Articles

When US president George W. Bush came to the UN General Assembly on September 23, there was some expectation that his tone would be magnanimous and conciliatory. Six months after the US rode roughshod over the UN by launching a unilateral war against the wishes not only of the majority of the world’s unimportant states, but also of senior members of the Security Council, it was expected that the US might come to mend fences, as if from a position of strength, but with the underlying reality that the US needs international cooperation in the administration of occupied Iraq, given the problems it is having in securing its catch.

Egypt’s ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) begins its annual conference on September 26, as Crescent goes to press. On the face of it, the conference will no doubt be an impressive political occasion. It is expected to be attended by up to 2,200 party members, and will be chaired by party chairman Hosni Mubarak. His son, Gamal Mubarak, is due to address the conference’s first session in his capacity as chairman of the party’s influential Policy Secretariat, on the coordination that has been taking place between the party and government.

As the end of the year approaches, American political circles are getting into gear for the electoral campaigns which will dominate 2004, culminating in the presidential elections at the end of the year.

The Islamic Human Rights Commission held a one-day conference on ‘Islamic and Western Percentions of Human Rights’ in London on September 12, 2003, in cooperation with the Islamic College for Advanced Studies and other bodies. This is the first part of the presentation to the conference by ARZU MERALI of the IHRC. The remainder will be published in the next issue.

A spate of recent events highlights the urgency with which the Americans are trying to reshape Islam in their own image and interests. Since mid-August, for example, reports in several Egyptian newspapers have told of dozens of mosque imams and khateebs being sent to America secretly in what are called "cultural exchanges".

The UN’s announcement on September 27 that it is withdrawing its international staff from Iraq for security reasons came as a massive blow to the country’s US occupation authorities, who have been desperately trying to convince the world that they have full control over Iraq and are succeeding in introducing freedom and democracy to a grateful population.

Eighty-three Muslim worshippers were martyred by the bomb that exploded outside the mosque at the Imam Ali mausoleum in Najaf immediately after juma prayers on August 29, but there was little doubt that its main target was Ayatullah Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, leader of Majlis al-Aala l’il-Thawra al- Islami f’il-Iraq (The Supreme Assembly for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq).

Hamas leader Shaikh Ahmad Yassin said on September 24 that Hamas, Palestine’s leading Islamic movement and the most popular political group among Palestinians, would not accept any suggestion that it should disarm or declare a truce.

The Bush administration, apparently unable or unwilling to learn any lessons from its recent foreign policy debacles, is making the same charges against Syria as it used to justify the invasion of Iraq, which have been shown to be not merely exaggerated but patently false.

Muslim regimes have developed ingenious ways to convince the Bush administration of their commitment to the ‘war on terrorism’ . The latest is the ‘numbers game’ of arrested Muslim activists – the more people hauled in, the more unlikely it is that one will suffer the Saddam fate (or so they hope).