Obama gets an F on handling Ahmadinejad’s re-election
Posted by Silver Ribbon in Canadian Charger on Tuesday, June 30, 2009
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[Dr. Mohamed Elmasry, The Canadian Charger, June 30, 2009]
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No recent election has received as much attention in the Western media as has
Iran’s. The leaders of the U.S., France, U.K, Germany. and Italy have made no
secret of their dislike of the declared results: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
was given another four-year term.
Why the fuss, given that the U.S. did not comment on the results of the recent
Lebanese parliamentary elections, in which over a billion dollars was spent to
pay for charter flights and free trips for Lebanese in Canada and other
countries to go home and vote? Besides, irregularities and election security in
every election are common.
We all remember, as should President Barak Obama, the electoral fraud of the
2000 U.S. presidential election. George W. Bush stole the highest position in
the nation, and that led millions of Americans to call for taking back control
of the democratic process, exposing the corruption in election security, and
real election reform. I don't remember Mr. Obama saying a word at that time.
Let us first state some facts about Iran:
1. A cold war against Iran has been going on for some years now, led by the U.S.
and Israel. Helping in that war is a big media propaganda machine fed and
managed by the pro-Israeli lobby in the U.S.
2. Iran has followed the U.S.’s wishes some 80% of the time for the last 10
years-especially in matters related to Iraq, Afghanistan and al-Qa‘ida-but
this does not satisfy Washington.
3. This presidential election is the 11th in the last 30 years.
4. There have been some 30 elections at different levels in the last 30 years.
5. In all elections, over 70% of eligible Iranian voters cast ballots. The ratio
is about the same among the young and women. The ratio in the West is less than
60%.
6. Iran follows a political system according to a constitution that was approved
by the vast majority in 1979.
7. A pre-election poll conducted by The Washington Post showed Ahmadinejad
having a 2:1 lead over his nearest rival. Iranian polls indicated the same.
8. The U.S. was hoping for someone other than Ahmadinejad to deal with over the
next four years, figuring anyone else would be new to the job and therefore a
weaker negotiator.
9. Ahmadinejad is the first Iranian president who could identify closely with
the poor.
10. Ahmadinejad managed to maintain the Iranian economy to be ranked the third
in the region after that of Israel and Turkey, despite U.S.-imposed sanctions.
11. In the last four years, Ahmadinejad capably managed policies concerning
nuclear energy, satellite technology, relations with China and Russia,
infrastructure projects and defense.
Now we ask: who among the Iranians is not happy with the declared results and is
demonstrating inside and outside Iran? They belong to one of these groups:
1. Iranians who hate the idea of an Islamic republic, Iranian-style or any other
style.
2. Iranians who imagine that the U.S. would be kinder to their country if
Ahmadinejad were not president.
3. Rich Iranians affected by the social justice policies of Ahmadinejad.
4. Young Iranians who are emulating the West by using modern communication
technology.
5. Political supporters of other Iranian leaders whom Ahmadinejad harshly
criticized during the recent presidential TV debates, such as former President
Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, whom Ahmadinejad defeated four years ago.
"The election was free and there is no document proving these charges," said
Ahmadinejad in his first press conference following his re-election. "It is
really ridiculous that the loser of the election claims that majority of the
votes belong to him. This is really absurd."
Ahmadinejad said there was no crisis in the country, and he compared the
protestors to football fans whose team has lost and could not tolerate defeat.
"That is natural; these are short-term emotional reflections," he said, claiming
that freedom in Iran was "almost at a maximum level" and therefore opponents
still have the right to express their standpoints.
Helene Cooper of The New York Times reported that the continuing street
protests in Tehran are emboldening a corpus of conservatives-read pro-Israel
lobby-in Washington to demand that Mr. Obama take "a more visible stance" in
support of the protesters.
Ahmadinejad’s re-election was a test of Mr. Obama’s foreign policy. He got an F.
* Dr Mohamed Elmasry is Professor Emeritus of Computer Engineering, University
of Waterloo; Founder, The Canadian Islamic Congress; and member, editorial
board, The Canadian Charger. He can be reached at elmasry@thecanadiancharger.com
NGO Polls Support Iranian Peoples’ Election Choice
Posted by Silver Ribbon in Articles on Friday, June 19, 2009
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[By Ken Ballen and Patrick Doherty -- Washington Post -- June 15, 2009]
Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/14/AR2009061401757.html
Re-posted: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/jun/15/iran-election-polling
==============================
The election results in Iran may reflect the will of the Iranian people.
Many experts are claiming that the margin of victory for incumbent
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the result of fraud or manipulation, but
our nationwide public opinion survey of Iranians three weeks before the
vote showed Ahmadinejad leading by more than a 2-to-1 margin -- greater
than his actual apparent margin of victory in the June 12 election.
While Western news reports from Tehran in days leading up to the vote
portrayed an Iranian public enthusiastic about Ahmadinejad's principal
opponent, Mir Hossein Mousavi, our scientific sampling from all 30 of
Iran's provinces showed Ahmadinejad well ahead.
Independent and uncensored nationwide surveys of Iran are rare. Typically,
pre-election polls there are either conducted or monitored by the
government and are notoriously untrustworthy. By contrast, the poll
undertaken by our non-profit organizations from May 11 to May 20 was the
third in a series over the past two years. Conducted by telephone from a
neighboring country, field work was carried out in Farsi by a polling
company whose work in the region for ABC News and the BBC has received an
Emmy Award.
The breadth of Ahmadinejad's support was apparent in our pre-election
survey. During the campaign, for instance, Mousavi emphasized his identity
as an Azeri, the second-largest ethnic group in Iran after Persians, to woo
Azeri voters, yet our survey indicated that Azeris nevertheless favored
Ahmadinejad.
Much commentary has portrayed Iranian youth and the Internet as harbingers
of change in this election. But our poll found that only a third of
Iranians even have access to the Internet, while 18-to-24-year-olds
comprised the strongest generational voting bloc for Ahmadinejad.
The only demographic groups in which our survey found Mousavi leading or
competitive with Ahmadinejad were university students and graduates, and
the highest-income Iranians. When our poll was taken, almost a third of
Iranians were still undecided. Yet the baseline distributions we found then
mirror the results reported by the Iranian authorities, indicating the
possibility that the vote was a result of widespread fraud.
Some might argue that the professed support for Ahmadinejad we found simply
reflected respondents' fears of giving honest answers to pollsters. Yet the
integrity of our results is confirmed by the politically risky responses
Iranians were willing to give to a host of questions. For instance, nearly
four in five Iranians -- including most Ahmadinejad supporters -- said they
wanted to change the political system to give them the right to elect
Iran's supreme leader, who is not currently subject to popular vote.
Similarly, Iranians chose free elections and a free press as the most
important priorities for their government, virtually tied with improving
the national economy. These were hardly "politically correct" responses to
voice publicly in a largely authoritarian society.
In all three of our surveys over the past two years, more than 70 percent
of Iranians also expressed support for providing full access to weapons
inspectors and a guarantee that Iran will not develop or possess nuclear
weapons, in return for outside aid and investment. And 77 percent of
Iranians favored normal relations and trade with the United States, another
result consistent with our previous findings.
Iranians view their support for a more democratic system and normal
relations with the United States as consonant with their support for
Ahmadinejad. They do not want him to continue his hard-line policies.
Rather, Iranians apparently see Ahmadinejad as their toughest negotiator,
the person best positioned to bring home a favorable deal.
Allegations of fraud and electoral manipulation can only serve to further
isolate Iran and are likely to increase its belligerence and intransigence
against the outside world. Before other countries, including the United
States, jump to the conclusion that the Iranian presidential elections were
fraudulent -- with the grave consequences such charges could bring -- they
should consider all independent information. The fact may simply be that
the re-election of President Ahmadinejad is what the Iranian people
actually wanted.
(Ken Ballen is president of Terror Free Tomorrow: The Center for Public
Opinion, a non-profit institute that researches attitudes toward extremism.
Patrick Doherty is deputy director of the American Strategy Program at the
New America Foundation. The groups' May 11-20 polling consisted of 1,001
interviews across Iran and had a 3.1 percentage point margin of error.)
ZIONISTS FIGHTING PEACE - HOW ISRAEL LOST ITS SOUL
Posted by Silver Ribbon in Canadian Charger on Wednesday, June 17, 2009
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ZIONISTS FIGHTING PEACE - HOW ISRAEL LOST ITS SOUL
[By Dr. Mohamed Elmasry, The Canadian Charger, June 16, 2009]
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Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu laid out "his vision" of peace last
week. This vision was, in a word, expected. After all, he is a hard-core Zionist
Jew:
"If we receive this guarantee regarding demilitarization and Israel’s security
needs, and if the Palestinians recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish
people, then we will be ready in a future peace agreement to reach a solution
where a demilitarized Palestinian state exists alongside the Jewish state."
Netanyahu also said Israel would not recognize the right of return for
Palestinian refugees, saying that the problem must be solved outside of the
Jewish state.
To understand why Netanyahu’s vision, which can be described as fighting peace,
is supported by many Israelis one must know how Israelis are indoctrinated in
Zionism and how violent militarism is not only a Zionist ideal but an economical
and a sociological necessity.
One of the best books on the subject is How Israel Lost Its Soul, by Maxim
Ghilan, a Zionist Jew who left Israel in 1969, having been "forced to reconsider
his nationalist Jewish stand" :
"Tzahal (the Israeli Defense Forces) is not only an army: it is a state within a
state, a security apparatus, an extremely dynamic economic empire, a never
diminishing source of managerial manpower for the civil economy ... But first
and foremost for the average Israeli, Tzahal is the main channel of his
indoctrination, the symbol of the identity he wears, in fact and in thought,
when he feels insecure or knows himself to be under attack. Zionist history,
which in a totally insipid and slanted form, is pushed down pupils throats in
Israeli classrooms. (Tzahal drafts 18-year-old boys for three years and girls
for two years.)
"[Once drafted he] does not have to fight for his basic needs: home, food, the
usual comforts, transport, health insurance-all these are provided by the State.
Even his family is taken care of, should he fall in battle. He can, then, afford
to be mildly critical, at times-as long as his criticism is unrelated to war.
"[A University student] is either fighting two months a year in the reserves, or
has just completed three years of army duty ... upon completing his studies he
will have a good deal of useful knowledge and a position which will be almost
automatically allotted to him by the manpower-hungry (Zionist) Establishment. He
will have the two necessary attributes: knowledge and Jewishness.
"He thus reaches his conclusions, out of his own vested interests but without
real knowledge or personal experience of the social and military roots of the
conflict upon which his society is based. His future, his economic interests and
past military indoctrination all tend to add up and force him to ignore
‘dangerous’ facts such as racialists exclusivity and perennial war.
"Israeli society is in love with war and Tzahal: because they give the average
citizen a feeling of contradictory safety; because they develop the mind and
muscle of the economy and help them fill their pockets; and because war and
preparation for war tally with the dynamic development of Israeli industrial
life. Further more, war IS the only possibility, when your aim is to live alone
in a country where another people lives as well.
"Israel has gradually become a more and more openly racist country. Anyone not
Jewish is at best second-class in Israel... A Jew has inherent rights in Israel
even if he is not born in the State. A Jew is considered an insider, while a
‘Goy’ (Gentile, non-Jew) always remains an outsider, even if born inside the
country ... In the State of Israel, officially defined as ‘Jewish’ just as
Rhodesia’s or South Africa’s (were) ‘white’, this is a most important means of
personal tyranny.
"As Israel progressed towards its consecration as a ‘pure Jewish’ state, it
found itself giving more and more power to those zealots who held Zionist-
religious views."
Ghilan ends by citing the example of Giora Neumann, who went to military jail
for refusing to serve in an "imperialist army," and those of a growing number of
young Israelis who wish to "escape the nightmare of unending war." If more
Israelis turn into Neumanns then and only then will "peace with an independent
Arab Palestine and rapprochement between this Palestine and Israel would finally
become a possibility."
* Dr Mohamed Elmasry is Professor Emeritus of Computer Engineering, University
of Waterloo; Founder, The Canadian Islamic Congress; and member, editorial
board, The Canadian Charger. He can be reached at elmasry@thecanadiancharger.com
** The Canadian Charger is Canada’s new national independent not-for-profit
multimedia interactive online magazine with 60 of Canada’s top experts, writers
and cartoonists: www.thecanadiancharger.com
INDEPENDENT JEWISH VOICES FIGHTS FOR JUSTICE
Posted by Silver Ribbon in Canadian Charger on Sunday, June 7, 2009
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INDEPENDENT JEWISH VOICES FIGHTS FOR JUSTICE
[By Reuel S. Amdur, The Canadian Charger, June 4, 2009]
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Last month NDP MP Libby Davies presented a pair of petitions to Parliament
related to the Palestine question. One was from a Vancouver school, calling for
a UN war crimes investigation of the bombing of a UN school and of the use of
white phosphorous against civilian areas in Gaza.
The second one called on Canada to change its political position on the Middle
Eastern situation and "to initiate concrete action to hold Israel accountable
for its ongoing violations of international and humanitarian law." In an
interview, Dr. Diana Ralph, a social work professor, took partial ownership of
the second petition on behalf of her group, Independent Jewish Voices (IJV).
"Independent Jewish Voices endorsed the petition and helped collect signatures
for it," she said. As for the first petition, IJV is also fully supportive.
"Last January," she charged, "the people of Gaza were guinea pigs for Israel to
field test and eventually market new horrific weapons specifically designed for
powerless urban populations, such as fleshettes, white phosphorous bombs, and
remote controlled predator drones which it used purposely to target children
playing on roofs."
Since the presentation of the two petitions, Davies has also drafted a motion
for Parliamentary consideration:
(That this House calls on the Government of Canada to act swiftly as part of the
International Community, to end the 20 month blockade of Gaza; To follow through
on its promise for aid and assistance to the people of Gaza; And exercise its
responsibility under international law to condemn the use of force and violence;
And begin the process for normalized relations to attain a Palestinian state and
peace for the region, including the ongoing control of Gaza’s border.)
Independent Jewish Voices has sent letters to the four party leaders in
Parliament in support of Libby Davies’ motion.
IJV is a small organization, with about 140 members and a mailing list of 500
people, and it is unclear just what portion of Canadian Jewry it speaks for. "We
may undertake a survey," she said. Ralph challenged the notion that
organizations such as B’nai B’rith and the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC)
represent all Canadian Jews in their attitudes toward Israel. For one thing, CJC
has restructured itself to disenfranchise its individual members from any voice
in the running of the organization.
While Canadian data are unavailable, a 2008 survey of 800 Jews in the United
States found that they "overwhelmingly disapproved of the Middle East policies
of the George W. Bush administration and felt that Israel was less secure as a
result of his policies by a 61-25 margin."
When asked about IJV, she explained that its origins can be traced back to 2006.
Israel was engaged in military action in Gaza and Lebanon, and the United Church
of Canada was considering a resolution calling for divestment of companies
contributing to Israeli occupation. The Canadian Jewish Congress waged a
campaign against the United Church, its leadership, and those proposing the
motion, accusing them of anti-Semitism. In reaction, a group of Jews who agreed
with the United Church sprang to its defence and supported the resolution, using
an on-line petition and handing delegates a booklet that they produced.
Delegates approved the motion, with minor changes.
The Canadian Jewish Congress met its nemesis in Diana Ralph and her associates.
"In March of 2008, last year, we organized a national conference of Canadian
Jews who were already promoting a just peace in Israel /Palestine. We invited
unions, churches, peace and student groups, and Palestinian, Muslim and Arab
groups to send delegates. It was the largest gathering of progressive Jews and
allies Canada had ever seen. We came from all across Canada. About ¾ of us were
Jews ranging from secular to Orthodox, from young adults to seniors,
representing 18 Jewish organizations. We unanimously adopted a statement of
unity and launched Independent Jewish Voices (Canada)." Among the Jewish
organizations participating were the United Jewish Peoples Order, Montreal’s
Palestinians and Jews United (PAJU), Not in Our Name (NION), and Palestinians
and Jews for a Just Peace, from Halifax. Naomi Klein was the principal speaker.
Their first Annual General Meeting will be in Ottawa from June 12 to 14, with
Judy Rebick as the keynote speaker.
IJV "organized a cross-Canada tour by Jeff Halper, Director of the Israeli
Committee Against House Demolitions and a tour of Al-Haq (a Palestinian legal
rights organization), which is challenging the legality of Canada Park, built
with Canadian funds in the Occupied Territories where three Palestinian villages
had stood. We also co-sponsored performances of the play ‘My name is Rachel
Corrie’ across Canada and Israeli Apartheid Week activities on several Canadian
campuses." More recently IJV has been presenting Sarah Churchill’s play "Seven
Jewish Children," which garnered considerable attention in Montreal and Toronto
where B’nai B’rith has attacked it as anti-Semitic. It attempted to get it
banned in Toronto.
What has motivated Diana Ralph in her efforts and in her activities as the
primary organizer of IJV? In part it may have something to do with the fact that
her father took part in the Nurenburg War Crimes Tribunal. And then there is the
fact that she is a Jew. The prophet Jeremiah "insisted that, rather than blaming
Yaweh for their misfortunes, they must acknowledge that it was their own
sins-especially the sin of enslaving and oppressing others-which had led God to
exile them."
She pointed to the historical opposition of Zionism to Judaism, which only in
the 1940’s changed to most religious Jews embracing Zionism, basically because
of the Holocaust. Ralph finds the two belief systems as still fundamentally
antagonistic.
Where the Jewish ethos is one of serving God, the Zionist serves Israel
(nationalism). The Jewish principle is one of ethical behaviour even at personal
risk, while Zionism favors security above ethics. For the committed Jew, the
Golden Rule is for everyone, while for the Zionist the duty is only to Jews.
While the committed Jew is committed to peace, the Zionist wants power, the
committed Jew is committed to humility, while the Zionist is prideful. A
religious Jew believes in a return of all Jews to Israel only when they are free
from sin, in a Messianic age. The Zionist favors a military/legal Jewish control
of Israel.
She was asked which Canadian political party currently in Parliament takes the
best position on justice in Israel/Palestine. "The Bloc Québécois," she replied
with a laugh.
* Reuel Amdur is a freelancer and social worker living in Val-des-Monts, Quebec.
His work has appeared across North America and abroad.
** The Canadian Charger is Canada’s new national independent not-for-profit
multimedia interactive online magazine with 60 of Canada’s top experts, writers
and cartoonists: www.thecanadiancharger.com
10 Reasons to Fall for Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)
Posted by Silver Ribbon in Articles on Saturday, June 6, 2009
For a Muslim woman like me, it is really difficult to specify "10 reasons to fall for the Prophet". When I was asked by Reading Islam staff to write down an article that would sum up ten reasons to love Prophet Muhammad, I felt really lost.
I kept thinking and wondering, which ten of the million reasons should I mention? I was lost around his great human-prophetic character. It is really impossible to narrow my love to the great man in ten reasons. He is a man whose love my heart and mind have absorbed since my childhood days, as my skin has absorbed the rays of the Egyptian sun.
Just like any other Muslim, his love penetrates my life, as gentle as you inhale your breaths in and then out. His love became part and parcel of my inner self to the extent that I no longer can put my hand on it clearly. It is just there, always there, in the background of my inner soul.
But, why do I love him that much and in that way? This must be the reader's question now. Is it because all Muslims "should" love him? Or, is it because my parents told me to love him when I was young? But, my parents never told me to love him. They never spoke it. You can never tell anyone to love any other person or any other thing.
Also, on personal basis, I do not always like or appreciate the way many Muslims love Prophet Muhammad. Some of them — not all — are simply very passionate about a man they hardly know or follow.
Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) was sent to all mankind as a brilliant example and a role model. He was the most patient, the most decent, the most devoted and the most well mannered man of the human history.
Not all Muslims act according to his role model, but they simply say: "we love him the most". Love should be reflected in actions, not in some words muttered.
Well, to do my assignment, I decided to simply mention ten points related to Prophet Muhammad. They are definitely not the only reason I love this great man for, but they are simply ten reasons that have always stopped me in awe and respect.
My ten points are:
1. His Human Self
He was never distant from humanity. He smiled, loved, cried and felt pain. He walked, moved, ate and showered. He was a human prophet, not an angelic prophet, so it is really applicable to follow him as a role model.
When I make a mistake or become a bit lazy about being good, Prophet Muhammad's real model takes me back to the right track. I tell myself: "He was human, to make it easy for us. It was also difficult for him, but he made it. So, I will try again, and I will make it as he did."
2. His Fatherhood
His fatherhood , to Lady Fatimah, has always amazed me. In a society that degraded women and rejected the birth of females to the extent that they would bury them alive, he cherished all his daughters, and specially Lady Fatimah.
She was the closest to his heart. Whenever she would drop in on one of his meetings, he wouldn't ever ask her to leave, because he was busy. But, he would stand up in "cherishing respect" and move to welcome her, so she wouldn't be embarrassed. Then he would kiss her on her forehead and have her seated next to him.
3. His Loyal Love to Lady Khadijah
The way he continued to love and cherish Lady Khadijah after her death has always been an expression of devotion in my eyes. During her life, they lived in a society that accepted multiple marriages for men, which would extend to endless numbers of wives for one man. Though she was much older than him, for 25 years, he never went for another marriage with any another woman.
He respected and loved his wife dearly. He cherished her days dearly after her death and expressed his longing to her days by cherishing her friends. He would sit around with her best friend for long hours chatting about "Khadijah's good old days".
4. His Patience at the Deaths of his Children
His children's deaths have always caused my heart to ache. We might theorize a lot or preach a lot about the patience of prophets, but do we really feel it? I keep on wondering how this lovely tender man tolerated the death of all his children, all except one, in his lifetime. How would any father feel, when he reaches his sixties and finds himself burying a child after the other?
Prophet Muhammad's (peace and blessings be upon him) patience never contradicted his sadness and grief. He grieved and experienced deep sadness. When his babyson Ibrahim died, he grieved deeply. He held him in his arms at his death-bed and cried. He uttered only words that expressed his patience that was mixed with his sadness.
His words reflected that, when he uttered his famous words: "The heart grieves, the eye tears, and for your departure, Ibrahim, we are sad. But the tongue never utters an objection that wouldn't please God." How sad!
5. He Was Such a Tender Grandfather
That has always taken my heart! Whenever I think of how busy and important a man he was, and yet had time space and emotions to spare for his grandchildren. The idea that when he stood on the podium, giving the Friday sermon, he simply interrupted his speech in front of the Muslim nation audience — at the time — and went down the podium to pick up his grandson, is always startling from my point of view.
The fact that he would keep carrying this grandson throughout his speech is again startling. I mean, he was the spiritual, social and political leader of the nation! What would any of our grandfathers have done if we simply burst into any of their meetings? I wonder.
6. His Sincere Appreciation of the Feelings of Others
The way he honestly shared feelings with others has always stopped me. In particular, the way he dealt with the feeling of a child. That child used to have a pet bird. Whenever Prophet Muhammad passed by the child, he would ask him about his pet bird.
One day, the Prophet passed by the child and found him crying because of the death of his pet. Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) simply interrupted his journey to whatever errand he was going to, and sat with the child to offer his condolences. It was reported that he stayed with him for a long time to soothe him.
If he was not Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him), again I would fall for him for this incident. What a sweet-hearted man, who simply neglects his important errands or meetings to sit around a child who lost a pet. He didn't actually lose his mother, but he simply lost a bird. But Prophet Muhammad didn't see it to be a simple loss. He understood what this loss meant to the child and felt for his pain.
7. The Prophet's Smile & Sense of Humor
On a personal basis, I really love this. Maybe it is because personally I love to smile, and to wipe away tears and pain by lots of smiles and spreading the spirit of happiness and cheerfulness around. It is a characteristic that my inner self reconciles with in the character of Prophet Muhammad.
All mankind encounters pain and agony, just as he did. Some people face our worldly troubles by crying their tears out. Others are always expressing objection and un-acceptance of their destiny. A third party would simply frown in the face of the world and neglect its feeling. But Prophet Muhammad never did.
He was the most agonized person. He was an orphan. He was poor. He lost his beloved wife Khadijah. He was loaded with the responsibility of the divine message and with the responsibility of running a newly established state. Let alone his personal human sufferings.
Yet, he never frowned in the face of the world. He never objected to what God destined for him. He simply kept his smile and tender care for others, no matter what he went through. I pray I can keep up with him. I am not sure I can, but at least I should keep trying.
8. His Role Model as a Servant of God & Worshipper
Prophet Muhammad's (peace and blessings be upon him) role model as a servant of God and worshipper is an aspect of his character that any human who wants to serve God can reconcile with. He was a man who fasted most of his days, prayed most of his nights and spent all what he had for the sake of his beloved Creator.
Yet, when some of his Companions wanted to fast all days and never eat during daylight, pray all nights and never sleep at night, or abstain from marriage and lawful relations with women, he objected to that.
He explained to his Companions that he fasted some days and broke his fast on other days, he prayed much of his night time and yet he slept at night, and that he simply — like any other man — married and enjoyed marital life.
I think this is a much easier and a more practical example to follow, if we want to be good. The examples of complete self-denail and inhumanly extreme attitudes by some complete self-denial and saints and good ones isn't really practical for all mankind. But any person, man or woman can follow the steps of Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him); be a spiritual worshipper and a good human simultaneously.
9. His Tenderness & Mercy Towards Animals
Again, a very personal characteristic that has always touched my heart, was his tenderness and mercy towards animals. He treated them as communities that had social ties, just as humans are to be treated.
Once, when he was travelling, some of his companions caught two young birds. Then the mother flew above their heads wailing for her two children. Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) immediately reacted and asked who had hurt this mother by taking her children? He ordered the two birds given back to their mother on the spot.
Thinking sincerely and deeply of animals as creatures who feel emotions, not only physics, he banned the slaughtering of any animal in front of the other. He ordered a quick death with a sharp knife away from the other animals, so that the living ones would not feel fear or panic.
He also ordered that hunting or slaughtering animals should always be for the sake and need of nutrition. He completely abandoned learning hunting or shooting by taking innocent animals as trial preys.
As an animal lover and friend who has experienced the closeness of animals, I understand what this attitude means to animals. I love animals and those who are good to animals, what about a prophet who is that good to animals? He was a prophet who cared for animals' feelings and psychological states, and never regarded them as un-feeling bodies or unemotional creatures.
10. His Romantic Love for Lady Aishah
Last, but not least, his romantic love for Lady Aishah has always amazed me. Honestly speaking, I find this relation much more romantic than many love stories that were famous throughout history and literature of love. I mean, they were real! Many of the famous stories are novels, tales, and simply stories.
But, Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and Lady Aishah's love was real. They lived it, cherished it and practiced it, down to earth in their daily life. He loved her dearly and passionately, and she loved him back.
She — like any normal, loving woman — felt jealous for him and expressed that obviously. He also felt jealous —like any normal, loving man — and expressed it obviously. They were human in their love, not angelic.
I always recall his habit of drinking after her and I pause to smile at this habit of his. He used to search for the part that touched her lips from the utensil she used in drinking. Then, he would specifically touch the same part with his lips when he would drink. He simply enjoyed feeling her warmth.
Yet, despite his deep love to her, and his genuine passion towards her, he never permitted this love to make him neglect his duties or role as a prophet and worshipper. He would leave her warm side in the middle of the night and take her permission to pray. He would tenderly ask her: "Let me stand for my God an hour in prayers." And, she would let him willingly and lovingly.
They lived love in their daily moments and they practiced it in every action. Their story of love did not stop at their lively moments, but continued till they departed.
Again, it has always amazed me and touched my heart deeply the moment of the Prophet's death. It was when he chose to depart the world from her house. He chose to go there when he felt death approaching.
And, then, at the moment of death, he chose to lean his head between her arms and to depart from there. Her hugging arms were the last he encountered in our world.
Having said so little in the love of the man who deserves much more, I am not at all satisfied. Yet, I have to sum up my words.
Ten, I was asked to write, and ten I have written. But, I have written so little, I know, in a man who I should write down hundreds of reasons to fall for. But history has written hundreds and thousands of books about the great man. And history will keep writing.
He is a man who does not need me to write about him. I was the one who needed to write, about the man who clearly showed me the way. Maybe this is really why I love him that much. Peace and blessings be upon you, my beloved Prophet.
Dalia Salaheldin is a bilingual writer, poem poet, and founder ofReading Islam website. She is a local activist who has traveled widely throughout the world and has been studying Islam at length in Egypt since 1992. At present, she is an editorial board member and consultant to ReadingIslam.com - IslamOnline.net. She currently teaches Arabic and Quranic language to non-Arabs at the American University in Cairo and is specialized in intercultural and interfaith affairs. She holds a BA in Journalism and Mass Communication and an MA in Teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language from the American University in Cairo. She can be contacted via telldee@gmail.com.
The Grim Picture of Obama's Middle East
A CNN headline, reporting Obama's plans for his June 4 Cairo address, reads 'Obama looks to reach the soul of the Muslim world.' Perhaps that captures his intent, but more significant is the content hidden in the rhetorical stance, or more accurately, omitted.
Keeping just to Israel-Palestine -- there was nothing substantive about anything else -- Obama called on Arabs and Israelis not to 'point fingers' at each other or to 'see this conflict only from one side or the other.' There is, however, a third side, that of the United States, which has played a decisive role in sustaining the current conflict. Obama gave no indication that its role should change or even be considered.
Those familiar with the history will rationally conclude, then, that Obama will continue in the path of unilateral U.S. rejectionism.
Obama once again praised the Arab Peace Initiative, saying only that Arabs should see it as 'an important beginning, but not the end of their responsibilities.' How should the Obama administration see it? Obama and his advisers are surely aware that the Initiative reiterates the long-standing international consensus calling for a two-state settlement on the international (pre-June '67) border, perhaps with 'minor and mutual modifications,' to borrow U.S. government usage before it departed sharply from world opinion in the 1970s, vetoing a Security Council resolution backed by the Arab 'confrontation states' (Egypt, Iran, Syria), and tacitly by the PLO, with the same essential content as the Arab Peace Initiative except that the latter goes beyond by calling on Arab states to normalize relations with Israel in the context of this political settlement. Obama has called on the Arab states to proceed with normalization, studiously ignoring, however, the crucial political settlement that is its precondition. The Initiative cannot be a 'beginning' if the U.S. continues to refuse to accept its core principles, even to acknowledge them.
In the background is the Obama administration's goal, enunciated most clearly by Senator John Kerry, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to forge an alliance of Israel and the 'moderate' Arab states against Iran. The term 'moderate' has nothing to do with the character of the state, but rather signals its willingness to conform to U.S. demands.
What is Israel to do in return for Arab steps to normalize relations? The strongest position so far enunciated by the Obama administration is that Israel should conform to Phase I of the 2003 Road Map, which states: 'Israel freezes all settlement activity (including natural growth of settlements).' All sides claim to accept the Road Map, overlooking the fact that Israel instantly added 14 reservations that render it inoperable.
Overlooked in the debate over settlements is that even if Israel were to accept Phase I of the Road Map, that would leave in place the entire settlement project that has already been developed, with decisive U.S. support, to ensure that Israel will take over the valuable land within the illegal 'separation wall' (including the primary water supplies of the region) as well as the Jordan Valley, thus imprisoning what is left, which is being broken up into cantons by settlement/infrastructure salients extending far to the East. Unmentioned as well is that Israel is taking over Greater Jerusalem, the site of its major current development programs, displacing many Arabs, so that what remains to Palestinians will be separated from the center of their cultural, economic, and sociopolitical life. Also unmentioned is that all of this is in violation of international law, as conceded by the government of Israel after the 1967 conquest, and reaffirmed by Security Council resolutions and the International Court of Justice. Also unmentioned are Israel's successful operations since 1991 to separate the West Bank from Gaza, since turned into a prison where survival is barely possible, further undermining the hopes for a viable Palestinian state.
It is worth remembering that there has been one break in U.S.-Israeli rejectionism. President Clinton recognized that the terms he had offered at the failed 2000 Camp David meetings were not acceptable to any Palestinians, and in December, proposed his 'parameters,' vague but more forthcoming. He then announced that both sides had accepted the parameters, though both had reservations. Israeli and Palestinian negotiators met in Taba, Egypt to iron out the differences, and made considerable progress. A full resolution could have been reached in a few more days, they announced in their final joint press conference. But Israel called off the negotiations prematurely, and they have not been formally resumed. The single exception indicates that if an American president is willing to tolerate a meaningful diplomatic settlement, it can very likely be reached.
It is also worth remembering that the Bush I administration went a bit beyond words in objecting to illegal Israeli settlement projects, namely, by withholding U.S. economic support for them. In contrast, Obama administration officials stated that such measures are 'not under discussion' and that any pressures on Israel to conform to the Road Map will be 'largely symbolic,' so the New York Times reported (Helene Cooper, June 1).
There is more to say, but it does not relieve the grim picture that Obama has been painting, with a few extra touches in his widely-heralded address to the Muslim World in Cairo on June 4.
COULD THE REAL OBAMA STAND UP
Posted by Silver Ribbon in Canadian Charger
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COULD THE REAL OBAMA STAND UP
[By Yvonne Ridley, The Canadian Charger, June 1, 2009]
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I wonder how many of you have woken up to the fact that America's latest leader
is really a political Houdini ... an illusionist on a presidential scale.
In front of our very eyes he has morphed from a gentle intellectual, and strong
defender of human rights into a war-mongering bully who sponsors targeted
assassinations and orders pre-emptive strikes with casual ease.
It took George W. Bush years before he dared to unveil his true intentions and
invade Iraq, displacing three million people in a war which cost the lives of
thousands of U.S. soldiers and the slaughter of countless civilians.
Whereas the smooth-talking Obama has achieved the same in just a few months
since he arrived in The White House by launching an illegal war on Pakistan ...
but he's using someone else's army instead of his own.
He is twice as clever as the previous White House incumbent and far, far more
deadly. Obama is quite possibly one of the world's most skillful manipulators
and his greatest illusion so far is fooling the public as well as the media.
While blatantly using Pakistan's army as a cheap source of military labor he
holds the country's leader Asif Ali Zadari in suspended animation, trapped
helplessly in an almost hypnotic state, induced by the promise of millions of
dollars and the support of the world's biggest military machine.
Of course we must lay some blame at Zadari's feet for allowing himself to be
used like a magician's assistant instead of acting with the dignity and honour
his office, country and people demand.
Obama is far more lethal than his predecessor - and yet his transformation from
Mr Nice Guy to something more sinister seems to have gone largely unnoticed by
the world's watching media which appears to be intoxicated by the powerful
charisma emanating from his rich, but smooth seductive tones.
He has already reneged on promises over closing down Guantanamo, ending military
tribunals and releasing to the public the entire archive of shame which captured
the torture and abuse of the previous administration's War on Terror in video
and film from 2001 onwards.
Moazzam Begg, an ex-Guantanamo detainee remarked recently over one of his u-
turns: "President Obama has recently granted immunity to CIA agents ... if the
desire to get at what went wrong is so blatantly covered up under cover of
"national security concerns", there will be no end to this. And once again, the
warmongers will get away with another odious and criminal cover-up".
He has the power to make Guantanamo's vile prison disappear and for a few
glorious weeks human rights activists across the world waited with baited breath
for the cages of Cuba, Bagram and elsewhere to fly open.
Just how difficult is it for the media to dip into their own archives and remind
Obama about the pledges he made on the campaign trail and hold him to account?
His first promise on the White House website was that his administration would
be the most transparent in U.S. history. Sadly these grand statements have not
been followed through.
But this journalistic amnesia is all too convenient - what happened to his
determination to bring home all combat troops from Iraq within 18 months?
Is there no journalist from the White House lobby prepared to remind him of how
he said during televised presidential debates that getting Usama bin Ladin was
"our biggest national security priority"? Perhaps the hypnotic Obama Affect has
wiped their computer hard-drives and their memories but if you listen to his
very first TV interview as the Commander-in-Chief of America he said Usama was
more than a symbol.
His actual words were: "He’s also the operational leader of an organization that
is planning attacks against U.S. targets," adding that "capturing or killing bin
Ladin is a critical aspect of stamping out al-Qaida."
Having secured the votes from red neck territory by saying Obama will get Usama,
he now says that killing or capturing the al-Qaida chief is no longer necessary
to "meet our goal of protecting America."
However, American Armenians are not so gullible and quite a few were shocked out
of their trance following the U.S. President's recent visit to Turkey when he
executed with the greatest of ease yet another presidential flip flop.
"As President, I will recognize the Armenian genocide," he declared loud and
proud during his campaign, but when he arrived in Turkey he sort of muttered,
when asked about the hugely sensitive subject: "My views are on the record, and
everyone knows my views." And then he refused to elaborate and state them!
"Sunlight is the best disinfectant" said Obama before he took the keys to the
White House - may be that's why, when I watch the U.S. President perform under
the glare of the spotlights on the world stage, I can see something of the night
lurking around his presidential shadows.
There are a few of us who are immune to the charms of the new president. Like
me, they believe that the sheep's clothing has vanished and what we now have is
a dangerous wolf stalking the corridors of power on Capitol Hill.
Yes, there's a new act in the White House these days but while Harry Houdini
built his reputation performing death-defying escapes and magic tricks his
political Doppelganger is certainly the master of dark arts and mass illusion.
This president has gone from charming to harming and few have noticed.
* Journalist Yvonne Ridley is a patron of the human rights organization Cage
Prisoners at www.cageprisoners.com and a member of the RESPECT political party
as well as being a presenter of the weekly political show The Agenda on Press TV
** The Canadian Charger is Canada’s new national independent not-for-profit
multimedia interactive online magazine with 60 of Canada’s top experts, writers
and cartoonists: www.thecanadiancharger.com