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Manuel Valenzuela
We are the lifeblood of the conglomerate, of vital importance, and, as such, it is in its best interest to control as much of our lives as possible, transforming us into obedient servants of obliviousness. We have allowed the oligarchy to hide the keys of democracy while we carelessly follow it on the road to fascism, where the elite have control of all aspects of our lives, including our mind.
Rami G. Khouri
The big question that haunts Iraq today, and that has traumatized much of the modern Arab world, is “Will the Iraqis be given an opportunity to decide their own fate?” This is not a frivolous question. The fact is, the Iraqis did not have a choice or a voice when their country was manufactured by the British colonial office early last century. Perhaps this is why, for the second time in a century, the British Army is in Basra again, ruling an occupied people and contemplating their future condition.
Benjamin Zephaniah
In a few weeks the good subjects of Britain will be given the annual announcement of the ?New Year Honours List?. Each year, a predictable collection of celebrities, politicians, business leaders, and general philanthropists, are ?honoured? by the Queen, in a list actually composed by the Prime Minister. The awards have been traditionally given only to ?pillars of the establishment?, but Tony Blair has broadened out the list to include ‘safe’ representatives of ?the minions?, to suit his vision of ?Cool Britannia?. Although invited, one person definitely NOT given an award (or any other, after this article) will be the poet Benjamin Zephaniah. Here, he gives his reason for turning down the offer to bend his head in front of the Queen, to become an ?Officer of the Order of the British Empire?.
Charles R. Steward III
The capture of the town was relatively easy. The colonel in charge of the occupation tells the local mayor his people must cooperate. The mayor replies, “I don’t know, sir. They are orderly under their own government.” The colonel informs the mayor, “They will be in danger if they are rebellious. We must get coal, you see. Our leaders do not tell us how; they order us to get it. But you have your people to protect. You must make them work and thus keep them safe.” The mayor then asks, “But suppose they don’t want to be safe?”
Daoud Kuttab
If all things go as planned, Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will likely meet this week or the following one. For some time, the peoples of the region and outside officials and observers have been awaiting this important meeting. In fact, this meeting has been awaited ever since Sharon took power in the 2001 Israeli elections.
David Enders
Paul Bremer?s ?Coalition Provisional Authority? admits to holding around five thousand Iraqi detainees, although other official estimates vary from 20,000 to 50,000. Many of them are imprisoned indefinitely and without charges. David Enders from Occupation Watch here gives a story about attempts to track down one man - a journalist - who has been imprisoned by the occupation forces in a Kafkaesque system of arbitrary, violent injustice, that gives the lie to USA claims that it is creating a free democracy in Iraq.
Robyn E. Blumner
The quotes from retired General Tommy Franks, warning of dangers to freedom in the USA during the ‘war on terror’, bounced around faster than a Paris Hilton sex video. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman repeated the alarm when he said that virulent terrorism “is the most serious threat to open societies, because one more 9/11 and we’ll really see an erosion of our civil liberties.” These pundits and prognosticators are saying out loud what anyone who has been following the government’s actions since 9/11 already senses.
Abdulwahab Badrakhan
Before the war, the word was for any “peace of information” that would support the war, especially pertaining to the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Probably in all its history, the USA has never spent as much money on ‘nothingness’ as on Iraqi WMDs. Now the invasion is over, as was shown by James Baker’s recent appointment as George W Bush’s ‘personal envoy’, the word is for money, and this money determines the decisions and choices in Washington.
Nick Sommerlad
Earlier this year, for seven weeks the investigative reporter Nik Sommerlad was given the job of a security officer at the UK?s controversial ?Yarl?s Wood Detention Centre? for asylum seekers, in Bedfordshire. The brutal, racist, and violent nature of the regime that he saw on his assignment is a damning indictment of the UK Government’s human rights policy, and its public claim that it provides a “safe and caring” environment for those claiming refugee status in the country.
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