Desicritics Category: Politics: Europe

The Auschwitz Album

Dr Bhaskar Dasgupta — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 08:39:32 EST

This old photo album really got me going. The power of a photograph reaches out despite decades having had passed since it was taken at Auschwitz. This album shows the people arriving at the concentration camp, getting processed into those who would be workers and those who would be gassed immediately. The black and white photographs throw a seriously blunt light on this truly horrible time.

Here’s one example of the arrivals. The faces are numb. Look at the faces of the children, innocent and uncomprehending.

Once they arrived, they were then selected according to what the SS officers felt as to their working capability, old men, women and children were more than likely to be sent straight into the gas chambers. The piles of clothing in the right back were reprocessed. In the top far left is a line which has already been processed and are heading towards the gas chambers (see air picture below).

These are 2 boys. Notice the Star of David on the greatcoat of the boy on the right, the Jews were identified that way.

Old men being led to the gas chambers, again notice the Star of David.

The same fate awaited old women and children.

Women and men who were fit for forced labour were deloused, had their heads shaven and were then moved to the labour part of the camp.

A photograph of a line of prisoners being lead to the gas chambers. These reconnaissance photographs were taken by the allied forces. In many cases, they did not even know what this was, or rather what the camps really were used for (or at least that's what was being claimed then).

and how the Germans then tried to hide the evidence.

it is all bloody painful…
The above related to the victims, but what about the Germans? Here’s another photo album from the other side.

There are more photographs of how the SS officers enjoyed their lives, as if they were on holidays, eating blue berries with cream and singing along with accordions. I get into frequent arguments with TBS about why the Holocaust is considered so extra special. Well, it's the efficiency with which this large scale killing happened, the scale and scope, the rabid ideology, and and and, which all lead us to hope that it will not happen again. And despite this, we have seen Bangladesh, Rwanda, Cambodia, etc. Some said, we need to educate people more. In one of the next posts, I will be exploring why its the educated lot who actually drive or commit these monstrous crimes against humanity.

Should China Have Executed A British National?

Arundhati Thapar — Fri, 1 Jan 2010 19:04:14 EST

Its a difficult time for British diplomacy. Despite intervention at the highest levels, the Chinese went ahead and executed Akmal Shaikh, the British citizen convicted of trying to smuggle 4 kgs of heroin into China. Gordon Brown himself made this a high priority case for himself.

It is beside the point that, given everything else the man has on his platter at the moment, including a crumbling economy among the very few still to officially come out of recession, it is surprising that he did. Also, given Gordon's recent luck (he seems to suffer from a case of reverse 'midas touch' syndrome - everything he touches, turns to mud) his last minute decision to butt in may have been ill advised on more than one counts. Certainly the outcome has made him lose face on the International stage and made the British side look decidedly sheepish.

The main crux of the argument from the British side seems to be that Mr Shaikh suffered from Bipolar disorder and hence the Chinese Government should have exercised clemency in dealing with his case.

The question remains whether this was a case of the Chinese committing a heinous crime against humanity by executing a 'mentally sick' man or was it just the British refusing to recover from their sense of pseudo global supremacy. Certainly the Chinese did not take kindly to attempts at external interference in their judicial system.

I am not going to go into the arguments for or against capital punishment but certainly a country has a right to convict a criminal according to the law of the land and no outside Government should be trying to supersede a country's judiciary. So, you do not agree with the way China deals with its criminals. Tough luck. The man, although he was British, committed a crime on Chinese soil knowing fully well that that country has a judicial system entirely different to the British.

I can sympathise with the family of the deceased man and any family would do all in its power to defend their dear one in this situation. But would it not be unfair to Chinese families who have lost family members for similar crimes, to say that this one would be pardoned because he is British?

As to how much weight the argument of 'bipolar disorder' holds in this case is also debatable.

Bipolar disorder is a 'neurosis' as opposed to a 'psychosis'. A neurotic person does not lose 'insight' or 'sense of reality' which is the hallmark of psychosis. So if someone colludes with drug peddlers when suffering from a bout of depression, it neither dilutes the effect of the crime nor makes that person any less culpable in the eyes of the law.

However it looks like the repercussions of this particular act might be more far reaching than just a tussle over which legal system is superior. The Chinese ambassador has been summoned at 10 Downing and given a dose of the bitter pill. The Chinese lost no time in retaliating either. In instant quid pro quo, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said: "Nobody has the right to speak ill of China's judicial sovereignty. We express our strong dissatisfaction and resolute opposition over the groundless British accusations. We urge the British side to mend its errors and avoid damaging China-British relations." A firm well planted kick up the British backside.

The issue as far as I can see is related to the very low threshold western leaders have currently for attempting to take the moral high ground and preach values to developing nations. Had this happened in the US, I doubt Britain would have been as eager to interfere.

Modern Terrorism & The Christian Insurgency in Islamic Spain

Dr Bhaskar Dasgupta — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 13:22:55 EST

I was having a chat about Arabic conquests with an Egyptian friend and said, well, you are an Arab. He got very upset about it and said he aint Arab, no way Jose. (He is..). Anyway, so we got talking about early Islamic history and we discussed how the edges of the Islamic Empire generally fought off the imperialistic shackles. Here’s an example of the geographic spread.

It's in the area of southern Europe and India where the resistance seems to be most ferocious and ultimately they did throw off the imperialistic yoke to “assume” their older civilisation. But Northern Africa, the Middle East, Iran and Central Asia became Muslim. I remembered reading an interesting paper on this topic, specially related to Spain and thought of giving a quick overview.

The loss of Spain and India seems to have seared the psyche somehow as you can still hear the fundos complain bitterly about the loss of these two territories and maintain that they will win them back again (see below). But while the story of India is well known, it's only the loss of the Spanish kingdom by the Moors that is known. Nobody knows much about what happened after the invincible armies of the Moors rolled over North Africa into Spain and then into southern France till they were stopped by Charles Martel. After the Islamic kingdom was created and formed in Spain, what then? What happened in the immediate aftermath? We know about the reconquista, but what about the intervening period?

This paper sheds some more light on what happened. The first reason for the success of the resistance was the negation of the use of cavalry by the Muslim forces up in the mountainous region. Without the quick ability to move around the battlefield, the Muslim forces suffered serious casualties and were simply unable to push through to their ultimate conquest of the total peninsula. Also waging war in the mountains is a disaster for the attacking forces and all the advantages lie with the defenders.

The second problem was the inequitable distribution of booty and this caused severe fighting amongst the Muslim nobles. Booty and looting is an accepted part of the Islamic laws of warfare, but then those lovely laws cannot deal with the normal human greed. Time after time, whether in Spain or in the Ottoman Empire or in India, you find that the seeds for the disaster or downfall of the Islamic empire can be related to this factor. Also one has to remember that succession in most Muslim empires and kingdoms was a very bloody affair with siblings being slaughtered regularly. One can see this in the Moorish Kingdoms, in Ottoman times, in Egypt, in the Arab regimes or in the various assorted empires or kingdoms in South Asia. Not that the Christian kingdoms were not better with revolts, but they were less afflicted than the Muslims due to the steadily accepted primogeniture rule, which made the crucial difference.

It took 800 years or so before the Moors were pushed out, but push out they did. Time seems to have moved differently at that time. But then, this kind of time frame isn't surprising. Take Greece for example, the Ottomans went in by about the 13th century and were not chucked out till the 19th century.

How about the Mughal Empire? It started around 1500 and frankly didn't end till 1857 or so. Mind you, I just read an article which claimed that the British were responsible for the demise of the Mughal Empire. Actually, the Mughal Empire was pretty much dead much before the East India Company had anything to do with it, not least because of Aurangzeb’s administration and activities. What was left by 1857 was a pimple on the rump of the grand empire which was soon pricked.

So it takes time. The Christian rebels in Spain also benefited from the proximity of other Christian kingdoms from where they got their sustenance and support as well. Also, the Spanish resistance maintained their northern Christian kingdoms which ultimately provided the bedrock and bedspring from which the reconquista started.

The other factor which is common in these countries such as Spain, Greece and India was the strength of their respective beliefs. In other words, the local populace didn't give in to the blandishments of the Muslim conquerors and retained their faith. It is this factor which allowed the native population to resist and ultimately overthrow the Imperialistic invaders unlike in Arab and other lands where they gave up. Quite an interesting paper which sheds light on the very early days of the reconquista. Without this period of resistance, one can well imagine that Spain could well have followed in the same footsteps of Algeria, Egypt, etc. who became Muslim countries (although that comment about Egyptians not being Arab is interesting, I might return to that argument sometime)

Which leads me to the second interesting paper. Why is Spain so important to the fuglies? The abstract quotes:

The purpose of this article is to look at the importance and treatment that Spain receives in jihadist propaganda. This study offers a series of empirical observations based on a content analysis of a sample of propaganda produced by jihadist groups between January 1994 and September 2008. The analysis of this material, the context in which it was spread, and a comparison with other Western countries leads to the conclusion that the role played by this country in jihadist propaganda can only be understood by taking into account “structural factors” that have little to do with a greater or lesser level of interference in “Islamic affairs.”

Out of the 2233 documents that the researchers studied, Spain appeared in 2.3% of them, USA in 67%, UK in 5%, Russia in 3%, France in 2.7% and Israel in 14.2%. In particular, the issue of Al Andalus seems to be seared into their psyche. I quote:

In this category have been grouped all the mentions made that refer to the period of Muslim occupation of the Iberian peninsula, understood as between the invasion begun from the north of Africa in 711 until the elimination of the last Islamic redoubt in Spain in 1492 with the taking of the Kingdom of Granada by the Catholic Monarchs. This is a period of history with a profound evocative power in the Muslim collective imaginary. To use the term “Al Andalus” implies speaking about a past of artistic, architectural, literary, and scientific brilliance, but also implies speaking of a period of greater Islamic political power. Said term forms part of the conceptual baggage for all of the world's Islamic population, independently of the degree of religious practice, political affiliation, or attitudes toward terrorist violence. This remembrance has a character of yearning, of lament and pain for the loss of a territory that symbolized the highest level of splendor of Muslim civilization.
This remembrance of a painful episode for Islam is present in jihadist discourse. It is significant that the first mention of Spain on the part of bin Laden was precisely in these terms: “Let the whole world know that we shall never accept that the tragedy of Al Andalus will be repeated in Palestine.”
However, for Al Qaeda these allusions, far from constituting a mere rhetorical resource, acquire the character of an aggressive claim. For jihadist terrorism, the Iberian Peninsula is “dar al islam,” a land pertaining to the ummah, an Islamic land, taken and occupied by infidels. Jihadist terrorism incorporates among its objectives the “return” to Muslims of any land that at some time was under the control of Islam; it is a fight that must lead to the restoration of the original borders of the medieval Caliphate. According to Ayman al-Zawahiri: “Jihad seeks the liberation of Palestine, the entire country of Palestine and to liberate every land that used to be a territory of Islam, from Spain to Iraq.” This defining of the original and immovable boundaries of Islam has become a true “mantra” for Al Qaeda. Although it is true that this objective is seen as a long-term goal, and that first it will be necessary to complete a series of prior objectives of great importance, its repetition is replete with meaning in the sense that it sets out an unrenounceable goal for the jihadist movement. In fact, the “obsession” of Al Qaeda to recover the “lost Al Andalus” now forms a part of the discourse of the rest of the networks that integrate the jihadist constellation. Thus, for example, in a communiqu from April 2007 produced by Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb the following can be read: “By Allah, we will neither return our sword into its scabbard nor enjoy life until we liberate every Islamic land from [the hands of] the Crusaders, the apostates, and the collaborators, and until our ritually cleansed feet walk [once again] in the stolen [land of] Al Andalus and in desecrated Jerusalem.”…….
……Of equal importance is seeing how this aggressive demand has been incorporated into the ideology of groups geographically distant from Al Andalus, such as the Afghan Taliban. In June of that same year, the prominent Taliban leader Mansour Dadallah stated the following in an interview broadcast by Al-Jazeera: “Jihad will remain an individual duty incumbent upon us, until we regain Al Andalus and all the countries occupied by the infidels.” Regarding the Al Andalus category, it is an authentic exception among the “far enemy.” The jihadists make no territorial claims on any other Western nation, which leads to the amplification of the presence of Spain within the totality of communicative activity of jihadism.
The weight of history in the Muslim imaginary means that the mention of Al Andalus is full of implicit meaning. The targeted public understands perfectly not only to what is being referred to, but also what is the approach of the jihadist groups. Accordingly, the jihad against Spain is justified, not only for Spain's military presence in Afghanistan or its clear support for the U.S. enemy, but also as a legitimate struggle to liberate Islamic land from its Christian occupier. In this sense, the confrontation with Spain goes beyond Spain's policies toward the Muslim world and has a structural character, given that the nation is situated over a territory that by right belongs to Islam and its peoples.

The researchers note that it’s only in the case of Spain that they call it as Al Andalus, the rest of the benighted infidel countries are usually referred to in their current usage names like America, Israel, etc. etc. What really worried me was the ending of the paper and I quote:

In short, one can conclude through analysis of the presence of Spain in jihadist propaganda that independently of the degree of implication of this country in the Islamic world, Spain must endure a threat of structural character that converts it into a perennial target of jihadist terrorism.

While I do not have the data-set, looking at the fulminations that happen in Pakistan and the assorted beards in Pakistan, Kashmir and other unsavoury locations and the arguments made for Spain, there is a chance that India will face threats of a structural character of this ilk. The keyword is stolen. In other words, even if the Kashmir problem is resolved, the threat will only be diminished, not fully removed as long as Al Queda and its compatriots exist. See for example the explanation made for LET at the CFR site. As the BBC reports:

Lashkar's professed ideology went beyond merely challenging Indian rule in Jammu and Kashmir. In a pamphlet entitled "Why Are We Waging Jihad?" the group defined its agenda as the restoration of Islamic rule over all parts of India.

See the word “restoration”? this is what is the operative word. And if more corroboration is required, read this report by Husain Haqqani, the current Pakistani Ambassador to the the Court of Saint Obama. This report talks about the ideologies of South Asian Jihadi Groups.

Egyptian Government Attempts To Prove Minarets Are Useful

Dr Bhaskar Dasgupta — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 21:01:41 EST

It's obvious that the Muslim governments who got excited about Switzerland’s banning of the minarets (that stupid vote) forgot a few things themselves. This was indeed a democracy, despite the voting being an islamophobic one. Secondly, these Muslim governments are rarely democratic themselves. Take Egypt for example. It's not democratic by any stretch of the imagination. It even diverted its upset populace’s attention by going on and on about the Algerian – Egyptian football match, go figure. Anyway, so what does it do now? I quote:

CAIRO, DECEMBER 9 - The Egyptian parliament will be carrying out a scientific research to prove that mosque minarets, which a recent Swiss referendum okayed their ban, are important to Muslims, MENA reported. The religious affairs committee of the Peoples Assembly has been assigned with the job: to issue a statement to be delivered as a letter to the presidents of the Swiss parliament, the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly, protesting the outcome of the poll. Ahmed Fathi Sorour, the speaker of the Peoplés Assembly, said the Swiss government and parliament were against the referendum, whose results came to reflect a growing sense of Islamophobia in the European country.

I started laughing helplessly when I read this. They are important to Muslims? D’oh. Yes they are. They are also important to other people too, you doofus. They are also important to the construction industry, the broadcasting industry, the academic industry and and and. And just what scientific research will be carried out? On what basis? What fun, what stupidity, lol. I am firmly of the belief that the greatest danger to Islam is not from the crusaders, zionists or the west, but it is from their own leaders, politicians and religious leaders such as these dorks mentioned above. On a separate note, did you know that the chap who is the architect of the Swiss referendum is a Turkish Muslim, I quote:

One of the architects of the controversial Swiss referendum that resulted in a ban on the construction of minarets has a Turkish heritage, daily Milliyet reported on Wednesday. Born in the Aegean province of Izmir to a Turkish father and a Swiss mother, Soli Pardos family moved to Switzerland when he was 5 years old, the daily said. Swiss voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional ban on minarets on November 29, barring construction of the iconic mosque towers in a surprise vote that put Switzerland at the forefront of a European backlash against a growing Muslim population. Muslim groups in Switzerland and abroad condemned the vote as biased and anti-Islamic. The referendum by the nationalist Swiss Peoplés Party, or SVP, labeled minarets as symbols of rising Muslim political power that could one day transform Switzerland into an Islamic nation. Pardo also said minarets are used as symbols in Europe, but added: I do not have any reactions against Muslims, and I do not accept that there is Islamaphobia in Switzerland. Pardo, who is the leader of the Geneva Canton for the SVP, said his father was a small-scale industrialist and passed away in 1976 when Pardo was 21. Regarding the referendum, he said: We do not believe that the minarets are linked to worship because no calls to prayer are made from the minarets. We are not against building mosques but against 5- to 6-meter-tall minarets. The initiative was approved 57.5 to 42.5% by some 2.67 million voters.

So here we go, official confirmation from Switzerland, there is no connection between Islam and Muslims and Minarets, lol. So what then is the official position? An interesting op-ed from a Professor in Islamic Art History from Arab News can help. I quote the relevant bits here, but do read the full piece:

Minarets were introduced in the process of conquest such as in the earliest surviving imperial mosque — the Umayyad Mosque of Damascus — in the beginning of the 8th century. Minarets were in this case an appropriation of a Byzantine church’s bell towers. Slowly minarets became one of the elements asserting the grandeur and influence of big mosques financed by the early Islamic states, notably between the 8th and the 10th centuries. The Damascus Mosque’s minarets seem to have been imitated later in the 10th century when the rulers of Andalusian Cordoba were aspiring to rival the major Islamic eastern caliphates. The helicoidal 9th century minarets in the mosques of the Abbasid city of Samarra, which are the largest mosques in pre-modern history, seem to have been imitated in Egypt in the same century. Yet minarets were not a constant element. In the eastern Islamic lands, especially within the Persian space, minarets seem to play a minor role. At some point in the 14th century minarets in Iran were simply decorative accessories for huge portals with big domes in the background. It is probably with the Turkic dynasties, culminating with the Ottomans since the 15th century, that minarets would be equated with Islamic images in the Western European imaginaire. It has been widely reported in the European travelogues that one of the first acts of Ottomans after conquering Constantinople in 1453 was the insertion of a minaret at one of the corners of the Byzantine church of Haghia Sophia. In fact, the Ottomans seemed to have used the minaret as one of the elements to visually appropriate conquered Byzantine churches and convert them to mosques. They tended also to build monumental minarets, sometimes four, in their new mosques. Whatever its meaning in the premodern era, the minaret’s signification seems to have been reshaped starting from the end of the 19th century.

It's curious, and before I finish this, I thought of looking around the OIC and how they react to the presence of other religions. Whether we are talking about Mauritania, Iran, Iraq, Turkey or Egypt etc. etc. they all have much bigger problems with other religions. So it's a spot of major hypocrisy for them to moan about Switzerland. Then again, its Switzerland who should be ashamed of lowering themselves to the abysmal standards that the OIC hold themselves to. Esphoks.

Politics - Going Rogue

Arundhati Thapar — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 00:12:34 EST

Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely - these words ring true of not only the entire socio political setup of this world that we live in but also of things on a much smaller stage - everyday living and issues surrounding who rules who?

It would be an interesting experiment to give power in the hands of the downtrodden of today - the ones who curse the system and wish politicians dead. Would they then establish a just world order or fall prey to the very temptations and machinations they abhor today?

Would this then answer the quintessential question? Chicken or egg? Which came first?

Is it the wrong kind of people who go into politics, accumulate wealth and become powerful and then perpetrate the hideous culture that has become the hallmark of politics across the globe?

Or is it normal people ...people like you and me, but maybe with a dash more of ambition thrown in, who get into politics, wake up to the immense thrill and kick that power gives and then start on the journey of corruption to maintain that power?

Two old political scandals, or shall I say mishaps, have returned to the fore in the public arena this week. They belong in two different continents but the undertones are similar....

As the Chilcot enquiry begins its work to look into the legality of the war in Iraq, the most palpable sentiment around is hatred for Blair. Yet this is a man who could do no wrong a few years ago. A darling of the masses, twice elected to power, with a huge halo round his head and the glow of his charismatic personality radiating far and wide.

Did Tony Blair start off as a well meaning Prime Minister who seriously wanted to do the right thing, defend democracy around the world and establish a just world order? Few believe this today but in the heydays of Labour supremacy in Britain, he did have people enthralled by his sharp oratory and the look of earnestness about him. Did he start off as a smarmy, sly man or was it years in politics that made him cynical to the extent that many now are ready to believe he took the country into an illegal war? How cynical do you have to be to do something you know will cause immeasurable death and destruction, reduce an entire nation to a rubble and ruin the lives of generations to come?

Opponents of the war hope the inquiry will establish that the decision to invade Iraq was illegal and based on flawed or deliberately misleading intelligence about the risks posed by Saddam Hussein. Whatever else the enquiry achieves, simply by being in the news the past few months, it has played a major role in Blair losing out in the race to be EU President.

The other case in point is our very own L K Advani. In a dramatic turn of events, -the Liberhan commission report, which was 17 years in the making, was tabled after details of its conclusions - apparently implicating top leaders of the Hindu nationalist opposition in the Babri masjid destruction - were leaked on monday, triggering uproar in the lower house. Personally, I have always found it extremely difficult to digest that Advani and co had at any point acted out of 'Ram bhakti'. It never was a campaign of moral outrage against historical acts of vandalism or a campaign to reignite religious sentiments in the hearts of the non believers. It always was a cynical political act directed towards exploiting the extreme naivety of the electorate, wasn't it? Yet at the time, even the intelligentsia was divided about whether to celebrate or lament their growing influence.

Who knows if these two men started out believing in a just cause and simply 'went rogue'. (Ha ha....could not keep our darling Ms Palin out of this) Time will tell.

Iranian President Ahmadinejad Denies The Holocaust Again

Hardik Ruparel — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 13:17:04 EDT

It seems like there's nothing that the world can do to convince Iranian President Mr. Ahmadinejad of the happenings of the holocaust. Recently in a political rally, he dismissed the Holocaust as a lie based on mythical claims. This provoked strong reaction from the USA and Germany, who are adamant about convincing him that the Holocaust did indeed take place.

If I were to take a dangerous digression, I would state that the history of the civilized world is itself a big farce. Well, why do I say that? Mainly because the annals of history are always written by the people who won the war. After you win the war, you can say whatever you like. Right? Multiply the strength of the enemy by a hundred times. Invent new characters and destroy existing evidence. There's no end to it. History is just a perspective. It's one side of the story, and a fascinating one indeed. It's always been one of my favorite subjects, and one can clearly see why.

Coming back, I really don't see the need to convince anyone whether the Holocaust was a reality or an urban legend (like the Royal Flush in Poker). I for one personally believe it actually happened. The evidence is overwhelming, and people really have to be dumb to declare it a myth. But, what I fail to understand is why believers get so pissed off when someone else says he/she doesn't believe in the Holocaust. It's his/her wish to believe in anything she wants to, and there's nothing that anybody can do about it. So, Mr. Ahmadinejad, I congratulate you on your successful attempt to discuss your personal views in the open, but you see, once people get pissed off enough, someone's going to get hurt, and it's not you, not Obama and not any political leader. It's going be someone like me, my friends and my family.

Whether the Holocaust happened or not, it's over. If you're someone who's affected directly by the Holocaust, we're all sorry for you, and there's nothing more we can do to help you. And no, you cannot force people to believe in the Holocaust just because you or someone you know suffered. There are a million other ways in which millions of people die, but none has been so famous. You cannot ask people to feel sorry for you. I'm tired of being told who to feel sorry for and who to worship. That's just the way it is. I'm going to be bold enough to quote George Carlin here.

"F*** Lance Armstrong. F*** him and his balls and his bicycles and his steroids and his yellow shirts and the dumb empty expression on his face. I'm tired of that a******...... Aren't you sick of being told who your heroes ought to be?"

So, please stop going about inflicting your views on other people. We have enough madness in the world to deal with for many centuries to come. History, especially the one related to the Holocaust, has left an indelible mark on our future and it's high time we treat history for what it is : History.

Spain's Audiencia Nacional To Be Reined In By Parliament

Vinod Joseph — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 10:29:08 EDT

The International Court of Justice at The Hague (“ICJ”) has a dual role. As stated on its website, the ICJ acts as a world court and decides, in accordance with international law, disputes of a legal nature that are submitted to it by member States. It also gives advisory opinions on legal questions at the request of organs of the United Nations, such as the Security Council or specialised agencies authorised to make such a request.

In 2002, an International Criminal Court (“ICC”) was set up at The Hague as a permanent body for prosecuting individuals for crimes against humanity, genocide etc. So far 108 countries have signed the Rome Treaty that gave rise to the ICC. India and China have not signed up to the ICC. Israel and the United States became parties to this treaty (after some hesitation), but later withdrew from it. The ICC can only prosecute crimes committed on the territory of signatory states and by individuals who are citizens of a signatory state.

However, since over ten years, a third entity has been playing a role on global stage in the field of international justice. Spain’s National Criminal Court, the Audiencia Nacional, started to intervene in cases involving international human rights abuses over a decade ago. According to this BBC report, the Audiencia Nacional has been happily hearing and disposing cases involving human rights abuses from places as far afield as Guatemala, Rwanda, Chile, Tibet, Gaza and Guantanamo. No, not all cases have a Spanish link and the only justification for hearing such cases seems to be that they involve human rights violations or abuses of such a grave nature that they give raise to ‘universal jurisdiction’ and any court in the world would be justified in trying them. The only bar to the Audiencia Nacional trying a case is the knowledge that another court elsewhere is already on that case.

The main difference between the Audiencia Nacional and the ICJ is that ordinary mortals cannot take a dispute to the ICJ, whilst the Audiencia Nacional happily caters to individuals who are unable to obtain redress in their home states. As for the ICC, its jurisdiction is restricted to member states and it can only try offences committed after 1 July 2002 (when the Rome Treaty came into force) or the date when the relevant member state signed up to the Rome Treaty, which ever is later. If Israel were to sign up to this treaty in 2010, Israeli nationals cannot be tried for their actions during the January 2009 invasion of the Gaza Strip.

The most spectacular international case tried by the Audiencia Nacional was that of General Augusto Pinochet, the Chilean dictator. Based on an arrest warrant issued by the Audiencia Nacional, General Pinochet was arrested in the UK where he was undergoing medical treatment and placed under house arrest. After a lengthy court battle, he was released on medical grounds. On his return to Chile, he was indicted and another series of trials ensured. Before any conviction could be made, General Pinochet died on 10 December 2006. Even though General Pinochet was not formally punished, the international arrest warrant issued by the Audiencia Nacional almost delivered justice to his numerous victims.

Currently the Audiencia Nacional is considering action against Bush’s advisors who helped establish the legal basis for waterboarding and other interrogation tactics used at Guantanamo Bay. Also visible on the cross hairs are Israeli politicians and generals for their actions in the occupied territories during the recent invasion of Gaza and Chinese officials for alleged human rights violations in Tibet.

One of the reasons why the Audiencia Nacional is so much admired and feared is that many dictators and other nasty people like to travel to Europe for some decent R&R after having carried out various excesses back home. The threat of a warrant from the Audiencia Nacional has forced many a dictator to cancel his European travel plans.

The Spanish government has not been very happy with the actions of the Audiencia Nacional which are obviously not designed to improve Spanish relations with powerful and mighty states such as the United States and China. From time to time, the Spanish public prosecutor has tried to rein in the judges at the Audiencia Nacional, without much success. Therefore, it came as no bolt from the blue when the Spanish government formally took steps to curtail the Audiencia Nacional which not surprisingly has been the darling of human rights activists worldwide. The Spanish Parliament, the Cortes Generales, is all set to pass a law which will prevent Spanish courts from trying cases unless either the perpetrators or the victims are Spanish or there is some other link to Spain.

For various reasons, I’m glad that the Spanish government is clamping down on the judges at the Audiencia Nacional. My main reason is that I don’t like the idea of Spain (or any other country for that matter) taking on the role of a globo-cop. Spain has one of the worst records among the various colonial powers, it was an ally of Nazi Germany (though it didn’t take part in the Second World War) and had a horrible human rights record until General Franco’s death in 1975. It is only in the last thirty years or so that Spain, like most other Western powers, cleaned up its act. Memories of General Franco’s atrocities are still afresh and it rankles a bit when Spain unilaterally takes on the role of global arbitrator.

It is very tempting to saying that courts anywhere in the world ought to be entitled to try grave violations of human rights under ‘universal jurisdiction.’ However, despite claims by the judges at the Audiencia Nacional, we are yet to evolve a universally acceptable standard for ‘grave violations of human rights’. A judge in Saudi Arabia may decide that the CEO of a Scottish brewery is guilty of the worst form of abuse (by encouraging drinking) whilst a judge in Jakarta may rule that employees of an NGO working for Gay rights ought to be hanged. Further, if courts all over the world start trying alleged human rights violations, it is only a matter of time before biases start creeping in. Courts in Colombo may rule that fund raisers for the LTTE are all guilty of abetting the worst form of human rights violations, whilst Malaysian judges will not be sympathetic to companies supplying weapons to Israel.

Courts in Belgium used subscribe to the theory of universal jurisdiction on account of a 1993 law which purported to give Belgian courts jurisdiction over offences committed anywhere in the world if they are grave enough and contrary to basic human values. However, after the ICC came into existence in 2002, Belgium modified its laws and drastically reduced the scope of universal jurisdiction wielded by its courts.

Unlike Belgium, Spanish courts adopted the principle of universal jurisdiction without a specific legislation. Now it looks like they will have to be forced by the Cortes Generales to give up the power they took on ten years ago without statutory authority.

Gurkhas Seek Justice in UK, They Get The Law Instead

Vinod Joseph — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 08:53:32 EDT

Ever since the first Anglo-Nepalese war (1814-1816) when the Nepalese impressed the hells out of the Brits by their sheer grit and bravery, Gurkhas have been recruited into the British army. For the last odd 195 years, Gurkhas have served the British Empire and later the British government in various war zones. They fought against the Sikhs in both the Anglo-Sikh wars in 1846 and 1848. Later when the Bengal Regiment mutinied against the British, leading to the First War of Indian Independence, the Gurkhas (along with the Sikhs) stayed loyal to the British. They also fought for the British Empire in Burma and Afghanistan.

During the First World War, around 200,000 Gurkhas served with the British army, in the killing fields of France and Belgium and in Gallipoli and Mesopotamia, suffering around 20,000 casualties and winning over 2,000 gallantry awards. The number of Gurkha soldiers went over 250,000 during the Second World War. Though many a British Indian soldier defected to the Indian National Army, only a handful of Gurkhas deserted the British to fight for the Japanese.

After India’s independence in 1947, four of the ten Gurkha regiments in the British Indian army were transferred to the British army, while the remaining six went to the newly formed Indian army. Post 1947, the British army’s Gurkhas were based in Malaya and later in Hong Kong. They played an important role in crushing the communist insurgency in Malaya and also took part in the Falklands war.

After Hong Kong changed hands in 1997, the Gurkhas began to be stationed in the UK itself. On retirement, Gurkhas would return to Nepal and receive a pension, that was good money in Nepal, though much less than what the average British soldier received on retirement. Currently a Gurkha pensioner in Nepal is paid £173 a month, around three times the pension received by Gurkhas who served in the Indian army.

The Gurkhas are not the only foreigners to serve in the British army. However, they form the biggest chunk of foreign nationals serving the UK. Until the beginning of this century, there were very few foreigners in the British army, other than the Gurkhas. However, a shortage of recruits forced the British army to look to various commonwealth countries for additional manpower. The response was overwhelming. From the West Indies, Fiji and South Africa, foreign nationals responded in large numbers to join the British army. By 2005, there were almost 6,000 foreign nationals, other than Gurkhas, serving in the British army. The number increased to 7,000 in 2007. Since the Gurkhas number around 3,000, this meant that currently 10% of the 100,000-strong British army consists of foreigners. In the last two years, the British army has drastically reduced the intake of non-Gurkha foreigners into the army.

Since 1980, the Home Office has allowed foreign soldiers serving in the British army to settle in the UK under a policy called the Armed Forces Concession. However, Gurkhas have been excluded from the Armed Forces Concession since their terms of service did not provide for settlement in the UK. This position changed in 2004 when the Home Office changed the rules and extended the Armed Forces Concession to Gurkhas who had served in the army after 1997 (when the Gurkhas began to be stationed in the UK itself). Such Gurkhas could apply for settlement in the UK like other foreign soldiers in the British army. Those who retired prior to this date could not settle in the UK, since they had no ‘ties to the UK.’

In 2008, the 26,500 odd ex-Gurkhas receiving a British army pension in Nepal, who had been discharged out of Hong Kong prior to 1997, started a movement called the Gurkha Justice Campaign, for the right to settle in the UK. A review petition was filed in the High Court by five Gurkha veterans (Lance Corporal Gyanendra Rai, Rifleman Deo Prakash Limbu, Corporal Chakra Limbu, Lance Corporal Birendra Shrestha and Rifleman Bhim Gurung) and the widow of a Gurkha veteran (Mrs Gita Mukhiya) challenging the British government’s refusal to grant them entry visas. British actress Joanna Lumley whose father served with the Gurkhas, led the campaign.

In September 2008, the High court ruled that the policy which excluded Gurkhas who served prior to 1997 was unlawful. However, the High court also ruled that the difference in policy towards Gurkhas and other foreign soldiers was not racist. The Home Office was asked to issue new guidance on how applications from Gurkhas who retired before 1997 should be treated.

On 24 April 2009, a new policy was announced by the Home Office. Under the newly announced policy, there is no automatic right to settle in the UK for Gurkhas who retired before 1997. However, those pre-1997 Gurkhas who meet one of five conditions will qualify for UK settlement. The conditions are as follows:

1. Three years continuous residence in the UK during or after service. Gurkhas who quit before 1997 are unlikely to have this since they were based in Hong Kong.

2. Close family in the UK. Again, there will be very few pre-1997 Gurkhas who will have family members in the UK.

3. A bravery award of level one to three. The Gurkhas are brave, but not all soldiers win medals. Also, prior to 1997, there weren’t too many battles in which the UK was involved.

4. Service of 20 years or more in the Gurkha brigade. Only officers were allowed to serve for more than 20 years. Those who don’t make officer grade, are forced to quit earlier.

5. Chronic or long-term medical condition caused or aggravated by service.

The Home Office’s intention is obviously to make sure that not all of the 26,500 odd ex-Gurkhas receiving British army pensions in Nepal make it to the UK. The UK is in recession and though there is a great deal of public sympathy for the Gurkhas, admitting 26,500 pensioners and their families will definitely cost the British taxpayer. The Home Office has said that the new rules will allow about 4,300 more Gurkhas to settle in the UK, but the Gurkha Justice Campaign has said that not more than 100 Gurkhas will make it through under the new rules.

I have a great deal of sympathy for the Gurkhas, but it is not difficult to understand the British government’s position as well. The Gurkhas are foreigners hired under a contract to serve the UK. The Gurkhas have performed yeoman service, but that does not entitle them to anything more than what their service contracts state. When the pre-1997 Gurkhas were hired, they were never told that they would have the right to settle in the UK. It is true that foreigners other than Gurkhas have got a much better deal, but then contracts are like that. You get what you sign up to and this applies even to very brave soldiers, unless your employer decides to give you a bonus or a little extra. The Gurkhas sought justice, but found the law instead.

What Goes for the Terrorist Goose Doesn't Go For the Terrorist Gander

Vinod Joseph — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 23:09:28 EDT

The US Department of State has a beautiful and very impressive website. This splendid website has a section which lists out the foreign organizations that are designated by the Secretary of State under the Immigration and Nationality Act to be Foreign Terrorist Organizations. Sixteenth in this list of Foreign Terrorist Organisations, you will find the Hizballah, which the US Department of State has helpfully translated as the ‘Party of God’.

Since the Hizballah is a designated terrorist organisation, it should come as no surprise that on 23 April 2009, a Pakistani immigrant cable operator in New York City named Javed Iqbal was sentenced to almost 6 years in jail for offering his customers Al Manar TV, Hizballah’s TV channel through his Brooklyn-based satellite television company, HDTV Limited. Iqbal’s lawyers tried to argue that Iqbal did not offer Al Manar TV for ideological reasons. The forty-five year old father of five children whose wife is expecting a sixth one, also offered his customers a Christian evangelical channel, a gay and lesbian channel and adult movies. However, the judge bought the prosecutors’ argument that Iqbal was the Hizballah’s man in New York City. When Iqbal was originally arrested in August 2006, his defence lawyers had unsuccessfully tried to argue that he was entitled to distribute channels of his choice by virtue of his right to free speech under the first amendment.

Of course, the Hizballah is not the only foreign terrorist organisation listed by the US Department of State. If you will scroll down the list, you will find another organisation, very similar to the Hizballah, at number twenty six. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, which goes by the acronym LTTE, is not much different from the Hizballah. Like the Hizballah, the LTTE also recruits and uses suicide bombers. It doesn’t really care about the civilians it claims to fight for. In one respect the LTTE is much worse than the Hizballah, that is with regard to the use of forcibly recruited child soldiers.

Now that the LTTE is in its death throes, supporters of the LTTE based in western countries have taken to the streets in large numbers to pressurise their national governments to press the Sri Lankan government for a cease fire. In the United States, LTTE’s supporters have held rallies in front of the United Nations Building and elsewhere.

In Canada, supporters of the LTTE have blocked and closed down Ottawa's main Wellington Street, which is the main access road to Parliament Hill. They have been waving the LTTE’s flags.Something very similar is happening in London, where supporters of the LTTE have been besieging Parliament square for many days now, blocking traffic and making life difficult for commuters.

This is not to say that western nations have not cracked down on those raising funds or procuring weapons for the LTTE. They have.

It is interesting to see that while so many LTTE supporters freely proclaim their support for the LTTE and propagate its messages, especially over the internet, a man who distributed Al Manar is sentenced for almost 6 years.

Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, once an organisation is designated as a terrorist organisation, it is unlawful for any person in the United States or subject to the jurisdiction of the United States to knowingly provide "material support or resources" to such organisation. The Home Office doesn’t officially make a distinction between foreign terrorist organisations which fight US interests and the interests of its allies, like the Hizballah, and terrorist organisations which don’t directly harm US interests, like the LTTE. However, to my mind, it appears that this distinction is the only reason why the LTTE’s supporters in the US and other western countries get off so lightly when compared to supporters of organisations like the Hizballah.

Should India Speak Up for the European Romani?

Vinod Joseph — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 09:24:25 EDT

I heard of the Romani for the first time over a dozen years ago when I was still in college. Term was about to get over and we were all preparing to go home. A friend of mine was packing his bags to leave for Prague where his father, a diplomat, was posted. While we would catch a train or bus to get to our destinations, this chap would fly to Prague. Naturally we were all very jealous and it came as a surprise when my friend told me that Prague is not the nicest places on earth, for an Indian that is.

‘Why is that?’ I asked him.

‘Because Indians tend to get mistaken for Gypsies.’

‘Gypsies?’

‘That’s right. There are Gypsies in Prague who look like us.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah! And the Czechs don’t like the Gypsies.’

Apparently my friend was advised carry a book and wear glasses to show that he was educated and not a gypsy.

I didn’t give that conversation further thought till I came to the UK. Gypsies or Travellers are news items in the UK and they routinely hit the front pages, usually for the wrong reasons.

Most people in the UK hate Gypsies and Travellers, which terms are used interchangeably. Strictly speaking, Gypsies are people of South Asian origin and Travellers are people of Caucasian stock who follow nomadic ways. However, the pan-European term used for Gypsies of South Asian origin is Romani. In Central and Eastern Europe, they are called the Roma.

Almost all experts agree that the Romani one finds in Europe originated from the Indian sub-continent. There are various theories as to how they got to Europe. One theory is that the Romani are descendants of Indian soldiers defeated by Islamic invaders and taken to Central Asia as slaves. These slaves later migrated to Europe. Another theory is that they are the descendants of nomadic Indian tribes like the Banjara who happened to migrate out of India across the Hindu-Kush. In any event, it is agreed that the Romani left India during the 11th century and slowly made their way through Turkey and Greece into the heartland of Europe. Currently one can find Romani populations in Turkey, Greece, the Balkans, Romania, Hungary, Germany, the UK etc.

The Romani are mostly Christian, except in Turkey where they follow Islam. Romani values and practices are still that of a pre-industrial era. Joint families and child marriages are common. The various Romani dialects clearly show their South Asian origin. For example, numerals in Romani are strikingly similar to Hindi. Ekh, Duj, Trin, Star, Pandz, Des and Biz are One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Ten and Twenty respectively. If you wanted to say “My name is …” in Romani, you would say “Miro nav si” The Romani did not receive a warm welcome in Europe.

In order to make things easier for themselves, they gave out that they were Egyptians exiled for having harboured infant Jesus. The word ‘Gypsy’ arises out of ‘Aigyptoi’, the Greek word for Egypt. Despite this subterfuge, they were persecuted almost everywhere in Europe. In places like Moldavia and Walachia, the Romani were made slaves. They were at times (wrongly) associated with the Ottoman Empire and treated as Turkish spies.

The Romani have in various European countries been prohibited from owning horses or wagons, something de rigueur for their nomadic lifestyles and forcibly drafted into the army. Use of Romani language and attire was prohibited in Spain in an attempt to forcibly assimilate them into mainstream society. Persecution of the Romani did not decrease in the 19th and 20th centuries. In 1880, Argentina formally banned the migration of the Romani. The United States followed suit in 1885. Norway (may be with the best of intentions) forcibly took Romani children from their parents and placed them in state institutions so that Romani culture would be eradicated altogether.

Hitler paid special attention to the Romani. They definitely did not fit into his idea of a noble Aryan state and (possibly) a million Romani perished in Nazi concentration camps and gas chambers. I wonder if the Indians who still admire Hitler are aware that he killed over a million human beings on account of their South Asian appearance. Even after the second world, the Romani continued to face persecution, especially in Eastern Europe which tried to forcibly assimilate them into mainstream society. Romani language and music were banned in Bulgaria. In Czechoslovakia, many Romani were forcibly sterilised. I find it amazing that all this happened at a time when India was a Soviet ally. Surely the Indian government knew what was going on. Why didn’t someone at least protest?

After many Eastern European countries joined the EU, many Romani from Eastern European countries have tried to migrate to Western Europe along with other East Europeans. The welcome given to the Romani has been a substantially chillier than the less-than-warm welcome given to East Europeans in general. Italy fingerprints all Romani migrants and Romani settlements have been set on fire.

It must be said that the Romani do not show the slightest inclination to give up their nomadic way of living and adopt a mainstream lifestyle. Like any other community, the Romani have their share of pickpockets, thieves, murderers and other criminals. However, unlike other communities, since the Romani do not follow any fixed trade or profession, the entire community is easily stereotyped as a bunch of criminals. The Romani tend to be treated with suspicion by the police and other members of public. Harsh treatment and arbitrary arrests of the Romani tend to be higher than average. When all members of a community are considered to be criminals and nothing good is expected of them, the propensity to turn to crime increases.

All of this raises a very interesting question. Unlike the aborigines of Australia or the Native Americans, the Romani are not natives of Europe. They are immigrants. Are they entitled to the same rights and protections which aborigines and Native Americans have been granted in recent times to carry on with their traditional lifestyles? In a generous and prosperous world where there is enough for everybody, the answer could be a Yes. After all, the Romani have been in Europe for many centuries now. However, in a recession hit world, the answer is most likely to be a sad shake of the head.”

So far the Romani have not (to my knowledge) sought to rekindle their ties to India or any other South Asian country. This is doubtless on account of India’s poverty and the perceived lack of opportunities for new arrivals, vis-à-vis Europe. However, if the Romani continue to face persecution in Europe and if India’s economy does well (relatively), the Romani may (rightly in my opinion) look to India for assistance. If it does, I wonder if Free Market India will lend a helping hand to these poor and long lost people.