen built the company and went on to become Internet and media celebrities, he quietly went back to class, working toward a degree in computer science.

Mr. Karim, who is 27, became visibly uncomfortable when the subject turned to money, and he would not say what he stands to make when Google’s purchase of YouTube is completed. He said only that he is one of the company’s largest individual shareholders, though he owns less of the company than his two partners, whose stakes in the company are likely to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars, according to some estimates. The deal was so enormous, he says, that his share was still plenty big.

“The sheer size of the acquisition almost makes the details irrelevant,” Mr. Karim said.

On Wednesday, during a walk across campus and a visit to his dorm room and the computer sciences building where he takes classes, Mr. Karim described himself as a nerd who gets excited about learning. Nothing in his understated demeanor suggests he is anything other than an ordinary graduate student, and he attracted little attention on campus in jeans, a blue polo shirt, a tan jacket and black Puma sneakers.

Mr. Karim said he might keep a hand in entrepreneurship, and he dreams of having an impact on the way people use the Internet — something he has already done. Philanthropy may have some appeal, down the road. But mostly he just wants to be a professor. He said he simply hopes to follow in the footsteps of other Stanford academics who struck it rich in Silicon Valley and went back to teaching.

“There’s a few billionaires in that building,” he said, standing in front of the William Gates Computer Science Building. But his chosen path will not preclude another stint at a start-up. “If I see another opportunity like YouTube, I can always do that,” he said.

David L. Dill, a professor of computer science at Stanford, said Mr. Karim’s choice was unusual.

“I’m impressed that given his success in business he decided to do the master’s program here,” Mr. Dill said. “The tradition here has been in the other direction,” he said, pointing to the founders of Google and Yahoo, who left Stanford for the business world.

Mr. Karim met Mr. Hurley and Mr. Chen when all three of them worked at PayPal. After the company was acquired by eBay for $1.5 billion, netting Mr. Karim a few million dollars, they often talked about starting another company.

By early 2005, all three had left PayPal. They would often meet late at night for brainstorming sessions at Max’s Opera CafĂ©, near Stanford, Mr. Karim said. Sometimes they met at Mr. Hurley’s place in Menlo Park or Mr. Karim’s apartment on Sand Hill Road, down the street from Sequoia Capital, the venture firm that would become YouTube’s financial backer.

Mr. Karim said he pitched the idea of a video-sharing Web site to the group. But he made it clear that contributions from Mr. Chen and Mr. Hurley were essential in turning his raw idea into what eventually became YouTube.

A YouTube spokeswoman said that the genesis of YouTube involved efforts by all three founders.

As early as February 2005, when the site was introduced, Mr. Karim said he and his partners had agreed that he would not become an employee, but rather an informal adviser to YouTube. He did not take a salary, benefits or even a formal title. “I was focused on school,” he said.

The decision meant that his stake in the company would be reduced, Mr. Karim said. “We negotiated something that we thought was fair.”

Roelof Botha, the Sequoia partner who led the investment in YouTube, said he would have preferred if Mr. Karim had stayed.

“I wish we could have kept him as part of the company,” Mr. Botha said. “He was very, very creative. We were doing everything we could to convince him to defer.”

Mr. Karim was born in East Germany in 1979. The family moved to West Germany a year later and to St. Paul, Minn., in 1992. His father, Naimul Karim, is a researcher at 3M and his mother, Christine Karim, is a research assistant professor of biochemistry at the University of Minnesota.

“To develop new things and be aware of new things, this is our life,” Ms. Karim said, explaining her son’s interest in technology and learning.

After graduating from high school, Jawed Karim chose to go to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, in part because it was the school that the co-founder of Netscape, Marc Andreessen, and others who gave birth to the first popular Web browser attended.

“It wasn’t like I wanted to be the next Marc Andreessen, but it would be cool to be in the same place,” Mr. Karim said. In 2000, during his junior year, he dropped out to head to Silicon Valley, where he joined PayPal. He later finished his undergraduate degree by taking some courses online and some at Santa Clara University.

Armed with a video camera, Mr. Karim documented much of YouTube’s early life, including the meetings when the three discussed financing strategies and the brainstorming sessions in Mr. Hurley’s garage, where the company was hatched.

In his studio apartment in a residence hall for graduate students, he showed one of them, which he said was filmed in April 2005. In it, Mr. Chen talked about “getting pretty depressed” because there were only 50 or 60 videos on the YouTube site. Also, he said, “there’s not that many videos I’d want to watch.” The camera then turns to Mr. Hurley, who grins and says “Videos like these,” referring to the one Mr. Karim is filming.

Mr. Karim, who has remained in frequent contact with the other co-founders, said he was first informed of the talks with Google last week. On Monday, he was called in to the Palo Alto law offices of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati to sign acquisition papers, and he briefly got to congratulate Mr. Chen and Mr. Hurley, he said.

Asked what he thought of the acquisition price, Mr. Karim said: “It sounded good to me.” When a reporter looked puzzled, he raised his eyebrows and added: “I was amazed.”


Correction: Oct. 13, 2006

An article in Business Day yesterday about the newfound fortunes of Jawed Karim, the third founder of the Web site YouTube, which was acquired by Google for $1.65 billion, misstated the year of his birth. Mr. Karim, 27, was born in 1979, not 1972.

FW: Invasion of the managers

Daily Star
http://www.thedaily star.net/ 2006/09/14/ d609141502134. htm

Invasion of the managers
Munim Chowdhury

INDIA has achieved global respect for its managerial talents and many Indians are enjoying top positions in the American corporate world. At least half a dozen Indians are CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, including Pepsi Co. Even conservative British companies are filling up top posts with Indian talent. A few years ago, one of the best known marketing schools in the world, the Kellogg School of Business of Northwestern University, after a global search for many months found a dean for the business school, an Indian from Gauhati. No one can deny the fact that India is a major producer of highly talented management and technical personnel today.

India produced Hinduism for domestic consumption and non-violent Buddhism for export. Today India is exporting bifurcated talent to the two worlds. A grade, highly talented people are exported to the western world, B and C grade to the developing countries, and the least talented D grade find their way to Bangladesh. The Bangladeshi entrepreneurs appear to be impressed by the English speaking abilities of the Indian managers.


The wide-scale Indian invasion of Bangladeshi industrial and commercial management is unhealthy and detrimental to the growth of management skill of the younger generation of the educated youth of Bangladesh. Even some of the trading houses are hiring low calibre Indian managers at salaries and benefits 8 to10 times higher than those normally offered to a Bangladeshi with similar talent. They live in Gulshan and Baridhara's posh apartments, enjoy chauffer-driven cars, and employ armies of domestic help.

This is certainly unfair and unjust.

The majority of these managers come to Bangladesh without work permits. They remit home their earnings through unofficial channels. A Bangladeshi owner of a distribution house (distributor of imported products) boastfully told me: "I have 30 expatriate managers." Further enquiry revealed that all thirty are Indians, mostly without work permits. Many of those managers do not appear to have the type of skills unavailable in Bangladesh, which would have made them deserving of the kind of compensation they are being paid.

A result of hiring Indian managers in this manner, when we have some educated Bangladeshi youth with comparable talent whose skills can be easily developed, is that we are destroying the hopes and aspiration of our own talented younger generation.

The multi-national company, British American Tobacco, managed its business most professionally in Bangladesh over the last 36 years without having to import Indian managers. Rather, BAT exported dozens of talented Bangladeshi managers to associated companies overseas, including to the position of director and managing director. By training and allowing Bangladeshi managers to develop and exercise their skills, they have also contributed to filling many top positions in other multi-national companies here in Bangladesh and overseas. Four of its managers served as ministers to the government of Bangladesh and Pakistan (prior to 1971). If the opportunity is provided to educated Bangladeshis with talent and aptitude, their managerial skills can be developed at a much faster rate.

In not just the developed countries of Western Europe and North America, but in many African nations also there is legitimate need for expatriate talents where the rules of engagement of foreign workers are strictly enforced; justification for employment is scrutinized, and work permits issued only when legitimate need, lack of local talent, and the professional capabilities of the foreign worker in question are demonstrated.

If the developing countries of Africa can apply legal rules in employing foreign workers, then what prevents Bangladesh, also a developing country, from enforcing its own rules? Can any Bangladeshi work in a professional job in India without a work permit (other than domestic help and as the sex workers in Bombay and Delhi)?


It will only be fair and just for the government to look seriously into the matter and prevent illegal engagement of foreign nationals for non-essential jobs in Bangladesh. It will require a little patience and sympathetic attention from our business community, too.

Immediately after the creation of Bangladesh in December l971, some Indians in professional fields in New York expressed their opinion that "this is the right time for Indians to move into Bangladesh and help run business and industry." Maybe they thought it was the right time to replace our Pakistani masters. However, it took another 25 years and the process started slowly about 10 years ago. It will take its toll on the new generation of Bangladeshi boys and girls, maybe in the same way as it did prior to 1971, unless we wake up to the reality and guard the interests of our younger generation.

The Bangladesh government should not allow needless engagement of Indian managers or for that matter any other foreign nationals in Bangladeshi industrial and commercial houses. If these Indians were top-rated talents, they would not come to Bangladesh, at the very least they would find their way to Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Dubai, if not North America and Europe.

A little research and discussion with Indian managers will confirm that they certainly do not enjoy life in Dhaka but they are here for the money and its associated comforts. Why not give our own youth with similar education and aptitude the same opportunity and dignity that are being provided to Indians, to develop their management skills? Our industries, business houses and country would benefit more in the long run as a result.


Munim Chowdhury writes from New York and is a freelance contributor to The Daily Star.

FW: "Give war a chance!" ?

Interesting comments reader posted in a major non-us newspaper.

News "Cabinet rejects IDF call to expand war"

Talkbacks:

11. Politicians the problem
Darren - USA
07/27/2006 13:55
The politicians need to get out of the way and let the IDF prosecute this war. Sometimes the politicians are more the problem than the solution. Give war a chance!

13. Air Power and Civilians
Michael - USA
07/27/2006 14:00
Use the air power and bomb the village to smithereens. The civilians who remain are not more worthy of life than our boys. It is wrong to risk the lives of Jewish boys for the remaining civilians who hate us and wish us dead anyway. Bring overwhelming air power and blow the terrorists out of their lairs.

14. Do not send soldiers, strike form the air.
Mila - Finland
07/27/2006 14:02
IDF needs to strike this village from the air, not sending it's soldiers on the grownd. You try to rescue civilians and as the result Israely soldiers get killed. These civilians have taked the cide with hisbullah, that mens they need to pay the price. It is wrong to rescue the ones who take side with hisbullah and have Israely soldiers die on the ground.

15. security
catherine adam - USA
07/27/2006 14:04
Please do not commit the same mistake as the US did and does; not to follow the lesson learns during WWII: 'overhelming force'. If we are concern what the 'people' are saying Israel is doomed. Please be note, that we Jews will be hated anuhow. ONLY if we show strenght will be we saved.

19. Change the tactics
Rudik - Australia
07/27/2006 14:15
I do believe in trying to minimise the civilian casualties (so called collateral damage). And I really cannot describe my feelings when I learned that so many fine young Israeli warriors lost their lives during the battle, trying to avoid the Lebanese civilians being harmed at the expense of their own lives. What I do not understand is why Israel cannot do what it quite successfully performed in the southern Beirut - warn the locals of the imminent strike (a few times) and then
level the villages with all the terrorists in them.

24. Security Canbinet Opposes Expanded Ground Operation
Joe Farbowitz - USA
07/27/2006 14:50
When will Israel learn that the only way to make their Arab enemies understand and respect the IDF is to hit them hard, very hard, when given the opportunity to so. When a cancerous tumor exists it must be completely removed ( including surrounding tissue) or it will grow back-perhaps larger and more agressive. Hasn't 58 years of fighting the Arabs taught them anything?

25. This might be a major mistake
Bernard Ross - jamaica
07/27/2006 14:56
If Hezbullah is not soundly beaten before a cease fire is declared those htat died may have died
in vain. As civilians have been warned to leave south lebanon buildings should be leveled prior
to
IDF gioing into villages. It is important that the enemies of Israel see that Israel is willing
to
make massive retaliations causing great loss. Without great loss there will be no lesson learned.
The japanese became US ally after hisroshima.

29. Protecting Lebanese civilians costing Israeli lives
Bernard Ross - jamaica
07/27/2006 15:01
" Bint Jbail could not be attacked by air since there were still several hundred civilians there.
This is wrong, civilians have been warned, level the buildings first. Lebanese civilians are
hezbullah they are all one. They are sending rockets to kill Israeli civilians. The enemy cannot
be protected at expense of Israelis in order to satisfy the EU supporters of the murderers of
Jews.

36. THERE ARE NO "CIVILIANS" IN BINT JABAIL
Steve
07/27/2006 15:39
What is this reluctance in attacking by air. The civilians were given ample time and several days
to evacuate. Those that didn't are responsible for their persons, not us. Devastate the villiage
and spare our ground forces!

43. Civilians
Harold - USA
07/27/2006 15:54
You are receiving rockets on your civilian population and you're worried about the civilians in
Bint Jbail. The civilians in Bint Jbail are your enemy. Wake up.

44. Ari #21 and Uzi # 23 are right !
John from Northern Ireland
07/27/2006 15:55
Israel's leaders need to get real. They need to bring out everything in the arsenal to smash
Hezbollah. If that means carpet bombing Bint Jbail, so be it. Napalm the Hezbollah positions,
level the entire town - but stop wasting Israeli lives playing to world opinion.

49. dumb misstakes of idf
david - holland
07/27/2006 16:06
Damn, i don't get it! Why sacrifice our soldiers for some people who willingly serve as a shield
and are thus allies of hezbollah? Is that really true?? That idf deliberately sacrifices their
own
people to rescue this hezbollah allies? That's the most retarded tactics ever. And after that
they
shoot some UN people, to make sure that we do not only get killed, but get hated in the same
instance. I'd say do as the u.s. if you know where the terrorists are, flatten them from the air.
And civilians that die in the process, well i'm sure they'll be happy to meet the countless
virgins undoubtedly waiting for them

50. Delay at Israel's peril
Zachary Walusimbi - Uganda
07/27/2006 16:09
Russions tried the first time, failed with so may casualities in war against the Chechen rebels.
Second time, they had learnt. Take advantage of massive fire power against these international
lawness organisations. They won. Israel needs to do just that. Level villages and town after
warning civilians to free. Time is not on Israel's side as international pressure is mounting.

58. I agree with Mr.Ross
michael bergin - USA
07/27/2006 16:28
I completely agree with Bernard. While both Israel and the US continue to take civilian casulties
our enemies hide within civilian populations. In the case of the battle of Bint Jbail you drop
warnings and then you drop bombs. When the village is gone you move on to the next with the same
startegy not allowing IDF forces to be killed. By the time you get to the third village ... no
one
will be there as they will get the message. It sounds hash and inhuman but the enemy has no rules
and are fanatics willing and wanting to kill every citizen of Israel and the US. We are making
the
same mistake in Iraq with the same results. God bless Israel!

65. Tactical Mistake
Tadeu Mendes - USA
07/27/2006 16:42
With due respect to the IDF soldiers and their loss of life in this operation, I think it was a
mistake to send infantry troops to an area where the enemy is willing to die at any cost. If the
IAF bombed Beirut, why not carpet bomb Bint Jbail and then enter the area and finish the job.

69. Israel must obliterate Southern Lebanon
Hector-Michael - Canada
07/27/2006 16:45
By luring Israeli troops into their rat-holes, Hezbollah is scoring big time. Guerrilla warfare
is
the downfall of any army that follows an enemy into its ground turf. In the case of Israel in
Southern Lebanon, the enemy has been preparing deadly traps for years. Now it has lured Israel to
fight in the ground, and Israel has fallen for it. The results are Jewish lives been wasted in
death traps that can be bombed from the air. Why is Israel sending its soldiers into those traps,
is beyond me. Israel gave plenty of warning urging the civilian population to get out of the war
zone. If civilians are still there, it can be assumed they are part of what they call resistance.
That makes them the enemy too. Israel, your troops are the cream of the crop of Jewish youth.
Stop
wasting them for the sake of Muslim garbage. Hezbollah is cancer and will only be stopped by
annihilation. That s what they want for you. So give it to them now while you are in control! It
ll only take one bomb!

74. Change tactics. #19 Rudic
Kathy
07/27/2006 16:55
Rudic Well,they did warn the inhabitants and even with fliers. You must understand that they are
all part and parcel of Hisbullah also paticularly this town with I believe of 25.000 are all
Hizbullah followers.That is one of the reasons that our boys have encountered the fierce counter
attacks. Well,if that is the case,I think it is the life of our servicemen and our civilians
getting pounded daily by the missiles that should be concidered more importantly and if those
civilians who aid and abbet are killed is something that should not deter us from finish them
off!
Civilians or not,THEY ARE ALL TERRORISTS AGAINST ISRAEL. THIS SHOULD BE OUR OBJECTIVE AND DAMN
THEM TO HELL...

83. don't be so nice
n
07/27/2006 17:23
Israel has to learn something-the world hates us whether we act humanely or not. That being said,
it is time for the IDF to pick some towns that are hizbollah strongholds and turn them into
modern
day Dresdens, ala the Allied bombing there in 1945. Sure, the UN and all the other predictable
anti Israel, liberal coddle-the-terrorist-till-he-cuts-your-throat crowd will howl and scream,
but
maybe Hizbollah and their ilk will sit up and realize that we will destroy them even if they hide
behind women and children in hospitals and schools. And when the Arab on the street wakes up to
such a reality, watch how quickly they rise up and destroy terror from their midst and stop
bellyaching about how they can't take out the terror because of fear of a civil war.

86. Attack on all fronts
Rob - U.S.A.
07/27/2006 17:24
Israel has our full support. Attack by air and land. You must win this fight and eliminate the
ruthless enemy. Use tactics that will save Israeli soldiers regardless of the collateral damage.
Now that al-Qaeda says they support Hezbullah & will attack again, it is WW III. Take them out.

111. Destroy the enemy once and for all
Michael Walter - Canada
07/27/2006 19:17
I am a grade seven boy from Canada. My dad says it is okay for me to send you this letter. I love
Israel very much and would hate to see your soldiers die for the sake of stupid terrorists.
Israel, don t send your soldiers into a hellhole just to be killed by evil men full of hatred.
Your soldiers are the best in the world; no offense to America. Just drop a bomb in their place,
and problem solved! Blow those cowards out of their hiding places. God bless Israel!

118. Playing nice wont win wars
RA
07/27/2006 19:45
Israel needs to stop worrying about "civilians" and do the job right! As far as public relations
is concerned, it wont matter anyways. If Israel kills 10 civlians or 100000, Israel will always
have a negative PR in the antisemitic world. The IDF just needs to do the job no matter what.

Arundhati Roy on Palestinian / Israeli Conflict

An interesting & informative video.

http://www.weroy.org/video_middle_east.shtml


"Either way, change will come. It could be bloody, or it could be beautiful. It depends on us."
- Arundhati Roy

On the US-Israeli Invasion of Lebanon -- Noam Chomsky

(http://www.chomsky.info/articles/20060819.htm)

On the US-Israeli Invasion of Lebanon
Noam Chomsky
Al-Adab, August 19, 2006

Though there are many interacting factors, the immediate issue that lies behind the latest US-Israeli invasion of Lebanon remains, I believe, what it was in the four preceding invasions: the Israel-Palestine conflict. In the most important case, the devastating US-backed 1982 Israeli invasion was openly described in Israel as a war for the West Bank, undertaken to put an end to annoying PLO calls for a diplomatic settlement (with the secondary goal of imposing a client regime in Lebanon). There are numerous other illustrations. Despite the many differences in circumstances, the July 2006 invasion falls generally into the same pattern.
Among mainstream American critics of Bush administration policies, the favored version is that “We had always approached [conflict between Israel and its neighbors] in a balanced way, assuming that we could be the catalyst for an agreement,” but Bush II regrettably abandoned that neutral stance, causing great problems for the United States (Middle East specialist and former diplomat Edward Walker, a leading moderate). The actual record is quite different: For over 30 years, Washington has unilaterally barred a peaceful political settlement, with only slight and brief deviations.

The consistent rejectionism can be traced back to the February 1971 Egyptian offer of a full peace treaty with Israel, in the terms of official US policy, offering nothing for the Palestinians. Israel understood that this peace offer would put an end to any security threat, but the government decided to reject security in favor of expansion, then mostly into northeastern Sinai. Washington supported Israel’s stand, adhering to Kissinger’s principle of “stalemate”: force, not diplomacy. It was only 8 years later, after a terrible war and great suffering, that Washington agreed to Egypt’s demand for withdrawal from its territory.

Meanwhile the Palestinian issue had entered the international agenda, and a broad international consensus had crystallized in favor of a two-state settlement on the pre-June 1967 border, perhaps with minor and mutual adjustments. In December 1975, the UN Security Council agreed to consider a resolution proposed by the Arab “confrontation states” with these provisions, also incorporating the basic wording of UN 242. The US vetoed the resolution. Israel’s reaction was to bomb Lebanon, killing over 50 people in Nabatiye, calling the attack “preventive” – presumably to “prevent” the UN session, which Israel boycotted.

The only significant exception to consistent US-Israeli rejectionism was in January 2001, when Israeli and Palestinian negotiators came close to agreement in Taba. But the negotiations were called off by Israeli Prime Minister Barak four days early, ending that promising effort. Unofficial but high-level negotiations continued, leading to the Geneva Accord of December 2002, with similar proposals. It was welcomed by most of the world, but rejected by Israel and dismissed by Washington (and, reflexively, the US media and intellectual classes).

Meanwhile US-backed Israeli settlement and infrastructure programs have been “creating facts on the ground” in order to undermine potential realization of Palestinian national rights. Throughout the Oslo years, these programs continued steadily, with a sharp peak in 2000: Clinton’s final year, and Barak’s. The current euphemism for these programs is “disengagement” from Gaza and “convergence” in the West Bank – in Western rhetoric, Ehud Olmert’s courageous program of withdrawal from the occupied territories. The reality, as usual, is quite different.

The Gaza “disengagement” was openly announced as a West Bank expansion plan. Having turned Gaza into a disaster area, sane Israeli hawks realized that there was no point leaving a few thousand settlers taking the best land and scarce resources, protected by a large part of the IDF. It made more sense to send them to the West Bank and Golan Heights, where new settlement programs were announced, while turning Gaza into “the world’s largest prison,” as Israeli human rights groups accurately call it. West Bank “Convergence” formalizes these programs of annexation, cantonization, and imprisonment. With decisive US support, Israel is annexing valuable lands and the most important resources of the West Bank (primarily water), while carrying out settlement and infrastructure projects that divide the shrinking Palestinian territories into unviable cantons, virtually separated from one another and from whatever pitiful corner of Jerusalem will be left to Palestinians. All are to be imprisoned as Israel takes over the Jordan Valley, and of course any other access to the outside world.

All of these programs are recognized to be illegal, in violation of numerous Security Council resolutions and the unanimous decision of the World Court any part of the "separation wall" that is built to “defend” the settlements is “ipso facto” illegal (U.S. Justice Buergenthal, in a separate declaration). Hence about 80-85% of the wall is illegal, as is the entire “convergence” program. But for a self-designated outlaw state and its clients, such facts are minor irrelevancies.

Currently, the US and Israel demand that Hamas accept the 2002 Arab League Beirut proposal for full normalization of relations with Israel after withdrawal in accord with the international consensus. The proposal has long been accepted by the PLO, and it has also been formally accepted by the “supreme leader” of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei. Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has made it clear that Hezbollah would not disrupt such an agreement if it is accepted by Palestinians. Hamas has repeatedly indicated its willingness to negotiate in these terms.

The facts are doctrinally unacceptable, hence mostly suppressed. What we see, instead, is the stern warning to Hamas by the editors of the New York Times that their formal agreement to the Beirut peace plan is “an admission ticket to the real world, a necessary rite of passage in the progression from a lawless opposition to a lawful government.” Like others, the NYT editors fail to mention that the US and Israel forcefully reject this proposal, and are alone in doing so among relevant actors. Furthermore, they reject it not merely in rhetoric, but far more importantly, in deeds. We see at once who constitutes the “lawless opposition” and who speaks for them. But that conclusion cannot be expressed, even entertained, in respectable circles.

The only meaningful support for Palestinians facing national destruction is from Hezbollah. For this reason alone it follows that Hezbollah must be severely weakened or destroyed, just as the PLO had to be evicted from Lebanon in 1982. But Hezbollah is too deeply embedded within Lebanese society to be eradicated, so Lebanon too must be largely destroyed. An expected benefit for the US and Israel was to enhance the credibility of threats against Iran by eliminating a Lebanese-based deterrent to a possible attack. But none of this turned out as planned. Much as in Iraq, and elsewhere, Bush administration planners have created catastrophes, even for the interests they represent. That is the primary reason for the unprecedented criticism of the administration among the foreign policy elite, even before the invasion of Iraq.

In the background lie more far-reaching and lasting concerns: to ensure what is called “stability” in the reigning ideology. “Stability,” in simple words, means obedience. “Stability” is undermined by states that do not strictly follow orders, secular nationalists, Islamists who are not under control (in contrast, the Saudi monarchy, the oldest and most valuable US ally, is fine), etc. Such “destabilizing” forces are particularly dangerous when their programs are attractive to others, in which case they are called “viruses” that must be destroyed. “Stability” is enhanced by loyal client states. Since 1967, it has been assumed that Israel can play this role, along with other “peripheral” states. Israel has become virtually an off-shore US military base and high-tech center, the natural consequence of its rejection of security in favor of expansion in 1971, and repeatedly since. These policies are subject to little internal debate, whoever holds state power. The policies extend world-wide, and in the Middle East, their significance is enhanced by one of the leading principles of foreign policy since World War II (and for Britain before that): to ensure control over Middle East energy resources, recognized for 60 years to be “a stupendous source of strategic power” and “one of the greatest material prizes in world history.”

The standard Western version is that the July 2006 invasion was justified by legitimate outrage over capture of two Israeli soldiers at the border. The posture is cynical fraud. The US and Israel, and the West generally, have little objection to capture of soldiers, or even to the far more severe crime of kidnapping civilians (or of course to killing civilians). That had been Israeli practice in Lebanon for many years, and no one ever suggested that Israel should therefore be invaded and largely destroyed. Western cynicism was revealed with even more dramatic clarity as the current upsurge of violence erupted after Palestinian militants captured an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, on June 25. That too elicited huge outrage, and support for Israel's sharp escalation of its murderous assault on Gaza. The scale is reflected in casualties: in June, 36 Palestinian civilians were killed in Gaza; in July, the numbers more than quadrupled to over 170, dozens of them children. The posture of outrage was, again, cynical fraud, as demonstrated dramatically, and conclusively, by the reaction to Israel's kidnapping of two Gaza civilians, the Muamar brothers, one day before, on June 24. They disappeared into Israel's prison system, joining the hundreds of others imprisoned without charge -- hence kidnapped, as are many of those sentenced on dubious charges. There was some brief and dismissive mention of the kidnapping of the Muamar brothers, but no reaction, because such crimes are considered legitimate when carried out by “our side.” The idea that this crime would justify a murderous assault on Israel would have been regarded as a reversion to Nazism.


The distinction is clear, and familiar throughout history: to paraphrase Thucydides, the powerful are entitled to do as they wish, while the weak suffer as they must.

We should not overlook the progress that has been made in undermining the imperial mentality that is so deeply rooted in Western moral and intellectual culture as to be beyond awareness. Nor should we forget the scale of what remains to be achieved, tasks that must be undertaken in solidarity and cooperation by people in North and South who hope to see a more decent and civilized world.

Saturday, October 07, 2006

FW: Too much food, guilt to stomach

I find this article very interesting. It was good to hear his side of the story. I mean he is talking about his country (Malaysia) and I live way far from that. Yet it is very similar to the place where I brought up and to where I live now. So it's not just me, it's not just us. Folks there too have similar reality, interesting!

-x86

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http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/nst/Wednesday/Columns/
20061004083413/Article/index_html

Zainul Arifin on Wednesday: Too much food, guilt to stomach
By Zainul Arifin

08 October, 2006

FOR Muslims, Ramadan is a month of prayer and solemn reflection. But the reality is, it is also a month of conspicuous consumption, which kicked off a month or so before with the nationwide officially-sanctioned annual Mega Sales Carnival. The rumblings in the tummy and the dry, parched throat are to remind us of the unfortunate. But they have also become convenient excuses to indulge, and not just in food.

Resistance is futile. The mind is weak and so is resolve when the body is deprived of what it is used to. Maybe we don’t try hard enough, or life generally does not try most of us hard enough these days. Hardship in Ramadan is running out of ice cubes during the breaking of fast.

Those who fast tend to spend much more, realising only too late that a dish here and another there, a kueh or two, the sugar cane juice, and suddenly it’s a third of your weekly marketing money gone.

It seems that because Muslims are deprived of food and drink during the day, they find it acceptable to splurge, and retailers know this very well.

Ramadan has also turned out to be the most profitable month in the year for hotel food and beverage outlets. It is no wonder they spare little when promoting their buka puasa fares, hence the extra tables in lobbies and walkways.

After all, the multi-coloured dessert and dishes of old have brought about the path of least resistance for the faithful to loosen the purse strings.

But looking at the amount charged and the food often left to waste, I can’t help feeling rather at odds with the feasting at sundown. I can think of a charity or two that could use some of the money spent.

At times greed has showed its ugly head in this holy month, too. I am not sure how much the prices of food this Ramadan had to do with the recent hike in fuel prices, but I am inclined to believe that a large part of it could also be attributed to greed.

A hawker in Bangsar, Kuala Lumpur, just lost a customer for the rest of the month when she refused to sell me RM1 worth of cooked vegetables. The minimum purchase she told me was RM2. I would have bought it but for the fact that there are only three of us; my daughter hates vegetables and I do not want to waste.

She declined my logical suggestion to halve the RM2 portion, so I walked off. It was 15 minutes to breaking fast and she had quite a lot left in her tray; still she refused. I suspect greed got the better of her.

We also break a lot of rules and regulations on food handling every Ramadan. Why are almost all food sold at pasar Ramadan uncovered?

Often located by the roadside and exposed to the elements, the makeshift stalls and their wares often bring hygiene issues to mind. But we do not seem to mind. In fact we are oblivious to it.

Also, I am not sure if the guys selling or handling food have been given jabs against communicable diseases, as required by our laws for food operators and handlers. There are no statistics to back my claim, but I do believe Ramadan has the highest number of cases of food poisoning compared with any other period in the year. This month, food is often prepared early. It is likely to turn bad by the time it comes to breaking fast.

Ramadan also makes me feel guilty about the number of plastic bags I bring home from the pasar Ramadan. I have to decline bags and return some of them since hawkers tend to put even a single kuih inside a single plastic bag. Apparently, we the consumers want it that way.

Meanwhile, I do believe that there should be at least some show of decorum even in the commercialisation of Hari Raya. I am not sure how it works, but shopping centres and department stores should not be playing Hari Raya songs in the first few days of Ramadan, which after all is a month of prayer and reflection.

But crass commercialisation has taken hold of us. As discomfited as I may have been over the weekend about the Raya songs played in the mall I was in, I could not resist humming to the tunes. I am after all hungry, and weak.

However, I am rather perplexed that I saw little reference, either visual or audio, to Deepavali, which will be celebrated a few days ahead of Hari Raya. Come on now, retailers and mall owners. But I digress.

I sometimes fail in my mission for a more meaningful Ramadan. I head to pasar Ramadan with a clear plan and strategy, but often leave with more food, drinks and guilt than I can nibble through.
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