New Trend Magazine (www.newtrendmag.org)
[We bring a variety of viewpoints to season our offerings. Editors need
not
agree with the views expressed in part or entirely. Here veteran
journalist
Jalaluddin Hussain reflects on the aftermath of the Sharon offensive as
well
as on issues in Canada and Pakistan.]
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But first two comments. First from another New Trend veteran, Dr.
Edward
Miller, who writes from San Rafael, California on the suffering of
Palestinian children vs the few Catholic children being publicized:
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"I've suggested to my catholic friends that they encourage their
Bishops,
whenever they get media time to deal briefly with the molestation
problem...but always add that the few children damaged by their
priesthood in no way compare with the millions of Palestinian kids who
lives
have and are being forever damaged by Israels' Mideast savagery
which has
physically maimed thousands of kids, denied millions more adequate
health
care, education and any prospect for a secure future.. not to mention
the
thousand or so killed by Israeli soldiers.. ......while the Jews
continue to
desecrate Bethlehem, Christianity's holiest site......... I
encourage the church to use the words PALESTINIAN HOLOCAUST ..to
lessen the
campaign value of that word by world Jewry.
Muslims...whom
the Jews are also targetting better fight alongside their Christian
brothers."
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In response to our report on the arrest of a Muslim charity director,
in
which we urged Minister Farrakhan, Imam W. D. Muhammad, ICNA and ISNA
leaders
to speak out strongly, Imam Warithuddin 'Umar writes from Albany, New
York:
"It's unfortunate that we can't depend on the American Muslim
organizations
to stand up for the Muslim causes. Words won't motivate them. It will
take a
more shocking event such as an attack on them to get them up and more
approprioately involved. One of Allah's attributes is Al Jabbar (The
Inforcer). In sha' llah The Good Lord (Ya Rabb) is Khairul Makreena,
The Best
Planner."
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Montreal Perspectives
By Jalaluddin S. Hussain
Insensitive news item
I am highly provoked at the seemingly insensitive heading of one of the
news
items in daily, "The Gazette", Montreal, of May 2, 2002. It reads: As
Israelis free Arafat, fire erupts near Church. A sinister suggestion,
to say
the least, as if nothing would have happened to the Church, if Arafat
were
not freed! The Israelis might be saying: "Arafat is a problem, all
the
time! When we put him under arrest he is a problem, when we free him
he is a
problem. Either way he is a bad guy"!
Dead bodies cleared: no massacre, nothing to investigate!
The text of the news item talks about Israeli tanks and troop trucks
rumbling
out of Arafat's battered compound, whisking away the six wanted
Palestinians
to a West Bank jail in a U.S. and British armored convoy. There are
only
seven lines about the fire in the Church of Nativity, in spite of the
heading, and 70 lines, about Jenin , about the disbanded UN
fact-finding team
and about Shimon Peres' apologetic explanation, that why UN probe
should not
happen. After all, no massacre had taken place, according to Peres.
On the
contrary, the fact is that the Israeli army got ample time to get rid
of the
dead bodies in a week's time and therefore there was really nothing to
"investigate"!
Moderate Arab governments' push: did it really work?
It is a moot question, if the moderate Arab governments' push,
including that
of Egypt's Saudi Arabia's and Jordan's, worked and because of their
respective pushes or persuasions, President Bush was compelled to
exert
slight pressure on his client state, Israel, to give in a little and
show
some mercy on the Palestinian chief, Yasser Arafat. If no Ramallah
withdrawal would have taken place the Palestinian chief might have
still been
stuck in his few rooms! I ask, when all the Muslim countries will
finally
wake up and take effective retaliatory measures against the two real
rogue
and terrorist States: The United States of America and Israel?
Israel Asper stands by Israel
The Gazette, the only English daily of Montreal is owned by CanWest
Global.
This media conglomerate's owner, Israel Asper is a proud Zionist and
an
Israel supporter obviously. He is a sole stakeholder of more than a
dozen
newspapers, throughout Canada, owns a network of radio stations and
also a
chain of TV stations! He is hell-bent on making a mockery of his
newspapers,
including daily, The Gazette, by speaking openly in favor of fascistic
policies of the Government of Israel and in the process effectively
corroding
the credibility and objectivity of his own print and electronic media.
Looking at this scary situation, and in the interest of promoting
objectivity
of the print media academic, like Enn Raudsepp, the Director of
Journalism at
Concordia University, Montreal, has come up with the idea of setting
up an
Inquiry Commission, which can probe publicly the state of newspaper
ownership
in Canada. Many journalists, journalism professors and political
leaders,
including those in the Canadian Senate and House of Commons, have
supported
this idea of an inquiry. While the Kent Commission, set up a few
decades
ago, thought that 5 per cent of national circulation of newspapers, was
enough for any one newspaper owner, the CanWest Global today owns more
than a
third of total national readership. This concentration and control of
media
in one hand is simply preposterous. Enn Raudsepp, while right in
questioning
this concentration and control, wants the Inquiry Commission to answer
some
of the following questions:
- What rights of access, if any, do the public have to private media?
- What happens when ownership rights square off with public needs and
expectations?
- How critical are newspapers to our news and information needs?
Dignified way for the Palestinians
While Israeli tanks and troops rumbled out of Yasser Arafat's battered
compound on May 1, 2002, after heroic resistance by Yasser Arafat and
his
loyal followers, Ramallah lies in ruins now. "It is a ghost town",
mentions
Trudy Rubin of Knight Ridder news service in one of her recent columns.
"
Piles of garbage rots in streets, torn up by tank treads, parked cars
have
been crushed like tin cans by tanks and Palestine National Authority
ministry
buildings are deserted". After reading columnist Trudy Rubin's column,
one
wonders what options of actions are left for the Palestinians. Is it to
endure indefinitely the re-occupation and abject surrender, to
negotiate an
Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza or to find some
quislings to
run the Palestinian affairs, in cooperation with Israel. To my mind,
all the
above options are not worth even considering. The only way is to
single-mindedly and steadfastly work for the establishment of a
dignified
and free Palestinian state, by calling for the implementation of the
various United Nations' resolutions, calling for the dismantling of
post
-1967 Israeli settlements (and they are being by the dozens every
day!),
demanding for the right of return of diaspora-Palestinians and finally
seeking effective help from the world community, in re-building a
strong
sovereign Palestine, on a sound social, economic and political basis.
Get at the core of the problem to rid the world of terrorism!
A "National Post" daily news item, dated April 30, 2002, emanating from
Vancouver, Canada, talks about Sunni Muslim extremists of al-Qaida,
being a
global threat, for years to come. Ward Elcock, Head of the Canadian
Security
Intelligence Services (CSIS), in a recent report, prepared for a
Conference
on Terrorism and Technology being held in Whistler, British Columbia,
in
near future, reveals that "… even though their (al-Qaida's) capacity
has
been degraded or disrupted, it will take some time, perhaps years, to
deal
with those elements and assure ourselves that threat has been
defeated".
While the CBS TV program, 60-Minutes in USA and Mr. Elcock of CSIS in
Canada
can, within their own functional jurisdictions report about the causes
of
growing fear and incidence of terrorism, it is important at the same
time to
emphasize that, in the last analysis the most effective way of nipping
the
terrorism in the bud, is to solve on a political and global level the
heart-rending problems of extreme poverty, hunger and deprivation. It
may
sound simplistic, but it is true that many of the festering and
lingering
problems in South America, Africa, Middle East, Europe and in South
Asia are
due to the extremes of economic, social, and political deprivations and
removal of the causes will greatly reduce the occurrence and incidence
of
terrorism and violent upheavel in the world. But the moot question is:
are
we ready for this global resolution of these age-old problems? Are
the
elite, privileged and powerful ready to give up their benefits
advantages
and luxuries, voluntarily and on their own?
Pakistan needs grassroots revolution
Although Asma Jehangir, the Pakistan Human Rights Commission (PHRC)
member,
has accused Pakistan's military government of committing gross
irregularities in the holding of April 30 referendum, I think that the
political leaders of Pakistan are also equally to be blamed for this
sad
state of affairs prevailing in the country. During the last 55 years
of
Pakistan‘s existence, the political leaders had every opportunity to
let
Pakistan evolve on democratic lines. But they did not avail of this
opportunity. Whether it was Nawabzada Nasrullah (the inveterate and
habitual
political party coalition-builder), the Nawaz Sharif family and the
Bhutto
family, they all had the opportunity to play constructive and
democratic
roles, but they did not do so. For PHRC, the referendum exercise may
be a
"humiliating fraud" but somehow they have to come out of their
cocoons, of
vested interests, and start participating at the grassroots levels,
with
definite and well-defined social, economic and political programs.
Unless
they do so, no change is going to happen automatically and the country
cannot
come out of the vicious cycle of military dictatorships.
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2002-05-03 Fri 23:46ct