Archive for July, 2005

Jordan Statement by Islamic Leaders

There’s been little or no reporting in the Western press of a statement made by 170 Islamic leaders, meeting under the auspices of the King of Jordan in Amman on the 6th of July. The statement’s significance is two-fold - the scholars, who come from both Shi’ite and Sunni schools - affirm that only religious scholars from the eight recognised Islamic Schools of Jurisprudence may issue fatwas or binding religious rulings. This deprives statements made by Osama Bin Laden of any religious legitimacy. The second implication of the statement is that recognised Islamic leaders condemn and distance Islam as a religion from the atrocities committed by Political Islamists. As the King of Jordan said:

As a start, let us confess that we, Muslims, have not always fulfilled our obligations towards our religion and towards ourselves. Some Muslims, or those who promulgate “Islamic” slogans, have defamed Islam and Muslims, and harmed Muslims, intentionally or non-intentionally.

The divisions between the children of the Ummah, acts of violence and terrorism practiced by some groups and organizations, what is going on in Iraq, Pakistan and other Muslim countries in the form of accusations of apostasy and the killing of Muslims in the name of Islam, do not correspond to the principles and spirit of Islam, and Islam disavows them. Such practices generate turmoil and corruption on earth, because they give justification to non-Muslims to judge Islam according to acts that Islam disavows, and subsequently interfere in Muslims’ affairs.

Elsewhere: I’d like to draw attention to this excellent post on Qur’anic interpretation at Dervish.

Pope Benedict and Israel

In an earlier post on The Pope and Islam, I noted some remarks that Benedict XVI made regarding terrorism. As it happens, a condemnation Benedict made of terrorism in the immediate aftermath of the second attempts at public transport bombings in London and the atrocities in Egypt has occasioned no small measure of controversy. Benedict said at his weekly Angelus address on 24 July:

Even these days of tranquillity and rest have been disturbed by the tragic news of the despicable terrorist attacks that have caused death, destruction and suffering in various countries, such as Egypt, Turkey, Iraq and Great Britain. As we entrust to divine goodness the deceased, the injured and their loved ones, victims of these acts that offend God and man, let us invoke the Almighty so that he may stop the murderous hand of those motivated by fanaticism and hatred who have committed them, and convert their hearts to thoughts of reconciliation and peace.

You’d have thought this was unexceptional, and would be echoed by all people of good will. Not so. Exception was taken by the Government of Israel, who claimed that the Pope should have condemned recent attacks by Palestinians, and later asserted that the Vatican had a long standing policy of not condemning attacks on Israeli citizens, allegedly demonstrated by “the silences of Pope John Paul II”. Use of this particular wording can only be intended to recall the controversy over whether Pope Pius XII failed to speak up against the Holocaust.

The Israeli government has a long history of disarming any criticism by illegitimately assimilating it to inaction or complicity with regard to The Holocaust.

The Vatican has hit back.

Continue reading ‘Pope Benedict and Israel’

Chavez Ravine

Something different for an LP Saturday evening.

I lived in Los Angeles for 2 ¬Ω years. I got to know Hollywood well, the Valley and even the rougher areas of Downtown LA. Driving around LA one can sense the past history. In certain run-down areas there are still glimpses into a vibrant past largely forgotten or rarely mentioned. But it was something that I never accessed and is a regret in hindsight.

Over the past week I have been introduced to little known incident in the history of LA via legendary guitarist and musicologist Ry Cooder. His brilliant new album, Chavez Ravine, documents the political and sociological history of the destruction of Mexican-American community on the 1950s.

If you go to LA today you will find Chavez Ravine is the home of Dodger Stadium. In the 1950s Chavez Ravine was a thriving and tight, self-sufficient village. However it was targeted for development and the residents forcibly removed via eminent domain from their homes (a photo album by photographer Don Normark shows Chavez Ravine as it was). Initially it was for a housing project that never eventuated. After a decade of lies, broken promises and McCarthy era communist hysteria the land eventually became the baseball stadium. A community was lost forever.

The album Chavez Ravine has three parts. The first 4 songs set up the beginning of the story and provide the social and political context. The next 4 provide a glimpse into the community of Chavez Ravine via some vibrant and thrilling music. With the ethereal and gorgeous song El U.F.O. Cayo providing the transition (the Space Vato comes via UFO to warn the residents, who don’t listen, of what is to come), the final 5 songs document the demolition of Chavez Ravine and the aftermath. Lyrics in Spanish and English are provided for all the songs.

And even though the story is tragic, the music if far from sad. Muy Fifi and 3 Cool Cats sizzle and burn. Los Chucos Sauves, first recorded in 1949, shows how dangerous the mambo really is (especially for those like me who usually would never grace a dance floor). Even Onda Callejera which is about the Zoot Suit Riots moves to a beautiful (though a touch melancholy) groove.

Cooder does not confine the story to those who lived in Chavez Ravine. Don’t Call Me Red tells the story of Frank Wilkinson. Wilkinson was an administrator with the Los Angeles Public Housing Authority. He was the subject of a McCarthy style witch hunt which lead to abandonment of the original housing project intended for Chavez Ravine. It’s Just Work For Me tells of the demolition of Chavez Ravine from the viewpoint of one of the dozer drivers.

The barrio of Chavez Ravine was far from any world I know. Yet Ry Cooder makes their history as tangible as if it was part of anyone’s heritage. It is a remarkable collection of music. It makes you want to dance, it makes you want to sing and makes you want to mourn a neighbourhood lost to the corruption and greed of politics.

Saturday Salon

An open thread where you can, at your weekend leisure, discuss whatever you like.

Nude for Klimt

The Leopold Museum has a fantastic exhibition of works by Oskar Kokoschka, Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele and Richard Gerstl entitled The Naked Truth, should you be in Vienna. The catch? The Museum recommends you attend nude.

Vienna’s Leopold Museum has invited the public to come in the nude to view an exhibition of erotic works by Austrian masters like Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele, a spokeswoman says.

“At this time of the year, people prefer the beach to museums because there they get to take their clothes off. So we thought they find this an attractive proposition,” Verena Dahlitz told AFP.

She says the more bashful could wear bathing suits.

The odd thing about this story is that when I read it, I thought of something most remarkable I saw in town the other weekend. We all, I think, have those anxiety dreams where you’ve gone to work or wherever having forgotten to - um, put clothes on. But I don’t think we expect them to come true. I was walking past a coffee shop on a bitterly cold day - very windy and the maximum was 17 - the coldest so far this winter in Brissie - and saw a 40 something woman standing in the cafe naked. Completely. She looked disorientated and security guards were speaking with her.

I thought then - her dream has come true.

Nakedness is so contextual. What’s normal and encouraged in an Austrian museum is not just forbidden or transgressive but amazingly surreal in a Brisbane cafe.

Would you get nude for Klimt?

Where is nakedness normal or transgressive or just, well, bizarre?

How do you respond when people are inappropriately naked?

Winter Sunshine, Kim’s Canonical Texts… and Sin

Incidentally, where did the annoying phrase “Christmas in July” come from?

But I digress before I’ve begun.

Thanks to the wonders of technology, you will be reading this post sometime around midnight in your freezing cold room, or on a nippy morning with a hearty croissant and cup of tea. But it’s pre-programmed to post now, and is actually being written by yours truly in her purple bikini at an Internet cafe in Noosa at 2pm on a lovely warm 24 degree day, with that special Queensland winter light and not a cloud in the sky.

I decided that the weather warranted an escape to the beach for a few days.

Lest you think I’m writing just to make you jealous, or to urge you to join the rest of us in the Western world’s second fastest growing urban region here in Quinceland, I am randomly going to make some observations relevant to recent posts. Since I’m, like, not spending my time commenting right now.

Okay, here’s one that continues my guided tour of the best of the literary canon. And it’s relevant to lots of recent LP discussion. Deconstruct if you like, or not as the case may be. Just picture me as your High School English teacher. This is from the last chapter of Joseph Roth’s The Radetzky March, where Baron von Trotta, having walked from the Insane Asylum to the Palace of Schonbrunn stands outside in the rain and imagines the thoughts of Emperor Franz Joseph, who lays dying. The Emperor knows the Capuchin friar will soon be visiting to confess him:

“I’ve had to wait a long time!”, he said. Then he thought about his sins. “Pride” occurred to him. “I was proud!” he said.

He went through sin after sin, as listed in the catechism. I was emperor for too long! he mused. But he thought he had said it aloud. “Everyone has to die. The Kaiser dies too.” And he felt as if at the same time, that part of him that was imperial was dying. “War is also a sin!” he said aloud. But the priest didn’t hear him. Franz Joseph was again surprised. Every day brought casualty lists; the war had been raging since 1914. “Let it end!” said Franz Joseph. No one heard him. “If only I’d been killed at Solferino!” he said. No one heard him. Perhaps, he thought, I’m already dead and I’m talking as a dead man. That’s why they don’t understand me. And he fell asleep.

And here’s a quote from Pope Benedict, which just about sums up how I’m feeling just now:

In the world in which we live, the need to be physically and mentally replenished has become as it were essential, especially to those who dwell in cities where the often frenzied pace of life leaves little room for silence, reflection and relaxing contact with nature.

Amen to that!

Deakin Law Op/Edder Strikes Again

Some time ago, I wrote a piece at Online Opinion on the views of a Deakin Uni Law academic, James McConvill, on public intellectuals. I expressed some scepticism that his contributions to public debate, and the arguments of his senior colleague Mirko Bagaric in favour of legalised torture (both of which I’ve written about extensively at LP), were in fact legitimate exercises in disseminating the fruits of academic research. Rather, they seemed to me to be pitching outrageous and controversial views in the interests of establishing a niche in the (lucrative) op/ed market.

I’ve been keeping track of discussion at Catallaxy on Macquarie Law academic Andrew Fraser’s alignment with Neo-nazi groups, and his views on race (which would not seem to fall within the professional competence of a public lawyer):

An associate professor in the Department of Public Law, Andrew Fraser, claims that African migration increases crime, says HSC results point to a rising ruling class of Asians and wants Australia to withdraw from refugee conventions to avoid becoming “a colony of the Third World”.

Associate Professor Fraser, originally from Canada, believes cognitive and athletic abilities, testosterone and “impulse control” vary according to race, and “civilisations” should look after their own.

Much of this discussion has revolved around issues of free speech and academic freedom.

It’s no massive surprise to see Mr McConvill joining the lists at Online Opinion in favour of Professor Fraser. This, fresh from justifying insider trading, something Ken Parish blogged on.

McConvill’s article includes this statement:

The condemnation of Fraser’s comments by Macquarie simply because they are not politically correct is a serious problem. Did the doyens at Macquarie University actually take the time to consider whether Fraser might be right? Did they test samples of sub-Saharan African testosterone, carry out IQ tests, or consult experts in the United States on that country’s history, before issuing the July 21 press release, or before deciding to buy out Fraser’s contact?

And -

Is a university actually in a position to say that Australia will not experience an Asian managerial-professional ruling class, and what are the implications of this?

This issue goes beyond academic freedom and freedom of speech to the issue of the responsibility of making such obviously inflammatory and ludicrous statements (phrased in the true defamation lawyer’s form of rhetorical questions). The question then becomes - what are McConvill’s motives for trading on his presumed public standing as a legal academic to enter every passing controversy from the most extreme angle? If his motive is purely to seek fame and fortune from op/ed columns, and he doesn’t believe in the serially ludicrous positions he adopts, then he deserves condemnation. If his views are genuine, then they deserve condemnation.

Our Lady of Dolours

There seems to have been a (holy?) ghost in the LP machine. I just returned home from a very pleasant meal with friends at Southbank’s Ahmet’s Turkish restaurant (I’d been at work at Griffith Uni all afternoon) to discover a couple of comments indicating that people hadn’t been able to comment on the Pope Benedict thread.

I’d assumed before I went to work that no-one loved Pope Benedict.

I tried to identify what was blocking comments - and the first thing was that jumped out was that the post had somehow given itself a date stamp in 1969. However, rectifying it still didn’t let comments be posted. So I changed the title of the post (wondering if maybe a colon was inadmissable for some reason), and nothing. I then said 5 decades of the Rosary with the intention of invoking the prayers of Our Lady of Fatima and it works now! Just kidding - but deleting it and reposting it with a new name now enables comments.

I think you have witnessed your first Larvatus Prodeo miracle.

Feel free to comment here. If any difficulties occur, please contact the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. Or email me.

Pope Benedict and Islam

Monday marked 100 days of Benedict’s papacy. I’ve just been reading National Catholic Reporter journo John Allen’s excellent book on Benedict, and I’m also intending to write a long piece in the not too distant future about Benedict’s epistemology, his vision of Europe, and its likely political consequences.

But I’ll content myself today by quoting the Pontiff on recent events:

Pope Benedict XVI has described terrorism as the action of small groups of fanatics rather than the result of a conflict between civilisations.

“There is no conflict between civilisations. There are only small groups of fanatics,” Italian newspapers Thursday quoted the Pope as saying.

In this context, I was quite struck by a piece in The Guardian, where historian of Islam Karen Armstrong pointed out that we never referred to the IRA as Catholic terrorists. Quite.

Continue reading ‘Pope Benedict and Islam’

Starvation In Niger

Did anyone else catch the news on SBS last night about the famine in Niger? It was utterly heart-breaking, and I’m ashamed to admit I had no idea that this was occuring. Again.

BBC News reports that some 3.6 million people are facing severe food shortages in the country, where a drought and then late-breaking rains have caused food production to grind to a halt. Niger is a desert country where arable land is limited and most of the country’s population barely subsists in a good year, let alone during drought.

As usual, the young suffer the most. CNN reports that aid agency Oxfam suggests that up to one million children are at risk of dying of starvation in the coming months.

Last night’s story on SBS featured one small child, his skin peeling away from his body, ulcerated and infected. He was whimpering in pain, and was almost certainly going to die. Children, like this boy, are starving to death in aid centres because they are too far gone to eat or drink.

SBS reported that the government has donated $2 million in aid already. If you want to do something, Oxfam and World Vision are both good places to start.

I’ve included the transcript from the SBS report as well those who missed it.

3 MILLION FACING STARVATION IN NIGER

The Federal Government today donated $2 million of emergency food aid to Niger. More than 3 million people are facing starvation in the desperately poor West African country. Aid has begun to reach the starving - a Red Cross team distributed food to those in Maradi, one of the worst-affected areas.

From miles around, they’d heard food had arrived at last and the masses came to be fed - the famished far beyond caring about the indignity that all this brings with it. There was a scramble. Some have been months without a full meal. Everyone knew there was only enough food here for a few thousand. The crowds were held back. All these people have been told that only the absolutely most needy can stay here to get some food aid and the rest have been told they have to go home, so people are getting very excited. There’s a sense of exhilaration, but also a sense of great desperation that at last some help has come, but not enough for all.

Umima got food today. She’s three months old and was born into this famine. Women arrive in the feeding centres here exhausted after life-threatening treks, with their children like this. Aminu, who we filmed with his terrible sores last week, has now been moved into intensive care. His body can’t fight his infections. Fatima’s body has stopped absorbing water. She has parasites in her mouth and can’t eat. But we also found Amina, one of the first children we met here, now walking. A few days food can turn children around - that is, if they get here.

We came across a group of nomads, destitute and starving. They had walked hundreds of miles searching for food - all for nothing. In desperation, they had begun to eat this - the rotting meat from the carcasses of their dead cattle.

MAN (TRANSLATION): Look at us - we’re all starving. Three of our children and three adults have died in the last few weeks. Look at my family - they are too weak to even move.

“Forgive me, God, for weaping,” he said. “I can’t feed my family. I have nothing.” Aya’s small son starved to death two weeks ago.

Carr resigns

Bob Carr has resigned as NSW Premier.

Elsewhere: More at Cut Price Commentariat, wsa.caucus, Catallaxy, John Quiggin, The Daily Flute, For Battle!, Tree of Truth, Imagining Australia, Sailing Close to the Wind and The 52nd State.

American labour divides

In contrast with the Australian trade union movement, which is not only united but buoyant over stealing early success in its campaign against the Howard government’s anti-worker plans, the US movement split dramatically on Monday.

In the biggest breakup since the emergence of the militant CIO (Congress of Industrial Organisations) within the AFL (American Federation of Labor) in the 1930s, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the Teamsters have seceded from the AFL-CIO, overshadowing the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the merger that created the present peak US union body.

No small matter, the SEIU is the largest US union. With the Teamsters, the split takes over 3 million workers out of the hitherto 13 million strong US peak. Two other major unions have boycotted the current national AFL-CIO convention in Chicago and are also tipped to secede - the more than a million strong United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) and UNITE HERE (the textile, garment and hotel workers).

All up, this will take away about a third of the AFL-CIO membership and a proportionate amount of the organisation’s $120 million budget. The splitters have formed a rival “Change to Win Coalition” and are reported to also have the support of the Laborers’ and United Farm Workers’ unions. I’m far from expert on the US trade union movement and can generally be relied upon to believe in solidarity forever. Yet on this occasion, I’m inclined to think that the US split is a hopeful sign.

Continue reading ‘American labour divides’

Turning Maria Korp into Terri Schiavo

I’ve had a passing interest in the case of Maria Korp, the Victorian woman who was found in the booth of a car and is now in a coma, or persistent vegetative state. Today brings us the news that her feeding tube will be removed at the request of her legal guardian, Victorian public advocate Julian Gardner.

There was no prospect Mrs Korp’s medical condition would improve and her medical team believed her condition was terminal, Mr Gardner said. “The artificial feeding that has been provided to Mrs Korp through a PEG-tube is no longer sustaining her life, but rather is prolonging her dying,” he said in a statement. “The clinical advice is that continuing her treatment is futile and unduly burdensome for her. “I accept and agree that the decision to cease the provision of artificial nutrition is in Mrs Korp’s best interests. “The medical treatment team have advised that while it is difficult to know, Mrs Korp may die within one to two weeks after changing to palliative care.”

After seeing this report I wondered how long it would take for one of our resident conservative moralists to make some noises along the lines of that heard in the US during the height of the Terri Schiavo case, and indeed it came from an unsurprising source, resident wild man of Australian blogging, and sycophant to all things American, Andrew Landeryou.

Maria Korp’s family are outraged about a bureaucrat’s decision to starve her to death. Public Advocate Julian Gardner is expected to announce her death sentence this afternoon. Family members are upset saying the bureaucrat had not consulted them on the decison or the reasons for it. Her husband has been charged with attempted murder. He denies being involved.

It’ll be interesting to see if Landeryou’s meme is picked up by any of the others in the conservative blogsphere or MSM. Community standards here are different with regard to this kind of thing, but there is the possibility of a tabloid media beat up (it’s a major feature in the News Ltd online versions today), with the News Limited main website using the more emotive language of the feeding tube being ‘cut’ rather than removed. This development could also turn out to be a useful culture war distraction for many of the usual suspects.

A sick joke

This is just sickening, and a lawyerly interpretation at best. Charisma and sunshine challenged Attorney General Phillip Ruddock is reported as suggesting that Article 3 of the UN Human Rights Convention supports cutting our civil liberties in the fight against terrorism.

Federal Attorney-General says there are provisions within the United Nations’ Human Rights Convention, which justify tougher security measures against terrorism. Philip Ruddock is due to deliver a speech to the American-Australian Association in New York later today. Mr Ruddock says Article 3 of the UN Human Rights Convention specifies that governments have an obligation to protect human life, and that may come at the expense of civil liberties.

It’s incredible that he would use this landmark document to support a policy position, when his political behaviour to date suggests he has nothing but contempt for its contents. But then again, it’s no a surprise really, he still wears his Amnesty International member pin.

AFP Book Club

The Australian Federal Police have started a book club. It’s not like other book clubs, though, with Margaret Atwood, red wine, cheese and other bourgeois comforts: the Feds seem to have a more interesting view of fun. The ABC reports:

A Melbourne university student says the Australian Federal Police (AFP) forced him to answer questions because he borrowed library books about terrorism and suicide bombings.

The Muslim convert, known as Abraham, says he was targeted by investigators while borrowing the books for PhD research at Monash University into the role of Islam in martyrdom.

One of two things has happened. Either the AFP has access to library borrowing records at the Monash Uni library (and, implicitly, other libraries), or someone working at the Monash Uni library rang the anti-terrorism hotline and dobbed this student in for borrowing books. Neither option is particularly palatable.