Indonesia’s dark-horse candidate

http://www.atimes. com/atimes/ Southeast_ Asia/KC31Ae01. html

Mar 31, 2009

Indonesia’s dark-horse candidate
By Katherine Demopoulos

JAKARTA – Career soldier Prabowo Subianto is still a dark-horse candidate among the 38 different political parties jockeying for position ahead of next month’s legislative elections and a looming presidential race set for July.

A former son-in-law of dictator Suharto, and an alleged mastermind of the violence and abuses that attended East Timor’s break from Indonesia in 1999, he is running a decidedly slick and well-financed campaign that appears to have substantial grassroots resonance.

Although he is trailing incumbent president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and frontrunner Megawati Sukarnoputri in the polls, Prabowo and his political party’s numbers could be pivotal to the formation of the next ruling coalition. His Great Indonesia Movement party, or Gerindra, claims 11.2 million members.

The most recent polls forecast his party to win between 2.6% and 6.23% of the legislative vote, sufficient popular support to cross the 2.5% threshold needed for a party to assume legislative seats. Those figures could rise considering between 9% and 50% of polled voters say they are still undecided.

Political analysts say that if Gerindra wins 6-7% of the legislature, it will be a major player in the coalition building for presidential nominations. A party or coalition needs 20% of seats of parliament or 25% of the popular votes to put forward a presidential candidate.

Political analysts partially credit Prabowo’s and Gerindra’s early success to the financial resources of his brother, Hashim Djojohadikusomo, who last year was ranked by Globe Asia magazine as Indonesia’s 14th richest person with a net worth of just over US$1 billion.

He has helped to bankroll Prabowo’s prime time media barrage, depicting glossy panoramas of Indonesia, peopled with smiling children and hard-working farmers and fishermen. Market research firm Nielson estimates Gerindra has garnered more TV exposure than any other party by positioning its ads around Sikar, the country’s most popular soap opera and most viewed news bulletin.
His campaign has also been burnished by high-profile foreign advisors, including US political communications expert Rob Allyn, who worked for outgoing US president George W Bush‘s successful Texas governor campaign in 1994, and reportedly a German scriptwriter involved in various popular Indonesian soap operas.

“If you were a political actor in Indonesia, you’d have to be looking at him closely and paying attention. There might be a hidden agenda. It might be quite a legitimate tilt at the president or it might be a tilt for 2014, or getting something else he wants,” said Damien Kingsbury, associate professor at Australia’s Deakin University.

Rural sensitivity
By spending much of his campaign time in rural villages, Prabowo has shown a populist touch certain other top candidates have lacked. He has in particular courted farmers and fishermen, demographic groups which make up the majority of the rural population.

He has leveraged his position as chairman of the Indonesian Farmers’ Association, which claims 10 million members nationwide, to build up his grassroots credentials and has lobbied the agriculture ministry on matters of rural concern. He has also vowed to create 36 million new agricultural jobs and double the average per capita income from its current $2,000 to $4,000 per year.

“I haven’t seen any politician who has been so active and so persistent in approaching the farmers down to the village across the archipelago, ” said Aleksius Jemadu, professor at Pelita Harapan University, located on the outskirts of Jakarta.

“He is a military strategist and he has a long-term perspective and he knows what he can do to strengthen his popularity. He used to be known by the public as a general, but knows he has to change his image to [that of] an effective leader,” he added.

Gerindra spokesman Haryanto Taslam echoes that assessment. He said in an interview with Asia Times Online that during a recent village visit Prabowo bought up palm oil stocks – at above the market price – from farmers who had complained about falling prices.

He has also distributed fertilizer directly to farmers and tried to get cheaper rice seed than that on offer from a government-appointe d company, according to Haryanto.

In many ways, Haryanto is central to Prabowo’s image-conscious electoral strategy. As a former democracy activist, Haryanto was kidnapped and held for 40 days during the waning days of the Suharto regime. In his capacity as former Kopassus commander, Prabowo has since personally apologized to him for his detention, Haryanto says.

“The issue is not personal, but [it was] the system at that time,” he said. “Prabowo asked me to join him to fight together to fix Indonesia. And I wanted to join because my political attitude is parallel with Prabowo’s, wanting to give the best for Indonesian people. I think there is no problem working together with him.”

Prabowo has in the past admitted responsibility for kidnapping pro-democracy activists. Speaking recently to foreign journalists, Prabowo said of the government’s past political kidnapping policy: “Under one regime it is preventative detention, then there is regime change and it is called kidnapping.”

Controversial past
Such elliptical wordplay does little to assuage the activists who recall Prabowo’s controversial history. He stands most pointedly accused of organizing thugs who terrorized pro-independence figures in East Timor, as well as involvement in orchestrating the riots that targeted ethnic Chinese Indonesians in 1998.

In a fully embedded democracy, “a candidate like him would not stand a snowball’s chance in hell,” said Kingsbury. “Indonesia is on a reformist political and economic path and Prabowo represents the opposite of that.”

But for most of Indonesia’s rural poor, activists’ kidnappings and communal riots are a world away. Their hardships have not eased in the decade of democracy and among many there is nostalgia for Suharto’s strong leadership and policies that helped to uplift tens of millions out of poverty.

“Some people are harking back to the New Order. I think there has been some re-swinging of the pendulum,” said one Jakarta-based commentator, who requested anonymity. “My fear [of Prabowo’s candidacy] is a reversion to fascism.”

Prabowo’s campaign appeals to the masses through promises to reschedule foreign debt payments and put the cash into education and healthcare. He has also taken a nationalistic line in vowing to stop the sale of strategic state assets to foreigners and review perceived unfavorable existing government contracts.

“The message is so concrete, so real, so relevant with the situation of his audience, especially the farmers, the people at the grassroots … He provides a clear vision to solve all the real problems that they are facing in their everyday life,” added Pelita Harapan University’s Jemadu.

“He’s making some very basic appeals to popular nationalism and populist economics,” said Tim Lindsey at Melbourne University’s Asian Law Center. He warns that if some of Prabowo’s proposed policies were actually implemented, Indonesia would risk being cut off from international credit markets.

Some analysts fear that a Prabowo-led or influenced government could bid to turn back the clock on Indonesian democracy. Prabowo has said he wants to revert to the original form of Indonesia’s constitution, which gives strong powers to the executive and lacks checks and balances. Others, such as Lindsey, believe Indonesia has moved past Suharto’s and his former New Order regime’s legacy.

“The time for New Order leftovers is running out. In 2014, it’s pretty unlikely that we’ll be seeing the same array of politicians. We’re witnessing a generational shift,” said Lindsey. “Young ones are not aware of Prabowo’s record, but it also works against them because the ideas they stand for resonate with fewer people. Rather than being the re-emergence of New Order politicians, perhaps this is their last hurrah.”

Katherine Demopoulos is a journalist based in Jakarta, Indonesia. She works as a freelance reporter for the BBC and Guardian, and also writes extensively on Asian energy markets.

(Copyright 2009 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing)

Israel’s War of Deceit, Lies and Propaganda

Israel’s War of Deceit, Lies and Propaganda

By Uri Avnery

January 12 “Gulf Times” — – -Nearly 70 years ago, in the course of the Second World War, a heinous crime was committed in the city of Leningrad. For more than a thousand days, a gang of extremists called “the Red Army” held the millions of the town’s inhabitants hostage and provoked retaliation from the German Wehrmacht from inside the population centres.

The Germans had no alternative but to bomb and shell the population and to impose a total blockade, which caused the death of hundreds of thousands.

Some time before that, a similar crime was committed in England. The Churchill gang hid among the population of London, misusing the millions of citizens as a human shield. The Germans were compelled to send their Luftwaffe and reluctantly reduce the city to ruins. They called it the Blitz.

This is the description that would now appear in the history books – if the Germans had won the war.

Absurd? No more than the daily descriptions in Israeli media, which are being repeated ad nauseam: the Hamas “terrorists” use the inhabitants of Gaza as “hostages” and exploit the women and children as “human shields”, they leave Israel no alternative but to carry out massive bombardments, in which, to Israel’s deep sorrow, thousands of women, children and unarmed men are killed and injured.

In this war, as in any modern war, propaganda plays a major role. Almost all the Western media initially repeated the official Israeli propaganda line. They almost entirely ignored the Palestinian side of the story, not to mention the daily demonstrations of the Israeli peace camp. The rationale of the Israeli government (“The state must defend its citizens against the Qassam rockets”) has been accepted as the whole truth. The view from the other side, that the Qassams are a retaliation for the siege that starves the one and a half million inhabitants of the Gaza Strip, was not mentioned at all.

Only when the horrible scenes from Gaza started to appear on Western TV screens, did world public opinion gradually begin to change.

War – every war – is the realm of lies. Whether called propaganda or psychological warfare, everybody accepts that it is right to lie for one’s country. Anyone who speaks the truth runs the risk of being branded a traitor. The trouble is that propaganda is most convincing for the propagandist himself. And after you convince yourself that a lie is the truth and falsification reality, you can no longer make rational decisions.

Falsification

An example of this process surrounds the most shocking atrocity of this war so far: the shelling of the UN Fakhura school in Jabaliya refugee camp.

Immediately after the incident became known throughout the world, the army “revealed” that Hamas fighters had been firing mortars from near the school entrance. As proof they released an aerial photo which indeed showed the school and the mortar. But within a short time the official army liar had to admit that the photo was more than a year old. In brief: a falsification.

Later the official liar claimed that “our soldiers were shot at from inside the school”. Barely a day passed before the army had to admit to UN personnel that that was a lie, too. Nobody had shot from inside the school, no Hamas fighters were inside the school, which was full of terrified refugees.

But the admission made hardly any difference anymore. By that time, the Israeli public was completely convinced that “they shot from inside the school”, and TV announcers stated this as a simple fact.

So it went with the other atrocities. Every baby metamorphosed, in the act of dying, into a Hamas “terrorist”. Every bombed mosque instantly became a Hamas base, every apartment building an arms cache, every school a terror command post, every civilian government building a “symbol of Hamas rule”. Thus the Israeli army retained its purity as the “most moral army in the world”.

The truth is that the atrocities are a direct result of the war plan. This reflects the personality of Ehud Barak – a man whose way of thinking and actions are clear evidence of what is called “moral insanity”, a sociopathic disorder.

The real aim (apart from gaining seats in the coming elections) is to terminate the rule of Hamas in the Gaza Strip. In the imagination of the planners, Hamas is an invader which has gained control of a foreign country. The reality is, of course, entirely different.

A top priority for the planners was the need to minimise casualties among the soldiers, knowing that the mood of a large part of the pro-war public would change if reports of such casualties came in. That is what happened in Lebanon Wars I and II.

This consideration played an especially important role because the entire war is a part of the election campaign. The planners thought that they could stop the world from seeing these images by forcibly preventing press coverage. But in a modern war, such a sterile manufactured view cannot completely exclude all others – the cameras are inside the strip, in the middle of the hell, and cannot be controlled. Al Jazeera broadcasts the pictures around the clock and reaches every home.

Hundreds of millions of Arabs from Mauritania to Iraq, more than a billion Muslims from Nigeria to Indonesia see the pictures and are horrified. This has a strong impact on the war. Many of the viewers see the rulers of Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian National Authority as collaborators with Israel in carrying out these atrocities against their Palestinian brothers.

If the war ends with Hamas still standing, bloodied but unvanquished, in face of the mighty Israeli military machine, it will look like a fantastic victory, a victory of mind over matter.

What will be seared into the consciousness of the world will be the image of Israel as a blood-stained monster, ready at any moment to commit war crimes and not prepared to abide by any moral restraints. This will have severe consequences for our long-term future, our standing in the world, our chance of achieving peace and quiet.

In the end, this war is a crime against Israelis too, a crime against the State of Israel.

Uri Avnery is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He is a contributor to Counter Punch’s book ‘The Politics of Anti-Semitism’ .

Indonesia Papua:More religions, more trouble

Indonesian Papua  

More religions, more trouble

Jul 17th 2008 | JAKARTA
From The Economist print edition

 

THE separatist conflict in Indonesia’s Papua region—formerly known as Irian Jaya and once one of the world’s great liberal causes—has become relatively quiet in recent years. Small groups of protesters still occasionally gather to wave the Morning Star independence flag and get arrested for it. But decades of repression by the Indonesian security forces, combined with the granting in 2000 of partial autonomy from Jakarta, have sapped the separatists’ ranks. However, according to a recent report on the region, there is a risk that the separatist conflict may be rekindled or replaced by religious strife because of the arrival of new and more muscular forms of both Islam and Christianity.

 

Broadly speaking, indigenous Papuans—who are dark-skinned Melanesians, like their kin next door in Papua New Guinea and Australian aborigines—tend to be Christians or animists, whereas the many migrants to the region from elsewhere in Indonesia are mostly Muslim. In recent years fundamentalist Christian groups, some started by American and Canadian preachers, have been proselytising among indigenous Papuans. Their success has also prompted the development of fundamentalist streams in the established Protestant churches.

Among the Islamic radical groups to arrive in Papua with the migrants is the Indonesian chapter of Hizb-ut-Tahrir, an organisation started in Jerusalem, which seeks to unite Muslims worldwide under one government or “caliphate”. But there are also a few indigenous Papuan Muslims, some of whom have recently returned from studies in the Middle East, bringing back fundamentalist ideas.

The report, by the International Crisis Group (ICG), a think-tank, says rising religious tension has already come close to triggering violence between Muslims and Christians, as is already common in the nearby, mixed-faith province of Maluku. In Kaimana district, for example, members of the two religions had long lived together harmoniously. But in December locals came close to blows over the erection of an iron tower shaped like a Christmas tree, topped with a Star of David—often used by charismatic Christian groups but best known as a symbol of Judaism.

The new Christian groups have raised Muslims’ hackles by boasting (sometimes falsely) of their conversions of Muslims. Muslims, in turn, have become increasingly vigilant against any perceived threats either to their faith or to Indonesian sovereignty. Some Islamic radicals are prone to conspiracy theories about plots to prise Papua away from Indonesia, often involving America and its majority-Christian regional allies, Australia and the Philippines.

Increased fundamentalism has sharpened each ethnic group’s fear of domination by the other. The Indonesian government has discontinued its programme of transportation to Papua and elsewhere to relieve overcrowding on Java. But migrants are still flooding in. Official figures show that in 2004 Muslims were 23% of the region’s 2m-odd population, up from 6.5% in 1964. In reality the proportion of Muslims is thought to be much higher, probably over half now—but the government has not published accurate updated figures.

Christians believe this is a cover-up to hide the truth: that migration has made Papuans a minority in their homeland. They also fear that the government in Jakarta is increasingly endorsing Islamic orthodoxy at the expense of Indonesia’s non-Muslims. The Muslims, in turn, agree that they are now the majority in Papua—a local Hizb-ut-Tahrir leader recently claimed that Papua is 65% Muslim—but they feel that Papuan autonomy could lead to them being discriminated against or even expelled from the region.

There are some moderating influences: last year, mainstream Muslims set up a new body, the Papuan Muslim Council, to put the case for tolerance. Some of the charismatic Christian groups, far from inciting separatism among ethnic Papuans, argue for accommodation with the Indonesian powers-that- be (render unto Caesar and all that). Even so, argues the ICG, there is a danger that continuing migration, combined with the radicalisation of both main religions, could re-ignite the dormant separatist conflict.

If the heightened religious tension is not to become a catalyst for violence it would help if there was a sense of urgency about improving the dismal quality of life of almost all Papuans, whether indigenous or migrants. Autonomy has had a feeble start: central-government ministries have been reluctant to cede control to local Papuan authorities; where they have, money has been misspent, including by newly recruited Papuan bureaucrats struggling with responsibilities for which they lack skills. Last year President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono ordered his officials to speed up development programmes for Papua. As usual, his orders fell on deaf ears.

Leaders urged to embrace pluralism

[The Jakarta Post 23/07/08] Political and religious leaders must embrace pluralism, which has become part of Indonesian society and protected by the Constitution, a seminar concluded Tuesday.

Harmony and unity in Indonesia will be ruined if leaders fail to adopt pluralist values, implement them in the protection of minorities and uphold the Constitution by protecting human rights, speakers of the one-day seminar said.

The seminar panel included members of various religious and nongovernmental organizations, as well as activists and political leaders.

“We are a pluralist nation. That’s why, from the very beginning, our founding fathers declared Bhinneka Tunggal Ika (Unity in Diversity) as one of our nation’s pillars. Our constitution clearly guarantees pluralism,” Constitutional Court chief Jimly Asshiddiqie said in the keynote address.

Jakarta Archbishop Julius Darmaatmadja and Indonesian Communion of Churches chairman Andreas Yewangoe said pluralism was a given and must be accepted by all citizens.

“I always tell my congregation to be inclusive instead of exclusive in forging harmony and peace in society,” Julius said at the seminar organized by the International Center for Islam and Pluralism (ICIP), which will celebrate its fifth anniversary this year.

By accepting Pancasila as the state ideology, all religions must embrace pluralist values, Andreas added.

Embracing democracy in Indonesia means upholding the right of anybody — including those from minority groups — to disagree with the majority on any issue, even those related to religion and politics, Jimly added.

“The problem is most leaders don’t really understand the consequences of accepting pluralism. There’s a huge gap between the idea of pluralism and its implementation. Often, pluralist values are sacrificed for political gain,” Jimly said.

He cited as an example of the state’s failure to guarantee pluralism the recent attack by the Islam Defenders Front (FPI) against pro-pluralism activists staging a rally at the National Monument (Monas). The rally was held in support of the Islamic minority sect Ahmadiyah.

Noted lawyer and rights activist Todung Mulya Lubis, another seminar speaker, said the government’s decision to issue a decree banning Ahmadiyah was a constitutional violation.

“Our law enforcement is too weak to punish those violating laws and the Constitution. The ban showed majority rule has prevailed over the rule of law,” he said.

Many activists slammed President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who had said violent groups would not be allowed to hijack the country, because his decree came on the same day thousands of hard-liners gathered in front of the State Palace to demand the ban of Ahmadiyah.

Earlier this year, ICIP and the Swiss Embassy launched a book titled Islam and Universal Values: Islam’s Contribution to the Construction of a Pluralistic World, to push for a more pluralist society in Indonesia.

Commenting on the book during the seminar, Muslim scholar Bachtiar Effendy, of Jakarta Islamic State University, said there was no reason for a confrontation between Islam and pluralism, as they are compatible with one another. (the jakarta post)

Are 400,000 Terrorists Trying to Attack the United States? by Ivan Eland

http://www.antiwar. com/eland/ ?articleid= 13162 July 19, 2008

After having begun a series of investigative stories criticizing the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) in May 2008, CNN reporter Drew Griffin reports being placed with more than a million other names on TSA’s swollen terrorism watch list. Although TSA insists Griffin’s name is not on the list and pooh-poohs any possibility of retaliation for Griffin’s negative reporting, the reporter has been hassled by various airlines on 11 flights since May. The airlines insist that Griffin’s name is on the list. Congress has asked TSA to look into the tribulations of this prominent passenger. In a recent op-ed in the Washington Post, probably responding to the controversy over Griffin, Leonard Boyle, the director of the Terrorist Screening Center, defended the watch list, claiming that because terrorists have multiple aliases, the names on the list boiled down to only about 400,000 actual people. If there are 400,000 terrorists lying in wait to attack the United States, we are all in trouble. But wait a minute. There has been no major terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 9/11 – almost seven years ago. Where are all these nefarious evildoers? Boyle says 95 percent of these people are not American citizens or legal residents and the vast majority aren’t even in the United States. He rather sheepishly defends the size of the list by writing, “Its size corresponds to the threat. It’s a big world.” That brings up a very important issue. The U.S. government regularly tries to police the world and combat threats to other nations – in the process, usually generating more enemies. Examining the forty-four organizations on the State Department’s highly politicized list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO), one finds that only a very few currently focus their efforts on U.S. targets. And the U.S. government has even flirted with one anti-Iranian group, the Mujahedin-e Khalq, which was put on the FTO list long ago. Similarly, the State Department’s list of five state sponsors of terrorism has included Cuba and North Korea – neither of which has actively participated in terrorist attacks in decades. These two countries continued to be on the list for other reasons – namely U.S. government aversion to them. On its website, the State Department even admits that, “The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) was not known to have sponsored any terrorist acts since the bombing of a Korean Airlines flight in 1987.” The website also contains an implicit admission that keeping selected countries on the state sponsors list can reap ulterior political benefits for the United States. The website notes that under the umbrella of the Six-Party Talks, the United States intends to remove North Korea from the list as that nation takes actions toward getting rid of its nuclear weapons program. Even the remaining three nations on the list that do sponsor terrorism – Syria, Iran, and Sudan – don’t support groups that focus their attacks on the U.S. Thus, the humongous terrorist watch list for airline travel and the excessively large FTO and state sponsors lists are a few more examples of the United States taking on other nations’ security burdens. Trying to be the “big man on (the world) campus,” however, comes at a horrendous cost to American freedom at home. The terrorist watch list is downright unconstitutional. Under the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, no warrants shall be issued unless there is probable cause that a crime has been committed. If the government has such probable cause that a passenger is conspiring to commit a terrorist act on an airplane, it should not hassle that person at the airport when trying to fly or ban him or her from flying; it should arrest them. But of course the government does not have the evidence to do that for the vast majority of the 400,000 people on the watch list. And it’s apparently not easy to get yourself off the list once you are on it. Although Boyle claims that the TSA constantly scrubs the list for possible mistaken identities of people who have frequent “encounters” with the list, even if they don’t file a complaint, Griffin uncovered an innocent passenger with a common name – James Robinson – who has complained endlessly and has received no resolution of his case. Senator Edward Kennedy – also with a common name – experienced endless hassles and red tape trying to get his name off the list. If such a well-known figure has such problems, the average misidentified traveler is in big trouble. And as the economists would say, what about opportunity cost to real security? The U.S. government should spend the time it devotes to scrutinizing 400,000 people on the watch list, and the vast majority of the 44 FTOs and all of the 5 countries who don’t sponsor anti-U.S. terrorism, on the again rising principal threat from Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and their tens of hard core al-Qaeda followers operating out of Pakistan. The American public would be much safer. As the famous Prussian military ruler Fredrick the Great (and closet economist) said, “To defend everything is to defend nothing.” Moreover, under current government policy, we have neither liberty nor security.

Crude Oil Rises to Record on Speculation Israel May Attack Iran

Crude Oil Rises to Record on Speculation Israel May Attack Iran
By Alexander Kwiatkowski

July 11 (Bloomberg) — Crude oil rose more than $5 to a record on concerns that Israel may be preparing to attack Iran, while a strike in Brazil and renewed militant activity in Nigeria threaten to cut supplies.

Oil rallied to a record high of $146.90 a barrel in New York after the Jerusalem Post said Israeli war planes practiced over Iraq, adding to speculation the country is preparing to attack Iran. A Brazilian union said it plans a five-day strike on platforms that pump 80 percent of the country’s crude and Nigerian militants pledged to renew attacks on oil facilities.

“We are now in uncharted territory here with the Iranian situation,” Tom James, head of commodities trading at Liquid Capital Markets Ltd., said in a phone interview “People are just too scared to sell.”

Crude oil for August delivery rose as much as $5.25, or 3.7 percent, to an all-time high of $146.90 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange and was trading at $146.59 at 1:46 p.m. in London.

Israeli war planes are conducting maneuvers in Iraqi airspace and using U.S. airbases in the country, possibly practicing for a strike against Iran, the newspaper reported, citing comments by Iraqi officials in local media. Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev denied the report.

Iran, OPEC’s second biggest producer, this week tested missiles capable of reaching Israel.

Brent crude oil for August settlement rose as much as $5.22 a barrel, or 3.7 percent, to $147.25 a barrel and was trading at $146.94 at 1:46 p.m. local time on London’s ICE Futures Europe exchange.

Falling Stockpiles

Yesterday, the contract gained $5.45, or 4 percent, to $142.03 a barrel. Prices climbed to a record $146.69 on July 3.

Oil may rise next week because of threats to supply from Iran and Nigeria and falling stockpiles in the U.S., the biggest energy-consuming country, according to a Bloomberg News survey.

Gasoline prices in the U.S. rose to a record. Futures for August delivery rose as much as 10.46 cents, or 3 percent, to $3.6155 a gallon on Nymex.

The average price of a gallon of gasoline at the pump in the U.S was $4.11 on July 8, according to AAA, 38 percent higher than a year earlier.

About 4,500 employees of state-controlled Petroleo Brasileiro SA will take part in a protest on platforms in the offshore Campos basin to get full pay for the day they return to the mainland after a 14-day shift at sea, a union official said yesterday.

Iran’s Exports

The standoff has led to concern that Iran may come under attack from the U.S. or Israel, disrupting exports from OPEC’s second-biggest producer.

“You could survive with one of these factors, but if they come all at the same time it will drive prices up,” said Thina Saltvedt, an analyst at Nordea Bank AB in Oslo. “As soon as violent attacks increase in Nigeria it is a threat to production.’ ‘

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta said attacks will resume on oil facilities. The Nigerian militant group said it will call off its unilateral cease-fire beginning midnight on July 12.

MEND’s attacks on pipelines and other installations have cut more than 20 percent of Nigeria’s oil exports since 2006. MEND says it is fighting for a greater share of oil wealth for the impoverished inhabitants of the Niger Delta.

The group declared a cease-fire after a June 19 attack on Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s Bonga deep-water oilfield, located 120 kilometers (75 miles) offshore that cut 190,000 barrels a day of oil output.

To contact the reporter on this story: Alexander Kwiatkowski in London at akwiatkowsk2@ bloomberg. netNesa Subrahmaniyan in Singapore at nesas@bloomberg. net.

Last Updated: July 11, 2008 08:50 EDT

By The Way: FPI too busy talking to God

Christians are so close to God that they call Him “father” in prayer, while Muslims are so far away from Allah that they need loudspeakers to talk to Him.

This is an old joke, but I couldn’t tell you earlier because I was afraid. If Rizieq Shihab had found out, he might have beaten me black and blue or, worse, burned down my house.

Thank God, he is now in police custody.

If you happen to have watched the news (not the saucy gossip shows or soap operas) or read the paper recently, you would know of Rizieq, the leader of the Islam Defenders Front (FPI).

A radical group, FPI, attacked members of the National Alliance for Freedom of Faith and Religion (AKKBB), who were rallying last Sunday at the National Monument (Monas) park to mark the 63rd anniversary of Pancasila state ideology.

The FPI made their attack because the alliance supports Jamaah Ahmadiyah, a minority Islamic sect dubbed “heretical” by a government panel which also recommended it be banned.

The hardliners had earlier attacked Ahmadiyah sect members, their houses and mosques, and called Ahmadiyah a deviant sect.

The sect leader was once accused of blasphemy, but other than that I have never heard of the sect’s members committing theft, robbery, murder or any other crimes listed in the Criminal Code.

If they have their own interpretations of some verses in the Koran, it is only God who could decide whether it is right or wrong.

In 2006, FPI members vandalized the Play Boy magazine offices in South Jakarta, when the magazine first published its Indonesian version. They said the publication could damage people’s morality, but perhaps the real reason was that they were disappointed to find the Indonesian version didn’t have the same ‘hot’ pictures as its American parent.

They had also repeatedly attacked cafes, bars and nightspots during the Ramadhan fasting month because they believed the establishments violated existing regulations and would tarnish the Holy month.

And they committed all these violent acts in the name of God. Frequently FPI members shouted “Allahuakbar” (God is Great) while conducting their anarchic deeds. They also prayed a lot.

Praying five times a day is one of the five pillars of Islam followed by, not only FPI members, but all Muslims around the world.

The Muslim call to prayer, and prayer itself, can be heard in every corner of the city. It would seem it is a case of the louder, the better, so that everyone in the neighborhood can hear it. It doesn’t matter if it is still dawn or if it’s during school hours and the mosque is right next to a school. If one mosque is next to another, they may even compete to be loudest.

On Friday, mosques are crowded with congregations who enthusiastically come to pray and listen to preachers.

Non-Muslims also perform their religious rituals devoutly. Churches are always full on Sundays, when Christians and the Catholics pray and praise the Lord.

Indonesia is indeed one of the most religious nations in the world, a fact confirmed by last year’s religion monitoring study conducted in 21 countries by the German-based Bertelsmann Foundation.

Ironically, Indonesia is also notorious for being among the world’s most corrupt countries.

Being religious, corruptors must pray first before stealing state money, or perhaps they set aside a little of the corrupted money to build mosques or churches.

Another indicator of the strength of religion in Indonesia was in the huge number of people who enjoyed the recent movie Ayat-Ayat Cinta (Verses of Love), which is heavily loaded with religious messages.

President Soesilo Bambang Yudhoyono who watched the blockbuster along with several cabinet ministers reportedly shed tears because he was so touched by the story. But many joked, saying he had cried because he shared the pain of not being allowed to have more than one wife like the leading role.

Anyway, following the Monas attack, many people (mostly Muslims) demanded the ban of the FPI and some even called its members preman berjubah (thugs in Muslim robes) as they wore long white robes and headscarves during the violence.

Not only FPI members, but it seems many other Muslims, Christians and other deeply religious people are often too busy talking to God in one-way conversations, praising and worshiping God, reading the Koran, the Bible and other holy books, while turning their backs on fellow human beings.

Of course, talking to God is important, but if they think praying five times a day or going to Church every Sunday, or even everyday, is enough to allow them climb the stairway to heaven, maybe they should think again.

By the way, if you find the opening of this piece offensive, please accept my apology. I don’t mean to upset anyone, let alone God, who must be sad enough seeing the violence and frequent religious conflicts within this so-called religious nation.

— T.Sima Gunawan

Moderate groups under fire for silence over radicals

Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta/Thu, 06/19/2008 9:59 AM

Moderate Muslim organizations and political parties have come under fire for failing to demonstrate their religious tolerance following a government decree against an Islamic minority sect.

As major moderate groups, the nation’s two largest Muslim organizations Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah should have prevented the issuance of a joint ministerial decree against Jamaah Ahmadiyah, say Muslim scholars and political observers.

They told The Jakarta Post the decree showed the NU and Muhammadiyah were powerless to counter extremist and conservative elements in their campaigns for Islamism.

The anti-Ahmadiyah decree was issued by the government earlier this month amid intense pressure from many extremist groups, including the Islam Defenders Front (FPI) and Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia.

The government-sanctioned Indonesia Ulema Council (MUI) landed support for the decree.

“The NU and Muhammadiyah have so far been just too soft and too tolerant against small militant groups,” political expert Indra J. Pilliang of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies said.

He said the two organizations had given too much space for hard-line groups to take the public stage claiming to represent Indonesian Muslims.

Indra warned that a “culture of violence” against minority groups would rise more quickly thanks to the inaction of the NU, Muhammadiyah and moderate political parties to foster religious tolerance and pluralism in the country.

The issuance of the anti-Ahmadiyah decree and a recent attack by FPI members on pro-pluralism activists from the National Alliance for the Freedom of Religion and Faith (AKKBB), who were staging a rally for religious tolerance, were clear examples of the dysfunctionality of the two moderate Islamic groups and political parties, he added.

“They have to get tough against extremist groups and strongly condemn any attacks to avoid widespread violence that can turn into mass fascism,” Indra said.

Muslim scholar and Paramadina University rector Anies Baswedan said the NU and Muhammadiyah had failed to control the MUI with their pluralism mission.

The MUI is led by clerics from the NU and Muhammadiyah but the council has often issued extremist fatwa, banning pluralism, liberalism and secularism as well as branding Ahmadiyah a heretical sect.

“What happens is the MUI doesn’t represent the voice of Muslims as a whole,” he said.

Anies said the NU and Muhammadiyah should take the lead in preventing several Muslim individuals or groups from taking violent actions in the name of Islam.

Rafendi Jamin of the Human Rights Working Group blamed the political parties for only caring about their short-term political interests and neglecting their mission for the betterment of the country, including promoting religious pluralism and tolerance.

All the parties should work together to fix Indonesia’s international image by not tolerating violence and respecting human rights, he said.

Indra said the country’s political parties were trying to woo more voters ahead of the 2009 elections by giving support for the anti-Ahmadiyah decree or taking side with the majority Muslim groups.

Such a stance was more popular than acting otherwise, he added.

Anies warned the religious violence could increase due to the government’s failure to provide jobs for people.

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Christian Fundamentalism, the Global Crusade and Muslims

Christian Fundamentalism, the Global Crusade and Muslims

10-06-2008

By Yoginder Sikand

 

 

If Christian fundamentalists are to be believed, America’s invasion of Iraq and the consequent brutal slaughter of thousands of innocent civilians in that country are all part of a grand divine plan that will finally culminate in the ‘second coming’ of Jesus Christ.

Establishing an empire that will extend all over the globe, Christ will rule like a powerful monarch, saving those who believe in him and dispatching non-believers, all non-Christians and non-conformist Christians, to everlasting perdition in hell.

This is no childish nonsense for millions of Christian fundamentalists, who sincerely believe this to be predicted in the Bible.

Not surprisingly, American Christian fundamentalists are today among the most fanatic supporters of Bush’s global imperialist wars, in Iraq and elsewhere, which they see as in keeping with the divine mandate.

They are no eccentric or lunatic fringe elements, for today Christian fundamentalists exercise a powerful influence in American politics. Among them is George Bush himself, who insists that the American invasion of Iraq has been sanctioned by God, with whom he claims to be in personal communication.

While the Western press is awash with stories, real and exaggerated, about ‘Islamic fundamentalists’ , rarely is mention made about Christian fundamentalists, who, with their vast resources and close links with the current American administration, are a potentially more menacing threat than their Muslim counterparts.

According to newspaper reports more than a third of Americans are associated with one or the other Christian fundamentalist outfit, most of which are fiercely anti-communist, anti-Muslim and are passionate advocates of free-market capitalism, global American hegemony and the myth of the civilizing mission of white America. In recent years, these fundamentalist groups have been engaged in aggressive missionary work in other countries as well, including in the so-called ‘Third World’.

Fired by a passionate hatred for other religions, which they dismiss as ‘false’ and even ‘Satanic’, they are today among the most well-funded missionary groups in large parts of Asia and Africa.

Crusading for Christ, these fundamentalist groups are not simply out fishing for souls. Rather, for them Christianity is only part of the agenda, which also includes aggressively promoting American and Zionist interests. Today, these groups preach not only Christ but also Pax Americana and even American-led imperialist wars, which they bless as holy causes to usher in the final arrival of Jesus.

Texas-based author and preacher Michael Evans is one of the most notorious American Christian fundamentalist preachers today, a passionate advocate of war in the name of Christ.

In a recently published book, titled Beyond Iraq: The Next Move-Ancient Prophecy and Modern-Day Conspiracy Collide (Whitestone Books, Florida, 2003), he spells out a grand design for American global hegemony, blessed in the guise of a holy global war. Key players in this ‘divine’ plot include the CIA, the American government and army, and Israel, besides various Christian fundamentalist outfits.

The book is dedicated, among others, to what Evans describes as ‘two old friends’, Ehud Olmert, former Israeli Vice President, and the former Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. Equally revealingly, the book begins with a quotation which graces the lobby of the original headquarters of the CIA.

Evans is no petty crank who claims to be God-possessed, although his writings might seem to suggest that. The jacket of the book describes him as a ‘TIME magazine best-selling author’, who has appeared on the BBC and on American television channels and who has written for such papers as the Wall Street Journal and the Jerusalem Post.

He hobnobs with the highest of American and Israeli politicians and religious leaders, and is evidently taken very seriously in Christian fundamentalist circles. That Evans is also a passionate Bush-backer is amply evident in his clam that, ‘I know, from a first hand, personal interview with him that Bush is a man of faith who believes in the Bible’.

Evans is the founder of the ‘Jerusalem Prayer Team’, which, he says, he established after having been visited by God in a vision.

Among those who participated in the inauguration of his outfit were such names as Franklin Graham, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, all notorious American Christian fundamentalist leaders, Governor Dick Perry and Representative Dick Armey, and Benjamin Netanyahu, former Israeli Prime Minister.

Thousands of others in America and elsewhere, so he claims, have joined his movement in the aftermath of 11 September, 2001. His ultimate aim, he writes, is to have one million ‘intercessors praying daily for the peace of Jesus and God’s protection for Israel’ so that ‘demonic powers will be defeated by holy angels in a battle that cannot be seen with the natural eye’.

A fierce Christian Zionist, Evans has close links with the Israeli establishment. The book’s jacket states that he received the ‘Ambassador Award’ from the government of Israel and relates that he has been ‘a confidante to most of Israel’s prime ministers and to both of Jerusalem’s mayors’. The jacket quotes Benjamin Netanyahu as praising Evans for having ‘consistently demonstrated the moral clarity that is necessary to defend Israel from the lies and distortions of its enemies’.

This is no empty boast: the book contains pictures of Evans with Menachem Begin endorsing his first book, ‘Israel: America’s Key To Survival’, praying with Shimon Peres, comforting Jewish victims of a bomb blast in Israel, launching the ‘Jerusalem Prayer Team’ along with Jerusalem’s mayor, pledging support to Israel before Yitzhak Shamir along with half a million signatures of fellow Christians, championing Israel’s cause at the royal palace in Madrid and keeping company with American soldiers in Lebanon and Somalia. *

Christianity, War and the ‘Defence’ of Israel

For Evans, and numerous other rabid Christian fundamentalist preachers of hate like him, one of the most crucial purposes of America’s invasion of Iraq is the ‘defence’ of Israel, which he regards as a solemn Christian duty. If till recently Jews were routinely reviled by the Church as ‘Christ-killers’ , and, accordingly, hounded by Christian authorities, many of today’s Christian fundamentalists, like Evans, are passionate advocates of the state of Israel. This does not, however, represent any shift in their fervent belief, intrinsic to mainstream Christianity, that non-Christians, Jews included, are destined for Hell. Rather, it is part of a wider conversion agenda.

Jesus, they believe, will return to the world to rule only once the Jews have ‘returned’ to Palestine and have rebuilt the temple of David that was destroyed almost two thousand years ago.

After this momentous event, many Jews will convert to Christianity and those who refuse to will be sent to hell.

Till then, Christian fundamentalists argue, the Jews and their state must be passionately defended from their ‘enemies’, who are invariably identified as Arabs and Muslims.

The ‘defence’ of Israel, a central point in the Christian fundamentalist agenda, is typically argued in racist terms. Israel, Christian fundamentalists believe, are God’s ‘chosen people’, and they quote the Bible as making this claim, suggesting, therefore, that non-Jewish peoples are somehow lesser beings.

Evans, too, makes this point and argues that according to the Bible ‘God will bless those who bless Israel’ and will ‘curse those who curse it’. ‘History records’, he says, ‘that God deals with nations in accordance with how those nations deal with Israel’. Hence, in the ‘defence’ of Israel, Christians, Evans argues, have no choice. If they are true to their faith, he says, they must join hands with America in its war for ‘defending’ Israel, and must ‘support Israel in every possible way’.

‘We must either choose Mount Zion [Jerusalem] and be among those who obey the voice of the Spirit of the Lord’, he writes, ‘or we will be left to the passions of our flesh, drinking the wine of her [Bablyon’s or Iraq’s] fornication’ .

The invasion of Iraq, and the broader American ‘war on terror’, is, Evans says, is akin to ‘divine light [.] proclaiming like a trumpet a spiritual battle of monumental proportions’ , pitting Babylon, the Biblical Iraq, the ‘spiritual centre of darkness’, against Jerusalem or contemporary Israel, the ‘spiritual centre of light’.

But so that this ‘divine light’ should spread beyond the confines of Babylon, Evans pleads for America to extend its war all over the globe, to every country that dares to challenge American supremacy and the state of Israel. This war, he says, should aim at the elimination of all ‘terrorists’ , defined as those who refuse to support Israeli and American interests. In this, the invasion and occupation of Iraq is of vital importance, Evans says, because it will ‘become a US base’ to destroy ‘terrorist’ networks elsewhere in the Middle East and eventually to usher in what he calls ‘the apocalyptic battle’ of Armageddon, ‘the final battles of the ages’ as allegedly ‘prophesied in Daniel, Jeremiah and Revelations’ , chapters of the Bible.

America, as Evans sees it, must be ready to sacrifice itself to protect Israel, because that, he says, is precisely what the Christian God wants. Hence, Palestinians resisting the illegal occupation of their land and all those who opposed to Israel and its imperialist and expansionist policies must be crushed with the might of American arms, he insists.

The Christian God does not brook any peace with such people, he argues. The Bible, he announces, says that those who fight against Israel, God’s supposedly chosen people and recipients of His ‘special blessing’, would be destroyed by God Himself. He quotes the Bible as declaring: ‘And this shall be the plague with which the Lord will strike all the people who fought against Jerusalem: Their flesh shall dissolve while they stand on their feet. Their eyes shall dissolve in their sockets. And their tongues shall dissolve in their mouths’.

Given this supposed divine backing, Evans exhorts America to invade and subjugate all countries opposed to Israel, specifically naming Lebanon, Syria and Iran.

The ultimate agenda, he says, is to destroy these countries and establish what Zionists call Eretz or Greater Israel, extending to and including Iraq. This is because, Evans quotes the Bible as saying, God allegedly gave this vast stretch of land, from the Nile to the Euphrates, to Abraham and his son Isaac and his descendants, ancestors of the Jews, as a covenant and as their ‘everlasting possession’.

Echoing hardliner Zionists, Evans insists that there can be no peace with the Palestinians at any cost, because, he claims, the Christian God is opposed to this. If Israel and America are to faithfully abide by the Christian God’s will, he says, they must not let anything get in the way of the establishment of Eretz Israel. Thus, various peace proposals that involve any territorial concessions on the part of Israel are ruled out.

This is because, as Evans alleges, God has given the entire territory to the Jews till eternity.

Christianity and the New Anti-Muslim Crusade

As for the Arabs and Muslims more generally, Evans seems to suggest that the Christian God desires that they be humiliated, subjugated and crushed.

Thus, he quotes the Bible as saying that while God specially blessed Isaac and his descendants, the Jews, he had a different plan in mind for the Arabs, descendants of Ishmael, Abraham’s other son.

Referring to Ishmael Evans quotes the Bible as saying, ‘He will be a wild man; His hand shall be against every man and every man’s hand against him’.

This racist stereotype, so deeply rooted in traditional Christian discourse about Muslims, is held by Evans to be what he calls ‘a fitting description of the Arab terrorist’ and, presumably, as justifying the annihilation of the Arab people, as well as other Muslims.

Evans goes so far in vilifying Arabs and Muslims as to call Muhammad a proto-terrorist, alleging that he had banished and killed Jews for not believing in him.

‘Terrorism’, he claims, is a logical consequence of Islam, and he argues that ‘Muhammad set a sordid example for his present-day disciples, the Qadafis, Khomeinis, Arafats and bin Ladens and Husseins of this world’. Claiming knowledge of the unseen, he even announces that Islam is ‘a malevolent manifestation of a religion conceived in the pit of hell’.

Evans thus equates Islam with the forces of the ‘Anti-Christ’ , against whom he appeals to Christians to marshal all the resources at their command. Ironically, while spewing hatred and calling for a global war, he presents Christianity as peace-loving, contrasting it with Islam, which he equates with ‘terrorism’.

‘Christianity differs from Islam as day differs from night’, he claims, completely unmindful of the sordid and blood-soaked history of the faith he claims to champion. In the same breath as he issues a general summons to Christians to wage war in the name of their faith he refers to the Bible as instructing Christians to ‘turn the other cheek’ when slapped, in order to argue that, unlike Christianity, Islam is an inherently vile religion, equating it with what he terms ‘the law of the bullet, militancy, treachery, terrorism and violence’.

Christianity, America and Oil

Christian fundamentalists are ardent advocates of free-market capitalism, having played a key role in America’s war against communism during the Cold War. Christ, capitalism and American supremacy go together, Evans believes, and so, while announcing that an American-spearheade d global war is precisely what Christ mandates, he approvingly quotes Isser Harel, founder of the Israeli secret services’ organization Mossad, who speaks of the ‘terror’ threat to America’s ‘freedom’, ‘capitalism’ and ‘power’, and exhorts America to take appropriate defence measures.

Evans goes so far as to advise the America to capture all the oil wealth in Arab lands in order to prevent ‘terrorists’ from using oil wealth to target Israel, home to God’s supposedly ‘special people’. A more ingenuous excuse to justify American greed could hardly be devised!

Since Muslims, especially the Arabs, are branded virtually as agents of the Devil, Evans argues that America, as self-appointed agent of Christ, should have no qualms about invading oil-rich Arab lands. This would, he says, break America’s dependence on Muslim countries for oil which.

If America seizes all Arab oil-fields, it would, he says, sharply reduce oil prices, forcing Muslim countries ‘to their knees’, giving them only two options: ‘cooperate with the war on terror or go bankrupt’.

At the same time as he exhorts America to invade and occupy all the countries, no matter what the human cost, Evans warns that it should not be serious about its rhetoric of exporting ‘democracy’ to the Middle East, for, he argues, it would lead to anti-American and anti-Israeli Islamists taking over.

Invasion of Iraq and the Ushering in of Global Christendom and Pax-Americana

Evans sees America’s invasion and occupation of Iraq as the unfolding of a divine plan for the world. It is not nothing less than what he calls a grand ‘spiritual battle’, between Christianity and Satanic forces and ‘demons’, as represented by Muslims and other non-Christians.

Accordingly, he fervently welcomes America’s invasion of Iraq and pleads that America should expand the theatre of war by invading various other, mostly Muslim, countries.

The murder and destruction that America has wrought in Iraq is nothing to grieve about, Evans seems to suggest. It is a price, he argues, that God is supposedly exacting from Muslims for having been ‘coerced’
by Satan to ‘loathe’ the Jews, ‘God’s Chosen People’.

It is also a divine punishment, he says, for Iraq having allegedly possessing ‘deadly chemical, biological or nuclear weapons’, echoing the bogus claim made by Bush, Blair and their henchmen which they used to justify their invasion of that country.

Weak-hearted Christians who might disagree are advised to all in line, for, Evans says, this is precisely what the Bible predicts and what God mandates. ‘I will raise against Babylon an assembly of great nations from the north country, for she has sinned against God’, the Jewish prophet Jeremiah is said to have announced, and Evans takes this as evidence of his claim that the American invasion of Iraq is demanded by God and that all America is doing is to faithfully follow God’s will.

Iraq, the Biblical Babylon, Evans insists, represents the forces of Satan, and hence deserves to be crushed by America, God’s agent, through invasion and war. ‘Babylon is fallen, that great city, because she has made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication’ , he quotes the Bible as saying. ‘I will rise up against them [.] I will cut off from Babylon her name and survivors, her offspring and descendants [.] I will turn her into a place for owls and into swampland. I will sweep her with the broom of destruction’ , Evans quotes the Biblical God as having declared. He marshals other Biblical verses to press the argument about Iraq being allegedly inherently ‘evil’ and hence deserving harsh repression at American hands.

Eve and Adam are said to have committed the ‘first sin’ there; it was in Iraq that occult and astrology were invented; Nebuchadnezzar, ruler of Babylon, conquered Israel and enslaved the Jews; the Babylonians built the Tower of Babel, thereby defying God by trying to reach heaven without His permission; and the Bible describes Babylon as the ‘seat’ of the Anti-Christ and the ‘Beast’, the ‘seat of Satan’s evil’, in contrast to Jerusalem, the ‘seat of God’s righteousness’ , against whom it is destined to be pitted in the final battle that will usher in Jesus’ ‘second coming’.

In all, then, Evan argues, America is simply acting as the Christian God’s handmaiden in wreaking destruction and death in Iraq.

Instead of being blamed or castigated for this, he argues, it should be praised.

This destruction is Biblically mandated, he repeats, for the Bible has announced that, ‘Babylon, the great, has fallen and has become a dwelling place of demons, a prison for every foul spirit, and a cage for every unclean and hated bird [.] Therefore, her plague will come in one day-death and mourning and famine. And she will be utterly burned with fire [.]

Thus with violence the great city Babylon shall be thrown down and shall not be found anymore’.

But this terrible destruction in Iraq is only the beginning of a bloody trail of events mandated by a supposedly blood-thirsty and vengeful God. According to Evans’ reading of the Bible, the American invasion of Iraq is what he calls ‘the dress-rehearsal’ for the grand global battle of Armageddon between the forces of Christ and Satan.

Prior to this battle, he quotes the Bible as saying, ‘demons and spirits’ bound up in the Euphrates in Iraq will be released, and, with an army of 200 million, will kill off a third of the world’s total inhabitants through nuclear war. This grand battle, Evans writes, is not far off.

Hence, he appeals to Christians to ‘put on the armour of God’ and ‘engage in spiritual battle’. Now, is the time, he says, to prepare for the impending return of Christ. Presumably, after Iraq is destroyed through the agency of the Americans, Christ will suddenly appear in Jerusalem and establish his global empire, ushering in the end of the world as we know it.

Horrendous as Evans’ views are, they do find a powerful echo in Christian fundamentalist circles today, more so given their growing influence in policy-making circles in the West, particularly in America.

If the world is to be saved from the Armageddon that Evans and his ilk are bent on calling down from the heavens it is imperative that Western imperialism and Christian fundamentalism be interrogated, challenged and opposed, particularly by sincere Christians themselves.

—
Sukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye
Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye

The world is ‘happy’, eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weeping

—
Sukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye
Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye

The world is ‘happy’, eating and sleeping The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weeping

---

 

The Muslim News
http://www.muslimne ws.co.uk/ news/news. php?article= 14403