Saturday, January 30, 2010

THE INQUISITION IN IRAN


Political comment: Joe Martin




Iran’s form of Islamic government is in free-fall, morally, ideologically and structurally. While for decades there was lack of clarity and actual disagreement as to whether the idea of an Islamic Republic was one of semi-democracy guided by religious principles, or authoritarian rule by state religion, the definition has become more stark. Former supporters of the revolution who are influential clerics turned against it in recent years. These include the late Grand Ayatollah Montazeri, the highest authority in religious matters in Shia Islam, and former President Khatami, especially after the substantiated fraud in the last elections. The extent of the fraud was ignored and even whitewashed by a Majlis, or parliament. That Majlis, is one in which the elected members had to be approved by the government. After the days of Khatami’s presidency, thousands of candidates were excluded by the Guidance Council due to their ideological impurity.

Now 4,000 people who were among the millions who have protested the imposition of a President (who comes across as a fanatic ideologue) by the groups supporting the unelected Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, have been arrested and have been, or will be, placed on trial. The trials continue, despite disclosures that numbers of those were arrested were tortured, and both men and women often raped under the eyes of or with the participation of either the Revolutionary Guard and the governments militias designed to facilitate mob rule, in classic “Brown Shirt” fashion. These disclosures came from opposition clerics.

Today comes the news that two young men have been hanged, and the media and government spokesmen have been unable to identify what they were hanged for. There seems to be no indicator that there was even an attempt to prove they had committed violent crimes. Reza Ali Zamani, 37, and Arash Rahmanipour, 20, “who had been convicted of being enemies of God and plotting to topple the Islamic regime” according to the official Iranian Student Broadcasting Agency (CNN.com, Jan. 30 2010). According to his lawyer, Rahmanipour was both sentenced and hanged without any notification of his family, who saw the hanging on the daily news. Thus, in classic totalitarian fashion, the government seeks to torture the families too. This method causes the aguish and terror to spread in concentric circles in society like a boulder dropped into the water.

This case is the tip of the iceberg, and seems to reveal how “justice” is being meted out. Rahmanipour’s lawyer has also revealed that the judicial authorities brought his pregnant sister before him, who had been imprisoned, and told him that in exchange for her release he would have to say what he was asked to say at his televised confession.

The fact of the matter is we do not know how many have been executed, and we have only the government’s official figures for how many demonstrators have been killed in the streets or in prison. These show trials employ the methods of the worst of 20th century totalitarianism like those of Stalinist Communism, an ideology the Iranian government has claimed to revile.

Here is another crime deemed worthy of the death penalty: As of this writing five of the hundreds of defendants, three men and two women, are charged with "moharebeh," or defying God which merits the death penalty, according to the ISNA.

These all too human ruling groups who want to destroy their enemies to maintain their power in a military dictatorship, have committed a rather clear form of hubris in saying that defying a their government is the same as defying God. In doing so they cannot but further tarnish dirty the reputation of their government, which would be better advised to open a dialogue with their critics and negotiate, rather than exterminating them. If the foundation of law of the Islamic Republic was supposed to be the Qur’an and the traditions that were handed down by the founder (hadith), surely on cannot ignore the clear pronouncement: “To kill a single human being is like destroying a world.” On that basis the violators of “moharebeh” would not be these innocents at all, but those who order their executions – with no reason proven or given. Therefore what we have is not an Islamic Republic, or a Republic of any kind. It is not even a government. It is the Inquisition, which overrules government: like the one that terrorized Europe for hundreds of years: this time in Islamic garb.

Monday, January 25, 2010

TIBET AND REALPOLITIK

Political comment, revised January 25

Joe Martin

Revised January 30
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On January 25th a friend posted some comments on my Facebook posting concering a film on Tibet, which had provided a link to excerpts from a new film about the Tibet autonomous region. His comments in many ways atempt to look at the Tibetan situation from the Chinese point of view, though I am sure there are many points of view in China, and the recent arrest of yet another Chinese dissident intellectual who wants the PRC to reconsider its treatment of Tibet is a case in point. However, my friend is an expert on China, so I moved the exchange to Peace and Pieces along with my response.

I have now removed my response to his critique of my comment on the Tibetan film. I have come to feel I cannot use my dominant position on my own blog to debate friends or close associates. That is how I will proceed with this blog. Anyone, may of course, submit a posting or response to what they read here. My friend's original comments, are below.

I hope soon to share my thoughts on Peace and Pieces, on the teachings of the Dalai Lama, which might one day do much good for social consciousness and spiritual well-being in a China: a China that he has repeatedly stated will include Tibet. -- JM

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ORIGINAL POSTING BY AUTHOR ON FACEBOOK

The grinding oppression of the people of Tibet under occupation -- being overwhelmed by calculated Sino-ization, a wave of Chinese immigration and Chinese control of all governmment and infrastructure, has not slackened. The unwillingness of the Party and the bureaucracy to negotiate autonomy and self-determination as a part of China -- the Dalai Lama's proposal -- reveals an astonishing lack of conscience, and an intolerance for large and coherent ethnic groups in China outside of the Han majority by the government. Courageous films like this one, for which the director must remain in prison for 6 years while his family has received no notification concerning his disappearance or location by the Chinese authorities, represent one of the few means of getting the truth out. There is less free media coverage in Tibet than other occupied peoples get -- even the Palestinians. To occupy a people and dominate their culture corrupts the spirit of great nations, whether it be China or the US or Russia: it asks for an increasing numbness to b... [Cut off by Facebook]

http://www.nomadsland.com/video/leaving-fear-behind-save-tibet/


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From the film website: “Leaving Fear Behind” is a heroic film shot by a Tibetan inside Tibet, to bring Tibetan voices to the Beijing Olympic Games. The filmmaker spend five months traveling in Tibet on a motorcycle and interviewing hundreds of ordinary Tibetans about their views about the Dalai Lama.
Filmmaker Dhondup Wangchen, the Tibetan filmmaker is currently in Chinese detention, has been sentenced to six years imprisonment by the provincial court in Xining (capital of Qinghai province). The sentencing took place on 28 December 2009 but his relatives in Xining were neither informed about the trial nor the verdict.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

CHINA AND DEVELOPING WORLD "EXCEPTIONALISM"


Political comment

Joe Martin

As is customary, Chinese policy in the areas of climate change, summary justice in capital punishment, the jailing of writers, and the use of violence and torture in Tibet and against non-violent spiritual movements and religions is not based upon any form of logic, morality, or consistency in the law. This behavior is based upon two principles. The first is that China is too big and its momentum on the way to being a superpower too strong to have to bend to international norms. The second is that all criticism against Chinese policy from anyone in the West or developed world is irrelevant precisely because China is not yet a “developed nation” – and other nations polluted and suppressed indigenous peoples to become developed.

There are a few basic presumptions in this that are in fact widely accepted but based on dubious premises. The most common of these is the argument put forward by many so-called progressive and "pragmatic" advocates of third-world exceptionalism ever since the end of the colonial empires. This argument suggests that developing countries are unable to establish "thick" human rights norms— that is the term that is being bandied about. This terminology should invite ridicule in light of the moderate successes in building democracies in many developing countries, which have led to increased economic development. Brazil and India are examples that are hard to ignore.

One of the greatest historical proponents of this exceptionalism, in writings, speeches and interviews in the 1980s was Robert Mugabe, once a hero rather than the pariah he now is. His argument back then: Rather than striving toward democratic norms—one should strive "to have a one party state" if possible, as developing countries don't have the luxury of implementing "cake frosting" like human rights. It goes without saying, went the Mugabe argument, that strong human rights enforcement would drive development downhill. This is the same argument that has justified the MO of many African dictators. We have watched Mugabe over time turn into a monster—Bishop Tutu has said he had become a "Frankenstein"—as he methodically tried to follow the logic of this ideology until his economy went berserk, and he did too. Nobel Prize winner Wole Soyinka from Nigeria has taken much time off his literary work to criticize, in books and essays, this way of excusing the entrenchment of authoritarian law and tradition in the developing world.

The opposite argument is that it is never too early to keep moving toward structures that will bring increasing respect of human rights and democratic methods. India was a good example of this, perhaps because of the visions of Nehru—who leaned left, but believed in pluralistic Democracy –and Gandhi. Less unified than China, less militaristic, and extravagantly diverse, with a wildly free media India has had parallel success with that of China's (parallel but different, for sure). From a middle class which as late as 1980 was only 10% of the population, all the statistics point to a middle class that is no 50% of the population.

Granted -- that leaves up to 500 million poor and desperately poor in India. But the direction is right in economics, as well as individual rights. Military over-reactions aside—as in Kashmir, where the non-local military has in the past become engaged in the usual torture and assaults on a population which they see as collaborators with the enemy—the structures are in place for people to fight and win in the courts, to create new legislation promptly where abuses occur, and to at least challenge local bosses who engage in human rights abuses in a very public way.

So let's compare the two countries in the area of environmental issues. India has not posed nearly the same number of selfish roadblocks to the environmental treaties such as the Copenhagen as China has (Except for the US back in the day of the Kyoto conference). Aside from its pigheaded exploitation national pride to create a nuclear arsenal, the Indian government is at least open to refurbishing the economy with environmental industry if they can find the wherewithall. It is astonishing that, with a population that has burgeoned in tandem with China's, that it has continuously improved its difficult human rights issues, or at least showed the active will to do so.

The advocates of Third World exceptionalism in areas of human rights, democracy, and climate change, in general, are usually patronizing. They may raise interesting questions—but it has been a murderous ideology in practice. They have not been doing the people of these countries any favors.

Another interesting comparison we can make might be Egypt and Turkey. Both are "fallen" seats of powerful civilizations, even after the advent of Islam. Under Mubarak's "exceptionalist" rule—reinforced by a martial law that has lasted decades—the economy is as much a basket case as Egypt’s democracy and human rights record. Meanwhile, Turkey, in fits and starts, has shown tolerance for a multi-party system and has many savagely critical media outlets. The moderate Islamist Party which was allowed to take power, has finally brought a Prime Minster to sit down with the head of State in Armenia—after a century of denials about the Armenian genocide (Compare this with China on Tibet). The economic state of the population is well below most of Europe, but light years above Egypt.

The fact is, the world has changed since the now-developed world sloughed through the industrial revolution without a map, and the borders of nation states were drawn with blood. There are now many resources around for creating a lucrative industry that promotes sustainable development and supplies jobs. Most national borders in the world are established and mapped.

A new sort of Chinese farce will soon be replacing the Beijing Opera as the primary traditional performing art—if the Chinese ruling party insists on allying with genocidal regimes like that of Sudan at conferences designed to rescue the planet to stymie commitment to change that will prevent depletion of many countries water supplies, sink entire island nation states into the oceans, and keep entire nationalities such as the Tibetans and Uighers in a state of permanent repression and poverty.