The world war on democracy

John Pilger

It is this refusal to give up that rotten power fears, above all, knowing it is the seed beneath the snow.

Lisette Talate died the other day. I remember a wiry, fiercely intelligent woman who masked her grief with a determination that was a presence. She was the embodiment of people's resistance to the war on democracy. I first glimpsed her in a 1950s Colonial Office film about the Chagos islanders, a tiny creole nation living midway between Africa and Asia in the Indian Ocean. The camera panned across thriving villages, a church, a school, a hospital, set in a phenomenon of natural beauty and peace. Lisette remembers the producer saying to her and her teenage friends, "Keep smiling girls!"

Sitting in her kitchen in Mauritius many years later, she said, "I didn't have to be told to smile. I was a happy child, because my roots were deep in the islands, my paradise. My great-grandmother was born there; I made six children there. That's why they couldn't legally throw us out of our own homes; they had to terrify us into leaving or force us out. At first, they tried to starve us. The food ships stopped arriving [then] they spread rumours we would be bombed, then they turned on our dogs."

In the early 1960s, the Labour government of Harold Wilson secretly agreed to a demand from Washington that the Chagos archipelago, a British colony, be "swept" and "sanitised" of its 2,500 inhabitants so that a military base could be built on the principal island, Diego Garcia. "They knew we were inseparable from our pets," said Lizette, "When the American soldiers arrived to build the base, they backed their big trucks against the brick shed where we prepared the coconuts; hundreds of our dogs had been rounded up and imprisoned there. Then they gassed them through tubes from the trucks' exhausts. You could hear them crying."

Lisette and her family and hundreds of islanders were forced on to a rusting steamer bound for Mauritius, a distance of 2,500 miles. They were made to sleep in the hold on a cargo of fertiliser: bird shit. The weather was rough; everyone was ill; two women miscarried. Dumped on the docks at Port Louis, Lizette's youngest children, Jollice, and Regis, died within a week of each other. "They died of sadness," she said. "They had heard all the talk and seen the horror of what had happened to the dogs. They knew they were leaving their home forever. The doctor in Mauritius said he could not treat sadness."


Israel tests international patience on Jerusalem

Khalid Amayreh


An Israeli police officer fires tear gas at Palestinian pro-
testers (not seen) during clashes in the East Jerusalem
neighborhood of Issawiya.
(AP/Sebastian Scheiner)

The results of the Likud leadership elections and continuing provocation at the Haram Al-Sharif signal growing extremism in Israel, writes Khalid Amayreh in occupied Jerusalem.

Moshe Feiglin is not a typical Likudnik in the style of other past and present Likud leaders, such as Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir, Ariel Sharon and Binyamin Netanyahu.

Those who know him say he is an incarnation of Meir Kahana, the racist-minded American rabbi who in the early 1970s founded the Kach organisation calling for the expulsion of non-Jews from Israel-Palestine, as well as the application of draconian Talmudic laws to replace Israel's quasi-secular system.

A few years ago, Feiglin decided to join the ranks of Likud, calculating that only by taking over a central and powerful party from within could he hope to transform Israel from a semi-secular state into a Jewish theocracy ruled by Halacha or the so-called Talmudic religious law.

So far, he has achieved only limited success, with less than 25 per cent of Likud registered members voting for him in the recent party leadership elections, in which the overwhelming majority voted for incumbent Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

However, the fact that Feiglin has been able to secure one fourth of Likud behind him does not bode well for either Israel's democracy or the future of Likud itself.

Ideologically, Feiglin is at the extreme right of the Israeli political map, believing that Israel should annex the West Bank, reoccupy the Gaza Strip, deport all Palestinians and demolish Muslim and Christian holy places in Jerusalem.


Depleting the Seas of Fish

Stephen Lendman

In November 2006, Washington Post writer Juliet Eilperin headlined, "World's Fish Supply Running Out, Researchers Warn," saying:

International ecologists and economists believe "the world will run out of seafood by 2048" if current fishing rates continue.

A journal Science study "conclude(d) that overfishing, pollution and other environmental factors are wiping out important species" globally. They're also impeding world oceans' ability to produce seafood, filter nutrients, and resist disease.

Marine biologist Boris Worm warned:

"We really see the end of the line now. It's within our lifetime. Our children will see a world without seafood if we don't change things."

Researchers studied fish populations, catch records, and ocean ecosystems for four years. By 2003, 29% of all species collapsed. It means they're at least "90% below their historic maximum catch levels."

In recent years, collapse rates accelerated. In 1980, 13.5% of 1,736 fish species collapsed. Today, 7,784 species are harvested.

According to Worm, "It's like hitting the gas pedal and holding it down at a constant level. The rate accelerates over time."

Oregon State University marine biologist Jane Lubchenco said the study shows fish stocks are in trouble. "I think people don't get it," she said. "If there is a problem with the oceans, how come the case in my grocery store is so full? There is a disconnect."

National Environmental Trust vice president Gerald Leape said "This should be a wake-up call to our leaders, both internationally and domestically, that they need to protect our fish stocks. Otherwise they will go away."


Tribalism, Racism and Projection – Part 2

Gilad Atzmon

2nd part of two – In this part I explore the misleading role of Jewish politics (both Zionist and anti Zionist) within the 'anti racist' campaign. To read the 1st part click here.

Racism is a big word with some very bad connotations. Being accused of racism is one of the most hurtful and potentially damaging labels around. And yet, how many ‘racists’ really think in ‘biological determinist’ terms? How many ‘racists’ out there really think in terms of ‘genes,’ or even ‘skin colour’? I guess not that many.

While acknowledging that racism had a significant cultural, and politically lethal impact between the late 19th century and the middle of the last century, in today’s politics, the word ‘racism’ is often misused, mistakenly used, or in some cases, consciously used to mislead and even to silence.

Though discrimination against minority groups is unfortunately common and totally unacceptable, it is not necessarily always motivated by crude racism. Islamophobia, for instance, is commonly regarded as a contemporary manifestation of racism but I would challenge such an understanding. Islamophobia, I contend, is not driven by racism, but rather, it is actually a crude symptom of intolerance -- xenophobia manifested as hatred, bigotry and discrimination. My English Muslim convert friends are often subjected to abuse by Jewish campaigners (both Zionist and ‘anti’-Zionists) and the English Defence League -- but not because of their ‘genes’, ‘biology’ or the colour of their skin, but rather because they are ‘different’; because they challenge Western value system and because they oppose Israel and its lobbies. Clearly, they are perceived by some as a 'public enemy' but that reaction cannot always be understood solely as ‘racism’ per se.

Similarly, it is beyond doubt that it is not easy to be black in ‘multi cultural’ Britain. Being a jazz musician I see first hand how my black friends are often treated in this country and I see plenty of evidence of institutional anti-black bigotry. I read about black youngsters being stopped and searched by police between one to four times a day. This is unacceptable and clear evidence of discrimination.


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