Some calming wisdom from Kofi Annan

21 thoughts on “Some calming wisdom from Kofi Annan”

1. ‎“They should not attack innocent civilians,” he said. “They should not attack ‎people who are not responsible for the publication of the cartoons.”‎
   This is meaningless, so single western or others attacked by demonstrators, if facts the ‎‎are few demonstrators killed by police, I don’t think this is happened at all in all the ‎‎demonstrations around the world…‎
   I don’t see it its valid point Kofi Annan he can clam of it‎

2. The quotation that follows below is from a chatty (presumably) Trotskyist who runs a blog called “Lenin’s Tomb” at http://leninology.blogspot.com/ .
   I agree with Kofi Annan of course and I don’t think he is to blame for what this “Lenin” calls “UN forces”.
   All I want to show is how easy it is to debunk this process that is called the “transition to democracy”. How easy it is to give it a bad name. Or in other words what a tender plant it is.
   That’s one reason why I am still a revolutionist, though not a Trotskyist like “Lenin”.
   Here he is:
   “So, anyway, quick recap. The US, Canada and France trained some former genocidaires in the Dominican Republic to go into Haiti and stir shit against Aristide. As the DR has some ongoing hostilities with Haiti, the government was happy to oblige (although I assume it had little choice in the matter). Shit fomented, the US handed Aristide his resignation letter, kidnapped him and installed a government composed of ruling class sweatshop owners and mass murderers. Unsurprisingly, they started to overturn rulings against some of their former colleagues and commit some new mass murders with the use of the Haitian National Police and UN forces. Having terminated a democratic government, the UN felt obliged to oversee yet another ‘transition to democracy’ – ie, kill and intimidate members of the Lavalas party, imprison hundreds, attack Lavalas stongholds and then have an election and see what people decide to vote for. Kind of like those 1990 Nicaraguan elections that Violeta Chamorro won – or indeed the recent ones in which conservative opponents of the Sandinistas replayed footage of the terror from the 1980s to warn of the possible consequences of re-electing a Sandinista regime.”

3. Salah, I agree with you– as I wrote here.
   I’ve been thinking about this phenomenon whereby so many agitators in the western discourse have been sounding off about “Muslim violence”. I think it’s part of a much wider phenomenon wherein whenever the downtrodden of the earth start to express themselves freely (and collectively, which they tend to do)– then the more comfortably off get extremely scared and irrational…. Heck, if the downtrodden are given equal VOICE with the folks who’ve dominated the world and its discourse for so long, who knows what might happen??
   Something very similar happened in the reactions some Afriklaaners in South Africa had to the TRC, as far as I understand it. I have a good quote about that that I need to dig out…
   Dominic, thanks for the Lenin’s Tomb link. I think he’s a little overly paranoid about the UN– which imho is transformable and equally important all we have at this point. Mainly in Haiti it’s been the US that’s been doing heinous things, though it seems the v. recent election went pretty well?

4. In complement to your recent comments on the cartoons issue, I find it interesting to report on the reactions they stirred in France. After all, France is the European country counting the most important minority of North African and black Africans Muslims. At the same time she is also the most anticlerical country of Europe. Further, at the end of last year, the suburban areas where the majority of North African and black African immigrants live were inflammed by the most serious riotting ever seen, burning for several weeks, although with few casualties.
   In France, probably due to a long anticlerical tradition, two important and nationwide distributed newspapers have reproduced all the 12 Danish caricatures of the Jylland’s Posten. The first to do so was “France Soir”. Ironically, the owner of the journal is a Franco-Egyptian and he fired the chief redactor right after. This lead to several calls for the defense of free speach in various French newspapers. Last Thursday, Charlie Hebdo, a satyrical journal with a large base of readers, dedicated its whole weekly issue to the subject. They went out of print in a glimpse and the owner had to reprint a lot more issues. Charlie Hebdo has a long tradition of anticlericalism, antimilitarism and harsh political satyre. I’ve been unable to get one issue in Swizterland, it was out of stock the very day it came out. So I don’t know how they treated the subject. The media reports that one of their own caricatures represented a distressed Mohammed Profet stating that “It is a pain to be loved by assholes”.
   But apart of two or three provocative attitudes of this same kind, the reaction in France has been very measured, especially at the government level and the Muslim organizations level. Jacques Chirac immediately condemned these publications as provocation, especially the late coming issue of Charlie Hebdo. He called every one to stay calm and the press to act responsively. The government also met with muslim organisations who issued apeasing calls as well. The Conseil français du culte musulman (CFCM) (an Association regrouping several Muslim Organisations) chose the legal path and will file multiple complaints (French text) against both France Soir and Charlie Hebdo. It’s not yet sure whether they will also file complaints against other newspapers like “Le Monde” and “Liberation” who only reproduced some of the caricatures. Brubaker, the president of the CFCM stated that they were only looking for a “symbolic condemnation” in order to discourage new provocations which could “reinforce a clash of civilizations”. Some protests of angry Mulims took place, mostly at the exit of the friday prayers, but they didn’t slide out of hand. Secular Arabs interviewed in the streets say they felt insulted by the caricatures as well, especially by the stigmatizing of all Muslims as terrorists.
   The secular “Mouvement contre le racisme et pour l’amitié entre les peuples” (MRAP, aka Movement against racism and for the frendship between all peoples) has also decided to file a complaint against France Soir, for provocation and incitement to racial hate (this was before the issuing of Charlie Hebdo; they will probably sue Charlie Hebdo as well).
   Compared to the weeks long riots, which inflammed the suburbs at the end of last year, these protests look like a very restrained reaction. This prooves what many French intellectuals and politicians of the left said then : that the French suburbans riots had nothing to do with religion, that they translated a social movement against discrimination, agaisnt economic and social exclusion, but that they were neither fomented by religious movements, nor indicating a civilization clash, as US neocons would have liked to see them.
   The issue of the complaint filed by the Muslim organizations and the secular MRAP isn’t yet certain. However France has a good law ruling the right of free speach. The law of 1881 was modified many times especially in 1972 in order to include articles punishing anti-arab and xenophobic deeds and in 2006 in order to include articles punishing sexism and homophobia as well. In its actual version, the law on free press contains 11 articles (number 29th to 37th) defining the limits of free speach; they sum up to this : the public medias can’t incite to racial hate, they can neither defame, nor insult persons or groups of persons based on their racial, their ethnic characters, their faith or their culture. Even the mere reproduction of insulting statements can be punished. The punishment can go up to six months of jail and the payment of a fee as high as 22500 euros (aka approximately 28’000 US$). The whole text of the law can be read here (French text) and a clear explanation can be found here (French text). Incitement to racial hate is also severely punished of course. I find this law to be exemplar, much better than the illimitated right to free speach seen in the US. The hate speaches issued by nazism and fascism during the between war have left traces in European laws which have been reinforced when the first xenophobic movements appeared in the seventies and eighties. IMO it’s a good thing : free speach shouldn’t cover the right to incite to racism/xenophobia, or to propagate racist or xenophobic ways of thinking. It’s a clear sign that these laws are only fighted by the extreme right in a very hypocrital way.
   The French diplomacy also entered in action, explaining to foreign Muslim governments that neither France Soir, nor Charlie Hebdo represented the position of the French government on these cartoons. Second Juan Cole’s blog the French Ambassy in Baghdad did even write a letter explaining the government position to Muktada Al’Sader. All this is in serious contrast with the first reactions of the Danish government who did nothing to calm the game untill it was too late, on the contrary. This may explain why untill now the French foreign ambassies weren’t a target of Muslim anger in ME or Asian countries, despite the fact that part of the French press also published these infamous caricatures.
   As a conclusion, it is interesting to note the reaction of the French based association “Reporters sans frontières” (Reporters without borders) which is a long standing international organization defending the right to free speach in the world and fighting agaisnt the jailing and murder of journalists. They recently organized a conference in Paris along with the Arab Commission for Human Rights
   “in an effort to restart a dialogue over publication of cartoons of the prophet Mohammed and find a way out of the violence this has caused”.(…)
   “Fifteen speakers (including journalists, philosophers, writers, religious officials, a lawyer and a diplomat) called for talks and a calmer approach and urged an end to the violent reactions to the printing of the cartoons. Several spoke about what publishing the cartoons meant while others said freedom of expression must go hand-in-hand with respect for religious beliefs.”

5. But you can’t have it both ways and focus on calm around cartoons if you argue that the cartoons are just the trigger, and there is a whole litany of injustices we have committed to muslims, going back at least to the British invasion of Iraq, Iran’s Moqtazadeh, etc.
   Appealing for calm and dialogue, either from Annan, or Zapatero, resonates as shallow as Rodney King famous babble: Can’t we all just get along…?
   I prefer a strong and unified response from the West making clear that they will not intimidate our press. Their press is as insulting as ours, get over it.

6. I agree about the UN.
   Otherwise, it’s not for a whole lot of hooligan Franks to be sounding off against Muslims, whose whole purpose is to live peacefully, cleanly, and respectably.
   Lenin’s Tomb is a popular blog and with good reason I think, not that I agree with it more than half the time. It’s a good sampler of the temper of the young male intelligentsia of London. Fun in smallish doses. It would nice to see them all grow up together.

7. the French the good Westerners?
   somebody forgot to tell the Iranians…
   http://www.newkerala.com/news2.php?action=fullnews&id=7963

8. Dominic, your reference to “Franks” isn’t clear to me… Well, especially after Christiane’s great contribution there, which I’ve just reprinted as a main post.

9. free speach shouldn’t cover the right to incite to racism/xenophobia, or to propagate racist or xenophobic ways of thinking.
   Racism and xenophobia are clearly in the eye of the beholder. Broadsides directed toward “entire categories” of Israelis and Americans are equally xenophobic and insulting [as are patronising racial generalisations.] Arab vendors I pass every day sell pamphlets (printed in London by Saudi publishers) detailing the many contradictions, falsehoods and blasphemies contained in the New Testament.
   Tolerance and mutual respect entails tolerance of dissent and especially insult. moreover many premises of the world’s religions are and will always be contradictory and mutually negating. Legislating blasphemy, resolving interethnic rivalry and religious dispute through codes of behavior & litigation is a fool’s errand.

10. Helena, I hate to disagree but honestly I do have a problem with the remarks made by Kofi Annan.
    Although I try to keep in mind that newspaper articles are limited in the amount of words assigned to each article. 🙂
    Statements might be published out of context.
    (And I did read the article you linked to.)
    So I may be wrong but “They should not attack people who are not responsible for the publication of the cartoons.”
    Taken alone that is just a stupid statement. Literally taken it implies that it would be right to attack people that are responsible for the publication of the cartoons. Just not people who are not responsible for that action.
    Cynically speaking, it looks like a speech of a politician trying to please all sides.

11. My reference to Franks? I’m sure I need instruction, and a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but one starts with what one has got.
    As far as I know the Franks of Charlemagne’s time were neither French nor German, and these were the Europeans that the Muslims first encountered, and faced in their guise of crusaders two or three centuries later. But we need not fear there are any actually-existing Franks left on earth to be taking umbrage at this stage.
    What I know about the crusades is all from Charles Mackay’s “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds”, which has a passionate account of the atrocious unrestrained hooliganism of the Crusaders. That book is mainly known for its account of John Law, the Missisipi Madness, the South Sea Bubble, and the Tulip Mania. But the parts about crusaders and also about witch-hunting are devastating and unforgettable.
    I saw the book in a free version on the Internet the other day, and the part about the crusades was not there! I could hardly believe my eyes. It had been censored! That’s western free speech for you.
    The fact that in all my reading, Mackay’s is the only full account of the awful truth of the crusades that I have come across, is one point I would wish to make. The Muslims know, of course, but in the “west” there is very little literature circulating other than basically comics, about the crusades.
    I know of nothing in the history of Muslims that compares with the crusades. It is not true that all humans are equally beastly. It is whites and especially self-proclaimed Christian whites who have behaved the worst in history and still are doing so up to today. Gitmo is still there. The bombing is still going on right now. It is this which makes the horrid Danish cartoons so repugnant at this time. In all other respects they can be dismissed as simply silly, rude and childish.
    On a different note, and in spite of all the above, I want to note here that the anti-clericalism that Christiane refers to is a long tradition in Europe, but it is a bourgeois tradition, a capitalist tradition, and not a communist one. As much as clerics were complicit in the Crusades and many other atrocities, it is not for these reasons that they have been persecuted. It was only when the the priests got in the way of capital that they began to be persecuted indiscriminately.

12. Dominic, get a grip!
    As far as I know the Franks of Charlemagne’s time were neither French nor German, and these were the Europeans that the Muslims first encountered, and faced in their guise of crusaders two or three centuries later.
    Uhh, yes.
    The Muslims at that time had just conquered the Iberian peninsula and were raiding todays France for booty. Maybe you don´t understand it but the Franks at that time didn´t like raids on their territory. Sorry if you don´t understand it but at that time Muslims were the aggressors.
    IIRC the Muslims named Europeans “Franks” because they were the first people successfully “disagreeing” with Muslim armies intent on conquering the lands of the infidels.
    I know of nothing in the history of Muslims that compares with the crusades. It is not true that all humans are equally beastly. It is whites and especially self-proclaimed Christian whites who have behaved the worst in history and still are doing so up to today.
    I just hate to contradict you but – face it – the Islamic faith wasn´t spread by missionaries alone.
    – The Byzantine Empire wasn´t convinced by missionaries to become Muslims. If so then why was a siege of Byzanz/Constantinople neccessary?
    – Parts of India didn´t become Muslims by missionaries alone. Any thought about how many Indians died for that?
    – And third, you are just being silly.
    None of the crusades were as devastating to Muslim culture as the Mongols (non-Christians) when they decided to finally attack the Middle East. Christians didn´t besiege and sack the capitals of Muslim faith, Mongols did.
    Not to mention the fact that it was “whites and especially self-proclaimed Christian whites” who decided to fight against slavery a long time before Muslims. “Emancipation Day, 19th century?
    Compared to the Ottoman Empire?
    On a different note, and in spite of all the above, I want to note here that the anti-clericalism that Christiane refers to is a long tradition in Europe, but it is a bourgeois tradition, a capitalist tradition, and not a communist one.
    Yes, yes, we note that communists did suppress any opinion not agreeing with them. Be it “bourgeois” tradition, “capitalist tradition” or any “faith-based tradition” too. In short anyone which didn´t agree with them. I just fail to see why we should agree with any opinion that can´t allow dissent.

13. Dominic, there’s a wonderful book in English called “The Crusades through Arab Eyes” by the great Lebanese-French writer (and Goncourt Prize winner) Amin Maalouf. Using many contemporary Arab chronicles he gives the “victom’s eye” view of the Crusades, including very graphic descriptions of Crusader cannibalism in Aleppo in northern Syria; the bloodbaths the Crusaders created when they entered Jerusalem, etc etc. (Descriptions that you can find corroborated– but deeply buried– within good western histories like Steven Runciman’s 3-volume work.)
    Having said that I would probably agree with Detlev that the behavior of the Mongols when they ransacked in particular Baghdad was even more atrocious. The Mongols never made it to Syria, which is why so much of the ancient city in Damascus is still intact (as opposed to Baghdad.)
    The more recent Arab memories of victimization and dispossession from outside, however, come most definitely from the West: from the post-WW1 “Sykes-Picot regime” that cyncically divided up the Arab east between France and Britain, and from the (actually very recent, and indeed continuing) history of Zionist settlement and land-grabbing.
    So it’s the victimizations– ancient and more recent– from the west that touch a more burning chord of hurt.
    One last footnote for you: many Arabs, when they refer to the attitudes of “the west” are referring also to Moscow, which is geographically west of most Arab cities and which many Arabs and Muslims regarded, even in Soviet days, as just another part of “the west.”

14. Btw my above comment re relative atrociousness of “Christian” whitefolk and Mongols applies only to the Middle East. If you look at what “Christian” whitefolk did in all the Americas, all of sub-Saharan Africa, China, Australia, the transatlantic slave trade, and the peculiarly ghastly form of slavery introduced by the whitefolks in the Americas, then it would be, most likely, a very hot contest with the Mongols for “first place”.
    It just happened that Middle East didn’t get the worst of what they (we?) were meting out around the world.

15. Detlef has not had the benefit of a great deal of reading on the matter of the crusades. For example, there was no Muslim siege of Constantinople during the Crusades, as he thinks. Christian Constantinople was sacked in a horrible orgy of destruction and violation by Christian crusaders – Western Europeans mobbed together in tragic absurdity as a reconstituted Frankish rabble in the name of the Holy Roman Empire.
    Since Detlef’s scholarship is so inadequate on this important matter, what about the comic-book version of the expansion of Islam under the hoofs of sword-waving horsemen? I don’t believe it. I don’t believe the myth of Roland at Roncesvalles either, even if it is so pervasive as to lend its name to part of Soweto (“Orlando”) here in South Africa today.
    There are many differences between the barbarian (in the technical sense) hordes such as the Mongols, and the Christian expansions of the last millenium. The Christians are (also in the technical sense) civilised. For that reason they are more efficient killers, and have been able to sustain their atrocities for hundreds of years and right up to now.
    Let me repeat, it is not simply the insult of the Danish cartoons that is felt. It is the addition of the insult to real and continuing injury that is intolerable.
    Helena, you know better than me, but I always thought that the Arabic usage “Maghreb”, literally “The West”, referred to the western part of the Umma, only. Your accusation is a repetition of a slur that is very relevant and important. It was the ability of the USA under Jimmy Carter to arm anti-Soviet fanatics in the name of Islam that has led to the current cycle. It was a terrible mistake all round.
    I repeat, there is nothing in communism that is anti-religious. To say so is a lie. To say there is a natural or traditional anti-communism in Islam is another lie. It is only a projection on to Islam of arguments that originated in Christendom, and in an upside-down way. In fact, it is the communist side of the European heritage which is closest to Islam – the faith of the poor – by far.

16. Kurt Nimmo has a piece about the kidnapped CSM journalist Jill Carroll at http://kurtnimmo.com/?p=220
    He thinks it is a “black op” or “false flag” operation.
    I would not be surprised.

17. Dominic, you are of course quite right that Detlef’s view of the Crusades was ill-informed– not only about their atrocity-laden sacking of Constantinople (because the Orthodox church actually stood against the crusades)– but also the ditto sacking of numerous Muslim-held cities including (as I mentioned) Jerusalem and Aleppo.
    He could use a course of the basic Runciman, let alone Amin Maalouf.
    Then, about Moscow… I’m just telling you what I observed when I was there…

18. Hi Helena.
    I wonder if you are getting any sleep.
    I wanted to get down what I wrote above, and thanks for your tolerance of it. I do hear what you say about encountering anti-communism. I hope there will be another chance soon to get to grips with some of this in a more measured way.
    Best wishes to you.
    P.S. I want to see your book in “Exclusive Books” in Rosebank a.s.a.p.

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