Articles

Minutes after the Norwegian neo-Nazi terrorist Anders Behring Breivik launched his atrocious plan on July 22 — blowing up a government building by a car bomb in the center of Oslo that killed seven people and then moving on to Utoya Island for a two-hour rampage shooting dead 84 youths — it became uncomfortable and even unsafe for people with Middle Eastern features to walk in the streets of Europe.

The story of the second relief Flotilla to Gaza is a tale of how to marshal all the king’s horses and all the king’s men in order to muffle a humanitarian enterprise. After Israeli commandos killed nine Turkish members of the first Freedom Flotilla on May 31, 2010, Turkish-Israeli relations chilled to sub-zero, while Israel’s already-brittle reputation developed minute fracture lines.

Most people with even limited understanding of how media outlets spin news can see through the lies dished out by the likes of Fox News and CNN. But how does one explain the lies habitually repeated by such supposedly venerable institutions as the BBC, the New York Times or the Washington Post? All of them in their own right are considered paragons of wisdom and their word is considered sacrosanct.

Power is not given up voluntarily, at least not by those who have usurped it by force in the first place. The Muslim East (Middle East) is witnessing unprecedented uprisings by peoples that were hitherto considered too apathetic to move. There was a sense of resignation until, that is, the uprising in Tunisia sparked by the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi, the street vendor who could not take the public insults of a female police officer any longer, changed everything.

Zainab Cheema reviews Zafar Bangash’s latest book entitled Power Manifestations of the Sirah: Examining the Letters and Treaties of the Messenger of Allah (pbuh) and published by Crescent International for the Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought (384 pages; soft cover, $30.00).

King Abdullah’s June 12 speech did not impress most Jordanians seeking serious political and social reforms in the country and curbs on the king’s vast arbitrary powers. In his first televised address since uprisings began in the Muslim East six months ago, the putative monarch, while promising electoral reforms, did not specify any date for their implementation.

Colonel Muammar Qaddafi is an easy figure to hate. Given his eccentric behaviour, he is the butt of many jokes that are easily conflated into hate against the man and his policies. Qaddafi need not be our favourite tyrant but the West’s attack on his regime as well as the country’s infrastructure is not motivated by the desire to rescue the Libyan people.

Islamic movements, intellectuals and activists long tended to have a love-hate relationship with democracy. On the one hand, democracy has been associated with the aggressive, brutal, exploitative, hegemonic policies of the post-colonial Western power.

The Islamic Arab East has fire in its belly. The popular mood is: “fa-al-yasqut al-nizam — down with the regime.” Masses of people are breaking the fear barrier and expressing their century-old, pent-up feelings. Some dictators have been toppled, others are teetering, and still others are trying to change laws and make amends before they, too, are swept away by the people’s fury.

The struggle underway to influence and control the course of events in Egypt reflects Cairo’s importance not only for the Muslim East but also global politics. The most populous country in the region, Egypt sits at the crossroads of two continents.