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July 21st, 2008
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Israel, Lebanon: Russophone Bloggers Discuss Prisoner Exchange Deal
While some bloggers from the former Soviet Union take interest in the Middle Eastern affairs out of idle (or not so idle) curiosity, for others Israel is home, and so it's not surprising that the July 16 exchange of prisoners between Israel and Lebanon did not go unnoticed in the Russian-language blogosphere.
LJ user dolboeb - Anton Nossik, a Moscow-based Israeli citizen (RUS), widely known as a “Social Media Evangelist at SUP,” the online media company that owns LiveJournal.com - posted this comment (RUS) on his blog on July 17:
Israel: Capitulation
Israelis today have exchanged [Samir Kuntar] for the remains of two soldiers who died in 2006.
The shame and disgust which I feel because of this deal are impossible to describe in words.
And for once, I don’t even have the moral right to reproach the nasty journalist of the International Herald Tribune who wrote this in his piece about Kuntar:
Samir Kuntar, will return to a hero's welcome when he crosses into Lebanon this week, 29 years after he left its shores in a rubber dinghy to kidnap Israelis from the coastal town of Nahariya.
That raid went horribly wrong, leaving five people dead, a community terrorized and a nation traumatized. Two Israeli children and their father were among those killed.
The straightforward message here is that the journalist does not see anything horribly wrong about the actual idea of kidnapping [Nahariya] residents by the terrorists, and that no tragedy would have occurred had Kuntar and his associates managed to kidnap this same family and take it away to Lebanon.
But how can we have a grudge against the American journo when both president [Shimon Peres] (who pardoned Kuntar) and prime minister [Ehud Olmert] (who secured a triumphal return to his [Hizbullah] comrades-in-arms for him) see nothing horribly wrong with how everything turned out to be in Nahariya 29 years ago.
In this connection, it seems relevant to mention that in 1985, Palestinian terrorists hijacked a whole ship, [Achille Lauro], with 400 passengers on board, also demanding freedom for Samir Kuntar. But 23 years ago, Israeli leadership had the balls. The ship was liberated and the terrorists captured. And this kept Palestinian militants from taking hostages again for a long time. Now, everything’s changed. And I’m afraid that the price that the whole Israel will have to pay for the shameful Samir Kuntar deal may turn out to be higher than what’s been paid for all the past adventures of Olmert and Peres.
This post has generated 344 comments. Below are bits of a discussion that, among other things, highlights the possible implications of the prisoner exchange deal for Gilad Shalit, a 21-year-old Israeli soldier who has been held hostage by Hamas since June 25, 2006:
igrok2:
Does it have to do with religion? That is, are the soldiers’ remains so valuable only from a religious point of view?
[…]
rjiyxapb:
First of all, they are priceless for the relatives of the killed ones, IMHO…
jerusalea:
Not really. In the Torah, there is even a prohibition to pay ransom for those who are alive if this is likely to lead to new kidnappings of Jews. It’s not about religion. At least, not about Judaism. And I can’t explain what kind of nonsense this is. My [LJ friends’ blogs] are full of a communal howling that this is just idiotic behavior. And two thirds of my [mutual LJ friends] are religious Jews. And everyone is ashamed and disgusted.
[…]
haraz_bey:
No, [it’s not about religion]. It’s just that no one knew for sure whether they were dead or alive - for Israel, this has been a blind exchange. If they had known for sure that there’d be dead bodies, they most likely would have canceled the exchange.
[…]
dolboeb:
I don’t know about everyone. But I knew that the deal was about the remains [of the soldiers]. I learned it from the open-access press. From the Russian press. I don’t believe that Olmert and Peres did not know.
haraz_bey:
Perhaps, Olmert and Peres don’t read the Russian press :) [That they were dead] was, of course, the most obvious assumption, and the press is always putting forward the gloomiest forecasts. But as long as their fate was unknown, there remained a chance that they would be alive.
[…]
yakov_sirotkin:
Actually, according to the Christian tradition, for example, to pardon criminals is not considered impossible. Nonetheless, I think that bandits should always be called bandits, even the pardoned ones, but I do not see any confirmation that the Israeli leadership is clearing the bandits of their guilt.
It’s sad to read comments with suggestions to kill someone - this will only result in a non-stop cycle of violence and terrorism.
As for the exchange of live human beings for the dead ones, the very fact of trade in corpses seems [barbarous].
dolboeb:
[…]
You’re looking in the wrong direction.
The problem isn’t in paying ransom for the corpses. The problem is in admission that we are ready to pay the same price for a live prisoner in the form of a corpse as what we would have paid had he been alive.
After such an admission, not a single reason remains to keep him alive. After such an admission, the price of [Gilad Shalit’s] life equals the daily cost of feeding him.
[…]
anreality:
IMHO, all this noise isn’t worth […] the time wasted on it. A huge pile of [feces] has been taken out of my country, where it was being kept on my money, too, and the animal was being fed, educated and kept safe, instead of quietly rotting somewhere.
And no matter how you look at it, by announcing to the whole world that this creature is a hero, Hizbullah is not likely to draw more sympathizers, and even the current ones may possibly think twice.
And to return the soldiers by exchanging them for [feces] is good in any case.
And nothing but annihilation will take away their taste for taking hostages.
dolboeb:
It would be very good if you were there instead of Gilad Shalit.
But, unfortunately, this isn’t so.
In Gilad Shalit’s place is Gilad Shalit, a corporal of the Israel Defense Forces. And you are in the place of someone who is ready to pay for [Gilad Shalit’s] body as much as for a live soldier. Judging by how categorically you sound, you must be a [draft dodger].
It really would have been better the other way around.
[…]
anglofilka:
Somehow it seems to me that the Israelis are not done with this Kuntar story yet. One quiet summer night he’d just be shot somewhere, without any noise. This step, crazy from the perspective of sane people, has given Israel a huge advantage in the international political arena. And it has taken away many points from Hizbullah. Now it’s possible to bargain with America, there’s a moral right to strike Iran, etc. - everything will be tolerated. But, unfortunately, the life of Shalit is nothing but an exchangeable coin.
Syria: Nudity and Moral Decay
How much nudity on television can be considered as art, and how much of it contributes to moral decay? Syrian blogger Emad [Ar] tries to answer this question in the following post:
بحجة الفن اصبحنا نرى التعري على شاشاتنا العربيه دون ان نستطيع التكلم لأنه عند السؤال عن المشاهد (الساخنه)التي نراها يبررها اصحابها بأنها معالجه للواقع المؤلم او انها شرح لما يدور في مجتمعاتنا
لكن التسميه الحقيقيه لها هي (انحلال اخلاقي وتعري فاضح) وبعد ذلك تصبح بطلة الفيلم او المسلسل سيدة مجتمع وقدوه للكثير من الفتيات وعند حديثها في اي مقابله نرى كل الاحترام والتقدير من المشاهدين الكرام لجهودها المبذوله في سبيل الفن
وفي المقابلات والسهرات التلفزيونيه التي نشاهدها نرى بأن الفنانه الفلانيه تاخذ دور السيده الفاضله في المجتمع الفاضل وتبدأ بالتكلم عن الاخلاقيات والاصول والاتيكيت وكأنها (الامرأه المثاليه)
والمؤسف في الامر هو انه عند مشاهدة هكذا افلام وخصوصا من قبل الفئه الاكبر في مجتمعاتنا وهي الفئه (المكبوته والمنغلقه) نرى ان معظم الفتيات ينظرون الى العالم الخارجي من خلال ما يشاهدونه في هذا المسلسل او ذاك الفيلم مما يسبب الكثير من الانحلال الاخلاقي عند اعطاء الحريه لهذا النوع من الفتيات اللواتي يحسبن انهن بهذه الطريقه وهذه التصرفات سيكونون ……….سيدات المجتمع
Using art as an excuse, we now see nudity on Arabic television screens without being able to object against the 'steaming' scenes which we watch and its producers describe as ‘dealing with the harsh realities and describing what's really happening in our societies.'
The real description of what we watch on television is unethical behaviour and disgraceful nudity. After that, the heroine in the movie or soap opera becomes a lady of society and a role model for many girls, who appears on television interviews and enjoys the respect and appreciation of viewers for the efforts she exerts to promote art. In such interviews, she embodies the role of a respectable lady of society, and talks about ethics, etiquette and family origins, as is she were the model woman.
What is unfortunate in this is that the large majority of people who watch such programmes as those who are downtrodden and live in closed societies. This is why you see a lot of girls viewing the outside world through what they see in this soap opera or that movie. This causes a lot of moral decay, especially when such girls, who think that behaving in this manner will enable them to become ladies of society, are given their freedom.
Saudi Arabia: Segregation on the blogroll?
It is well known that segregation of the sexes in Saudi Arabia exists in everyday life - but what about online? Can the names of male and female bloggers exist together on a blogroll? One Saudi blogger is amused at the thought.
Entropy.MAX, a female blogger, paints the picture:
فيحصل ما لا يحمد عقباه من المنكرات. عليه فقد قام بعض الإخوة مشكورين بفصل الروابط ووضعها في موقعين منفصلين لا يوصل بينهما نهر ولا بحرين، حماية لأخلاق المدونين و صيانة لشرف بنات المسلمين. إلا أنه لايزال بعض المدونين واللذين نشك في إصابة قلوبهم والعياذ بالله بمرض الليبرالية اللعين، لا يزالون يخلطون المواقع في قائمة واحدة غير آبهين بما قد يجره هذا الفعل من الويلات على مجتمع المدونين والمدونات، غير مبالين بخصوصية السعوديين ولا بطبيعة مجتمع المتنطعين، و بعد ذلك يطلعون علينا مستغربين من رغبتنا في وضع ضوابط للتدوين!!
This may result in unexpected consequences. This is why a number of bloggers have separated the blogrolls and posted them in separate blogs, with no connections between them, in a bid to protect the morals of bloggers and maintain the chastity of Muslim girls. However, there are a few bloggers, who have been infected with the wretched liberal streak, who still mix up the sexes and have one blogroll. Those are inconsiderate to the dire side effects on society of male and female bloggers and have no consideration for the special characteristics of the Saudi blogosphere. And after all this, they are surprised that we need a code of conduct for blogging!!
Japan: Communist Party gets boost from Nico Nico Douga
It is a long time since the Japanese Communist Party (JCP) had any luck in Japanese politics. According to an article at J-CAST [ja], however, there are signs that this may be changing — with help from no other than Japan's popular video sharing site, Nico Nico Douga.
JCP Chairman Kazuo Shii in the National Diet (snapshot from Nico Nico Douga)
The article reports that a video of a Diet session debate recorded on February 8th, which made its way onto video sharing services shortly thereafter, was a hit on both Nico Nico Douga [ja] and YouTube [ja] (for instructions on how to register for Nico Nico Douga, see this post at Tokyotronic). The video, which registered nearly 12,000 comments at Nico Nico Douga, and over 50,000 hits at YouTube, also appears to have had an impact offline, with inquiries from young people in their 20s and 30s way up, and subscriptions to Akahata (”Red Flag”, newspaper of the JCP) on the rise among younger readers as well.
On the surface of it, a 51 minute long speech by the chairman of the JCP would not seem like a huge attention grabber. But the topics that Kazuo Shii, chairman of the JCP, talked about on February 8th are more important than ever among people in their 20s and 30s: the temp worker industry, and fears about growing wage disparities and an unstable work environment.
Akiko Yamashita (山下明子) described the situation in her blog on March 26th:
きっかけは、派遣労働者の問題を取り上げた衆議院予算委員会での志位委員長の質問。YOU TUBEやニコニコ動画でも取り上げられて、ふだん共産党に関心を持ちそうにない層からも「CGJ」（志位、グッド・ジョブ＝よくやった）などの書き込みで激励や賛同が寄せられるなどの大きな反響がかえってきたことが、赤旗しんぶんだけでなく、毎日新聞でも紹介されていました。
teruyastar explains the attraction of the speech:
共産党の志井書記長が、データをあれこれ用意してたたみかけるように
総理を追い詰めていくわけｗ
なんか、圧倒的な裁判みてるようで、それもニコニココメント付きだから
これが意外に50分軽く見れちゃってさｗ
pressing for answers to his questions.
It was like a trial by fire, and since it's on Nico Nico Douga there were also comments [with the images],
so actually it was surprisingly interesting to watch, and the 50 minutes went by fast.
これってすごくない？
What was so amazing was that Nico Nico Douga had made politics interesting for its users. teruyastar comments:
ここで「天気予報でさえ面白くするニコニコ動画」ですよ。
Not everyone was quite as upbeat about the newfound interest among young people in the JCP. Responding to the latest news, one blogger expressed skepticism:
一部の意見はわからんでもないが、国家の衰退が進めばそんなことを言ってられないほど国がめちゃくちゃになるんだが。
根本的に市場主義が熟成して、技術もある日本人にはわかりづらいことなのかもしれない。だが、共産主義だけは支持できない。何があってもその一部であっても自分は支持できない。共産主義が成立する仕組みを学べば、どうなるかはもう答えは出てる。
ただ一つだけわかるのは、日本は奴隷に近い状態になってる点。派遣などピンハネしてる連中がリッチな生活を送れることが本当の正しい道だとは思えない。ただ競争社会の中で、仕方のない面もあるが、今は労働者保護があまりに薄すぎる。明日からの漁師のストではないが、行動するのは良いことだと思う。
antonin delves into the history of the JCP, observing that communism calls for a revolution establishing a country of the workers, and noting that:
ただ、現在の日本共産党にそういう革命を起こすだけの力があるのかというと、明らかにそれはない。もちろん「闘争」好きなメンバーは今も活動的な日常を送っているので、独特の危ない臭いは漂う。けれども、社会に適合できなくて平日の昼間からテレビで国会中継などを見ていると、あらゆる議員の中で志位さんの言っていることが一番まともに見えるのは確かなのだ。
人気のあった小泉さんなどは、6時のニュースヘッドラインでは非常に面白いことを言うのだけれども、それはほんの数秒の表現の魔術師だからであって、十分に時間をかけた国会討論では共産党の示すデータに対して貧弱な議論しかできなかった。
Finally, riotejo suggests that it is not the idea of communism at all that is the attraction of the JCP among young people:
共産主義思想に共鳴する、ということではないのかもしれない。
ただ、今の社会に対して、若者が抗っていることの意思表示だ。
日本共産党や志位委員長に対する、インターネットを中心としての若者の支持は、ある種、もっともな現象であり、同じ世代の者として、こういったムーブメントが起こることが、例えジョークまじりのものであったとしても、この日本では、むしろ、遅すぎるように感じるのだ。
What this is, however, is a gesture of the antagonism of young people toward today's society.
The support of young people, centered on the Internet, for the Japan Communist Party and for Chairman Kazuo Shii, is to a certain degree a natural phenomenon. As a person from the same generation though, I have the feeling that this sort of movement, even as a bit of a joke, came rather too late in today's Japan.
Kazakhstan: Astana Anniversary
Astana, the capital city of Kazakhstan, has become such ten years ago, moved from the country's largest city Almaty. It is believed to be a pet city for the president of Kazakhstan, who is often called in the pro-governmental media (which heavily dominate on the information field) as an “architect” of this new booming construction spot, magnetic for the world's most renowned actual architects. Not surprisingly, the Astana Day is celebrated on the president's birthday in an apparent attempt of the authorities to create a mild personality cult - not direct, but through a city, which was recently almost renamed in Nursultan at the MPs' initiative. (more…)
India: All about the Theatre!
A bunch of IT professionals, with a hectic weekday schedule, are keeping themselves busy even during the weekends. They have been smitten by the theatre bug. ‘Rebelz’ as they are otherwise known, formed this group with just one purpose in mind. To provide quality English language plays in Chennai, and also of course to have fun.
Vinodh, one of the core members, just can’t disengage himself from this passion he shares with his bunch.
He writes:
“Come weekends and we’re at our efficient best in rehearsals. Memorizing dialogues, working out the sound ideas, imagining our costumes, and rehearsing our scenes. Pages and pages of lines to memorize in the weekends for the folks who type lines and lines of codes during weekdays. Coffee and colas keep us awake between shots. Playing pranks on each other keeps us all charged up, after all we are in the serious business of making people laugh.”
The countdown for their next production “Once upon a time in Arabia” has begun and they are working overtime for this magical journey to be staged on July 26 and 27, in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. If you happen to be in Chennai, if you’d like to catch the show you can get your tickets at ticketsnew.
Deepa, from Bangalore is calling the recent play she watched, ‘The women in me’, as ‘An intense and absorbing play’. The play is about a man whose wife is dead and he is deeply troubled by that and has lost his emotional balance. Based on the concept - ‘There is a woman in every man and vice versa'. Reviewing the play on Metblogs, Deepa is astounded by the use of Shadow to portray a particular scene and the rapid-fire delivery of dialogue in following sequences.
“The play disturbed me and made me think hard; I am very impressed that such a young man is able to delve so deeply into the male and female psyche and bring out the nuances of how men do not even understand when they are raping their own wives…”
Tanya Behera reviews a play titled ‘Lucknow 76′ organized by Alliance Française de Bangalore, at her blog Remainconnected.
“The plot of the play was based on politics and history, shifting between two time frames of 1876 and 1976 looking at Lucknow city through the eyes of the common man. 1876 was a milestone for the Britishers, as that was the year, when Queen Victoria took over the command from the East India Company. 1976 was also significant in history because during that time, the once proud democracy, India was under the clutches of tin pot dictator, Indira Gandhi who had declared a state of Emergency as the Prime Minister of the nation.”
She goes on to give more information on why the play was named after ‘Lucknow’, not ‘Delhi’, ‘Bombay’ or ‘Calcutta’.
“But then why ‘Lucknow' and why not ‘Delhi' or ‘Bombay' or ‘Calcutta' or ‘Madras' or ‘Bangalore'? Because the director and playwright of the play, Abhishek Majumdar (AM) had spent some part of his childhood in this city. During AM's visits to Lucknow, his grand uncle, a scholar of history and geology had inundated his mind with tales and chronicles about the city from an old bungalow.”
Geetali Tare, writing for HimVani under the post ‘The Shimla tragedy: Missing theatre, missing drama’ wants the following for Shimla:
Unlike films, plays are not a passive, one-way, pre-packaged experience. In plays, as in films, there are rehearsals. But once the show gets going, a theatre artiste does not have the opportunity to give another ‘take’ – to make another attempt at mouthing a dialogue: what has been said, has been said. Audience reactions affect acting as it happens. The warmth in the tone of a speaker travels directly to the viewer; a glimmer of a tear in the performer’s eye immediately causes the spectator to respond. A skilled actor, through the blend of voice, tone, gestures and outfits succeeds in creating a world and transporting his audience to it. The actor’s energy expands and fills up the space which is also occupied by the viewer; the energy flows from one to the other. The viewer feels the despair of Mahatma Gandhi at Pyarelal’s delinquency; he feels Zulfi’s longing for Amrita; he laughs with Dhanjisha Batliwala & quibbles with Madhukar Kulkarni.
Kay Kay, Naseruddin Shah, Dinesh Thakur, Aul Kulkarni, Shabana Azmi, Boman Irani, Mehrbanoo Mody Kotwal, Rahul Da Cunha, Feroze Khan, Sanjana Kapoor, Shernaaz Patel, Rajit Kapoor, Jayati Bhatia: they allow you to enter their world and experience, in the span of two hours, many highs and lows, rapture and anguish, a whole world of moods and happenings.
I want this in Shimla. I want this for Shimla.
The Mumbai Theatre Guide is a dedicated site for reviews and different theatre related events happening in the city of Mumbai.
Links for Mon, 2008-07
Portugal's President Anibal Cavaco Silva has ratified the agreement to standardise the Portuguese language and its spelling in a move to make the language, spoken in 8 countries, more uniform globally. O Hermenauta [pt] has written a round up of reactions from both sides of the ocean and concludes the agreement is still a disagreement.
Pitigrili [pt] retorts to an article about Africa's oilfields on a newspaper which stated that few will benefit from Africa's oil boom: “Of course, the Western multinationals don't like the reconstruction deals between Angola and China, where oil is the currency exchange. But the Angolan people finally see asphalt and basic education and health infrastructure making a coming back since the beginning of the 1975 civil war. If we look at the African reality, it's a unique case of reconstruction benefiting the entire population.”
Accross the divide: Analysis and anecdote from Africa comments on the ceasfire violations of the Goma Peace Agreement, according to a Human Right Watch communique. He says: “civilians continue to die in far greater numbers than before the Goma Agreement was reached six months ago. A serious lack of political will on all sides is undermining the agreement”.
Théophile Kouamouo [Fr] reviews in his blog the book La Chinafrique: Pékin à la conquête du continent noir by Serge Michel and Michel Beuret, about the Chinese presence in Africa. He says: “The Chinese aren't angels sent by the God of South-South cooperation and they are as racist, if not more than the Westerners living in Africa […] but they aren't demons either”.
In Ritch's World is alarmed by the recent “spate of mysterious fires” in Kenyan schools. He says: “Most of these schools do not have warning systems that would help to deal with fires before the worst comes to the worst. Neither do they have fire fighting equipment”.
Iranian Queer Foundation on the case of a gay Iranian couple who are waiting in India to be resettled in Canada.
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