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Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli (3 May 1469 – 21 June 1527) was an Italian philosopher/writer, and is considered one of the main founders of modern political science.[1] He was a diplomat, political philosopher, musician, and a playwright, but foremost, he was a civil servant of the Florentine Republic. In June of 1498, after the ouster and execution of Girolamo Savonarola, the Great Council elected Machiavelli as Secretary to the second Chancery of the Republic of Florence.[2]
Like Leonardo da Vinci, Machiavelli is considered a good example of the Renaissance Man. He is most famous for a short political treatise, The Prince, written in 1513, but not published until 1532, five years after Machiavelli's death. Although he privately circulated The Prince among friends, the only work he published in his lifetime was The Art of War, about high-military science. Since the sixteenth century, generations of politicians remain attracted and repelled by the cynical approach to power posited in The Prince and his other works.[3] Whatever his personal intentions, which are still debated today, his surname yielded the modern political word Machiavellianism—the use of cunning and deceitful tactics in politics.
Contents [hide]
1 Life
2 Works
2.1 The Prince
2.1.1 Realism
2.1.2 Satire?
2.1.3 "Machiavellian"
2.2 Discorsi
2.3 Other works
3 Revival of interest in the 19th and 20th centuries
4 Contributions to Political Philosophy
4.1 Realist or evil?
4.2 Thoughts on the State
4.3 Impact on America
5 See also
6 Notes
7 References
8 Further reading
8.1 Specialized studies
8.1.1 Biographies
8.1.2 Political thought
8.1.3 Editions
9 External links
[edit] Life
Machiavelli was born in Florence, Italy, the third son of attorney Bernardo di Niccolò Machiavelli, and his wife, Bartolomea di Stefano Nelli. The Machiavelli family are believed descended from the old marquesses of Tuscany, and to have produced thirteen Florentine Gonfalonieres of Justice.[4], one of the offices of a group of nine citizens selected by drawing lots every two months, who formed the government, or Signoria.
Statue at the UffiziMachiavelli was born in a tumultuous era—Popes waged war, and the wealthy Italian city-states might anytime fall, piecemeal, to foreign powers—France, Spain, the Holy Roman Empire—and political-military alliances continually changed, featuring condottieri who changed sides without warning, and weeks-long governments rising and falling.[citation needed]
Rigorously trained to manhood by his father, Machiavelli was taught grammar, rhetoric and Latin. He did not learn Greek, even though Florence was at the time one of the centers of Greek scholarship in Europe. In 1494, he entered Florentine government service as a clerk and as an ambassador; later that year, Florence restored the republic—expelling the Medici family, who had ruled Florence for some sixty years. He was in a diplomatic council responsible for negotiation and military affairs, undertaking, between 1499 and 1512, diplomatic missions to the courts of Louis XII in France, Ferdinand II of Aragón, in Spain, and the Papacy in Rome, in Italy proper. Moreover, from 1502 to 1503, he witnessed the effective state-building methods of soldier-churchman Cesare Borgia (1475 – 1507), who was then enlarging his central Italian territories.
Between 1503 and 1506, Machiavelli was responsible for the Florentine militia, including the City’s defense. He distrusted mercenaries (cf. Discourses, The Prince), preferring a politically-invested citizen-militia, a philosophy that bore fruit—his command of Florentine citizen-soldiers defeated Pisa in 1509; yet, in August of 1512, the Medici, helped by Pope Julius II, used Spanish troops to defeat the Florentines at Prato; Piero Soderini resigned as Florentine head of state, and left in exile; then, the Florentine city-state and the Republic were dissolved. For his significant role in the republic's anti-Medici government, Niccolò Machiavelli was deposed from office, and, in 1513, was accused of conspiracy, and arrested. Despite torture "with the rope" (the prisoner is hanged from his bound wrists, from the back, forcing the arms to bear the body's weight, thus dislocating the shoulders), he denied involvement and was released; then, retiring to his estate, at Sant'Andrea in Percussina, near Florence, he wrote the political treatises that earned his intellectual place in the development of political philosophy and political conduct. [5]
Machiavelli's cenotaph in the Santa Croce Church in FlorenceIn a letter to Francesco Vettori, he described his exile:
When evening comes, I return home [from work and from the local tavern] and go to my study. On the threshold, I strip naked, taking off my muddy, sweaty work day clothes, and put on the robes of court and palace, and, in this graver dress, I enter the courts of the ancients, and am welcomed by them, and there I taste the food that alone is mine, and for which I was born. And there I make bold to speak to them and ask the motives of their actions, and they, in their humanity, reply to me. And for the space of four hours I forget the world, remember no vexation, fear poverty no more, tremble no more at death; I pass indeed into their world. [6]
As a writer, Machiavelli identified the unifying theme in The Prince and the Discorsi:
All cities that ever, at any time, have been ruled by an absolute prince, by aristocrats, or by the people, have had for their protection force combined with prudence, because the latter is not enough alone, and the first either does not produce things, or when they are produced, does not maintain them. Force and prudence, then, are the might of all the governments that ever have been or will be in the world. [7]
Machiavelli died in 1527. He was buried at the Church of Santa Croce in Florence, Italy. An epitaph honouring him is inscribed in a small monument. The Latin legend reads: TANTO NOMINI NULLUM PAR ELOGIUM (No eulogy would be adequate to praise so great a name).
[edit] Works
See also: Category:Works by Niccolò Machiavelli
[edit] The Prince
Main article: The Prince
Bust of Machiavelli in the Palazzo Vecchio[edit] Realism
The Prince's contribution to the history of political thought is the fundamental break between political Realism and political Idealism. Niccolò Machiavelli’s best-known book exposits and describes the arts with which a ruling prince can maintain control of his realm. It concentrates on the "new prince", under the presumption that a hereditary prince has an easier task in ruling, since the people are accustomed to him. To retain power, the hereditary prince must carefully maintain the socio-political institutions to which the people are accustomed; whereas a new prince has the more difficult task in ruling, since he must first stabilize his new-found power in order to build an enduring political structure. That requires the prince being a public figure above reproach, whilst privately acting amorally to achieve State goals. The examples are those princes who most successfully obtain and maintain power, drawn from his observations as a Florentine diplomat, and his ancient history readings; thus, the Latin phrases and Classic examples.
The Prince does not dismiss morality, instead, it politically defines “Morality”—as in the criteria for acceptable cruel action—it must be decisive: swift, effective, and short-lived. Machiavelli is aware of the irony of good results coming from evil actions; notwithstanding some mitigating themes, the Catholic Church proscribed The Prince, registering it to the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, moreover, the Humanists also viewed the book negatively, among them, Erasmus of Rotterdam. As a treatise, its primary intellectual contribution to the history of political thought is the fundamental break between political Realism and political Idealism—thus, The Prince is a manual to acquiring and keeping political power. In contrast with Plato and Aristotle, a Classical ideal society is not the aim of the prince’s will to power. As a political scientist, Machiavelli emphasises necessary, methodical exercise of brute force punishment-and-reward (patronage, clientelism, et cetera) to preserve the status quo.
[edit] Satire?
As there seems to be a very large difference between Machiavelli's advice to ruthless and tyrannical princes in The Prince and his more republican exhortations in Discorsi, many have concluded that The Prince is actually only a satire. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, for instance, admired Machiavelli the republican and consequently argued that The Prince is a book for the republicans as it exposes the methods used by princes. If the book was only intended as a manual for tyrannical rulers, it contains a paradox: it would apparently be more effective if the secrets it contains would not be made publicly available. Also Antonio Gramsci argued that Machiavelli's audience was the common people because the rulers already knew these methods through their education. This interpretation is supported by the fact that Machiavelli wrote in Italian, not in Latin (which would have been the language of the ruling elite). Although Machiavelli is supposed to be a realist, many of his heroes in The Prince are in fact mythical or semi-mythical, and his goal (i.e. the unification of Italy) essentially utopian at the time of writing.
[edit] "Machiavellian"
Sixteenth-century contemporaries adopted and used the adjective Machiavellian (in the sense of devious cunning), often in the introductions of political tracts offering more than government by “Reasons of State”, most notably those of Jean Bodin and Giovanni Botero. Contemporary, pejorative usage of Machiavellian (or anti-Machiavellism in the 16th C.) is a misnomer describing someone who deceives and manipulates others for gain; (personal or not, the gain is immaterial, only action matters, insofar as it affects results). The Prince hasn’t the moderating themes of his other works; politically, “Machiavelli” denotes someone of politically-extreme perspective;[8] however Machiavellianism remains a popular speech and journalism usage; while in psychology, it denotes a personality type.
[edit] Discorsi
Main article: Discourses on Livy
Sebastiano del Piombo,1516,"Cardinal Bandinello Sauli, His Secretary, and Two Geographers." Which is often mistaken for Machiavelli (center right) depicted: (left-right) Cesare Borgia, Pedro Luis de Borja Lanzol de Romaní, and Don Micheletto CorellaThe Discourse on the First Ten Books of Titus Livy comprises the early history of Rome. It is a series of lessons on how a republic should be started and structured, including the concept of checks and balances, the strength of a tri-partite political structure, and the superiority of a republic over a principality.
From The Discourses:
“In fact, when there is combined under the same constitution a prince, a nobility, and the power of the people, then these three powers will watch and keep each other reciprocally in check”. Book I, Chapter II
“Doubtless these means [of attaining power] are cruel and destructive of all civilized life, and neither Christian, nor even human, and should be avoided by every one. In fact, the life of a private citizen would be preferable to that of a king at the expense of the ruin of so many human beings”. Book I, Chapter XXVI
“Now, in a well-ordered republic, it should never be necessary to resort to extra-constitutional measures. . . . ” Book I, Chapter XXXIV
“. . . the governments of the people are better than those of princes”. Book I, Chapter LVIII
“. . . if we compare the faults of a people with those of princes, as well as their respective good qualities, we shall find the people vastly superior in all that is good and glorious”. Book I, Chapter LVIII
“For government consists mainly in so keeping your subjects that they shall be neither able, nor disposed to injure you. . . . ” Book II, Chapter XXIII
“. . . no prince is ever benefited by making himself hated”. Book III, Chapter XIX
“Let not princes complain of the faults committed by the people subjected to their authority, for they result entirely from their own negligence or bad example”. Book III, Chapter XXIX [9]
[edit] Other works
Peter Withorne’s 1573 translation of the Art of WarBesides being a statesman and political scientist, Machiavelli also translated classical works, and was a dramaturge (Clizia, Mandragola), a poet (Sonetti, Canzoni, Ottave, Canti carnascialeschi), and a novelist (Belfagor arcidiavolo).
Some of his other works:
Discorso sopra le cose di Pisa (1499)
Del modo di trattare i popoli della Valdichiana ribellati (1502)
Del modo tenuto dal duca Valentino nell’ ammazzare Vitellozzo Vitelli, Oliverotto da Fermo, etc. (1502) — A Description of the Methods Adopted by the Duke Valentino when Murdering Vitellozzo Vitelli, Oliverotto da Fermo, the Signor Pagolo, and the Duke di Gravina Orsini
Discorso sopra la provisione del danaro (1502) — A discourse about the provision of money.
Decennale primo (1506), a poem in terza rima.
Ritratti delle cose dell’ Alemagna (1508–1512) - Portrait of the affairs of Germany.
Decennale secondo (1509), a poem.
Ritratti delle cose di Francia (1510) — Portrait of the affairs of France.
Andria (1517), a Classical comedy, translated from Terence.
Mandragola (1518) — The Mandrake, a five-act prose comedy, with a verse prologue.
Della lingua (1514), a dialogue about the language.
Clizia (1525), a prose comedy.
Belfagor arcidiavolo (1515), a novel.
Asino d’oro (1517) — The Golden Ass is a terza rima poem, a new version of the Classic work by Apuleius.
Dell’arte della guerra (1519–1520) — The Art of War, high military science.
Discorso sopra il riformare lo stato di Firenze (1520) — A discourse about the reforming of Florence.
Sommario delle cose della citta di Lucca (1520) — A summary of the affairs of the city of Lucca.
Vita di Castruccio Castracani da Lucca (1520) — The Life of Castruccio Castracani of Lucca, a biography.
Istorie fiorentine (1520–1525) — Florentine Histories, an eight-volume history book of the city-state, Florence, commissioned by Giulio di Giuliano de’ Medici, later Pope Clement VII.
Frammenti storici (1525) — Fragments of stories.
[edit] Revival of interest in the 19th and 20th centuries
Despite remaining a politically-influential writer in the 17th and 18th centuries, it was the 19th and 20th centuries that rediscovered his political science for its intellectual and practical applications. The most reliable guide to this renewed interest is the Introduction to the 1953 (Mentor Books) edition of Il Principe, wherein Christian Gauss, the Dean of Princeton University, discusses, with pertinent historical context, the commentaries on The Prince made by the German historians Ranke (19th c.) and Meineke (20th c.), the Briton Lord Acton, and others. Citing the consensus that Machiavelli was the first political theorist with a practical, scientific approach to statecraft, considering him “the first Modern Man”. The commentators view the political scientist Machiavelli positively—because he viewed the world realistically, thus, such statecraft leads to (generally) constructive results.
In the 20th century there was also renewed interest in Machiavelli's La Mandragola (1518), which received numerous stagings, including several in New York, at the New York Shakespeare Festival in 1976 and the Riverside Shakespeare Company in 1979, and at London's National Theatre in 1984.[10]
[edit] Contributions to Political Philosophy
Machiavelli was in many respects not an innovator. His largest political work seeks to bring back a rebirth of the Ancient Roman Republic; its values, virtues and principles the ultimate guiding authority of his political vision. Machiavelli is essentially a restorer of something old and forgotten. The republicanism he focused on, especially the theme of civic virtue, became one of the dominant political themes of the modern world, and was a central part of the foundation of American political values.
Machiavelli studied the way people lived and aimed to inform leaders how they should rule and even how they themselves should live. To an extent he admits that the old tradition was true - men are obliged to live virtuously as according to Aristotles Virtue Ethics principle. However, he denies that living virtuously necessarily leads to happiness. Machiavelli viewed misery as one of the vices that enables a prince to rule [11] Machiavelli states boldly in The Prince, The answer is, of course, that it would be best to be both loved and feared. But since the two rarely come together, anyone compelled to choose will find greater security in being feared than in being loved. [12] In much of Machiavelli's work, it seems that the ruler must adopt unsavory policies for the sake of the continuance of his regime.
Hans Baron was the most influential scholar to study Machiavelli. Najemy (1996) examines Baron's ambivalent portrayal, arguing that Baron tended to see Machiavelli simultaneously as the cynical debunker and the faithful heir of civic humanism. By the mid-1950s, Baron had come to consider civic humanism and Florentine republicanism as early chapters of a much longer history of European political liberty, a story in which Machiavelli and his generation played a crucial role. This conclusion led Baron to modify his earlier negative view of Machiavelli. He tried to bring the Florentine theorist under the umbrella of civic humanism by underscoring the radical differences between The Prince and the Discourses and thus revealing the fundamentally republican character of the Discourses. However, Baron's inability to come to terms with Machiavelli's harsh criticism of early 15th-century commentators such as Leonardo Bruni ultimately prevented him from fully reconciling Machiavelli with civic humanism.
Pocock (1981) traces the Machiavellian belief in and emphasis upon Greco-Roman ideals of unspecialized civic virtue and liberty from 15th-century Florence through 17th-century England and Scotland to 18th-century America. Thinkers who shared these ideals tended to believe that the function of property was to maintain an individual's independence as a precondition of his virtue. Consequently, in the last two times and places mentioned above, they were disposed to attack the new commercial and financial regime that was beginning to develop. However, Paul Rahe (1992) takes issue with Pocock on the origins and argues Machiavelli's republicanism was not rooted in antiquity but was is entirely novel and modern. Scholars have argued that James Madison followed Machiavelli's republicanism when he (and Jefferson) set up the Democratic-Republican Party in the 1790s to oppose what they saw as the emerging aristocracy that they feared Alexander Hamilton was creating with the Federalist Party.[13] Conservative historians likewise conclude that Thomas Jefferson's republicanism was "deeply in debt" to Machiavelli, whom he praised.[14]
[edit] Realist or evil?
For four centuries scholars have debated whether Machiavelli was the theorist of evil or just being realistic. The Prince made the word "Machiavellian" a byword for deceit, despotism, and political manipulation. Some historians argue Machiavelli had a secret (or very subtle) message that explains away the ugly implications of the plain text, saying that Machiavelli really favored virtue after all and was just trying to trick princes into policies that would lead to their overthrow, not their triumph.[15]
Leo Strauss, the American political philosopher, declared himself more inclined toward the traditional view that Machiavelli was a "teacher of evil," since he counsels the princes to avoid the values of justice, mercy, temperance, wisdom, and love of their people in preference to the use of cruelty, violence, fear, and deception.[16] Italian anti-fascist philosopher Benedetto Croce (1925) concludes Machiavelli is simply a "realist" or "pragmatist" who accurately states that moral values in reality do not greatly affect the decisions that political leaders make.[17] German philosopher Ernst Cassirer (1946) held that Machiavelli simply adopts the stance of a political scientist—a Galileo of politics—in distinguishing between the "facts" of political life and the "values" of moral judgment.[18]
[edit] Thoughts on the State
Machiavelli was not a political philosopher in the ordinary sense. He did not try either to define the State or to justify its existence. His views about the State are implied as matter of course when he describes how a ruler may retain or acquire control, how he is liable to lose it, which qualities are necessary for a republic to remain strong, or how precarious a Republic’s liberty can be at times. Medieval thinkers had taken the political authority of any prince or king in the community of Christendom to be necessarily limited – by the Emperor (In the case of the Holy Roman Empire), by the power of the Roman Catholic Church in spiritual matters and by the power of natural law (Universal moral principles) that determine the boundaries of justice. Machiavelli did not challenge this long held traditional position. He ignored it, writing as a matter of fact that the state had absolute authority. He thought that the value of religion lies in its contribution to social order and the rules of morality must be dispensed with if security required it.
Machiavelli further differed from medieval thinkers in taking for granted that the power of the state is a single whole and can be centrally controlled, irrespective of whether the state is a monarchy or a republic. He preferred a republic because he preferred liberty. However, he believed that in order for the liberty of republicanism to function, it needed a citizenry who were independent and courageous (Virtuous). Machiavelli believed these qualities were rare and existed hardly anywhere in the Europe of his day since the Romans.
[edit] Impact on America
The Founding Fathers read Machiavelli closely. In his Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States, Adams praised Machiavelli, with Algernon Sidney and Montesquieu, as a philosophic defender of mixed government. For Adams, Machiavelli restored empirical reason to politics, while his analysis of factions was commendable. Adams likewise agreed with the Florentine that human nature was immutable and driven by passions. He also accepted Machiavelli's belief that all societies were subject to cyclical periods of growth and decay. For Adams, Machiavelli lacked only a clear understanding of the institutions necessary for good government.[19]
[edit] See also
Timeline of Niccolò Machiavelli
[edit] Notes
^ Moschovitis Group Inc, Christian D. Von Dehsen and Scott L. Harris, Philosophers and religious leaders, (The Oryx Press, 1999), 117.
^ White, Michael (2007). Machiavelli, A Man Misunderstood. Abacus.. ISBN 978-0-349-11599-3.
^ S. Anglo, Machiavelli: the first century (Oxford, 2005)
^ "Niccolò Machiavelli". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Catholic_Encyclopedia_(1913)/Niccol%C3%B2_Machiavelli.
^ Donna, Daniel, in the introduction to the Bantam Classic edition of The Prince, Bantam, 1966
^ The Literary Works of Machiavelli, trans. J.R. Hale. (Oxford: 1961), p. 139 D.
^ "Words to be Spoken on the Law for Appropriating Money", in Chief Works and Others [of Machiavelli], trans. Allan H. Gilbert, 3 vols. (Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press, 1965), v. III, 1439.
^ In one scholar's assessment, mistakenly so. Writes Anthony Parel: "The authentic Machiavelli is one who subordinates personal interests for the common good . . . If one is to speak of a Machiavellian personality one should mention Moses and Romulus (to use [M's] own examples)." For more on the three sources of historical anti-Machiavellism, see Further Reading, Parel, pp. 14-24, and (in far greater detail): Sydney Anglo, Machiavelli - the First Century: Studies in Enthusiasm, Hostility, and Irrelevance, Oxford University Press, 2005, ISBN 0199267766, 9780199267767.
^ The Modern Library, New York, 1950, translated by Christian E. Detmold.
^ Review by Jann Racquoi, Heights/Inwood Press of North Manhattan, March 14, 1979.
^ Leo Strauss, Joseph Cropsey, History of Political Philosophy (1987) p. 300
^ Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, p. 60
^ Gary Rosen in Rahe, ed. Machiavelli's Liberal Republican Legacy (2005) p. 231 online
^ Rahe, Jefferson's Machiavellian Political Science in Rahe, ed. Machiavelli's Liberal Republican Legacy (2005) p. 209 online
^ John Langton and Mary G. Deitz, "Machiavelli's Paradox: Trapping or Teaching the Prince" The American Political Science Review, Vol. 81, No. 4 (Dec., 1987), pp. 1277-1288 at JSTOR
^ Leo Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli (1957), p 9 online
^ Benedetto Croce, My Philosophy (1949), p. 142 online
^ Ernst Cassirer, The Myth of the State, (1946) p.136, online
^ C. Bradley Thompson, "John Adams's Machiavellian Moment," Review of Politics 1995 57(3): 389-417, in EBSCO
[edit] References
Machiavelli, Niccolò (1531). The Discourses. Translated by Leslie J. Walker, S.J, revisions by Brian Richardson (2003). London: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-140-44428-9
[edit] Further reading
Anglo, Sydney, Machiavelli - the First Century: Studies in Enthusiasm, Hostility, and Irrelevance, Oxford University Press, 2005, ISBN 0199267766, 9780199267767
Baron, Hans (1961). "Machiavelli: the Republican Citizen and Author of The Prince". English Historical Review lxxvi (76): 217–253. doi:10.1093/ehr/LXXVI.CCXCIX.217.
Bock, Gisela; Quentin Skinner and Maurizio Viroli, ed. (1990). Machiavelli and Republicanism. Cambridge University Press.
Constantine, Peter (2007). The Essential Writings of Machiavelli. New York: Random House Modern Library.
Donaldson, Peter S. (1989). Machiavelli and Mystery of State. Cambridge University Press.
Everdell, William R. (1983, 2000). The End of Kings: A History of Republics and Republicans. University of Chicago Press.
Hoeges, Dirk. Niccolò Machiavelli. Dichter-Poeta. Mit sämtlichen Gedichten, deutsch/italienisch. Con tutte le poesie, tedesco/italiano, Reihe: Dialoghi/Dialogues: Literatur und Kultur Italiens und Frankreichs, Band 10, Peter Lang Verlag, Frankfurt/M. u.a. 2006, ISBN 3-631-54669-6.
Ingersoll, David E. (December 1968). "The Constant Prince: Private Interests and Public Goals in Machiavelli". Western Political Quarterly (21): 588–596.
Magee, Brian (2001). The Story of Philosophy. New York: DK Publishing. pp. 72–73.
Marriott, W. K. (2008). The Prince. Red and Black Publishers. ISBN 978-0-934941-003
Roger Masters (1996). Machiavelli, Leonardo and the Science of Power. University of Notre Dame Press. ISBN 0-268-01433-7. See also NYT book review.
Roger Masters (1998). Fortune is a River: Leonardo Da Vinci and Niccolo Machiavelli's Magnificent Dream to Change the Course of Florentine History. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-452-28090-7. Also available in Chinese (ISBN 9789572026113), Japanese (ISBN 9784022597588), German (ISBN 9783471794029), Portuguese (ISBN 9788571104969), and Korean (ISBN 9788984070059). See also NYT book review.
Mattingly, Garrett (Autumn 1958). "Machiavelli's Prince: Political Science or Political Satire?". The American Scholar (27): 482–491.
Najemy, John M. (1996). "Baron's Machiavelli and Renaissance Republicanism". American Historical Review 101 (101,1): 119–129. doi:10.2307/2169227.
Parel, Anthony (1972). "Introduction: Machiavelli's Method and His Interpreters". The Political Calculus: Essays on Machiavelli's Philosophy. Toronto. pp. 3–28.
Pocock, J.G. A.. The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition. Princeton.
Soll, Jacob (2005). Publishing The Prince: History, Reading and the Birth of Political Criticism. University of Michigan Press.
Strauss, Leo (1978). Thoughts on Machiavelli. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226777022.
Sullivan, Vickie B., ed. (2000). The Comedy and Tragedy of Machiavelli: Essays on the Literary Works. Yale U. Press.
Sullivan, Vickie B. (1996). Machiavelli's Three Romes: Religion, Human Liberty, and Politics Reformed. Northern Illinois University Press.
Seung, T. K. (1993). Intuition and Construction: The Foundation of Normative Theory, New Haven: Yale University Press. See pp. 133–43.
Stefano Zen, Veritas ecclesiastica e Machiavelli, in Monarchia della verità. Modelli culturali e pedagogia della Controriforma, Napoli, Vivarium, 2002 (La Ricerca Umanistica, 4), pp. 73–111.
von Vacano, Diego, "The Art of Power: Machiavelli, Nietzsche and the Making of Aesthetic Political Theory," Lanham MD: Lexington: 2007.
Viroli, Maurizio (2000). Niccolò's Smile: A Biography of Machiavelli. Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
Whelan, Frederick G. (2004). Hume and Machiavelli: Political Realism and Liberal Thought. Lexington.
Wootton, David, ed. (1994). Selected political writings of Niccolò Machiavelli. Indianapolis: Hackett Pubs..
Mascia Ferri, L'opinione pubblica e il sovrano in Machiavelli, in «The Lab's Quarterly»,n.2 aprile-giugno,Università di Pisa,2008, pp. 420–433.
Giuseppe Leone,"Silone e Machiavelli: una scuola... che non crea prìncipi", Prefazione di Vittoriano Esposito, Centro Studi Ignazio Silone, Pescina, 2003.
[edit] Specialized studies
[edit] Biographies
Burd, L. A., "Florence (II): Machiavelli" in Cambridge Modern History (1902), vol. I, ch. vi. pp 190-218 online Google edition
de Grazia, Sebastian. Machiavelli in Hell (1989), highly favorable intellectual biography; won the Pulitzer Prize; excerpt and text search
Hale, J. R. Machiavelli and Renaissance Italy (1961) online edition
Hulliung, Mark. Citizen Machiavelli (1983)
Ridolfi, Roberto. The Life of Niccolò Machiavelli (1963), a standard scholarly biography
Schevill, Ferdinand. Six Historians (1956), pp. 61-91
Skinner, Quentin. Machiavelli: A Very Short Introduction (2000) online edition
Villari, Pasquale. The Life and Times of Niccolò Machiavelli (2 vol 1892), good older biography; online Google edition vol 1; online Google edition vol 2
Viroli, Maurizio. Niccolo's Smile : A Biography of Machiavelli (2000) excerpt and text search
Viroli, Maurizio. Machiavelli (1998) online edition, good place to start
[edit] Political thought
Arciniegas, Germán. "Savonarola, Machiavelli, and Guido Antonio Vespucci: Totalitarian and Democrat 500 Years Ago," Political Science Quarterly, (1954) 69:184-201, argues that modern totalitarianism is a blending of Machiavelli's theories and Savonarola's techniques of rabble rousing. in JSTOR
Ball, Terence. "The Picaresque Prince: Reflections on Machiavelli and Moral Change," Political Theory, Vol. 12, No. 4 (Nov., 1984), pp. 521-536 in jstor
Baron, Hans. The Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance: Civic Humanism and Republican Liberty in an Age of Classicism and Tyranny (2 vol 1955), highly influential, deep study of civic humanism (republicanism); 700 pp. excerpts and text search; ACLS E-books; also vol 2 in ACLS E-books
Baron, Hans. In Search of Florentine Civic Humanism (2 vols. 1988).
Baron Hans, "Machiavelli: The Republican Citizen and the Author of The Prince" in The English Historical Review 76 (1961), pp. 217-53. in JSTOR
Bock, Gisela; Skinner, Quentin; and Viroli, Maurizio, ed. Machiavelli and Republicanism. (1990). 316 pp. excerpt and text search
Butterfield, Herbert. The Statecraft of Machiavelli (1940).
Chabod, FedericoMachiavelli & the Renaissance (1958) online edition; online from ACLS E-Books
Colish, Marcia L. "Republicanism, Religion, and Machiavelli's Savonarolan Moment," Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 60, No. 4 (Oct., 1999), pp. 597-616 in JSTOR
Colish, Marcia L. "Machiavelli's Art of War: A Reconsideration," Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 51, No. 4 (Winter, 1998), pp. 1151-1168 in JSTOR
Fischer, Markus. "Machiavelli's Political Psychology," The Review of Politics, Vol. 59, No. 4 (Autumn, 1997), pp. 789-829 in JSTOR
Gilbert, Felix. Machiavelli and Guicciardini: Politics and History in Sixteenth-Century Italy (2nd ed. 1984) online from ACLS-E-books
Gilbert, Felix. "Machiavelli: The Renaissance of the Art of War," in Edward Mead Earle, ed. The Makers of Modern Strategy (1944)
Jensen, De Lamar, ed. Machiavelli: Cynic, Patriot, or Political Scientist? (1960) essays by scholars online edition
Lukes, Timothy J. "Lionizing Machiavelli," The American Political Science Review, Vol. 95, No. 3 (Sep., 2001), pp. 561-575 in JSTOR
Lukes, Timothy J. "Martialing Machiavelli: Reassessing the Military Reflections," The Journal of Politics, Vol. 66, No. 4 (Nov., 2004), pp. 1089-1108 in JSTOR
Femia, Joseph V. Machiavelli Revisited (2004) online edition, 140pp, good place to start
McCormick, John P. "Machiavelli against Republicanism: On the Cambridge School's 'Guicciardinian Moments,'" Political Theory, Vol. 31, No. 5 (Oct., 2003), pp. 615-643 in JSTOR
Mansfield, Harvey C. Machiavelli's New Modes and Orders: A Study of the Discourses on Livy (2001) excerpt and text search
Mansfield, Harvey C. Machiavelli's Virtue (1996), 371pp
Mansfield, Harvey C. "Machiavelli's Political Science," The American Political Science Review, Vol. 75, No. 2 (Jun., 1981), pp. 293-305 in JSTOR
Mindle, Grant B. "Machiavelli's Realism," The Review of Politics, Vol. 47, No. 2 (Apr., 1985), pp. 212-230 in JSTOR
Najemy, John M. "Baron's Machiavelli and Renaissance Republicanism." American Historical Review 1996 101(1): 119-129. ISSN 0002-8762 Fulltext in Jstor.
Nederman, Cary J. "Amazing Grace: Fortune, God, and Free Will in Machiavelli's Thought," Journal of the History of Ideas 60: 617-638. in JSTOR
Parel, A. J. "The Question of Machiavelli's Modernity," The Review of Politics, Vol. 53, No. 2 (Spring, 1991), pp. 320-339 in JSTOR
Pellerin, Daniel. "Machiavelli's Best Fiend." History of Political Thought 2006 27(3): 423-453. Issn: 0143-781x on Pope Alexander VI
Pocock, J.G.A. The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition (1975; new ed. 2003), a highly influential study of Discourses and its vast influence; excerpt and text search; also online 1975 edition
Pocock, J. G. A. "The Machiavellian Moment Revisited: a Study in History and Ideology.: Journal of Modern History 1981 53(1): 49-72. Fulltext: in Jstor.
Rahe, Paul A. Machiavelli's Liberal Republican Legacy (2005) excerpt, reviews and text search, shows Machiavelli's Discourses had a major impact on shaping conservative thought.
Rahe, Paul. Republics Ancient and Modern: Classical Republicanism and the American Revolution, (1992) online edition
Scott, John T. and Vickie B. Sullivan, "Patricide and the Plot of the Prince: Cesare Borgia and Machiavelli's Italy." American Political Science Review 1994 88(4): 887-900. Issn: 0003-0554 in Jstor
Skinner, Quentin. The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, v. I, The Renaissance, (1978)
Strauss, Leo. On Machivelli (1957)
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Niccolò Machiavelli (2005) online edition
Struever, Nancy S. The Language of History in the Renaissance: Rhetoric and Historical Consciousness in Florentine Humanism (1970)
Wight, Martin. Four Seminal Thinkers in International Theory: Machiavelli, Grotius, Kant, and Mazzini (2005), ch. 1 online edition
[edit] Editions
Bondanella, Peter, and Mark Musa, eds. The Portable Machiavelli (1979)
Penman, Bruce. The Prince and Other Political Writings, (1981)
Selected Political Writings edited by David Wootton (1994) excerpt and text search
The Prince ed. by Peter Bondanella (1998) 101pp online edition
The Prince ed. by Rufus Goodwin and Benjamin Martinez (2003) excerpt and text search
The Prince (2007) excerpt and text search
Machiavelli, Niccolò. The Prince, (1908 edition tr by W. K. Marriott) Gutenberg edition
The Discourses, online 1772 edition
The Discourses, tr. with introduction and notes by L. J. Walker (2 vol 1950).
The Discourses, edited with an introduction by Bernard Crick (1970).
The Seven Books on the Art of War online 1772 edition
The Art of War ed. by Christopher Lynch (2003)
The Art of War online 1775 edition
History of Florence online 1901 edition
Reform of Florence online 1772 edition
Gilbert, Allan H. ed. Machiavelli: The Chief Works and Others, (3 vol. 1965), the standard scholarly edition
The Private Correspondence of Nicolo Machiavelli, ed. by Orestes Ferrara; (1929) online edition
full text books from the Liberty Fund, a conservative think tank
[edit] External links
Find more about Niccolò Machiavelli on Wikipedia's sister projects:
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Textbooks from Wikibooks
Quotations from Wikiquote
Source texts from Wikisource
Images and media from Commons
News stories from Wikinews
Learning resources from Wikiversity
Machiavelli: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Works by Machiavelli at Project Gutenberg
Machiavelli at the Marxists Internet Archive, including some of his works
Works by Niccolò Machiavelli: text, concordances and frequency list
Machiavelli on the Net, a Machiavelli webliography with a short introduction.
Works of Machiavelli: Italian and English text
Machiavelli and Power Politics
Machiavelli on the Online Library Of Liberty
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Monday, March 15, 2010
Thursday, March 11, 2010
In Haiti, Signal FM staff keeps station running
By Jean Roland Chery/CPJ Haiti consultant
In the studios of Signal FM this week. (AP/Ariana Cubillos) Signal FM is the only Haitian radio station to continuously broadcast during and after the powerful 7.0-magnitude earthquake that ravaged the capital, Port-au-Prince, and surrounding areas on January 12. Signal’s online news service kept operating as well. The station’s equipment, located in Petionville (east of Port-au-Prince) remained in service, withstanding, remarkably, tremors to the building and broadcasting aerials. But the true credit goes to the station’s staff members, who made extraordinary efforts and great sacrifices to inform the public during a period of chaos, the station’s managing director, Mario Viau, told CPJ.
• Français
• How to help
In an interview with us on Wednesday, Viau recounted the professionalism of his staffers and their commitment to fulfilling their duties. The station’s 12 staff journalists are working extended shifts, he said, to ensure continuous operations at 90.5 FM. Although his team suffered no direct casualties, he noted that Signal FM staffers and their families suffered greatly, as did most of the Haitian population. He cited the case of reporter Makenzie Simon, whose daughter was killed and wife seriously injured following the collapse of their home. Veteran reporter Jean Luckenson also lost close family members.
Viau reported a number of significant challenges in operating the station: a shortage of gasoline for the movement of vehicles taking reporters across affected areas, poor phone lines hindering telephone interviews from the station’s studios, the lack of electric power or a fuel supply for generators, and difficult access to bank accounts to pay journalists. In addition, the daily search for food and drinking water for the staff has been a struggle to manage because supermarkets and restaurants were destroyed. Viau stressed that people of goodwill on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince showed great generosity to the station by supplying gasoline for news broadcasting.
In addition, contact with correspondents in provincial cities most affected by the earthquake, such as Leogane, Petit-Goave, Grand Goave ou Jacmel, remains difficult. It is easier to communicate with the outside world from an international line placed directly in the newsroom, Viau noted. Phone contact between journalists in the metropolitan area is still poor.
Signal FM played a considerable role during and after the January earthquake, serving as a primary conduit between victims and relief services and between victims themselves, the station’s director said. In the midst of personal loss and faced with the demands of rebuilding their own lives, Viau said, his staff members have met a great professional challenge.
Jean Roland Chery is a former Haitian journalist now living in the United States. He is working with CPJ as a consultant for our relief efforts in response to the Haitian earthquake.
Editor’s Note: If you have any information on journalists and media outlets in Haiti please post a comment below or notify us via e-mail msalazar@cpj.org, or Twitter: @HelpJournalists. We are collecting funds that will go directly to Haitian journalists. If you’d like to make a contribution, please click this link and enter “Haiti” in the “Notes” section on the second page.
Signal FM : exemple de Solidarité dans la détresse
Radio Signal FM (90.5 FM), a été la seule station de radio émettant en Haïti durant le puissant séisme de magnitude 7.0 qui a complètement ravagé la capitale haïtienne le mardi 12 janvier 2010. Les équipements de cette radio, située à Pétionville (à l’Est de Port-au-Prince), sont restés intacts en dépit des différentes secousses subies par le bâtiment et les antennes de retransmission. Son service d’information sur internet et sa programmation quotidienne ont fonctionné sans interruption.
Mario Viau, le directeur générale de la radio explique au CPJ combien extraordinaires sont les efforts et les sacrifices déployés par les journalistes en cette période de chaos pour arriver à informer la population. Une forme de solidarité dans la détresse s’est constituée, précise-t-il, dans de le souci du devoir d’informer. Le volontariat de ces journalistes dépasse largement toute autre préoccupation personnelle.
Mario Viau indique qu’aucune perte en vie humaine n’a été enregistrée dans son équipe. Cependant, souligne-t-il, la majorité des journalistes de Signal FM ont été victimes, comme d’ailleurs le reste de la population, des effets monstrueux du tremblement de terre. Il cite en exemple le cas du reporter Makenzie Simon dont la fille a été tuée et la femme gravement blessée suite à l’effondrement de leur maison. Il mentionne également les cas de certains journalistes qui ont perdu des membres important dans leur famille comme c’est le cas du reporter de longue date Jean Luckenson.
Le PDG ( président directeur général) de Signal FM fait état aujourd’hui de nombreuses difficultés rencontrées pour faire fonctionner la station: pénurie de gasoline pour la circulation des véhicules des reporters à travers les zones sinistrées, lignes téléphoniques défectueuses, l’utilisation de mobiles pour les entretiens téléphoniques directs en studio, la carence totale d’énergie électrique, l’alimentation en fuel pour les groupes électrogènes alternatifs, et l’inaccessibilité aux comptes bancaires pour le paiement des journalistes pour ne citer que cela. En outre, La quête quotidienne de nourriture et l’accès à l’eau potable pour les journalistes en plein travail, constituent de véritables casse-tête à gérer du fait que les supermarchés et les restaurants ont été complètement détruits. Mario Viau poursuit que des gens de bonne volonté dans les environs de Port-au-Prince, ont manifesté des gestes de générosité envers la radio en fournissant du gasoline pour la retransmission des nouvelles.
Depuis le désastre du 12 janvier, Signal FM travaille avec une équipe réduite, dit-il. Les journalistes font la ronde dans le cadre d’un nouvel horaire de travail. Leur staff d’une dizaine de journalistes à Port-au-Prince passe aujourd’hui entre trois et cinq pour un maintien minimum de la salle de rédaction. Le contact avec les correspondants des villes de provinces les plus touchées par le séisme, comme Leogane, Petit-Goave, Grand Goave ou Jacmel demeure toujours difficile. Il est plus facile de communiquer avec l’extérieur à partir d’une ligne internationale directe disposée dans la sale des nouvelles. Les contacts téléphoniques entre journalistes à l’intérieur de la zone métropolitaine sont encore en mauvais état, rapporte Mario Viau au CPJ.
Signal FM a joué un rôle important durant le séisme du 12 janvier pour avoir été le point de jonction entre victimes et secours, entre victimes et victimes, soutient le directeur de la radio. Des appels provenaient surtout de l’extérieur pour s’enquérir du cas de personnes disparues. Le directeur de Signal FM déclaré qu’aujourd’hui, les journalistes des zones touchées par le séisme ont un grand défi devant eux, celui de refaire leur vie après avoir tout perdu.
Note du rédacteur: Si vous avez de l’information sur des journalistes ou des médias haïtiens, nous vous prions de poster un commentaire ci-dessous, ou de nous contacter directement à travers msalazar@cpj.org ou sur Twitter à @HelpJournalists. Nous sommes en train de rassembler des fonds de secours qui iront directement aux journalistes haïtiens. Si vous voudriez faire un don, faites clic ici et inscrivez “Haiti” dans la case “Notes” qui se trouve sur la deuxième page (veuillez noter que le document est en anglais).
Categories:Americas,
Haiti
Tags:Haitian earthquake, Journalist Assistance, Mario Viau, Signal FM
January 21, 2010 11:33 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (5)
Comments
By petunia on January 21, 2010 2:10 PM ET
Au Staff the Signal FM et au Proprietaire de la Station,
Milles merci pour le devouement deployer pour nous, les Haitians qui sont a l'exterieur, afin de nous parvenir les nouvelles D'Haiti apres le tremblement de terre du 12 Janvier 2010 malgre les deboires de certain membres du staff. Le pays entier est en deuil car la peine d'une personne nous affecte tous.
Encore milles merci et mes felicitations pour un travail bien fait.
Je profite de l'occasion pour demander votre concourt pour les haitians qui sont a Carrefour Feuille, Nerrette, Lamentin, Fontamarra et bien d'autres dans le meme voisinage qui se plaint n'avoir pas d'eau, ni nourriture, ni argent. J'ai un ami qui est a Nerrette qui m'a envoye un e-mail pour me dire que le jour qu'il a plue il etait dans la rue avec son fils, sans abri et sans eau. S'Il vout plait envoye un S.O.S a la radio pour ses quartiers.
Que Dieu vous garde tous ainsi que votre famille. J'espere que la prochaine fois que je vous enverre un message, Haiti et tous les Haitiens qui sont dans le besoin aurant recu au moins le neccessaire.
Mon message vient de Manhattan New York.
Merci
Petunia
By Geneviève on January 22, 2010 2:56 PM ET
Étant moi-même présente la-bas lors du séisme, j'ai eu la chance d'être rapatrié car je suis canadienne de souche. Les villes tel que Grand Goâve non plus ne reçoivent pas d'aide. Je sais qu'il est difficile en ces circonstances d'aider tout le monde mais nous devons penser à ceux qui sont plus difficilement atteignable. Ils commencent à mourir de faim et de désydratation là-bas.
Nous avons une personne ressource qui nous renseigne. Ils ne peuvnt plus tenir longtemps sans coup de main.
Merci
Genevièe
By Mehu Changeux on January 24, 2010 9:07 PM ET
mwen te tande komante nou yo, mwen te renmen yo, men gen yon bagay map konseye gouvernement an, eske yo pa te ka voye ed yo pa depatmant, d'une fason depatment an a genyen poul distribue bay ville yo e ville yo bay komin yo, avek yon sipevision societe civil la. mwen se Changeux Mehu responsable A.P.C.H kap koute nou Saint Domingue, genbe la se yon bel travay nap fe la.
By B Manning on January 31, 2010 5:41 PM ET
I commend all of you for your courage and dedication in the midst of so much danger as well as chaos. Thank you for being the journalists that you are, but most of all, thank God for the outstanding human beings that you all are.
In the studios of Signal FM this week. (AP/Ariana Cubillos) Signal FM is the only Haitian radio station to continuously broadcast during and after the powerful 7.0-magnitude earthquake that ravaged the capital, Port-au-Prince, and surrounding areas on January 12. Signal’s online news service kept operating as well. The station’s equipment, located in Petionville (east of Port-au-Prince) remained in service, withstanding, remarkably, tremors to the building and broadcasting aerials. But the true credit goes to the station’s staff members, who made extraordinary efforts and great sacrifices to inform the public during a period of chaos, the station’s managing director, Mario Viau, told CPJ.
• Français
• How to help
In an interview with us on Wednesday, Viau recounted the professionalism of his staffers and their commitment to fulfilling their duties. The station’s 12 staff journalists are working extended shifts, he said, to ensure continuous operations at 90.5 FM. Although his team suffered no direct casualties, he noted that Signal FM staffers and their families suffered greatly, as did most of the Haitian population. He cited the case of reporter Makenzie Simon, whose daughter was killed and wife seriously injured following the collapse of their home. Veteran reporter Jean Luckenson also lost close family members.
Viau reported a number of significant challenges in operating the station: a shortage of gasoline for the movement of vehicles taking reporters across affected areas, poor phone lines hindering telephone interviews from the station’s studios, the lack of electric power or a fuel supply for generators, and difficult access to bank accounts to pay journalists. In addition, the daily search for food and drinking water for the staff has been a struggle to manage because supermarkets and restaurants were destroyed. Viau stressed that people of goodwill on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince showed great generosity to the station by supplying gasoline for news broadcasting.
In addition, contact with correspondents in provincial cities most affected by the earthquake, such as Leogane, Petit-Goave, Grand Goave ou Jacmel, remains difficult. It is easier to communicate with the outside world from an international line placed directly in the newsroom, Viau noted. Phone contact between journalists in the metropolitan area is still poor.
Signal FM played a considerable role during and after the January earthquake, serving as a primary conduit between victims and relief services and between victims themselves, the station’s director said. In the midst of personal loss and faced with the demands of rebuilding their own lives, Viau said, his staff members have met a great professional challenge.
Jean Roland Chery is a former Haitian journalist now living in the United States. He is working with CPJ as a consultant for our relief efforts in response to the Haitian earthquake.
Editor’s Note: If you have any information on journalists and media outlets in Haiti please post a comment below or notify us via e-mail msalazar@cpj.org, or Twitter: @HelpJournalists. We are collecting funds that will go directly to Haitian journalists. If you’d like to make a contribution, please click this link and enter “Haiti” in the “Notes” section on the second page.
Signal FM : exemple de Solidarité dans la détresse
Radio Signal FM (90.5 FM), a été la seule station de radio émettant en Haïti durant le puissant séisme de magnitude 7.0 qui a complètement ravagé la capitale haïtienne le mardi 12 janvier 2010. Les équipements de cette radio, située à Pétionville (à l’Est de Port-au-Prince), sont restés intacts en dépit des différentes secousses subies par le bâtiment et les antennes de retransmission. Son service d’information sur internet et sa programmation quotidienne ont fonctionné sans interruption.
Mario Viau, le directeur générale de la radio explique au CPJ combien extraordinaires sont les efforts et les sacrifices déployés par les journalistes en cette période de chaos pour arriver à informer la population. Une forme de solidarité dans la détresse s’est constituée, précise-t-il, dans de le souci du devoir d’informer. Le volontariat de ces journalistes dépasse largement toute autre préoccupation personnelle.
Mario Viau indique qu’aucune perte en vie humaine n’a été enregistrée dans son équipe. Cependant, souligne-t-il, la majorité des journalistes de Signal FM ont été victimes, comme d’ailleurs le reste de la population, des effets monstrueux du tremblement de terre. Il cite en exemple le cas du reporter Makenzie Simon dont la fille a été tuée et la femme gravement blessée suite à l’effondrement de leur maison. Il mentionne également les cas de certains journalistes qui ont perdu des membres important dans leur famille comme c’est le cas du reporter de longue date Jean Luckenson.
Le PDG ( président directeur général) de Signal FM fait état aujourd’hui de nombreuses difficultés rencontrées pour faire fonctionner la station: pénurie de gasoline pour la circulation des véhicules des reporters à travers les zones sinistrées, lignes téléphoniques défectueuses, l’utilisation de mobiles pour les entretiens téléphoniques directs en studio, la carence totale d’énergie électrique, l’alimentation en fuel pour les groupes électrogènes alternatifs, et l’inaccessibilité aux comptes bancaires pour le paiement des journalistes pour ne citer que cela. En outre, La quête quotidienne de nourriture et l’accès à l’eau potable pour les journalistes en plein travail, constituent de véritables casse-tête à gérer du fait que les supermarchés et les restaurants ont été complètement détruits. Mario Viau poursuit que des gens de bonne volonté dans les environs de Port-au-Prince, ont manifesté des gestes de générosité envers la radio en fournissant du gasoline pour la retransmission des nouvelles.
Depuis le désastre du 12 janvier, Signal FM travaille avec une équipe réduite, dit-il. Les journalistes font la ronde dans le cadre d’un nouvel horaire de travail. Leur staff d’une dizaine de journalistes à Port-au-Prince passe aujourd’hui entre trois et cinq pour un maintien minimum de la salle de rédaction. Le contact avec les correspondants des villes de provinces les plus touchées par le séisme, comme Leogane, Petit-Goave, Grand Goave ou Jacmel demeure toujours difficile. Il est plus facile de communiquer avec l’extérieur à partir d’une ligne internationale directe disposée dans la sale des nouvelles. Les contacts téléphoniques entre journalistes à l’intérieur de la zone métropolitaine sont encore en mauvais état, rapporte Mario Viau au CPJ.
Signal FM a joué un rôle important durant le séisme du 12 janvier pour avoir été le point de jonction entre victimes et secours, entre victimes et victimes, soutient le directeur de la radio. Des appels provenaient surtout de l’extérieur pour s’enquérir du cas de personnes disparues. Le directeur de Signal FM déclaré qu’aujourd’hui, les journalistes des zones touchées par le séisme ont un grand défi devant eux, celui de refaire leur vie après avoir tout perdu.
Note du rédacteur: Si vous avez de l’information sur des journalistes ou des médias haïtiens, nous vous prions de poster un commentaire ci-dessous, ou de nous contacter directement à travers msalazar@cpj.org ou sur Twitter à @HelpJournalists. Nous sommes en train de rassembler des fonds de secours qui iront directement aux journalistes haïtiens. Si vous voudriez faire un don, faites clic ici et inscrivez “Haiti” dans la case “Notes” qui se trouve sur la deuxième page (veuillez noter que le document est en anglais).
Categories:Americas,
Haiti
Tags:Haitian earthquake, Journalist Assistance, Mario Viau, Signal FM
January 21, 2010 11:33 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (5)
Comments
By petunia on January 21, 2010 2:10 PM ET
Au Staff the Signal FM et au Proprietaire de la Station,
Milles merci pour le devouement deployer pour nous, les Haitians qui sont a l'exterieur, afin de nous parvenir les nouvelles D'Haiti apres le tremblement de terre du 12 Janvier 2010 malgre les deboires de certain membres du staff. Le pays entier est en deuil car la peine d'une personne nous affecte tous.
Encore milles merci et mes felicitations pour un travail bien fait.
Je profite de l'occasion pour demander votre concourt pour les haitians qui sont a Carrefour Feuille, Nerrette, Lamentin, Fontamarra et bien d'autres dans le meme voisinage qui se plaint n'avoir pas d'eau, ni nourriture, ni argent. J'ai un ami qui est a Nerrette qui m'a envoye un e-mail pour me dire que le jour qu'il a plue il etait dans la rue avec son fils, sans abri et sans eau. S'Il vout plait envoye un S.O.S a la radio pour ses quartiers.
Que Dieu vous garde tous ainsi que votre famille. J'espere que la prochaine fois que je vous enverre un message, Haiti et tous les Haitiens qui sont dans le besoin aurant recu au moins le neccessaire.
Mon message vient de Manhattan New York.
Merci
Petunia
By Geneviève on January 22, 2010 2:56 PM ET
Étant moi-même présente la-bas lors du séisme, j'ai eu la chance d'être rapatrié car je suis canadienne de souche. Les villes tel que Grand Goâve non plus ne reçoivent pas d'aide. Je sais qu'il est difficile en ces circonstances d'aider tout le monde mais nous devons penser à ceux qui sont plus difficilement atteignable. Ils commencent à mourir de faim et de désydratation là-bas.
Nous avons une personne ressource qui nous renseigne. Ils ne peuvnt plus tenir longtemps sans coup de main.
Merci
Genevièe
By Mehu Changeux on January 24, 2010 9:07 PM ET
mwen te tande komante nou yo, mwen te renmen yo, men gen yon bagay map konseye gouvernement an, eske yo pa te ka voye ed yo pa depatmant, d'une fason depatment an a genyen poul distribue bay ville yo e ville yo bay komin yo, avek yon sipevision societe civil la. mwen se Changeux Mehu responsable A.P.C.H kap koute nou Saint Domingue, genbe la se yon bel travay nap fe la.
By B Manning on January 31, 2010 5:41 PM ET
I commend all of you for your courage and dedication in the midst of so much danger as well as chaos. Thank you for being the journalists that you are, but most of all, thank God for the outstanding human beings that you all are.
Rwandan minister: ‘It’s OK to be anti-government’
By Tom Rhodes/Africa Program Coordinator
CPJ sat down recently with the Rwandan minister of information, Louise Mushikiwabo, who spoke of several media developments, including a new press law. “I am convinced the new legislation will help professionalize our media—there were many holes in the former law,” she told CPJ. Some, however, do not share her enthusiasm.
As former Rwanda University Lecturer Charles Kambanda points out, the law requires journalists to reveal their sources in court for any criminal investigation. “The principle of nondisclosure of sources in this field is a core ‘professional ethic.’ If we oblige this profession to disclose the sources, then we are actually closing the profession,” he said in a BBC interview.
(Radio Okapi)Mushikiwabo, at left, also supports the inclusion of criminal defamation in the law—this includes such arbitrary clauses that punish journalists for “publications which endanger public decency.” But the minister told CPJ that any article that proves problematic can be amended in the future. President Paul Kagame had sent the bill back to parliament in May after listening to some concerns given by local media groups.
One way the minister sees the law improving the profession is through its education requirements for journalists. Rwanda has two institutions for journalism, including the two-year-old Great Lakes Media Center in Kigali, which offers certificates in journalism. “I visited the center and some of the students told me they now have the skills to tackle us,” she says, “That’s fine by me. It’s OK to be anti-government, but be professional.”
Although the minister said she is pleased with the local radio stations in her country, she said Rwanda still has “excessive” and unprofessional local newspapers. A leading private paper, Umuseso, currently faces a potential three-month suspension ordered by the country’s Media High Council. The suspension order comes from a July opinion article in Umuseso that compared Kagame with former President Juvenaal Habyarimana, whose 1994 assassination helped trigger the genocide. Mushikiwabo said she cannot fathom the comparison: “One man started the genocide, while the other ended it.”
Umuseso Managing Director Didas Gasana, however, defends the article as an opinion piece that compared two governance systems, not personalities. Gasana said he thinks the suspension was the result of a June 27 press conference in which Mushikiwabo announced that “the days of Umuseso are numbered.” Prior to the new law, however, the minister would have made the final decision whether to suspend a publication—the media law now places such power in the hands of the Media High Council.
This doesn’t ease the mind of the director of Umuseso, Charles Kabonero, who says the Media High Council is controlled by the government and will help the government allay future blame for press censorship. According to a 2007 survey by the nonprofit International Research and Exchanges Board in Washington, most local journalists also viewed the council as partisan to the government.
Kabonero told CPJ that the minister has blocked Umuseso’s access to government press conferences and state advertizing revenue. “They always put forward the idea of a lack of professionalism in Rwanda’s media but they make it impossible to become professional,” he told CPJ.
Categories:Africa,
Rwanda
September 10, 2009 12:41 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (5)
Comments
By Mbonigaba Denis on September 11, 2009 12:00 PM ET
The Minister is not honest in the statement highlited above. The statement is far from what the government she represents, does on the ground.
It is a totalitarian government that believes in controlling the media. Press freedom in Rwanda has been deteriorating even more under her regime as minister.
Those are just words-the Kagame regime is out and out to silence the media as they did to politicians and civil society.
By shaming comments on September 15, 2009 7:18 AM ET
Ministers words are very shaming,
Some one may ask his or her self, how many tongues does minister mushikiwabo has, on 27/07/2009 she clearly mentioned that days of umuseso and umuvugizi newspaper are numbered in front of president kagame praising the new media law which gives power high press concil to shut down the papers and praised rushyashya newspaper bacause of changing its editorial line and start praising the Government,and at the same time you start saying that its ok to be anti government in Rwanda
when will they stop deceiving the world and intimidate media ?
By mdaruwala on September 18, 2009 1:54 AM ET
Pl see our report on Rwanda recently released. The context is that Rwanda has applied for membership of the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, an independent non partisan NGO is of the view that it is not compliant with the democracy and human rights criteria that are set as bench marks for its entry and for it to be brought in without significant improvements in its human rights record would send a wrong signal about the values that the association espouses and would encourage other authoritarian regimes to apply for 'respectability'. The report echoes much of what has been said by the UN human rights committee in its concluding remarks. Our report is available at www.humanrightsinitiative.org
we are available at director@humanrightsinitiative.org
By Scipio on November 2, 2009 8:27 AM ET
Considering the recent arrest of Innocent Irankunda, it is impossible to believe that the government of Rwanda, including the judiciary, has any respect for human rights. It is imperative that people from outside Rwanda put pressure on the judiciary through their own embassies and/or NGOs to make certain that Mr. Irankunda does not spend another day in prison for imaginary crimes. The media reports coming from Rwanda about this case are, to be blunt, complete nonsense where facts as simple as his father's death are wrong. In a desperate attempt to make itself look "good" it seems as though the government in Rwanda is willing to move its country back to 1910 instead of looking forward to 2010 by allowing the press to dissent from the insane decisions of "courts."
By Alison Orr on November 3, 2009 10:52 AM ET
It is okay to be anti-government so long as one does not reside in Rwanda seems to be the actual message of the minister. This is an unfortunate development not only for Mr. Irankunda but also for all those living inside the borders of Rwanda or in the vincinity of those who support the government, be they in other African countries or overseas. When will this madness in Rwanda end? Journalists must be free to do their jobs or else governments become too powerful. There are too many unsolved murders in Rwanda already. It is my hope that Mr. Irankunda is freed immediately so that there is a ray of hope for all dissenting voices in Rwanda.
CPJ sat down recently with the Rwandan minister of information, Louise Mushikiwabo, who spoke of several media developments, including a new press law. “I am convinced the new legislation will help professionalize our media—there were many holes in the former law,” she told CPJ. Some, however, do not share her enthusiasm.
As former Rwanda University Lecturer Charles Kambanda points out, the law requires journalists to reveal their sources in court for any criminal investigation. “The principle of nondisclosure of sources in this field is a core ‘professional ethic.’ If we oblige this profession to disclose the sources, then we are actually closing the profession,” he said in a BBC interview.
(Radio Okapi)Mushikiwabo, at left, also supports the inclusion of criminal defamation in the law—this includes such arbitrary clauses that punish journalists for “publications which endanger public decency.” But the minister told CPJ that any article that proves problematic can be amended in the future. President Paul Kagame had sent the bill back to parliament in May after listening to some concerns given by local media groups.
One way the minister sees the law improving the profession is through its education requirements for journalists. Rwanda has two institutions for journalism, including the two-year-old Great Lakes Media Center in Kigali, which offers certificates in journalism. “I visited the center and some of the students told me they now have the skills to tackle us,” she says, “That’s fine by me. It’s OK to be anti-government, but be professional.”
Although the minister said she is pleased with the local radio stations in her country, she said Rwanda still has “excessive” and unprofessional local newspapers. A leading private paper, Umuseso, currently faces a potential three-month suspension ordered by the country’s Media High Council. The suspension order comes from a July opinion article in Umuseso that compared Kagame with former President Juvenaal Habyarimana, whose 1994 assassination helped trigger the genocide. Mushikiwabo said she cannot fathom the comparison: “One man started the genocide, while the other ended it.”
Umuseso Managing Director Didas Gasana, however, defends the article as an opinion piece that compared two governance systems, not personalities. Gasana said he thinks the suspension was the result of a June 27 press conference in which Mushikiwabo announced that “the days of Umuseso are numbered.” Prior to the new law, however, the minister would have made the final decision whether to suspend a publication—the media law now places such power in the hands of the Media High Council.
This doesn’t ease the mind of the director of Umuseso, Charles Kabonero, who says the Media High Council is controlled by the government and will help the government allay future blame for press censorship. According to a 2007 survey by the nonprofit International Research and Exchanges Board in Washington, most local journalists also viewed the council as partisan to the government.
Kabonero told CPJ that the minister has blocked Umuseso’s access to government press conferences and state advertizing revenue. “They always put forward the idea of a lack of professionalism in Rwanda’s media but they make it impossible to become professional,” he told CPJ.
Categories:Africa,
Rwanda
September 10, 2009 12:41 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (5)
Comments
By Mbonigaba Denis on September 11, 2009 12:00 PM ET
The Minister is not honest in the statement highlited above. The statement is far from what the government she represents, does on the ground.
It is a totalitarian government that believes in controlling the media. Press freedom in Rwanda has been deteriorating even more under her regime as minister.
Those are just words-the Kagame regime is out and out to silence the media as they did to politicians and civil society.
By shaming comments on September 15, 2009 7:18 AM ET
Ministers words are very shaming,
Some one may ask his or her self, how many tongues does minister mushikiwabo has, on 27/07/2009 she clearly mentioned that days of umuseso and umuvugizi newspaper are numbered in front of president kagame praising the new media law which gives power high press concil to shut down the papers and praised rushyashya newspaper bacause of changing its editorial line and start praising the Government,and at the same time you start saying that its ok to be anti government in Rwanda
when will they stop deceiving the world and intimidate media ?
By mdaruwala on September 18, 2009 1:54 AM ET
Pl see our report on Rwanda recently released. The context is that Rwanda has applied for membership of the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, an independent non partisan NGO is of the view that it is not compliant with the democracy and human rights criteria that are set as bench marks for its entry and for it to be brought in without significant improvements in its human rights record would send a wrong signal about the values that the association espouses and would encourage other authoritarian regimes to apply for 'respectability'. The report echoes much of what has been said by the UN human rights committee in its concluding remarks. Our report is available at www.humanrightsinitiative.org
we are available at director@humanrightsinitiative.org
By Scipio on November 2, 2009 8:27 AM ET
Considering the recent arrest of Innocent Irankunda, it is impossible to believe that the government of Rwanda, including the judiciary, has any respect for human rights. It is imperative that people from outside Rwanda put pressure on the judiciary through their own embassies and/or NGOs to make certain that Mr. Irankunda does not spend another day in prison for imaginary crimes. The media reports coming from Rwanda about this case are, to be blunt, complete nonsense where facts as simple as his father's death are wrong. In a desperate attempt to make itself look "good" it seems as though the government in Rwanda is willing to move its country back to 1910 instead of looking forward to 2010 by allowing the press to dissent from the insane decisions of "courts."
By Alison Orr on November 3, 2009 10:52 AM ET
It is okay to be anti-government so long as one does not reside in Rwanda seems to be the actual message of the minister. This is an unfortunate development not only for Mr. Irankunda but also for all those living inside the borders of Rwanda or in the vincinity of those who support the government, be they in other African countries or overseas. When will this madness in Rwanda end? Journalists must be free to do their jobs or else governments become too powerful. There are too many unsolved murders in Rwanda already. It is my hope that Mr. Irankunda is freed immediately so that there is a ray of hope for all dissenting voices in Rwanda.
Free Speech Protection Act could slow 'libel tourism'
By Robert Mahoney/Deputy Director
Free press advocates in Britain are looking to a bill stuck in the U.S. Congress for moral support in the fight to reform England’s draconian defamation laws. The U.S. bill, the Free Speech Protection Act 2009, is itself the product of those laws, which have made London the capital of “libel tourism.”
A prime backer of the legislation now before the Senate Judiciary Committee is U.S. investigative author Rachel Ehrenfeld. In her 2003 book “Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed and How to Stop It,” Ehrenfeld accused billionaire Saudi businessman Khalid bin Mahfouz of channeling funds to terrorist groups. The book was published in the United States and Ehrenfeld assumed she would be shielded by the First Amendment. Bin Mahfouz, who has denied financing terrorism, decided to sue. Not in Riyadh or New York, but in London.
“Only 23 copies were sold in the UK on Amazon,” Ehrenfeld told CPJ. “The book has nothing to do with England, I have nothing to do with England,” said Ehrenfeld who refused to contest the suit in an English court.
In 2005, a court in London entered a default judgment against her, ordering the payment of damages of little more than $250,000. It also ruled she should apologize to Bin Mahfouz, who died in August this year, and destroy copies of her book.
Ehrenfeld had become another victim of libel tourism, a growing practice among wealthy non-British business tycoons and Hollywood stars who file defamation suits in London, usually against U.S.-based publishers, that would be thrown out by a U.S. court. English libel law is notoriously plaintiff-friendly. It puts the burden of proof on the defendant, who has to show that what is written is true. In the United States, the plaintiff has to prove that material in a book or article is false.
So anyone with deep pockets can claim he has a reputation to defend in England and bring a libel action. Courts have allowed suits where a ludicrously low number of copies have circulated in Britain, as in Ehrenfeld’s case. The English definition of what constitutes “publication” is also arcane, and again, favors the plaintiff. Any issuing of the offending statement or piece, no matter how long after it first appeared in print, is deemed a publication based on an anachronistic 19th century precedent (Duke of Brunswick v Harmer [1849] 14 Q.B. 185). With the archiving of information in the digital age, huge amounts of material are susceptible to a suit.
“In the UK they should be embarrassed and should change the law,” says Ehrenfeld. U.S. media outlets and publishers share this view, fearing the chilling effect of an English system that forces defendants to settle rather than face some of the highest legal costs in the world and the prospect of crippling damages.
They laid out their concerns in March in a submission to a British parliamentary committee that is looking into libel law reform. The House of Commons’ Culture, Media and Sports Committee is expected to make its recommendations to the government before the end of the year, although free speech advocates doubt there will be a fundamental overhaul of defamation law any time soon. London’s Sunday Times went so far in an article this month as to suggest American news outlets might block access to their Web sites and stop selling newspapers and magazines in Britain to avoid litigation.
Nobody knows how many U.S. publishers may already have pulled publications from the international market because of English libel laws, which are the basis for defamation legislation in much of the Commonwealth as well, according to New York-based First Amendment lawyer Daniel Kornstein.
Kornstein, who represented Ehrenfeld, is pushing for Congress to pass the free speech bill because U.S. journalists now enjoy only patchwork protection. In May of last year, New York became the first state to pass an anti-libel tourism statute. Illinois, Florida, and California have followed suit, offering writers there some protection from enforcement of a foreign court order.
“This bill should be passed,” Kornstein told CPJ. “One, it requires no funding. Two, it makes a public statement about freedom of expression, holding the banner aloft for everybody. [And] it should remove the chill that could surround the publication of certain controversial books.”
Mark Stephens, an English libel lawyer who drafted the U.S news organizations’ submission to the British parliamentary committee, agrees federal legislation would help. “I think it would be hugely beneficial,” he told CPJ from London. The only serious opposition to English libel reform comes from a small number of law firms in the UK that have grown rich on libel cases.
Some, according to Stephens, employ overseas agents to encourage litigants to come to London. “Lawyers have been … ambulance chasing around California with agents in Beverly Hills, lawyers who act for celebrities in Beverly Hills saying, ‘Look, you can’t do anything in America because of the First Amendment, but come to London. You can do it there, and then we can affect what coverage your client gets by getting a judgment in England, which is effective in America.’ It’s crazy,” he said.
Stephens says even at the state level, U.S. legislation has helped him. “I am using the American defenses probably three or four times a month … the majority in relation to books and bloggers. But I am also using it probably once a month in relation to large media organizations.” The Free Speech Protection Act, which is sitting on the desk of Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, would also offer U.S. journalists and authors protection from malicious or frivolous lawsuits brought overseas, according to Ehrenfeld.
She cites the case of U.S. freelance Joe Sharkey who faces a $280,000 civil defamation suit in Brazil over comments about a plane crash he says were wrongly attributed to him. Sharkey, who writes for the New York Times, was aboard a U.S. business jet that collided with a Brazilian commercial aircraft over the Amazon in 2006.
“If he lived in New York he’d be protected,” said Ehrenfeld, referring to the Libel Terrorism Protection Act passed by the state legislature last year. “But he lives in New Jersey and Arizona, states that do not have such a law. That’s why it is important Congress passes this bill.”
Categories:Americas,
Europe & Central Asia,
Saudi Arabia,
UK,
USA
Tags:Defamation, Freelancer, US Congress
November 16, 2009 10:57 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (3)
Comments
By Ross on November 17, 2009 3:41 PM ET
It's silly that we have laws like this, that need to cover the whole country, but are enacted on a state by state basis. What's the law in New Jersey needs to be the same as what's in New York.
By Rexxfield on December 25, 2009 1:24 PM ET
In many cases horrible problems have been avoided for the community as a result of anonymous blogging. This includes whistle blowing for white-collar criminals, community awareness when sexual predators move into the neighborhood, and many other alerts that are of great community benefit.
Benefits notwithstanding, you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs and anonymous free speech on the Internet is one such omelette. There is no such thing as free speech; there is always a cost. Sometimes that cost is acceptable, moreover desirable, particularly in the case of positive community awareness. However, often their many false and deceptive rumors, and libelous attacks are motivated only by hatred and vindictive antisocial promptings. More often than not, these serial cyber defamers have some type of antisocial personality disorder. They have nothing better to do than hurt other people; in fact they are actually fueled by other people's pain. Normal people like 97% of the readers of my comment cannot begin to relate to how these people think. Stop for a moment and imagine not having a conscience..... it is simply impossible.
A concerted, focused and malicious Internet smear campaign can be as devastating for a person that relies on his or her reputation for employment as a fire can be for a farmer who loses his fields, barns, and livestock.
Respectfully submitted by Michael Roberts. Internet Libel Victim's Advocate.
www.Rexxfield.com
By Joe Sharkey on February 24, 2010 8:34 PM ET
Just FYI, the lawsuit against me in Brazil rests on the bizarre assertion that in reporting and commentary after the 2006 mid-air Amazon collision that I was one of 7 survivors of, I defamed and caused dishonor to the entire nation of Brazil and every single citizen in it. The complaint cites absurd and false charges -- for example, that I wrote that Brazil was "idiots of all idiots." Even if I had written a barely-English phrase like that, it would not have been actionable in any U.S. court. Also, the Brazilian authorities have said, according to Brazilian media, that they plan to file a criminal charge against me, of causing dishonor to Brazil, once the civil judgment is rendered.
Free press advocates in Britain are looking to a bill stuck in the U.S. Congress for moral support in the fight to reform England’s draconian defamation laws. The U.S. bill, the Free Speech Protection Act 2009, is itself the product of those laws, which have made London the capital of “libel tourism.”
A prime backer of the legislation now before the Senate Judiciary Committee is U.S. investigative author Rachel Ehrenfeld. In her 2003 book “Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed and How to Stop It,” Ehrenfeld accused billionaire Saudi businessman Khalid bin Mahfouz of channeling funds to terrorist groups. The book was published in the United States and Ehrenfeld assumed she would be shielded by the First Amendment. Bin Mahfouz, who has denied financing terrorism, decided to sue. Not in Riyadh or New York, but in London.
“Only 23 copies were sold in the UK on Amazon,” Ehrenfeld told CPJ. “The book has nothing to do with England, I have nothing to do with England,” said Ehrenfeld who refused to contest the suit in an English court.
In 2005, a court in London entered a default judgment against her, ordering the payment of damages of little more than $250,000. It also ruled she should apologize to Bin Mahfouz, who died in August this year, and destroy copies of her book.
Ehrenfeld had become another victim of libel tourism, a growing practice among wealthy non-British business tycoons and Hollywood stars who file defamation suits in London, usually against U.S.-based publishers, that would be thrown out by a U.S. court. English libel law is notoriously plaintiff-friendly. It puts the burden of proof on the defendant, who has to show that what is written is true. In the United States, the plaintiff has to prove that material in a book or article is false.
So anyone with deep pockets can claim he has a reputation to defend in England and bring a libel action. Courts have allowed suits where a ludicrously low number of copies have circulated in Britain, as in Ehrenfeld’s case. The English definition of what constitutes “publication” is also arcane, and again, favors the plaintiff. Any issuing of the offending statement or piece, no matter how long after it first appeared in print, is deemed a publication based on an anachronistic 19th century precedent (Duke of Brunswick v Harmer [1849] 14 Q.B. 185). With the archiving of information in the digital age, huge amounts of material are susceptible to a suit.
“In the UK they should be embarrassed and should change the law,” says Ehrenfeld. U.S. media outlets and publishers share this view, fearing the chilling effect of an English system that forces defendants to settle rather than face some of the highest legal costs in the world and the prospect of crippling damages.
They laid out their concerns in March in a submission to a British parliamentary committee that is looking into libel law reform. The House of Commons’ Culture, Media and Sports Committee is expected to make its recommendations to the government before the end of the year, although free speech advocates doubt there will be a fundamental overhaul of defamation law any time soon. London’s Sunday Times went so far in an article this month as to suggest American news outlets might block access to their Web sites and stop selling newspapers and magazines in Britain to avoid litigation.
Nobody knows how many U.S. publishers may already have pulled publications from the international market because of English libel laws, which are the basis for defamation legislation in much of the Commonwealth as well, according to New York-based First Amendment lawyer Daniel Kornstein.
Kornstein, who represented Ehrenfeld, is pushing for Congress to pass the free speech bill because U.S. journalists now enjoy only patchwork protection. In May of last year, New York became the first state to pass an anti-libel tourism statute. Illinois, Florida, and California have followed suit, offering writers there some protection from enforcement of a foreign court order.
“This bill should be passed,” Kornstein told CPJ. “One, it requires no funding. Two, it makes a public statement about freedom of expression, holding the banner aloft for everybody. [And] it should remove the chill that could surround the publication of certain controversial books.”
Mark Stephens, an English libel lawyer who drafted the U.S news organizations’ submission to the British parliamentary committee, agrees federal legislation would help. “I think it would be hugely beneficial,” he told CPJ from London. The only serious opposition to English libel reform comes from a small number of law firms in the UK that have grown rich on libel cases.
Some, according to Stephens, employ overseas agents to encourage litigants to come to London. “Lawyers have been … ambulance chasing around California with agents in Beverly Hills, lawyers who act for celebrities in Beverly Hills saying, ‘Look, you can’t do anything in America because of the First Amendment, but come to London. You can do it there, and then we can affect what coverage your client gets by getting a judgment in England, which is effective in America.’ It’s crazy,” he said.
Stephens says even at the state level, U.S. legislation has helped him. “I am using the American defenses probably three or four times a month … the majority in relation to books and bloggers. But I am also using it probably once a month in relation to large media organizations.” The Free Speech Protection Act, which is sitting on the desk of Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, would also offer U.S. journalists and authors protection from malicious or frivolous lawsuits brought overseas, according to Ehrenfeld.
She cites the case of U.S. freelance Joe Sharkey who faces a $280,000 civil defamation suit in Brazil over comments about a plane crash he says were wrongly attributed to him. Sharkey, who writes for the New York Times, was aboard a U.S. business jet that collided with a Brazilian commercial aircraft over the Amazon in 2006.
“If he lived in New York he’d be protected,” said Ehrenfeld, referring to the Libel Terrorism Protection Act passed by the state legislature last year. “But he lives in New Jersey and Arizona, states that do not have such a law. That’s why it is important Congress passes this bill.”
Categories:Americas,
Europe & Central Asia,
Saudi Arabia,
UK,
USA
Tags:Defamation, Freelancer, US Congress
November 16, 2009 10:57 AM ET | Permalink | Comments (3)
Comments
By Ross on November 17, 2009 3:41 PM ET
It's silly that we have laws like this, that need to cover the whole country, but are enacted on a state by state basis. What's the law in New Jersey needs to be the same as what's in New York.
By Rexxfield on December 25, 2009 1:24 PM ET
In many cases horrible problems have been avoided for the community as a result of anonymous blogging. This includes whistle blowing for white-collar criminals, community awareness when sexual predators move into the neighborhood, and many other alerts that are of great community benefit.
Benefits notwithstanding, you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs and anonymous free speech on the Internet is one such omelette. There is no such thing as free speech; there is always a cost. Sometimes that cost is acceptable, moreover desirable, particularly in the case of positive community awareness. However, often their many false and deceptive rumors, and libelous attacks are motivated only by hatred and vindictive antisocial promptings. More often than not, these serial cyber defamers have some type of antisocial personality disorder. They have nothing better to do than hurt other people; in fact they are actually fueled by other people's pain. Normal people like 97% of the readers of my comment cannot begin to relate to how these people think. Stop for a moment and imagine not having a conscience..... it is simply impossible.
A concerted, focused and malicious Internet smear campaign can be as devastating for a person that relies on his or her reputation for employment as a fire can be for a farmer who loses his fields, barns, and livestock.
Respectfully submitted by Michael Roberts. Internet Libel Victim's Advocate.
www.Rexxfield.com
By Joe Sharkey on February 24, 2010 8:34 PM ET
Just FYI, the lawsuit against me in Brazil rests on the bizarre assertion that in reporting and commentary after the 2006 mid-air Amazon collision that I was one of 7 survivors of, I defamed and caused dishonor to the entire nation of Brazil and every single citizen in it. The complaint cites absurd and false charges -- for example, that I wrote that Brazil was "idiots of all idiots." Even if I had written a barely-English phrase like that, it would not have been actionable in any U.S. court. Also, the Brazilian authorities have said, according to Brazilian media, that they plan to file a criminal charge against me, of causing dishonor to Brazil, once the civil judgment is rendered.
Walter Cronkite's press freedom legacy
By Joel Simon/Executive Director
Walter Cronkite had such a profound impact in so many ways that one might overlook an important part of his legacy--his long efforts on behalf of international press freedom and his advocacy on behalf of local journalists around the world. Cronkite was a vital participant in the launch of the Committee to Protect Journalists 28 years ago and, though his title here may have been honorary co-chairman, he was an active force throughout the years.
In 1981, Michael Massing, then executive editor of the Columbia Journalism Review, and CBS News writer Laurie Nadel formed the Committee to Protect Journalists to fight for the rights of journalists around the world. Dan Rather, who had just taken over from Cronkite as anchor of the CBS Evening News, summoned Nadel into his office demanding to know more about the Committee. Rather not only offered to join the board, he offered to help recruit Cronkite.
Walter Cronkite with CPJ founder and board member Michael Massing. (CPJ)Massing and Nadel drafted a letter and sent it through CBS inter-office mail. Cronkite wrote back saying that he didn't generally lend his name to organizations in which he could not play an active role and, given his schedule, he knew he could not be active. But because of the importance of CPJ's mission he would make an exception and serve in an honorary position. But there was nothing honorary about Cronkite's involvement with CPJ.
Not only was Cronkite America's best-known journalist, he had led a group during the Vietnam War that gathered information about reporters and photographers who were missing in action. His involvement with CPJ suggested to U.S. journalists the seriousness of the new organization, and his name at the top of the letterhead had the potential of getting the attention of government officials around the world. It did.
In April 1982, for example, after Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, starting a war with Britain, the government there arrested three British journalists on charges of espionage. The Swiss government, the pope, and the U.N. secretary-general all appealed for the release of the three journalists, Simon Winchester of The Sunday Times and Ian Mather and Tony Prime of The Observer.
But Winchester remembers that it was the CPJ letter, signed by Walter Cronkite and sent to Argentina's foreign and justice ministers, that gave him the greatest hope. After he learned of the letter, he wrote to his wife and children in England saying that he believed that the end was in sight because Cronkite and CPJ had taken up his case. After 77 days in captivity--during which British Marines retook the Falklands Islands--Winchester, Mather, and Prime were released and put on a plane out of Argentina. Mather later sent a letter to CPJ noting that, "we are totally convinced that it was outside pressure that the led Argentine authorities to realize that our continued incarceration could never be beneficial to the reputation of Argentina no matter how well they looked after us."
The next year, when CPJ sought to visit apartheid South Africa, it was a letter from Cronkite to the South African Embassy that secured visas for our delegation. Our representatives, including Nadel and then-board member Aryeh Neier (who helped found Human Rights Watch), tried to persuade South African officials to ease the country's practice of imprisoning journalists and taking other highly repressive steps such as "banning" them from public life.
Minister of Law and Order Louis La Grange was unabashed about procedures that clearly lacked due process and indignant that they were being challenged. Yet later in the meeting, La Grange's tone softened: He told our delegation that he had once met Cronkite. "Should I give Walter your regards?" asked Neier. "No, he wouldn't remember me," said La Grange. "But I certainly remember him."
For Neier, the interaction was a lesson in the power of the U.S. media and one of its leading figures. A government official who was so powerful in South Africa that he proudly took credit for approving journalist detentions was in awe of Walter Cronkite.
At the 2005 International Press Freedom Awards, Cronkite appears with then-Executive Director Ann Cooper, left, and awardee Beatrice Mtetwa, the Zimbabwean media rights lawyer. (CPJ)Cronkite's involvement continued through the years. He continued to write letters, host fundraisers, and attend our annual International Press Freedom Awards. In 1995, Cronkite helped persuade Turkish Prime Minister Tansu Ciller to drop charges against Reuters correspondent Aliza Marcus, who faced prison for reporting on counterinsurgency strikes against Kurdish rebels.
In a 2006 interview for our magazine, Dangerous Assignments, Cronkite recalled CPJ's efforts on behalf of Turkish journalists: "The committee's long-running efforts to persuade several consecutive governments in Turkey to adopt basic democratic principles of free speech and free speech and free press resulted in wide recognition of our devotion to these freedoms. It's an enduring effort and I'm proud to say that (former chairwoman and current board member) Kati Marton and I were early representatives of the committee, dispatched to try to relieve the Turkish leadership's incredibly repressive treatment of the press."
Michael Massing recalls Cronkite's contributions as invaluable:
In its nearly 30 years, the Committee to Protect Journalists has undergone many changes, growing from a tiny group of volunteers in New York to a global network working on behalf of beleaguered journalists around the world, but throughout its existence one thing has remained constant: Walter Cronkite's position as its honorary chairman.
Walter's association with the organization proved invaluable. Indeed, without it, the Committee might not have survived. His name has remained prominently linked with the Committee's--a seal of integrity and trustworthiness. On the occasion of the Committee's 25th anniversary, Walter appeared at a private dinner held in his honor and attended by executives from national news organizations whose backing CPJ was seeking. He spoke with great feeling about the Committee's work over its first quarter-century and about the gratitude he felt for being associated with it. The real gratitude, of course, is the Committee's, for the unwavering support he showed for its work over all these years. CPJ remains committed to continuing that work in the spirit of the ideals he so faithfully embodied.
As CPJ Chairman Paul Steiger said in remembering Cronkite's enduring contribution to press freedom, "From putting his own life on the line to cover the battlefields of World War II to challenging the 'thugs' who physically harassed his reporters on the floor of the 1968 Democratic National Convention, Walter Cronkite knew firsthand the challenges journalists face bringing news to the public, and he never forgot them. Whenever press freedom needed a champion, he was there. We will miss him."
Categories:Africa,
Americas,
Asia,
Europe & Central Asia,
Middle East & North Africa,
USA
Tags:CPJ
July 17, 2009 9:14 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (4)
Comments
By Jean-Paul Marthoz on July 18, 2009 3:32 PM ET
It says a lot about Walter Cronkite's influence that his death was mentioned on many foreign TV channels whose viewers never had the chance to see him. Tonight Belgian public service TV paid tribute to his journalistic legacy as if he were one of their own anchors and I had calls from friends and from younger people asking for more information on "Uncle Walter". They had just discovered that the world had lost a great and inspiring journalist.
During my first years as a journalist Walter Cronkite was a constant reference. I never really watched him but I read about him in books and essays commending his decency and high professional standards.
More personnally he reminded me of an episode in history that shaped my country and my family's fate. While researching for a book on the U.S.history "from Bastogne to Baghdad" I discovered that as a journalist for UPI he had been with Patton's army during its counteroffensive to free the town of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge in winter 1944. Living in the Ardennes, my parents were on the frontlines of Hitler's last gamble and for years on until they passed away they read everything about this dramatic moment. They had read Martha Gellhorn and John Toland's reportages on the Ardennes battlefieds but they had missed Cronkite's wire stories.
Today I listened with respect to Walter Cronkite's 2004 testimony on NPR recalling the largest pitched battle in US military history and the victory that changed the course of the war and more modestly the life of my parents. His testimony is a great contribution of the hard encounters between journalism and war. It is above all a lesson of modesty and humanity.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4246503
By Laurie Nadel on July 18, 2009 5:58 PM ET
Joel, Great article. Walter was very generous with his time and support as we organized the CPJ trip to South Africa which included delivering funds to the families of imprisoned journalists.
He modeled excellence in every sense of the word.
By Gorethy Kenneth on July 18, 2009 7:22 PM ET
From Papua New Guinea - we pay tribute to the late Walter Cronkite.
Walter was an idol and role model to me personally and to young journalists although we never met, we read and followed his writings and advises.
To the family - our sincere heartfelt wishes and our prayers are with you all at this time of sorrow.
Gorethy Kenneth on behalf
Papua New Guinea
By Bristol, Indiana on July 18, 2009 8:01 PM ET
I read a book years ago about Walter Cronkite called "The Last Train out of Berlin", he wrote it. I got it at one of the Elkhart Indiana library's for 25 cents or so at their book sale rack, passed the book on to a friend's son to read after holding on to it for years and never saw it again. It was such a great book and truly Walter Cronkite at his best at what he did. I sure wish I had that book now. I remember the book well and his working into the dead of night trying to finish an article or newspaper for the states and just about to miss (for real) the last train out of Berlin during Hitler's era. I can almost as when I read it see him pinging on the old typewriters back then.
Walter Cronkite had such a profound impact in so many ways that one might overlook an important part of his legacy--his long efforts on behalf of international press freedom and his advocacy on behalf of local journalists around the world. Cronkite was a vital participant in the launch of the Committee to Protect Journalists 28 years ago and, though his title here may have been honorary co-chairman, he was an active force throughout the years.
In 1981, Michael Massing, then executive editor of the Columbia Journalism Review, and CBS News writer Laurie Nadel formed the Committee to Protect Journalists to fight for the rights of journalists around the world. Dan Rather, who had just taken over from Cronkite as anchor of the CBS Evening News, summoned Nadel into his office demanding to know more about the Committee. Rather not only offered to join the board, he offered to help recruit Cronkite.
Walter Cronkite with CPJ founder and board member Michael Massing. (CPJ)Massing and Nadel drafted a letter and sent it through CBS inter-office mail. Cronkite wrote back saying that he didn't generally lend his name to organizations in which he could not play an active role and, given his schedule, he knew he could not be active. But because of the importance of CPJ's mission he would make an exception and serve in an honorary position. But there was nothing honorary about Cronkite's involvement with CPJ.
Not only was Cronkite America's best-known journalist, he had led a group during the Vietnam War that gathered information about reporters and photographers who were missing in action. His involvement with CPJ suggested to U.S. journalists the seriousness of the new organization, and his name at the top of the letterhead had the potential of getting the attention of government officials around the world. It did.
In April 1982, for example, after Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, starting a war with Britain, the government there arrested three British journalists on charges of espionage. The Swiss government, the pope, and the U.N. secretary-general all appealed for the release of the three journalists, Simon Winchester of The Sunday Times and Ian Mather and Tony Prime of The Observer.
But Winchester remembers that it was the CPJ letter, signed by Walter Cronkite and sent to Argentina's foreign and justice ministers, that gave him the greatest hope. After he learned of the letter, he wrote to his wife and children in England saying that he believed that the end was in sight because Cronkite and CPJ had taken up his case. After 77 days in captivity--during which British Marines retook the Falklands Islands--Winchester, Mather, and Prime were released and put on a plane out of Argentina. Mather later sent a letter to CPJ noting that, "we are totally convinced that it was outside pressure that the led Argentine authorities to realize that our continued incarceration could never be beneficial to the reputation of Argentina no matter how well they looked after us."
The next year, when CPJ sought to visit apartheid South Africa, it was a letter from Cronkite to the South African Embassy that secured visas for our delegation. Our representatives, including Nadel and then-board member Aryeh Neier (who helped found Human Rights Watch), tried to persuade South African officials to ease the country's practice of imprisoning journalists and taking other highly repressive steps such as "banning" them from public life.
Minister of Law and Order Louis La Grange was unabashed about procedures that clearly lacked due process and indignant that they were being challenged. Yet later in the meeting, La Grange's tone softened: He told our delegation that he had once met Cronkite. "Should I give Walter your regards?" asked Neier. "No, he wouldn't remember me," said La Grange. "But I certainly remember him."
For Neier, the interaction was a lesson in the power of the U.S. media and one of its leading figures. A government official who was so powerful in South Africa that he proudly took credit for approving journalist detentions was in awe of Walter Cronkite.
At the 2005 International Press Freedom Awards, Cronkite appears with then-Executive Director Ann Cooper, left, and awardee Beatrice Mtetwa, the Zimbabwean media rights lawyer. (CPJ)Cronkite's involvement continued through the years. He continued to write letters, host fundraisers, and attend our annual International Press Freedom Awards. In 1995, Cronkite helped persuade Turkish Prime Minister Tansu Ciller to drop charges against Reuters correspondent Aliza Marcus, who faced prison for reporting on counterinsurgency strikes against Kurdish rebels.
In a 2006 interview for our magazine, Dangerous Assignments, Cronkite recalled CPJ's efforts on behalf of Turkish journalists: "The committee's long-running efforts to persuade several consecutive governments in Turkey to adopt basic democratic principles of free speech and free speech and free press resulted in wide recognition of our devotion to these freedoms. It's an enduring effort and I'm proud to say that (former chairwoman and current board member) Kati Marton and I were early representatives of the committee, dispatched to try to relieve the Turkish leadership's incredibly repressive treatment of the press."
Michael Massing recalls Cronkite's contributions as invaluable:
In its nearly 30 years, the Committee to Protect Journalists has undergone many changes, growing from a tiny group of volunteers in New York to a global network working on behalf of beleaguered journalists around the world, but throughout its existence one thing has remained constant: Walter Cronkite's position as its honorary chairman.
Walter's association with the organization proved invaluable. Indeed, without it, the Committee might not have survived. His name has remained prominently linked with the Committee's--a seal of integrity and trustworthiness. On the occasion of the Committee's 25th anniversary, Walter appeared at a private dinner held in his honor and attended by executives from national news organizations whose backing CPJ was seeking. He spoke with great feeling about the Committee's work over its first quarter-century and about the gratitude he felt for being associated with it. The real gratitude, of course, is the Committee's, for the unwavering support he showed for its work over all these years. CPJ remains committed to continuing that work in the spirit of the ideals he so faithfully embodied.
As CPJ Chairman Paul Steiger said in remembering Cronkite's enduring contribution to press freedom, "From putting his own life on the line to cover the battlefields of World War II to challenging the 'thugs' who physically harassed his reporters on the floor of the 1968 Democratic National Convention, Walter Cronkite knew firsthand the challenges journalists face bringing news to the public, and he never forgot them. Whenever press freedom needed a champion, he was there. We will miss him."
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July 17, 2009 9:14 PM ET | Permalink | Comments (4)
Comments
By Jean-Paul Marthoz on July 18, 2009 3:32 PM ET
It says a lot about Walter Cronkite's influence that his death was mentioned on many foreign TV channels whose viewers never had the chance to see him. Tonight Belgian public service TV paid tribute to his journalistic legacy as if he were one of their own anchors and I had calls from friends and from younger people asking for more information on "Uncle Walter". They had just discovered that the world had lost a great and inspiring journalist.
During my first years as a journalist Walter Cronkite was a constant reference. I never really watched him but I read about him in books and essays commending his decency and high professional standards.
More personnally he reminded me of an episode in history that shaped my country and my family's fate. While researching for a book on the U.S.history "from Bastogne to Baghdad" I discovered that as a journalist for UPI he had been with Patton's army during its counteroffensive to free the town of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge in winter 1944. Living in the Ardennes, my parents were on the frontlines of Hitler's last gamble and for years on until they passed away they read everything about this dramatic moment. They had read Martha Gellhorn and John Toland's reportages on the Ardennes battlefieds but they had missed Cronkite's wire stories.
Today I listened with respect to Walter Cronkite's 2004 testimony on NPR recalling the largest pitched battle in US military history and the victory that changed the course of the war and more modestly the life of my parents. His testimony is a great contribution of the hard encounters between journalism and war. It is above all a lesson of modesty and humanity.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4246503
By Laurie Nadel on July 18, 2009 5:58 PM ET
Joel, Great article. Walter was very generous with his time and support as we organized the CPJ trip to South Africa which included delivering funds to the families of imprisoned journalists.
He modeled excellence in every sense of the word.
By Gorethy Kenneth on July 18, 2009 7:22 PM ET
From Papua New Guinea - we pay tribute to the late Walter Cronkite.
Walter was an idol and role model to me personally and to young journalists although we never met, we read and followed his writings and advises.
To the family - our sincere heartfelt wishes and our prayers are with you all at this time of sorrow.
Gorethy Kenneth on behalf
Papua New Guinea
By Bristol, Indiana on July 18, 2009 8:01 PM ET
I read a book years ago about Walter Cronkite called "The Last Train out of Berlin", he wrote it. I got it at one of the Elkhart Indiana library's for 25 cents or so at their book sale rack, passed the book on to a friend's son to read after holding on to it for years and never saw it again. It was such a great book and truly Walter Cronkite at his best at what he did. I sure wish I had that book now. I remember the book well and his working into the dead of night trying to finish an article or newspaper for the states and just about to miss (for real) the last train out of Berlin during Hitler's era. I can almost as when I read it see him pinging on the old typewriters back then.
An Iraqi journalist in America: California pilgrimage
By Mudhafar al-Husseini
I couldn't say anything. I didn't want to blink and waste a single moment of looking at the beach and the Pacific. I had never seen an ocean. If I could set up a tent on the sand, I thought, I could stay there forever. I have loved the seas, rivers, and oceans since I studied them when I was a child. Now here I was standing on the beach at Santa Monica, watching the waves of the biggest ocean shattering on the California coast.
Mudhafar al-HusseiniTwo months ago, I was on my way from Baghdad heading south to visit the holy city of Karbala; two weeks ago, I was on my way from Arizona heading west to California. No comparison at all.
During the first trip, I was trying to say farewell to every dear place and city in Iraq. Karbala is one of the most important places to me because it has the shrines of Imam Hussein and his brother Abbas, the grandsons of our Prophet Mohammed and two of 12 Imams followed by Shiite Muslims. I'm also a descendant of Imam Hussein, which makes the whole thing very special for me. For a Shiite, visiting those shrines has no equivalent in America.
Driving from Tucson to San Diego is something I never imagined I would do, not even in my dreams. I had always watched American movies with yearning and wide-eyed wonder. Flashbacks from those movies come every now and then to my mind, especially when I contemplate things around me here.
I had great company on the trip with Lew Serviss, who drove us all the way back and forth to California. He's like my guide here in Tucson; I call him "my American father" as a way of respect to others, as I learned in Iraq, but he's really more like a friend. As we set out, several Iraqis gathered near my apartment to say goodbye. They pleaded with me not to stay long in California because they depend on me for many things like translation and interpreting.
The view along the highway between Tucson and San Diego was much the same stark desert landscape of cactus, brush, and mesquite. Interstate 8 rolls out of Arizona straight toward San Diego, which was my destination to see cousins I had never met. We made just one stop, in a tiny town along the highway to have burritos for lunch. It was the first time--one of many "firsts" on this journey--that I had Mexican food. It was similar to Iraqi food--uncomfortably heavy.
The mountains just east of San Diego were funny. They seemed to be composed of clusters of big rocks that looked like they were glued one to another. The music we had in the car was even funnier: Tom Waits with his hoarse voice talking about Jesus--"The Lord is a very, very busy man." There's no way we can mention our God in such a comical manner in our music--you dare not even think about it! Still, driving through this prehistoric-looking area listening to this crazy voice singing an outlandish song made me double over with laughter.
I took several naps on the way to San Diego. I'm still yawning my head off; I think my body is thirsty for sleep because I really had few hours of sleeping in Baghdad for the last five years. Even when I did sleep, it was a restless sleep.
San Diego was very beautiful; it made me think of Baghdad. It's almost impossible for me to see new things here in America and not compare it with home. Though California was amazing in many ways--a pretty state with clean streets and really fresh air (the breeze was just awesome)--nothing could replace the streets and friendly people of Baghdad. They say that people are friendly here in Tucson, and they are, but in Baghdad people are kind to such an extent that you could knock on any door and be given food and refuge for the asking. You would walk in the street and dozens of strangers would greet you.
We stopped in front of my cousin's home. She came out to greet me. It was the first time I'd seen her since she left Iraq when I was five years old in 1991 with her family on an American chopper after the Gulf War. When she hugged me, a special Iraqi warmth overwhelmed me. It was as though Iraq with its old civilization and two rivers had hugged me.
Lew and I were exhausted. We chatted with the family. In the Iraqi manner we were served Iraqi sweets and strong tea. My cousin wasn't satisfied merely offering sweets; she decided to serve "a simple banquet," as she described it, of okra broth with lamb and tomato paste, rice, and chicken. Fortunately, Lew was satisfied with it.
I think a lot in my daily life about almost everything that happens to me or to others. A couple hours after the heavy Iraqi meal, Lew had to drive on to Los Angeles to see his son; I would join them the next day. I sat after he left thinking for a while: Why can't people get along and live in peace? Why can't my country have a normal existence? Why is it so hard to get things right if we want to do them right? Why couldn't the Americans have done more of the right things in Iraq?
I spent more than 24 hours in San Diego with my relatives. I got to see the city. It has a big Iraqi Chaldean society--bigger and better than even the original Catholic society in Iraq. It's the American influence, which seems to be a good influence and a bad influence at the same time. I heard that Iraqis deal with drugs there and some are involved in gangs, while other Iraqis care only about their daily life like most Americans. San Diego was a beautiful city but I think Tucson is better.
I took a train to Los Angeles, seeing some beautiful Southern California scenery along the way. The train was comfortable, and this, too, reminded me of Iraq. We had one of the first train stations in the Middle East. We had the Baghdad-Berlin railroad, but I think it's one of the worst now because of the wars.
I stepped out of the train and I wanted to yell to let my Iraqi friends back home know that I was in Los Angeles. Lew was there to meet me with his son, Ben, whom I called my brother since I have made them my American family. We walked around Little Tokyo and I was thinking it would be funny to have a Little Baghdad, too--but a brand new Baghdad, not the current one.
We drove to Hollywood. Lew's nephew B.J. had invited us to see "Star Trek" in the theater where he works. Watching a movie in a theater was the best part of the whole trip--it was yet another first, my first time in a real movie theater as an adult. "Star Trek" was awesome. And in the middle of the movie, I experienced my first California earthquake. We thought at first that the rumbling, rolling floor was some amazing special effect. I left that cinema very happy; I was in Hollywood, man!
We ended the trip in a weird restaurant where you can eat and play silly video games at the same time right at your table. Our waitress was amusing because she had a special way of saying "All rii-iiight" that was like a melody.
I got back to Tucson and I was so eager to see it again as if I had been abroad and Tucson was my real home.
Mudhafar al-Husseini worked at The New York Times in Baghdad for two years, reporting news stories and writing blog entries as well as acting as a fixer and translator for other reporters. Before that, from 2004 to 2006, he was a translator for the U.S. Army in Iraq. He graduated from Baghdad University in 2007 with a degree in English literature. Now living in the United States, he is updating us on this new chapter in his life.
I couldn't say anything. I didn't want to blink and waste a single moment of looking at the beach and the Pacific. I had never seen an ocean. If I could set up a tent on the sand, I thought, I could stay there forever. I have loved the seas, rivers, and oceans since I studied them when I was a child. Now here I was standing on the beach at Santa Monica, watching the waves of the biggest ocean shattering on the California coast.
Mudhafar al-HusseiniTwo months ago, I was on my way from Baghdad heading south to visit the holy city of Karbala; two weeks ago, I was on my way from Arizona heading west to California. No comparison at all.
During the first trip, I was trying to say farewell to every dear place and city in Iraq. Karbala is one of the most important places to me because it has the shrines of Imam Hussein and his brother Abbas, the grandsons of our Prophet Mohammed and two of 12 Imams followed by Shiite Muslims. I'm also a descendant of Imam Hussein, which makes the whole thing very special for me. For a Shiite, visiting those shrines has no equivalent in America.
Driving from Tucson to San Diego is something I never imagined I would do, not even in my dreams. I had always watched American movies with yearning and wide-eyed wonder. Flashbacks from those movies come every now and then to my mind, especially when I contemplate things around me here.
I had great company on the trip with Lew Serviss, who drove us all the way back and forth to California. He's like my guide here in Tucson; I call him "my American father" as a way of respect to others, as I learned in Iraq, but he's really more like a friend. As we set out, several Iraqis gathered near my apartment to say goodbye. They pleaded with me not to stay long in California because they depend on me for many things like translation and interpreting.
The view along the highway between Tucson and San Diego was much the same stark desert landscape of cactus, brush, and mesquite. Interstate 8 rolls out of Arizona straight toward San Diego, which was my destination to see cousins I had never met. We made just one stop, in a tiny town along the highway to have burritos for lunch. It was the first time--one of many "firsts" on this journey--that I had Mexican food. It was similar to Iraqi food--uncomfortably heavy.
The mountains just east of San Diego were funny. They seemed to be composed of clusters of big rocks that looked like they were glued one to another. The music we had in the car was even funnier: Tom Waits with his hoarse voice talking about Jesus--"The Lord is a very, very busy man." There's no way we can mention our God in such a comical manner in our music--you dare not even think about it! Still, driving through this prehistoric-looking area listening to this crazy voice singing an outlandish song made me double over with laughter.
I took several naps on the way to San Diego. I'm still yawning my head off; I think my body is thirsty for sleep because I really had few hours of sleeping in Baghdad for the last five years. Even when I did sleep, it was a restless sleep.
San Diego was very beautiful; it made me think of Baghdad. It's almost impossible for me to see new things here in America and not compare it with home. Though California was amazing in many ways--a pretty state with clean streets and really fresh air (the breeze was just awesome)--nothing could replace the streets and friendly people of Baghdad. They say that people are friendly here in Tucson, and they are, but in Baghdad people are kind to such an extent that you could knock on any door and be given food and refuge for the asking. You would walk in the street and dozens of strangers would greet you.
We stopped in front of my cousin's home. She came out to greet me. It was the first time I'd seen her since she left Iraq when I was five years old in 1991 with her family on an American chopper after the Gulf War. When she hugged me, a special Iraqi warmth overwhelmed me. It was as though Iraq with its old civilization and two rivers had hugged me.
Lew and I were exhausted. We chatted with the family. In the Iraqi manner we were served Iraqi sweets and strong tea. My cousin wasn't satisfied merely offering sweets; she decided to serve "a simple banquet," as she described it, of okra broth with lamb and tomato paste, rice, and chicken. Fortunately, Lew was satisfied with it.
I think a lot in my daily life about almost everything that happens to me or to others. A couple hours after the heavy Iraqi meal, Lew had to drive on to Los Angeles to see his son; I would join them the next day. I sat after he left thinking for a while: Why can't people get along and live in peace? Why can't my country have a normal existence? Why is it so hard to get things right if we want to do them right? Why couldn't the Americans have done more of the right things in Iraq?
I spent more than 24 hours in San Diego with my relatives. I got to see the city. It has a big Iraqi Chaldean society--bigger and better than even the original Catholic society in Iraq. It's the American influence, which seems to be a good influence and a bad influence at the same time. I heard that Iraqis deal with drugs there and some are involved in gangs, while other Iraqis care only about their daily life like most Americans. San Diego was a beautiful city but I think Tucson is better.
I took a train to Los Angeles, seeing some beautiful Southern California scenery along the way. The train was comfortable, and this, too, reminded me of Iraq. We had one of the first train stations in the Middle East. We had the Baghdad-Berlin railroad, but I think it's one of the worst now because of the wars.
I stepped out of the train and I wanted to yell to let my Iraqi friends back home know that I was in Los Angeles. Lew was there to meet me with his son, Ben, whom I called my brother since I have made them my American family. We walked around Little Tokyo and I was thinking it would be funny to have a Little Baghdad, too--but a brand new Baghdad, not the current one.
We drove to Hollywood. Lew's nephew B.J. had invited us to see "Star Trek" in the theater where he works. Watching a movie in a theater was the best part of the whole trip--it was yet another first, my first time in a real movie theater as an adult. "Star Trek" was awesome. And in the middle of the movie, I experienced my first California earthquake. We thought at first that the rumbling, rolling floor was some amazing special effect. I left that cinema very happy; I was in Hollywood, man!
We ended the trip in a weird restaurant where you can eat and play silly video games at the same time right at your table. Our waitress was amusing because she had a special way of saying "All rii-iiight" that was like a melody.
I got back to Tucson and I was so eager to see it again as if I had been abroad and Tucson was my real home.
Mudhafar al-Husseini worked at The New York Times in Baghdad for two years, reporting news stories and writing blog entries as well as acting as a fixer and translator for other reporters. Before that, from 2004 to 2006, he was a translator for the U.S. Army in Iraq. He graduated from Baghdad University in 2007 with a degree in English literature. Now living in the United States, he is updating us on this new chapter in his life.
Radio Lumière in Haiti loses three journalists in quake
By Jean Roland Chery/CPJ Haiti consultant
Radio Lumière has officially published the names of three of its journalists who died in the January 12 earthquake in Haiti: Jude Marcellus, Marlene Joseph, and Ginord Desplumes. They died under the rubble of collapsed buildings. It took a month for Radio Lumière officials to decide to publish the names of the three victims.
“The death of these colleagues is a great loss to the staff,” said the station’s newsroom director, Gesner Toussaint. Radio Lumière is one of media outlets in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, that has suffered the worst human loss during the disaster, Toussaint told CPJ from Haiti. The station is the voice of the country’s Protestant churches. Its main studio in Carrefour (west of Port-au-Prince) suffered no serious damage. On January 16, engineers from the U.S.-based World Gospel Mission came to the area to assess the damage to the station’s equipment.
Since the earthquake, Radio Lumière has been operating from a makeshift tent, like most media outlets in the Haitian capital. With great difficulty, it is resuming its daily news editions. With the death of journalist Marlene Joseph, the midday news editions have stopped, Toussaint told CPJ. However, Radio Lumière continues to relay news reports three times a day in Creole from the U.S.-backed Voice of America. "The loss of our three journalists deeply hinders the operation of the newsroom," said Toussaint.
Radio Lumière is facing a deep financial crisis, said Reverend Varnel Jeune. According to Jeune, the station’s reserve funds are exhausted and its journalists are receiving only half their salaries.
The earthquake has completely changed the activities that were expected to mark the 50th anniversary of the Haitian gospel radio station, which was founded in 1959 by David Hart, an American evangelist from the West Indies Mission. Radio Lumière reaches 90 percent of the Haitian territory. Broadcasting on both AM and FM, the central studio is connected by a network of local radio stations to the 10 geographical departments in the country. Radio Lumière launched the Télé Lumière channel in 1999. Its programs are usually broadcast in Creole.
Editor’s Note: If you have any information on journalists and media outlets in Haitiplease post a comment below or notify us via e-mail msalazar@cpj.org, or Twitter: @HelpJournalists. We are collecting funds that will go directly to Haitian journalists. If you’d like to make a contribution, please click this link and enter “Haiti” in the “Notes” section on the second page
Radio Lumière has officially published the names of three of its journalists who died in the January 12 earthquake in Haiti: Jude Marcellus, Marlene Joseph, and Ginord Desplumes. They died under the rubble of collapsed buildings. It took a month for Radio Lumière officials to decide to publish the names of the three victims.
“The death of these colleagues is a great loss to the staff,” said the station’s newsroom director, Gesner Toussaint. Radio Lumière is one of media outlets in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, that has suffered the worst human loss during the disaster, Toussaint told CPJ from Haiti. The station is the voice of the country’s Protestant churches. Its main studio in Carrefour (west of Port-au-Prince) suffered no serious damage. On January 16, engineers from the U.S.-based World Gospel Mission came to the area to assess the damage to the station’s equipment.
Since the earthquake, Radio Lumière has been operating from a makeshift tent, like most media outlets in the Haitian capital. With great difficulty, it is resuming its daily news editions. With the death of journalist Marlene Joseph, the midday news editions have stopped, Toussaint told CPJ. However, Radio Lumière continues to relay news reports three times a day in Creole from the U.S.-backed Voice of America. "The loss of our three journalists deeply hinders the operation of the newsroom," said Toussaint.
Radio Lumière is facing a deep financial crisis, said Reverend Varnel Jeune. According to Jeune, the station’s reserve funds are exhausted and its journalists are receiving only half their salaries.
The earthquake has completely changed the activities that were expected to mark the 50th anniversary of the Haitian gospel radio station, which was founded in 1959 by David Hart, an American evangelist from the West Indies Mission. Radio Lumière reaches 90 percent of the Haitian territory. Broadcasting on both AM and FM, the central studio is connected by a network of local radio stations to the 10 geographical departments in the country. Radio Lumière launched the Télé Lumière channel in 1999. Its programs are usually broadcast in Creole.
Editor’s Note: If you have any information on journalists and media outlets in Haitiplease post a comment below or notify us via e-mail msalazar@cpj.org, or Twitter: @HelpJournalists. We are collecting funds that will go directly to Haitian journalists. If you’d like to make a contribution, please click this link and enter “Haiti” in the “Notes” section on the second page
Journalists fleeing Haiti in aftermath of quake
By Jean Roland Chery/CPJ Haiti consultant
Thousands of Haitians, including many journalists, have fled the country since the January 12 earthquake. Ronald Leon, a veteran journalist who worked with Haiti’s National Television station, Radio Caraibes and Tropic FM, has now settled in Florida, leaving behind his family and his journalism training school, Ameritech, which was destroyed in the earthquake. Its last class had 15 students.
Leon told CPJ that his school, in the north of Port-au-Prince, had been devastated and looted. The computers that were not damaged in the natural disaster were stolen by gangs of looters, he said. From his new home in the United States, Leon said he intends to continue his work as a journalist, informing the Haitian community in Florida. Leon’s home in Port-au-Prince was completely destroyed.
Linda Jean Gilles, a presenter and reporter with Radio Lumière, also decided to leave Haiti. Traumatized by the earthquake and the loss of three of her colleagues at Radio Lumière, she has now settled in Boston. Gesnel Toussaint, the news director for Radio Lumière, told CPJ that he understands why journalists have decided to leave the country. Everything has to be begun again from scratch, he said, adding that the working conditions of journalists are so bad that those who continue to practice are “real fighters.” Toussaint, who has just returned to Haiti after spending two weeks in New York, said that he may also emigrate in the near future.
Some journalists who were seriously injured left Haiti in search of medical care abroad. In addition to Yves Adler, a journalist for Amicale FM and National Radio of Haiti, who received assistance from CPJ and is now in the Dominican capital of Santo Domingo, journalist Sony Destine of Radio Echo 2000 has also moved to the Dominican Republic.
Guyler Delva, secretary general of the Haitian press group SOS Journalistes, said that more journalists will leave Haiti in the days to come. In many cases, media outlets cannot afford to pay their staffs and the country’s overall economic situation is catastrophic, he said. An exodus of Haitian journalists would be a bad blow to Haiti, Delva said.
Editor’s Note: If you have any information on journalists and media outlets in Haitiplease post a comment below or notify us via e-mail msalazar@cpj.org, or Twitter: @HelpJournalists. We are collecting funds that will go directly to Haitian journalists.
Thousands of Haitians, including many journalists, have fled the country since the January 12 earthquake. Ronald Leon, a veteran journalist who worked with Haiti’s National Television station, Radio Caraibes and Tropic FM, has now settled in Florida, leaving behind his family and his journalism training school, Ameritech, which was destroyed in the earthquake. Its last class had 15 students.
Leon told CPJ that his school, in the north of Port-au-Prince, had been devastated and looted. The computers that were not damaged in the natural disaster were stolen by gangs of looters, he said. From his new home in the United States, Leon said he intends to continue his work as a journalist, informing the Haitian community in Florida. Leon’s home in Port-au-Prince was completely destroyed.
Linda Jean Gilles, a presenter and reporter with Radio Lumière, also decided to leave Haiti. Traumatized by the earthquake and the loss of three of her colleagues at Radio Lumière, she has now settled in Boston. Gesnel Toussaint, the news director for Radio Lumière, told CPJ that he understands why journalists have decided to leave the country. Everything has to be begun again from scratch, he said, adding that the working conditions of journalists are so bad that those who continue to practice are “real fighters.” Toussaint, who has just returned to Haiti after spending two weeks in New York, said that he may also emigrate in the near future.
Some journalists who were seriously injured left Haiti in search of medical care abroad. In addition to Yves Adler, a journalist for Amicale FM and National Radio of Haiti, who received assistance from CPJ and is now in the Dominican capital of Santo Domingo, journalist Sony Destine of Radio Echo 2000 has also moved to the Dominican Republic.
Guyler Delva, secretary general of the Haitian press group SOS Journalistes, said that more journalists will leave Haiti in the days to come. In many cases, media outlets cannot afford to pay their staffs and the country’s overall economic situation is catastrophic, he said. An exodus of Haitian journalists would be a bad blow to Haiti, Delva said.
Editor’s Note: If you have any information on journalists and media outlets in Haitiplease post a comment below or notify us via e-mail msalazar@cpj.org, or Twitter: @HelpJournalists. We are collecting funds that will go directly to Haitian journalists.
Rwanda's Kagame tries to link bombs to critical press
By Tom Rhodes/Africa Program Coordinator
APJournalists in Kigali are on tenterhooks after President Paul Kagame, left, made new accusations of their supposed involvement in a bomb attack in Rwanda. Just months before Rwanda’s presidential elections, Kigali was recently hit by two grenade attacks that killed two people and injured 30 others, according to news reports.
In a press conference last week, Kagame accused Lt. Gen. Kayumba Nyamwasa, a former ambassador to India and chief of staff, and another senior ex-military officer, Patrick Karegyeya, of polotting the first grenade attack. The president went on to say that journalists had met with Karegyeya in South Africa prior to the attacks, leaving a not-so-subtle implication of impropriety. “There are those [journalists] who found Karegeya in South Africa and spoke to him. There are even those who went there, but have not returned,” he said.
No journalists were named, but Charles Kabonero and Jean Bosco Gasasira, founders of two private vernacular weeklies, knew that the president’s message was aimed at them. Both papers had conducted interviews with Karegyeya. For his part, Kabonero makes no apologies. "I believe that Kagame is educated enough to know that, as a journalist, if I had a chance to meet [Osama] bin Laden I would not hesitate to do it [in order to] to get news. It’s the job. So, yes, I met Karegyeya for journalism-related purposes,” he told CPJ.
Nyamwasa and Karegyeya have left Rwanda, but Nyamwasa has denied the president’s allegations in interviews with international news outlets. Over the weekend, the former president of the Rwanda Journalist Association, Deo Mushayidi, was arrested in connection with the recent grenade attacks. Prosecutor General Martin Ngoga announced at a press conference that Mushayidi was part of a network of people threatening Rwanda’s security.
This is not the first time the Rwandan government has accused independent journalists of involvement in a bomb attack. The pro-government bimonthly magazine, The Rwanda Focus, claimed in April 2006 that Kabonero conspired with a military officer to launch a wave of bombings in Kigali. Reporters Without Borders investigated the allegations and claimed the allegations were baseless.
Further, Rwanda is not the only African country that accuses journalists of conducting terrorist activities. In December 2008, freelance award-winning journalist Andrison Manyere was seized and imprisoned for nearly four months in Zimbabwe on false bombing charges. Another Zimbabwean freelancer, Frank Chikowore, was arrested on false charges in April 2009 for allegedly setting a bus on fire. Both arrests and accusations occurred around tense election periods.
Godwin Agaba, a Rwandan correspondent for the Ugandan online publication 256 News, went into hiding after he heard Kagame’s televised remarks. The reporter, who has written about Nyamwasa, was warned to stop writing about the general, a vocal critic to the president, according to CPJ sources.
In fact, any interviews with critics of the current regime seem to raise eyebrows with the president. During the same press conference last week, Kagame singled out the Nairobi-based regional weekly, The East African, which he described as “insulting” and “offensive,” for interviewing opposition candidate Victoire Ingabire, according to the Kenya-based Media Institute.
One thing is clear: Kagame’s televised warnings will help silence critics prior to the August presidential election. With pro-government media outlets outweighing the country’s beleaguered private press, the chances of balanced election coverage are now slimmer than ever.
APJournalists in Kigali are on tenterhooks after President Paul Kagame, left, made new accusations of their supposed involvement in a bomb attack in Rwanda. Just months before Rwanda’s presidential elections, Kigali was recently hit by two grenade attacks that killed two people and injured 30 others, according to news reports.
In a press conference last week, Kagame accused Lt. Gen. Kayumba Nyamwasa, a former ambassador to India and chief of staff, and another senior ex-military officer, Patrick Karegyeya, of polotting the first grenade attack. The president went on to say that journalists had met with Karegyeya in South Africa prior to the attacks, leaving a not-so-subtle implication of impropriety. “There are those [journalists] who found Karegeya in South Africa and spoke to him. There are even those who went there, but have not returned,” he said.
No journalists were named, but Charles Kabonero and Jean Bosco Gasasira, founders of two private vernacular weeklies, knew that the president’s message was aimed at them. Both papers had conducted interviews with Karegyeya. For his part, Kabonero makes no apologies. "I believe that Kagame is educated enough to know that, as a journalist, if I had a chance to meet [Osama] bin Laden I would not hesitate to do it [in order to] to get news. It’s the job. So, yes, I met Karegyeya for journalism-related purposes,” he told CPJ.
Nyamwasa and Karegyeya have left Rwanda, but Nyamwasa has denied the president’s allegations in interviews with international news outlets. Over the weekend, the former president of the Rwanda Journalist Association, Deo Mushayidi, was arrested in connection with the recent grenade attacks. Prosecutor General Martin Ngoga announced at a press conference that Mushayidi was part of a network of people threatening Rwanda’s security.
This is not the first time the Rwandan government has accused independent journalists of involvement in a bomb attack. The pro-government bimonthly magazine, The Rwanda Focus, claimed in April 2006 that Kabonero conspired with a military officer to launch a wave of bombings in Kigali. Reporters Without Borders investigated the allegations and claimed the allegations were baseless.
Further, Rwanda is not the only African country that accuses journalists of conducting terrorist activities. In December 2008, freelance award-winning journalist Andrison Manyere was seized and imprisoned for nearly four months in Zimbabwe on false bombing charges. Another Zimbabwean freelancer, Frank Chikowore, was arrested on false charges in April 2009 for allegedly setting a bus on fire. Both arrests and accusations occurred around tense election periods.
Godwin Agaba, a Rwandan correspondent for the Ugandan online publication 256 News, went into hiding after he heard Kagame’s televised remarks. The reporter, who has written about Nyamwasa, was warned to stop writing about the general, a vocal critic to the president, according to CPJ sources.
In fact, any interviews with critics of the current regime seem to raise eyebrows with the president. During the same press conference last week, Kagame singled out the Nairobi-based regional weekly, The East African, which he described as “insulting” and “offensive,” for interviewing opposition candidate Victoire Ingabire, according to the Kenya-based Media Institute.
One thing is clear: Kagame’s televised warnings will help silence critics prior to the August presidential election. With pro-government media outlets outweighing the country’s beleaguered private press, the chances of balanced election coverage are now slimmer than ever.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Friday, March 5, 2010
Tears of Jihad
These figures are a rough estimate of the death of non-Muslims by the political act of jihad.
Africa
Thomas Sowell [Thomas Sowell, Race and Culture, BasicBooks, 1994, p. 188] estimates that 11 million slaves were shipped across the Atlantic and 14 million were sent to the Islamic nations of North Africa and the Middle East. For every slave captured many others died. Estimates of this collateral damage vary. The renowned missionary David Livingstone estimated that for every slave who reached a plantation, five others were killed in the initial raid or died of illness and privation on the forced march.[Woman’s Presbyterian Board of Missions, David Livingstone, p. 62, 1888] Those who were left behind were the very young, the weak, the sick and the old. These soon died since the main providers had been killed or enslaved. So, for 25 million slaves delivered to the market, we have an estimated death of about 120 million people. Islam ran the wholesale slave trade in Africa.
120 million Africans
Christians
The number of Christians martyred by Islam is 9 million [David B. Barrett, Todd M. Johnson, World Christian Trends AD 30-AD 2200, William Carey Library, 2001, p. 230, table 4-10] . A rough estimate by Raphael Moore in History of Asia Minor is that another 50 million died in wars by jihad. So counting the million African Christians killed in the 20th century we have:
60 million Christians
Hindus
Koenard Elst in Negationism in India gives an estimate of 80 million Hindus killed in the total jihad against India. [Koenard Elst, Negationism in India, Voice of India, New Delhi, 2002, pg. 34.] The country of India today is only half the size of ancient India, due to jihad. The mountains near India are called the Hindu Kush, meaning the “funeral pyre of the Hindus.”
80 million Hindus
Buddhists
Buddhists do not keep up with the history of war. Keep in mind that in jihad only Christians and Jews were allowed to survive as dhimmis (servants to Islam); everyone else had to convert or die. Jihad killed the Buddhists in Turkey, Afghanistan, along the Silk Route, and in India. The total is roughly 10 million. [David B. Barrett, Todd M. Johnson, World Christian Trends AD 30-AD 2200, William Carey Library, 2001, p. 230, table 4-1.]
10 million Buddhists
Jews
Oddly enough there were not enough Jews killed in jihad to significantly affect the totals of the Great Annihilation. The jihad in Arabia was 100 percent effective, but the numbers were in the thousands, not millions. After that, the Jews submitted and became the dhimmis (servants and second class citizens) of Islam and did not have geographic political power.
This gives a rough estimate of 270 million killed by jihad.
Africa
Thomas Sowell [Thomas Sowell, Race and Culture, BasicBooks, 1994, p. 188] estimates that 11 million slaves were shipped across the Atlantic and 14 million were sent to the Islamic nations of North Africa and the Middle East. For every slave captured many others died. Estimates of this collateral damage vary. The renowned missionary David Livingstone estimated that for every slave who reached a plantation, five others were killed in the initial raid or died of illness and privation on the forced march.[Woman’s Presbyterian Board of Missions, David Livingstone, p. 62, 1888] Those who were left behind were the very young, the weak, the sick and the old. These soon died since the main providers had been killed or enslaved. So, for 25 million slaves delivered to the market, we have an estimated death of about 120 million people. Islam ran the wholesale slave trade in Africa.
120 million Africans
Christians
The number of Christians martyred by Islam is 9 million [David B. Barrett, Todd M. Johnson, World Christian Trends AD 30-AD 2200, William Carey Library, 2001, p. 230, table 4-10] . A rough estimate by Raphael Moore in History of Asia Minor is that another 50 million died in wars by jihad. So counting the million African Christians killed in the 20th century we have:
60 million Christians
Hindus
Koenard Elst in Negationism in India gives an estimate of 80 million Hindus killed in the total jihad against India. [Koenard Elst, Negationism in India, Voice of India, New Delhi, 2002, pg. 34.] The country of India today is only half the size of ancient India, due to jihad. The mountains near India are called the Hindu Kush, meaning the “funeral pyre of the Hindus.”
80 million Hindus
Buddhists
Buddhists do not keep up with the history of war. Keep in mind that in jihad only Christians and Jews were allowed to survive as dhimmis (servants to Islam); everyone else had to convert or die. Jihad killed the Buddhists in Turkey, Afghanistan, along the Silk Route, and in India. The total is roughly 10 million. [David B. Barrett, Todd M. Johnson, World Christian Trends AD 30-AD 2200, William Carey Library, 2001, p. 230, table 4-1.]
10 million Buddhists
Jews
Oddly enough there were not enough Jews killed in jihad to significantly affect the totals of the Great Annihilation. The jihad in Arabia was 100 percent effective, but the numbers were in the thousands, not millions. After that, the Jews submitted and became the dhimmis (servants and second class citizens) of Islam and did not have geographic political power.
This gives a rough estimate of 270 million killed by jihad.
The Courts' Shifting Rules on Guantánamo Detainees
One judge rules that a detainee's statements to his military review tribunal are tainted by past coercion — and orders him released. Within days, another judge rules that a detainee's statements to the same sort of tribunal are not tainted, despite similar abuse — and affirms his detention.
Detainees in orange jumpsuits sit in a holding area under the watchful eyes of military police at Camp X-Ray, Guantánamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba.
View Larger
Reuters/DoD/Shane T. McCoy
RELATED CONTENT
The Emerging Law of Detention: The Guantánamo Habeas Cases as Lawmaking
Benjamin Wittes, The Brookings Institution, January 22, 2010
Benjamin Wittes
Designing Detention: A Model Law for Terrorist Incapacitation
Benjamin Wittes, The Brookings Institution, June 26, 2009
More Related Content »
One judge rules that to justify a detention, the government must prove that a detainee poses a future threat -- and orders freed a Guantánamo Bay detainee who acknowledges a past relationship with al-Qaeda but has cooperated with authorities since his capture. Another judge rules that a detainee need not pose a future danger and permits the continued detention of a man whose future threat he describes as a "ludicrous" prospect.
President Obama's decision not to seek additional legislative authority for Guantánamo detentions, along with Congress's lack of interest in taking on the subject, means that, for good or for ill, judges must write the rules governing military detentions of terrorist suspects. But the judges hearing habeas cases from the nearly 200 detainees remaining at Guantánamo do not agree on what the rules should be. Indeed, on the most basic architectural features of any detention system, they disagree profoundly.
They disagree about what the government needs to prove for a court to sign off on a detention, about what evidence it may employ in doing so and about how deeply a court should probe material collected and processed for intelligence purposes. They disagree about the substantive scope of the government's detention authority — what sort of person the government may lock up under its power to wage war against al Qaeda and the Taliban. They disagree about whether and when a detainee can sever his relationship with enemy forces such that his detention is no longer a legal option. They disagree about how to handle hearsay evidence that courts in normal cases would eschew. And they disagree about how to handle detainee or witness statements alleged to have been extracted through abuse or in the aftermath of abuse.
So fundamentally do the judges differ on the basic design elements of American detention law that their differences are almost surely affecting cases' bottom lines. While it is impossible to be certain that any given case would have turned out differently had a different judge heard it, judges have articulated standards across a range of issues that, if applied to cases decided otherwise by their colleagues, would require different outcomes. That is, some detainees freed by certain judges would probably have had the lawfulness of their detentions affirmed had other judges — who have articulated different standards — heard their cases. And some detainees whose incarceration these other judges have approved are likely to have had habeas writs granted had the first group of judges heard their cases.
The chaos is not the judges' fault. It stems from decisions made above their pay grade in all three branches of government. The Supreme Court asserted jurisdiction over Guantánamo in summer 2008 but then coyly refrained from giving any guidance on the myriad important questions that the cases it authorized would predictably generate. The Bush and Obama administrations both declined to pursue legislation that might have guided the courts in adjudicating these matters. And Congress has shown a relentless tendency to play politics with Guantánamo rather than offer itself as a constructive partner for either administration. Their joint irresponsibility has produced an unprecedented delegation of a major legislative function to the courts — to a group of judges with different predilections, instincts and approaches to vexing questions that lack obvious answers.
The result is that until Congress or the appellate courts — and, ultimately, the Supreme Court — harmonize these wildly different approaches, a detainee's likelihood of prevailing in his habeas suit will be largely a function of which judge hears his case.
One can make a good argument for more or less restrictive detention rules — but there is no good argument for unclear rules. They create long delays and uncertainty for detainees. They also create uncertainty for forces in operational settings concerning what they can and cannot do, whom they can and cannot hold, and what actions will and will not survive subsequent scrutiny and review.
One way or another, Americans should know what patterns of behavior will support a detention in federal court; which, by contrast, will require a detainee's release; and what evidentiary and procedural rules will govern such proceedings. Should the government be able to detain someone when it proves that he traveled extensively on false documents, attended radical mosques where al Qaeda recruited people for jihad, was recruited at one and went to Afghanistan on the recruiter's dime specifically intending to join up, and stayed at a guest house there that acted as a gateway for terrorist training? The judge who heard this case thinks not, absent affirmative proof that the detainee later actually attended a training camp. Some of her colleagues would probably think otherwise. Do we really want them making this policy judgment?
Detainees in orange jumpsuits sit in a holding area under the watchful eyes of military police at Camp X-Ray, Guantánamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba.
View Larger
Reuters/DoD/Shane T. McCoy
RELATED CONTENT
The Emerging Law of Detention: The Guantánamo Habeas Cases as Lawmaking
Benjamin Wittes, The Brookings Institution, January 22, 2010
Benjamin Wittes
Designing Detention: A Model Law for Terrorist Incapacitation
Benjamin Wittes, The Brookings Institution, June 26, 2009
More Related Content »
One judge rules that to justify a detention, the government must prove that a detainee poses a future threat -- and orders freed a Guantánamo Bay detainee who acknowledges a past relationship with al-Qaeda but has cooperated with authorities since his capture. Another judge rules that a detainee need not pose a future danger and permits the continued detention of a man whose future threat he describes as a "ludicrous" prospect.
President Obama's decision not to seek additional legislative authority for Guantánamo detentions, along with Congress's lack of interest in taking on the subject, means that, for good or for ill, judges must write the rules governing military detentions of terrorist suspects. But the judges hearing habeas cases from the nearly 200 detainees remaining at Guantánamo do not agree on what the rules should be. Indeed, on the most basic architectural features of any detention system, they disagree profoundly.
They disagree about what the government needs to prove for a court to sign off on a detention, about what evidence it may employ in doing so and about how deeply a court should probe material collected and processed for intelligence purposes. They disagree about the substantive scope of the government's detention authority — what sort of person the government may lock up under its power to wage war against al Qaeda and the Taliban. They disagree about whether and when a detainee can sever his relationship with enemy forces such that his detention is no longer a legal option. They disagree about how to handle hearsay evidence that courts in normal cases would eschew. And they disagree about how to handle detainee or witness statements alleged to have been extracted through abuse or in the aftermath of abuse.
So fundamentally do the judges differ on the basic design elements of American detention law that their differences are almost surely affecting cases' bottom lines. While it is impossible to be certain that any given case would have turned out differently had a different judge heard it, judges have articulated standards across a range of issues that, if applied to cases decided otherwise by their colleagues, would require different outcomes. That is, some detainees freed by certain judges would probably have had the lawfulness of their detentions affirmed had other judges — who have articulated different standards — heard their cases. And some detainees whose incarceration these other judges have approved are likely to have had habeas writs granted had the first group of judges heard their cases.
The chaos is not the judges' fault. It stems from decisions made above their pay grade in all three branches of government. The Supreme Court asserted jurisdiction over Guantánamo in summer 2008 but then coyly refrained from giving any guidance on the myriad important questions that the cases it authorized would predictably generate. The Bush and Obama administrations both declined to pursue legislation that might have guided the courts in adjudicating these matters. And Congress has shown a relentless tendency to play politics with Guantánamo rather than offer itself as a constructive partner for either administration. Their joint irresponsibility has produced an unprecedented delegation of a major legislative function to the courts — to a group of judges with different predilections, instincts and approaches to vexing questions that lack obvious answers.
The result is that until Congress or the appellate courts — and, ultimately, the Supreme Court — harmonize these wildly different approaches, a detainee's likelihood of prevailing in his habeas suit will be largely a function of which judge hears his case.
One can make a good argument for more or less restrictive detention rules — but there is no good argument for unclear rules. They create long delays and uncertainty for detainees. They also create uncertainty for forces in operational settings concerning what they can and cannot do, whom they can and cannot hold, and what actions will and will not survive subsequent scrutiny and review.
One way or another, Americans should know what patterns of behavior will support a detention in federal court; which, by contrast, will require a detainee's release; and what evidentiary and procedural rules will govern such proceedings. Should the government be able to detain someone when it proves that he traveled extensively on false documents, attended radical mosques where al Qaeda recruited people for jihad, was recruited at one and went to Afghanistan on the recruiter's dime specifically intending to join up, and stayed at a guest house there that acted as a gateway for terrorist training? The judge who heard this case thinks not, absent affirmative proof that the detainee later actually attended a training camp. Some of her colleagues would probably think otherwise. Do we really want them making this policy judgment?
Law and the Long War: The Future of Justice in the Age of Terror
Event Summary
More than six years after the September 11 attacks, America is losing a crucial front in the ongoing war on terror—not to al Qaeda but to its own failure to construct a set of laws that will protect the American people and govern the American side of a conflict unlike any it has faced in the past. Now, in Law and the Long War (Penguin Press, 2008), Benjamin Wittes, Brookings fellow and research director in public law, offers a vigorous analysis of how America came to its current impasse in the debate over liberty, human rights and counterterrorism and draws a road map for how the country and the next president might move forward.
Event Information
When
Monday, June 23, 2008
2:00 PM to 3:30 PM
Where
Falk Auditorium
The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC
Map
Contact: Brookings Office of Communications
E-mail: events@brookings.edu
Phone: 202.797.6105
RELATED CONTENT
Law and the Long War: The Future of Justice in the Age of Terror
Benjamin Wittes, Penguin Press, June 23, 2008
Congress's Guantanamo Burden
Benjamin Wittes, The Washington Post, June 13, 2008
A Legal Framework for Detaining Terrorists: Enact a Law to End the Clash over Rights
Benjamin Wittes, Opportunity 08, November 15, 2007
More Related Content »
On June 23, Brookings hosted Wittes for a panel discussion of his provocative new book. In Law and the Long War, Wittes argues that the essential problem with the Bush administration’s course was that it did not seek—and Congress did not write—new laws to authorize and regulate the tough presidential actions this war would require. He both argues for more extensive congressional involvement in designing the law of counterterrorism and boldly proposes new bodies of law to govern detention, interrogation, trial and surveillance.
Stuart Taylor, a Brookings nonresident senior fellow and National Journal columnist, moderated the discussion. Jack Goldsmith, former head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, and Seth Waxman, former Solicitor General of the United States, provided commentary on the book.
Transcript
BEN WITTES: Behind the effort to think past this are three assumptions, and I want to be very up front about all three of them. The first is that the administration and many of its critics are both correct that this is a conflict fundamentally unlike anything else we have faced before; that easy analogies either to the criminal law or to the laws of war do not quite work all the time; and that this begs problems that we have never really confronted before. The second, and this is something that both the administration and its critics often deny, is that if you buy the premise of premise number one, it follows from it that we have to create new things, new institutions, new procedures, new ways of thinking legally about the conflict; that this involves the creation of new legal regimes and that if the analogies fail, creating law by analogy to them will also produce a suboptimal outcome. And number three, that when you are talking in the language of creating new legal regimes, when you are thinking about a new situation that requires new law, the proper venue, the presumptive proper venue to do that, is the Congress of the United States, it is not a common-law dialogue between the executive and the courts.
The question of how exactly is a fascinating one, but somehow we have gotten bogged down in this very, very earnest and serious and very heartfelt debate over what the law is rather than what the law should be. We talk about the scope and reach of the historic habeas corpus instead or largely instead of talking about the substance of what rules we want to govern detention. We ask whether the CIA is violating these very vague and ethereally written prohibitions against inhumane treatments of one sort or another instead of saying, wait a minute, we have a problem. We have a problem in which we are asking people to conduct interrogations against vaguely worded guidance in which we will fault them if they do not go far enough, we will have a 9/11 Commission that will have a chapter about missed opportunities about that interrogation, and if they go too far, we will fault them for that too. Instead of saying we need to do better and give a set of guidance that actually tells you what we demand that you do, what we forbid that you do, what we tolerate that you do under what circumstances, we argue about how to parse words like cruel, degrading, and inhumane which can mean a great deal of different things to a great deal of different people.
My proposition is that we actually do not have enough law, that the law we do have largely was not written with our current problems in mind, and that the attempt to reason by analogy based on things we have done in the past and things we have tolerated in the past largely fails.
View Full Transcript »
Participants
Moderator
Stuart Taylor, Jr.
Nonresident Senior Fellow, Governance Studies
Panelists
Benjamin Wittes
Fellow and Research Director in Public Law, Governance Studies
Jack Goldsmith
Henry L. Shattuck Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
Seth Waxman
Partner, WilmerHale
More than six years after the September 11 attacks, America is losing a crucial front in the ongoing war on terror—not to al Qaeda but to its own failure to construct a set of laws that will protect the American people and govern the American side of a conflict unlike any it has faced in the past. Now, in Law and the Long War (Penguin Press, 2008), Benjamin Wittes, Brookings fellow and research director in public law, offers a vigorous analysis of how America came to its current impasse in the debate over liberty, human rights and counterterrorism and draws a road map for how the country and the next president might move forward.
Event Information
When
Monday, June 23, 2008
2:00 PM to 3:30 PM
Where
Falk Auditorium
The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC
Map
Contact: Brookings Office of Communications
E-mail: events@brookings.edu
Phone: 202.797.6105
RELATED CONTENT
Law and the Long War: The Future of Justice in the Age of Terror
Benjamin Wittes, Penguin Press, June 23, 2008
Congress's Guantanamo Burden
Benjamin Wittes, The Washington Post, June 13, 2008
A Legal Framework for Detaining Terrorists: Enact a Law to End the Clash over Rights
Benjamin Wittes, Opportunity 08, November 15, 2007
More Related Content »
On June 23, Brookings hosted Wittes for a panel discussion of his provocative new book. In Law and the Long War, Wittes argues that the essential problem with the Bush administration’s course was that it did not seek—and Congress did not write—new laws to authorize and regulate the tough presidential actions this war would require. He both argues for more extensive congressional involvement in designing the law of counterterrorism and boldly proposes new bodies of law to govern detention, interrogation, trial and surveillance.
Stuart Taylor, a Brookings nonresident senior fellow and National Journal columnist, moderated the discussion. Jack Goldsmith, former head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, and Seth Waxman, former Solicitor General of the United States, provided commentary on the book.
Transcript
BEN WITTES: Behind the effort to think past this are three assumptions, and I want to be very up front about all three of them. The first is that the administration and many of its critics are both correct that this is a conflict fundamentally unlike anything else we have faced before; that easy analogies either to the criminal law or to the laws of war do not quite work all the time; and that this begs problems that we have never really confronted before. The second, and this is something that both the administration and its critics often deny, is that if you buy the premise of premise number one, it follows from it that we have to create new things, new institutions, new procedures, new ways of thinking legally about the conflict; that this involves the creation of new legal regimes and that if the analogies fail, creating law by analogy to them will also produce a suboptimal outcome. And number three, that when you are talking in the language of creating new legal regimes, when you are thinking about a new situation that requires new law, the proper venue, the presumptive proper venue to do that, is the Congress of the United States, it is not a common-law dialogue between the executive and the courts.
The question of how exactly is a fascinating one, but somehow we have gotten bogged down in this very, very earnest and serious and very heartfelt debate over what the law is rather than what the law should be. We talk about the scope and reach of the historic habeas corpus instead or largely instead of talking about the substance of what rules we want to govern detention. We ask whether the CIA is violating these very vague and ethereally written prohibitions against inhumane treatments of one sort or another instead of saying, wait a minute, we have a problem. We have a problem in which we are asking people to conduct interrogations against vaguely worded guidance in which we will fault them if they do not go far enough, we will have a 9/11 Commission that will have a chapter about missed opportunities about that interrogation, and if they go too far, we will fault them for that too. Instead of saying we need to do better and give a set of guidance that actually tells you what we demand that you do, what we forbid that you do, what we tolerate that you do under what circumstances, we argue about how to parse words like cruel, degrading, and inhumane which can mean a great deal of different things to a great deal of different people.
My proposition is that we actually do not have enough law, that the law we do have largely was not written with our current problems in mind, and that the attempt to reason by analogy based on things we have done in the past and things we have tolerated in the past largely fails.
View Full Transcript »
Participants
Moderator
Stuart Taylor, Jr.
Nonresident Senior Fellow, Governance Studies
Panelists
Benjamin Wittes
Fellow and Research Director in Public Law, Governance Studies
Jack Goldsmith
Henry L. Shattuck Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
Seth Waxman
Partner, WilmerHale
Bulletin of Christian Persecution
February 12, 2010
Saudi Ariabia
Christian Filipino workers in Saudi Arabia are complaining that their employers are threatening to fire them if they do not convert to Islam.
February 12, 2010
Indonesia
A crowd of over 150 Muslims in the village of Curug Mekar, in a West Java province, staged a protest against the building permit of a Protestant church.
February 12, 2010
Turkey
An Istanbul court has ordered the release of a jailed Turk who publicly threatened and held a knife to the throat of a Christian he attacked six months ago.
February 15, 2010
Turkey
Christian converts still in court for slandering Islam and the Turkish nation and trying to convert muslims.
Feb 16, 2010
Iraq
Gunmen killed two Christian shop owners in separate attacks within 24 hours in the city of Mosul, police said as the community's leaders hit out at the violence. Update HERE.
February 16, 2010
Pakistan
Pakistani Christians have strongly protested the release on bail of a Muslim lawyer accused of raping, torturing and killing last month Shazia Bashir, a 12-year-old Catholic girl, employed in his household as domestic worker.
February 18, 2010
Kenya
Prosecutors and police are trying to concoct a terrorism case against an Ethiopian convert from Islam who has been jailed since May without formal charges.
February 22, 2010
Pakistan
The four older Muslim brothers of a 26-year-old Christian beat him unconscious here earlier this month because he refused their enticements to convert to Islam.
February 22, 2010
Bangladesh
Violence stoked by disputed land, which Muslims settlers want to rob from Christians and Buddhists. Local sources say the army fired on the crowd. At least 50 homes and the UN headquarters destroyed. Dhaka promises reconstruction of places of worship. Update HERE and HERE.
February 22, 2010
Saudi Arabia
A Fillipino maid in Saudi Arabia says, ""During my three years working in Saudi Arabia I was never allowed to leave the house or have a day off to go to mass".
February 23, 2010
Egypt
Egyptian State Security has been accused by lawyers, rights activists and victims' families of torturing the Christian youths arrested in the aftermath of the Christmas Eve shootings of Copts on January 6, 2010.
February 25, 2010
Iraq
In a "humanitarian emergency" in just one day, hundreds of Christian families left the city in search of shelter, leaving behind their homes, property, commercial activities: the situation "is dramatic" said the Chaldean archbishop of Mosul.
February 23, 2010
Nigeria
A Muslim mob burned down Christians' shops and eight Christian churches.
February 26, 2010
Iran
An evangelical priest was among nine Christians arrested in central Iran on Friday as authorities continued a crackdown against Christians in the Islamic country.
February 26, 2010
Pakistan
In the wake of an attack this week by 150 armed Muslims on a Christian colony in this city in Sindh Province, police have filed a false First Information Report (FIR) against 40 unnamed Christians and arrested five, Christian leaders said.
February 26, 2010
Indonesia
Demonstrators from 16 Islamic organizations, including the hard-line Islamic Defenders Front, gathered on Feb. 15 to demand a stop to all activities by the Galilea Protestant Church in the Galaxy area of Bekasi City.
February 26, 2010
Middle East and Asia
The rise of Islamic extremism is putting increasing pressure on Christians in Muslim countries, who are the victims of murder, violence and discrimination. Christians are now considered the most persecuted religious group around the world.
Part 2 HERE
Part 3 HERE
February 27, 2010
Liberia
Fighting broke out between Christians and Muslims when a Christian girl's dismembered body was found near a mosque. An unknown number of deaths resulted while Catholic, Baptist and Episcopal churches in the area were burned down.
Produced by Political Islam.com
Publisher: Bill Warner; Edited by Asma Marwan
Permalink
Saudi Ariabia
Christian Filipino workers in Saudi Arabia are complaining that their employers are threatening to fire them if they do not convert to Islam.
February 12, 2010
Indonesia
A crowd of over 150 Muslims in the village of Curug Mekar, in a West Java province, staged a protest against the building permit of a Protestant church.
February 12, 2010
Turkey
An Istanbul court has ordered the release of a jailed Turk who publicly threatened and held a knife to the throat of a Christian he attacked six months ago.
February 15, 2010
Turkey
Christian converts still in court for slandering Islam and the Turkish nation and trying to convert muslims.
Feb 16, 2010
Iraq
Gunmen killed two Christian shop owners in separate attacks within 24 hours in the city of Mosul, police said as the community's leaders hit out at the violence. Update HERE.
February 16, 2010
Pakistan
Pakistani Christians have strongly protested the release on bail of a Muslim lawyer accused of raping, torturing and killing last month Shazia Bashir, a 12-year-old Catholic girl, employed in his household as domestic worker.
February 18, 2010
Kenya
Prosecutors and police are trying to concoct a terrorism case against an Ethiopian convert from Islam who has been jailed since May without formal charges.
February 22, 2010
Pakistan
The four older Muslim brothers of a 26-year-old Christian beat him unconscious here earlier this month because he refused their enticements to convert to Islam.
February 22, 2010
Bangladesh
Violence stoked by disputed land, which Muslims settlers want to rob from Christians and Buddhists. Local sources say the army fired on the crowd. At least 50 homes and the UN headquarters destroyed. Dhaka promises reconstruction of places of worship. Update HERE and HERE.
February 22, 2010
Saudi Arabia
A Fillipino maid in Saudi Arabia says, ""During my three years working in Saudi Arabia I was never allowed to leave the house or have a day off to go to mass".
February 23, 2010
Egypt
Egyptian State Security has been accused by lawyers, rights activists and victims' families of torturing the Christian youths arrested in the aftermath of the Christmas Eve shootings of Copts on January 6, 2010.
February 25, 2010
Iraq
In a "humanitarian emergency" in just one day, hundreds of Christian families left the city in search of shelter, leaving behind their homes, property, commercial activities: the situation "is dramatic" said the Chaldean archbishop of Mosul.
February 23, 2010
Nigeria
A Muslim mob burned down Christians' shops and eight Christian churches.
February 26, 2010
Iran
An evangelical priest was among nine Christians arrested in central Iran on Friday as authorities continued a crackdown against Christians in the Islamic country.
February 26, 2010
Pakistan
In the wake of an attack this week by 150 armed Muslims on a Christian colony in this city in Sindh Province, police have filed a false First Information Report (FIR) against 40 unnamed Christians and arrested five, Christian leaders said.
February 26, 2010
Indonesia
Demonstrators from 16 Islamic organizations, including the hard-line Islamic Defenders Front, gathered on Feb. 15 to demand a stop to all activities by the Galilea Protestant Church in the Galaxy area of Bekasi City.
February 26, 2010
Middle East and Asia
The rise of Islamic extremism is putting increasing pressure on Christians in Muslim countries, who are the victims of murder, violence and discrimination. Christians are now considered the most persecuted religious group around the world.
Part 2 HERE
Part 3 HERE
February 27, 2010
Liberia
Fighting broke out between Christians and Muslims when a Christian girl's dismembered body was found near a mosque. An unknown number of deaths resulted while Catholic, Baptist and Episcopal churches in the area were burned down.
Produced by Political Islam.com
Publisher: Bill Warner; Edited by Asma Marwan
Permalink
The Rise of America’s Surveillance State
In a post-9/11 world, U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials are expected to strike a delicate balance between conducting aggressive, swift intelligence gathering and adhering to constitutional privacy protections. But in a digital age, private information can sometimes be obtained easily and without an individual’s permission or knowledge, compromising civil liberties. How does the U.S. government reconcile the need to provide security to its citizens without overstepping privacy laws, which are seen as fundamental rights in a democracy?
Judicial Issues Forum
Save Subscribe Series Index
Event Information
When
Thursday, March 11, 2010
10:00 AM to 11:30 AM
Where
Saul/Zilkha Rooms
The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC
Map
Event Materials
Reuters/T. Korol
Contact: Brookings Office of Communications
E-mail: events@brookings.edu
Phone: 202.797.6105
Also in this Series
No. 25
The 2009-2010 U.S. Supreme Court Term
The Brookings Institution, October 07, 2009
No. 24
Guantanamo Detainees: Is a National Security Court the Answer?
The Brookings Institution, March 17, 2009
No. 23
Immigration and the Courts
The Brookings Institution, February 20, 2009
View All »
On March 11, the Brookings Institution will host a Judicial Issues Forum discussion on The Watchers: The Rise of America’s Surveillance State (Penguin Press, 2010), a new book by National Journal intelligence and homeland security correspondent Shane Harris. Harris will discuss the rise of the American surveillance state over the past 25 years, as well as offer his views on how our government’s intelligence strategy has made it harder to catch terrorists and easier to spy on everyday citizens.
Following Harris’ remarks, Ben Wittes, Brookings senior fellow, and Kim Taipale, founder and executive director of the Stilwell Center for Advanced Studies in Science and Technology Policy, will provide reaction and offer their views on protecting individual privacy in an era of invasive technology.
After the program, participants will take audience questions.
Participants
Featured Speaker
Shane Harris
Homeland security and intelligence correspondent, National Journal
Moderator
Benjamin Wittes
Senior Fellow, Governance Studies
Discussant
Kim Taipale
Founder and Executive Director, Stilwell Center for Advanced Studies in Science and Technology Policy
RELATED CONTENT
Law and the Long War: The Future of Justice in the Age of Terror
Monday, June 23, 2008
2:00 PM to 3:30 PM
Washington, DC
Legal Policy in the Obama Administration
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
10:00 AM to 11:30 AM
Washington, DC
John Yoo Interrogation Memo
Benjamin Wittes, The New Republic, April 05, 2008
Judicial Issues Forum
Save Subscribe Series Index
Event Information
When
Thursday, March 11, 2010
10:00 AM to 11:30 AM
Where
Saul/Zilkha Rooms
The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC
Map
Event Materials
Reuters/T. Korol
Contact: Brookings Office of Communications
E-mail: events@brookings.edu
Phone: 202.797.6105
Also in this Series
No. 25
The 2009-2010 U.S. Supreme Court Term
The Brookings Institution, October 07, 2009
No. 24
Guantanamo Detainees: Is a National Security Court the Answer?
The Brookings Institution, March 17, 2009
No. 23
Immigration and the Courts
The Brookings Institution, February 20, 2009
View All »
On March 11, the Brookings Institution will host a Judicial Issues Forum discussion on The Watchers: The Rise of America’s Surveillance State (Penguin Press, 2010), a new book by National Journal intelligence and homeland security correspondent Shane Harris. Harris will discuss the rise of the American surveillance state over the past 25 years, as well as offer his views on how our government’s intelligence strategy has made it harder to catch terrorists and easier to spy on everyday citizens.
Following Harris’ remarks, Ben Wittes, Brookings senior fellow, and Kim Taipale, founder and executive director of the Stilwell Center for Advanced Studies in Science and Technology Policy, will provide reaction and offer their views on protecting individual privacy in an era of invasive technology.
After the program, participants will take audience questions.
Participants
Featured Speaker
Shane Harris
Homeland security and intelligence correspondent, National Journal
Moderator
Benjamin Wittes
Senior Fellow, Governance Studies
Discussant
Kim Taipale
Founder and Executive Director, Stilwell Center for Advanced Studies in Science and Technology Policy
RELATED CONTENT
Law and the Long War: The Future of Justice in the Age of Terror
Monday, June 23, 2008
2:00 PM to 3:30 PM
Washington, DC
Legal Policy in the Obama Administration
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
10:00 AM to 11:30 AM
Washington, DC
John Yoo Interrogation Memo
Benjamin Wittes, The New Republic, April 05, 2008
Is this government getting mad? Why arrest Civil Society Leaders for Speaking Out?
I laughed at the news that government agents had arrested some CSO leaders for speaking out against an 'innocent matter'. Well, that is nonsense.
I think this government is getting mad! Do we have medical institutions that treat mentally-ill governments and institutions. I think Malawi qualifies for a case!
I think this government is getting mad! Do we have medical institutions that treat mentally-ill governments and institutions. I think Malawi qualifies for a case!
Bingu wa Mutharika's government is failing Malawians on passport fee
Look at the passport fee; chamba eti? Ndalama zake zichokera kuDPP kodi?
Inu mukudya mabwinobwino ndivimaallowance koma mukufuna mlimi wakuMalawi ngati Orchestra Kamanga ndianzake alipire Passport moduma akagulitsa fodya wawo!?
Do you pay for your passports you, anthu adyera.
Koma DPP guys and guyesses!
Should we subsidise your failures you government Yes Bwanas? Nonsense. I will not pay the new fee.
Bola John Chilembwe yemwe uja!
Inu mukudya mabwinobwino ndivimaallowance koma mukufuna mlimi wakuMalawi ngati Orchestra Kamanga ndianzake alipire Passport moduma akagulitsa fodya wawo!?
Do you pay for your passports you, anthu adyera.
Koma DPP guys and guyesses!
Should we subsidise your failures you government Yes Bwanas? Nonsense. I will not pay the new fee.
Bola John Chilembwe yemwe uja!
Voice of America news broadcasts jammed in Ethiopia
Voice of America (VOA) reported today that its transmissions to Ethiopia are being electronic jammed. The Ethiopian government denied responsibility.
VOA cited “international shortwave radio monitors” and complaints from listeners in Ethiopia since February 22 about static the U.S. government-funded station’s daily, hour-long shortwave broadcast from Washington in Amharic—the country’s main official language. CPJ independently collected widespread local accounts of interference exclusively on the Amharic service. VOA’s half-hour broadcasts in the other two local languages, Afan Oromo and Tigrigna, were broadcasting normally, the sources said. David Borgida, a VOA spokesman told Bloomberg News the station had not identified the source of the interference.
“The Ethiopian government has long had a hostile relationship with VOA and that is why we view their denial of responsibility with some skepticism,” said CPJ Africa Program Coordinator Tom Rhodes. “We note that the Ethiopian government has neither offered to investigate nor fix the problem.”
In media interviews today, government spokesman Shimelis Kemal denied any government involvement. “This is absolutely a sham,” he told CPJ, adding that “the Ethiopian government does not support the policy of restricting foreign broadcasting services in the country. Such practices are prohibited in our constitution.”
Kemal was the government prosecutor who charged 21 journalists, including five Washington-based VOA journalists, with anti-state crimes over their coverage of the aftermath of disputed elections in May 2005. Under his leadership, the Ethiopian Broadcasting Authority, the governmental authority responsible for issuing print and broadcast licenses, in 2009 ordered private station Radio Sheger to drop VOA newscasts and briefly revoked the accreditations of two VOA stringers, according to CPJ research.
Kemal told CPJ the allegations were part of a “smear campaign” by “opposition Web sites in the diaspora” ahead of general elections in May.
VOA is one of a handful of foreign-based independent stations, including Deutsche Welle and Addis Dimts Radio, a station operated by the banned opposition movement Ginbot 7, that have reported ongoing or recurring interference of their broadcasts, according to CPJ research. Also in 2009, Meleskachew Amaha, a VOA stringer, was thrown into prison for three weeks on false tax charges that were later dismissed.
VOA cited “international shortwave radio monitors” and complaints from listeners in Ethiopia since February 22 about static the U.S. government-funded station’s daily, hour-long shortwave broadcast from Washington in Amharic—the country’s main official language. CPJ independently collected widespread local accounts of interference exclusively on the Amharic service. VOA’s half-hour broadcasts in the other two local languages, Afan Oromo and Tigrigna, were broadcasting normally, the sources said. David Borgida, a VOA spokesman told Bloomberg News the station had not identified the source of the interference.
“The Ethiopian government has long had a hostile relationship with VOA and that is why we view their denial of responsibility with some skepticism,” said CPJ Africa Program Coordinator Tom Rhodes. “We note that the Ethiopian government has neither offered to investigate nor fix the problem.”
In media interviews today, government spokesman Shimelis Kemal denied any government involvement. “This is absolutely a sham,” he told CPJ, adding that “the Ethiopian government does not support the policy of restricting foreign broadcasting services in the country. Such practices are prohibited in our constitution.”
Kemal was the government prosecutor who charged 21 journalists, including five Washington-based VOA journalists, with anti-state crimes over their coverage of the aftermath of disputed elections in May 2005. Under his leadership, the Ethiopian Broadcasting Authority, the governmental authority responsible for issuing print and broadcast licenses, in 2009 ordered private station Radio Sheger to drop VOA newscasts and briefly revoked the accreditations of two VOA stringers, according to CPJ research.
Kemal told CPJ the allegations were part of a “smear campaign” by “opposition Web sites in the diaspora” ahead of general elections in May.
VOA is one of a handful of foreign-based independent stations, including Deutsche Welle and Addis Dimts Radio, a station operated by the banned opposition movement Ginbot 7, that have reported ongoing or recurring interference of their broadcasts, according to CPJ research. Also in 2009, Meleskachew Amaha, a VOA stringer, was thrown into prison for three weeks on false tax charges that were later dismissed.
The Five Principles of Islam in Focus
The Five Principles
Islam’s Trilogy of three sacred texts is the Koran and two books about the life of Mohammed. When the Trilogy is sorted, categorized, arranged, rewritten and analyzed, it becomes apparent that five principles are the foundation of Islam.
All of Islam is based upon the Trilogy—Koran, Sira (Mohammed’s biography) and Hadith (his Traditions).
Most of the Islamic doctrine is political, not religious. Islam is a political ideology.
Islam divides the world into Muslims and unbelievers, kafirs.
Political Islam always has two different ways to treat kafirs—dualistic ethics. Kafirs can be abused in the worst ways or they can be treated like a good neighbor.
Kafirs must submit to Islam in all politics and public life. Every aspect of kafir civilization must submit to political Islam.
These Five Principles can be put in five words—Trilogy, politics, kafirs, dualism and submission. These five words bring clarity and ease of learning about political Islam.
Up until now Islam has been hard to understand because it seemed complex and contradictory and did not make sense. But, once you see how the Five Principles work, everything falls into place. Complexity becomes simplicity. Chaos becomes order.
All CSPI books are based on these Five Principles.
1. trilogy
The Trilogy contains three books—
The Koran is what Mohammed said that the angel Gabriel said that Allah said. But the Koran does not contain enough guidance for one to be a Muslim. The Koran repeatedly says that all of the world should imitate Mohammed in every way. Mohammed’s words and deeds are called the Sunna. The Sunna is found in two different texts—the Sira and Hadith.
The first source of the Sunna is the Sira which is Mohammed’s biography. The most authoritative version is by Ibn Ishaq.
The other source of the Sunna is the Hadith, the Traditions of Mohammed. There are several versions of Hadith, but the most commonly used is by Bukhari.
So the Trilogy is the Koran, Sira and Hadith.
2. political islam
Political Islam is the doctrine that relates to the unbeliever, the kafir. Islam’s relationship to the kafir cannot be religious since a Muslim is strictly forbidden to have any religious interaction with them The religion of Islam is what is required for a Muslim to avoid Hell and enter Paradise.
The Trilogy not only advocates a religious superiority over the kafir—the kafirs go to Hell whereas Muslims go to Paradise—but also its doctrine demands that Muslims dominate the kafir in all politics and culture. This domination is political, not religious.
As mentioned earlier, the Koran has 61% of its text devoted to the kafir. The Sira (Mohammed’s biography) has about 75% of its text devoted to the kafir and jihad.
Islam’s success comes primarily from its politics. In thirteen years as a spiritual leader, Mohammed converted 150 people to his religion. When he became a political leader and warrior, Islam exploded in growth, and Mohammed became king of Arabia in ten years.
Islam has a complete doctrine of how to treat the kafir that is found in the Trilogy.
3. kafirs
Non-believers are so important that they have several names. Christians and Jews are called People of the Book or infidels. Other religious names for non-Muslims are atheist, polytheist, and pagan. But the Koran uses one word that includes all of the religious names. That name is kafir, an Arabic word.
Kafir is usually translated as unbeliever, but that translation is wrong. Unbeliever is a neutral word. The Koran is very clear about the kafir. Indeed, the Koran defines the kafir by how it speaks of them. Kafirs are the lowest and worst form of life. Kafirs can be robbed, murdered, tortured, enslaved, crucified and more. Later in this chapter, more of the Koran’s doctrine of the kafir is given in some detail. But the key point is that a kafir is not only a non-Muslim, but also a person who falls under a different moral code from the Muslim.
The Koran is devoted to the division between those who believe Mohammed, Muslims, and those who do not, kafirs. This grand division of the Koran means that there are two points of view of the Koran—the view of the Muslim and the view of the kafir.
4. dualism
The third principle is duality, and is unique to Islam. As an example, here is a verse from the Koran:
109:2 I do not worship what you worship, and you do not worship what I worship. I will never worship what you worship, and you will never worship what I worship. You to your religion, me to my religion.
This sounds very tolerant, but this verse was written later:
9:5 When the sacred months are passed, kill the kafirs wherever you find them. Take them as captives, besiege them, and lie in wait for them with every kind of ambush. If they submit to Islam, observe prayer, and pay the poor tax, then let them go their way. Allah is gracious and merciful.
Now we have absolute intolerance. This contradiction is normal for the Koran and is even addressed in the Koran. The solution to contradiction is called abrogation where the later verse is better than the earlier verse.
The logic here is very important. Since Allah is perfect and the Koran is the exact words of Allah, then both contradictory verses are true, but the later verse is better or stronger. This leads to dualistic logic where two contradictory facts can both be true.
5. submission
Islam means submission and Muslim means one who has submitted. It is clearly stated in the Trilogy that all kafirs and their civilizations must be annihilated. Mohammed’s success depended on violence to persuade kafirs that he was the prophet of Allah.
Submission is political, as well as religious. Islam demands that kafirs submit in every aspect of public life. Every part of kafir culture is an offense to Allah.
Islam’s Trilogy of three sacred texts is the Koran and two books about the life of Mohammed. When the Trilogy is sorted, categorized, arranged, rewritten and analyzed, it becomes apparent that five principles are the foundation of Islam.
All of Islam is based upon the Trilogy—Koran, Sira (Mohammed’s biography) and Hadith (his Traditions).
Most of the Islamic doctrine is political, not religious. Islam is a political ideology.
Islam divides the world into Muslims and unbelievers, kafirs.
Political Islam always has two different ways to treat kafirs—dualistic ethics. Kafirs can be abused in the worst ways or they can be treated like a good neighbor.
Kafirs must submit to Islam in all politics and public life. Every aspect of kafir civilization must submit to political Islam.
These Five Principles can be put in five words—Trilogy, politics, kafirs, dualism and submission. These five words bring clarity and ease of learning about political Islam.
Up until now Islam has been hard to understand because it seemed complex and contradictory and did not make sense. But, once you see how the Five Principles work, everything falls into place. Complexity becomes simplicity. Chaos becomes order.
All CSPI books are based on these Five Principles.
1. trilogy
The Trilogy contains three books—
The Koran is what Mohammed said that the angel Gabriel said that Allah said. But the Koran does not contain enough guidance for one to be a Muslim. The Koran repeatedly says that all of the world should imitate Mohammed in every way. Mohammed’s words and deeds are called the Sunna. The Sunna is found in two different texts—the Sira and Hadith.
The first source of the Sunna is the Sira which is Mohammed’s biography. The most authoritative version is by Ibn Ishaq.
The other source of the Sunna is the Hadith, the Traditions of Mohammed. There are several versions of Hadith, but the most commonly used is by Bukhari.
So the Trilogy is the Koran, Sira and Hadith.
2. political islam
Political Islam is the doctrine that relates to the unbeliever, the kafir. Islam’s relationship to the kafir cannot be religious since a Muslim is strictly forbidden to have any religious interaction with them The religion of Islam is what is required for a Muslim to avoid Hell and enter Paradise.
The Trilogy not only advocates a religious superiority over the kafir—the kafirs go to Hell whereas Muslims go to Paradise—but also its doctrine demands that Muslims dominate the kafir in all politics and culture. This domination is political, not religious.
As mentioned earlier, the Koran has 61% of its text devoted to the kafir. The Sira (Mohammed’s biography) has about 75% of its text devoted to the kafir and jihad.
Islam’s success comes primarily from its politics. In thirteen years as a spiritual leader, Mohammed converted 150 people to his religion. When he became a political leader and warrior, Islam exploded in growth, and Mohammed became king of Arabia in ten years.
Islam has a complete doctrine of how to treat the kafir that is found in the Trilogy.
3. kafirs
Non-believers are so important that they have several names. Christians and Jews are called People of the Book or infidels. Other religious names for non-Muslims are atheist, polytheist, and pagan. But the Koran uses one word that includes all of the religious names. That name is kafir, an Arabic word.
Kafir is usually translated as unbeliever, but that translation is wrong. Unbeliever is a neutral word. The Koran is very clear about the kafir. Indeed, the Koran defines the kafir by how it speaks of them. Kafirs are the lowest and worst form of life. Kafirs can be robbed, murdered, tortured, enslaved, crucified and more. Later in this chapter, more of the Koran’s doctrine of the kafir is given in some detail. But the key point is that a kafir is not only a non-Muslim, but also a person who falls under a different moral code from the Muslim.
The Koran is devoted to the division between those who believe Mohammed, Muslims, and those who do not, kafirs. This grand division of the Koran means that there are two points of view of the Koran—the view of the Muslim and the view of the kafir.
4. dualism
The third principle is duality, and is unique to Islam. As an example, here is a verse from the Koran:
109:2 I do not worship what you worship, and you do not worship what I worship. I will never worship what you worship, and you will never worship what I worship. You to your religion, me to my religion.
This sounds very tolerant, but this verse was written later:
9:5 When the sacred months are passed, kill the kafirs wherever you find them. Take them as captives, besiege them, and lie in wait for them with every kind of ambush. If they submit to Islam, observe prayer, and pay the poor tax, then let them go their way. Allah is gracious and merciful.
Now we have absolute intolerance. This contradiction is normal for the Koran and is even addressed in the Koran. The solution to contradiction is called abrogation where the later verse is better than the earlier verse.
The logic here is very important. Since Allah is perfect and the Koran is the exact words of Allah, then both contradictory verses are true, but the later verse is better or stronger. This leads to dualistic logic where two contradictory facts can both be true.
5. submission
Islam means submission and Muslim means one who has submitted. It is clearly stated in the Trilogy that all kafirs and their civilizations must be annihilated. Mohammed’s success depended on violence to persuade kafirs that he was the prophet of Allah.
Submission is political, as well as religious. Islam demands that kafirs submit in every aspect of public life. Every part of kafir culture is an offense to Allah.
Political Islam: Talking about Islam
Claude Salhami was 'aghast' at a recent politicalislam.com newsletter-Is a Nice Muslim a Good Muslim? He replied to the newsletter with his Scourge of 'Islam Experts', but he missed my point.
The point of the Nice Muslim newsletter is that the doctrine of Islam is inhuman, not that Muslims always practice the Islamic doctrine at all times. A Muslim can be a fine person in dealing with a kafir when they are not practicing Islam. A summary of the Nice Muslim argument is:
The Koran defines the kafir, a non-Muslim. A kafir is hated and plotted against by Allah. Kafirs can be killed, tortured, crucified, raped, insulted, enslaved and deceived. Kafir is the worst word in the human language. A kafir does not have any positive attributes.
There is no Golden Rule in Islamic ethics. The Koran repeats 12 times that a Muslim is not the friend of a kafir.
Mohammed repeatedly said that it is good to deceive the kafirs, if it advances Islam.
Mohammed destroyed each and every kafir neighbor. It is Islam's purpose to make all kafirs submit to Islam.
A Muslim can only be a true friend to a kafir by the use of the Golden Rule, a non-Islamic principle.
The conclusion is that there is no good in Islam for the kafir. Sure there are those 2.6% of the Koranic words that seem to be good, but in every case the so-called good verses are abrogated later.
Anyone who implements the doctrine of Islam is not the friend of a kafir. If they are actually a friend, it is because of the power of the Golden Rule, not Islam. There is no good in Islam for the kafir. Note that this result was reached without the use of a single verse of the Koran (no cherry picking), but uses the systemic nature of its kafir doctrine.
Mr. Salhami makes these points in his reply:
On many occasions Christians have acted badly and Muslims have acted well.
So? Christians and Muslims are people. You can prove anything you want by choosing the right member. He also has some remarks about Christianity. To which I reply: I only discuss Islam, not comparative religion.
There are good Muslims and bad Muslims and we should not confuse the two.
What is meant by 'good' Muslims? Do we judge by the Islam of Medina or by the Golden Rule? If we judge by Islam of Medina, then Osama bin Laden is a good Muslim. Of course, by the Golden Rule he is not so nice. Stay with the doctrine of Islam in judging Muslims. A good Muslim is one who follows Islamic doctrine, not one who is likable.
Mr. Salhami uses his personal experience with Muslims to learn about Islam.
This confuses cause and effect. Islam is the cause and Muslims are the effect. A nice Muslim does not prove a nice Islam. Learning from Muslims is Muslim-ology,a sociological personal endeavor. Learning about Islam from the Koran, Sira, Hadith and Sharia law is learning about Islam.
He criticizes my use of the coined term, kafir-Muslim.
I will grant him this criticism and thank him for it. A much better term is Golden-Rule Muslim. Muslims, like all humans, have an innate sense of the truth of the Golden Rule and use it at times. However, this is an un-Islamic act since Islam does not have a Golden Rule.
All of the nice Muslims Mr. Salhami meets in the Middle East will not teach him anything about the suffering of their kafir ancestors during the jihad invasion and the centuries of being dhimmis living under the horror of Sharia law. He won't learn how the native civilization has been annihilated and replaced with the civilization of Islam. They will not tell him about the murder of millions of innocent Christians, Zoroastrians, Buddhists, animists and Hindus to create the Islamic civilization.
His nice Muslim friends will not instruct him in the vision, strategy and tactics of jihad to annihilate all kafir civilizations. Nor will his nice Muslim friends ever explain Islam's dualistic ethical system, with one set of ethics for kafirs and a different set of ethics for their Muslim brothers.
Mr. Salhami is aghast at the self-taught scholars in Islam. There is a good reason for their appearance. The university- trained 'experts' are apologists for Islam. They are trained in denial and justification and produce the type of scholarship that allows the army to investigate Major Hasan's jihad at Fort Hood and never refer to Islam.
The 'experts' give us the history of Islamic conquest and imperialism and praise it as the glorious rise of Islam. The 'experts' teach courses in women's studies and ignore Sharia law and Mohammed's treatment of women. They lecture on slavery and never mention the Muslim wholesaler who sold the slaves to the white man on the wooden ship or the Islamic slave trade in North Africa, East Africa, Europe and India. The denial goes on and on as the 'experts' drive our university policy. Is there a course in any American university system that is critical of Islamic political ideology? Indeed, the 'experts' argue that such a course would be bigotry.
It is the media 'experts' that give us jihad at Mumbai, India and never mention Islam. It is the 'experts' that give us the Official Islam that Bush and Obama talk about. Nice stuff-Official Islam. Too bad it does not exist.
So, it is no wonder that when we have such dhimmified professors, university trained 'experts' and media that professionals from other fields start reading the Koran, Sira and Hadith to see for themselves what the ideology actually is that drives the contradictions between current events and what we are told.
When you understand that the entire doctrine of Islam is found in Koran, Sira and Hadith, you realize that Islam is simpler than the 'experts' told us. All three texts have been made readable today and any disciplined person can become well informed. The 'experts' have failed us, and we must teach ourselves.
It is easy to be an expert. Know Mohammed and the Koran (the book he brought about). If what you say agrees with the Koran or Mohammed, then you are right. If it does not agree with Mohammed, then it is wrong, no matter who you are.
Mr. Salhami, buckle your seatbelt and prepare to be aghast again. It is a war between the university-trained dhimmi 'experts' and the self-taught kafir scholars who stand on the doctrine found in the Koran, Sira and Hadith. We will use critical thought on the doctrine and history of political Islam.
The 'experts' will talk about nice Muslims, criticize Christianity and the West, while not holding Muslims responsible for their ideology. Every Muslim must be held accountable for Islamic political doctrine and its bloody history.
Bill Warner,
Director, Center for the Study of Political Islam
Permalink
copyright (c) CBSX, LLC
politicalislam.com Use and distribute as you wish; do not edit and give us credit.
The point of the Nice Muslim newsletter is that the doctrine of Islam is inhuman, not that Muslims always practice the Islamic doctrine at all times. A Muslim can be a fine person in dealing with a kafir when they are not practicing Islam. A summary of the Nice Muslim argument is:
The Koran defines the kafir, a non-Muslim. A kafir is hated and plotted against by Allah. Kafirs can be killed, tortured, crucified, raped, insulted, enslaved and deceived. Kafir is the worst word in the human language. A kafir does not have any positive attributes.
There is no Golden Rule in Islamic ethics. The Koran repeats 12 times that a Muslim is not the friend of a kafir.
Mohammed repeatedly said that it is good to deceive the kafirs, if it advances Islam.
Mohammed destroyed each and every kafir neighbor. It is Islam's purpose to make all kafirs submit to Islam.
A Muslim can only be a true friend to a kafir by the use of the Golden Rule, a non-Islamic principle.
The conclusion is that there is no good in Islam for the kafir. Sure there are those 2.6% of the Koranic words that seem to be good, but in every case the so-called good verses are abrogated later.
Anyone who implements the doctrine of Islam is not the friend of a kafir. If they are actually a friend, it is because of the power of the Golden Rule, not Islam. There is no good in Islam for the kafir. Note that this result was reached without the use of a single verse of the Koran (no cherry picking), but uses the systemic nature of its kafir doctrine.
Mr. Salhami makes these points in his reply:
On many occasions Christians have acted badly and Muslims have acted well.
So? Christians and Muslims are people. You can prove anything you want by choosing the right member. He also has some remarks about Christianity. To which I reply: I only discuss Islam, not comparative religion.
There are good Muslims and bad Muslims and we should not confuse the two.
What is meant by 'good' Muslims? Do we judge by the Islam of Medina or by the Golden Rule? If we judge by Islam of Medina, then Osama bin Laden is a good Muslim. Of course, by the Golden Rule he is not so nice. Stay with the doctrine of Islam in judging Muslims. A good Muslim is one who follows Islamic doctrine, not one who is likable.
Mr. Salhami uses his personal experience with Muslims to learn about Islam.
This confuses cause and effect. Islam is the cause and Muslims are the effect. A nice Muslim does not prove a nice Islam. Learning from Muslims is Muslim-ology,a sociological personal endeavor. Learning about Islam from the Koran, Sira, Hadith and Sharia law is learning about Islam.
He criticizes my use of the coined term, kafir-Muslim.
I will grant him this criticism and thank him for it. A much better term is Golden-Rule Muslim. Muslims, like all humans, have an innate sense of the truth of the Golden Rule and use it at times. However, this is an un-Islamic act since Islam does not have a Golden Rule.
All of the nice Muslims Mr. Salhami meets in the Middle East will not teach him anything about the suffering of their kafir ancestors during the jihad invasion and the centuries of being dhimmis living under the horror of Sharia law. He won't learn how the native civilization has been annihilated and replaced with the civilization of Islam. They will not tell him about the murder of millions of innocent Christians, Zoroastrians, Buddhists, animists and Hindus to create the Islamic civilization.
His nice Muslim friends will not instruct him in the vision, strategy and tactics of jihad to annihilate all kafir civilizations. Nor will his nice Muslim friends ever explain Islam's dualistic ethical system, with one set of ethics for kafirs and a different set of ethics for their Muslim brothers.
Mr. Salhami is aghast at the self-taught scholars in Islam. There is a good reason for their appearance. The university- trained 'experts' are apologists for Islam. They are trained in denial and justification and produce the type of scholarship that allows the army to investigate Major Hasan's jihad at Fort Hood and never refer to Islam.
The 'experts' give us the history of Islamic conquest and imperialism and praise it as the glorious rise of Islam. The 'experts' teach courses in women's studies and ignore Sharia law and Mohammed's treatment of women. They lecture on slavery and never mention the Muslim wholesaler who sold the slaves to the white man on the wooden ship or the Islamic slave trade in North Africa, East Africa, Europe and India. The denial goes on and on as the 'experts' drive our university policy. Is there a course in any American university system that is critical of Islamic political ideology? Indeed, the 'experts' argue that such a course would be bigotry.
It is the media 'experts' that give us jihad at Mumbai, India and never mention Islam. It is the 'experts' that give us the Official Islam that Bush and Obama talk about. Nice stuff-Official Islam. Too bad it does not exist.
So, it is no wonder that when we have such dhimmified professors, university trained 'experts' and media that professionals from other fields start reading the Koran, Sira and Hadith to see for themselves what the ideology actually is that drives the contradictions between current events and what we are told.
When you understand that the entire doctrine of Islam is found in Koran, Sira and Hadith, you realize that Islam is simpler than the 'experts' told us. All three texts have been made readable today and any disciplined person can become well informed. The 'experts' have failed us, and we must teach ourselves.
It is easy to be an expert. Know Mohammed and the Koran (the book he brought about). If what you say agrees with the Koran or Mohammed, then you are right. If it does not agree with Mohammed, then it is wrong, no matter who you are.
Mr. Salhami, buckle your seatbelt and prepare to be aghast again. It is a war between the university-trained dhimmi 'experts' and the self-taught kafir scholars who stand on the doctrine found in the Koran, Sira and Hadith. We will use critical thought on the doctrine and history of political Islam.
The 'experts' will talk about nice Muslims, criticize Christianity and the West, while not holding Muslims responsible for their ideology. Every Muslim must be held accountable for Islamic political doctrine and its bloody history.
Bill Warner,
Director, Center for the Study of Political Islam
Permalink
copyright (c) CBSX, LLC
politicalislam.com Use and distribute as you wish; do not edit and give us credit.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
A Zimbabwean freelance journalist was arrested today for the third time this year—this time for taking footage of prisoners outside a courthouse in the capital, Harare, according to local journalists.
Officers of Zimbabwe’s Prison Service arrested Andrison Shadreck Manyere, an award-winning photojournalist and videographer, after he filmed the arrival of several men imprisoned since 2007 on allegations of plotting to overthrow the government, members of the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) told CPJ. The prison guards accused Manyere of taking footage “without the permission of the Commissioner of Zimbabwe’s prison service.” Manyere was questioned by officers of the Law and Order unit of the police and was detained in Harare Central Police Station pending a formal charge, according to ZLHR spokesman Kumbirai Mafunda.
“This is the third time in five weeks Anderson Shadreck Manyere has been detained on insubstantial accusations,” said CPJ Africa Program Coordinator Tom Rhodes. “The constant harassment of this photojournalist must cease.”
Beatrice Mtetwa, a human rights lawyer who won a CPJ International Press Freedom Award in 2008 and witnessed Manyere’s arrest, told CPJ several reporters had gathered outside Harare’s Magistrates’ Court as journalists were barred from entering the building with their cameras. After seizing Manyere’s camera, prison guards warned other journalists not to take any pictures or footage of the suspects who were held in leg irons and handcuffs, she said.
On February 24, members of the ruling ZANU-PF party abducted Manyere and forced him to delete footage of their demonstration held last week, according to local news reports. Previously, on January 18, Manyere spent six hours in Harare Central Police Station after covering a civil society march, according to the Media Institute of Southern Africa Zimbabwe.
Manyere is the plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of his December 2008 arrest, which led to pending charges of banditry, insurgency, and terrorism, defense lawyer Alec Muchadehama told CPJ. Manyere resumed work after four months of imprisonment and was fighting to recover camera equipment seized by the police in December 2008.
Officers of Zimbabwe’s Prison Service arrested Andrison Shadreck Manyere, an award-winning photojournalist and videographer, after he filmed the arrival of several men imprisoned since 2007 on allegations of plotting to overthrow the government, members of the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) told CPJ. The prison guards accused Manyere of taking footage “without the permission of the Commissioner of Zimbabwe’s prison service.” Manyere was questioned by officers of the Law and Order unit of the police and was detained in Harare Central Police Station pending a formal charge, according to ZLHR spokesman Kumbirai Mafunda.
“This is the third time in five weeks Anderson Shadreck Manyere has been detained on insubstantial accusations,” said CPJ Africa Program Coordinator Tom Rhodes. “The constant harassment of this photojournalist must cease.”
Beatrice Mtetwa, a human rights lawyer who won a CPJ International Press Freedom Award in 2008 and witnessed Manyere’s arrest, told CPJ several reporters had gathered outside Harare’s Magistrates’ Court as journalists were barred from entering the building with their cameras. After seizing Manyere’s camera, prison guards warned other journalists not to take any pictures or footage of the suspects who were held in leg irons and handcuffs, she said.
On February 24, members of the ruling ZANU-PF party abducted Manyere and forced him to delete footage of their demonstration held last week, according to local news reports. Previously, on January 18, Manyere spent six hours in Harare Central Police Station after covering a civil society march, according to the Media Institute of Southern Africa Zimbabwe.
Manyere is the plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of his December 2008 arrest, which led to pending charges of banditry, insurgency, and terrorism, defense lawyer Alec Muchadehama told CPJ. Manyere resumed work after four months of imprisonment and was fighting to recover camera equipment seized by the police in December 2008.
Jack Up NBS Bank!
ATM Card application process mpaka 13 weeks munthu akudikira?
The other thing: Customers, who bring you money, are waiting for too long on never ending lines!
The other thing: Customers, who bring you money, are waiting for too long on never ending lines!
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