Politics

In September 2005, The  Jyllands-Posten right wing conservative newspaper publish 12 cartoons, including some of Prophet Muhammad. These images are deeply offensive to Muslims, since most of them portrayed him as being the cause of terrorism or violence.

The Cartoons

While some of the images are fairly neutral, some are indeed very offensive. The most offensive images are:

• Showing him as the typical Hollywood evil Arab with menacing features, with his turban as a bomb about to explode.
• Showing him as a man who has a halo that is also two horns, associating Muhammad as a devil or as Satan.
• Showing him as a bushy browed, unruly beard and with two veiled woman (implying polygamy). This also has the stereotypical menacing evil Arab look, and holding a scimitar.
• Showing him at the gates of heaven telling incoming suicide bombers "Stop! Stop! We ran out of virgins".

These images are very offensive to a Muslim, since they mock a person held in high regard and central to the religion. They are more offensive since they directly associate contemporary terrorism and violence with the prophet himself, saying indirectly that  he is main cause of Muslims being uncivilized savages, barbarians, ...etc. rather than attributing terrorism to its real root causes.
 
The Jyllands-Posten newspaper insisted that it is a Danish tradition to lampoon religious figures, and that they would do that to any religion, despite recent revelations that they refused to publish cartoons of Jesus.

In an earlier article, I noted the diverse backgrounds of the local candidates for the federal elections.

Today, I will describe the process of the election here in Canada, as a personal experience, mainly for my non-Canadian readers.

The process started by filing the taxes for tax year 2004 in March 2005. One of the questions is whether one would want to be on the elector list. Canada Revenue Agency sends the name and address to Election Canada.

An interesting observation about the local race for federal representation in the local riding: none of the candidates for the mainstream parties are Canadian born!

Liberal candidate Andrew Telegdi, a career politician, and the current incumbent was born in Hungary.

Conservative candidate Ajmer S. Mandur is an India-born Sikh who came to Canada as a teenager.  He owns two small businesses

NDP candidate Edwin Laryea is from Ghana. He worked as a teacher, and is a newcomer to politics.

Of course there are other small players who have no parliament presence so far, such as the Green Party, who is represented by candidate Pauline Richards (born in England as well). The religious Christian Heritage Party did not field a candidate locally. The only Canadian born candidate in the riding is Julian Ichim, running for the  Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist).

It seems that Ariel Sharon's stroke is being attributed to the Pulsa DiNura ("lashes of fire") that was placed on him by extremist Jews for pulling out of the Gaza strip. Pat Robertson seems to agree on this, saying that this is God's punishment, and noting that Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated.

Menachem Fruman, a Jewish Orthodox Rabbi in the West Bank settlement of Tekoa, and head of a religious seminary there, has stated that he would not mind living under Palestinian rule. He also says that had talks with Yasser Arafat and Ahmed Yassin where the latter said that "you and me can make peace in five minutes". In the  same article though, an immigrant from the form Soviet Union stated that he would not accept living under Palestinian rule.The pragmatism of the Rabbi is to be commended, and shows that not all religious people are extremist. It shows that extremism and absolutism is a mindset of its own. 

In a recent speech, US President George W. Bush stated that his policy in Iraq is to "stay the course" and not "allow the terrorist to break our will" and "not permit Al Qaeda to turn to Iraq to what Afghanistan was under the Taliban, a safe haven for terrorists and a launching pad for attacks on America". One should remember that none of these "terrorists" were in Iraq before the USA invaded in 2003. Al Qaeda had no presence before that time. These "terrorists" flocked to Iraq as a direct result of the invasion: mainly fuelled by the mere presence of invading forces inflaming emotions by the invasion, but also by the instability and power vacuum in the country that insued after the Saddam regime fell.

The Washington Post has a good article by David Luban, professor at Georgetown University Law Center, and visiting professor at Stanford University Law School. The article is titled Torture, American Style. NPR also has Luban as a guest on "The Debate Over Torture", with the other side represented by neo-conservative ideologue Charles Krauthammer, who is a member of the Project for the New American Century, and a columnist for the Weekly Standard.

I have previously written how Gwyn Dyer has characterized the Egyptian Presidential Elections as a Cynical Farce. Now, the third phase of the Egyptian Parliamentary Elections for 2005 has closed, and similarly it is a cynical farce too.

It is a known fact that US missiles made their way to Al Jazeera offices in Kabul, Afghanistan in 2001, and Baghdad in 2003.

What is making the news these days is an alleged leaked memo that Bush wanted to bomb Al Jazeera offices, but Blair disagreed. The source is The Daily Mirror, which is mostly a tabloid.

The White House denies that there was ever such a plan, and the ever so eloquant Blair said it is a conspiracy theory. 

Al Jazeera officals have requested a meeting with Blair to discuss the issue. Staffers at Al  Jazeera have started a "Don't Bomb Us" blog!

Here is an example of why marginalization of minorities is bad for the whole of society.The largest minority group in France are immigrants from North Africa, namely Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. Coming initially from former colonies as cheap labor, they settled in low income run down housing complex in poor suburbs.While the French society puts pressure on immigrants, accepting nothing less than full assimilation (not mere integration), that society never accepts foreigners who have a different language, different religion, different skin color, and different customs.The result is a no-win situation that leaves many youth feeling alienated. They only have mediocre education if any, have no permanent jobs, and have no hope of keeping up. Many succumb to drugs, crime, or religious radicalism.