A Country of Words
January 23rd, 2010 § 1 Comment
“We travel like other people, but we return to nowhere…
We have a country of words.”
A traditional Arab media operation, according to Abdel Bari Atwan, is “characterised by editorial interference from the owners, slavishness to social hierarchies, backstabbing and nepotism.” It goes without saying that all the Arab local-national press, TV and radio stations are controlled by their respective regimes. Only in the pan-Arab sphere, beyond the control of any single regime, is there a possibility of anything better. Yet of the pan-Arab newspapers, ash-Sharq al-Awsat and al-Hayat are owned by different branches of the Saud family dictatorship, while the smaller-circulation al-Arab is part of the Libyan regime’s propaganda apparatus. Even after the satellite revolution, pan-Arab TV remains tame and partial, fattened and diluted by Gulf money, often providing its viewers a contradictory diet of Islamic and American-consumerist bubble gum. The second most famous channel in the Arab world, al-Arabiyya, is yet another mouthpiece for the Sauds (during last winter’s Gaza massacre it became known amongst Arabs as al-Ibriyya, or ‘the Hebrew’). The most famous channel, al-Jazeera, is of course the model that broke the mould. Its challenging reporting and inclusion of all sides in open debate has had a revolutionary effect on the Arabs.
Al-Jazeera’s print equivalent is the London-based al-Quds al-Arabi, founded in 1989, seven years before al-Jazeera. It may not have the immediate impact or mass audience of al-Jazeera (it’s banned in most Arab countries) but with its cast of excellent writers, its fearless exposure of Arab regime corruption, its scoops (al-Qa’ida chooses to communicate with the world through its pages), its renowned culture section, and its refusal to bury news from Palestine behind the football results, al-Quds al-Arabi is indispensable. Rather than backstabbing, its staff have sometimes worked for no pay to keep the operation afloat. Its founder, editorialist and editor-in-chief Abdel Bari Atwan is as passionate and articulate in speech as on the page, and is admired by the Arabs for his call-a-spade-a-spade style on those TV channels which dare to host him, usually al-Jazeera Arabic and Hizbullah’s al-Manar. Atwan’s “The Secret History of al-Qa’ida” is a book-length account of his meeting with Osama bin Laden and of the development of the al-Qa’ida network. Now Atwan has written an autobiographical memoir titled with a line from a Mahmoud Darwish poem, “A Country of Words.”
America’s Constitutional Crisis
January 23rd, 2010 § Leave a Comment
Larry Jacobs, professor of political science at the University of Minnesota, leads a fascinating conversation with Walter Mondale, former vice president of the United States under the Carter Administration, and Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh, on the ResearchChannel. They touch on controversial topics in American history, from the relationship between Nixon and Kissinger, to first amendment rights and public disclosure in the context of national security issues. Their discussion regarding the American Constitution and the rights of the American people is all the more relevant today, considering the recent supreme court decision to grant corporations the right to spend unlimited amounts in election campaigns on their preferred candidates.
Government of the People, by the Corporations
January 23rd, 2010 § Leave a Comment
Following is Keith Olbermann’s Special Comment on the recent supreme court decision to allow corporations to spend unlimited amounts in election campaigns on their preferred candidates.
The next 9 men and women will get to the supreme court not because of their judgement, nor even their politics. They will get there because they were appointed by purchased presidents and confirmed by purchased senators. This is what John Roberts did today. This is a supreme court sanctioned murder of what little actual democracy is left in this democracy. It is government of the people, by the corporation, for the corporations…
The Haitian Revolution
January 23rd, 2010 § Leave a Comment
Even if you have been watching Democracy Now’s outstanding coverage of the Haitian tragedy, the despicable neglect with which the United States and other rich countries have treated the disaster-struck nation, you still can’t fathom the depth of outrage the Haitians feel unless you put it into the context of its tortured history. Here is an excellent overview from C. S. Soong’s Against the Grain.
It was a cataclysmic event, the first and only successful slave revolution in the Americas. In 1791 brutally exploited slaves on a small Caribbean island rose up and eventually won emancipation. Their story, a legacy that has inspired and instructed people and nations for centuries, is told in Laurent Dubois’s Avengers of the New World.
Worst decision since Dred Scott
January 22nd, 2010 § Leave a Comment
The US Supreme Court has ruled that as a legal ‘person’ a corporation can spend unlimited amounts in an election campaign to elect its preferred candidates. The lax campaign financing rules already allowed lobby groups such as AIPAC to funnel massive amounts to candidates through individuals. Instead of reforming the system, as people like Ralph Nader have been demanding for years, the court further hacks away at democratic checks and balances. The ruling has been rightly compared to the Dred Scott case justifying slavery. Here is a clip of Robert Weissman summing up what consequences this might have for US democracy (to the extent that it exists) followed by a statement by Ralph Nader. (For Americans who want to save their democracy, here is a campaign they can join: http://www.movetoamend.org/. Also check out Public Citizen’s proposed action).
COFFEE WITH HEZBOLLAH to be served in 10 days
January 22nd, 2010 § Leave a Comment
Following is another excerpt from my book Coffee with Hezbollah, which chronicles the hitchhiking trip through Lebanon that photographer Amelia Opalinska and I conducted shortly after the Israeli assault of 2006. The book is due for release February 1, 2010 by New World Digital, Inc.
Previous excerpts can be read here and here, and a short promotional video by Amelia—with music by Marcel Khalifé—can be viewed here. Two more excerpts to come.
For additional information about Coffee with Hezbollah or to PRE-ORDER the book, please visit: http://belenfernandez-writings.blogspot.com/.
Many thanks,
Belén Fernández (belengarciabernal@gmail.com)
EXCERPT THREE
Location: Kfar Kila, Lebanese-Israeli border (where the book’s cover photograph was taken).
Context: Amelia and I arrive to Kfar Kila at night and are invited to stay at the house of Ali and his family, who refer to the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon 6 years prior as “Freedom 2000”; proximity to Israel nonetheless results in difficulties sleeping.
In the bathroom I established that the family’s citrus garden was not being bombarded. I crept downstairs, where I established that:
- it was 5.32 AM according to the Hezbollah clock.
- it was a different time according to the other clock.
- the bombardment was a combination of French UN trucks banging down the street and the household washing machine.
Hope and Obama: One Year Later
January 22nd, 2010 § Leave a Comment
On January 20, 2009 Barack Hussein Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States. He entered office with the assistance of a slew of successful advertising campaigns centered around the idea of ‘hope,’ and endorsements from a myriad of institutions and well-known public figures — all the way from former president Bill Clinton, to public opinion influencer and talk-show host Oprah Winfrey. The clip below appeared earlier this week on Fault Lines. Host Avi Lewis interviewed a variety of voices, from those who were initially die-hard supporters, to Sarah Palin fans.
Several other progressive commentators have also reflected on Obama in light of his first presidential anniversary. Here’s what some of them had to say:
Howard Zinn, The Nation:
I think people are dazzled by Obama’s rhetoric, and that people ought to begin to understand that Obama is going to be a mediocre president–which means, in our time, a dangerous president–unless there is some national movement to push him in a better direction.
The Tyranny of Positivity
January 21st, 2010 § 1 Comment
My friend’s childhood friend recently passed away after a painful bout with cancer. She was abandoned by her boyfriend because she was ‘too negative’ about her illness. A mutual friend of my friend’s also blamed the ailing woman for being too negative. If she couldn’t be positive about her disease, then she must in part have been responsible for her own decline. Or so the thinking goes.
If there is anything unique about this story, it is the nationality of the cast: they are Italian. In the United States, this is the norm. People who suffer from debilitating diseases are not only expected to endure the pain but also to put on a brave face. If they don’t, then friends can abandon them with a clear conscience. They just aren’t being positive, and hence are the architects of their own decline.
Positivity became the reigning attitudinal orthodoxy around the time of the ‘Reagan Revolution’, but it has its roots farther back in Calvinist theology. God rewards piety and hard work with success; failure, perforce, is evidence of sloth. Sidney Blumenthal once ironically summed up the mindset as ‘God takes most pleasure in people who are most pleased’. Reagan turned positivity into the central tenet of American civic religion. This also freed the New Right from the responsibility of caring for the destitute and vulnerable: if they aren’t doing well the fault must necessarily lie with them. It has come to a point, notes Barbara Ehrenreich in this excellent interview on Media Matters, that even people who lose their jobs are expected to be positive about it. Since a negative attitude will merely prove that their dismissal was justified.
As for illness, Tony Judt ends a recent essay about the torment of enduring nights while suffering from ALS thus: ‘Loss is loss, and nothing is gained by calling it by a nicer name. My nights are intriguing; but I could do without them.’
Adding Context to Katie Couric’s Interview on Haiti
January 21st, 2010 § Leave a Comment
Orphaned children lay on mattresses inside a delivery truck at the Maison des Enfants De Dieu orphanage on January 20, 2010. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
On Wednesday morning Haitians experienced another earthquake in the form of 5.9 magnitude aftershock that further deteriorated Port-au-Prince’s devastated infrastructure and the psyche of the already traumatized survivors. Haitians continue to struggle with a myriad of urgent issues, the need for emergency health care and supplies ranking at the top of the growing list. Meanwhile reports continue to emerge indicating that the US and other countries that have been sending armed soldiers to help with ’security’ have actually been hindering aid from getting to the desperate population at a reasonable rate. Some reports note that supplies are being stockpiled at the airport due to power struggles and bureaucratic issues while thousands are dying daily from lack of basics like water and adequate medical treatment.
On January 18 Partners in Health president and executive director Ophelia Dahl was interviewed along with Mark Schneider from the International Crisis Group by Katie Couric of CBS. Couric’s unabashed obliviousness to the situation and Haiti’s history was not adequately addressed by either commentator, even though Dahl did attempt to get in a few clarifying points, including statements about the US and other country’s direct efforts to actively destabilize the country. Significantly, Dahl also contradict’s Schneider’s descriptions of ensuing chaos in the country by describing the “extraordinary peacefulness and calm” that has been displayed in addition to expected ”pockets of insecurity” by the Haitian people:
Two of my colleagues said that the only noise coming from areas of 50,000 people lying in varying degrees of terrible stress with cradling loved ones and everything else is that of singing, taking care of one another, of washing each other. Of a great comforting of a community. Not only taking care of only family members, but really taking care of one another.
COFFEE WITH HEZBOLLAH to the tune of Marcel Khalifé
January 21st, 2010 § 3 Comments
Following is a short promotional video for my book Coffee with Hezbollah, done by the book’s photographer, my traveling partner Amelia Opalińska. The video includes images of our hitchhiking journey through Lebanon in the aftermath of Israel’s 2006 assault and is set to the track “Coffee Trees” on the aptly named album “Arabic Coffeepot” by renowned Lebanese musician Marcel Khalifé.
To see excerpts from the book that I have posted on PULSE, click here and here.
Below the video is a description of Khalifé’s abilities by late Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, kindly provided to me by Mustafa Habib of the Nagam Cultural Project, the institution that oversees Khalifé’s works.
