Tuesday, July 31, 2012

August 9th, Quit India, Movement, US- Israel Quit India

BHARAT BACHAO ANDOLAN
9th AUGUST, AMERICA-ISRAEL QUIT INDIA!!
BHARAT CHODHO ANDOLAN!!
Venue: August Kranti Maidan, Grant Road, Mumbai, India
Time: 10am Morning at Grant Road station

Once again the time has arrived for the patriotic people of India to arise & fight for the freedom of our nation as the Indian ruling elite continue to betray the ideals of our independence movement.

The greatest threat to the world lies from the American-Israel-Nato plans for total global domination.  The American-Israeli led global war on terror continues to wreck mayhem & destructions in an increasing number of countries across the world. The Israeli occupation of Palestine continues & so do the western plans for another war on Iran. The US led wars in Iraq & Afghanistan have only worsened both the internal & regional situations, with increased drug & weapons trade. The wars are also being imposed for the western corporate powers to control the natural resources of the Third World nations.

Indian foreign policy is led by the diktats of the US pressures & this is most visible in the case of Iran, where as yet the US is exerting great pressure & even threatening India with sanctions, if we don’t adhere to the US-EU sanction plans. This was also the fact when the UPA government signed the Indo-US Nuclear Deal, which further pushed into the US camp.

Also our increasing neo-liberal capitalist policies are leading to greater disparities, as well as unbridled corruption. Thus we must move towards a peoples’ socialist economic model, which creates an equitable & a just society for all its citizens.

But the regional & global situation is also changing. The US is no more the economic super power house & is in a state of economic, political, military & socio-cultural decline. The ongoing Arab revolutions has inspired the world & thus from within each nation people have been inspired to rise up against the corrupt & weak pro-US government. The US is now focusing its military might & expanding its deployments in more & more Asian countries. More than 1500 US military bases, lay the foundation for its global reach & thus we must unitedly demand the end of all US bases from Asian soil & from all nations as well.

On the other hand, the Indian masses are also struggling all the odds of oppression, caste biases & extreme poverty & fight against the increasing control of the US over our foreign policy & national affairs.
It is clear that the American-Israeli empire will certainly fall & it’s only a matter of time.
Thus in keeping with the tradition of our great freedom fighters led by Mahatma Gandhi, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Dr Baba Saheb Ambedkar, Bhagat Singh, Subhash Chandra Bose amongst hundreds of others, we call upon the people to rise up against the US colonial agenda & struggle unitedly with the people of Asia & the world to liberate humanity.

Jai Hind!! Jai Bharat!!

for more contact on awamibharat@gmail.com

Monday, July 30, 2012

Syrian Ethnic, Sectarian Conflicts Deepen As US Plots To Install Client Regime By Niall Green


30 July, 2012
WSWS.og
Fighting intensified in the Syrian city of Aleppo over the weekend, with the government of President Bashar al-Assad deploying troops and aircraft to retake neighborhoods captured by opposition militants in a major offensive last week.
There were reports of heavy fighting in the historic city center and old fort areas of Aleppo, Syria’s most populous city and its main commercial center. The BBC, which has a correspondent inside the city, reported that the Syrian army was shelling militia positions in the suburb of Salah al-Din, and that thousands of civilians are fleeing Aleppo.
While the rural districts around Aleppo have experienced frequent clashes between government forces and opposition militants during the sixteen-month civil conflict, the city had until recently seen relatively little violence. However, there have been a growing number of deadly attacks on government facilities and personnel in Aleppo this year, with anti-Assad fighters strengthened by increased weapons supplies flowing across the border from neighboring Turkey.
In response to the fighting in Aleppo, Sayda Abdulbaset Sayda, the leader of the US-backed Syrian National Council, urged the West and the Gulf monarchies to increase their support to the opposition militias. “We want weapons that would stop tanks and jet fighters,” Sayda said during a visit to the United Arab Emirates.
Syria’s foreign minister, Walid Moualem, stated Sunday that government troops would continue to reinforce Aleppo and other areas held by the opposition. Speaking during a visit to Iran, Syria’s principal regional ally, Moualem claimed that while he backed the UN-sponsored ceasefire plan for Syria, the regime would continue to fight what he called a foreign-backed terrorist conspiracy.
The Gulf sheikhdoms, especially Saudi Arabia and Qatar, have supplied millions of dollars’ worth of weapons to the Syrian opposition and pledged to pay salaries to “rebel” fighters. While Washington has claimed that it is providing “non-lethal” supplies to the opposition, such as night vision glasses and communications equipment, teams of CIA operatives are acknowledged to be working inside Turkey to coordinate the distribution of money and arms to the various militant groups.
Last week, CNN reported an increased presence of foreign opposition fighters, particularly from Libya, in and around Aleppo. The US cable news channel’s correspondent in Syria, Ivan Watson, in a report to the “Amanpour” program on Friday, stated that foreign militants were being drawn to the Syrian conflict, “because they see this as a jihad … as a fight for Sunni Muslims.”
The United States and its allies are escalating their intervention in Syria despite growing concerns over the character of the Islamist forces they are supporting. Having stoked the conflict in Syria to the point of civil war, Washington now faces the prospect of an ethno-sectarian break-up of the country and the spread of fighting throughout the region.
A column in the New York Times Sunday, titled “Syria After the Fall,” warned that while Washington has been happy to destabilize the Assad regime to weaken Iran’s regional influence, the Syrian conflict threatens to set off a “chain of events” that could pose “a greater threat to the Middle East and to America’s long-run interests in the region than does Iran’s nuclear program.”
“If the Syrian conflict explodes outward,” the Times column says, “everyone will lose: it will spill into neighboring Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Turkey. Lebanon and Iraq in particular are vulnerable; they, too, have sectarian and communal rivalries” connected to the fight between the Assad regime and the Sunni-dominated, US-backed opposition.
The piece, written by Vali Nasr, Dean of the Johns Hopkins School of International Studies, warns that if Assad should fall from power, over 100 different opposition groups inside Syria would continue to fight for power with each other and with members of the Alawite, Shiite, Christian, and Druze religious minorities, threatening to turn Syria into “a larger version of Lebanon in the 1970s … There would be ethnic cleansing, refugee floods, humanitarian disasters and opportunities for Al Qaeda.”
The author advises that to avoid such a collapse, it is necessary for the US to foster a “power-sharing agreement” between elements of the opposition and members of the Assad regime.
The New York Times’ modest proposal, which amounts to a call for a post-Assad regime comprised of Sunni Islamist forces and Syrian military brass, echoes the line now being advanced by the Obama administration. According to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, the US government is “discussing ways to place Syria’s highest-ranking military defector [General Manaf Tlass] at the center of a political transition.”
Gen. Tlass, until recently a senior commander of Assad’s elite Republican Guard, defected to Turkey July 6, before traveling on to Paris with his family. He is currently engaged in a visit to Saudi Arabia, reportedly orchestrated by Saudi intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan.
Even if Washington could cobble together such a military-Islamist alliance to replace the current regime in Damascus, it would be no less brutal or reactionary than that of Assad. On the contrary, Washington would demand that its new client ruthlessly put down all opposition and impose US interests in Syria.
Adding further fuel to the explosive situation, an armed secessionist movement is spreading among Syria’s Kurdish minority. The Egypt Independent reported Saturday that Kurdish fighters have overrun several Syrian army installations and raised the slogan, “Free Kurdistan.”
Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga fighters and the Kurdish Workers Party, which has waged a protracted struggle with the Turkish state, are reported to be sponsoring the militants in northeastern Syria.
The presence of a Kurdish rebellion against Assad further expresses the deeply divided character of the Syrian opposition. The Syrian National Council (SNC), though headed by an ethnic Kurd, is opposed to Kurdish secession. The Turkish government, which plays host to the SNC and the Free Syrian Army command, is deeply opposed to any demands for an independent Kurdish state, however.
Despite the danger to the lives of millions in Syria and throughout the Middle East, Washington and its allies are escalating their reckless proxy war. To this end, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta began a five-day tour of the Middle East Sunday, during which he will discuss joint plans for regime-change in Syria with the governments of key US allies Israel, Egypt and Jordan.

Monday, July 23, 2012

PUBLIC MEETING: STOP THE GENOCIDE OF THE ROHINGYA'S OF MYANMAR


BHARTA BACHAO ANDOLAN
STOP THE GENOCIDE OF THE ROHINGYA'S OF MYANMAR

Tuesday, 24th July, In front of UN offices across the world

Press Announcement

PUBLIC MEETING

 
The people of India, South Asia & the rest of the world, need to wake up the ongoing genocide of the Rohingyas, which is an ethnic minority in Myanmar. The military junta has unleashed its might on a hapless people, who have nowhere to flee & are dying in the thousands, whilst lakhs have been reduced to refugees. We have thus organized a public meeting to draw the attention of the Indian government, political parties, peoples' organizations & the media who now need to get engaged & intervene, if we are to bring an end to this genocide of an entire people.

SPEAKERS:

SS YADAV, KISHORE JAGTAP, FEROZE MITHIBORWALA, SARFARAZ ARZU, MERAJ SIDDIQUI, SIDDHARTH UGADE, ASLAM GHAZI, MULNIWASI MALA, COM. ARUN VELASKAR, FARID KHAN, JAGDISH NAGARKAR,
JYOTI BADEKAR
TANVEER ALAM, ARIF KAPADIA,
POOJA BADEKAR & CHETNA BIRJE,
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VENUE: MARATHI PATRAKAR SANGH, OPP. CST, MUMBAI.

DATE: 24TH JULY TUESDAY AT 3.30PM

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organized by:

All India Buddhist Council, All-India Bodhgaya Mukti Andolan, Buddha Vihara Samanway Samiti,
Awami Bharat, Vidyarthi Bharti, Mahatma Jotiba Phule-Dr. Baba Saheb Ambedkar Vichar Manch, Hindu Vikasini, Muslim Intellectual Forum, Jamat i Islami (Maharashtra), Marathi Bharti, Muslim Students Organization of India (MSO), Bharat-Palestine Mukti Morcha, Free Palestine Campaign, Indian Youth for Palestine,
Urdu Markaz & Aligargh Muslim University Alumini Assoc. (Maharashtra)
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"The International Action Committee Stop the Ethnic Cleansing of Rohingya in Myanmar" -
is launching a day of solidarity for the Rohingya in Myanmar on the July 24th, 2012 .


The first ever international solidarity day for one of the most oppressed ethnic in the world is aim to alert the international community to stand in support for the Rohingya struggle for survival and to reclaim their rights as original descendent of the once sovereign nation of Arakan which is now part of Myanmar after British declared independence in 1948.


This day is a united voice of the international community to call for Myanmar to stop the ongoing massacre and continuous oppression by the military junta and government of Myanmar against the Rohingya.


This is a wake up call to the world not to ignore the plight of ethnic Rohingya Muslims who are about to be exterminated from their own land in Arakan .


The committee will be handing over a special note to all the UN regional offices in the world on the same day with representatives from all civil societies , religious and non religious groups .


The following programs will take place simultaneously in the cities all over the world :


1. Gathering in front of the UN offices in different countries with banners and placards

            - Stop the genocide of Rohingya
            - Punish the Perpetrators of Massacre of Rohingyas in Myanmar
            - Rohingyas are Not illegal Immigrants
            - Stop Racism and Hate Campaign Against Rohingya Muslims
            - Stop the Bloodshed in Arakan
            - No to Expelling of Rohingya from Myanmar
            - Restore the Nationality of Rohingya as Myanmar Citizens
            - UN must intervene to stop Myanmar Killings
            - Bangladesh must open Border - Safe the Rohingya Refugees

2. Reading out a public declaration in solidarity with the Rohingya community


3. Declaring in one Voice one Slogan " Stop the Ethnic Cleansing in Myanmar"


4. Handing over of Special Note to UN representative endorsed by national and international NGOs


5. Press Conference.
 

Saturday, July 21, 2012

Asghar Ali Engineer | We had a Sir Syed, we need an Ambedkar

 Supriya Nair

Asghar Ali Engineer talks of social justice and the centrality of secular democracy to the lives of Indian Muslims



Mumbai: Born in 1939 as the son of a Bohra Muslim priest in Rajasthan, Asghar Ali Engineer, 72, went on to become an engineer, but also chose to study Islam alongside, becoming a scholar and, eventually, a reformer. His intramural arguments for reforms have made an extensive contribution to an Islamic liberation theology, the phrase first mooted by Latin American priests to describe an interpretation of Christian teachings in the context of social justice. An advocate for gender equality and secular democracy, Engineer also leads the Progressive Dawoodi Bohra reform movement, critical of authoritarianism in the Bohra priesthood.
His most personal book, the autobiography, A Living Faith: A Quest for Peace, Harmony and Social Change, released earlier this month. Engineer, who received the Right Livelihood Award in 2004 for promoting communal and religious coexistence in South Asia, spoke to Mint about his life and work as a reformer and the state of Indian secularism. Edited excerpts:
How did you begin your work as a scholar and a reformer?
Paradigm shift: Ali says any uprising in the Middle East and the Arab world shows that Muslims aspire to democracy today as much as anyone. Abhijit Bhatlekar/Mint
Paradigm shift: Ali says any uprising in the Middle East and the Arab world shows that Muslims aspire to democracy today as much as anyone. Abhijit Bhatlekar/Mint
I am the son of a priest. I was brought up in a very orthodox atmosphere, and studied Arabic, Persian, began to study Quran. I was very rigid in interpreting Islam, but I had non-Muslim friends, and always thought of mercy and justice as important values. So when communal riots took place in Jabalpur in 1961, when I was studying engineering in Indore, I was seriously disturbed and decided to investigate. I came to understand that it was a clash of interests, not of religions, that led to violence. All the subsequent riots which I investigated confirmed my conclusion. I came over to Mumbai in 1962, and it became my mission in life that communal harmony should prevail.
You’ve been called an Islamic “modernizer”. Is that a word you accept?
Yes, in a way. I believe we have to revise our understanding of the Quran. I divide all religious scriptures into what I call contextual and normative parts. The values of the scripture, which are normative, remain constant and universal. But because rituals are specific, if you want to be known as Muslim or Hindu or Christian or Buddhist or Jain, it is possible only through rituals, not through values alone. The contextual interpretations of scriptures must be subject to change.
So there are definitely contextual statements in the Quran, though its values are permanent. It talks, for example, of gender equality, but this was never accepted in practice by Muslims because of their patriarchal or feudal societies, in which gender equality was unthinkable. We often mix culture with religious thinking, which is what many attacking Islam confuse.
What has your own experience working for gender equality within Indian Islam been like?
Nobody can deny that there has been a lot of progress. Things are changing fast. There may be readers or TV watchers who notice the media’s focus on fatwas issued by mullahs and believe that Muslim women are still as backward as they were 1,400 years ago. It gives the impression that Islam is inherently orthodox. That, I challenge.
A middle class and upper middle class among Muslims is being educated fast, and challenging priests. In Mumbai recently, when a priest issued a fatwa that women should stay at home and not participate in public arenas, they called a press conference, put up a photograph of that priest and beat the photograph with shoes. I don’t approve of such violent expression, but nevertheless the sentiment was obvious.
But is that true of rural India as well?
No. It’s largely in urban India, and within that, only the educated middle class. A large number of Muslim women in cities today earn a pittance as domestic help or in manual labour.
What do you see as the primary instrument in driving social change for women?
I would say proper education. I consider Indian formal education part of the problem rather than the solution. Look at the way medieval history is taught—that all Muslim rulers did was sack Hindu temples. Children grow up with those prejudices. Take gender relations. We just saw a textbook in which it is written: a good woman is an obedient wife, serves her husband, cooks food in time to give children breakfast so that they can go to school.
Madrasas are very rigid. They teach syllabi devised during Aurangzeb’s time and mullahs refuse to change. I have been an advocate for the modernization of madrasa education, but for mullahs, modernization means what? Computers? But computers are a tool. The computer is not a sign of modernity if you are not modernizing knowledge.
Are there any madrasas which are experimenting?
There are. Not only have they modernized, they have secularized the population of their madrasas. There is a madrasa in Allahabad where 40% of the children are Hindus. Parents send their children there because the standard of teaching is much better than in a government school. Muslims produced a Sir Syed (Ahmed Khan, who established the Aligarh Muslim University in 1875). Sir Syed’s main thrust was for zamindars and the children of zamindars. Ambedkar worked for the poorest of the poor. I say Muslims now need to produce an Ambedkar.
How do orthodoxy and secular democracy interact in India?
Here, all ulema, even the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, very different from its Pakistani counterpart, welcome secularism. They can exercise their freedom only in secular India. Somebody in Malaysia once asked me after a lecture, “Brother, are you a Muslim?” I said yes, very much so. He said, “How can you support secular democracy? Secularism is haraam (forbidden) in Islam.” I said, you live in a country where Muslims are in an overwhelming majority. Come and live in India with me and you will realize what secularism means.
In the game of interests, modernized Muslims, led by Jinnah, thought that in independent India they would get no power, justice or jobs, and that it would be better to have a homeland in the name of Islam. For the ulema, the priority was to live in a country where they were free to follow their religion. The Jamiat-Ulama-i-Hind officially rejected partition and supported the Congress and secular democracy.
That is why personal laws persist. Of course, the Uniform Civil Code is one way to achieve more gender justice, but then it has other dangers. I think that rather than wasting time promoting a code that will never be accepted by minorities, it is better to work for gender equality from within the culture itself.
You’ve written extensively on Islam’s compatibility with pluralism and democracy. What did you think as you watched the Arab Spring begin?
It is a welcome sign. A people’s uprising in the Middle East and the Arab world shows that Muslims aspire to democracy as much as anyone might. It also refutes the charge that Islam is an inherently violent religion; if the protests turned violent, it was because of the dictators’ supporters, or Western intervention.
Don’t you think India has shifted more sharply towards majoritarianism in the last two decades?
Yes, it has become more majoritarian. The Congress’ principles are secular and democratic, but for every policy decision it now looks towards the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) to gauge its reaction.
You see, the middle class is becoming more important in policymaking and the middle class tends to go with the BJP, first because of support for Hindutva, and second because they feel threatened by reservations. Look at this anti-corruption movement of (Anna) Hazare. It began as a purely upper-caste, middle-class urban movement. Perhaps consciously or unconsciously the thought is that today, if you can bring pressure on this (Lokpal) Bill, tomorrow we can do this for reservations.