Just another day of thuggery

How does one respond to today’s news about the execution of that brutal monster, Saddam Hussein? Many of the questions I have been asked – mainly by media – about the issue have focussed on the day on which the execution took place – an irrelevancy in my opinion. “How do you respond to the fact that the execution was on the day of Eid,” they wanted to know.

The journalists ask that question because that seems to be a big preoccupation of a number of Muslims – including certain Muslim governments. Frankly, I don’t really care that he was executed on the Day of Sacrifice. The obsession around the day simply serves to divert attention from much more important issues surrounding the execution. And these are what I want briefly to focus on.

But first, I must say that I am surprised at Muslims who shed crocodile tears for this erstwhile dictator. Whatever punishment Saddam could get in this world could not be close to what he really deserves for his brutality and ferocity. I remember when we were protesting the 1991 war against Iraq by the US, a coalition of organisations in Durban published a pamphlet wherein we referred to George Bush (senior) as the “Big thug” and to Saddam Hussein as the “Little thug”. A few Muslims were very unhappy. How can we call the man a thug? After all, he is a Muslim. And besides, when a Muslim is under attack we should rally to his defence, not help in attacking him.

Sorry, but that just doesn’t seem like the Islamic thing to me. Bush was the global thug and Saddam was a neighbourhood thug. And, like a typical neighbourhood thug, he was also sometimes generous (remember the money he sent to families in Palestine), sometimes warm, sometimes approachable, sometimes protective. Like a mafia boss. But, basically, a thug. (In fact, I think “thug” was too mild a word for Saddam (just as it was too mild a word for Bush).)

Now we have the local thug being brought to his knees (and worse) by the global thug, that American son-of-a-Bush. But there are serious issues around this execution that deserve our careful reflection.

· The whole process has been a travesty of justice. The court case was a travesty of justice, a kangaroo court. In what decent, democratic society do you have a judge trying someone who he has been personally harmed by? Oh wait, Iraq is not a democratic society; it’s a country under occupation. Why, even Iraqi police can’t do anything without the power they receive from the occupation forces.

· Following on the mockery that was called a court case was the mockery that was called an execution. Where do you find state executioners that have personal axes to grind with the prisoner and, in grinding them, taunts the prisoner as he is led up to the noose? (Let us forget for a moment the question of whether capital punishment is a decent thing for a decent society; it’s a debate for another day.) So Saddam was executed, in the true style of a gangland revenge attack.

· Isn’t it interesting how quickly Saddam was brought to the execution chamber? Why? Would justice not have better been served if he were protected for a while longer? Justice would definitely have better been served if, instead of a sham trial, there had been some kind of a truth investigation which sought to reveal all the monster’s crimes and atrocities. That would have helped to bring closure to thousands of families who had been victims of Saddam’s thuggery. Families whose family members had disappeared, been tortured, been maimed, been killed. What would have served the justice more: a cover-up execution or the truth? As a family member of someone that was assassinated in a political killing, I certainly believe it’s the latter.

· Of course, from the American perspective, there are good reasons for aborting Saddam’s life as quickly as possible. In the current case that Saddam was being tried for (the trial started in August 2006), Saddam and six others were facing genocide charges for their attacks against Kurds in Northern Iraq. The most famous of these was the March 1988 Halabja massacre where Saddam used chemical weapons against the entire village of Halabja. The pictures of the aftermath remain in my mind. This was also the period when the Iraqi war against Iran was in progress. And, it was the time when Iraq was a US ally. Indeed, Saddam got his chemical weapons’ technology from the US and Europe. Remember the three meetings Saddam had with Donald Rumsfeld around this time? Or the CIA operative who said of Saddam: “He’s a son-of-a-bitch, but he’s our son-of-a-bitch.” The US had been supporting Saddam from the 1960s when he overthrew the communist government and Iraqis witnessed communist bodies hanging from lightpoles. Saddam had threatened, soon after he was captured, that he would reveal all regarding the role of the US in propping up his dictatorship: its support of his war imposed on Iran, its acquiescence with his invasion of Kuwait, etc. Removing him from the equation protects that information and protects the US, the UK and the Gulf states which also used him as a proxy to fight the Iranians.

· Back to the issue of the date… as much as I think the date is irrelevant, the fact is that there is great symbolism attached to the day. It is the day of sacrifice; the day when hundreds of millions of Muslims around the world celebrate the acceptance by Abraham, his wife Hajar and his son Ismail of God’s command on him to sacrifice his son. Did no one from the American and Iraqi power structures consider that executing Saddam on that day was making him into a sacrifice, a modern-day Ismail? Was no one concerned that the thug was going to become a martyr? I am pretty sure that in a few centuries (maybe even decades) Saddam will be remembered by the Muslim masses for the fact that he was executed on Eid, for his approaching his death with dignity, not for his atrocities and crimes against humanity. Saddam has been very good at using Islam for his political ends – even adding “Allahu Akbar” to the flag when Iraq was at war so as to get support of the Muslim world and going to the gallows with a copy of the Qur’an in his hand. Fools create heroes because of symbols.

· And, of course, there’s the sectarian aspect. Did no one realise that he was being executed on the day when Sunnis were celebrating Eid – while Shi’as were to celebrate on the next day? Or that his executioners seemed all to be Shi’as (if the taunting and sloganeering is anything to go by)? Or that this could lead to sectarian violence in a very volatile part of the world? Or, was that the plan?

· Finally, with Saddam gone (and another two henchmen due to go soon), the Ba’ath Party which he headed can finally reinvent itself – sans the Butcher of Baghdad. It doesn’t have to accept responsibility for the crimes of the past, blaming all of that, instead, on Saddam. Dead men, after all, tell no tales. Another thuggish party given a new lease on life.

I say: good riddance to Saddam; insha Allah, the world will be a slightly better place. But, if he was kept alive, it could have been a much better place.

‘This enemy of my enemy stuff doesn’t work’

Just over half a century ago, the world saw one of the most despicable events – lasting more than half a decade – in contemporary history being perpetrated from within the heart of Europe and dragging much of the world into a war. That “event” was more than a decade of Nazi rule in Germany, the Second World War (or the Second European Tribal War, as Malcolm X preferred to call it) caused by that rule and, most especially, the deliberate, planned and systematic genocide of a number of groups of people: Jews, Roma (commonly called gypsies and persecuted all over Europe for centuries), homosexuals, etc.

The scale of the genocide and the systematic nature of it is what makes it one of the greatest tragedies of our time. It is a tragedy that must be remembered, commemorated and learnt from. The message of “Never again” that is a favourite refrain of Jews – especially survivors of the attempted genocide and their families – must become a driving force in international politics. Never again to genocide, never again to holocaust, never again to ethnic cleansing, never again to the driving of people out of their homes and the creation of refugee populations, never again to the attempt to wipe out entire groups of people on the basis of their ethnicity, “race” (a fallacious concept in itself but one which is used to delineate people nevertheless), class, sexual orientation, religion…

Of course, the “Never again” call and commitment has not seized all people around the world. Hence we have seen or continue to see the genocide in Rwanda or the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians (see http://electronicintifada.net or http://psc.za.org), among others. History is also witness, of course, to holocausts and genocides before the mid-20^th Century: those against native Americans (or First Nations as many prefer to call themselves) and Australian aboriginals being just two examples. Some of these were worse in scale than that perpetrated by Nazi Germany (80 million First Nations people killed, for example).

However, whether there were genocides before or after 1945 does not detract from the enormous tragedy of the Nazi holocaust. Nor should there be any detraction by the fact of the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians (even if the holocaust in Germany was used as an excuse for this ethnic cleansing). Nor should there be any detraction by the fact that the Nazi holocaust has become an “industry” that is abused by a number of people for various agendas (see Norman Finkelstein’s The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering).

The fact is that a holocaust took place in Europe in the middle of the 20^th Century. The fact is that there was an intention and attempt by the Nazis to destroy the entire Jewish nation. These facts are sufficient for us all, today and forever, to stand on the side of those opposing holocaust, genocide and all forms of injustice. Jews should be the foremost in these struggles – as they have been in many other struggles.

That I am a religious Muslim who takes the Qur’an extremely seriously, forces me to want to have nothing to do with those who – for whatever reason or agenda – seek to deny these facts. And, let me add, it really doesn’t matter to me whether it was 5,999,999 or 6,000,001 Jews that were killed by Hitler and his murderous followers. It was a genocide against Jews (yes, and others too) and that is enough for me to be repulsed by it.

That is why I find the conference that just ended in Iran to be so odious to my sensibilities. It is not just stupid, silly, untactical, not good for the cause of the Palestinian people and insensitive – as many have said. All these are true. But, more importantly, it is a denial of a historical fact and a moral truth. And, being so, it is a psychological rejection of the “Never again” that should be inspiring us. This conference should not have happened. The people that were brought together (and I don’t deny that there might be some good people, even some people who are not holocaust denialists, but that is besides the point) should never have been brought together in this manner. What moral, spiritual, legal or political purpose can be served by bringing together people who insist that the number of Jews murdered was not 6 million and people who are arch-racists?

A friend wrote to me a few days ago about an interview on CNN by Wolf Blitzer (former lobbyist for the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)) with David Duke, former head of the Ku Klux Klan who spoke at the Iran conference. She said:

[David Duke] is not just a “former” klansman, he’s still an avowed racist and Americans, especially African Americans, know this. You don’t just wake and decide one morning that you’re not a racist anymore, that takes years of hard work even for soft racists like your average Joe who has beers with his black neighbor and once dated a Latina in high school… Those agreeing with [Duke] are the same people who call us islamofascists. This enemy of my enemy stuff doesn’t work. This conference was counterproductive, reactionary and damaging.

My friend is an African-American Muslim who knows very well what emotions the name of David Duke evokes among African-Americans.

Struggles for justice are important; they are what make us human. Passion against injustice is crucial in order to continue to maintain that humanity. But these struggles themselves must be based on truth, on justice and on moral high ground.

“Stand out firmly for justice,” the Qur’an says, “even as against yourselves…”

Sorry, no moderates here

The South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) is on some kind of a crusade against the Freedom of Expression Institute, where I work. They have, thus far, sent three letters to the FXI with various complaints, and have been rewarded by three letters in response, from the FXI's chairperson Mabalane Mfundisi. (See the series of six letters on the FXI's website.) I will write a blog posting at some point about these letters. However, I want to focus in the current posting on one issue raised in the first SAJBD letter.

SAJBD's Associate Director David Saks tries (he doesn't do it very well, though) to make the case that the FXI is engaged in a campaign against Israel and against “Jewish communal institutions” which have been the target of an FXI “special attack”. “By contrast,” Saks accuses, “the FXI's silence on cases where Muslim organisations and activists have suppressed freedom of expression has been truly deafening.” (The accusations are a load of hogwash, but that is not the point of this post.) In attempting to illustrate the latter point, Saks says:

Mention should also be made of another FXI statement released in 2002, when the organisation decided to condemn the reputed death threats that Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry, Ronnie Kasrils had received because of his anti-Zionist views… However, one finds no comparable statements of condemnation of the far more pervasive intimidation of Muslim moderates that has taken place in South Africa, something that has since led to the emigration of such eminent clerics and academics as Ebrahim Moosa, Faried Esack and Dullah Omar.

(As an aside, we must note that the SAJBD has, as yet, not condemned the death threats against Kasrils.) The point of this post is the last part of the above quote, that the FXI has not condemned the “far more pervasive intimidation of Muslim moderates”. (Of course, SAJBD builds what it thinks is a significant argument based on fallacious research: Dullah Omar, former Minister of Transport and, before that, Minister of Justice in South Africa, did not emigrate; he died of cancer in South Africa.)

Professor Farid Esack, when he read the SAJBD letter, seemed to be less than pleased about the use of his name in this manner. He sent the following email to Saks:

Dear David Sacks

It has recently come to my attention that you alleged that I am a “moderate Muslim” and stated that I have emigrated from South Africa.

a. I view the term moderate Muslim with disdain. It is a term used to denote Muslims who acquiesce to injustice and occupation and who view the world through the lenses of Pax Americana. There is no particular virtue in moderation towards anti-semitism, sexism, racism, occupations and all forms of apartheid (including Israeli apartheid) or the machinations of the empire, led today by the United States. Basically, it is a loaded term used for Muslims who have nothing to say to injustice and are desperate to fit in with the games of the powerful.

b. I am very much a South African, enjoying my teaching here in the United States, but I am a migrant labourer. I live in South Africa, and incidentally, take a rather dim view of those who emigrate.

I am not unaware of an insidious streak of anti-Jewishness among Muslims; it is something that I find despicable and have consistently spoken about and condemned. My commitment to oppose all forms of oppression, though, lead me very much into the camp of the Kasrils and the FXIs of this world. I would thus appreciate it if you kindly refrain from invoking my name in your battles against them. They are my comrades from the days when it was not nearly as sexy as it is now to claim to be against racism and discrimination.

I must second Esack's comments about the term “moderate Muslim”. Having been (and still being) a fellow ideological traveller with Esack and Moosa, I, like them, hate the term and refuse to have it linked to me. To me, like to many others, it is disdainful and insulting. Whenever I hear the term, I recall the repeated assertion in the 1980s by the Apartheid bittereinder, former president PW Botha, that the South African Muslim community comprised of law-abiding and “moderate” people and that it was just a handful of “radicals” that were the troublemakers. The troublemakers, of course, were us Muslims who were involved in the anti-apartheid struggle, who argued that the Qur'an demanded from us a jihad against the apartheid state and who vigorously engaged in that jihad in various ways.

To PW, in the 1980s, “moderate Muslims” were those who wanted to live peacefully with apartheid. To George Bush and his ilk and the SAJBD today, “moderate Muslims” are those who want to live peacefully with imperialism, Zionist racism and apartheid in Israel. I refused to be a “moderate Muslim” in the 1980s, I refuse to be one today. I will not be sold on this understanding of “moderate Muslim” which seeks to strip away any notion of struggling for justice. There can be no co-existence with injustice and oppression; I will not be moderated into believing so.

Give them niqabs and let them cover their shame!

The disgusting Norman Mashabane saga should be embarrassing for a number of politicians. Indeed, some of them, including the South African Minister of Foreign Affairs, should be so ashamed as to hide their faces for a whole year – or, at the very least, until the “16 days of activism against violence against women and children” ends.

Having followed the case from when allegations of sexual harassment were made against then Ambassador Mashabane (South African ambassador to Indonesia at the time), my own disgust reached new depths today when I heard that he has resigned his new position “to focus on the problems he is currently experiencing” according to Limpopo provincial premier, Sello Maloto.

Perhaps I should start at the beginning – or the beginning as some of us know it; there might be a beginning before this one. To quote from a South African Press Association report:

The incidents took place when he was South Africa’s ambassador to Indonesia.

Several complaints of sexual harassment was (sic) laid against Mashabane.

He was found guilty at an initial hearing in 2001 on a battery of charges that included stroking the buttocks of an employee, molesting a staff member in a lift and making suggestive motions with his tongue to another.

The panel recommended he be fired, but he appealed the judgement and was allowed to continue in his post pending the outcome.

In June 2003 another charge was laid against him, and he was again found guilty.

The findings were reversed by Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, acting as the appeal authority, who suggested that Mashabane was being dragged through the mud for exposing motor vehicle fraud at the embassy.

Lara Swart, a Foreign Affairs employee who made the allegations in Indonesia, ensured that the matter went to the High Court which, this week, overturned Dlamini Zuma’s ruling, thus confirming Mashabane’s guilty verdict and his dismissal.

Last month, November 2006, Mashabane was given a job as political advisor to the Limpopo Premier Sello Maloto. Maloto, of course, knew there was a court case pending, but – amazingly – chose to appoint the sex pest anyway. And Maloto’s response after the High Court’s ruling? Well, nothing really. Mashabane resigned and he accepted the resignation – even appearing together with Mashabane in a media conference. “He has asked to be relieved of his duties to focus on the problems he is currently experiencing,” said Mogale Nchabeleng, the premier’s spokesman.

That’s it??!? A man confirmed by the High Court to be guilty of repeated sexual harassment simply has his resignation accepted in a face-saving measure? Where is the moral outrage of our politicians – during these “16 days of activism” – for such crimes against women? Why didn’t Maloto kick Mashabane out on his backside with a warning never to show his filthy paws in that province ever again? Why even allow the thug to resign and act as if he is the aggrieved party? Heck, if anyone deserves to be treated with respect it is Lara Swart and the others he attacked, not their harasser and assaulter.

And the Minister? Well, she is pleased that she didn’t oppose Swart’s right to take the matter to court, said her spokesperson on the radio this morning. And when asked whether the Minister will apologise, the spokesperson responded: “Madam, you are pushing this too far.” Huh?

Woman gets molested.

Woman makes complaint against molester.

Molester found guilty.

Minister overturns verdict.

Court finds Minister was wrong and molester is guilty.

Shouldn’t Minister apologise to woman?

As long as South African politicians and officials continue protecting each other in this kind of vile manner – violating, in the process, any national sense of decency – we have no hope of overcoming the problems of crime and immorality in our society. No moral regeneration movement will help; no number of speeches from President Thabo Mbeki will make a difference. Mbeki should have this Mashabane clown taken out to the front of the Union Buildings in Pretoria and publicly whipped (a tongue-lashing, of course) by Ms Swart and his other accusers. Then Mbeki should sentence Dlamini Zuma to wear a niqab until the next election!