British writer and photographer Stuart Littlewood talks to Angie Tibbs about his experience of Israel's occupation in Gaza and the West Bank, and comments on how British and American collusion, under the auspices of the Jewish lobby, is helping to sustain the world's most lawless, brutal and unjust occupation regime.

"Lawlessness must have painful consequences for the lawless, not their victims." – Stuart Littlewood

Stuart Littlewood is one of the most consistent and passionate writers on the continuing Israeli occupation of Palestine. His book, Radio Free Palestine, and his frequent articles, focus readers on the plight of the Palestinian people, on the occupiers who are responsible, and on the governments who support Israel's slow-motion genocide and theft of an indigenous people's homeland, culture and history. I spoke with him recently.

[Angie Tibbs] Has your active support for the Palestinian people always been a part of who you are or was there a defining moment which caused you to speak out?

[Stuart Littlewood] I'm new to this game. The Palestinians' struggle for justice isn't taught in school here and our politicians are afraid to discuss it, so the British people are kept in ignorance.

I knew next to nothing until I had to research the subject for a newspaper column. The more I delved into it the angrier I became. The sheer evil! A short time later, in 2005, somebody who had read my column invited me to visit the West Bank and shoot pictures for a book.

First impressions of Palestine under occupation

[Question] What towns and villages did you visit in occupied Palestine and what were your impressions?

[Answer] Much of the time was spent with Palestinian priests in their parishes. These are the Church's front-line troops. They are abused and sometimes shot at by the Israelis, yet they remain focused and good-humoured.

The first trip took us to Jericho, Bethlehem and East Jerusalem, including the Old City, as well as smaller towns in the West Bank. We also visited Jenin, which was considered dangerous so we didn't stay long. The town was a rubble-strewn mess after the onslaught and war crimes three years earlier (Israel denied accusations of massacre). The devastation was massive and brought back childhood memories of London after the Nazi blitz, which my family lived through.

All over the West Bank what struck me most was the resilience of ordinary people under brutal occupation and having to cope with endless restrictions. For them life was a cruel obstacle course, just like the Nazi occupation of Europe… There is no legal protection against the thuggish military. Every Palestinian we met urged us to tell their story when we got home because they felt sure the British people didn't know the truth … otherwise how could we stand idly by?

These are kind, hospitable and sophisticated people who have done nothing to deserve the misery inflicted on them by the Israeli regime and its supporters in the West.

I was also shocked by the way the Israelis have systematically trashed the Holy Land and many of its antiquities. Once-beautiful landscapes, many with biblical connections, are now crowned with hideous hill-top settlements or military installations. Town and country planning principles are unheard-of. Israel's vandalism, visible everywhere, has ruined a gentle Arab civilization and its heritage, and that's something else they'll never be forgiven for.

[Q] Your initial trip to the West Bank was shortly after the death of Yasser Arafat. Were people talking about him? Remembering him?

[A] No, but his image was everywhere … in village squares, on buildings, inside shops and offices. I noticed in the assembly hall of a Catholic school an enormous portrait of the Pope, and on the adjacent wall an equally large portrait of Arafat. As a symbol of resistance he's as big as they come.

On the second trip, I visited Arafat's mausoleum in Ramallah. The family I was staying with were delighted I wanted me to go there and they accompanied me. It was only half-built, so I asked the soldiers who stood guard: "Is he really buried here?" "Yes," they said, visibly swelling with pride, "he's under that slab." For all his faults, it seems the old rascal is greatly missed.

The book project

[Q] Your visits to Palestine resulted in your book, Radio Free Palestine. Tell us about that. First of all, what is the significance of the title?

[A] We were going to call it "This Land is Our Land", but that title is already used by others. Eventually we settled on "Radio Free Palestine" because that's what Palestinians need: a broadcasting service that can be heard all over the world.
Proceeds from the sale of the book go to humanitarian projects in the West Bank, by the way.

The original idea was a poems-and-pictures book with me shooting the photos. But it soon became clear that to do the situation justice we needed to report in greater detail how the Israelis had effectively turned the occupied territories into a prison and were creating "facts on the ground" to make their occupation permanent. The least we could do was tell the truth and provide readers with enough information to challenge the propaganda lies.

So I made a second visit at Easter 2006, just after Hamas's surprise election victory. The place was in turmoil, tension was running high and plans to meet Palestinian Authority officials in Ramallah had to be scrapped. Contacts also advised that it was much too risky to visit the Gaza Strip.

All the same, I gathered a lot of material, and it was a great privilege when Jeff Halper agreed to write the Foreword. I had visited his organization ICAHD (Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions) in Jerusalem and learned a great deal from his team. Jeff is a truly courageous man and a beacon of hope.

Christians and Muslims under Hamas "all Palestinians first"

[Q] You had to leave Gaza out of your book, but nevertheless you provided readers with an in-depth look at 2007 Gaza in your widely published article "See Gaza and weep", in which you described how Gaza's people were struggling to survive under the appalling conditions created by Israeli sanctions. What stands out most vividly in your mind today, some two years on, not only about Gaza itself, but about Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and his party, Hamas?

[A] On the third trip, a small group of us went into Gaza and met Mr Haniyeh, but, as you say, that was after the book came out. The Gaza Strip had been under sanctions and siege for about 18 months, so there was already a chronic shortage of food, fuel and essentials. The sick were dying from lack of medicines and hospital equipment spares. Power cuts were a daily fact of life – another Israeli weapon of collective punishment. Some 3,500 licensed fishermen couldn't put to sea without being shelled by marauding Israeli gunboats.

Mr Haniyeh and his colleagues were courteous and attentive. He gave us a generous slice of his time, considering the problems he faced and the continual emergencies. I was pleased to see a strong sense of unity, with Muslims and Christians standing together against a common enemy. They are all "Palestinians first".

I think it would be a mistake to underestimate Hamas. These are men who have pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps. Most were raised in refugee camps, and have done time in Israeli jails or been exiled for putting up resistance. But they made sure they got themselves a good education at the Islamic University. Some went to universities in Britain and the US. They are as well-equipped as we are to govern, and they have been tested almost beyond human endurance.

When I got home the Health Ministry in Gaza sent me a list of hospital spares they desperately needed. I forwarded it to our own Health Ministry and to my MP. It was ignored, and the disgust I felt – and still feel – towards our political class is beyond words.

In the meantime I was receiving heart-breaking messages from Gazan doctors telling about the difficulties at work and at home, where their shivering children struggled to study by candle-light. What could I say to them? Here we are, two years later, and we are still letting those decent and desperate people down. How despicable is that? I cringe with shame.

[Q] What were your contacts telling you about the conditions in Gaza?

[A] One message in particular still haunts me. Father Manuel Mussallam, the elderly priest in Gaza, emailed to say:

If you wish to really understand what is taking place in the Gaza Strip, please open your Bible and read the Lamentations of Jeremiah. This is what we are living. People are crying, hungry, thirsty, desperate. They need food. Even if there is food for sale, people have no money to buy it. They have no income, no opportunities to bring food from outside and no opportunities to secure money inside Gaza. No work, no livelihood, no future… They have no hope and many very poor people are aimlessly wandering around trying to beg for something from others who also have nothing. It is heartbreaking to see.

He ended: "I beg you, we do not need pity, we need only justice. If you don't give justice, there will be no peace. Peace is the farthest thing away from the mind of anyone, Christian or Muslim, in Gaza at this time."

The Hamas "terror"

[Q] Israel has branded Hamas a "terrorist organization" and convinced a few of its friends to do likewise. Is this a valid designation, and what role, if any, has it played vis-à-vis lasting peace?

[A] I suppose it depends where you stand on the fascist spectrum. The Nazis called the French Resistance terrorists; we called them heroes. When a vicious occupier has his jackboot on your throat you have no choice but to fight with any weapon or any method that's available. Pinning labels like "terrorist" and "militant" on people who are defending their homes and families is ridiculous. Always the little guy with the little gun is the terrorist, never the big guy with big guns, bunker-busting bombs and nukes. This warped mentality is the greatest obstacle to peace.

I call Palestinian fighters guerrillas or freedom fighters. The Palestinians would love to hit back with F-16 jets, tanks, helicopter gunships, armed drones and naval gunboats. That would be nice and conventional and acceptable, yes? But all they have are AK47s, RPGs and rockets made in the garden shed, and they ride into battle in a pick-up truck.

The US administration defines terrorism as "an activity that (i) involves a violent act or an act dangerous to human life, property, or infrastructure; and (ii) appears to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion, or affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, kidnapping, or hostage-taking". And they use the definition to hurt people they don't like. The laugh is that it fits the US itself, and its special friend Israel, like a glove.

The big guys are going to have to talk to Hamas eventually and when they do, they'll discover that Hamas is not at all the way it is painted. Britain should lead the way since we caused this mess in the first place, 92 years ago.

The evil wall

[Q] What was your reaction to seeing the illegal wall and the hundreds of checkpoints that are scattered throughout occupied Palestine? What effect is this curtailment of free movement having on the area and its people?

[A] I love Banksy's graffiti art on this monstrosity. The fact that the wall is still standing – and still being built – five years after the International Court of Justice ordered it to be pulled down tells us all we need to know about our contemptible Western leaders.

Most tourists are waved through crossings in the wall without leaving their bus seats. The last time I stayed in Bethlehem, I caught the ordinary service bus back from Jerusalem and walked with Palestinian workers (those who were lucky enough to have permits) through the sinister maze of steel and concrete barriers and holding pens. It was a thoroughly dehumanizing experience. They often have to queue for hours to get to work and queue again to get home – all part of Israel's humiliation policy.

The wall is also an insult to Christianity – the way it seals off and imprisons towns like Bethlehem and important holy places like the Church of the Nativity. It shreds and divides communities and prevents access to Jerusalem. It disrupts the life of the Church as well as the livelihoods of ordinary people.

Its other purpose, and the real reason it bites deep into Palestinian territory, is to steal large areas of prime agricultural land and the water resources beneath. If it was purely for security, as the Israelis claim, they should have built it on the internationally-recognized 1967 border.

We have just seen the world's high-ranking hypocrites celebrating the fall of the Berlin Wall but saying nothing about Israel's apartheid wall.

Lack of respect for non-Jewish faiths

[Q] Let's talk about the religious dimension in all of this. How important is it?

[A] The three faiths are all in one place, and Jerusalem is vitally important to all of them. What's lacking is proper respect. How many people in the West realize that Israel doesn't allow Muslims and Arab Christians living outside Jerusalem to visit the holy places in the Old City?

When Palestine was under British mandate, Christians accounted for 20 per cent of the population. Now, after 61 years of hostilities, dispossession and economic strangulation the numbers have been whittled down to 1 or 2 per cent. At this rate there will soon be no Christians left in the land where Christianity was born. The Israelis are waging a religious war that's designed to disrupt and paralyse Christianity in the Holy Land. It's part of their attempt to Judaize everything.

Western Christendom doesn't seem bothered and keeps quiet. Few churchmen, I believe, have any real clue what's going on there. Shame on them.

[Q] Are Western church leaders playing a sufficient role in protecting the Holy Land, its religious history and its people?

[A] The Catholic Church, which has a significant presence in the Holy Land and runs a number of schools, appears to be fighting the battle alone. Anglican Church ministers I have spoken to are largely disinterested. Yes, their faith is focused on the Holy Land, they teach the Holy Land texts and they deliver sermons on the Holy Land, but what do they really care about it? One morning they'll wake up and discover that the Holy Land – the central plank to their existence – has been stolen from under their noses.

The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem – the Catholic Church in the Holy Land – does its best, but I don't think it gets the support it deserves from the Vatican. As for the rest, they could unite and surely do much more. While Israel was planning its blitzkrieg against Gaza's Muslims and Christians – after blockading and starving them with the British government's connivance – the Archbishop of Canterbury went swanning off with the Chief Rabbi on a visit to Auschwitz, preaching their joint solidarity against extreme hostility and genocide! The archbishop talked about the collective corruption and moral sickness that made the Holocaust possible. But where was his concern for the shattered Christian remnants in Gaza? Or for the murdered, maimed and homeless Muslims who, many claim, are being subjected to a "slow genocide"? Let's remember that the Israelis' killing spree left nearly 60,000 homeless and 400,000 without running water, and they still won't allow cement and other reconstruction materials to be brought in.

Did the Pope visit Gaza to show solidarity with his frightened and impoverished flock there?

Pious wafflers in their palaces make me sick, when genuine men of God – those in the front line, the priests, the nuns and the imams – risk their lives as they work round the clock to bring comfort to the victims of political greed and aggression.

Inhuman bid to starve a population and wreck their fragile economy

[Q] You visited occupied Palestine in 2006 after the landslide victory by Hamas, and again in 2007. Did you get a sense of optimism from the population? Hope for a better future? Or had "the West" and Israel already begun their campaign to ensure that the Palestinian democratic election results would never become a reality?

[A] We were there just after the election in 2006, and the situation was turning nasty. Fatah's defeat at the polls seemed broadly welcomed, but hopes of a brighter future were scuppered by the West's childish rejection of the people's democratic choice, Hamas.

The US and Israel were plotting to bring down Hamas by "starving" the Palestinian Authority and hence all the people it employed and served. It began by axing US-EU aid while Israel stepped up its military attacks on Gaza, killing and maiming, and destroying infrastructure, including the only power station – which was built with UK taxpayers' money, I understand. Israel also kidnapped eight Hamas cabinet ministers and a quarter of the elected members of the legislative council. On top of that, Fatah collaborators joined the plotting against Hamas and organized strikes and protests.

What spurred me to finish the book as quickly as possible was an email from a girl who worked for the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah. Daily life was getting worse and she hadn't been paid for over two months because the West had cut the flow of money and Israel was stealing the Palestinians' own tax revenues.

Some of my colleagues can't come to work anymore because simply they don't have money for the transport. On Thursday we made a protest in front of the entrance of our ministry demanding the international community to end this isolation and asking for our salaries. The mothers are bringing their babies and kids to work everyday because they can't pay for the kinder yards or the babysitters…

Eventually her emails stopped. Presumably she could no longer get to work and access the internet. Her distress was the final straw.

Hamas misjudged the lengths to which pro-Zionist Western leaders would go to undermine democratic processes that didn't suit their purpose or Israel's interests. These same leaders endlessly praise Israel for being "the only democracy in the Middle East" … Everyone must be made to understand that's because they deliberately snuffed out Palestine's democracy as soon as it was born.

[Q] How has this ongoing siege affected the lives of the women of occupied Palestine and how are they coping?

[A] The wrecking of the Palestinian economy has made it impossible for the men to work or do business effectively, and this puts a great strain on their women. They are amazingly resourceful, like the women of London during the German blitz. As a child I remember the courage of my mother and our neighbours as they overcame the hardships of being bombed every night. But Palestinian women face the added danger of enemy troops, tanks and armoured bulldozers.

In Palestinian society women hold many important positions. Even Hamas has a woman minister. Nuns too play a big part among the Christian communities. Not only are they very brave and enterprising, they are also great fun to meet.

Visit Bethlehem and Birzeit universities and you'll see many stunningly beautiful but very determined young women – Christian and Muslim – working hard for a first-class education and running the gauntlet of Israeli checkpoints and other unpleasant obstacles. On every trip I manage to spend some time at Bethlehem University and am always impressed by the sharp minds and outgoing nature of the women students. I salute them.

Palestinians' voice abroad silenced

[Q] Does Palestine have an official voice in the UK and, if so, how effective is it?

[A] You'd think Palestinians were tormented enough without the added misfortune of being represented in London by the most invisible and silent embassy it is possible to imagine. Little is done to set the news agenda or ensure that the Palestinian case is clearly heard.

In contrast the Israelis are businesslike and proactive. They pump out endless disinformation which is lapped up by the media unchallenged. Their version of events and their definition of the situation is accepted. So it's a propaganda massacre. Many of us are convinced that the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah has instructed embassies and delegations abroad not to embarrass Israel, and denies them the necessary resources to do an effective job. It's like a fixed football match. Palestinian "strikers" mustn't even shoot at an open goal.

Washington-London-Tel Aviv "axis of evil"

[Q] What role, if any, does Britain play in Palestine today?

[A] None that I can see. The country that betrayed the Holy Land and its people does nothing. Our navy used to guarantee the freedom of the seas, but now it won't even protect mercy ships from attack by Israeli pirates. The MV Dignity, for example, was deliberately rammed and nearly sunk in international waters with 16 civilians aboard, including British citizens. Nor will Britain intervene when Gazan fishermen, lawfully trying to feed a hungry population, are fired on.

[Q] And the UN?

[A] Please don't talk to me about the UN, Angie… To quote Major Rufus Cobb in that classic Jesse James film: "If we are ever going to have law and order the first thing we gotta do is take 'em all out and shoot 'em down like dogs!"

[Q] The UN and most world leaders continue to turn a blind eye to Israel's crimes against humanity and its occupation of Palestine. What can be done to end what many feel is the slow-motion genocide of the Palestinian people?

[A] This is how my good friend Dr David Halpin, a tireless campaigner for justice, describes the situation, and I couldn't put it any better myself:

There is an axis of evil with Tel Aviv at one pole and Washington at the other. In the centre is London where barbarity and treachery is clothed in plummy speech and fine spectacle. Power shuttles backwards and forwards along this axis as busily as the jets carrying the psychopaths to these command centres which bring hell to earth.

I call it the axis of greed, but either will do.

Israel is an aggressive military power bristling with nuclear and state-of-the-art weaponry, funded and equipped by the US and run by what British MP Sir Gerald Kaufman – himself a Jew – calls "a gang of amoral thugs". That is simply terrifying. Those thugs are already threatening another bloodbath in Gaza, as if their atrocities 11 months ago weren't despicable enough. If the international community doesn't get a grip and force Israel to observe acceptable standards of behaviour and conform to international law, we can say goodbye to hopes of building a civilized world.

Lawlessness must have painful consequences for the lawless, not their victims.

As for the Palestinians, their internal squabbles play straight into the enemy's hands. Other nations would find it easier to intervene positively if Hamas were to carry out a convincing "rebranding" exercise and issue a new charter that's more appropriate in tone to the 21st century and their diplomatic ambitions. They now have democratic credentials and a certain amount of sympathy and goodwill among Western citizens. I hope they'll build on it, not throw it away.

Citizens of the world must take on the Israel lobby

[Q] What would be a good starting point for us, the citizens of the world, in our efforts to help the Palestinian people in a real and productive manner?

[A] At citizen level we must continue to expose Israel's propaganda lies and evil intent. The other side uses every dirty trick under the sun and has produced an instruction manual to teach its embassy staff and its army of cyber-activists how to brainwash Western citizens and their politicians. It'll be a long haul but the truth will eventually break through.

Citizens also need to tackle Zionist infiltration and rid us of its stranglehold on our political and government institutions. Israel has the British government eating out of its hand. Here's an example. The other day the minister for foreign affairs, in reply to a question in the House of Commons, said:

Israel is a close ally of the UK and we have regular productive exchanges at all levels, going far beyond relations between governments. Our political relations allow us to address openly issues both of common concern and where we disagree. Most recently, on 27 October, I met the Israeli deputy foreign minister, Danny Ayalon. We will continue to foster this relationship and use it to further the interests of both countries and the wider region.

No prizes for guessing the British minister's ethnicity.

Israel's agents of influence are so embedded at the heart of government that signing up to the Zionist cause is a necessary stepping stone to high office. These stooges are fatal to our foreign policy and security, and have cost us dear in terms of world respect and dead and injured. At election time activists need to identify and expose parliamentary candidates who are involved with the Israel lobby.

We are supposed to be governed in accordance with the Seven Principles of Public Life. Principle No.2 is about "integrity" – holders of public office should not place themselves under any financial or other obligation to outside individuals or organizations that might seek to influence them in the performance of their official duties. The Israel lobby has been powerful enough to ensure this is ignored. Activists need to find ways to reimpose it.

In a sane world…

[Q] What happens next, and where do you fit into the scheme of things?

[A] In a sane world the UN would have guaranteed to keep Gaza's sea border open and provide a naval escort for ships wishing to trade. And it would have declared Jerusalem an international city as stipulated in the partition plan. I hope the UN might still find the backbone to do these things.

The way America is now trying to rewrite international law to legitimize Israel's continuing land-grab and settlement expansion, and the way the US House of Representatives voted 344 to 36 to reject the UN-Goldstone report exposing Israel's war crimes – in which America is deeply implicated – shows more clearly than ever how US politics is corrupted by the power and influence of the Israel lobby.

As for me, I'm not really an activist. I'm more a commentator. I am, however, involved with a campaign group that is part of a rapidly growing global network. There are many, many others and we are linking up. The Zionists know they have a fight on their hands in the battle for hearts and minds.

[Q] Finally, what is your most fervent wish?

[A] That you and I and anybody else can visit friends in Palestine without being molested by Israel's bad-mannered security officials. We should be able to fly or sail direct, without setting foot in Israel. Citizens of the world must make this crystal clear to the UN: if we want to wander through Old Jerusalem's souk, holiday on Gaza's beach, go fishing with Gaza's fishermen or talk football with Mr Haniyeh over coffee, it should be none of Israel's damn business.

[Angie Tibbs] Thank you, Stuart.

* Angie Tibbs is a writer/activist living in Canada. She can be reached at angie4justice@nl.rogers.com

Stuart Littlewood is a writer/photographer living in the UK. Check out his web pages at http://www.wordsandpixels.org.uk and http://www.radiofreepalestine.co.uk/

Rethinking the concept of diaspora: mobility, connectivity and communication in a globalised world

WRITTEN BY Roza Tsagarousianou

Communication and Media Research Institute

University of Westminster

Introduction

This article attempts a brief overview of the recent debate on diasporas. It selectively focuses on aspects of the exchanges among theorists from the early 1990s onwards and seeks to identify ways in which our understanding of the concept has evolved and attempts to offer a critical evaluation of these.

Of particular interest in this examination is the debate on the ‘nature’ of diasporic communities. Some key questions related to this and central in the discussion contained in this article are: are ‘ethnicity’ and ‘mobility’ or ‘displacement’ sufficient parameters to allow us to make sense of diasporic phenomena and to retain the critical edge of the concept? Or should we attempt to rethink some of our basic assumptions? The line of argument taken suggests that diasporas should better be seen as depending not so much on displacement but on connectivity, or on the complex nexus of linkages that contemporary transnational dynamics make possible and sustain. What is more, I suggest that diasporas should be seen not as given communities, a logical, albeit deterritorialized, extension of an ethnic or national group, but as imagined communities, continuously reconstructed and reinvented. I argue that it is in the context of this intersection of connectivity and cultural reinvention and reconstruction that media technologies and diasporic media become crucial factors in the reproduction and transformation of diasporic identities.

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Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture © 2004 (University of Westminster, London), Vol. 1(1): 52-66. ISSN 1744-6708 (Print); 1744-6716 (Online)

The debate

There has been a relatively longstanding interest within the social sciences in the study of forms of human mobility, particularly migration. Predominantly premised upon and informed by cultures where territory and land are meticulously demarcated and highly valued, and where notions of ‘home’ are linked with a fixed place, social sciences have reflected the fascination and, at the same time, the apprehension with which sedentary societies have approached nomads, refugees and migrants. In this context a substantial literature has developed comprising highly diverse studies ranging from anthropological research of nomadic life and the cultures of transhumant populations, to the study of migrant and refugee settlement in ‘host’ societies, to securitised approaches to migration. Within this rapidly expanding literature, the terminology has varied considerably, depending on (a) the different types of migratory experience of different populations, (b) the particular focus of different investigations and (c) the changing concerns informing social research at different times: thus migrants have been studied as immigrants, guest workers, asylum seekers, ethnic minorities, displaced populations, ‘folk devils’ or threats to the security and prosperity of ‘host’ societies, to name but a few attributions.

In the context of this terminological diversity, it is only relatively recently, that a new term – diaspora – has been systematically introduced and used in academic and policy discourses. To be sure, this ‘new’ term is hardly a neologism. Its origins can be traced back over centuries (for a history of the concept see Cohen 1997) though its usage and importance has varied over the years. In its long history, the term has been consistently associated with experiences of displacement, dispersal and migrancy; however the concept has remained peripheral in the debates on human migration and mobility until fairly recently.

Over the past decade or so, the number of articles and monographs focusing on the concept of ‘diaspora’, or premised on the study of the ‘diasporic condition’ has increased dramatically, indicating not only a widespread and growing interest in phenomena associated with it, but also the realization of the potential of the concept to serve as a theoretical tool for the advancement of qualitatively different perspectives and outlooks in the study of human migration. As Clifford points out ‘diasporic language seems to be replacing, or at least supplementing, minority discourse. Transnational connections break the binary relation of “minority” communities with “majority” societies (1997, 255)’.

Although a consensus over definitions of ‘diaspora’ is hardly evident and, despite the fact that it would certainly be premature to argue that a widely accepted theoretical framework for the study of diasporas is likely to be in place any time soon, it is clear that the debate unfolding over the past decade has contributed to some convergence among different problematiques on the study of human migration. Indeed, a closer look on the semantics associated with the rediscovered term indicates a shift in the nuances it carries with it, a reconfiguration of its meaning, of the experiences and potentialities associated with it, and therefore, of the overall character and focus of the current debate.

As I will try to argue in the course of this article, in this new context, the usage of the term often carries with it connotations relating to the transnational character of diasporas and the phenomena surrounding them. What is more, it intimates the existence of a closer relationship of contemporary diasporic conditions with the highly diverse and complex processes which we identify as globalization. Finally, the ways the concept has been used indicate that a decisive shift from ‘mobility’ to ‘connectivity’ (for a discussion of the term see Tomlinson 1999, 10-13) has been taking in the course of the recent debate. Or in other words, that is, an acknowledgement of the importance, even centrality, of processes of communication and exchange (be those material or cultural). While narratives of uprooting, displacement and migrancy continue to be central in contemporary notions of diaspora, there is little doubt that the current use of the term conveys much more.

Revisiting the concept: typologies

Within the renewed debate on the meaning of ‘diaspora’ and on the significance of diasporic studies, one can identify a few systematic attempts to define the field and suggest ways of approaching and studying diasporic phenomena. In one of the earliest and most systematic efforts to delineate the concept, back in 1991, William Safran argued that the concept of ‘diaspora’ is linked to those communities that share some or all of the following characteristics:

• the original community has spread from a homeland to two or more countries; they are bound from their disparate geographical locations by a common vision, memory or myth about their homelands;

• they have a belief that they will never be accepted by their host societies and therefore develop their autonomous cultural and social needs;

• they or their descendants will return to the homeland should the conditions prove favourable;

• they should continue to maintain support for homeland and therefore the communal consciousness and solidarity enables them to continue these activities (Safran 1991, 83-4). 

This attempt to construct a quite specific ideal-type stressed the transnational character of diasporas, the symbolic and material importance – for Safran and other proponents of similar notions of diaspora – of a homeland and a vision of eventual return to it, and introduced an array of other factors such as the perceived marginalization in the country of settlement experienced by members of a diasporic community.

As I have argued elsewhere, the above list, although a useful one, is quite limited and limiting as it clearly revolves around the relationship of the diasporic group with its homeland and therefore plays down other important relationships and linkages that inform the diasporic condition (Fazal & Tsagarousianou 2002, 6-7). In essence, it could be argued that, in this context, diasporas are primarily seen as not a lot more than a sub-category of an ethnic group, or a nation. Other theorists such as Cohen (1997) have used the same prescriptive formula of constructing an ideal type of a ‘diaspora’ as a vehicle of expanding the definition to include a broader range of phenomena. Cohen thus proposes that perhaps these features need to be adjusted and that four other elements should be added to the list proposed by Safran. According to him, therefore, a definition of ‘diaspora’ needs to:

• be able to include those groups that scatter voluntarily or as a result of fleeing aggression, persecution or extreme hardship;

• take into account the necessity for a sufficient time period before any community can be described as a diaspora. According to Cohen, there should be indications of a transnational community’s strong links to the past that thwart assimilation in the present as well as the future;

• recognise more positive aspects of diasporic communities. For instance, the tensions between ethnic, national and transnational identities can lead to creative formulations;

• acknowledge that diasporic communities not only form a collective identity in the place of settlement or with their homeland, but also share a common identity with members of the same ethnic communities in other countries. 

Cohen has clearly attempted to move the debate forward by not only re-emphasising the transnational character of diasporas but also by pointing out the significance of their ‘transnationality’ in the production of creative tensions and syntheses. However, his renewed emphasis on ‘strong links to the past’, albeit moderated by his emphasis on the creativity and forward vision of diasporas, does not push the debate decisively forward.

Such attempts to define diasporas undoubtedly offer useful insights and correctly reflect the formative influence of a sense of loss and displacement (and, by implication, the primacy of the relationship of diasporas with a ‘homeland’) that is common among many –though not all– diasporas. However, they have also been marked by some fundamental weaknesses.

One key weakness relates to their attempt to identify an essential checklist, a closed set of characteristics that, according to some researchers, would contribute to the establishment of a fairly demarcated field of investigation (e.g. Cohen 1997). Such an endeavour is quite restrictive and attempts to artificially and somewhat arbitrarily reify what in essence constitutes a snapshot of complex and ongoing processes. As James Clifford has characteristically pointed out, ‘we should be wary of constructing our working definition of a term like diaspora by recourse to an ideal type’ (1994, 306). The notion of diaspora is a very elusive one and although attempts have been made to provide a typology (Cohen 1997) such typologies and definitions do not recognise the dynamic and fluid character of both diasporas and the volatile transnational contexts in which they emerge and acquire substance.

For example, whereas Cohen‘s distinction between the categories of ‘victim’ (e.g. Jews, African and Armenians), labour (e.g. the Indian indentured labourers), trade (e.g. the Chinese and the Lebanese), imperial (e.g. the British) and cultural (e.g. the Caribbeans abroad) diasporas take into account the diversity of diasporic experience, they do not really take on board late modern transnational mobility that takes significantly novel forms (such as transnational commuting or mental migration) that cannot be readily discarded as having no relevance to the study of diasporic phenomena (cf. Tölölian 1991; Cunningham and Sinclair 2000). In addition, insightful attempts to make sense of the intensively transnational phenomenon of the Muslim Umma in diasporic terms by Mandaville (2001), although the latter does not fit the strict and primarily ethnocentric criteria advanced by the definitions in question, have the potential of expanding the horizons of our understanding diasporic phenomena.

Questions of home

Another aspect shared by the majority of attempts to build ideal-type definitions of diasporas, perhaps linked to their emphasis on empirically observable ‘facts’ and the recurrence of these over time, relates to an overrated emphasis on the perceived nostalgic links and memories diasporas have of an original home or homeland. However the notion of home that many researchers stress are questionable as the issue of home within contemporary diasporas becomes somewhat irrelevant.

In contrast to the emphasis that commentators like Safran put on the importance for diasporic communities of maintaining strong links and identifications with the traditions of the ‘homeland’, Hall points out that the link between these communities and their ‘homeland’ or the possibility of a return to the past are much more precarious than usually thought (1993, 355). For the place called homeland will have transformed beyond recognition. But it is not only ‘back home’ that has been caught up in the process of modernization – diasporas themselves are deeply affected by their position at the centre of contemporary globalisation flows. In that sense, there is no going ‘home’ again.

There is detour and no return. Diasporas and diasporic experiences, even their apparently more traditionalist variants, should not be dismissed simplistically as backward-looking, as they are almost invariably constituting new transnational spaces of experience (Morley 2000) that are complexly interfacing with the experiential frameworks that both countries of settlement and purported countries of origin represent.

As Avtar Brah writes:

What is home? On the one hand, ‘home’ is a mythic place of desire in the diasporic imagination. In this sense it is a place of return, even if it is possible to visit the geographical territory that is seen as the place of ‘origin’. On the other hand, home is also a lived experience of a locality. Its sounds and smells, its heat and dust, balmy summer evenings, sombre grey skies in the middle of the day…all this, as mediated by the historically specific of everyday social relations. In other words, the varying experiences of pains and pleasures, the terrors and contentments, or the highs and humdrum of everyday lived culture that marks how, for example, a cold winter night might be differently experienced sitting by a crackling fireside in a mansion compared with standing huddled around a makeshift fire on the streets of nineteenth century England. (Brah 1996, 192)

The notion of home therefore is much more complex than approaches to diasporas premised on the power of nostalgia would want us believe. It ‘is intrinsically linked with the way in which the processes of inclusion or exclusion operate and are subjectively experienced under given circumstances. It relates to the complex political and personal struggles over the social regulation of ‘belonging’ ’(Brah, 1996, p.194). As Fazal and Tsagarousianou (2002: 11) argue, what is important in diasporic notions of home is their relationship to a multiplicity of locations through geographical and cultural boundaries.

Within the frame of contemporary diasporas, the notions of ‘home’ and when a location becomes home are therefore linked with the issues related to inclusion or exclusion which tend to be subjectively experienced depending upon the circumstances. When does a location become a home? How can one distinguish between ‘feeling at home and staking a claim to a place as one’s own?’ (Fazal and Tsagarousianou 2002, 11-12)

As recent research into diasporic cultural politics indicates (Tsagarousianou 2001, 29-30), the link between diasporas and countries of origin is often fraught with tensions and ambivalence, as diasporic communities precisely juxtapose themselves (and ‘home’) to definitions of themselves emanating from the country of origin. Diasporic identity can often draw much more on the experience of migrancy and settlement, of ‘making’ one’s home than on a fixation to a ‘homeland’.

This ambivalence in processes of diasporic identification is often due to the contrasting exigencies of a usually ‘monophonic’ official discourse and politics on the one hand, and a diasporic vernacular or plebeian culture – often more polyphonic and complex – on the other. These contradictory resources in diasporic identification are summarised by Werbner in her assessment of the situation in Britain:

The argument about ethnic naming highlights the fact that it is not only Western representations of the Other which essentialise. In their performative rhetoric the people we study essentialise their imagined communities in order to mobilise for action. Within the spaces of civil society, the politics of ethnicity in Britain are not so much imposed as grounded in essentialist self-imaginings of community. Hence, ethnic leaders essentialise communal identities in their competition for state grants and formal leadership positions. But – equally importantly – such leaders narrate and argue over these identities in the social spaces which they themselves have created, far from the public eye. (Werbner 1997, 230)

In a way, the often uncritical insistence on the primacy of the relationship with an original homeland, can support the essentialization of origins and the reification of what is supposed to be found at the origin (e.g., tradition, religion, language, race). What is more, emphasis on the constitutive role of an ‘originary place’ can often contribute to lack of attention to the ‘potentialities’ of diasporas. By ‘potentialities’ I refer to the various creative possibilities opened by the activities of diasporas in both local and transnational contexts. In addition to the centrality attributed to the formative character of the experiences of loss and displacement that, say, Safran emphasises, it is important not to lose sight of the, at least equal, significance of the ability of diasporas to construct and negotiate their identities, everyday life and transnational activities in ways that often overcome the ethnic identity v assimilation dilemma that they are uncritically condemned to by some theorists. Cohen (1997) has certainly attempted to move his typology–premised examination of diasporas towards this direction by pointing out the ‘more positive’ [as opposed to nostalgic] aspects of diasporic communities and acknowledging that diasporic communities not only form a collective identity in their place of settlement or with their homeland, but also share a common identity Tsagarousianou, with members of the same ethnic communities in other countries. But, perhaps of equal significance is the fact that diasporic identities are ‘the product of active engagement in “politics” or, in other words, cultural and political action that articulates elements from different cultures and different frames of action and experience in one, more or less coherent whole (Clifford 1997; Fazal and Tsagarousianou 2002, 12). Indeed, it could be argued that it is this particular element that can allow us to distinguish between ‘ethnic’ and ‘diasporic’ identity: not all dispersed populations can automatically and uncritically be identified as diasporas because they share a common ethnic ancestry and identity. It is their readiness and willingness to engage themselves with the building of a transnational imagination and connections that constitutes the ‘threshold’ from ethnic to diasporic identification.

Community and cultural politics

Thus, instead of more uncritical ethnocentric or ethnic definitions of diasporas, we should be focussing more on the complex processes of negotiation that often transcend the limitations of ‘ethnicity’. As Mandaville points out

The estrangement of a community in diaspora – its separation from the ‘natural’ setting of the homeland – often leads to a particularly intense search for and negotiation of identity: gone are many traditional anchor points of culture; conventional hierarchies of authority can fragment. In short, the condition of diaspora is one in which the multiplicity of identity and community is a key dynamic. Debates about the meanings and boundaries of affiliation are hence a defining characteristic of the diaspora community (2001, 172).

This, essentially novel opportunity for self-invention inherent in diasporic cultural politics, is clearly reflected in Brah’s claim that ‘diasporas are …. the sites of hope and new beginnings’ (1996, 193). In this context it is important to recognise the ‘opportunity structures’ that the combination of migrancy and connectivity that the diasporic condition entails give rise to. This is largely, though not entirely, uncharted territory; empirical, mainly anthropological research has started to shed some light in this area but more needs to be done to reduce the influence of what I would call ‘nostalgia-premised’ definitions of diasporas. Through his study of the politics of identity among migrants from the Balkan region of Macedonia in Australia Loring Danforth (1996) has demonstrated the potential for cultural creativity that can be unleashed by the opportunity structures that processes of deterritorialization and reterritorialization of diasporas entail. Danforth very convincingly argues that diasporas do not look back in a nostalgic effort of recovering or maintaining their identity but effectively discover (or construct) notions of ‘who they are’ and ‘what home is, or has been’ by essentially looking forward.

In contrast to some of the definitions of diasporas briefly discussed earlier in this paper, diasporas should not be seen uncritically as ‘given communities’ (Mandaville 2001, 169); but rather as ‘imagined communities’ continuously reinvented and reconstructed. Although Benedict Anderson’s original usage of the term (1983) was intended to apply to the study of nations, there is no reason why diasporas could not qualify as imagined communities too. They, too, can be seen as such as they are constructed through the lengthy process of forging links among their members in both local and transnational contexts, ‘of suppressing or neutralising internal differences, of establishing the context in which common experiences can be developed and past experiences can be interpreted in similar ways. This process of imagination ‘involves creating economies of truth, making sense of the raw material of social experience, in fact, creating this very social experience through discursive practices’ (Sofos 1996, 74).

What must be stressed above all is the sense in which the construction of diasporic identity, as is all identity, is inherently a sociopolitical process, involving dialogue, negotiation and debate as to ‘who we are’ and, moreover, what it means to be ‘who we are’.

Finally and, possibly, more importantly as E. P. Thompson argued in The Making of the English Class, it is not enough for a social formation objectively to fulfill the material conditions prescribed by a category, such as working class. A collective, subjective understanding of oneself as working class is necessary before the designation acquires any meaning (1968). What makes certain contemporary diasporas really ‘diasporas’ is their self-mobilization around their awareness of themselves as a diaspora, their ability to imagine themselves as such and to construct the appropriate discourses.

Connectivity

Although one cannot but recognise that late modern migration movements are framed by ‘solitude, itinerancy and illegality’ (Papastergiadis 2000, 46) it is equally undisputable that late modern migrants are not lonely and isolated in the sense that their predecessors during earlier forms of socio-cultural distanciation were. Whereas displacement has been a constant in the history of migration, in late modernity, global migration trends have produced transnational diasporic groups related by culture, ethnicity, language, and religion, not only in the sense of ‘transnational dispersal’ but also in terms of intense and constant interaction at a transnational level. Such developments have lead to a shift of emphasis from globalization as rapid mobility over long distances’ (Lash and Urry 1994, 253) to globalization as proximity and connectivity (Tomlinson 1999). They have also had an impact in our understanding of diasporas as depending on this very connectivity. In this context, diasporas can be seen as situated at the centre of sets of intersecting transnational flows and linkages that bring together geographically remote locations. In turn, they contribute to the generation of transnational flows in the areas of population movement, finance, politics, cultural production and, as a result, are considered to be in the vanguard of the forces that deepen and intensify globalization (Clifford 1997).

New technologies and faster communications in the new century, contrasted to the long and precarious journeys of emigration and the slow and fragile communications among earlier migrants are therefore just one of the factors that have clearly shaped what we understand as diasporic experience in late modernity. The movement of people characteristic of late modern migration, is complemented by and involves the circulation of money, technology, goods, information, ideas, lifestyles, etc., what Appadurai describes with the rather shorthand terms mediascapes, ideoscapes, financescapes, technoscapes and ethnoscapes (1993). Situating diasporas in this context, instead of seeing diasporas descriptively as groups or populations, we are able to develop a concept that refers to a complex social phenomenon that refers to the array of relationships that these multiple transnational landscapes entails. In this new conceptual setting, diaspora can refer to constellations of economic, technological, cultural and ideological and communication flows and networks. This way of thinking about diasporas allows us to think of a multitude of phenomerna and processes in a much more holistic and inclusive way, bringing together diverse transnational flows and the processes of deterritorialization and reterritorialization of these. In this context, thinking in terms of diasporas includes the process of migration but is not exhausted in it. It carries with it connotations of transnational networks and therefore of complex processes of exchanges, material, cultural and mental. It focuses on the dynamics of interaction between migrant groups and societies of settlement as well as erstwhile homelands. Therefore, contemporary diasporas can be seen as ‘exemplary communities’ of the forms of migrancy that occurred in the mid- to late 20^th century and the dynamics this sets in motion.

Diasporic communications

As I argued in the introduction of this article, the intersection of this complex connectivity and of the processes of cultural reinvention and reconstruction that the diasporic condition sets in motion effectively renders media technologies and diasporic media crucial factors in the reproduction and transformation of diasporic identities, and of diasporas in general.

There should be no doubt that ‘diasporic media’ is a term that refers to a considerable and highly diverse array of organizations, practices and settings where diasporic narratives are constructed. It is also beyond question that these differ considerably in terms of their degree of institutionalization, durability and accessibility as well as their popularity, and as to the degree of their involvement in the reproduction of official or plebeian/demotic discourses. There is also considerable disagreement as to the nature of the diasporic media space. In contrast to more traditionalist perspectives which see a homeland to diaspora pattern of flow, Cunningham and Sinclair (2000) for example suggest that the flow of media not only occurs from the centre to the periphery, but also from the periphery to the centre through centres such as Hong Kong, Mumbai, Mexico City, Cairo which are defining new world regions. They state that ‘the media space of a diaspora tends to be of this kind, to the extent that it is spread throughout several of the national markets which have been the territorial unit for international media distribution in the past’ (2000, 3; see also Fazal and Tsagarousianou 2002, 16). More recently, the emergence of several studies on diasporic media seems to indicate a more complex landscape characterised by multidirectionality and multiplicity of flows.

But regardless this diversity and heterogeneity, it can be argued that the various media, information and communication technologies that are utilised by diasporas and the media they support and sustain play an important role, not only in the articulation of diasporic identities in the strict sense, but also in the process of providing the narratives ‘holding together’ or reconfiguring the constellations of flows, networks and relationships referred to above. Diasporic media operating at the transnational level can provide a sense of contemporaneity and synchronicity to the dispersed populations that make up a diaspora and to their everyday lives. This temporal convergence brings a qualitative change in the experience of migrancy and the dynamics set in motion by it: whereas earlier forms of socio-cultural distanciation were inextricably linked with temporal distance, making it very difficult for dispersed migrants to share experiences and form common frames of making sense of these, the sense of contemporaneity and synchronicity made possible by diasporic media in late modernity enables new ways of ‘coexistence’ and ‘experiencing together’.

Drawing on Scannell’s interesting discussion of the significance of electronic media, it could be argued that, apart from facilitating the compressing of time and space, they bring about new possibilities of being; in particular, ‘new possibilities of being in two places at once’ (Scannell 1996, 91) – referring to the place where they receive the broadcast and the place where an event ‘actually’ takes place. Taking this argument further, I would argue that diasporic media do not merely enable their audiences to ‘be in two places at once’ but effectively give them the opportunity of producing new spaces where remote localities and their experiences come together and become ‘synchronised’. This is not merely a rhetorical distinction but, I would think, an important dimension in the processes of making sense of the encounters that take place during the consumption of diasporic media content.

In this sense, diasporic media can effectively provide the raw material for, and facilitate the construction of common experiential frames among their audiences thus being in a position to play a crucial role in processes of social group integration and identification as well as of legitimation/delegitimation of relations of power and social hierarchies.

As Mandaville points out,

diasporic media can and should be understood as much more than simply a means by which information of interest to a given community can be exchanged, or a means for communicating images of that community to the wider society. [Indeed]…. we need to understand these media as spaces of communication in which the identity, meaning and boundaries of diasporic community are continually constructed, debated and reimagined (2001, 169).

As it has already been pointed out, a displaced and dispersed population cannot automatically be identified as a diaspora as it is not sufficient for it, as for any social formation for that matter, objectively to fulfill the material conditions prescribed by a category, such as diaspora in our case. The crucial element that makes the concept meaningful and legitimate to use is their self-mobilization around their awareness of themselves as a diaspora. In other words, it is their ability to imagine themselves as such, to imagine and construct the relevant transnational linkages and to construct the appropriate discourses. It follows that this self-awareness and the processes of self-imagination as a diaspora, if they are to be sustained over time, require diasporic institutions, which construct and sustain a diasporic space of communication and exchange where definitions of the diaspora are elaborated and reproduced.

It is this, little studied, capacity of diasporic media that, together with a host of other diasporic cultural, political and economic processes, can transform diasporas from little more than aggregates of migrants into active and vibrant diasporic networks. Clearly, the research agenda on diasporic media and cultural practices needs to focus more on processes of diasporic identity formation and the institutions and practices supporting these.

Conclusion

It is clear that debate on the ‘nature’ of diasporic communities is only just starting. The process of defining, or better understanding diasporic phenomena is marked by experimentation and continuously informed from debates on identity, ethnicity, globalization to name but a few as well as an expanding body of empirical research on its subject matter. This paper has stressed the importance of maintaining a sufficiently critical, flexible and open definition of diaspora and diasporic culture in order to avoid reifying the concept and overlooking the multitude of experiences relating to diverse patterns of migration and settlement, modes of that mark and intersect with diasporic experience.

This paper has attempted to decouple definitions of diaspora from and the concepts of ‘ethnicity’, ‘mobility’ or ‘displacement’ as, it was argued these are not sufficient parameters to allow us to make sense of diasporic phenomena and to retain the critical edge of the concept. ‘Ethnicity’ is an established concept that does not have the capacity to convey the complexity that is inherent in notions of diasporas, including their transnational dimensions, or the linkage with globalization inherent in most attempts to define the term. ‘Mobility’ and ‘displacement’ on the other hand, may place undue emphasis on physical movement and, possibly, shift our focus primarily to a population that has moved or been displaced instead of enabling us to study the broader social formation that diasporas connote, that is, the ensemble of relationships, networks, discourses that constitute diasporic phenomena.

In contrast, as I suggested that the concept of diaspora inhabits the 'transnational' and refers to complex multidirectional flows of human beings, ideas, products – cultural and physical and to forms of interaction, negotiation and exchange, processes of acculturation and cultural creativity, webs of exclusion and struggles to overcome it, appropriate frames of reference need to be established. In this context, our understanding of diasporic phenomena might be further enhanced by linking our conceptual quest with the concepts of ‘connectivity’ and by focusing on the cultural politics that make the imagination and activation of the complex nexus of transnational/diasporic linkages and dynamics possible. This is so as diasporas are not ‘given’ or objectively definable communities but belong to what Benedict Anderson has called ‘imagined communities’. Diasporic cultures are therefore premised on the institution of diasporic imaginaries and communication infrastructures (diasporic media and cultural spaces) upon which multiple and diverse processes of identity and community are constructed, and depend on the production of narratives and discourses that reproduce and sustain relevant frames of self-identification, and collective action.

References

Anderson, B. 1983. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the origins and spread of nationalism. London: Verso.

Appadurai, A. 1993. Disjuncture and difference in the global cultural economy. In Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory, P. Williams and L. Crisman (eds.), 324-339. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Tsagarousianou, Rethinking the Concept of Diaspora 65

Brah, A. 1996. Cartographies of Diaspora: Contesting Identities. London: Routledge.

Clifford, J. 1992. Travelling Cultures. In Cultural Studies, L. Grossberg, C. Nelson, P. Treichler with L. Baugham and J. Macgregor (eds.), 96-116. New York: Routledge.

Clifford, J. 1997. Routes: Travel and Translation in the late Twentieth Century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Cohen, R. 1997. Global diasporas: An introduction. London: UCL Press.

Cunningham, S. and J. Sinclair (eds.) 2000. Floating Lives: The Media and Asian Diasporas. St Lucia, Australia: University of Queensland Press.

Danforth, L. (1996) The Macedonian Conflict: Ethnic Nationalism in a Transnational World, Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press

Fazal, S. and R. Tsagarousianou. 2002. Transnational Cultural Practices and Communicative Spaces. Javnost/The Public IX(1): 5-18.

Hall, S. 1993. Culture, Community, Nation. Cultural Studies 7(3): 349-63.

Lash, S. and J. Urry. 1994. Economies of Signs and Space. London: Sage

Mandaville, P. 2001. Reimagining Islam in Diaspora: The Politics of Mediated Community. Gazette 63(2–3): 169–186.

Morley, D. 2000. Home Territories: Media, Mobility, Identity. London: Routledge.

Papastergiadis, N. 2000. The Turbulence of Migration. Cambridge: Polity.

Safran, W. 1991. Diaspora’s in modern societies: myths of homeland and return. Diaspora 1(1): 83-99.

Scannell, P. 1996. Radio, Television and Modern Life: A Phenomenological Approach. Oxford: Blackwell.

Sofos, S. 1996. Interethnic Violence and Gendered Constructions of Ethnicity in former Yugoslavia. Social Identities 2(1): 73-91.

Thompson, E. P. 1968. The Making of the English Working Class. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Tölölian, K. 1991. Nation State and its Others: In Lieu of a Preface. Diaspora: Journal of transnational Affairs 1(1): 4-5.

Tomlinson, J. 1999. Globalization and Culture. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Tsagarousianou, R. 2001. “A space where one feels at home”: media consumption practices among London’s South Asian and Greek Cypriot communities. In Media and Migration: Constructions of Mobility and Difference, R. King and N. Wood (eds.), 158-172. London: Routledge.

Werbner, P. 1997. Essentialising Essentialism, Essentialising Silence: Ambivalence and Multiplicity in the Constructions of Racism and Ethnicity. In Debating Cultural Hybridity: Multi-Cultural Identities and the Politics of Anti-Racism, P. Werbner and T. Modood (eds.), 226-254. London: Zed Books.

About the author:

Email: tsagarr(at)westminster.ac.uk 

Roza is Reader in Mass Media and Communication at the School of Media, Arts and Design of the University of Westminster. She holds a BSc (Hons) with Distinction in Political Science and International Studies from Panteion University (Athens, Greece) and a PhD in Sociology from the University of Kent at Canterbury. 

She has been a member of the School's Communication and Media Research Institute (CAMRI) and its predecessor – Centre for Communication and Information Studies (CCIS) since 1994 and has been Director of the School's MA in Communication (1998-2002). 

Roza is convenor of the Diasporas and the Media working group of the International Association for Media and Communication Research, IAMCR (2003-present). 

Her current research interests include the study of globalization and transnational cultural flows; diasporic media and cultural politics; multiculturalism (theory and policy); mass communication and social/political identity formation; information and communication technologies, democracy and everyday life. 

She has co-edited a special issue of Javnost/The Public (2002:1) on the theme 'Diasporic Communications: Transnational & Local Cross-currents'. 

She has recently published Diasporic Cultures and Globalization and co-authored Islam in Europe: Public Spaces and Civic Networks (forthcoming).
> Islam in Europe project website  

She has been invited and keynote speaker in numerous events, including the World Electronic Media Forum, the International Organisation for Migration Media and Migration Conference, the Westminster Foundation Ethnicity, Religion and the Media Forum, the Demos Becoming Virtual project. 

She is currently supervising nine doctoral students and has eight successful PhD completions.

She slowly spreads her legs, then she raises them high, before she rests her right leg on a couch’s armrest, and waits for seconds, then she quickly jumps up, she slackens the reins of her body another time proceeding with its hysteric movements, which don’t lack defiance, and don’t rest except when a wave of clapping and shouts breaks out: She practices her private rituals, which usually mixes between art, sex and religion… But she lately chose to reduce it to a politically guided message, which is passed from a place where nobody can miss its meaning. 

Is Madonna praying or harloting?!

 The audience thoroughly reads the message. Follows up with passion the divergence of the thighs and her buttocks shaking, but they were waiting for her promised last surprise: The white and blue flag covering the burning and squirming body on the stage fluttering in the humid air under spotlights, to announce that the meeting had actually taken place in that dramatic moment, which required years’ long parade of passing away appointments, and processes of reciprocal temptations until all obstacles of separation had melted down.

What used to look like a dancing movement that the singer used to perform up till it became an identification mark and a feature of her body, now has a different meaning, there is a new identity that represents itself, and announcing her joining that small religious group, and asks to receive its blessing, and calls with the diverged and raised thighs, prophet Jacob himself and nobody else, so as to fall upon her and justify her belonging to his descendents even if it was somehow late. And when she received the response in approval, she exclaimed with open ecstasy: “Israel is the center of energy in this world, and it is the axis of peace on this earth.”

Before she reached this climax, she inspired that she is torturing her body and mind. She looked far far away to find that there is a faction called “The Cabala”, which is joined by only the well learned in studies of the Torah and the Talmud, and when she became forty years old, which is the year specified for membership, she started her repeated trips looking for the ultimate truth that is buried in the midst of legends, up till she found it at the age of fifty four, and discovered that it doesn’t require one to give-up that impudent dance, on the contrary it could be calling for it, and consider it of the rituals of piety or actually an approximation to that prophet in particular.

For six nights Madonna danced in “Israel”, and it is said that she sang too, though nobody heard her singing before then and no one memorized her words. In the seventh day she decided to rest as a guest of Benjamin Netanyahu and ask him for her new citizenship identity papers, which she couldn’t obtain from his competitor, Tzipi Livni the night before, he promised to look into the matter, and to publish her letter for the public to read, that is yearning for another idea that it is fighting for other peoples and nations, and diffuse the common impression about its savageness and barbarism, through a famous American artist, who at last discovered herself and through a religious justification by her harlotry dancing.

Assafir – Sep. 5th. 2009

Madonna, Israel’s New Best Friend

hip-hop by Guzin Bilgi 

What's the deal?
Madonna and Israel?
They have a common zeal?
Is she simply a "friend"?
Or a very good weapon
on Israel's right hand?
Their intimacy is very very mysterious
The impact of this fuck quite tremendous
I could not call this bitch an artist
But rather a brilliant whore and a dumb cabalist!

see the video and read the article  http://thefastertimes.com/israel/2009/09/05/madonna-israels-new-bff/

NOTE: the previous version of this post contained the original Arabic of the article and the Arabic Translation of Guzin's hip-hop by Adib.

To see them visit: www.tlaxcala.es

Now the latest news is that Rupert Murdoch is holding talks with Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal to buy a 20 percent stake in his broadcaster Rotana Media. Rotana, which hosts Fox channels in Saudi Arabia via its TV network, owns rights to more than 2,000 Arabic movies and a large music library.

It is not clear if the deal will be for existing stock or new shares. The news shocked the Arab citizens even though Rotana is an entertainment business and has a negligible role in the news activities. The question that is circulating is why would Murdoch want to invest in Arab films and music production? And why would he marry his business with a Saudi one? Is it only an investment venture in the entertainment business, or has he got another futuristic agenda since the Kingdom Holdings, the investment vehicle for Prince Alwaleed, is already a major shareholder in News Corporation?

It has been said that Murdoch’s News Corporation is after the online video and music on demand service that rotana.net is currently offering live to viewers as a beta site, since this service is modelled on the US based TV hulu.com, that allows the American public to watch popular television series in full screen high definition over a broadband internet connection for free.

Hulu.com in the USA established only in 2007 is now considered one of the 40 most popular sites. Rotana.net as well has open access to its television, film and music archive throughout the GCC, the rumours go that Murdoch is going to change all that, and his investment plan is to control both Rotana and Hulu and charge for both services.

The majority of Arabs expressed their worries of Murdoch putting his foot in the Middle Eastern Media, since everyone knows his appetite for business expansion, he will never be satisfied with this one step, the minute he is in, he will keep expanding and putting his hands on more media outlets. The main complaint comes from the fact that the Arabs see Murdoch as a person who does not respect them, their faith, or heritage. The majority say that he is gambling with his money if he thinks that the Arabs will forget his far right wing political news machine, or his pro-Israeli stands, and the way his owned Fox News portrays Arabs and Muslims in a negative manner. Many even have already started to call for boycotting Rotana should such investment is to be finalised.

Muslims and Arabs in the Middle East are disgusted with the way Murdouch’s machine portrays them as terrorists, extremists, and militants who are always linked with Al Qaeda in every possible incident, and the fact that the Jewish people are always victims of anti-Semitism.

To make my point I guess I have to copy here Rupert Murdoch’s speech on receiving the American Jewish Committee National Human Relations Award held March 4, 2009 in New York City:

‘Thanks for those kind words, Hugh.

Over the years, some of my wildest critics seem to have assumed I am Jewish. At the same time, some of my closest friends wish I were.

So tonight, let me set the record straight: I live in New York. I have a wife who craves Chinese food. And people I trust tell me I practically invented the word “chutzpah”.

Ladies and gentleman, I thank you for having me tonight. I also want to thank Nelson Peltz … Michael Gould … and the many co-chairs for the time and effort they have put into this event. I am humbled by the honor you have given me – because this award speaks more to your good work than it does to mine.

Michael, I was fascinated to hear you talk about this history of this fine organization. The American Jewish Committee started in response to the persecution of Jews in Czarist Russia. And your response took a very American form: An organization that would speak up for those who could not speak for themselves.

In the century since your founding, the American Jewish Committee has become one of the world’s most influential organizations. Yet though your concerns begin with the safety and welfare of Jews, these concerns are anything but parochial. The reason for this is clear: You know that the best guarantee of the security of Jews anywhere is the freedom of people everywhere.

Your good work has helped bring real and lasting changes to our world. Unfortunately, while some threats have been defeated, new ones have taken their place. And these new threats remind us the AJC’s work is more vital than ever.

In Europe, men and woman who bear the tattoos of concentration camps today look out on a continent where Jewish lives and Jewish property are under attack – and public debate is poisoned by an anti-Semitism we thought had been dispatched to history’s dustbin.

In Iran, we see a regime that backs Hezbollah and Hamas now on course to acquire a nuclear weapon.

In India, we see Islamic terrorists single out the Mumbai Jewish Center in a well-planned and well-coordinated attack that looks like it could be a test run for similar attacks in similar cities around the world.

Most fundamentally, we see a growing assault on both the legitimacy and security of the State of Israel.

This assault comes from people who make clear they have no intention of ever living side-by-side in peace with a Jewish state – no matter how many concessions Israel might make. The reason for this is also clear: These are men who cannot abide the idea of freedom, tolerance, and democracy. They hate Israel for the same reasons they hate us.

At I speak, the flashpoint is Gaza. For months now, Hamas has been raining down rockets on Israeli civilians. Like all terrorist attacks, the aim is to spread fear within free societies, and to paralyze its leaders. This Israel cannot afford. I do not need to tell anyone in this room that no sovereign nation can sit by while its civilian population is attacked.

Hamas knows this better than we do. And Hamas understands something else as well: In the 21st century, when democratic states respond to terrorist attacks, they face two terrible handicaps.

The first handicap is military. It’s true that Israel’s conventional superiority means it could flatten Gaza if it wanted. But the Israeli Defense Forces – unlike Hamas – are accountable to a democratically chosen government.

No matter which party is in the majority, every Israeli government knows it will be held accountable by its people and by the world for the lives that are lost because of its decisions. That’s true for lives of innocent Palestinians caught in the crossfire. And it’s also true for the Israeli soldiers who may lose their lives defending their people.

In this kind of war, Hamas does not need to defeat Israel militarily to win a big victory. In fact, Hamas knows that in some ways, dead Palestinians serve their purposes even better than dead Israelis.

In the West we look at this and say, “It makes no sense.” But it does make sense.

If you are committed to Israel’s destruction, and if you believe that dead Palestinians help you score a propaganda victory, you do things like launch rockets from a Palestinian schoolyard. This ensures that when the Israelis do respond, it will likely lead to the death of an innocent Palestinian – no matter how many precautions Israeli soldiers take.

Hamas gets away with this, moreover, because they do not rule Gaza by the consent of those they claim to represent. They rule by fear and intimidation. They are accountable to no one but themselves.

This is the chilling logic of Gaza. And it helps explain why even a strong military power like Israel can find itself at a disadvantage on the ground.

The second handicap for Israel is the global media war. For Hamas, the images of Palestinian suffering – of people losing their homes, of parents mourning their dead children, of tanks rolling through the streets –create sympathy for their cause.

In a battle marked by street to street fighting, the death of innocents is all but inevitable. That is also true of Gaza. And these deaths have led some to call for Israel to be charged with war crimes by an international tribunal.

But I am curious: Why do we never hear calls for Hamas leaders to be charged with war crimes?

Why, for example, do we hear no calls for human rights investigations into Hamas gunmen using Palestinian children as human shields? Why so few stories on the reports of Hamas assassins going to hospitals to hunt down their fellow Palestinians? And where are the international human rights groups demanding that Hamas stop blurring the most fundamental line in warfare: the distinction between civilian and combatant?

I suspect the answer has to do with the same grim logic that leads Hamas to provoke a military battle it knows it cannot win. Whether Israel is ever found guilty of any war crime hardly matters. Hamas gets propaganda win simply by having the charge made often and loudly enough.

In this, Israel finds itself in much the same position the United States found itself in Iraq before the surge. There, al Qaeda realized that it was in its interests to provoke sectarian violence between Shia and Sunni – no matter what the cost to innocent Iraqis. That is the nature of terror. And what we are seeing in Gaza is just one front in this much larger war.

In the West, we are used to thinking that Israel cannot survive without the help of Europe and the United States. Tonight I say to you: Maybe we should start wondering whether we in Europe and the United States can survive if we allow the terrorists to succeed in Israel.

In this new century, the “West” is no longer a matter of geography. The West is defined by societies committed to freedom and democracy. That at least is how the terrorists see it. And if we are serious about meeting this challenge, we would expand the only military alliance committed to the defense of the West to include those on the front lines of this war. That means bringing countries such as Israel into NATO.

My friends, I do not pretend to have all the answers to Gaza this evening. But I do know this: The free world makes a terrible mistake if we deceive ourselves into thinking this is not our fight.

In the end, the Israeli people are fighting the same enemy we are: cold-blooded killers who reject peace … who reject freedom … and who rule by the suicide vest, the car bomb, and the human shield.

Against such an enemy, I will not second-guess the decisions of a free Israel defending her citizens. And I would ask all those who support peace and freedom to do the same.

I thank you for listening. I thank you for this award. And I thank you for all you are doing to make our world a safer and freer place.

After reading Murdoch’s speech I guess his policies are quite clear, and there is nothing ambiguous about them. It remains that the ball is in the Saudi Prince’s court.

One can't help but see malignant projects of gigantic companies committing forgery to steal the history of some nations in broad daylight.

As an example I would say Yahoo. For many years yahoo published pages on its websites and created online services where it has deleted Palestine from its charts, not just Palestine but the West Bank as well.

As an example, their UK website offers a daily horoscope for those who are interested to know what Yahoo believes their day or week is going to look like, despite the fact that the majority of people do not believe in this kind of speculation, it is still amusing to know how they are going to play with our minds. But for once I am going to read the horoscope of Yahoo, and tell the investors that they are entering a gambling game, beware of offending the players; otherwise you will notice a big hole in your pocket.

I looked at the list of countries should one has to fill his birthplace to hear the wisdom of Yahoo's fortune tellers, Palestine was not mentioned at all, and neither was the West Bank but surprise, surprise Israel is.

Yahoo never cared about Palestine before but I think it is about time that it does, for Yahoo has just acquired the Palestinian Maktoob portal founded by the Palestinian son of Nablus Samih Toukan. www.maktoob.com is considered the largest Arab online portal at a value of around $75M-$80M. This deal Yahoo is after to further its influence in the Arab World as a fast growing internet and mobile market will not be welcomed if it chooses to ignore the Palestinians who are still running the portal and will continue to do so according to the reported information.

The Maktoob portal is based in Jordan but owned and run by the Palestinians that Yahoo does not recognise, the majority of bloggers and business advertisers are Palestinians, even though many are not still based in Palestine but rather holding the most prestigious posts in the Gulf countries and owners and investors of the biggest businesses abroad on international level.

It has been reported that the new Yahoo division will be called Yahoo Middle East. And from now on Yahoo products will be made Arabic and content will be "Arabized" to serve 20 million users in the Arab world along with the original 16 million users of maktoob, thus "arabizing" the Yahoo Mail and messenger along with other services including the mobiles.

Yahoo is expecting to continue the strong commercial relationship with the companies that used to contribute to the success of Maktoob.com. Should this be the case I would say Yahoo should start the first step by respecting the Arab market that would feel offended by eliminating Palestine from every choice list created by Yahoo.

It has been said that Yahoo is concerned about freedom of speech in the region since it is known for its censorship online, while the Maktoob bloggers are concerned that Yahoo will bring with it its pro-Israel policies to the area.

I would advise Yahoo to rearrange its priorities and fix the way it is handling Middle Eastern issues and particularly Palestine. If Yahoo is intending upon digging deep into the pockets of the wealthy Arab business dynamos, it should start to show some respect and sensitivity to the people who are going to make or break its success, starting by acknowledging the fact that it can't hijack their history and remodel the geography of the area, otherwise it will face a great loss.

On 25 June, the Portland Indymedia website published an article entitled 'Rose City Antifa: Statement on Anti-Semites and their Collaborators' [1]. Rose City Antifa is part of the Anti-Racist Action Network.

Since its creation in 1999 during the protests against the World Trade Organization in Seattle, Indymedia has been an essential source for community organizing. However, this 'Statement on Anti-Semites', and the list of irresponsible comments attached to it, is an example of enabling unscrupulous individuals to divide and weaken the community Indymedia was founded to serve.

The statement refers to a talk by Valdas Anelauskas, a Lithuanian immigrant who describes himself as a 'radical conservative'. The talk was a critique of the 'Frankfurt School', a Marxist theory of psychology. The anti-war activists who invited him to speak in Portland have a long record of inviting liberal speakers – this is the first conservative they have hosted. They organized a protest against a recent American Israel Public Affairs conference, which took place during the Gaza massacre. This is when the allegations of antisemitism began.

Following Anelauskas's presentation, those who organized the meeting were denounced as 'fascist collaborators', One of the ringleaders was tried in his absence by anonymous contributors to Indymedia. The organizations he has been involved in for decades were 'called on' to 'call him out'. The co-op where he works was told to fire him or face a boycott campaign, though it is illegal to dismiss employees for their opinions. The statement ended:

       'This statement is a beginning; other fascist collaborators should not consider themselves to have been let off the hook in any way. No compromise and no half-measures!'

Strong stuff. As if someone was signaling to German bombers above Portland.

The statement makes no distinction between words and violent acts, implying that Anelauskas's ideas are so dangerous, those who invited him should be ostracized for life. Anelauskas is a rarity, an extreme right-wing intellectual. He does not advocate violence. He does not deny the Holocaust. Unlike the Zionists who started the campaign to shut him up, he opposes the Iraq war. He presents us with a clear choice: are the feelings of American Jews more important than the lives of Arab children? Portland anti-fascists have answered loud and clear, staking their place in the modern American left.

Rebuttals of the Antifascist statement have not been given equal prominence on Indymedia, and some have been disappeared. It's straight out of the Moscow Trials: respected activists are publicly denounced on the basis of hearsay, and people accept it. Just as in Stalin's Russia, apologies and confessions don't help, they just encourage the persecutors. Here is a statement by one of the Portland accused – "I don't deny the horrors of WWII including the Holocaust and the many forgotten details of that time", and here is the antifascist response: 'This itself is a classic Holocaust-denial strategy'. That's right, affirming that the Holocaust happened is Holocaust denial.

The only people who identified themselves a members of minorities in the Indymedia comments disagreed with the antifascist statement. One African-American said he is opposed to campaigns against thought crimes, and that arguments, even ethnically-based ones, don't hurt him. In reply, the antifascists treated him differently from white people arguing the same thing: they were condescending rather than abusive.

Recently, The Israel Project, a Washington DC think-tank, issued a report on the right language to use to manipulate the public. Its chapters include "Gaza: Israel’s right to self-defense" and "Talking to the American Left"; killing babies and political correctness. It recommends using leftist phrases, such as 'call out antisemitism' and 'oppression'. This is what the anti-racists do. This does not imply a conspiracy, nor they have been infiltrated by Zionists: they help them without doing so consciously.  Here is a good example from the Indymedia comments on the antifascist witch-hunt:

       'As a former Portland resident who is tired of leftists who have come to accept antisemitism, I want to thank you for your actions'.

Notice the lack of specific examples, and the use of personal feelings as a weapon of argument. 'Antisemitism' could mean any criticism of Israel. When the Republicans at the Oregon Commentator website reproduced the Indymedia statement approvingly, the antifascists were nonplussed, not understanding that it is quite logical for right-wing Zionists to welcome the aid of left-wing antifascists. As a conservative diplomat wrote:

       "The tactics of [X] plumb the depths of dishonor and indecency and include character assassination, selective misquotation, the willful distortion of the record, the fabrication of falsehoods, an utter disregard for the truth, and the substitution of political correctness for analysis".

Can you guess what 'X' stands for? Anti-Racist Action? No, the Israel Lobby.

Anti-Racist Action's latest antics include postering a Portland neighborhood with the photo and address of an anti-immigration guy they disagree with, then trying to provoke a fight when he appears in public [2]. Their tactic is obvious – start with unpopular right-wingers, then move on to their more liberal opponents: first the 'Nazis', then the 'Nazi-enablers'. Pick us off one by one. Sound familiar? ARA is more of a danger to the progressive community than the insignificant or imaginary 'fascists' they 'confront' and 'call out'. Their messianic certainty recalls the worst excesses of the seventies left. ARA has nothing to do with combating genuine threats, and everything to do with increasing its own power. If they asked us to agree with them, the antifascists would be implying that we are able to judge which ideas are dangerous, and avoid them, but are unable to listen to them safely.. If you can judge which arguments are wrong in advance, then you
 are also capable of listening to them without the danger of being misled by them. It is illogical to say 'I am smart enough to work out which ideas I am not smart enough to be exposed to'. So the  antifascists cannot ask; they must demand: 'defy us, or capitulate'.

Those who realize the need to stand up against intimidation are forced into a corner. We are now obliged to defend Valdas Anelauskas and the decision to invite him. The danger of doing this is overwhelmed by the danger of not doing it, and handing a victory to the self-appointed thought police. The ironies are almost funny – we have antifascists who use totalitarian tactics, anti-sexist men brimming over with macho aggression, and anarchists who want to be cops. Anti-Racist Action opposes the 'capitalist court system': it's too fair. It doesn't accept hearsay, for one thing.

What can you do to counter this threat to community and freedom? Listen to individuals further to the right than you have up until now; they don't bite. I enjoy listening to Valdas Anelauskas: he is so right-wing, he makes Michael Savage sound like Karl Marx. When you hear that someone is a 'Holocaust denier', don't believe it – find out for yourself. Hold meetings in your community to discuss Israel, race, and other issues, and state in advance that any allegations of antisemitism will be ignored. Invite controversial speakers from left and right. Never apologize. Say no to intimidation and censorship.

1. 'Statement on Anti-Semites', http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2009/06/392268.shtml?discuss
2. 'Rogue of the Week', Willamette Week, http://wweek.com/columns/rogue/#35..36

This was sent to me by Machetera:
Sibel Edmonds just emailed me saying that she has been blocked from her Blog account by Google. The timing is suspicious given her two recent explosive radio interviews and having just been subpoenaed as well. She wants support from anyone to disseminate this information.

I have deleted her personal email but the below is in its entirety from her
website
http://www.justacitizen.com/Press_Releases/URGENTGoogle%27s%20Blogger-Aug6.htm

URGENT: GOOGLE BLOCKS MY SITE DURING SENSITIVE PERIOD

WE NEED YOUR HELP

My Blog Site http://123realchange.blogspot.com is now blocked by Google/Blogger. They will not let me post during this most sensitive period, when I am about to provide deposition on Foreign US government illegal operations in the United States!

A few weeks ago I started receiving Google & Blogger warnings from my
technologically savvy friends and well-wishers, who encouraged me to have a mirror site as a back up and or cease using Google's Blogger all together. I
did take these warnings seriously and started looking at alternatives and
other options. Well, this is what I got from Blogger yesterday:

*From: **Blogger** <no-reply@google.com>
Date: Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 8:19 AM
Subject: http://123realchange.blogspot.com/ - ACTION REQUIRED
To: XXXXXXXXXXXX

  Hello,

  Your blog at: http://123realchange.blogspot.com/ has been identified as a
potential spam blog.  To correct this, please request a review by filling
out the form at
http://www.blogger.com/unlock-blog.g?lockedBlogID=6542765284440328864

  Your blog will be deleted in 20 days if it isn't reviewed, and your
readers will see a warning page during this time. After we receive your
request, we'll review your blog and unlock it within two business days. Once
we have reviewed and determined your blog is not spam, the blog will be
unlocked and the message in your Blogger dashboard will no longer be
displayed. If this blog doesn't belong to you, you don't have to do
anything, and any other blogs you may have won't be affected.

  We find spam by using an automated classifier. Automatic spam detection
is inherently fuzzy, and occasionally a blog like yours is flagged
incorrectly. We sincerely apologize for this error. By using this kind of
system, however, we can dedicate more storage, bandwidth, and engineering
resources to bloggers like you instead of to spammers. For more information, please see Blogger Help: http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=42577

  Thank you for your understanding and for your help with our spam-fighting
efforts.

  Sincerely,

  The Blogger Team

  P.S. Just one more reminder: Unless you request a review, your blog will
be deleted in 20 days. Click this link to request the review:
http://www.blogger.com/unlock-blog.g?lockedBlogID=6542765284440328864

*

I am still looking into it and will be corresponding with them to find out
what the heck is going on, but I must say the timing of this is extremely
troubling:

Is it coincidence that this comes up when I am subpoenaed <http://123realchange.blogspot.com/2009/08/breaking-news.html>to
provide sworn deposition on matters that have sent our government
scrambling and certain high-level criminal entities sweating big time?

Is this due to my latest interviews for my Boiling Frogs Show on explosive
issues such as AIPAC, Iran, Central Asia, and Pakistan? We know big brother
NSA has been listening, and my guests have really been talking. We just
wrapped up our phone interviews with Phil Giraldi (on AIPAC & Israel and
more), Richard Barlow (on Pakistan and what our government didn't want its
people to know), Joe Trento (on Iran, Brzezinski, and more), Sandalio
Gonzalez (on our phony War on Drugs, House of Death, Kent Memo, and
more)? You see what I am getting at here?

Or is it the fact that this blog is becoming more popular, the visitors'
number has been going up rapidly, and its content getting picked up by many, nationally and internationally? And I am talking about content and topics that are blacklisted by the US Mainstream Media.

I don't know the answer. I may never know. However, what I know is this: I
better find a different or multiple different, blog sites and keep this forum alive. I also want to warn others who may become subject to this kind of notice, or maybe get terminated without any notice!

Please help me, thus all of us, resolve this blockage immediately, since in
the next few days this blog may prove to be extremely crucial to report
developing news and cases which will not be covered by MSM.

Thank you,

Sibel Edmonds

Wielding real and imagined war plans against Iran, which he claims are coming from Russia, China, the U.S., and Israel, Mr. Roberts is waving a scary-looking club to threaten sincere domestic dissent in Iran.

Mr. Roberts completely forgets the main lesson which Palestinians, Lebanese, Iraqis, and Afghans have taught U.S. and Israeli warmongers: Imperial militarism does not cut the mustard any more. In the words of Iranians, who are resisting foreign and domestic bullies every day, “Bombs, tanks, and machine-guns are no longer effective!”

Mr. Roberts believes that the U.S. and Israel will “dominate” the region, because, in his words, “they have effective Psychological Operations (PSYOPS).” However, if Mr. Roberts had taken so much as a weekend trip to the area, and if he had the ability to talk to the objects of these Psychological Operations, he would have easily been able to detect people’s pride in having confined Israel, through decades of successful struggle, to its present minuscule size.

To date, according to Congressman John Dingell of Michigan, $300 billion U.S. dollars have been poured into Israel, all from the U.S. Congress. This loot was used to extinguish Palestinian resistance, through massive violence and terror. Yet, it does not take a genius to see that resistance continues in Palestine, and, what is more, the international community has increasingly backed boycotts against the apartheid state of Israel. Lebanon, too, struggling under a corrupt U.S.-backed government, has managed to drive Israel out of its territories; a similar situation has also transpired in Syria.

The upshot of it all is that because of successful local resistance to Israel and the U.S., Israel has not grown an inch in size. With the 4th largest army in the world at its brutal command, with hundreds of atomic weapons at the ready, Israel cannot even control the West Bank or Gaza.

The Israeli siege of Gaza is challenged constantly by the international community. Israel is humiliated before the whole world, as it is forced to make a show of allowing medical supplies or food to enter Gaza. The people of Gaza are suffering tremendously, but they know they are withstanding the most ferocious military in the area (second only to the U.S.). The cluster bombs, the white phosphorous, the uranium bombs, all $300 billion worth of it, have crumbled in the face of Palestinian and Lebanese popular resistance.

Proudly we acknowledge that dreams of freedom and democracy have not been extinguished even after decades of massive military invasions and occupations by the most openly racist warmongers ever known to mankind, U.S./Israel.

You, Mr. Roberts, from your post in Reagan’s White House, wrote the checks to finance those invasions and occupations, for years.

Mr. Roberts asks, “Why does anyone in Iran doubt that Iran is on her way to becoming another Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan…?”

Here is the answer: not a single Iranian (there are 75 million Iranians) believes Iran will be the next Iraq. That is because Iranians have not only won a revolution in recent history, they have also managed to withstand the U.S.-instigated, U.S.-fueled, eight-year war with Iraq, as well as thirty years of suffocating U.S. sanctions. Throughout all the pressures that U.S. has imposed on them, Iranians have managed to keep their schools and universities open, their hospitals running, their transportation system functional, and their water and electrical plants in order. Their ability to maintain basic services (despite crippling sanctions) has enabled them to raise a literate young population with enough time on its hands to think and dream of a better world.

As if that was not enough accomplishment for a people on top of the U.S.’s “kill em” list, Iranians decided to make the most of what democratic rights they had. They are stretching and breaking all the limits on their freedom to rule themselves. Faced with this magnificent spectacle, Mr. Roberts can only take pot-shots from the sidelines.

While you may not see this, Mr. Roberts, in the eyes of Iranians, they have already won a lot and they have the stamina to fight for more. Imagine Iran’s example, of mass protest, catching on in the streets currently ruled by U.S. and Israeli puppets (in Cairo, in Baghdad, in Beirut, in Kabul, in Karachi, and in Riyadh.)

If you knew Farsi, and if you were interested in the people and their aspirations to determine their own destiny, you would easily be able to decipher all of that by looking at them march on the streets with their children and their elderly on their side. And you would be able to figure out that people of Iran are united in one thing; they want to establish a home-grown democratic system in their country to enable them to exercise full power over their own fate. Iranians know full well that neither Mr. Rafsanjani, nor Mr. Khamenei, can deliver that.

All these butchers have to show, for their decades in office, is an under-served public, and a fat foreign bank account.

Mr. Rafsanjani is said to have accumulated close to $600 million dollars (a sum that puts Master Butcher Rumsfeld’s capital achievement of only $250 million to shame). Unlike Americans, who see amassing of such personal wealth as a legitimate right, who are taught that they, too, can become as rich as their butcher politicians, Iranians see this as a sign of corruption and decay.

Iranians are now working toward a system-change: a real democracy, articulated by the people and responsive to the people’s long-neglected needs.

For now, Iranians have settled on Mousavi, who had to follow the people’s demands and had to show up at rallies he never intended to participate in. As Mr. Roberts states, Rafsanjani may be the perfect person for Washington. However, Mr. Roberts, Rafsanjani has zero credibility with the people of Iran. As a president, he exhibited his lust for money and his total disregard for the will of the nation. Rafsanjani’s support for Mossavi only became fully public late in the process, since that would hinder, not help, Iranians’ enthusiasm for Mousavi.

While you, Mr. Roberts, see doom and gloom descending onto Iran, Iranians continue to pour into the streets every single day, at great personal risk, demanding their dignity and civil rights. Are you really unable to see that Iranians are demanding real democracy, real people’s participation in decision-making on all aspects of life in Iran?  What Iranians want, what we will get, will not be wiped off our minds by Israeli bullying, by U.S. bullying, or by Mr. Roberts’ scary scenarios, designed to make us all hide under our beds.

Even without Mr. Roberts’ help, we will never forget that Israel trained SAVAK torturers, for the Shah, when Iran looked like a permanent captive of the U.S. and Israel. Mr. Roberts is not protecting Iran from Israel by siding with those who shoot Iranian human rights marchers in the streets.

The illegitimacy of both Israel and the U.S., and their desperate economic condition, does not allow any more bloodbaths to be created in the region. Iraqis and Afghans are not exactly silent. It has taken all of America’s military might, just to hide behind thick fortified walls in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Simply put, Iraq and Afghanistan have NOT been a “cakewalk” for the U.S. occupation forces.

An Iranian physician recently said: “Everything has a price. Many bad things are happening but the trend is toward the light.” Light is a commonly used metaphor for Iranians, whose roots are in Zoroastrianism (the religion of fire and light).

“We are standing to the end”, says the chant on the streets of Iran. We are telling the U.S. and Israel, the most bankrupt and racist powers of our times, that Iranians do NOT want wars and that we WILL stand for democracy “…to the end”, whatever the price may be. We already know that the price of hiding, under our beds, is far higher. 

Original article published on July 22, 2009.

About the author

Mozhgan Savabieasfahani is a member of Tlaxcala, the network of translators for linguistic diversity. This translation may be reprinted as long as the content remains unaltered, and the source, author, translator and reviser are cited.

URL of this article on Tlaxcala: http://www.tlaxcala.es/pp.asp?reference=8238&lg=en

I could denounce the complacency of the self-absorbed and disconnected leadership of our "Arab" community. But at some point, words and videos (and threats to do unspeakable things to one's hair) don't suffice to express frustration. The complacency somehow manages to confound language and camera lenses.

The US has been strangling the life out of Iraq for the last two decades and killed over a million Iraqis and displaced 4 million and continues to support the zionist presence on Palestinian land. What more does it need to do before we see some raw, self-respecting outrage coming out of institutional Arab-America? Behold (emphasis added):

P. 10 of Forum and Link, a local Arab-American magazine, covers the recent ADC fest in Washington. It whitewashes Clinton's crimes. "As the U.S. continues to push for peace in the area, 'I think it’s really important to give the Palestinian people something to look forward to,' Clinton said to loud applause [from the Arab audience]."
 

Meaning, if Bush says at an Arab convention "I think it's really important to give the Iraqi people something to look forward to", he'll also get "loud applause" from Arabs (also known as people who ought to know better).

The ADC also awarded Congressman John Dingell: "After his speech, he wrapped his arms around Dingell and the congressman’s wife Debbie and chatted at length. In an interview before his award, Dingell said much work is needed by political Washington on behalf of Arab Americans."

Allow me to quote Dingell in his own words. This is from the government's own website, not the Book of Arab Conspiracy Theories: http://www.house.gov/dingell/110/080423israel.shtml "In my 50 years in Congress, I have proudly supported more than $300 billion dollars in aid for the State of Israel".

Furthermore, if I massacre a bunch of squirrels, I'll get praise at a squirrel convention as long as I avoid using the expression "war on squirrels." "Shora praised Obama for avoiding using the phrase 'war on terrorism,' a signature phrase in the Bush era that many Arab Americans feel fanned fears of people of Arab and Muslim descent. Shora’s observation drew applause."

The most radical statement out of that convention was this beauty paegant type answer: "Also receiving an award were Hasan and Shereen Newash of Grosse Pointe. The couple founded the Michigan Citizens for Palestinian Rights, an educational outreach group. Before receiving their award, Shereen Newash said they look forward to “peace in the Middle East.”

Saja

* "House Arab" is a term inspired by Malcolm X's usage of "House Negro" and "Field Negro."

The ADC's Criteria for Usage of the Word "Condemnation" and for Invitation as Keynote Speakers at Convention

In order for the ADC to "condemn" an attack, the victims in question must be either:

1) Jewish (which is understandable, considering the timid nature of AIPAC, ADL and JDL; recall "condemnation" of alleged attack on NY synagogues last month); or

2) members of Congress; or

3) Nobel Laureate winners (see below).

Otherwise, if you're a plain vanilla Arab, attacks on you don't get "condemned" by the American "Arab" Anti-Discrimination Committee. For example, condemnation of the savage bombardment of plain vanilla Arabs in Iraq's Guernica, Falluja, is nowhere to be heard by ADC even though the city was bombed to oblivion by the world's only superpower. Mention of the city comes up once on adc.org, in the context of instructing it to release humanitarian workers.

You have to fall into one of the above three categories to matter to the ADC. No exceptions shall be made. Those who request exceptions shall be condemned.

In order to quality for an invitation as keynote speaker to an ADC convention, the bar is a bit higher:

1) strangulate half a million Iraqi kids (Clinton); or

2) convince the UN that defenseless, sanctioned Arab countries have WMD's (Powell); or

3) bomb Arab medicine factories (Clinton again)

In a June 16 Op-Ed column in the New York Times entitled “The Virtual Mosque,” Thomas Friedman declares that events in Iran have raised “three intriguing questions” for him:

“Is Facebook to Iran’s Moderate Revolution what the mosque was to Iran’s Islamic Revolution? Is Twitter to Iranian moderates what muezzins were to Iranian mullahs? And, finally, is any of this good for the Jews — particularly Israel’s prime minister, Bibi Netanyahu?”

Friedman goes on to explain that, over the past 8 years in certain parts of the Middle East, “spaces were opened for more democratic elections,” but that “[u]nfortunately, the groups that had the most grass-roots support and mobilization capabilities — and the most energized supporters — to take advantage of this new space were the Islamists.” Leaving aside the issue of why Friedman thinks it is up to him to decide which manifestations of democracy are fortunate and which are not, we are informed that the reason the Islamists have been able to exploit the opening of democratic spaces is that they have mosques, places where they “were able to covertly organize and mobilize… outside the total control of the state.” Over the next few paragraphs Friedman appears to arrive at the conclusion that people who attend mosques are less entitled to rights as citizens than, for example, the more than 50,000 fans that Mir Hossein Mousavi is reported to have on Facebook. Friedman points out that 50,000 exceeds the capacity of a mosque, although he does not speculate as to whether all of the Mahmoud Ahmadinejads listed on Facebook are real.

As for covert organization, mobilization, and evasion of state control, Friedman asserts: “In Lebanon, Hezbollah took the country into a disastrous and unpopular war. Ditto Hamas in Gaza.” He does not explain why George W. Bush is not also dittoed, or why it is necessary to contradict Israeli admissions as to the lack of spontaneity of their wars.

Moderate Middle Eastern revolutions are meanwhile eulogized as follows:
“What is fascinating to me is the degree to which in Iran today — and in Lebanon — the more secular forces of moderation have used technologies like Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, blogging and text-messaging as their virtual mosque, as the place they can now gather, mobilize, plan, inform and energize their supporters, outside the grip of the state.”

It thus appears that in certain cases it is admissible to function as a state within a state, depending on the nature of the state. Additional benefits of mobile phone technology in the Middle East are outlined in Friedman’s June 13 Op-Ed “Winds of Change?” and include the possibility of “monitor[ing] vote-rigging by posting observers with cellphone cameras”—a process unequivocally embraced by other bastions of democracy such as the state of Florida.

Friedman tempers his euphoria over technological breakthroughs by moderates by cautioning in the June 16 article that “we should not get carried away,” based on the fact that “‘moderates’ is a relative term”—especially in the case of Iraqi prime ministers who are less attached to mosques but power-hungry nonetheless—and that “even if defeated electorally, the Islamists and their regimes have a trump card: guns. Guns trump cellphones. Bang-bang beats tweet-tweet.” Further research reveals that the latter stipulation is not a reference to the 2004 Israeli attack on the aviary at the Rafah zoo.

Friedman’s response to the last of the “three intriguing questions” posed in “The Virtual Mosque” (“Is any of this good for the Jews?”) is less intriguing than his responses to the first two, and he limits himself to discussing such things as how “Israeli officials have been saying they would much prefer that Ahmadinejad still wins in Iran — not because Israelis really prefer him but because they believe his thuggish, anti-Semitic behavior reflects the true and immutable character of the Iranian regime.” The commitment of Israeli officials to maintaining enemies does not, however, earn Israel the title of virtual reality.

Backtracking several days from Iran’s virtual election, we find in Friedman’s June 9 Op-Ed column on the Lebanese elections that “in Lebanon it was the real deal, and the results were fascinating: President Barack Obama defeated President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran.” President Barack Obama’s provenance is not specified, although he is presumably not of Lebanon—thus adding a twist to Friedman’s subsequent claim that the victorious Lebanese coalition was that which “wants Lebanon to be run by and for the Lebanese.” The expansion of democratic spaces in the Middle East is nonetheless confirmed by the fact that “[t]he Lebanese mainstream, armed only with ballots, not bullets, won.” (It would later dawn on Friedman that the mainstream was armed not only with ballots but with Facebook, as well.)

Friedman, who claims in the article that he is a “sucker for free and fair elections” and that it “warms [his] heart to watch people drop ballots in a box to express their will,” chose to experience Lebanese heart-warming in the overwhelmingly Christian summer resort town of Brummana in Mount Lebanon, where there was no danger of coming into contact with any non-virtual mosques. The Quaker cemetery in Brummana also happened to host the gravesite of Palestinian scholar Edward Said, who in a 2002 article entitled “What Price Oslo?” had noted that Friedman “still has the gall to say that ‘Arab TV’ shows one-sided pictures,” in addition to being “insufferably conceited.”

Further evidence of one-sidedness found in Said’s article is that “there aren’t two sides involved here, but only one state turning all its great power against a stateless, repeatedly refugeed, and dispossessed people, bereft of arms and real leadership.” Said ignores the fact that the stateless contingent is in possession of mosques and guns; Friedman meanwhile confirms the role of power in George Bush’s democratic contributions to Syrian expulsion from Lebanon: “Power matters.”

We come up against a slight problem if we employ the Mir Hossein Mousavi model in order to calculate the exact extent of President Bush’s power, in that a Facebook search of “George W. Bush” produces as its first result a group with 58,531 members entitled “One Million Shoes for George W. Bush.” The second result is a group with 35,646 members entitled “Thankful for President George W. Bush”; other noteworthy presences on Facebook include “I Love Thomas Friedman” and “I Hate Thomas Friedman.” Friedman is not, however, included on the list of important visitors to Brummana found on the website http://www.brummana.org.lb/, although Lawrence of Arabia is.

T.E. Lawrence had once asserted that Arabs were as unstable as water; Friedman, for his part, had merely asserted in a 2004 Op-Ed in the New York Times that Palestinians were “gripped by a collective madness, committing suicide,” and that the Muslim world was undergoing an “unstable and at times humiliating catch-up” following its long-term “vacation from globalization, modernization and liberalization.” Friedman mentions in this article that one of the threats to Israel posed by instability consists of “an explosion of Arab multimedia — from Al Jazeera to the Internet,” thus highlighting the dangers of combining mosques and technology. As for other important visitors to Brummana, these include Coca-Cola and petroleum conferences hosted at the Printania Palace hotel in 1967 and 1968, respectively; the 1950s were meanwhile dominated by visits from Lebanese president Camille Chamoun, who is described on the Brummana site as having tried out most of the hotels in the area, and whose dependence on US invasions provided evidence for Friedman’s hypothesis that “power matters.”

I had visited Brummana twice, once with a Maronite friend who claimed that the town’s only important visitors were Saudi princes pursuing sexual relations with Lebanese pop stars, and once with a Palestinian friend who claimed that I should have figured out how to say “Quaker cemetery” in Arabic prior to departing for Brummana from Beirut. We thus spent several hours searching first for the cemetery and then for the key to the cemetery, which it turned out was kept at the house of an elderly woman who invited us in for tea, cake, and duels between her cats. Friedman described his own interactions with elderly Lebanese women in Brummana on election day:

“People came by car, by wheelchair, by foot — young, old and sick. One very elderly lady walked in hooked up to a small oxygen tank. The tube was in her nose helping her to breathe. A young man was carrying the silver oxygen canister on one side of her and a young woman was holding her steady on the other side. But, by God, she was going to vote.”

Edward Said had proved less smitten with democratic commitment by the young and old, and in 2002 had tacked the question “Will the new generation do any better?” onto the end of his allegation that Arab rulers “haven’t learned the power of systematically disseminated information as a way of protecting their people from the onslaughts of those who consider all Arabs militant, extremist, terrorist fanatics.” Whether Said is suggesting that Arab rulers acquire their own New York Times columnists or their own Facebook accounts is not clarified; he does, however, offer some fine-tuning of Friedman’s onomatopoeic model, in which tweet-tweeting technology can be interpreted as merely complicit in the bang-bang of guns:

“What is at stake [when it comes to exorbitant national defense budgets] are material interests that keep rulers in power, corporations making profits, people in a state of manufactured consent, just so long as they don’t get up one morning and start to think about where, in this mad technologised rush to bomb and kill, we are going.”

Adri Nieuwhof:What would you like to say to introduce yourself to EI's readers?

Hajo Meyer: I had to quit grammar school in Bielefeld after the Kristallnacht [the two-day pogrom against Jews in Nazi Germany], in November 1938. It was a terrible experience for an inquisitive boy and his parents. Therefore, I can fully identify with the Palestinian youth that are hampered in their education. And I can in no way identify with the criminals who make it impossible for Palestinian youth to be educated.

AN: What motivated you to write your book, The End of Judaism?

HM: In the past, the European media have written extensively about extreme right-wing politicians like Joerg Haider in Austria and Jean-Marie Le Pen in France. But when Ariel Sharon was elected [prime minister] in Israel in 2001, the media remained silent. But in the 1980s I understood the deeply fascist thinking of these politicians. With the book I wanted to distance myself from this. I was raised in Judaism with the equality of relationships among human beings as a core value. I only learned about nationalist Judaism when I heard settlers defend their harassment of Palestinians in interviews. When a publisher asked me to write about my past, I decided to write this book, in a way, to deal with my past. People of one group who dehumanize people who belong to another group can do this, because they either have learned to do so from their parents, or they have been brainwashed by their political leaders. This has happened for decades in Israel in that they manipulate the Holocaust for their political aims. In the long-run the country is destructing itself this way by inducing their Jewish citizens to become paranoid. In 2005 [then Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon illustrated this by saying in the Knesset [the Israeli parliament], we know we cannot trust anyone, we only can trust ourselves. This is the shortest possible definition of somebody who suffers from clinical paranoia. One of the major annoyances in my life is that Israel by means of trickery calls itself a Jewish state, while in fact it is Zionist. It wants the maximum territory with a minimum number of Palestinians. I have four Jewish grandparents. I am an atheist. I share the Jewish socio-cultural inheritance and I have learned about Jewish ethics. I don't wish to be represented by a Zionist state. They have no idea about the Holocaust. They use the Holocaust to implant paranoia in their children.

AN: In your book you write about the lessons you have learned from your past. Can you explain how your past influenced your perception of Israel and Palestine?

HM: I have never been a Zionist. After the war, Zionist Jews spoke about the miracle of having "our own country." As a confirmed atheist I thought, if this is a miracle by God, I wished that he had performed the smallest miracle imaginable by creating the state 15 years earlier. Then my parents would not have been dead.

I can write up an endless list of similarities between Nazi Germany and Israel. The capturing of land and property, denying people access to educational opportunities and restricting access to earn a living to destroy their hope, all with the aim to chase people away from their land. And what I personally find more appalling then dirtying one's hands by killing people, is creating circumstances where people start to kill each other. Then the distinction between victims and perpetrators becomes faint. By sowing discord in a situation where there is no unity, by enlarging the gap between people — like Israel is doing in Gaza.

AN: In your book you write about the role of Jews in the peace movement in and outside Israel, and Israeli army refuseniks. How do you value their contribution?

HM: Of course it is positive that parts of the Jewish population of Israel try to see Palestinians as human beings and as their equals. However, it disturbs me how paper-thin the number is that protests and is truly anti-Zionist. We get worked up by what happened in Hitler's Germany. If you expressed only the slightest hint of criticism at that time, you ended up in the Dachau concentration camp. If you expressed criticism, you were dead. Jews in Israel have democratic rights. They can protest in the streets, but they don't.

AN: Can you comment on the news that Israeli ministers approved a draft law banning commemoration of the Nakba, or the dispossession of historic Palestine? The law proposes punishment of up to three years in prison.

HM: It is so racist, so dreadful. I am at a loss for words. It is an expression of what we already know. [The Israeli Nakba commemoration organization] Zochrot was founded to counteract Israeli efforts to wipe out the marks that are a reminder of Palestinian life. To forbid Palestinians to publicly commemorate the Nakba. … they cannot act in a more Nazi-like, fascist way. Maybe it will help to awaken the world.

AN: What are your plans for the future?

HM: [Laughs] Do you know how old I am? I am almost 85 years old. I always say cynically and with self-mockery that I have a choice: either I am always tired because I want to do so much, or I am going to sit still waiting for the time to go by. Well, I plan to be tired, because I have still so much to say.

Adri Nieuwhof is consultant and human rights advocate based in Switzerland.

Israel has bombed everything in Gaza during the latest 21 day assault including hospitals and the only museum in the Strip. But the artists of Gaza who even do not have any materials to experiment with, have been able to make their statement heard out of the rubble.

No colours were left in Gaza, no canvas or building material since the tools of arts are like food and medicine and were subjected to the cruel Israeli siege. But Gaza’s artists will never give up, they used destroyed oxygen cylinders, parts of what is left of a bed, remains of destroyed ambulances that were shelled by Israel, lab coats, a destroyed children’s swing, and burned medical gloves to create their art on the half-standing walls of the hospital destroyed by the Israeli army.

The artwork was created to commemorate the 14 doctors and paramedics killed during the attack that left the white walls of the hospital in black and grey and smelling of gun powder.

Three artists from Gaza celebrated the rebirth of Gaza. Basil Almaqusi, Shareef Sarhan, and Majid Shala are members of the modern artists school, they are a group called Shababeek (it means windows in Arabic). Life might have deserted Gaza, but art will bring it back to life through the windows of hope and art.

The artists chose to name their gallery the Rescue, and the venue was on the remains of the bombed hospital ground of the Red Crescent at Tal Elhawa south of Gaza which was destroyed last January.

The white surgical gloves and white bandages offers hints of hope on the verge of death and destruction, 14 medical lab coats were part of the exhibition, those were the coats of the doctors and paramedics who were also victims of the Israeli aggression, they were killed while stretching their hands to help those who were swinging between life and death. Israel forced its siege on everything including art materials, but this never stopped the artists of Gaza from creating art of whatever available in their destroyed city. Viva Gaza…Viva Palestine.

Being a Palestinian journalist in exile, there was no other way to interview my people and interact with my colleagues in Palestine but through the internet. I have started a feature by interviewing the Palestinian journalist Nelly Ismail Yassin Almasry through the net because Israel’s enforced laws made it difficult for us to meet in person. Our discussions took longer than expected because electricity blackouts happened many times in Gaza where she lives and the internet connection died with it, but I was determined to write about the other side of Gaza, the side that keeps rising from under the ashes like a bird with a thousand wings because its people refuse to surrender to defeat. Nelly is the daughter of Ismail Almasry, the Football Coach of the National Football Team in Gaza and a colleague working as a sport journalist and a member of the first women’s soccer team in Gaza.

The first Palestinian all women’s football team was established in 2003. Even though they had very limited resources, the women kept practicing and playing against other Arab women’s leagues whenever they were allowed to leave Gaza. The Gaza women’s soccer team suffered many difficulties and faced many obstacles because of the limited resources, the absence of properly built stadiums, the absence of security and the continuous closures of checkpoints by the Israeli occupation forces thus hindering them from practicing or travelling to play against other teams, even though the team wanted badly to represent Palestine on an international, level they were deprived of this dream as they were of many other dreams.

The sport movement started to come back to life in 1994, supported by the Palestinian National Authority. Some attention has been directed to develop sport facilities like maintaining sport stadiums. One of such efforts was building a stadium in the city of Jericho, which has encouraged some athletes to set up a female football team for the first time in Palestinian history, but the idea did not receive adequate attention or support because it was novel. Unfortunately that lack of interest eventually lead to freezing the idea for a while.

But again the Arab and International Federation of Football requested activating the Arab women's football teams in their countries, and encouraged it by allocating 10% of its financial support to the union to support the Palestinian women's football teams.

The Palestinian union adopted the idea of forming a female soccer team, and assigned this task to Mrs Haniya Albish. This decision was formally adopted by the International Football Federation who sent Mrs Haniya Albish in 2003 to attend a symposium on women's football in the framework of the World Cup for women in America, thus starting the nucleus of the team at Bethlehem under supervision of Mrs Samar Ala’araj who was in charge of coordinating sports activities at Bethlehem University.

At the same time, Mr Hussein Shakhtour was forming another team in the Directorate of Youth and Sports, the two teams were merged into one sponsored team, supervised and trained by Bethlehem University according to their best of abilities considering the general situation in Palestine.

Then Mrs Haneyeh Albish, a member of the Palestinian union team of soccer, head of women’s football union, along with Mr. Adnan Abu Zayed attended the symposium of women’s football in "West Asia" organized by the International Federation of Football "FIFA" in March 2006 to develop the game in Palestine.

The following participation was in the West Asia Championship for Women's Football in Jordan held from 23 of September to the 1st of October 2005, during which the Palestinian team played against Jordan, Syria, Iran and Bahrain.

Then the Gaza team participated in the Arab Championship for women's soccer in Alexandria, Egypt from 14-28 April 2006, playing against Syria, Tunisia and Egypt. Unfortunately all forms of sports in Gaza now are totally paralyzed.

Nelly grew up in a family of sportsmen who understood her passion for sport, her father was the coach of a team, and her brothers were football players who understood that football is just one of her choices.

Before getting involved in sport journalism Nelly played volleyball at AlAhli Palestinian club in Gaza. In 1996 and while she was still a university student, she joined the first football team for women in Gaza. Some families looked with suspicion at women playing football, but Nelly had no problem with that since she was brought up in a family involved with this sport, she was encouraged by her parents, besides the fact that three of her sisters joined the team as well. Her father was always keen to follow his daughter’s progress and used to go to the club to watch them training. They practiced 3 times every week for 18 months.

Nelly’s beginning with sports media goes back to the end of 2001 when she was a trainee at the Voice of Freedom Radio in Gaza, she progressed in her job to become a broadcaster of sports programs, during the same period she joined another media establishment as a supervisor of its website, but her post did not last long for economic reasons leading to the closure of the website.

Nelly confessed, ‘I have started to write sports reports in 2002 but I started playing football earlier, during 1996. Football is considered by many in Gaza as an unusual field for women, but strangely enough, most of the members of the Gaza women's soccer team came from conservative Palestinian families, the majority of the members lived in the refugee camps, but still they have proved that they are able to commit themselves to this sport in a way that changed the society's perception of women football players, and accept the idea to a point that the players started to receive support from the International Federation and the Arab federation, besides the FIFA and other unions.

Nelly is not involved in kicking the ball only, but she is a keen football fan as well, she talked to me about watching most matches played around the world and her support for some Arab leagues like the Saudi Arabian team Alhilal Club. She told me that and among her favourite players is Yasser Kahtani the best Arab player during the Asia championships 2007; she is also a fan of Nawwaf Altimyat, and Mohammad Shalhoob.

Many people were enraged that one Israeli player was denied a visa to Dubai to the tennis tournament held lately, claiming sport should be independent of politics, but it seems not many understood how important it is to boycott Israel’s sport to make a point, Israel bombed the Palestinian playing courts, banned Palestinian players from travel or participation, imprisoned and detained Palestinian players, attacked many of them, and these facts can be brought up and made known should Israel be boycotted. Israel’s policies are aimed at killing any hope of Palestinians participating in any sport where they can represent their country on international level.

Nelly finished her comment by saying ‘unfortunately there has been always a negative attitude towards women's journalistic work in general, let alone working in the sports field where the journalist has to shuttle between clubs and matches. Some Gaza communities were not in favour of women practicing this sport or working in its media field, but we never gave up. All I hope for now is some peace, and to see that our stadiums will be rebuilt again after everything has been destroyed in Gaza by Israel’s attacks…the ball now is in the International court.  

"Are you a Londoner now?" , I asked Cricklewood resident Gilad Atzmon.

He paused for thought. And for a very brief moment, I imagined I had achieved the impossible and caught him short of an answer.

But landed with my left-field question he seemed, for a few seconds, genuinely lost for words. The first phrases of his response were short. Ironic yet deadpan.

"Obviously, I'm a foreigner. Big time. I can hardly speak English."
Then gradually, the ideas started to take shape and flow and grow. His natural presence, his emotional force and intensity started to rebuild. Phrases were getting longer, starting to connect.

"Everything's getting cheaper again. Musicians try to help each other. Venues are seeking to be helped by musicians. Without a real brotherhood we're not getting very far…

In the language of Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point, Atzmon is a maven. He spots and interprets and predicts trends. He plays the higher saxophones, alto and soprano, and has that priestly, incantatory power as a player which you get from Coltrane on soprano or Parker on alto. Atzmon has just played his "with strings" project in innovative promoter Christine Allen's inexpensive St Cyprian's series, and they have proved very popular.

So, what's next?

We talked at length about Atzmon's fervent desire to help the victims of brutality in Palestine. Palestine has disappeared from the front pages, and from Paxman's Newsnight. But it is front-of-mind for Atzmon. And he doesn't just talk, he is doing something about it.

Atzmon will be doing a charity gig at the 606 on 30th April as a fundraiser for medical charities working in Palestine. The music and the words which go with it will be a powerful demonstration of one man's committed defence of what he believes in.

Go. Book early. There will be no gig in London this year which stems from a deeper passion than Atzmon's wish to do something about helping the innocent victims of the Israeli invasion.

The passion of a man who now, finally, considers himself to be a Londoner. Which makes me proud to be one too.

On Wednesday, March 25, 2009

http://www.jazzcds.co.uk/artist_id_1/cd_id_1449

http://londonjazz.blogspot.com/2009/03/interview-gilad-atzmon.html

In Loving Memory of America

Gilad Atzmon moving tribute for America's greatest heroes

"On an especially cold Jerusalem night I heard Bird playing "April in Paris" on a radio program. I was knocked down. It was by far more organic, poetic, sentimental and yet wilder than anything I had ever heard before. Bird was a fierce libidinal extravaganza of wit and energy. The morning after, I decided to skip school, I rushed to the one and only music shop in Jerusalem. I found the jazz section and bought every album that was on the shelves. It was that moment when I fell in love with jazz, it was that moment when I fell in love in America"

Gilad Atzmon

Gilad Atzmon's latest album entitled In Loving Memory of America might well be the best album Gilad has ever recorded (and God knows Gilad recorded plenty of good music in the past). This latest album, however, stand apart from all his previous recordings.

The album is recorded with the Sigamos String Quartet (Ros Stephen and Emil Chakalov on violins, Rachel Robson one the viola and Daisy Vatalaro on the cello). His usual band (keyboard player Frank Harrison, bassist Yaron Stavi and drummer Asaf Sirkis) is also present. This unique combination of a jazz band with a string quartet will immediately reminds jazz fans of another famous jazz album: Charlie "Bird" Parker's "With Strings". Gilad's reference to Bird's album is also shown through several of the pieces also recorded on "With Strings", including the nostalgic and very moving "Everything Happens To Me" which begins Gilad's new album.

"In Loving Memory of America" is not, however, simply a re-recording of Bird's pieces: seven of Gilad's best past compositions are intertwined within Parker's jazz standards. What is amazing is how well these various compositions are blended together. For example, the third track on the album, Gilad's "musiK", is followed by "What Is This Thing Called Love" which is also present on Parker's recording. Gilad's version is, however, very different, slower, far more deliberate and tense, and it eventually "resolves" into Gilad's very moving "Call Me Stupid, Ungrateful, Vicious And Unstable" which begins with an almost Piazzolla-like opening with the strings supporting a lamentful exposition by Gilad's clarinet.

Gilad's use of the strings if far most complex and sophisticated than Parker's. The latter saw them mainly as a support for his instrument, whereas Gilad uses them much more as an interlocutor to his own phrases. Again, the figure of Piazzolla immediately comes to mind.

In fact, while Bird is the obvious reference, Piazzolla is the esoteric figure standing behind much of the lyricism and drama present in Gilad's latest album. Still, hints of this hidden filiation can even be found amongst Gilad's key musicians. Ros Stephen, for example, has played for many years in the tango quartet Tango Siempre. And can you guess who did many of the arrangements of "In Loving Memory of America"? The very same Ros Stephen, of course!

Still, for all the references found in this album, "In Loving Memory of America" is Gilad's album first and foremost. As John McLauglin likes to say, jazz musicians are "Thieves and Poets", and Gilad is not exception. Still, the poetry of Gilad's album is definitely uniquely his. Most importantly, it is Gilad's pain at seeing what the America of his youth has turned into which forms the basso continuo of this unique to this album.

One could ask whether the America of Gilad's youth every existed. I would say that it definitely did, if only in the hearts of those who listened to jazz music – America's beautiful gift to the world -in their youths. Gilad's music is a lament for the loss of this (mostly, but not exclusively, imagined) America, and it is a tribute to all those who share that pain today (one can think of all the jazz musicians who, with Charlie Haden, recorded the album Not In Our Name). Call it a much belated loss of innocence of poets and artists (the "bleeding hearts and artists" as Roger Waters would, no doubt, call them) , if you want, but somebody had to weep for this America the beautiful and jazz musicians did.

Music is probably the most sublime form of art because it allows to directly convey the the listener emotions which very often cannot be expressed in words. In this sense, it is also the most abstract art. The paradox, however, is that music and, in particular, jazz music is – or, at least, should be – also extremely subversive.

Emotions are, after all, probably the most powerful element of one's personality and, therefore, one of the most powerful influences on our thoughts and actions. In the booklet which comes with the album, Gilad writes: I do realise that ‘things have changed’. I do grasp that Jazz is not exactly a form of resistance anymore. It is not even a revolutionary art form. Maybe. Maybe not. But I don't believe that Gilad would ever have been capable of releasing such a powerful album if he did not feel that somebody out there was listening, feeling and understanding. The very fact that he did release this album is therefore an act of revolutionary resistance.

Sometimes, the emotion-idea is given rather directly, like in Gilad's piece "Refuge" which begins with a tension building Middle-Eastern melody which abruptly transforms itself in an African sounding explosion of joy. One could be forgiven for instinctively thinking of the collapse of the Apartheid regime in South Africa and the precedent this sets for the last Apartheid-like regime left on this planet: the "Jewish state" of Israel. Sometimes, the emotion-idea is far more subtle, like in Gilad's "In The Small Hours", but no less powerful.

The entire album feels like a "painful embrace", painful because of the immense sadness it expresses, but an embrace nonetheless, because of the shared love it conveys to its audience. This mixture of seemingly contradictory feelings is yet another feature common to Gilad Atzmon and Astor Piazzolla. I sometimes think of it as "wise sadness" or "peaceful pain". It is this amazing capability for art to sublimate pain – or even agony- and to transform them into energy, beauty and hope.

There is one thing which Parker's and Gilad's albums definitely have in common: being deceptively easy to listen to. These albums need to be carefully listened to many times before they reveal all their nuances and subtleties . This is particularly true of Gilad's album which is, in many ways, a more complex and more multi-layered creation than Bird's more "straightforward" recording.

Two things should, in particular, be mentioned here: the very elegant and sophisticated arrangements and the very minimalist yet absolutely superb playing by Frank Harrison on the piano and, in particular, on the Fender Rhodes (a sound which I regret not hearing more often).

"In Loving Memory of America" is the kind of album which you can listen to for hours and days at a time without ever getting bored or feeling that you got enough of it. It is intoxicating and addictive as only the very best jazz albums ever are.

You can already order the album on Amazon in the UK, at Jazz CDs or, for those living in the USA, pre-order it at CD Universe.

Either way – get the album. It is truly a masterpiece.

 

Posted by VINEYARDSAKER:

http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.com/2009/03/in-loving-memory-of-america.html

Since its first days, Palestine Think Tank has been supported by a wonderful site and by the truly dedicated activists there. Alter Info has been under a lot of pressure from the usual Israeli Lobby organisations, this time in France. We wish to express our support of Alter Info, to hope that they are able to win this case, and that some benefactors are able to help them with the growing legal costs. Please read their press communiqué and, if you are able to, show your support of those who provide information so that the lies and propaganda will not win, and that peace and justice will prevail.

Open letter to the leaders of the CRIF

The masks have fallen and that's enough for now!

You have absolutely no right to speak neither in our name nor in the name of our own who were penned in ghettos, murdered in pogroms, killed in death camps, but who were also part of all the struggles, from the International for a better world to the Resistance against the Nazi intruder, against colonialism and for freedom, justice, dignity and equality of rights.

You cheered and supported the crimes of the IDF, crushing under its bombs the population you call "a hostile entity", bringing down houses, devastating crops, targeting schools, mosques, hospitals, emergency cars and even a graveyard … Now you are on the side of the Apartheid supporters, oppressors and modern barbarians, and the blood of their victims is spilling on you.

Meanwhile, you lost all human sentiment, all compassion in front of this distress, you've outraged and soiled us by assimilating all the Jews to the supporters of a bunch of war criminals in the same way you soiled the memory of Rachi, Edmond Fleg, Emmanuel Levinas and many others – all that French Judaism was carrying in terms of human worth, intelligence and light.

You've tried to transform a colonial and geopolitical conflict into a communitarian conflict and by pretending that "95% of the French Jews support the Israeli invasion", you stir up anti-Semitism while claiming to be concerned with its return, like pyromaniac firemen. No, Ladies and Gentlemen who are leading the so-called "representative" council of the French Jewish Institutions, in our eyes you represent nothing except the zelators of an abject slaughter.

UJFP national office on 02-07-2009 Union Juive Française pour la Paix (UJFP) – 21 ter rue Voltaire, 75011 Paris. Phone: 06 61 33 48 22. E-mail: contact@ujfp.org. Website: www.ujfp.org