Andrew Sullivan on what’s at stake on November 4:
This election really is a classic battle between fear and hope. All Palin and McCain are offering right now is more fear: fear of a black man, fear of terrorism, fear of the other, fear of Iran, fear of the future, fear of Islam, fear of the truth. And above all: fear of defeat. On that last one, they’re rational. Which side are you on?
And more here.
All you need to know about yesterday’s presidential debate:
My following interview by Hamid Tehrani for Global Voices was published today:
Antony Loewenstein, a Sydney-based freelance journalist and blogger, has recently published his new book: The Blogging Revolution. This book talks about the impact of blogging on six countries: Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, China and Cuba.
He says:
I chose the six countries in the book because they are routinely referred to in the West as “enemies” or “allies” of Washington and we were rarely gaining true insights into life for average citizens, away from stories about “terrorism”. I wanted to talk to bloggers, writers, dissidents, politicians and citizens and hear their stories, removed from “official” perspectives.
Antony attended the Global Voices Summit 2008 in Budapest as a panelist. You can find several references to Global Voices in his book.
I interviewed him about the book:
Q: Before starting your trip to Iran, you wrote that you were skeptical that the internet on its own can bring real revolutionary change to this country. What do you mean by revolutionary change? And what do you think now?
The concept of revolution is a fluid term. I met few people in my travels that wanted great shifts in their country. My book profiles a number of dissidents and bloggers across the globe who are striving for political, social and moral change – including Saudi Arabia’s most famous blogger, Fouad Al-Farhan, recently released from prison for challenging his nation’s nepotistic rule – but they recognize that only a tiny minority of citizens would join them in massive upheavals.
The internet cannot on its own bring large change, but it can facilitate and empower people to find their voice and campaign openly. No technology has existed before the web to do this. I don’t idealise the internet, nor believe Western-style democracy is the goal of people in the countries I visited. Foreign meddling is largely resented, though opening up the lines of communication with Westerners is welcomed.
In Iran, after nearly thirty years of revolution, most young people I met were exhausted; what they don’t want is to be bombed by the US or Israel.
Q: You quoted an Iranian journalist who worked with international news agencies, and said that foreign media in Iran are only interested in nuclear issues and Al–Qaida. Don’t you think it is the same in other countries? After all, Iranians are more interested in the US elections than the American health care system. How do you see the role of blogs in covering the less “hot” issues in Iran?
Western media is currently in a massive crisis of confidence. Resources are declining, fewer journalists are being employed and localism is being celebrated. It’s therefore not surprising, though regrettable, that so many stories in our press about a place such as Iran is obsessed with Ahmadinejad, terrorism, Iraq or human rights. These are all vitally important issues, but they don’t define the place.
My book reveals a side of Iran that is rarely seen in our terrorism-obsessed media.
Living in Sydney, Australia, I see daily the obsession with the US election, as if we all have real influence over Barack Obama or John McCain’s campaigns.
Blogs in so-called repressive regimes cover issues that time-constrained and narrow Western journalists usually do not. For this reason alone, they should be discussed and promoted.
Q: Are there any real commonalities between the Iranian, Egyptian, Syrian and Saudi Arabian blogospheres, or any radical differences?
The Iranian and Egyptian blogospheres are large and growing, and influencing the political process. The regimes, recognizing this, are increasingly imprisoning bloggers and activists to try and silence them. International solidarity, from other bloggers and certain governments, is making the job of repressive regimes more difficult. Imprisoned bloggers won’t be forgotten.
I was impressed with the depth and diversity of the voices in both Egypt and Iran, something I feature extensively in the book, from the left to the right, women, activists and Islamists. Frankly, this scene is far more engaged than in many Western nations.
In Saudi Arabia, the blogosphere is less developed though still remains active. Censorship of “pornographic” sites is limited, though the regime is starting to fear the power of activists. Reading female bloggers – as a gender they’re actively marginalized in society – is refreshing if we want to understand this previously “silenced” group.
Q: What were the biggest challenges you faced writing this book and doing your research?
Gaining full access to some of the countries was challenging. Investigating the role of Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and other Western multinational firms and their collusion in web censorship in a state such as China. Protecting my sources was equally important. I took precautions before I contacted bloggers in most countries and when I arrived there.
A key aim of the book was to move away from the traditional role of Western journalist as a filter of quality. In every featured country, my perspective is unavoidable, of course, but I was determined to redefine my position in relation to the people I was interviewing. Their voices were far more important than mine.
Q: What do you think about the role of Global Voices in helping people learn about unheard voices? Any ideas for how to make Global Voices more efficient?
The strength of Global Voices is its ability to educate readers across the world about different countries and cultures, often issues and perspectives ignored by the myopic Western media. Language remains a key problem, however. More effort should be placed into finding connections between the West and the rest because the internet is currently a space where these two worlds rarely interact.
My following article appears in today’s edition of Crikey:
Antony Loewenstein, author of The Blogging Revolution, writes:
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was in New York last week and conducted a number of fascinating interviews that confirmed his chameleon nature. He told Democracy Now! — after expressing typical bigotry against homosexuals – that his country would accept a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians (despite the impossibility of now achieving this due to Israel’s colonial project).
The Guardian has reported this but few others. The Western media apparently didn’t think it was appropriate to mention this major shift in policy. The “new Hitler” is a far more necessary illusion.
It was just the latest example of Iran being the convenient punching bag in this US election season. Republican Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin has already said that Washington shouldn’t second-guess Israel if it wants to strike Iran.
Iran has become one of the leading foreign policies issues during the presidential election, but nuance has been completely lost behind bombastic rhetoric against Iran’s supposed threat. But what do Iranians themselves think about this? Blogs are a perfect way to gauge their mood.
Most appear to favour Barack Obama — due to the presumption that he’s less likely to launch military strikes — but both major candidates are faulted for issuing predictable and mis-guided talking points against Iran.
The blogosphere exploded after last week’s first presidential debate between John McCain and Barack Obama. Both men inaccurately called the Iranian Revolutionary Guards the Republican Guards and moderator Jim Lehrer failed to correct them.
Blogger Samsam1111 in Iranian.com wrote:
The old dude candidate while bragging about his immense foreign affairs expertise calls the regime Revolutionary Guards as Republican Guards. Hello! This is not Eye-raq, pal.
Other bloggers lamented the fact that Iran was the designated enemy and both candidates called her a real threat. Roznameh Negar No (which means New Reporter) argued: “The debate was not a very exciting one and it seems that insulting Iran is an a la mode story.”
But many Iranian bloggers were upset with Ahmadinejad’s claims in New York of respectable human rights in his country. Mojtaba Saminejad, a former jailed blogger who has been in prison for more than 20 months because of his writings, wrote:
Maybe Ahmadinejad is talking about another country … The President says that there are no political prisoners in Iran, but that there are many political prisoners in the USA. Denying this reality of all these political prisoners in Iran can only be a sign that the Islamic Republic knows it is violating human rights. If not, there is no need to talk about the USA when questions are being asked about Iran.
Despite the current Western rhetoric against Ahmadinejad – and I discovered during my visit in Iran last year that the local print and online media, despite the censorship, featured robust criticism of the leadership — blogger Hoder points out that former President Mohammad Khatami was equally inflammatory against the Jewish state.
But as the blogger notes:
If any of these had been said after Iran officially started its nuclear programme, they would have easily become strong points of anti-Iran propaganda, the same way Ahmadinejad’s words have become. Especially given how easily they can totally mistranslates and misquote anyone, if they want to.
And that is the key point. Robert Fisk explains that the Western powers actively need a “crackpot” running Iran. “We wanted Iran to be bad”, he said.
My latest article for New Matilda discusses the troubles ahead for Israel:
In mid-September, during the dying days of his leadership, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert boldly stated that the idea of “greater Israel is over. There is no such thing. Anyone who talks that way is deluding themselves…I arrived at the conclusion that we must share with those we live with, if we don’t want to be a bi-national state.”
It was a brave comment, albeit one by a discredited man. Israeli newspaper Haaretz editorialised on his departure that, “it is doubtful whether it [Israel] has ever known a worse [leadership] than that of Ehud Olmert…Its balance sheet, after two years and nine months, comes very close to zero.”
Although Olmert’s failures were massive — not least the futile 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah — he at least acknowledged the reality of the Jewish state’s precariousness in relation to the Palestinians. In late November 2007, Olmert admitted — for arguably cynical reasons — that “if the day comes when the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African style struggle for equal voting rights (also for the Palestinians in the territories), then, as soon as that happens, the state of Israel is finished.”
The tragic reality, however, is that the Jewish state is already on the path to self-inflicted destruction. Olmert sometimes said the right things, but his government’s actions merely entrenched the ever-expanding occupation and indulged the radical settler movement.
There will be little that incoming Prime Minister Tzipi Livni will do to eradicate this internal existential threat. As the famous Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery wrote last weekend: “Israeli fascism is alive and kicking.” The evidence for that is everywhere. And yet the international community only expresses concern over Palestinian “terrorism.”
The New York Times last week revealed the depth of the problem in a rare exposé: “There have been bouts of settler violence for years, notably during the transfer of Gaza to the Palestinians in 2005. Now, though, the militants seem to have spawned a broader, more defined strategy of resistance designed to intimidate the state…Hard-core right-wing settlers have responded to limited army operations in recent weeks by blocking roads, rioting spontaneously, throwing stones at Palestinian vehicles and burning Palestinian orchards and fields all over the West Bank, a territory that Israel has occupied since 1967. They have also vandalised Israeli Army positions, equipment and cars.”
The aim of these extremists is to establish a Taliban-style, rabbinical state to replace the current “secular” Israel. It may seem like a pipedream to most — not least the vast majority of Israelis who oppose the occupation project — but the attempt to uproot any major settlement blocs will incur a vicious response. A civil war between the state and radical Zionists is not unlikely in the years to come. And Israel will only have itself to blame.
On the political front, a group of leading NGOs last week released a report accusing global powers of failing to gain any tangible benefits for the Palestinians. Roadblocks, checkpoints, expanding colonies, settler violence and strangulation of Gaza are just some of the issues raised in the report. No wonder then, as Haaretz noted, that “the motivation to carry out terrorist attacks is increasing.” Arab radicalisation is guaranteed unless the lives of citizens drastically improve.
The answer is not co-opting the weakened Fatah-led Palestinian Authority into policing the occupation in a town such as Jenin (a strategy which was praised in a recent New York Times story). President Mahmoud Abbas is already perceived by many Palestinians, like his predecessor Yasser Arafat, as engaging for years with the Israelis and having nothing to show for it.
Abbas recently told Haaretz, in an interview clearly designed to please his Israeli and American backers, that his forces were “restoring order to the West Bank cities [and] taking steps against anyone who tries to undermine security and stability.”
Fine sentiments, except that the relationship remains one of colonial dependency. The Palestinians have to “prove” their seriousness to the Israelis and then one day, years down the track, the Jewish state may talk about withdrawing its forces and settlers from occupied territories. I’ve long argued that the facts on the ground in Palestine now make a full Israeli withdrawal a virtual impossibility. Therefore, the two-state “dream” is long dead and buried.
The future is one nation, well articulated by Ghada Karmi in The Guardian last week, amid the growing international calls for its implementation. Uncertainty in Israel is likely to continue long after a new Prime Minister is elected and the Americans select Barack Obama or John McCain in November.
The Zionist state appears paralysed and either unwilling or unable to carry out its obligation to decide its borders. It will therefore require a great deal of pressure to oblige it to do so. A good first step would be the complete cessation of military and financial aid to the Jewish state. Such a move would clarify the stakes in the minds of Israel’s corrupt political elite.
Of course, any analysis of Israel’s precarious position in the Middle East must include a discussion about Iran. News last week that Israel requested permission from the Bush administration in May to strike Iran’s suspected nuclear facilities, and Bush’s refusal, suggests that any attack is unlikely in the foreseeable future.
However, the fact that Washington and Israel have increased their secret war against Iran in the last years proves that Israel’s regional hegemony is being profoundly challenged, not least thanks to the Iraq war. “Should Israel accept that its era of nuclear monopoly in the Middle East has ended, asks Yossi Melman in Haaretz, “and assume a new role as a passive witness to a regional nuclear arms race?”
Despite the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed El-Baradei, claiming in a German newspaper last week that Iran appears to be on a path towards some kind of nuclear know-how, he admitted the wider context of the current tussle. “The Iranian issue at its heart is really a question of security,” he said. “The nuclear [part] is a symptom of an underlying sense of insecurity or a desire to be recognized as a major, regional power.”
Only direct talks between America and Iran can bring this about, something Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama hinted he would consider during his term in office in last week’s debate with John McCain. The Jewish state and its Diaspora courtiers fear such a normalisation of relations between the powers because it would threaten Israel’s long-held dominance of the region.
In a rare win for the forces opposed to the Zionist lobby in Washington, a long-pending (though non-binding) resolution that called for President George Bush to launch a blockade against Iran was shelved last week. The Australian Jewish News, meanwhile, must have missed reports of reduced tensions, saying in a September editorial, “with the rocky political climate in Israel, the logic appears to imply [military strikes] sooner rather than later. All we are waiting for [is] the time and date.”
How many more wars does the Zionist community believe Israel should launch?
While Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is notorious in the West for making often outrageous comments towards Jews and Israel, and denying the Holocaust, his interview with Democracy Now! during his recent visit to New York, suggested a softer tone. Despite a bigoted attitude towards homosexuals, Ahmadinejad claimed that Iran would support a two-state solution if the Palestinian people supported it. “This Zionist regime does not have a chance of remaining in the region,” he said, “because it has not established roots with the region. It’s like an alien creature that’s come into your body.” It may not be pretty language, but he’s sadly right. Israel’s major friends in the Middle East, namely Egypt and Jordan, are paid billions of dollars every year by Washington to maintain an alliance with the Jewish state.
Throughout all these debates, the mainstream Jewish Diaspora remains mired in delusion. Dr Ron Weiser, the former President of the Zionist Federation of Australia, highlighted this recently with an essay that talked about the importance of re-defining Zionism in the 21st century. With no mention of either the occupation or the Palestinians, it was as if this ideology operated in a vacuum.
In the comments section below Weiser’s essay, one reader perfectly expressed the mindset that I’ve spent years trying to challenge: “I believe God is with Israel and He has a strong hand in the continuing establishment of Israel.”
God has His work cut out for him.
Confused about the first US Presidential debate between McCain and Obama? Don’t be:
Why John McCain’s VP pick, Sarah Palin, knows about the “good guys” and “bad guys” in the Middle East. God help us all:
How most of the world truly feels about the US election campaign (courtesy of a wondeful blogger, The Cleverest):
Political Ad from Mike Solomon on Vimeo.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaks to CNN and host Larry King can’t seem to understand why the Islamic Republic may be upset that the US supported Saddam Hussein for many years:
Women have a very tough job of seeming credible in the US presidential election campaign. Really?
How normal is torture to the American political elite in this election cycle?
