Archive for
April 19th, 2009
Stories
China: Our right to be spared from fear
Blogger Lan Xiaohuan （兰小欢）, in his post ‘Bitter Smile', reflects on how a nation permeated with fear has muzzled people's voice. Lamenting that the cost to claim the rights of a citizen is getting higher today, he also lampooned the infusing fear that crushes people's courage and love, concluding that Chinese have never really stood up without fear.
He starts with an anecdote of his childhood:
我小的时候非常胆小。记得五六岁那会儿，有一次姐姐放学回来给我讲了个她听到的鬼故事，非常恐怖。我吓得整晚上都睡不着，一直抱着父亲。他要睡过去，我就叫醒他，让他抱着我。第二天，被折腾了一夜的父亲怒斥我姐：“你看看，你都把他吓成什么样了？！以后再敢这样我就揍你！”
今天收到一封孩子的来信，信中写道：“我最近有件很担心的事情，请您帮帮忙。之前，我在百度BLOG上面发表有关学潮的文章被删除了，之后账号也被锁定。还有在学校校园网屡屡使用翻墙软件看国内禁止浏览的信息。那么，我会不会已经被当成黑名单记录在案了？这些事情会不会影响我出国？我早就计划出国啦…. 希望您能帮我解答下，谢谢啦。”
看完之后我大笑，然后回信用几乎是谐谑的口气安慰了他。但紧接着便有些心酸，想起了我父亲责骂我姐的话：“你看看，你都把他吓成什么样了？！”
制造恐惧并不一定需要暴力，只要处处加大行为的成本就够了，甚至都不用真的加大成本，只要展示一下行为的成本有随时被加大的可能便够了。….看看那些这些日子被请去喝茶的人们的故事，看看那些公民调查者们最近在四川的遭遇，看看这些人心里的担忧，便知道了。
成本弄得那么重，瘦弱的肩膀实在是担不动啊。
如果只是匿名上网牢骚几句都被噤声，即便远渡重洋都还要为自己的“错误言论”惴惴不安，只是说几句话都要心头挣扎半天，又如何能抱怨面对恶徒的拳头和匕首时，人们不见义勇为呢？更别说我们还曾经真的把最容易站立的青春用坦克履带压成了扁平。
49 年的时候，有人说：“中国人民从此站起来了。”可从那以后，每隔一段时间，我们都要重新站起来一回。香港回归，站；卫星上天，站；奥运开幕，又站。外国人有时候不解：“你们不是早就站起来了么？怎么还反复站了又站，有完没完啊？”看到这样的误解我就很愤怒：“妈的，平时都爬着，怎么还不让人动不动站起来伸伸懒腰啦？我们对自己人忍气吞声，自然就要对你们外国人扬眉吐气，否则不他妈憋死啦！”
是啊，我们自己都要爬着活，又如何敢腆颜教育下一代“勇气”和“爱”呢？我们能做的，不过是在他们小时候讲讲勇气和爱的童话，然后在他们长大了真正要展示勇气和爱的时候，大喝一声：“快！趴下！”
也许下次回国的时候，我该去拜会一下那具广场上从未谋面的尸体，调侃着说：“你看看，你都把他吓成什么样了？”
Kuwait: Election rhetoric, arrests and the whole shebang
Greetings fellow global bloggers and readers! My name is Amer Al-Hilal and I am the new ‘Global Voices' co-author covering Kuwait; a vibrant, highly passionate and astute blogging community, one that has throughout the years encompassed all sorts of interests and events, from consumer-oriented services and products to politically charged calls for protecting freedom of speech, culminating with and leading the ‘Orange' 5 for Kuwait movement, which has led to the government redistricting five political constituencies instead of 25.
Ever since the dissolution of Parliament and the announcement of the Kuwaiti elections (to be held May 16) bloggers have been in overdrive posting about the ongoing drama and the cynicism concerning our upcoming elections (our third in four years). Let me kick off my introductory post with some election-related coverage:
Blogger Mako Amal (There is no hope), in a post titled Oh Minister of Interior: The Awazim Tribe and Hadas Have Raped the Law, asks the Minister of Interior why he hasn’t acted yet to uphold the law banning consultative elections featuring the Awazim tribe - proof of which is in the following You Tube video posted by Mako Amal:
In other election-related news, Hilaliya reports on the arrest of Municipality Council and Parliamentary candidate Khalifa Al-Khorafi by the State Security for criticizing the ruling family, and elaborates:
“Additionally, there are reports that Badah Al-Hajeri, ‘Scope TV' s anchor has also been summoned for questioning. Islamist MP Daifallah Bu Ramiah is still under house arrest at the State Security apparatus for insulting the Defense Minister and Acting Prime Minister stating he ‘wasn't fit to be Prime Minister'.”
Meanwhile, Here There And Everywhere’s Intlxpatr praises the role of the current US ambassador to Kuwait Deborah Jones in her post “Kuwait Will Work It Out”:
“No one can accuse Jones of being a weenie. The woman is lion. And you get the feeling she loves what she is doing, and that she is truly connected with issues and activities in Kuwait.”
Moving on to other matters, Anafilibini in her post entitled “120 KD For A Filipino Professional Nurse?” criticizes the low salary requirements offered to a Filipino nurse to come work in a Kuwait hospital:
“Com'on Kuwait, if you want grade A, qualified medical professional you gotta PAY UP! Our company tea boy get paid more than that and more - I heard that doctors all over this country is going on strike because of low wages and I have a friend who's wife gave birth but had to endure 5 operations due to one botched job after another.”
Kuwait Advertiser writes about his ‘Trip to Bahrain', saying:
“We flew out to Bahrain last week Thursday, first time with Jazeera Air. Not bad at all… My friend Hamad from Saudi told me not to miss out on ice-cream from the Marble Slab Creamery… found it in Seef Mall. We rented a car, pretty cheap and drove around the island. One of the places that amazed me was the man-made islands that the built and then do developments on the islands. Really beautiful places.”
In a post entitled ‘Missing POWS’ blogger TeachTheMasses School Days highlights a little known humanitarian tragedy involving Kuwait POWs and other nationals missing from the Iraq occupation of Kuwait:
“Imagine the heartache if you are still waiting for news of a loved one after 19 years. Imagine the 19 year olds in Kuwait and elsewhere who never got to meet their father because he was one of the Iraqi ‘disappeared’. This needs to be concluded once and for all.”
Some Contrast posts an interesting tidbit about the probability of the ailing national carrier Kuwait Airways:
“Might be just a rumor circulating on emails, but Kuwait Airways are thinking of re-designing their look for their aircrafts. the one I liked is option #3”
Blogger Twenty Three criticizes CNN anchor Jack Cafferty due to his previous views on ‘radical Islam’ and his current view that obese passengers should pay for two seats on a plane.
“So instead of asking the question Cafferty 'should obese people pay for two seats’ - how about 'should airlines make bigger seats and stop being greedy gold-diggers’ ……. kind of like schools here in Kuwait, fill as many seats as possible regardless of whether children have room to walk around their classrooms..”
Our last stop is with Don Veto, who highlights Kuwait pictures taken in 1961 by Verity Cridland, who explains that the photographs were taken by her mother as ‘color slides,’:
“In 1961 cameras were hardly airtight and these pictures had a lot of dust on them. This was on the actual film rather than just dust from old age! They also had a scratch on each slide caused by sand and grit inside the camera.
Bolivia: Piecing Together the Life of an Accused Terrorist
Bolivian police shot and killed three foreign nationals, as well as wounding and arresting two others, in a hotel in the city of Santa Cruz. What is not entirely clear is the connection between the men, who national authorities say were a part of a terrorist cell that had been planning to kill many members of government, including President Evo Morales, as well as others from the opposition. One man, in particular, has emerged as the ringleader of the group, Eduardo Rózsa-Flores, a Bolivian-Hungarian citizen with a long history. The media, as well as bloggers, have been trying to piece together his background in order to draw conclusions.
Miguel Centellas of Pronto* summarizes a bit of Rózsa-Flores' path demonstrating many different facets of his life following different ideologies:
He fled Bolivia after Banzer’s military coup. He then fought in the Balkan civil wars (on the Croatian side, where he supposedly led an international brigade); he even made a film about his experience (wtf?). He was vice president of a Muslim association in Hungary; but was previously an active member in Opus Dei.
(…)
So basically, as La Razón points out, he was a “fanatic for everything.” A leftist in his youth (his father had been active against the Barrientos military regime), he then became an ardent Catholic in Opus Dei, then fought for Croatia against the Serbs, then abandoned Marxism (though he still admires Che), then converted to Islam, then returned to Bolivia, and may have ties to the right-wing UJC, though he still edited a Hungarian Muslim online news site. I think that about covers it.
In addition, Miguel Esquirol of El Forastero [es] writes that these revelations make determining his motives even more difficult:
Al final es posible sospechar cómo sus intereses se alinean y trazar una línea ideológica que si bien debatible une su participación en guerras de independencia europeas, en movimientos armados en Croacia, en discursos nacionalistas de los Blacanes, con su relación con movimientos de la autonomía cruceñista y su final brusco y violento. Las razones que lo habían traído a Bolivia, la compañía con quien lo encontraron y los planes que tenían pensados aun son un misterio.
Al final sólo podemos concluir que se trata de un extraño y contradictorio personaje del que espero en algún momento conozcamos más, sobretodo que se devele la verdad de lo ocurrido en Bolivia y de sus últimos días antes de encontrarse su final.
In the end, it is possible to suspect how his interests align and trace an ideological line that is still debatable uniting his participation in independence wars in Europe, armed movements in Croatia, nationalist rhetoric in the Balkans, with his relationship with autonomy movements from Santa Cruz, and his violent and sudden end. His reasons for coming to Bolivia, the company with which he was found and his plans are still a mystery.
In the end, we can conclude that this involves a strange and contradictory character and that I hope we get to know better, and above all that the truth of what happened in Bolivia and his final days before his death comes out.
Much of these connections, as well as speculation, were pieced together based on the discovery of Rózsa-Flores' blog [hu/es/en] called “Sic semper tyrannis” and often translated to “Death to Tyrants.” As mentioned by Blogs Bolivia [es], the blog is mostly written in Hungarian, but includes some interviews in Spanish [es] as well as English. He also opened other blogs called David Versus Goliath [hu] about the conflict in Gaza and another blog Mi Patria Natal [es] that collects photos of his birth country Bolivia.
The life of Rózsa-Flores was made into a movie, which starred Rózsa-Flores as himself, called “Chico” and details his participation in the war in Croatia. The trailer is below:
On his YouTube channel's profile he wrote a description of himself:
The international war correspondent-turned-platoon-l eader in the defense of a mixed-population village in Croatia…Presently, Eduardo works as a multi-lingual freelance journalist, columnist, TV commentator, film actor and editor of literary monthly KAPU, in Budapest, Hungary. He has a loving dog named Tito, a book-stuffed country-side house with a well-equipped kitchen . . .
Finally, he also maintained a Facebook profile (private).
The contradictory nature of Rózsa-Flores' beliefs makes this case even harder to comprehend. It is quite easy to jump to conclusions and make connections based on assumptions. Willy Andres writes [es] that “the supposed terrorism in Bolivia is very complicated and makes one think. I don't think it is neither prudent nor intelligent get ahead of ourselves and draw conclusions, but there are things that raise big questions.”
However, the fact that both members of the governing party, as well as some leaders of the opposition were reportedly on the hit list makes wondering whether they were working for some group or on their own. In addition, the causes that he supported with badges on his blog makes it difficult to generalize about where he stood politically. More news is expected in the near future to help paint a better picture of this mysterious man and his companions.
Morocco: On “Jewish Morocco”
Morocco has a long relationship with Judaism; during the spread of the Roman empire, a number of Jews settled in what is modern-day Morocco. Over time, relations between Morocco's majority Muslim population and its small Jewish population have ranged from very good to heavily strained. Following the creation of the state of Israel, the vast majority of Morocco's Jews emigrated (approximately 15% of Israeli Jews are in fact of Moroccan descent), however, approximately 7,000 Jews reside in Morocco today. Moroccans are often quick to point out that the king's top adviser, André Azoulay, is Jewish.
There is very little about Moroccan Jews on the Internet, as Moroccan blogger Ibn Kafka recently pointed out. In a post on “Jewish Morocco,” he said:
Celui qui cherche des infos sur le net sur le judaïsme marocain devient vite frustré: entre la débauche de liens et la qualité disparate de l’information, la frustration est souvent au rendez-vous. Jusqu’ici, l’excellent site de Rick Gold - Visiting Jewish Morocco - constitue un point de départ incontournable, et on pourrait y rajouter le forum communautaire Dafina, désordonné, foisonnant mais inégal. On pourrait rajouter à cette liste deux musées - celui du judaïsme marocain de Casablanca, et celui du Centre de la culture judéo-marocaine à Bruxelles. Sans compter les sites excentriques - comme celui consacré à la restauration de la synagogue Attias d’Essaouira.
The blogger then introduces us to the latest blog on the scene, Jewish Morocco, written by American Chris Silver. Silver, who is exploring Jewish sites across the country, has written about towns which have perhaps never been mentioned in the blogoma (Moroccan blogosphere). In one recent post, he writes about meeting Moroccan Jews in Oujda:
Spent last night with my wonderful hosts and had another delicious meal. The oldest of the women sat down next to me before dinner and wanted to hear all about world Jewry. She wanted to know how many Jews were still in Syria, Lebanon, everywhere. She asked me about the Jews of Ethiopia and I was shocked that she even knew to ask. She asked about Iran and I told her that there were many more Jews there than in Morocco. They were all shocked and started asking if they covered their faces like all Iranian women. It was very comical.
I learned more about these women throughout our meal. One had been to Israel before but for some reason has decided to stay here in Morocco. I told them that my mother had thanked them for being so warm to me and that got them really excited. We ended our meal and they asked me to take about 4 pounds of truffles back with me to some mutual friends in Casa. I of course obliged and have now added truffles stuffed in matzah boxes to my previously light load.
Bet El Synagogue, Casablanca, Morocco
Silver has also noticed the dearth of Jewish Moroccan sites online. In one post, he writes:
Google Earth and Wikimapia have become two very interesting resources for discovering Jewish Morocco. Both applications allow users to identify points on an often very clear map. So for example, an aerial view of Rabat will identify the mellah and a synagogue (”cinaguogue juif” south of the mellah and in a cluster of 3 marked areas) amongst many other sites. The information is user generated and usually by individuals on the ground.
It is quite clear that both bloggers are doing their part to bring this lesser-known population to the Internet. Ibn Kafka, however, shares one regret:
…qu’il n’y ait pas de voix de l’intérieur non-institutionnelle - par exemple un blog d’un Marocain juif vivant au Maroc, éclairant de l’intérieur la culture, l’histoire, la spiritualité et le présent de cette partie essentielle du peuple marocain et de son histoire.
Photo Credit: dlisbona
Links for Sun, 2009-04
On the blog Safari Notes, Omar Basawad writes some pertinent qoutes from a profile of Prof. Wangari Maathai, a Nobel Prize winning environmentalist.
Activist Marcy Newman writes about spending time in Jerusalem's Old City with a Palestinian family whose home is partly occupied by an extremist Jewish organisation called Ataret Cohanim.
Bahraini blogger Hussein Nasser explains why an Arabic-interfaced phone needs to be told if a caller is male or female.
Eshuneutics writes about the Zimbabwean writer Dambudzo Marechera: I begin to wonder about the imminent canonisation of St Dambudzo. A lot of criticism and adulation focus on the radical, the enfant terrible, the creative terrorist.
After receiving a few emails asking how much it costs to travel and live in Ghana, Gayle has started a series of tips designed for new visitors, beginning with costs.
Writing on The Caucasian Knot, Global Voices Online's Caucasus regional editor comments on next month's municipal election in Yerevan. With previous local, parliamentary and presidential elections haven been falsified since 1995, the blog says, the May vote will represent a test of Armenia's democratic credentials especially after last year's bitterly contested and violent presidential election.
Photoreporter Noriyuki Aida (会田法行) presents the SHA-DO Collective (写道・写真家集団).
The group comprising Aida-san and other four photographers based in Tokyo — the Japanese Yasuhiro Ogawa, the Greek Androniki Christodoulou, the Spanish David Coll Blanco and the German Eric Rechsteiner — intends to provide “five specific photographic approaches focusing mainly on Japan and other Asian countries”.
According to[fa] the Iranian media President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced that Hossein Derakhshan, an Iranian jailed blogger and Roxana Saberi, an American-Iranian journalist who was sentenced to 8 years of prison, must have right of defense.
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