Terror Trial: Biased media communalizing the society, damaging the nation

By Syed Zubair Ahmad,

‘Pune Jail me ek aatanki dher’ (One terrorist was killed in Pune jail), cried in celebratory mode this headline of a national TV news channel on the afternoon of 8th June. An accused whose charge-sheet was not yet filed by the police even after six months of custody was unanimously declared a terrorist by the national media. Next day the largest selling English newspaper of the nation Times of India describing the murder of Mohammad Qateel Siddiqui wrote: “The 27-year-old “TERRORIST” was believed to be a close associate of Yasin Bhatkal, the main suspect in a string of terror attacks, including the German Bakery blast. Bhatkal is yet to be arrested.”
After such description of an accused what will be the reaction of readers could be expected. There was a barrage of celebratory comments on the web page of the English daily among more than 280 comments that the news story received. Reacting on this news item one reader said: “Natural justice done. These gangsters are true patriotic Indians who eliminated this terrorist.” Another wrote: “Put all the culprits and terrorists there... issues will be resolved on their own.” Some similar celebratory comments were: “Whoever did it, they have done a very good service to the nation”; “Well done jail mates for killing an Islamic terrorist”; “Good job whoever did it. Thanks to that hero. He should be given Bharat Ratna. Shaheed Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, Subhash Chander Bose kind of desh bhakts got us freedom”; “Good, this is the answer to Congress govt .....public should on the spot, in the court in jail. jab tak terrorist ke man mein dahshat nahi hoga ye terrerism khatm nahi ho sakta.”


Mecca Masjid blast [Photo Courtesy: AFP]
Undoubtedly these reactions are the outcome of the poisonous reporting and presenting an accused like a real terrorist by the national print and electronic media. The largest selling English daily declared “TERRORIST” a suspect who was only an accused and charges against him were yet to be fixed, whose trial had not started, who was yet to be declared an offender by the court. The Police had caught him on the basis of suspicion, but media declared him a “terrorist” and he was given a capital punishment by criminals in the most protected place.
The delay in filing the charge-sheet of Qateel by police raises some serious doubts that there was no concrete proof against the accused, so he was eliminated. An accused whose house has no proper roof, whose 10 member family was living in one rented room near a gutter in Nabi Karim was declared an Indian Mujahideen operative and killed in high-security Pune jail. Whatever may be the motive behind the murder of Qateel in the high security jail, the partial reporting of terror arrests and malicious description of suspects and accused also played a role in his suspicious murder.


Dr. Junaid Ali Ibrahim, Rayeesuddin and Abdur Raheem are among dozens of Muslim youths who were arrested, tortured and implicated in Mecca blast case but court later acquitted all of them[TCN photo]
In normal cases our national media, print or electronic, never believes in the story of police and intelligence agencies but when it comes to Muslim terror suspects the same media becomes an amplifier of the Police and intelligence agencies and not only believes in their version of stories but put a lot of spice in the story and forward them in the direction fixed by the Police. There is no cross questioning, no anti thesis, no visit to the homes of the suspects to put things objectively, rather Police version of the story is taken as the most authentic source of information and believed with 100% certainty.
In 2007 when Bangalore based Dr Haneef was arrested for questioning in a terror case in Australia the whole Indian media was trying to gather evidences to prove him guilty while the Australian media was criticizing Australian government for the illegal detention of Haneef. When they didn't find any proof, Australian government officially apologized to Dr. Haneef, gave him a good compensation and even offered citizenship of the country. There was a complete blackout by Indian media of the news about the remedy steps by Australian government.
How media trial of an accused can destroy the life and family of a person can be seen in the story of a young man who was acquitted by court after spending 14 years of his youth in prison. Amir Khan was arrested in 1998 in connection with multiple bomb blasts. Nineteen cases of bomb blasts in three states were lodged against him when he was only 16 years old. On 11th December 2007 when after spending 10 years in jail Amir was to be presented in a Ghaziabad district court from Dasna Jail, the Hindi daily Dainik Jagran came out with an exclusive story categorically declaring Amir a Pakistani terrorist. This was to influence the attitude of the court -- the honorable judge refused him bail mentioning that the matter is very sensitive and serious. The cops who were accompanying Amir from the jail were constantly staring at him with disgust and when he got inside the Dasna jail his inmates were asking: “Why didn't you tell us that you are a Pakistani?” While the matter of fact was that Amir was neither a Pakistani nor a terrorist. He was acquitted in 17 cases for the lack of evidence against him and was released in January 2012. He was bonafide citizen of India and resident of Delhi.
The Hindu English daily and NDTV news channel are considered most respected names in the national media but when it comes to reporting about Muslim terror suspects, their insensitivity is no different from others.


Swami Aseemanand, RSS pracharak who admitted his and the role of Hindutva outfit in the Mecca Masjid, Ajmer, Malegaon and Samjhauta blasts [Photo Courtesy: facenfacts.com]
In 2007, Praveen Swami, then the associate editor of The Hindu, in his several reports and editorials, had consistently declared the arrested Muslim youths of Hyderabad as members of “Harkat ul-Jihadi-e-Islami (HUJI) and responsible for the Mecca Masjid blast 2007. Swami had also overtly hinted that Ajmer and Mecca Masjid blasts were the deeds of “Islamist terror” groups, while investigations have now brought out the fact that they were the handiwork of Hindutva groups like Abhinav Bharat.
Jumping on the conclusion even before probe began, as early as 23 May 2007 (the Mecca Masjid bombing took place on 18 May) Praveen Swami told the nation who the culprits were. In his news analysis titled “Behind the Mecca Masjid bombing” Swami stated with absolute certainty: “What the Mecca Masjid bombings make clear is that the Islamist threat to India's cities remains in place, notwithstanding the decline in violence since the Mumbai serial bombings…”
In his exclusive report on Ajmer Dargah blast, Praveen Swami wrote: 'the war of Islamist neoconservatives against the syncretic traditions and beliefs that characterize popular Islam in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh’. He further writes: “South Asian terror groups associated with recent attacks on Muslim shrines — notably the Lashkar-e-Taiba — draw theological inspiration from the Salafi sect, a neoconservative tradition also sometimes referred to as Wahabbism. Salafi theologians are intensely hostile to Sufi orders like that founded by Chishti, characterizing them as apostasy.” (The Hindu, Friday, Oct 12, 2007)
The Hindu editorial of October 15, 2007, titled “Challenge of Islamic terror”, begins with this line: “Investigative leads point to the Harkat ul-Jihadi-e-Islami (HUJI), the Islamist organization behind the Mecca Masjid attack in Hyderabad, as being behind the terrorist strike at the Dargah of Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti in Ajmer…investigators have been able to establish that many of these attacks were carried out by Islamist terror groups such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Jaish-e-Mohammad, and the HUJI…”
In June 2002, when the police raided the house of Delhi-based Kashmiri journalist Iftikhar Gilani he was in his house at Malvia Nagar. Outside his home the NDTV reporter Neeta Sharma was telling the world that sensing the raid of police the suspected journalist ran away while the fact was that Iftikhar Gilani was talking with police and at the same time watching Neeta Sharma reporting about his escape. Because of negative reporting in media he was also attacked in Tihar jail. He was declared an ISI agent by police and media alike. After spending two years in jail he was acquitted.


Amir Khan showing court acquittal papers. He spent 14 years in jail in 20 blast cases but acquitted in all of them [TCN Photo]
Before reporting terror incidents media persons should look their own clips of reporting on Malegaon, Hyderabad, Ajmer and Samjhauta Express bomb blasts. They should not become amplifiers of investigative agencies and police department. They should realize that by sensationalizing they communalize the environment. By fixing the direction of investigation towards a certain community they play with the life of an accused and commit the act of injustice as a whole.
No doubt the media is no more a mission now, it has turned into a corporate and business but even business has some ethics. Insensitive journalism and irresponsible reporting not only destroy a family, defame a community but also communalise the society.
Terrorists can’t defeat a united nation at all. Terrorism can’t do as much damage to a country as insensitive and partial journalism can do. Honest journalism can unite and empower a nation while a partial and prejudiced journalism can destroy the basic fabric of the society and even divide a nation on communal lines.
(Syed Zubair Ahmad is a Writer & Journalist. He can be reached at smzubairahmad@gmail.com)

Source: twocircles.net

letter to Mr chidambaram

To,
The Home Minister
Government of India


Mr. Chidambaram,

We are forced to gather outside your residence today. We have broken with our tradition and etiquette of protest, i.e., to demonstrate at public offices rather than private residences because a large section of our population no longer feels safe in their own homes. Disappearances and illegal detentions have become rampant in the name of fighting terrorism. It is as though a new wave of counter terrorism has been launched to terrorize the youth belonging to a community.

In this Kafkaesque world over which you preside, young men are picked up, some times snatched by one agency from another and presented to the world as dreaded terrorists. You may remember the case of Naquee Ahmed who was aiding the Special Cell in tracing two suspects in Mumbai when the Mumbai ATS abducted and kept him in illegal custody before announcing that a sensational arrest had been made. The Special Cell of course abandoned him. Competition between the agencies is costing innocents their life and liberty and when these squabbles spill into the media, your Ministry merely considers them bad PR rather than genuine concerns of a democracy.

You have stated, Sir,that Fasih Mahmood, the engineer picked up from Jubail in Saudi Arabia, is not in the custody of any of your agencies. (Is it of no relevance that Indians accompanied the Saudi Arabian police when Fasih was taken away from his home). It is another matter that a red corner notice was issued for his arrest after his wife moved a habeas corpus petition in the Supreme Court. Another matter also that an affidavit submitted by the Karnataka police in the SC had details of his employment and an itemized list of his alleged guilt. And still, the Government of India claims to be clueless, even as to whether he is alive or dead.

Talking of death, Qateel Siddiqui, alleged IM operative arrested last November in Delhi, was killed in the Yerwada Jail, Pune by fellow inmates. Taken to Maharashtra by the Mumbai ATS on remand, to probe his role in a blast in a temple that did not take place (and of which there is no evidence except of course in now-dead Qateel’s disclosures). But this non-existent blast ostensibly enraged his fellow inmates to the extent that they strangulated him the day his remand was to end. A murder in broad day light in a high security prison. And what a convenient answer. An inmate booked for murder takes all blame. ‘Nationalist’ and ‘patriotic’ Mafiosi have been attributed with such killings in the past. Remember Shahid Azmi, Sir? The courageous lawyer with his own troubled past?

We think it’s important to recall the deep links of these ‘nationalist’ forces of the underworld with our very own Intelligence Bureau. In 2005, when the Mumbai Police swooped down on Vicky Malhotra, close aide of Chota Rajan, whom did they find sitting next to him in the car? Mr. Ajit Kumar Doval, recently retired head of the IB. And the man who pulled the trigger on Azmi was himself eliminated later. So certainly, the theory that these were lone hit men, out to avenge their nationalist hurt, must be treated with a lot of circumspection.

Is it too much to ask that DK Basu guidelines for arrest be followed by your agencies? Is Due process of investigation and law only to be followed in its violation? We are not opposed to any investigation, but surely, the law of the land must be followed? Agencies cannot be handed over a license to pick and detain anyone at will. Will we continue to pick one Muslim dominated town after another, branding it the hub of terrorism?

In the meeting of the Chief Ministers held to discuss the NCTC—whose unbridled powers to arrest suspects under UAPA will further aggravate the situation—you lamented that “in practically every case, a small section of the people springs to the support of persons who are detained for interrogation or arrested and charged. There is no apparent reason for such support other than the affinity of religion or sect.” With one sentence, you dismissed the genuine fears and demands about the rife misuse of powers by agencies being articulated by civil rights groups as sectarian (and as though the articulation of such fears by religious groups somehow rendered it illegitimate).

You ask us Sir to “observe caution and restraint and place faith in the integrity and impartiality of the investigation.” How can we, when the lessons from Malegaon and Mecca Masjid are not being heeded? When the NIA drags its feet in the cases of Hindutva terror? When we see that the Special Cell, despite its claim of a water-tight case against the senior journalist Syed Qazmi, asks for 90 more days to file a charge sheet?

From a poor construction worker like Qateel to a veteran journalist like Syed Qazmi, respected for his vast experience and bold views, all Muslims appear to be under the scanner. We have come here today to say to you that this ceaseless assault must end. Investigating agencies’ reign of terror must stop. This is not a sectarian issue, Sir. The very future of justice and democracy rests on this.

Yours sincerely

On behalf of

AISA, Aman Biradari, ANHAD, Bhartiya Muslim Mahila Andolan, Centre for Policy Analysis, Champa - The Amiya & B.G. Rao Foundation , Citizens for Democracy, Jamia Teacher's Solidarity Association, JNUSU, Movement for Empowerment of Muslim Indians (MOEMIN), National Campaign against Fabrication of Cases (www.fabricated.in), NCDHR ( National Campaign for Dalit Human Rights), PUCL (Delhi unit), Revolutionary Youth Association, Syed Kazmi Solidarity Committee

‘Israeli soldiers partying in Goa are dehumanised’

The Church in Goa termed Israelis, who visit the State to relax after a three-year military stint, as ‘dehumanised’ while also hitting out at Israel and expressing solidarity with Palestinian Christians persecuted by the Israelis.
In a spontaneous letter written to the Jerusalem Inter-Church Centre and Kairos in Palestine, the Council of Social Justice and Peace, the social arm of the Church in Goa, has pledged to make a tangible difference to the ‘sufferings’ of the Palestinians.
“Three years ago for the first time, we sprung into action when we decided to study the issue of Israelis who had completed their term in the IDF and who turned up on the shores of Goa to overlook and disregard their actions while on military duty,” CSJP executive secretary Maverick Fernandes said in his open letter, copy of which has been issued to the media.
“Our study revealed how dehumanised these young people had become and how, because of an oppressive and cruel system of illegal military occupation, even the victimisers had turned casualties and victims of their own cruelties,” he further said in the letter.
The Church in Goa had done a ‘study’ with the help of seminarians who toured the state’s night scene undercover and reported back their inputs which were compiled in the basis of a study. “The night here never ends. They (Israelis) just party with trance music and get intoxicated with drugs and alcohol. They kiss and touch each other openly. They also appear to switch partners,” according to Brother Manuel D’Souza, who was a part of the “under cover survey”.
“Can you imagine young boys killing people. They (Israelis) go mad while in the services. The government sends these people to relaxation hubs. One of them is Goa,” the study says explaining the Israeli tourist behaviour in a chapter called ‘The Sababa experience’.
The study also makes a reference to the socio-economic impact the Israelis have on the state. “They (Israelis) are a nuisance to everybody in and around Palolem (a popular beach in south Goa). Their dominating nature and other monkey business drives away other tourists. So why do we need them?” Onasis D’Cruz said.
Tourists from Israel are those from Europe that visit the state during the winters to escape the chilly climes of Northern Europe.
Israeli youngsters, who are fresh from serving the mandatory three year (approximate) stint in the armed forces prefer to vacation at party hotspots in the Goa, Thailand, Bali, circuit.
The CSJP also hit out at Israel for suffer Israeli occupation. “We are appalled to see when we hear of Israel’s punitive and discriminating actions that have resulted in massive deprivation of human rights and in failing humanitarian standards,” Fr Maverick said.
“Our concern is for the extreme reduction in the number of Christians in The Holy Land. The Holy Land is, after all, the cradle of our faith- as well as that of our sisters and brothers whoare Jews and Muslims,” the letter states, beseeching the Christian population there to “remain strong and empowered enough to withstand the compulsions which the occupation enforces on them and reverse the patterns of emigration”.

source: http://dailypioneer.com/nation/72402-israeli-soldiers-partying-in-goa-are-dehumanised.html

Qateel Siddiqi killed in Judicial Custody—Who is Responsible?

Qateel Siddiqi killed in Judicial Custody—Who is Responsible?

'The brutal violence unleashed on the Mumbai train blasts accused in the Arthur Road jail three years ago, at the behest of the jail authorities, comes immediately to mind. It is obvious that undertrials, especially those charged with crimes like terrorism, are not safe in Maharashtra jails,' say Rights Activists.

Press Statement 

New Delhi (8 June 2012): Twenty-seven year old Qateel Siddiqi, arrested in November 2011 by the Special Cell for his alleged Indian Mujahideen (IM) links, has been killed in Yerwada Central jail in Pune today. The murder has ostensibly been carried out fellow inmates for unknown reasons. Qateel had been shifted to Yerwada only a few days ago after the Maharashtra ATS had taken his custody for a test identification parade.

Qateel’s killing raises several important questions:

• Siddiqi was kept in high security Anda jail and not in the common barracks. How then did the attack take place? 
• Could the attack have taken place without the complicity, even if passive, of the Yerwada jail authorities?
• Given the claim of the investigating agencies that Qateel was the key to unraveling the IM network, what happens now to those investigations?
• The fact that Siddiqi was to be moved out of the Yerwada Jail and was eliminated just before that smacks of a conspiracy.

While custodial violence is endemic and almost institutionalized, Maharashtra Jails are also notorious for attacks on accused, particularly on those accused of terrorism. The brutal violence unleashed on the Mumbai train blasts accused in the Arthur Road jail three years ago, at the behest of the jail authorities, comes immediately to mind. It is obvious that undertrials, especially those charged with crimes like terrorism, are not safe in Maharashtra jails. 

All accused in judicial custody are directly under the care of the judiciary and as such it is the judiciary’s responsibility to ensure their well-being and safety.  We hope therefore that the Mumbai High Court will take suo moto notice of this killing and initiate action in the matter.

We demand that:

1. An FIR under section 302 be filed immediately for the Killing of Qateel Siddiqi
2. Compensation should be granted to the wife of Qateel Siddiqi for his killing in judicial custody
3. An impartial enquiry should be constituted to investigate into the killing.

Further, the dead body of Qateel Siddiqi must be transported for his burial to his hometown at the cost of the Maharashtra State, given also that the family is too poor to bear the expenses.

Sd/-

Manisha Sethi, Sanghamitra Misra, Ahmed Sohaib, Adeel Mehdi, Tanweer Fazal (for JTSA)

Shabnam Hashmi and Bhawna Sharma (for ANHAD)

Colin Gonsalves, Harsh Dobhal and Mahtab Alam (for HRLN)

Contact: 9811625577/ 9811807558 / 9811209345

NIA loses interest in saffron terror cases, accused getting bail one by one

By TCN Staff Reporter,

Mumbai: Two court developments in this first week of June clearly indicate that premier terror probe body National Investigation Agency (NIA) has lost interest in taking saffron terror cases to their natural conclusion, or innocent Hindus also, like Muslims, have been picked in terror cases, and therefore the probe agency is unable to procure evidence and charge sheet them.
On Tuesday (5th June), a special NIA court in Mumbai granted bail to Lokesh Sharma in the September 2008 Malegaon bomb blast case in which six people were killed and 100 wounded. The accused got bail because the NIA could not file a charge sheet in 90 days. Twelve members of the rightwing outfits, Jai Vande Mataram and Abhinav Bharat, were arrested for the blast which was probed by slain Maharashtra ATS chief Hemant Karkare. The accused in jail include Sadhvi Pragya and Col. Purohit.
“The NIA failed to file a charge sheet within the stipulated 90-day period. Hence, Special Judge Y.D. Shinde directed the accused to execute a bond of Rs.25,000, while granting him bail," Sharma's lawyer Aarti Bhide was quoted as saying by IANS news agency.
Sharma was first named by the NIA in the 2007 Samjhauta Express train bombing that killed 68 people, mainly Pakistanis. Sharma is the first accused to get bail in the Malegaon blast case. However, he will remain in jail in the train blast case.
On Friday (1st June), a Hyderabad court granted bail Bharat Mohanlal Ratheswar alias Bharat Bhai, one of the the accused in the 2007 Mecca Masjid bomb blast case which had claimed seven lives during Friday Prayer.
According to The Hindu, the court granted the bail to Bharat after the NIA, which is probing the case, failed to file charge-sheet even after the expiry of 180 days of remand period.
The court asked Bharat to produce two sureties for Rs.10,000 each and stipulated that he be available for investigators as and when required, said B. Rajavardhan Reddy, counsel for Bharat.
After being released from the jail, he will be taken to Jaipur in connection with the Ajmer dargah bomb blast case, said the news report. The NIA had brought him to the city on a prisoner's transit warrant in December 2011 from Jaipur for his alleged role in the Mecca Masjid blast case.
The obvious question is: Why casual attitude in prosecuting saffron terrorists in blasts which claimed several human lives, or innocent Hindus, like hundreds of innocent Muslims, have been arrested for terror blasts while the real culprits are on run?
Since November 2011, more than a dozen Muslim youths have been picked by Karnataka ATS and Delhi Special Cell – almost all of them belong to Darbhanga and Madhubani district in Bihar – for Chinnaswamy Stadium blast of 2010 and Jama Masjid shootout of the same year. Some people were wounded in the two attacks, none was killed. Villagers and family members say their sons are innocent and have nothing to do with terror attack.
The recent detention/arrest for two attacks is from Saudi Arabia. Darbhanga engineer Fasih Mahmood was picked on 13th May but has not yet been produced in court. Meanwhile, CBI has got Interpol issued warrant against Fasih on the request of Karnataka and Delhi Police for the stadium and Jama Masjid shooting respectively.

source: http://twocircles.net

So, what did the Muslims do for the Jews?

By David J Wasserstein, 

Islam saved Jewry. This is an unpopular, discomforting claim in the modern world. But it is a historical truth. The argument for it is double. First, in 570 CE, when the Prophet Mohammad was born, the Jews and Judaism were on the way to oblivion. And second, the coming of Islam saved them, providing a new context in which they not only survived, but flourished, laying foundations for subsequent Jewish cultural prosperity - also in Christendom - through the medieval period into the modern world.
By the fourth century, Christianity had become the dominant religion in the Roman empire. One aspect of this success was opposition to rival faiths, including Judaism, along with massive conversion of members of such faiths, sometimes by force, to Christianity. Much of our testimony about Jewish existence in the Roman empire from this time on consists of accounts of conversions.
Great and permanent reductions in numbers through conversion, between the fourth and the seventh centuries, brought with them a gradual but relentless whittling away of the status, rights, social and economic existence, and religious and cultural life of Jews all over the Roman empire.
A long series of enactments deprived Jewish people of their rights as citizens, prevented them from fulfilling their religious obligations, and excluded them from the society of their fellows.

Had Islam not come along, Jewry in the west would have declined to disappearance and Jewry in the east would have become just another oriental cult

This went along with the centuries-long military and political struggle with Persia. As a tiny element in the Christian world, the Jews should not have been affected much by this broad, political issue. Yet it affected them critically, because the Persian empire at this time included Babylon - now Iraq - at the time home to the world's greatest concentration of Jews.
Here also were the greatest centres of Jewish intellectual life. The most important single work of Jewish cultural creativity in over 3,000 years, apart from the Bible itself - the Talmud - came into being in Babylon. The struggle between Persia and Byzantium, in our period, led increasingly to a separation between Jews under Byzantine, Christian rule and Jews under Persian rule.
Beyond all this, the Jews who lived under Christian rule seemed to have lost the knowledge of their own culturally specific languages - Hebrew and Aramaic - and to have taken on the use of Latin or Greek or other non-Jewish, local, languages. This in turn must have meant that they also lost access to the central literary works of Jewish culture - the Torah, Mishnah, poetry, midrash, even liturgy.
The loss of the unifying force represented by language - and of the associated literature - was a major step towards assimilation and disappearance. In these circumstances, with contact with the one place where Jewish cultural life continued to prosper - Babylon - cut off by conflict with Persia, Jewish life in the Christian world of late antiquity was not simply a pale shadow of what it had been three or four centuries earlier. It was doomed.
Had Islam not come along, the conflict with Persia would have continued. The separation between western Judaism, that of Christendom, and Babylonian Judaism, that of Mesopotamia, would have intensified. Jewry in the west would have declined to disappearance in many areas. And Jewry in the east would have become just another oriental cult.
But this was all prevented by the rise of Islam. The Islamic conquests of the seventh century changed the world, and did so with dramatic, wide-ranging and permanent effect for the Jews.
Within a century of the death of Mohammad, in 632, Muslim armies had conquered almost the whole of the world where Jews lived, from Spain eastward across North Africa and the Middle East as far as the eastern frontier of Iran and beyond. Almost all the Jews in the world were now ruled by Islam. This new situation transformed Jewish existence. Their fortunes changed in legal, demographic, social, religious, political, geographical, economic, linguistic and cultural terms - all for the better.
First, things improved politically. Almost everywhere in Christendom where Jews had lived now formed part of the same political space as Babylon - Cordoba and Basra lay in the same political world. The old frontier between the vital centre in Babylonia and the Jews of the Mediterranean basin was swept away, forever.
Political change was partnered by change in the legal status of the Jewish population: although it is not always clear what happened during the Muslim conquests, one thing is certain. The result of the conquests was, by and large, to make the Jews second-class citizens.
This should not be misunderstood: to be a second-class citizen was a far better thing to be than not to be a citizen at all. For most of these Jews, second-class citizenship represented a major advance. In Visigothic Spain, for example, shortly before the Muslim conquest in 711, the Jews had seen their children removed from them and forcibly converted to Christianity and had themselves been enslaved.
In the developing Islamic societies of the classical and medieval periods, being a Jew meant belonging to a category defined under law, enjoying certain rights and protections, alongside various obligations. These rights and protections were not as extensive or as generous as those enjoyed by Muslims, and the obligations were greater but, for the first few centuries, the Muslims themselves were a minority, and the practical differences were not all that great.
Along with legal near-equality came social and economic equality. Jews were not confined to ghettos, either literally or in terms of economic activity. The societies of Islam were, in effect, open societies. In religious terms, too, Jews enjoyed virtually full freedom. They might not build many new synagogues - in theory - and they might not make too public their profession of their faith, but there was no really significant restriction on the practice of their religion. Along with internal legal autonomy, they also enjoyed formal representation, through leaders of their own, before the authorities of the state. Imperfect and often not quite as rosy as this might sound, it was at least the broad norm.
The political unity brought by the new Islamic world-empire did not last, but it created a vast Islamic world civilisation, similar to the older Christian civilisation that it replaced. Within this huge area, Jews lived and enjoyed broadly similar status and rights everywhere. They could move around, maintain contacts, and develop their identity as Jews. A great new expansion of trade from the ninth century onwards brought the Spanish Jews - like the Muslims - into touch with the Jews and the Muslims even of India.
A ll this was encouraged by a further, critical development. Huge numbers of people in the new world of Islam adopted the language of the Muslim Arabs. Arabic gradually became the principal language of this vast area, excluding almost all the rest: Greek and Syriac, Aramaic and Coptic and Latin all died out, replaced by Arabic. Persian, too, went into a long retreat, to reappear later heavily influenced by Arabic.
The Jews moved over to Arabic very rapidly. By the early 10th century, only 300 years after the conquests, Sa'adya Gaon was translating the Bible into Arabic. Bible translation is a massive task - it is not undertaken unless there is a need for it. By about the year 900, the Jews had largely abandoned other languages and taken on Arabic.
The change of language in its turn brought the Jews into direct contact with broader cultural developments. The result from the 10th century on was a striking pairing of two cultures. The Jews of the Islamic world developed an entirely new culture, which differed from their culture before Islam in terms of language, cultural forms, influences, and uses. Instead of being concerned primarily with religion, the new Jewish culture of the Islamic world, like that of its neighbours, mixed the religious and the secular to a high degree. The contrast, both with the past and with medieval Christian Europe, was enormous.
Like their neighbours, these Jews wrote in Arabic in part, and in a Jewish form of that language. The use of Arabic brought them close to the Arabs. But the use of a specific Jewish form of that language maintained the barriers between Jew and Muslim. The subjects that Jews wrote about, and the literary forms in which they wrote about them, were largely new ones, borrowed from the Muslims and developed in tandem with developments in Arabic Islam.
Also at this time, Hebrew was revived as a language of high literature, parallel to the use among the Muslims of a high form of Arabic for similar purposes. Along with its use for poetry and artistic prose, secular writing of all forms in Hebrew and in (Judeo-)Arabic came into being, some of it of high quality.
Much of the greatest poetry in Hebrew written since the Bible comes from this period. Sa'adya Gaon, Solomon Ibn Gabirol, Ibn Ezra (Moses and Abraham), Maimonides, Yehuda Halevi, Yehudah al-Harizi, Samuel ha-Nagid, and many more - all of these names, well known today, belong in the first rank of Jewish literary and cultural endeavour.
W here did these Jews produce all this? When did they and their neighbours achieve this symbiosis, this mode of living together? The Jews did it in a number of centres of excellence. The most outstanding of these was Islamic Spain, where there was a true Jewish Golden Age, alongside a wave of cultural achievement among the Muslim population. The Spanish case illustrates a more general pattern, too.
What happened in Islamic Spain - waves of Jewish cultural prosperity paralleling waves of cultural prosperity among the Muslims - exemplifies a larger pattern in Arab Islam. In Baghdad, between the ninth and the twelfth centuries; in Qayrawan (in north Africa), between the ninth and the 11th centuries; in Cairo, between the 10th and the 12th centuries, and elsewhere, the rise and fall of cultural centres of Islam tended to be reflected in the rise and fall of Jewish cultural activity in the same places.
This was not coincidence, and nor was it the product of particularly enlightened liberal patronage by Muslim rulers. It was the product of a number of deeper features of these societies, social and cultural, legal and economic, linguistic and political, which together enabled and indeed encouraged the Jews of the Islamic world to create a novel sub-culture within the high civilisation of the time.
This did not last for ever; the period of culturally successful symbiosis between Jew and Arab Muslim in the middle ages came to a close by about 1300. In reality, it had reached this point even earlier, with the overall relative decline in the importance and vitality of Arabic culture, both in relation to western European cultures and in relation to other cultural forms within Islam itself; Persian and Turkish.
Jewish cultural prosperity in the middle ages operated in large part as a function of Muslim, Arabic cultural (and to some degree political) prosperity: when Muslim Arabic culture thrived, so did that of the Jews; when Muslim Arabic culture declined, so did that of the Jews.
In the case of the Jews, however, the cultural capital thus created also served as the seed-bed of further growth elsewhere - in Christian Spain and in the Christian world more generally.
The Islamic world was not the only source of inspiration for the Jewish cultural revival that came later in Christian Europe, but it certainly was a major contributor to that development. Its significance cannot be overestimated.

David J Wasserstein is the Eugene Greener Jr Professor of Jewish Studies at Vanderbilt University. This article is adapted from last week's Jordan Lectures in Comparative Religion at the School of Oriental and African Studies.

source:http://www.thejc.com/comment-and-debate/comment/68082/so-what-did-muslims-do-jews

प्रेस नोट : दुष्काळ चिंतन शिबिर

प्रेस नोट 

दुष्काळ चिंतन शिबिर

दुष्काळी परिस्थिती मुळे मानवी विकासावर होणा-या दुरगामी परिणामांवर चर्चा करण्यासाठी सांगोला येथे महाराष्ट्रातील सामाजिक राजकीय कार्यकर्त्यांचे चिंतन शिबिर आयोजित करण्यात आले आहे. दुष्काळ म्हणजे केवळ चारा पाणी एवढ़ाच तत्कालीन स्थितिचा विचार होतो. परंतु दुष्काळी भागातील शिक्षण, स्थलांतर, जीवनाधार अशा मानवी विकासावर दुरगामी परिणाम होतो त्याचा विचार होत नाही. उत्पन्नाची साधने असणारा आहेरे वर्ग यात तग धरून राहतो. परंतु साधनहीन माणसांच्या जीवन संघर्षा वर आज चर्चा ही होताना दिसत नाही.
दुष्काळी भागात मुलांचे व माणसांचे कुपोषण आहे हे शासनाच्या आकडेवारीने सिद्ध झाले आहे. स्थलांतरित कुटुंबातील मुले शिक्षणा तुन बाहेर फेकली जातात. गावा गावात पदवीधर होण्याचे मुलींचे प्रमाण नगण्य आहे. ८०% वर्ग हा मजूर आहे. बांधकाम मजूर, ऊसतोडनी मजूर, शेत मजूर, ड्रायव्हर आणि अन्य क्षेत्रातील अकुशल मजूर विकसित क्षेत्राला पुरविनारा मानदेश, पश्चिम महाराष्ट्राच्या विकसित बेटांच्या प्रकाशात अंधारलेलालच आहे.
गेल्या काही वर्षात दुष्काळ म्हणजे जनावरांना चारा माणसांना पिण्याचे पाणी आणि कृष्णा खो-या तिल पाण्याची मागणी या पुरतिच राजकीय चळवळ आहे. त्यात दुधाच्या जनावरांची काळजी पण शेळ्या, मेंढ्या या सारख्या लहान जनावरांचा विचार होत नाही. पाण्यापासून वंचित असलेल्या भागात समन्यायी पाणी वाटपाचा आग्रह धरला जात नाही. व प्रत्येक माणसांच्या जीवनधारा साठी रोजगाराचा मुद्दा राजकीय होत नाही. दुष्काळात मानवी विकासाचा व पर्यावरणाचा -हास होत आहे त्यावर शासनाला, समाजाला व सामाजिक संस्थांना काय करता येईल. या साठी दिनांक ९ जून रोजी २०१२ . दुष्काळ चिंतन शिबिराचे आयोजन सांगोला येथील समर्थ मंगल कार्यालयात केले आहे. सकाळी १० ते ५ या वेळेत होणा-या चर्चेत विकास सहयोग प्रतिष्ठान चे दत्ता पाटील व मोहन सुर्वे, समन्यायी पाणी वाटप चळवळीचे डॉ. भारत पाटणकर, टाटा समाज विज्ञान संस्थेचे डॉ. संपत काळे, लोक राजनिति मंच चे मानव कांबळे व एम. आर. खान, रोजगार हमी योजनेचे अभ्यासक डॉ. विजय माने, महिलांच्या प्रश्नावरील अभ्यासिका लता प्रतिभा मधुकर, मनीषा शिरोडकर, डॉ. अशोक गायकवाड, अर्जुन जगधने इ. लोक आपले विचार मांडणार आहेत. या चिंतन शिबिराचे उद्घाटन मा. गणपतराव देशमुख करणार आहेत. त्याच बरोबर माजी आमदार शहाजी बापू पाटिल, आमदार दीपक साळुंखे, माजी जिल्हा परिषद सदस्य श्रीकांत देशमुख, डॉ. कृष्णा इंगोले हेही मार्गदर्शन करणार आहेत. सांगली, सातारा आणि सोलापुर जिल्ह्यातील वैचारीक कार्यकर्त्याना एकत्र करण्यासाठी ललित बाबर, दत्ता पाटिल (मंगळवेढा), कुमुद नास्टे (विटा), अशोक भोसले (फलटण), यांनी दुष्काळी भागातील सामाजिक चळवळ उभारण्यात पुढाकार घेतला आहे.
या शिबिरात विचारवंत सामाजिक राजकीय कार्यकर्त्यानी सहभागी व्हावे असे अवाहन डॉ. आम्बेडकर शेती विकास व संशोधन संस्था यांनी केले आहे.

Pubilic Meeting:To condemn the Mumbai Police action & confiscation of our "Boycott Israel-Save India, 15th May Nakba-Day" Banners from a private office premise.

Date: June 1st, 2012

Place: Mumbai Marathi Patrakar Parishad, CST Mumbai

Time: 4-6pm

Organiser: Jamate Islami Hind.