Teen girls get ‘porn star’ treatment - with mum’s help?

 

A couple of weeks ago my local newspaper thought it newsworthy that men are getting Brazilian waxes. Now an Australian paper reports that girls as young as 14 are being accepted for what it euphemistically calls “intimate beauty treatments”.

Apparently their “boyfriends” are demanding it. And, thanks to the sexual liberation won for them by their mothers and grandmothers generations, the girls are saying yes.

Worst of all, it seems that some mothers are going along with their daughters to make it clear that they have permission. One shop owner in Brisbane says:

''Mostly it is girls around 16 but we do occasionally get younger girls in, but they must have a parent with them,'' the store manager said.

Do you get these 'parents'? One, their daughter wants to get what child and youth advocates point out is a “porn star” treatment. Two, this is to please the girl’s boyfriend (real or imaginary). At 14? At 16? Don’t they care that she is making herself a sexual object, or about the likely consequences?

Melinda Tankard Reist, a leading critic of the pornification of culture and the sexualization of girls, notes the harmful effects on young women’s body image:

''They've come to despise their natural bodies,'' she said.

How very sad, that adult women are prepared to sacrifice the happiness and health of girls in this way.

By: Carolyn Moynihan

 

Technorati Tags: parental consent,sexualisation of children

“I felt as if I had been given my country back”

It was all joy. There had been such muddles over the complex ticketing arrangements, and such hostility from sections of the mass media, and such horrible things said by campaigners opposed to the Church’s teachings, and such tragedy over the evil actions of priests who had betrayed their calling.

But now, here was Pope Benedict, arriving at Edinburgh airport and standing next to the Queen for the national anthem.

Pope Benedict is small. And quiet. His voice and manner is that of a gentle, kindly professor, with a warm smile and large intelligent eyes. Long years in public view have trained him in the art of maintaining stillness and dignity while speeches are made and greetings are exchanged, but he still doesn’t look quite at home with military bands and official formality; he walked nicely along the guard of honour but was much smaller than all of them. Things got more relaxed when he was sitting chatting with the Queen (she is small, too) and the Duke of Edinburgh, and everything positively erupted into joy when he cheerfully donned a tartan scarf and went out into the city.

He has a rapport with the young – not unexpected in one who spent years teaching them at universities – and a gentle pastoral style with children. People held up babies to be blessed, waved flags and banners of welcome, and called out greetings – and when he celebrated the first Mass of his visit, at Bellahouston Park, before a vast crowd, with everyone roaring out glorious hymns, the style of the visit was established.

Why were we led to believe that this was a nasty, cruel, ranting figure of hate? People who had never met Joseph Ratzinger, who hadn’t read his books, who knew very little about him, repeated one another’s myths and legends – even though the internet makes available masses of material, videos, books, reports, interviews, and more. When he arrived in Britain, the reality became clear: this is a man who long ago placed his entire life at the service of Christ, and has, down all those years, tried faithfully to imitate Him and to live according to His teachings. And it shows.

I was privileged to be invited to Westminster Hall, where, in an extraordinary moment of British history, the Pope was to address Members of Parliament and a great gathering of men and women in public life from across Britain. These walls have echoed to the great events of British history – notably the trial of St Thomas More, who in this place was condemned to death for refusing to follow a king’s rebellion against papal authority, adhering to God and conscience instead. And now, here was a pope arriving – heralded by trumpeters standing in the arches of the great glowing window of stained glass.

The band of the Coldstream Guards played as we waited seated on gilt chairs set in long rows on the ancient stone flags, above us the great hammerbeam roof, and on either side the old grey walls with their Norman arches. A line of former prime ministers awaited his Holiness, along with the Speaker of the House of Commons who would introduce him. He came with the Archbishop of Canterbury from an ecumenical Vespers in Westminster Abbey, another first for a pope.

He arrived looking small and polite, and there were handshakes and pleasantries. And then came his speech. The voice, low and quiet, with its fizzy accent and precise vowels, takes a moment to assimilate: this is no passionate orator. But he had us spellbound. He drew attention to the central issues of our day – the big questions: by what values do we live? How on earth do we decide? Does it matter what is right and wrong? Have we anything by which we can make decisions and judgements? Are we spiritual and cultural orphans, adrift with nothing to guide us?

With clarity, and delicate precision, this priest who represents an authority dating back in an unbroken line across two millennia, spelt out what Western man knows but has forgotten: we cannot live as though religion does not exist, we cannot live without truth. Man has to use his mind, he has to open himself to what is good and true and beautiful. Attempts to marginalise faith – including Christianity – impoverish all and rob human beings of their dignity. Parliamentary democracy – a gift from Britain to the world, and a heritage of which British people should be proud – did not arise in a spiritual vacuum, and will not flourish in one.

I felt as if I had been given my country back again. For too long we have been told that our ancestors, with their assumptions about God and man’s unique destiny, were ignorant and muddled, and that now we must shake off the nonsense passed on to us. Morality as previously known was dangerous; it could now be reinvented by television pundits and if we were smart we would not challenge their views.

Now, sitting in Westminster Hall, I heard all this challenged, and new and much more interesting vistas opened up: of course we must be allowed to think along large lines, to lift our minds to things that are great and noble, to ponder the things of God, and to connect these with our public life, our common life and the search for the common good.

The Pope was not asking for the Church to have a privileged position, not seeking the reinvention of a Church-dominated society; on the contrary, he was inviting us all to a national conversation, a way of living and serving one another in a country where there are people of many faiths and none, and where the place of faith is recognised and enjoyed and honoured for the contribution it can make and the good fruits it brings.

He was applauded all the way down the aisle – where he stopped to view the plaque that commemorates Thomas More – and afterwards the glorious bells of Westminster Abbey pealed out as people milled about in a wonderful traffic-free area, savouring London in a new way.

Whatever you think about the Pope, there has to be an admission that he wasn’t what most people had expected, and his message was timely.

I expect we’ll ignore it. We have become used to dismissing matters of religion (“Oh, it’s all rubbish”; “Causes more trouble than it’s worth” etc) and we find it easier to sludge along with our culture soaked in TV soap operas and rising crime figures and drunken teenagers hanging around bleak shopping centres shouting at one another on Saturday nights. But we would be stupid to do this. We have been given another vision of Britain – brighter, more interesting , and one that we know is realistic, honest, and attractive. It echoes with our common sense and our desire to get along with one another in a workable way and achieve things. It carries resonance from the best of our past and offers a way forward.

Please, don’t let us marginalise faith in God, or ignore what Christianity offers, or sneer at the possibility that men and women can know about the deepest and greatest things. Perhaps it shouldn’t have had to take a Pope to tell us this. But he has done so, and it is a wake-up call. Often, elderly gentle clergy with quiet wisdom do say wise things.

Joanna Bogle writes from London.

Technorati Tags: Benedict XVI,Catholic Church,Papal visit to UK

Is tolerant Islam a myth?

It appears to be a sign that you’re doing something abundantly right when the leaders of major Arab and Muslim groups demand that your conference be monitored by the thought police to make sure nothing too incendiary is being said.

This happened in Canada recently when the Canadian Arab Federation and the Canadian Islamic Congress insisted that a gathering entitled, “On The Front Line of Immigration, Terrorism, and Ethno-Politics” by investigated by the Toronto Hates Crimes Unit.

We’ll never know if the boys and girls in blue in the True North Strong and Free –- a quote from the Canadian national anthem that only just still rings with an authentic tone -- responded to these somewhat hysterical cries.

But one of the speakers, internationally renowned author Bat Ye’ or, is more than used to such persecution. This diminutive, gentle and brilliant woman in her late 70s seems to positively terrify her critics. Being deported because of Arab anger would, however, be nothing new to the author of a host of internationally acclaimed historical works on the history of Islam and its treatment of Jews and Christians.

She and her family were forced to leave their native Egypt in 1957, part of the more than a million Jews who were exiled from Muslim states after the Second World War and the foundation if Israel. Bat Ye’or’s name roars the horror of it all. It is a pseudonym, meaning Daughter of the Nile in Hebrew. Her given name is Gisele Orebi.

The persecuted Jews of the Middle East. The silenced catastrophe. A wave of innocents whose existence in Arab lands pre-dated the birth of Islam. Their numbers were greater than those of Palestinian refugees and they were frequently treated far more harshly. Yet the world said very little and today the Islamic bloc and their allies in the United Nations and elsewhere pretend the post-Biblical exodus did not happen.

“It is, I suppose, deeply ironic that I was told that I was not allowed to live in Egypt when I was a girl and now as a grown woman I’m told, in part by people from Egypt, that I shouldn’t come to Canada either. As for Israel, they’d like that to disappear,” she says, more bemused than bitter.

“Where ought I to go? No matter. The story has to be told, the true story of how Islam has treated and still does treat its minorities.”

It is her collection of work on the Islamic conquest of the Christian heartlands of Egypt, Palestine, Syria and North Africa that have caused so much frustration from Muslim opponents. She writes in detail of Dhimmitude, the method in which Jews and Christians were subjugated and humiliated.

“As late as the early twentieth-century in some Muslim countries Jews had to remove their shoes when they left their own quarter, were not allowed to ride a horse, were treated as second-class citizens. This idea of equality is nonsense. Their numbers were restricted, especially in the Holy Land, and the same was true of Christians. There were periodic pogroms, right up till the 1940s.”

A pause, searching for the right words. “What occurred back then is history, but history has to be understood and accepted. What we have now is revision, denial. Muslim immigrants are taking this false idea of the past to Europe and North America, along with a culture that does not share the Western notion of tolerance, equality, criticism of religion and freedom.”

The concept of dhimmitude is little known in the West but Bat Yeor is doing a great deal to correct that state of affairs.

“The whole notion differs fundamentally from the Western, Christian idea of tolerance” she explains. “Obviously Christians have not always lived up to this idea but modern pluralism is a direct result of Christian thinking. Islamic ideology, on the other hand, aspires to something entirely different. At best it is a paternalistic tolerance for a despised minority but often outright persecution. This is what has happened in contemporary Egypt.”

Indeed so. Christians enjoyed a relatively open and equal citizenship under more secular Cairo governments but under a more aggressive Islam they are persecuted, attacked, forcibly converted, exiled and killed. “Part of the horror is the pain they suffer,” she explains. “The other is the denial we see and hear from Egypt and from Muslims throughout the world. The same applies to Pakistan, Sudan, Turkey and so many other Islamic societies.”

So the idea of Islamic tolerance is untrue?

“Completely so. Dhimmitude is the natural consequence of the jihad mindset. As a Muslim you conquer, dominate and convert because Islam is to triumph. That you would then respect those who do not become Muslim is self-contradictory. Those who reject Islam are considered immoral and the immoral are never to be trusted. This is why it is so difficult to form a working relationship between the West and genuine Islam, even when it appears to be moderate. We have to question motives, we have to understand intentions.”

This thesis of the spread of such ideas is discussed at length in what may be her most famous and controversial book, Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis. In it she argues that Islamic fundamentalism has found its way to Europe because most Muslim moderates are frightened of speaking out and European intellectuals and activists have been seduced by its anti-American dynamic.

“I cannot stress enough the incompatibility between the concept of tolerance as expressed by the jihad-dhimmitude ideology, and the concept of human rights based on the equality of all human beings and the inalienability of their rights. In Europe there is a connection between local socialism, communism and neo-fascism with the judeophobia and anti-imperialism of the new Muslim communities.

“There are courageous Muslims who do resist but it is difficult and dangerous. There is an underground of sharia law across Europe, with terrible treatment of women. This is combined with the threat of violence aimed at anybody who speaks out against what is going on. Censorship through fear. We even see this to a mild degree in Canada, an example being the attempt to stop me entering the country.”

The cause of Palestine, she emphasises, is at heart about the triumph of Islam. “Most of Palestine is in Jordan but we do not hear cries for Jordan to return land. This isn’t about the rights of the Palestinians but about the refusal to accept a non-Muslim state in the region. Palestine has become the fashion of the West, without them understanding the deeper issues of the conflict.”

Paradox wrapped around irony packaging hypocrisy. Untied by a brave and wise woman who wants only peace and juctice but who is still being persecuted for what she is and what she says. A daughter of the Nile, a teacher for the world.

By: Michael Coren is a broadcaster and writer living in Toronto, Canada.

Technorati Tags: dhimmitude,Islam,tolerance

A new battler for Britain

Defying dreary weather and drearier protests, the state visit of Benedict XVI to England and Scotland was, by all accounts, a smashing success. Although only about 5 million of 60 Britons are Catholic, the enthusiasm of the crowds bowled over a sceptical media.

London’s saucy tabloids ran interviews with star-struck teenagers under punning headlines like “Bene’s from Heaven”. One young woman gushed to the News of the World, "English Catholicism needs a bit of oomph and this is our chance to give it some welly. I have got a feeling that I've not had for a long time. He should come more often."

No doubt the Pope appreciated the devoted crowds, but he had come with a message, not an applause meter.  British Prime Minister David Cameron picked that up. In his farewell remarks, he thanked the Pope for raising searching questions. “You have really challenged the whole country to sit up and think, and that can only be a good thing.”

Think about what?

Five themes impressed me about Benedict’s subtle and subdued addresses.

Remember 1066 and all that. Even in Britain it’s easy to forget how yoked we are to our past. Voldemort Dawkins and his disciples seemed unaware of how much they owed to generations of anti-popery campaigners. Different costumes, same script.

Benedict, on the other hand, has a knack for placing messages in an historical framework. In Westminster Hall, he said, “The angels looking down on us from the magnificent ceiling of this ancient Hall remind us of the long tradition from which British Parliamentary democracy has evolved. They remind us that God is constantly watching over us to guide and protect us. And they summon us to acknowledge the vital contribution that religious belief has made and can continue to make to the life of the nation.”

Britain, he reminded his hosts time and time again, is incomprehensible without its faith. Even its first history was penned by a Saxon monk, Bede the Venerable. “The Christian message has been an integral part of the language, thought and culture of the peoples of these islands for more than a thousand years. Your forefathers’ respect for truth and justice, for mercy and charity come to you from a faith that remains a mighty force for good in your kingdom, to the great benefit of Christians and non-Christians alike.”

In short, democratic values of freedom, equality and solidarity have Christian roots. The greatest triumph of British democracy in the 19th century, the abolition of the slave trade, was due to the work of reformers like William Wilberforce and David Livingstone, both staunch Christians.

And, taking a leaf from the tormented history of his own homeland, Benedict reminded listeners that atheist regimes, like the slavers, denied a common humanity to Jews and other subject peoples. “As we reflect on the sobering lessons of the atheist extremism of the twentieth century, let us never forget how the exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man and of society and thus to a ‘reductive vision of the person and his destiny’.”

What lies ahead if secularism erases religion from civic life?

Reason and faith are compatible. Benedict could easily have side-stepped the enormous tensions of this trip. Nowadays beatifications are normally proclaimed by local bishops. But the life and work of Cardinal Newman offered him an opportunity to take the battle against aggressive secularism into enemy territory. Without ever mentioning He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, he pounded his contention that “There is no logical pathway from atheism to wickedness.”

A schoolboy knowledge of the 20th century shows how dumboundingly daft that is but Benedict put it more eloquently:

“Without the corrective supplied by religion, though, reason … can fall prey to distortions, as when it is manipulated by ideology, or applied in a partial way that fails to take full account of the dignity of the human person. Such misuse of reason, after all, was what gave rise to the slave trade in the first place and to many other social evils, not least the totalitarian ideologies of the twentieth century. This is why I would suggest that the world of reason and the world of faith – the world of secular rationality and the world of religious belief – need one another and should not be afraid to enter into a profound and ongoing dialogue, for the good of our civilization.”

Young people need challenging ideals. The last 40 years have thrown a soggy blanket of booze and sex over youthful idealism and generosity. One of the leaders in the Pope’s Unwelcome Committee, the Commissar of the British secularist commentariat, Polly Toynbee, exemplified this in a recent column when she wrote that repression of “sex lies at the poisoned heart of all that is wrong with just about every major faith”. What Jack and Jill need is more safe sex, in other words. 

Benedict, on the other hand, offered young Britons the demanding challenge of creating a civilisation of love, rather than a civilisation of indulgence. “There are many temptations placed before you every day - drugs, money, sex, pornography, alcohol - which the world tells you will bring you happiness, yet these things are destructive and divisive. There is only one thing which lasts: the love of Jesus Christ personally for each one of you.”

The Pope has a vision of life as demanding commitment to dignity, friendship, wisdom and truth – like John Henry Newman – instead of the frantic pursuit of “the glittering but superficial existence frequently proposed by today’s society”. The eruption of petulant nastiness in the media before the visit made a shabby contrast with the Pope’s invitation to reach for the stars.

Religion has a place in the public square. Nowhere in the Western world is religion more on the back foot than in Britain. But as Prime Minister Cameron pointed out, Christianity is challenging: “For you have offered a message not just to the Catholic Church but to each and every one of us of every faith and none. A challenge to us all to follow our conscience to ask not what are my entitlements, but what are my responsibilities? To ask not what we can do for ourselves, but what we can do for others?”

Faith has a role in political life, Benedict insisted. Politics is not just a matter of administrative effectiveness or balancing interests, but of ethics. “Substantially politics came into being in order to guarantee justice, and with justice, freedom. Now justice is a moral value, a religious value, and hence faith, the proclamation of the Gospel, is linked to politics at the point of ‘justice’, and from here are born common interests.”

The 20th century has shown that that governments are constantly tempted to tyranny. It is faith that protects citizens from being swallowed up by Leviathan:

“Each generation, as it seeks to advance the common good, must ask anew: what are the requirements that governments may reasonably impose upon citizens, and how far do they extend? By appeal to what authority can moral dilemmas be resolved? These questions take us directly to the ethical foundations of civil discourse. If the moral principles underpinning the democratic process are themselves determined by nothing more solid than social consensus, then the fragility of the process becomes all too evident - herein lies the real challenge for democracy.”

The foundation for tolerance is respect, not relativism. The Pope’s critics accuse him of being deaf to dialogue but they were in no mood for dialogue themselves last weekend. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named told a rally of supporters that he was “a leering old fixer” and “an enemy of humanity, of children, of gay people, of women, of the poorest people on the planet, of truth, of science, of education”. Isn’t Britain’s Pope of atheism capable of civility or tolerance?

By contrast, Benedict pulled no punches but gave no offence. In Westminster Hall he reminded the great and good of British society that Thomas More had been martyred for his loyalty to Rome. In Lambeth Palace, the residence of the Anglican Primate, he made a veiled reference to the ordination of homosexuals and women and Newman’s conversion from the Anglican Church. In Westminster Abbey, he described himself as the successor of Peter. He met Muslim leaders and alluded to the lack of religious freedom in Muslim-majority countries. Everywhere he spoke with courtesy and respect and without insolence or irony. But everywhere he sought out common ground for promoting human dignity and religious freedom.

More with deeds than with words he gave a memorable lesson in tolerance. On the one hand, it is not forbearance, or ignoring points of difference. On the other it is not minimising differences as if they did not matter. Benedict showed that tolerance is possible without being a relativist. Is it because he is sure that reason will ultimately triumph that he has the courage to dialogue?

Read the speeches yourself. It is not for nothing that MercatorNet nominated Joseph Ratzinger as one of the great champions of human dignity.

By: Michael Cook is editor of MercatorNet.

Technorati Tags: Benedict XVI,Christianity,UK

The Rwandan genocide: a revisionist history

Political wars around the history of genocide are most evident in controversies over the Holocaust (see "The Holocaust, genocide studies, and politics", 18 August 2010). But they are also sharpening around Rwanda, where in 1994 the “Hutu Power” regime killed hundreds of thousands of Tutsis as well as moderate Hutus (see Gérard Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis, 1954-94: History of a Genocide [C Hurst, 2nd edition, 1998]).

The political context of this development is that the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) government headed by Paul Kagame - which ended the genocide when it seized power - is both determined to use the west's guilt at failing to stop the 1994 genocide to entrench its own impunity, and trade on the victims of the Rwanda genocide in order to deflect criticism of its domestic authoritarianism and external aggression.

This strategy is diminishing in effect. A real momentum is growing behind the recognition of the RPF's own responsibility for massacres of civilians, mainly Hutus, leading to accusations that it too has committed genocide. Until now most attention has focused on massacres inside Rwanda, during the RPF's invasion in 1994 and subsequent consolidation of power, most notoriously at Kibeho in 1995.

These events led some Hutu propagandists to propound the theory of the “double genocide”. This is a simplistic and distorting idea because RPF massacres were localised, with neither the national scope nor the consistent targeting of the huge Hutu Power murder-campaign. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that the RPF committed genocidal massacres of Hutu civilians.

The spotlight now, however, is on the aftermath of the 1994 genocide, when the RPF pursued Hutu génocidaires into what was then Zaïre (now the Democratic Republic of Congo), initiating the devastating wars which engulfed that country until 2003 and continue in some regions to this day. In these wars, a changing (and to the uninitiated, bewildering) array of states and Congolese armed groups have both fought each other and committed atrocities (including systematic rape) against civilians.

A new report

Gérard Prunier, in his monumental study of the Congo wars - From Genocide to Continental War: The 'Congolese' Conflict and the Crisis of Contemporary Africa (C Hurst, 2009) - explains that Rwanda's RPF regime remained the most consistent and determined external participant throughout these conflicts, and that its responsibility for massacres has long been known (see Gérard Prunier, "The eastern DR Congo: dynamics of conflict", 17 November 2008).

For their part western governments, especially the United States and Britain’s, have consistently deferred to Rwanda's “victim” status, in some cases defending it against serious charges of having perpetrated crimes for which there is real evidence.

But a detailed report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights - leaked to Le Monde - maps “the most serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law” committed within the DR Congo in 1993-2003: namely, charges that civilians were systematically attacked on a large scale. A summary on paragraph 512 reads:

“These attacks resulted in a very large number of victims, probably tens of thousands of members of the Hutu ethnic group, all nationalities combined. In the vast majority of cases reported, it was not a question of people killed unintentionally in the course of combat, but people targeted primarily by [Rwandan and allied] forces and executed in their hundreds, often with edged weapons. The majority of the victims were children, women, elderly people and the sick, who posed no threat to the attacking forces. Numerous serious attacks on the physical or psychological integrity of members of the group were also committed, with a very high number of Hutus shot, raped, burnt or beaten. Very large numbers of victims were forced to flee and travel long distances to escape their pursuers, who were trying to kill them. The hunt lasted for months, resulting in the deaths of an unknown number of people subjected to cruel, inhuman and degrading living conditions, without access to food or medication. On several occasions, the humanitarian aid intended for them was deliberately blocked, in particular in Orientale Province, depriving them of assistance essential to their survival.”

The report therefore carefully argues (paragraphs 514-18) that the attacks on Hutus could have amounted to genocide.

This is an explosive conclusion for the Rwandan government (which has predictably reacted by threatening regional peacemaking arrangements). The United Nations and western governments will also find it embarrassing and inconvenient - to the extent that there is doubt as to whether the report will ever be published officially.  

A great denial

All this is also welcome fuel for a determined group of Rwanda genocide-deniers. A new book by Edward S Herman and David Peterson focusing on the use of the term “genocide” in the media and academia - The Politics of Genocide (Monthly Review Press, 2010) - argues that the western establishment has “swallowed a propaganda line on Rwanda that turned perpetrator and victim upside-down” (p.51); the RPF not only killed Hutus, but were the “prime génocidaires” (p.54); there was “large-scale killing and ethnic cleansing of Hutus by the RPF long before the April-July 1994 period (p.53); this contributed to a result in which “the majority of victims were likely Hutu and not Tutsi” (quoted with approval, p.58).

Herman and Peterson state that “a number of observers as well as participants in the events of 1994 claim that the great majority of deaths were Hutu, with some estimates as high as two million” (p.58). But a check of the reference for this shocking statement finds no more than a letter from a former RPF military officer and personal communications from a former defence council before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (n.127, p.132) - both participants rather than “observers”. That is enough for these authors to dismiss the idea of “800,000 or more largely Tutsi deaths” as RPF and western propaganda (see Adam Jones, "On Genocide Deniers - Challenging Herman and Peterson", AllAfrica.com. 16 July 2010).

This book deserves attention for the fact that it opens with a lengthy foreword by Herman’s long-term collaborator, Noam Chomsky. Chomsky remains for many an exemplary champion of human rights; a quote from him even emblazons the respectable academic website on which the leaked UN report has been published.

Many others, however, reached a very different view after examining his comments on the Khmer Rouge record in Cambodia, his indulgence of Holocaust-denying writers, and his encouragement of Bosnian genocide-denial. But even in this gruesome context (to use one of Chomsky’s favourite words) his endorsement of The Politics of Genocide - with its denial of genocide in Rwanda as well as Bosnia - goes further.

A dead zone

This book and Noam Chomsky’s foreword inadvertently show just how multi-directional the politics of genocide have become. It is true that official western propagandists minimise “our” crimes and represent those of “our” enemies in over-simplified ways, and that such legerdemain merits exposure. But it also clear that anti-western propagandists - Herman, Peterson and Chomsky among them - are guilty of the same evasions and distortions from the “other” side.

They argue that in official western narratives, “our victims are unworthy of our attention and indignation, and never suffer ‘genocide’ at our hands” (p.104, italics in original). Yet in anti-western, Chomskyan narratives, an identical process occurs: the west's enemies, whether Serbian nationalist or Rwandan “Hutu Power”, have never committed “genocide”, and their crimes are always of less significance than those of western-supported forces.

The journalist John Pilger endorses The Politics of Genocide on its cover by saying that Herman and Peterson “defend the right of all of us to a truthful historical memory”. This important right can never be exercised by treating the men and boys of Srebrenica, the massacred and expelled Kosovo Albanians, and the slaughtered Rwandan Tutsis as “unworthy victims”. 

For scholars of genocide studies, this book is rich source-material. It is not a serious contribution to analysis in the interest of “truthful historical memory”.

By: Martin Shaw is professorial fellow in international relations and human rights at Roehampton University, London, and an honorary research professor of international relations at the University of Sussex. His website is here This review has been reproduced from openDemocracy.net under a Creative Commons licence.

Technorati Tags: genocide,international relations,Rwanda

United Nations demands inquiry into mass rapes in Congo

Mass rapes of women and children strongly condemned

A United Nations Security Council has strongly condemned the mass rapes in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, or DRC and urged the DRC government to immediate launch an inquiry into the tragedy, which also involved children victims.

The latest victims of sexual violence in the eastern Congo include 21 girls between seven and 21 years old, and six men.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Claude Heller, the Mexican United Nations ambassador spoke to reporters in his capacity as the chairman of the Security Council Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict.

"We expressed our strong condemnation of the tragic events which occurred in Walikale territory beginning late July and the following weeks in the Kivus involving minor victims," Heller said. "A total of 32 cases were reported. Thirty two cases of rape against children, 31 girls and one boy."

Heller's statement came at the end of a meeting of the working group, which reitereated a previous comment by the U.N. Security Council which strongly condemned the mass rapes in the eastern DRC in late July and early August.

It's estimated that 500 women have been raped by rebel soldiers in eastern DRC. Since U.N. officials first revealed that large numbers of women had been gang-raped, the number reported has grown to 242 victims from at least 150 concentrated in 13 villages in North Kivu province, including 28 minors.

"We recall the firm commitment of the Security Council Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict in fight against impunity, in particular for sexual violence crimes," Heller said. "We call upon all parties to cease immediately violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law, in particular sexual violence.

"We urge the government of the DRC to immediately launch an inquiry, arrest, and prosecute the perpetrators of such attacks," he said. "We encourage the U.N. to take all of the necessary measures to improve efficiency, to help prevent and to respond to such attacks and to better coordinate its actions."

The Security Council convened an open meeting to hear the briefing from Atul Khare, the U.N. under-secretary-general for peacekeeping operations, and Margot Wallstrom, the UN secretary-general's special representative on sexual violence in conflict.

The latest victims include 21 girls between seven and 21 years old, and six men, said Khare, who then told the Council that the U.N.'s actions "were not adequate" in preventing the mass rapes of women and children.

"While the primary responsibility for protection of civilians lies with the state, its national army and police force, clearly we have also failed. Our actions were not adequate, resulting in unacceptable brutalization of the population of villages in the area," Khare said.

Margot Wasstrom called for "collective responsibility" in the U.N.'s failure to prevent the brutal sexual attacks in the war-torn African country.

"At this moment, we are all compelled to look in the mirror and face our collective responsibility for our inability to prevent the mass rapes in Kibua," Wallstrom told the UN Security Council.

By: Catholic on Line

 

Technorati Tags: Congo,Africa,rape,inquiry,violence

Reaping the whirlwind

“It began on Saturday 7th September 1940 at around tea-time… That Saturday was a warm, sunny Autumn day. In the late afternoon we of the Auxiliary Fire Service, stationed at the London Fire Brigade Station … [were] watching from the window towards Greenwich, across the Thames, we suddenly saw aircraft approaching, quite low, their shapes black against the bright sky. We watched, mesmerised, until someone said, uneasily, ‘I think we’d better go downstairs, these blokes look like they mean business’ They did. We closed the window and were walking, unhurriedly down the stairs when suddenly came loud rushing noises and huge explosions. Bombs! we were being bombed! “ ~ Doris Lilian Bennett 

This month marks 70 years since the German Luftwaffe began its systematic bombing of English cities, killing 43,000 Britons in nine months of bombing. Nazi Germany adopted this tactic after failing to gain the air supremacy needed for a full scale invasion of Britain, and in retaliation for earlier limited bombings of German cities. “The Blitz” failed to defeat British morale; but the tactic of “terror bombing” became a central feature of the Second World War.

From 1942 onward, Britain’s Royal Air Force began the systematic bombing of German cities, under the direction of Air Chief Marshal Arthur “Bomber” Harris:

“Attacks on cities like any other act of war are intolerable unless they are strategically justified. But they are strategically justified in so far as they tend to shorten the war and preserve the lives of Allied soldiers. To my mind we have absolutely no right to give them up unless it is certain that they will not have this effect. I do not personally regard the whole of the remaining cities of Germany as worth the bones of one British Grenadier.”

Harris’ rationale is the epitome of “whatever it takes”, the principle of military expedience. But there is also a hint of vengeance in his words: “The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them… They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind.”

Estimates of German civilian casualties suffered under Allied bombing range from 300,000 to 600,000 killed. The RAF were far more effective than their German counterparts.

In the Pacific region the Japanese military made no secret of their contempt for the rules of warfare. The numerous war crimes and atrocities committed by Japanese forces were more like natural extensions of the perverse Imperial ideology, rather than concessions to military expedience.

But the US firebombing of Tokyo from February 1945, and finally the use of nuclear weapons on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, are the epitome of doing “whatever it takes” to shorten the war, forestall invasion, preserve the lives of Allied soldiers, and let enemy civilians “reap the whirlwind”. The lessons of military expedience culminated in the most direct and effective violence ever inflicted upon an enemy population.

In the past few decades, Western democracies have shied away from the targeting of non-combatants. A narrative has emerged affirming the “exceptional” nature of World War II, that increased civilian mobilisation according to the principles of “total war” removed the distinction between civilian and military. Yet this “straw man” argument does not tell us why it should suddenly become morally licit to intentionally target enemy non-combatants; for it is the “combatant/non-combatant” distinction that determines the moral use of force, not the “civilian/military” dichotomy. Medics and chaplains may be military non-combatants, while civilians will become legitimate targets if they enter into combat.

The value of this distinction is most apparent in the two wars that have engaged Western democracies this past decade. In Iraq and Afghanistan, the enemy is not “military”, yet he is most definitely a combatant. At the same time, the enemy has embraced whole-heartedly the principle of expedience, doing “whatever it takes” to achieve his goals. This principle is made explicit in the self-serving justification of al-Qaeda:

“Muslim scholars have issued a fatwa [a religious order] against any American who pays taxes to his government. He is our target, because he is helping the American war machine against the Muslim nation.”

Another al-Qaeda leader offered justifications for the killing of non-combatants that read almost like a parody of arguments for the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki:

“The citizens in democratic Western countries become full participants in governmental decision-making by voting in elections and therefore they are no longer considered ‘non-combatants’ as in past wars.”

Islamic terrorists and “insurgents” have even displayed an astonishing degree of callousness toward the lives of their fellow believers:

“The killing of infidels by any method including martyrdom [suicide] operations has been sanctified by many scholars even if it means killing innocent Muslims… The shedding of Muslim blood... is allowed in order to avoid the greater evil of disrupting jihad.”

We have returned to a point where Western nations uphold the ethics of warfare, while our enemies will do “whatever it takes” to win. Yet the temptation will always exist for us to abandon our self-imposed rules of warfare for the sake of a quicker, easier, or more vengeful victory.

To avoid this temptation, we must confirm that we are truly acting in accordance with the ethics of warfare, and not simply responding to the demands of the present era. It is clear, for example, that domestic and international politics will not condone the targeting of non-combatants as it did in the past. But is this opinion based on the fact that it is always wrong to target non-combatants? Or is it based on a pragmatic sense that such actions are not yet justified? We do not know what challenges the future holds, so we cannot predict how our judgment will be tested and warped by coming events.

Many people believe that war with Iran or North Korea are very real possibilities, and the threat of nuclear weapons from these nations cannot be ignored. How would we respond in such a terrible scenario? Would we view their non-combatant populations as worthy of protection? Or would we find some rationale to let them “reap the whirlwind”?

By: Zac Alstin works at the Southern Cross Bioethics Institute in Adelaide, South Australia.

 

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