"BASIC LAW" DECLARES ISRAEL BELONGS MORE TO ME THAN TO PEOPLE WHO HAVE LIVED THERE FOR 5000 YEARS

Uri Averney

It's Saturday and if I were a religious Jew I wouldn't be doing this at all as working at the keyboard violates the Sabbath.  But I am not religious and I'll take my chances.  This post by Uri Averney is just too damn scary to let go.  I know many of you gave up on Israel long ago and figure it couldn't get worse.  Well, you are wrong.  It can always get worse.  The question is can it ever get better.


So from Uri Averney News I bring you the following bit of news you could do without.

Dichter's Law

13/08/11 “THE PEOPLE Demand Social Justice!” 250 thousand protesters chanted in unison in Tel Aviv last Saturday. But what they need – to quote an American artist - is “more unemployed politicians”.

Fortunately, the Knesset has gone on a prolonged vacation, three months. For as Mark Twain quipped: “No man’s life or property is safe while the legislature is in session.”

As if to prove this point, MK Avi Dichter submitted, on the very last day of the outgoing session, a bill so outrageous that it easily trumps all the many other racist laws lately adopted by this Knesset.

“DICHTER” IS A German name and means “poet”. But no poet he. He is the former chief of the secret police, the “General Security Service” (Shin-Bet or Shabak).

(“Dichter also means “more dense”, but let’s not dwell on that.)

He proudly announced that he had spent a year and a half smoothening and sharpening this particular project, turning it into a legislative masterpiece.

And a masterpiece it is. No colleague in yesterday’s Germany or present-day Iran could have produced a more illustrious piece. The other members of the Knesset seem to feel so, too – no less than 20 of the 28 members of the Kadima faction, as well as all the other dyed-in-the-wool racist members of this august body, have proudly put their name to this bill as co-authors.

The very name - “Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People” - shows that this Dichter is neither a poet nor much of an intellectual. Secret police chiefs seldom are.

“Nation” and “People” are two different concepts. It is generally accepted that a people is an ethnic entity, and a nation is a political community. They exist on two different levels. But never mind.

It is the content of the bill that counts.

WHAT DICHTER proposes is to put an end to the official definition of Israel as a “Jewish and Democratic State”.

He proposes instead to set clear priorities: Israel is first and foremost the nation-state of the Jewish people, and only as a far second a democratic state. Wherever democracy clashes with the Jewishness of the state, Jewishness wins, democracy loses.

This makes him, by the way, the first right-wing Zionist (apart from Meir Kahane) who openly admits that there is a basic contradiction between a “Jewish” state and a “democratic” state. Since 1948, this has been strenuously denied by all Zionist factions, their phalanx of intellectuals and the Supreme Court.

What the new definition means is that the State of Israel belongs to all the Jews in the world – including Senators in Washington, drug-dealers in Mexico, oligarchs in Moscow and casino-owners in Macao, but not to the Arab citizens of Israel, who have been here for at least 1300 years since the Muslims entered Jerusalem. Christian Arabs trace their ancestry back to the crucifixion 1980 years ago, Samaritans were here 2500 years ago and many villagers are probably the descendents of the Canaanites, who were already here some 5000 years ago.

All these will become, once this bill is law, second-class citizens, not only in practice, as now, but also in official doctrine. Whenever their rights clash with what the majority of the Jews considers necessary for the preservation of the interests of the “nation-state of the Jewish people” – which may include everything from land ownership to criminal legislation –their rights will be ignored.

THE BILL itself does not leave much room for speculation. It spells things out.

The Arabic language will lose its status as an “official language” – a status it enjoyed in the Ottoman Empire, under the British Mandate and in Israel until now. The only official language in the Nation-State etc will be Hebrew.

No less typical is the paragraph that says that whenever there is a hole in Israeli law (called “lacuna”’ or lagoon), Jewish law will apply.

“Jewish law” is the Talmud and the Halakha, the Jewish equivalent of the Muslim Sharia. It means in practice that legal norms adopted 1500 years ago and more will trump the legal norms evolved over recent centuries in Britain and other European countries. Similar clauses exist in the laws of countries like Pakistan and Egypt. The similarity between Jewish and Islamic law is not accidental - Arabic-speaking Jewish sages, like Moses Maimonides (“the Rambam”) and their contemporary Muslim legal experts influenced each other.

The Halakha and the Sharia have much in common. They ban pork, practice circumcision, keep women in servitude, condemn homosexuals and fornicators to death and deny equality for infidels. (In practice, both religions have modified many of the harsher penalties. In the Jewish religion, for example, “an eye for an eye” now means compensation. Otherwise, as Gandhi so aptly said, we would all be blind by now.)

After enacting this law, Israel will be much nearer to Iran than to the USA. The “Only Democracy in the Middle East” will cease to be a democracy, but be very close in its character to some of the worst regimes in this region. “At long last, Israel is integrating itself in the region,” as an Arab writer mocked - alluding to a slogan I coined 65 years ago: “Integration in the Semitic Region”.

MOST OF the Knesset members who signed this bill fervently believe in “the Whole of Eretz-Israel” – meaning the official annexation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

They don’t mean the “One-State solution” that so many well-intentioned idealists dream about. In practice, the only One State that is feasible is one governed by Dichter’s law - the “Nation-State of the Jewish People” - with the Arabs relegated to the status of the Biblical “hewers of wood and drawers of water”.

Sure, the Arabs will be a majority in this state – but who cares? Since the Jewishness of the state will override democracy, their numbers will be irrelevant. Much as the number of blacks was in Apartheid South Africa.

LET’S HAVE a look at the party to which this poet of racism belongs: Kadima.

When I was in the army, I was always amused by the order: “the squad will retreat to the rear – forward march!”

This may sound absurd, but is really quite logical. The first part of the order relates to its direction, the second to its execution.

“Kadima” means “forward”, but Its direction is backward.

Dichter is a prominent leader of Kadima. Since his only claim to distinction is his former role as chief of the secret police, this must be why he was elected. But he has been joined in this racist project by more than 80% of the Kadima Knesset faction – the largest in the present parliament.

What does this say about Kadima?

Kadima has been a dismal failure in practically every respect. As an opposition faction in parliament it is a sad joke – indeed, I dare say that when I was a one-man faction in the Knesset, I generated more opposition activity than this 28-headed colossus. It has not formulated any meaningful stand on peace and the occupation, not to mention social justice.

Its leader, Tzipi Livni, has proved herself a total failure. Her only achievement has been her ability to keep her party together – no mean feat, though, considering that it consists of refugees (some would say traitors) from other parties, who hitched their cart to Ariel Sharon’s surging horses when he left the Likud. Most Kadima leaders left the Likud with him, and – like Livni herself – are deeply steeped in Likud ideology. Some others came from the Labor Party, arm in arm with that unsavory political prostitute, Shimon Peres.

This haphazard collection of frustrated politicians has tried several times to outflank Binyamin Netanyahu on the right. Its members have co-signed almost all the racist bills introduced in recent months, including the infamous “Boycott Law” (though when public opinion rebelled, they withdrew their signature, and some of them even voted against.)

How did this party get to be the largest in the Knesset, with one more seat than Likud? For left-wing voters, who were disgusted by Ehud Barak’s Labor Party and who dismissed the tiny Meretz, it seemed the only chance to stop Netanyahu and Lieberman. But that may change very soon.

LAST SATURDAY’s huge protest demonstration was the largest in Israel’s history (including the legendary “400,000 demo” after the Sabra-Shatilah massacre, whose real numbers were slightly lower). It may be the beginning of a new era.

It is impossible to describe the sheer energy emanating from this crowd, consisting mostly of 20-30-year-olds. History, like a gigantic eagle, could be felt beating its wings above. It was a jubilant mass, conscious of its immense power.

The protesters were eager to shun “politics” – reminding me of the words of Pericles, some 2500 years ago, that “just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean that politics won’t take an interest in you!”

The demonstration was, of course, highly political – directed against Netanyahu, the government and the entire social order. Marching in the dense crowd, I looked around for kippa-wearing protesters and could not spot a single one. The whole religious sector, the right-wing support group of the settlers and Dichter’s Law, was conspicuously absent, while the Oriental Jewish sector, the traditional base of Likud, was amply represented.

This mass protest is changing the agenda of Israel. I hope that it will result in due course in the emergence of a new party, which will change the face of the Knesset beyond recognition. Even a new war or another “security emergency” may not avert this.

That will surely be the end of Kadima, and few will mourn it. It would also mean bye-bye to Dichter, the Secret Police poet.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL EXPLAINS WHY BLACK WOMEN SHOULD MARRY MEN OF OTHER RACES, OR WHAT UNIVERSE AM I IN

After accidentally running into a few minutes of the Republican debate last night during which Michelle Bachman discussed her notion of being submissive to her husband, Ron Paul explained why he is against gay marriage, and Rick Santorum pointed out that although we are not allowed to execute a rapist, we are allowed to "execute" the unborn child who is the result of the rape, I figured I was losing my mind.  Then, this morning, I read this and had it confirmed.  I have stumbled into a parallel universe.

From People of Color Organize.

Now Wall Street is Concerned About Black Marriage!? 

Us Rads always have reactionary family members, and my reactionary family member ambushed me with the most anti-Black article I’ve read in my life.  As any conscience colonized person knows, many of our elders are still held by the notion that “White is Right”.  However, I refused to be subjected to ignorance, so in response to this abhorrent article from the Wall Street Journal (of all publications!!) I sent the following response.  The article is titled “An Interracial Fix to Black Marriage” and it hypothesizes that Black marriage can be saved if Black women attempt to date white men.   You read it right folks….the Murdoch owned Wall Street Journal, a so called respectable publication, published this ridiculous article!!

If you decide to torture yourself and read the article, you will notice that the Negro bootlicker who wrote this article names other ethnicities that Black women can “explore”.  Nevertheless the pictures (one of them being the headline of this post) tell his real intention. 

It’s interesting that you say this article has “interesting facts” because when I read it, all I see is an anti-black opinion piece coming from a patriarchal perspective of the issues that Black women and by extension Black Men face.  This article has absolutely no facts at all and completely lacks a structural analysis to the conditions that are imposed on Black people by the state and Wall Street itself. 

First off it is problematic this article was published by the Wall Street Journal.  A publication owned by Rupert Murdoch, the recently exposed media mogul who owns Fox News and all other sorts of anti-black and racist media outlets, including Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck shows (well known and ardent RACIST).  It is a mistake to take anything you read at face value and not consider the source.  Wall Street is the biggest criminal who destabilized the economy for their own gain at the expense of Black people particularly by targeting us for subprime mortgages (Study Shows Blacks Will NEVER Gain Wealth Parity With Whites Under the Current System, in this article pay special close attention to the fact that “Upper income Blacks fell even farther behind their white peers than lower income Blacks”.)   And I know we love to forget our past so we can clamor to be so-called Americans, but it’s a fact that Wall Street had its advent in trading Black bodies (The Slavers of Wall Street: Investment Banks and Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade).  So how is it that now they are so worried about the Black family that it feels it needs to put forth solutions?!  And even worse the solution is so ridiculous I can’t believe anyone would think it is sound.

“Black women can best promote black marriage by opening themselves to relationships with men of other races”

So some kind of way for us to negate ourselves and go “outside” the race is supposed to heal Black families!  That’s counter-intuitive and anti-intellectual.  How is it that essentially making Black men jealous (which is pretty much his “astute” analysis) supposed to alleviate the real, objective, and structural problems we face as a SUBJECT of American society?  He’s telling the reader that having the individual solution of running away from your community and marrying white men, will effect change in the community at large and spun more Black marriages!  Come on ya’ll, even a child can see that doesn’t correlate!

Second, this article is completely patriarchal written by a Black man who claims he talked to all these Black women in order to give some modicum of authenticity.  I don’t believe he talked to any of the Black women he claimed.  The majority of Black women are not living this upper-middle class lifestyle that he claims is causing us to have a disconnect with the so-called “blue collar Black man”. The majority of Black women work more than one low-wage job just to make ends meet.  Not to mention that Black women’s incarceration is sky-rocketing, but he never mentions that at all (Number of Young African American Women in Prison Rises).  The prison industrial complex is attacking Black people, not just Black men.   

And he presents his position as if being married is the only thing that gives a woman real worth.

“Audrey earns a good living, too, with an income from management consulting that far surpasses what her parents ever made. Her social life is busy as well, filled with family, friends and church.  What Audrey lacks is a husband”

Wow, thank you great father for letting us know that we cannot be complete nor have any value without having a man.  Thank you so much for reminding us that Judeo-Christian values teach the world that a woman must live in the shadow of a man and our place is to be the protector of home and hearth with no real affect or involvement in public and political life.  You’re so good to remind us that we can’t speak for ourselves and that we need a man to impart our realities to the rest of the world.  We are just so dependent and childlike that we are incapable of articulating our own problems, we need a big strong, man to come save us!!

Then he talks about how Black men have more of an ability to be a “playa”, so they are not confronted with relationship problems.   

“Black women confront the worst relationship market of any group because of economic and cultural forces that are not of their own making; and they have needlessly worsened their situation by limiting themselves to black men.”

So the author has essentially blamed the demise of the Black family on Black women.  He has placed it all on our backs, while at the same time saying that our solution is to negate ourselves and the Black family by not making Black babies.  So at the end of the day his analysis is that ANYTHING is better than Black!  How can anyone think this article is worth circulating and poisoning our minds with trash to believe that we are pathological and that Black women enable our pathology?  And how is it that Black men have improved their lot by dating White women while at the same time being rammed into jail, how does this make logical sense?

The structural analysis is completely lacking.  First off, let’s ask the question as to why Black men’s incarceration is high.  It’s because the racist war on drugs will convict a Black man and throw him in jail while a white man committing the same or worse offense will get off scott free.  Not to mention that this same white man will get a job BEFORE a Black man with no criminal record!  I suggest everyone buy and read the new book by Michelle Alexander called The New Jim Crow and listen to this radio showproduced by Black Agenda Report who truly have our interest at heart.  Not some Uncle Tom, licking the boots of the WSJ editors!

Finally (there are so many things wrong with this article, I can’t even cover it all), how it is that Black women will have more in common with Asian, Latino, or Middle Eastern men?  While we have all been colonized and face racial oppression, Black people suffer a special oppression that only other Black people can relate to; regardless of so-called class.  His analysis once again brings us back to the fact that this racist publication is trying to prove that anything is better than Black, and the way to bringing prosperity is to get rid of Blackness through miscegenation with any other race.  Furthermore, Latino does not mean Brown people.  Latino is a designation for a group of people who speak a Latin language, which means there are millions of Black people who are also Latino in South America and on the Continent.  As you can see, based on Wikipedia’s definition, Haitians are also Latino because Haiti is in Latin America.  So he shows his ignorance in using this lexicon as if being Latino means non-Black.  Nevertheless, if you want to talk about our ability to negate ourselves by dating Brown people to make our relationships and prospects better purely because they are not Black (and therefore “not pathological and in jail”),  that’s false as well because Brown Latino men’s incarceration rates are not far behind non-Latino Black men.

Honestly, this article was highly offensive and in the future do not send me anymore reactionary, anti-Black, propaganda written by any Uncle Tom on behalf of their white masters.  For anyone reading my response who wants real news about Black people’s condition, I suggest you visit Black Agenda Report,Voxunion, and People of Color Organize (to name a few).  I purposefully don’t watch TV or read mainstream, right-wing, reaction publications because it does nothing to uplift us as a people and to bolster our self-confidence.  So I would appreciate it if you did not subject me to this trash.  Wow, another reason not to despise Rupert Murdoch!

LONDON: RIOT, REBELLION...BOTH

Watts 1965

Whatever you may think of what is going on in Britain, these "riots" are "rebellions," too.  These are not just some blokes who got up one morning and thought, "Think I'll go out and fight some cops, and do a little burning and looting."  It has taken many years of NOT neglect, as some say.  No, Capital and the British State knows these people are here, they aren't neglecting them, they are using them...for profit and to keep their hold on power.  Capital doesn't just forget about folks. It eats them alive....always has, always will...until it is no more.

Anyway the following articles are is from the San Francisco Bay View and Red Pepper.

When is a riot a rebellion?

by Carl Finamore

London 2011

Several days of unprecedented revolt by the most impoverished minority-populated neighborhoods of London have shaken the normally staid and reserved British aristocracy. Prime Minister David Cameron cut short his Italian vacation in sunny Tuscany to return to the red-orange glare of a burning city. The prime minister was not the only one inconvenienced.
In an effort to mobilize 16,000 police officers concentrated in London alone, England’s soccer-addicted fans saw their Aug. 10 match against the Netherlands in Wembley Stadium canceled.
So it appears, this week at least, after years of ignoring glaring inequality and injustice, it is safe to say that all of England took notice of the crowded south London neighborhood of Tottenham and to similar minority communities in Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Bristol where an explosive, fiery social consciousness has been rekindled .
Tottenham itself, where events first ignited over the police killing of an unarmed Black man, is a genuinely multicultural mix of mostly British-born African-Caribbean inhabitants along with Turkish, Portuguese, Albanian, Kurdish and Somali peoples reportedly speaking 300 different languages.
It claims to be the most diverse community in all of Europe but there is no doubt that most share in common the intense poverty and the abuse and neglect by the rich and powerful that is all too familiar.
During this past week, these different languages came together to speak with one voice: Look at us; we deserve to be treated fairly.
London’s current revolt is quite different than the massive protests in other European capitals and even distinguished from those in the Middle East.
The poor of Tottenham, however, do share much with their brethren in the Black and minority communities of North America. Neither have powerful advocates that are independent of the political establishment.
London’s revolt forecasts America’s future?
Traditional community and labor organizations in both Britain and the United States purporting to represent the working class have utterly failed these communities and allowed both Downing Street and Wall Street to impose their most austere policies on these least-represented amongst us.
“Most of all, it once again exposes the trickery and deceit of those who aspire to be our leaders. Not a single Black ‘leader’ has spoken out in defence of the youths. Not one,” Hal Austin writes in the Aug. 9 CounterPunch. Austin is a Barbadian living in London and a leading journalist and social commentator from the Black community.
Cannot the same be said in America where, for example, prominent national voices mobilizing the oppressed communities to demand jobs are noticeably absent?
Of course, the British government peddles a different story about events in Tottenham. Most are echoed by the establishment press.
A typical response came from GlobalPost’s London correspondent, Michael Goldfarb, who was quoted on the PBS NewsHour website as derisively dismissing the social problems of Tottenham by commenting, “The tension around [the police killing of the Black male] got out of hand very quickly, but it was clear almost from the beginning that this was plain old looting” by mainly unemployed youth with nothing to do on hot summer nights.

^[2]

Police line up outside a burning building in Tottenham.

To the extent that this crude and vulgar opinion is shared by many in Britain, it only serves to confirm the truth: Tottenham residents are isolated politically and socially from the rest of British society and particularly from the rest of the working class.
Fundamentally, their isolated existence explains the different form the rebellion took; more akin to a chaotic riot in many people’s eyes as opposed to the far better organized massive upheavals in Madrid, Athens and Cairo that united majority sections of their population and that, thereby, more easily won sympathy and admiration throughout the world.
It is important to recall that these same massive actions ultimately achieved major support from significant and massive social organizations that helped define the powerful and effective character of their protests.
Culpability for the desperate acts in Tottenham is shared by organizations of the working class that have so profoundly failed to embrace these communities and offer them the same shared benefits of organization and same shared status as brothers and sisters.
Their organizational and political inclusion early on, I believe, would have significantly altered and strengthened how Tottenham residents reacted these last few days.
Divided and disorganized
Attempts during the era of the triumphant civil rights movement to politically and socially unite the Black community in the United States were met with government inspired assassinations and police terrorism, as documented by revelations contained in the U.S. government’s COINTELPRO papers.
As a result, beginning in the 1970s, criminal gangs began replacing FBI-targeted militant organizations like the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), Black Panther Party, Young Lords, Brown Berets and numerous other effective social and political organizations in the communities of the oppressed.
This had a debilitating effect after several decades and results today in reactions to police brutality and poverty being often marked by scattered individual acts of frustration and anger. Protests are sometimes laced with anti-social behavior previously adopted as survival techniques.
For example, while ostensible political targets such as police cars and offices were burned in both Tottenham and Cairo, there was also in the former case the indiscriminate burning of buildings and some personal accounts of victimization that comes from pent-up rage.
There were other examples of criminal activity and even conflicts between gangs in the oppressed community of Tottenham that were also reported. Again, these are a result of decades of disorganization in the oppressed communities.

Protests are sometimes laced with anti-social behavior previously adopted as survival techniques.

These are not excuses, neither are they defenses. It is an explanation that contains the answer for its resolution: New organizations must be forged that unite the community around common social goals and aspirations.
The proliferation of criminal gangs and the utter lack of a coherent, credible and socially class-conscious leadership are but additional reflections of political and social separation from the majority of working people.
But this reality and the impact it has on distorting the communities’ response should not in any way diminish the powerful and profound social nature of the Tottenham revolt – one deserving of our full support.

A politically cohesive and united Tottenham is the frightening specter that certainly haunts the wealthy elite in Britain, even more than the current, very dramatic random acts of outrage.

The 1965 Watt’s rebellion in Los Angeles was similarly attacked in its day as a criminal enterprise but history has now properly recorded it as a true revolt against poverty and discrimination. History will also record Tottenham on this honor roll.
The rich and powerful benefit from divisions and rivalries in the oppressed communities, both in Britain and in the United States. Arguably, these same forces promote criminalization as a way of preventing the kind of social unity that could become a powerful political force.
A politically cohesive and united Tottenham is the frightening specter that certainly haunts the wealthy elite in Britain, even more than the current, very dramatic random acts of outrage.
As for their richer cousins in the United States, the wealthy elite here are only too well aware of the smoldering embers of discontent that have been stoked by the same draconian reductions in jobs and social services that have been adopted in Britain.
These issues affect the majority of Americans and, hopefully, we will learn from Tottenham that a united response is the best response with no community or section of working people left alone to fend for themselves.
Carl Finamore is a labor activist living in the Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood of San Francisco, where 60 percent of Black youth are unemployed. He can be reached at local1781@yahoo.com ^[3].

‘There is a mass insurrection’

Darcus Howe is a broadcaster and columnist who lives in Brixton, South London. His TV work includes “White Tribe,” in which he put Anglo-Saxon Britain under the spotlight. Howe organized the 20,000-strong Black People’s March in 1981, claiming official neglect and inefficient policing of the investigation of the New Cross Fire in which 13 Black teenagers died.
Following are two interviews with him: the first by the BBC, broadcast Aug. 9 and the second by Democracy Now, broadcast Aug. 10. Note the difference in approach by government-owned (BBC) and listener-and-viewer-owned (DN) media.

Here is the interview with Darcus Howe excerpted from the Democracy Now transcript ^[4]:
Amy Goodman: We’re going to go first to Darcus Howe. Talk about what is happening in your country right now. What is happening in Britain?
Darcus Howe: There is a mass insurrection. And I’m not talking about rioting; I’m talking about an insurrection that comes from the depths of society, from the consciousness, collectively, of the young Blacks and whites, but overwhelmingly Blacks, as a result of the consistent stopping and searching of young Blacks without cause.
They changed the law. Before, you had to provide evidence that you were looking at this character for doing this and bouncing ladies and pushing his hand in a handbag, before they stop and search you. They moved that clean out and replaced it with anti-terror legislation that allows you to stop and search anybody, anytime, anywhere.
My grandson is 14 years old and I asked him, I said, “Nathan, how many times have you been stopped and searched?” He said, “Papa, I can’t count, it’s so many.” And that anger has been simmering beneath the surface because when you have hundreds of thousands of young people acting simultaneously; the issue has to be simultaneously experienced. And so when Mark Duggan was executed, they all had empathy with it and issues in their minds about what life is and what it is not.
The second practical thing is they’re on holidays. The school year is over. And anybody who’s been cooped up in a classroom in your teens for a term wants out. And you feel freedom of – a spiritual freedom. You breathe widely, “hahhh,” and you say, “School over, monkey turn over.” So that is a moment. I don’t think it would have happened in January or the middle of October or anything. It’s summer. It’s warm. In fact, some of the nights were quite hot.
And Mark Duggan lost his life. The Operation Trident – we have known Operation Trident for a long time. They came to investigate murders and they did absolutely brilliantly. And I have been all open in saying it’s a fine squad.
Now, everything is changing in the Metropolitan Police. It is perhaps one of the most disgraced organizations in the United Kingdom at the moment. And it’s headless – no commissioner, no deputy commissioner. So all these guys who are head of these operations – special operations, special ops, Razorback, Operation Razorback, Operation Trident – they’re all over the place, jostling to draw the attention of the authorities to get that big job and the deputy.
And so they go to Tottenham, where the first explosion took place, without telling the commander of that area. They were carrying that Glock Heckler pistol. That is a murderous weapon. It is the most murderous weapon you can ever put in your hands. And in bright, broad daylight, among ordinary people, they blew his chest away. Up to – they said that he had a pistol. Now they’re saying the extra pistol wasn’t his. We don’t know.
So two things. When they demonstrated – the family – to the police station, the commander could not come out and say anything because he was fussing all around trying to get in contact with his men on the ground. Nobody knew. And they did that and went their way.
And so the degeneration of the Metropolitan Police, the competition for the job of Metropolitan commissioner and deputy commissioner, that competition is on. And each one, each commander, would like to go to the extreme and put up his hand and beat his chest and say, “I qualify.” And that is the spirit at Scotland Yard.
Amy Goodman: Linton Kwesi Johnson, “Man Free (for Darcus Howe).” Linton Kwesi Johnson did this song for our guest, Darcus Howe. This is Democracy Now! democracynow.org, the war and peace report. Our guests are Darcus Howe, broadcaster, columnist, and Richard Seymour, who blogs at “Lenin’s Tomb.” They’re both joining us from London.
Darcus Howe, that song, what is the significance of it? And give us the history of your community, of Brixton, and how you feel this might fit into that history, what is taking place today, now more than a thousand people have been arrested across Britain.
Darcus Howe: It’s very repetitive of what happened in Brixton in 1981 – the exact same thing. They were beating up, stop and search – Operation Swamp, it was – and actually swamped the entire community and searched anything that moved that was male and that was Black.

^[5]

Rebellion spreads to North London.

It was a clear distinction. And that exploded, I think, about 40 yards from my house. I was editor of The Journal. I led a demonstration of 20,000 people only weeks before. So I thought the best thing, I told Mrs. Howe, “Let’s go to the office up the street and sit in there.” And a serial of policemen lined up in front of my office. So when I was asked, “Where were you when the riot was on?” I said: “You ask the police. They have record of not only where I was, but everything I said on my phone.”
And there’s spontaneity. But the weakness is always the commentators: the press. It comes like a thief in the night to them, because they deal only with what has happened, not what is likely to happen, which is a kind of speculative truth. So they’re always surprised. And whenever there’s surprise, they look for people to blame, to cover up their own inadequacies. Whenever there’s surprise, they create a plot and a plan of some people – I don’t know if they were from Mars or what – as a result. And it is spontaneous.
After Brixton, the riots snaked, as it is doing now through Birmingham, Manchester, all over, Leeds, Bradford. It even included a place in the south called Cirencester of which I know nothing. I didn’t know any Black people lived there – in Gloucestershire. And so, the snake is traveling along the same path that it did in 1981.
Amy Goodman: And what do these communities have in common, Darcus?
Darcus Howe: There is absolutely no difference. There is no difference, in the minutest detail, in the insurrection and the looting. I think there’s much more looting now because they’re on school holidays. And one of the things about young people – because I was young once – [they] like whatever in fashion, [they] must have it; otherwise [they] won’t get a girlfriend. This is the spirit of youth.
Amy Goodman: I wanted … to get your comment, Darcus Howe.
Darcus Howe: Trousers, sneakers.
Amy Goodman: I wanted to get your comment on the London mayor, Boris Johnson, who walked through the streets of Clapham in south London with a broom on Tuesday as residents launched a clean-up operation in one of the worst-hit areas of the violence. He criticized those seeking to justify the unrest:
“It’s time we stop hearing all this, you know, nonsense about how there are deep sociological justifications for wanton criminality and destruction of people’s property. Whatever people’s grievances may be, it does not justify smashing up someone’s shop, wrecking their livelihood and kicking them out of a job. That is not the way to behave. That’s not the way to have an economic recovery in this city.”
That’s the London mayor, Boris Johnson. Do you condemn the unrest, Darcus Howe? Do you [condemn] the riots that are destroying a lot of the communities and the businesses within the poorest communities of Britain right now?
Darcus Howe: Americans will remember the anger of Black Americans at a certain point in history. Rap Brown celebrated that explosion, several explosions in Chicago [inaudible] every day. He says, “Burn, baby, burn!” That was his slogan. And it was approved by radical whites and Blacks. They have a reason for it.
Secondly, they’re very poor now. I have never known young people to be poor as they are now in the midst of an avalanche of advertisements and celebrity with the latest sneakers and top, bouncing around with their little hats on their head. And they cannot get the money to buy it; so they rip off the front of the stores and steal it.
I am not an Anglican Christian. My father was. He was a priest. And therefore, I don’t walk around with Ten Commandments and use them at sharp, historical, political moments in the history of a tribe, in the history of a country, in the history of an inner city. They stole it and they stole it. I don’t make any fuss when they have a lot of MPs and members of the House of Lords in jail for stealing. I don’t make a statement about democracy because a handful of them are thieves. So, this denigration is of Boris’ people because we’re all his citizens, and you look at one and speak about them in a certain way. But Boris is – Boris is Boris.
Amy Goodman: The mayor of London.
Darcus Howe: He’s a highly educated man. He loves Greek civilization and all of that, but Boris doesn’t have – and he’d better be careful, because the Olympics are next year in the London inner city.
Amy Goodman: Darcus Howe, do you have a sense that the feeling of people’s frustration of the poverty, the austerity that’s being raised, goes across race, that you’re talking about the poor whites as well and that it’s a class issue? [A]lso [is there a feeling] that there are those that are taking advantage of a moment of frustration to riot, to steal?
Darcus Howe: Hello? Let me say this. I write a column, a fortnightly column, in the only Black newspaper in the United Kingdom. And last week, before any Mark Duggan or anything, I write not from events only, from my historical sense, from my speculative truth. And I wrote, “I hope Amy Winehouse is floating in the stars, speaking in the air of authority, saying, ‘No, no, no.’” That was a warning.
I am not anybody with special qualities that I could divine what is happening tomorrow. I am not some of those people who do it by magic [who] you pay a little and know what’s going to happen tomorrow. I wrote that specifically because of not only what my grandson was telling me, but the sound of his voice. You can – it hit another pitch. And his friends and his mom and my friends’ children, there was a sense that the lid was going to blow and blow sky-high. So I was not in any way surprised.
Who had to be surprised? Those who govern. So they could do nothing to stop it, because it doesn’t – they don’t know if it’s there. They don’t even know if Black people are there. The Parliament, they didn’t even know what was there. It was there for all those who were paying attention, would see and listen to people, not question them and say, “Are you going to be rioting tomorrow?” No, you just ask questions. And then suddenly they burst out, as though they’re completely fed up.
I assure you and your viewers I knew something was on the agenda. The police did not know. I was in no surprise when Trident killed Duggan, none whatsoever. And I’m not surprised that they have weapons on the street now – armed police – and much more than normal. You mightn’t see it; it might be tucked in a car somewhere.
Amy Goodman: Talk about what you feel.
Darcus Howe: I’m not surprised that they’re tapping the phones of all of us who have been outspoken. And it’s no surprise if I come down the road late and, no, they don’t see anybody else, [so] dive on me and pick me up and fancy a story. That is where we are now.
Amy Goodman: Darcus Howe, what do you think needs to be done?
Darcus Howe: And I’m not [inaudible] or anything. That’s what we are now.
Amy Goodman: What would you, Darcus, what would you … want to see happening right now? How do you think this should all be resolved? We’re talking about four days of this uprising, of the riots, of the fires, of more than a thousand people arrested, police out in the largest presence in history now in the streets of London and others. What do you think needs to happen right now?

We must have broadcasters from all over the world and discuss the future of a civilization within a civilization and make that absolutely clear.

Darcus Howe: There has to be an overture made to young Blacks, saying, “Peace.” And you could do that with making clear that you disassociate yourself – I’m talking about the prime minister now – disassociate themselves with Operation Trident and dissolve it, dissolve Operation Razorback, which is terrorizing communities right now.
And the other thing, the genuine Black intellectuals and working class unionists and so on should hold an international conference within the next six months to lay out precisely the state of society. We must have Black Americans there. We must have broadcasters from all over the world and discuss the future of a civilization within a civilization and make that absolutely clear.
We invite delegates from Africa, we invite delegates from the Caribbean and say this is not the country that Cameron boasts of, and [explain] how, beneath the surface, [there is] terror and the disrespect on the [basis] of race, mainly, and we have to resolve it. We have to resolve it and resolve it in a civilized way.
Amy Goodman: We’re going to leave it there.
Darcus Howe: Not go with a demonstration to the House of Lords or Parliament and to your MP and whatever. We have to lift it sky-high and let the entire civilization of this world know that what they’re doing in Afghanistan is much of what they do to kill people here.

Beneath the surface, [there is] terror and the disrespect on the [basis] of race, mainly, and we have to resolve it.

I’m not angry, but I’m deadly serious. Every time I walk the street, my eyes are scanning the landscape for rogue police officers. And I warn my children to do that, and my grandchildren.
Amy Goodman: Darcus Howe, I want to thank you for being with us –
Darcus Howe: I’m going to see them next Sunday.
Democracy Now! is broadcast weekdays on KPFA 94.1 FM at 7 and 9 a.m. and on over 900 radio and TV stations, the largest community media collaboration in the country. Visit www.democracynow.org ^[6] for archived shows, transcripts, podcasts and more. This segment was broadcast Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2011.

Riots: The left must respond

10 August 2011: Let’s get on the streets and demand an end to cuts and police brutality, says James O’Nions

‘If you’re not careful the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.’ - Malcolm X

A depressing YouGov poll today (pdf) shows that 90 per cent of Britons believe police should be able to use water cannons to quell rioting, while a third believe they should have the use of live ammunition – in other words that they should be able to shoot indiscriminately at people with little accountability, as that’s what such a power would amount to. While we should be wary of polls of this kind as a real arbiter of public opinion, it is nevertheless clear that demands for a virtual police state in response to the riots are reaching fever pitch.

There is lots to be said from the left about the reasons the riots are happening, and commentators from Nina Power to Zoe Williamsare starting to do so. We can talk about the impact of spending cuts to youth services, EMAs and the rest on cities where unemployment is high and inequality continues to grow. In London in particular, poor inner city neighbourhoods where young people can (very reasonably) see no decent future for themselves, nestle up against much wealthier areas which seem unaffected by the recession and are still living the high life of iPads, regular weekend breaks in Europe and fine dining.

We can also talk about the psychological impact of 30 years of neoliberalism and the rampant consumerism that goes with it. Hence the phenomenon of ‘consumer rioting’, with high street chains targeted not just for destruction, but for the latest accessories. This could be described as a kind of confused redistribution of wealth – unfair, based on individual smash and grab, and not really redistributing wealth much at all – but nevertheless motivated by keenly felt social injustice. Of course, some of the looting was for what could reasonably be described as necessities too, but any basic collective sentiment, beyond a shared sense of being a generation without hope, was lacking. This was not Athens.

We can and should also talk about the regular, humiliating stop and searches which many of those who have been rioting (and many of their peers who haven’t) undergo. Its no wonder that that the shooting of Mark Duggan set some of this off – these kids know just what brutal thugs the police often are. They know this wasn’t a one-off, but part of a continuum of police repression and impunity that will probably see them getting away with it again. And yes, many of them know exactly how useless and toothless the IPCC is. Of 333 deaths in police custody since 1998, none have resulted in a conviction.

But important though all this is, we need to do more than talk. The right is making the running, and the facts on the ground need changing. While some left commentators (and no, I don’t include Sunny Hundall in that category) have been saying the right things, left-leaning politicians rarely have. Diane Abbott was among the first to talk up the idea of a curfew. Ken Livingstone bashed the government for their cuts, but was most concerned to talk about cuts to the police in London leading to an inadequate response to the riots. He certainly won’t be talking about police violence, given the robust support he’s given to the Met in cases ranging from Jean Charles de Menezes to Ian Tomlinson.

What we need right now are channels for giving voice to the issues which lie behind the riots. This is starting to happen. Last night in Tottenham, 60-70 activists from Hackney and Haringey, called together by the Day Mer Kurdish association and Hackney Alliance to Defend Public Services, met to come up with a response. As a result there will be a demonstration on Saturday from Dalston to Tottenham under the slogan Give Our Kids a Future. Whatever your exact attitude to the rioting itself, its vital to build this demo, and others like it around the country, if we’re to turn the tide of reaction and have a hope of making demands for real social justice. (There is also a similar demo from Deptford High Street at 6.30pm to Lewisham Town Hall today, 10 August.)

All over the world, the rise of neoliberalism has been accompanied by the rise of the security state. This is no accident. The victory for the capitalist class that neoliberalism represents produces howls of protest from the oppressed. Sometimes they have political direction, and sometimes they don’t. The response of the Conservatives, and of elites the world over, is to deny any real grievances and unleash further state-led violence. If we want to build an alternative based on economic justice and freedom, our first job is to ensure that ordinary people aren’t cheering them on. 

KILLING WOMEN BECAUSE THEY CAN

I don't want anyone to think of mentioning to me "cultural differences."  You can't just go out and kill women because you happen to have the power to do so.  Well, I take that back, actually and obviously you can do just that.  I am disgusted to even have to post something like this in 2011, disgusted to think that honor killings are still going on.  Women, Mao once said, hold up half the sky.  I'm thinking they ought to drop their half on those holding up the other fifty percent.


From the Calgary Herald.


Papp: 'Honour' killings continue to be a disgrace

Arif Mubashir, a Pakistani father of six daughters, called them into his room and shot them while the rest of the family, including the mother, Musarrat, watched.

The six daughters were gunned down because their brother suspected that two of them (Razia, 16, and Sameena, 14) "were friendly with male students who attended a nearby college." The four other girls were killed because they sided with their sisters. They, too, were deemed corrupt and were executed.

Mubashir told police that he killed Razia and Sameena "because they were without honour." He said that "he does not regret what he did. He boasted that he would do it all over again if he had to."

Mubashir's deeds may be rare, but they are not uncommon.

The Aurat Foundation, an agency working to empower women in Pakistan, reported that it had recorded 3,035 such cases in Pakistan between January and June. Former Pakistani parliamentarian Mehnaz Rafi has said that violence against women has increased in 2011. In India, more than 5,000 brides die annually because their dowries are considered insufficient, according to the United Nations Children's Fund.

The Progressive Women's Association, in Bangladesh, which assists attack victims, tracked 3,560 women who were hospitalized after being attacked at home with fire, gasoline or acid between 1994 and 1999. Recently, Rumana Manzur became the victim of honour-based violence in Bangladesh, when her husband attacked her with explosive rage and tried to gouge her eyes out on the mere (unfounded) suspicion that she had been unfaithful.

Just days ago in Surrey, B.C., Manmeet Singh allegedly murdered his wife, Ravinder Bhangu, while she was at work at a Punjabi newspaper.

Thousands of women are regularly murdered by family members each year in the name of family "honour" around the world. It's difficult to get precise numbers on the phenomenon of honour killing; the murders frequently go unreported, the perpetrators unpunished.

How does a father execute his six daughters? How does a husband try to gouge his wife's eyes out? Honour killings reflect long-standing patriarchal traditions in societies where women are viewed as vessels of family honour and the male members see themselves as protectors of this honour.

Children learn from an early age that boys are more valued than girls. The only way for girls to attain value is through their relationships to men, mainly as wives and mothers of sons.

Boys are given all freedom and are encouraged to participate in decision-making as "protectors" of the women. A girl or woman who refuses to abide by strictures set by the family patriarch, or defies him in choosing her own partner, is seen as shaming the family. A harsh punishment at the hands of the patriarch and/or her brothers is then regarded as necessary, and is a fate seen as triggered by the victim herself.

The "protector" must have complete control of the females. Typically, the killer of the women is usually the father, husband or the brother of the victim. Honour killings are carried out to cleanse the family name and restore the family's perceived lost honour. The killer's deeds have the tacit approval of the family, at the very least.

But some surviving victims of these barbaric acts refuse to be defined by the violence inflicted on them. Manzur is an example. She is determined to carry on and finish her studies despite losing her sight. Support from family, friends and even strangers in Canada keeps her going.

Catherine Duvergne, senior adviser to University of B.C. president Stephen Toope, told the media, "It's absolutely possible for Manzur to continue her studies once she has recovered."

One thing that is certain, said Duvergne, "whatever decisions Manzur makes from this point going forward, she is going to need financial support."

Nothing can be done now for the murdered daughters of Arif and Mussarat Mubashir in Pakistan. But Rumana Manzur has not given up hope that something can be done to restore her sight. Canadians have a chance to help. Online donations can be directed through https: //rumana. givecentre.com/donate/11.

A rally of support and fundraising will be held today in Toronto.

Aruna Papp is research associate with the Frontier Centre. She is the author of Culturally-Driven Violence Against Women: A Growing Problem in Canada's Immigrant Communities, available at www.fcpp.org. Her upcoming book, Unworthy Creature: A Daughter's Memoir of Honour, Shame, and Love (McClelland & Stewart, 2012), is due next spring.

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