Morocco: SlutWalk Gets a Toehold - Hisham Almiraat

“Stand out for yourselves and demand respect. Shame has to switch sides!” This is the cri de guerre of Majdoline Lyazidi, the 20-year-old founder of SlutWalk Morocco, a Facebook page which aims at raising awareness against sexual harassment in the Moroccan society. The concept seems to be catching on, with more than 3,000 members joining in less than 15 days since the page was first created.

The SlutWalk protest marches started out in the city of Toronto, Canada, on April 3, 2011, as a movement against excusing rape by referring to a woman's appearance. It was sparked by a controversial statement made by one of the city's police officers who told a group of young female college students that to protect themselves against rapists “women should avoid dressing like sluts.” It quickly became a global movement with rallies and marches from Sydney to London. See Global Voices coverage on SlutWalks in Costa Rica, India, Brazil and Australia.

The concept didn't quite catch on in the Arab world. Some have blamed the fact on a culturally loaded, Western-centric campaign. Others explain that the region is busy fighting for greater change anyway. But there are those like Majdoline who think a genuine change must include the fight against gender-based forms of violence and a shift in the way women are treated in society.

In an interview with fellow Moroccan blogger Hind, Majdoline explains what inspired her in the first place:

[The SlutWalk movement] was a wake-up call for me. Growing up, I’ve never really understood why society kept teaching us the “don’t get raped” mentality instead of a “don’t rape” one, anchoring that way a never-ending victim blaming process of “she was asking/looking for it”.

I think it’s time to change this mentality, we’ve got to give a chance to the next generations to walk the moroccan streets feeling SAFE & RESPECTED, a feeling moroccan women are missing today.

Majdoline also recognizes the name of the campaign might be an issue:

We want this to be a Moroccan version of SlutWalk and we want it to be 100% moroccan, suiting our society, our community’s beliefs & values. But to tell you the truth, it’s hard to find a name as catchy as “SlutWalk”!

The group's founder has now teamed up with friends, young men and women, to push the idea forward. They have announced an imminent change in the group's name. Suggestions include WomenShoufoush, a play of words which in Moroccan Arabic alludes to seduction but can also be interpreted as a call to find a solution to a problem.

Reactions to the SlutWalk Morocco initiative were mostly supportive, but there are critics as well. The fact the group was launched halfway through the holy Muslim month of Ramadan seems to have angered blogger Youssef Boukhouya. He writes [fr]:

[C]ette petite communauté pointe son nez le mois sacré de Ramadan, ce qui représente un manque de respect envers les marocains, et pour exceller dans la bêtise mis à part qu’ils ont choisi un mauvais timing, ils ont pris un très mauvais exemple pour exprimer leurs soi-disant bonnes intentions avec « le mouvement SlutWalk » ou la marche des salopes tout simplement ! alors imaginez une foule de filles marocaines défiler dans les rues à moitié nues, et nous dire que c’est pour la bonne cause… eh ben C’EST DE LA FOUTAISE rien de plus ! et c’est une chose que je trouve personnellement horrible et inacceptable !

This small community has shown its face in the holy month of Ramadan.This is a lack of respect for Moroccans. And to add to this stupidity, not only have they chosen a bad timing, they also took a very bad example to express their so-called good intentions: with “the SlutWalk movement” or simply the walking sluts! Imagine a crowd of Moroccan girls parading through the streets half-naked, and they say it's for a good cause… Well let me tell you - this is rubbish! This is something that I personally find horrible and unacceptable!

For their part, Moroccans For Change question the wisdom of importing readily available protest methods from the West. They write:

Some of us feel the same way about the Moroccan version of SlutWalk. While we condemn violence against women, we wonder about blindly borrowed activism methods. Clearly, “No” means “No” means “No”. But what’s the Slutwalk have to do with Morocco?

Supporters of SlutWalk Morocco include blogger Mahmoud Khattab. He explains [fr] why he likes the idea:

Personnellement j’adhère au mouvement, par conviction, et par peur. J’ai peur pour ma mère, mes sœurs, mes tantes, ma grand-mère […], et puis j’adhère parce que je vois une lueur d’espoir, même petite mais qui mérite d’être supportée, pour une société qui respecte vraiment les femmes, nos femmes, vos femmes.

Personally I support the movement by conviction and also out of fear–fear for my mother, my sisters, my aunts, my grandmother. I'm also in favor because I see a glimmer of hope, however small, that should be supported in order for our society to be truly respectful of our women, your women.

In an interview with the local press, Majdouline says her group wants to remain independent but it is also open to feminist and human rights groups in Morocco to help it organize a march in favor of women's rights.

http://globalvoicesonline.org/2011/09/07/morocco-slutwalk-gets-a-toehold/

No longer a child ! - Ruba Monzir

Dear father,

I am not writing to ask about you, as I know you are safe where you are!

Neither am I writing to tell you how much tired my mum has been since you have gone!

I’m just writing because I need to talk with you, to tell you how badly I miss you..

I know the words of my letter will never be lightened by your sight. They can never be held by your kind hands, just like my other letters. I know they are all beyond the postman experience!

I wonder if you miss us, if you can hear me when I talk to you every night before sleeping!

I can feel your palm wipes my tears every night. I can see you wherever I look. I still can hear you clapping for me when I sang a full-of-mistakes song!

Daddy, I have never sung since you have gone!

You were asking me “how was your Eid” after every Eid. To tell you, this Eid, I didn’t enjoy the swings, while I was rushing with my siblings to have a turn on that big high swing in our narrow overcrowded street. I didn’t like the sweets as every Eid. I didn’t buy new clothes even.

My mother bought (Ali) new t-shirt and trousers, as he is the youngest and will like to have some, but daddy can you believe? Ali refused to wear them. He suddenly burst into tears and said, “ if baba is not going to give me (edeia), why should I wear new clothes?”!!

Ali has never liked guns and pistols. You know he used to be a very peaceful young boy. But can you imagine? The only toy he bought this Eid was a gun!!!

He once asked my mother, “Where is baba?” She replied, “In Paradise”

He does not know what the word “Paradise” means. He went to his room for some time, and came back to mum. Ali asked, “Mum, where is paradise?”

“In the sky” mum said.

That day, Ali kept looking at the sky endlessly. My mother asked, “what’s up Ali?”

He said, “I want to see daddy, he must appear”!!!

I was asking all the time, and sometimes your answer was, “I’ll till you when you grow up”

Once a talking, you told me, “When you grow up, I will buy you a cell phone”

“When you grow up, you will be a beautiful bride!”

I was asking my self, how can I grow up more quickly? When will I become the grown-up that my father tells her every thing with no when-you-grow-up statement?

Daddy, I have never thought of something that will make me grow up 10 years or more in only one day! My grief of your loss has made me that grown-up you told me about!

I am no longer a child; I started to understand many things you wanted to tell me when I grow up.

Daddy, I grew up, but you were not here!

I was asking my mother every morning, “whom you made the second cup for?” and she was not answering.

My mother is still making two cups of coffee every morning, but I stopped asking her!

I’m sure I’ll write for you again just like what I do every night, and I’m sure that you know every thing without reading my letters.

I love you Daddy..

by: Ruba Monzir

http://iamagazan.wordpress.com/2011/09/02/no-longer-a-child/

Ces révolutionnaires qui tuent la révolution tunisienne - JDEMPLOI

Les promesses n’engagent que ceux qui les croient. Et les promesses révolutionnaires exagérées sont, par les temps qui courent, douces aux oreilles d’un grand nombre. Hélas, elles sont contre-productives pour la Tunisie. Ce texte est à contre courant de ce climat révolutionnaire jusqu’au-boutiste mais en raison du contexte économique et géopolitique, il se veut au moins réaliste.

Sans compter l’ère Bourguiba, cela fait un peu plus de deux décennies que les mauvaises habitudes se sont installées en Tunisie. Jusqu’au 14 janvier 2011, au lieu de faire respecter la loi, le policier l’enfreignait, au lieu de trancher selon la loi, les magistrats jugeaient selon des intérêts intéressés, le journaliste maintenait son lecteur dans l’obscurité au lieu de l’informer et même l’imam, employé du gouvernement, se saoulait dès son prêche terminé.

Même le plus honnête des tunisiens, perdu au sens propre du terme, tout en refusant intérieurement cet état de fait, s’en accommodait et pour vivre comme tous les autres en acceptait les règles. Bref, ces mauvaises habitudes étaient devenues la norme pour tous.

Et vint le 14 janvier avec une aspiration du peuple tunisien vers une vie normale, régie comme dans tout pays développé, par des lois respectées qui confèrent une sécurité juridique à tous. S’en est suivi une multitude de revendications salariales, judiciaires, vis à vis de l’administration, de la police, etc… somme toute légitimes. 23 ans que la cocote minute chauffait, il était inévitable que ce flot de revendications à la fois expiatoire et légitime sorte.

Simplement, par peur d’être à contre courant ou par naïveté excessive, on a oublié de dire quelque chose à tous les révolutionnaires tunisiens et aux tunisiens tout court. Et de toute façon, qui aurait pu leur dire vu que cette révolution est orpheline de leaders? On a oublié de leur dire que 23 ans de mauvaises habitudes, ça ne se change pas comme cela, d’un coup de baguette magique en si peu de temps.

Quelqu’un a-t-il essayé de changer une habitude qu’il a depuis moins de temps que cela ? y est-il arrivé ? si oui, du premier coup ? si non, combien a t’il fallu essayé de fois avant d’atteindre le but visé ?. Le fumeur, l’alcoolique, le menteur, le voleur, arrive t’il à s’arrêter du premier coup ou cela prend il du temps avec des périodes de rechute ?. Là ou je veux en venir, c’est qu’on ne peut changer un système aussi dévoyé en si peu de temps. Ayons le courage de nous le dire et de le dire aux tunisiens. Le faire, ce n’est pas trahir la révolution ou jouer le jeu de l’ancien système, c’est du pragmatisme évitant beaucoup de frustrations et de dérapages incontrôlés.

Pourquoi  faut il avoir le courage de l’admettre? Parce que tout simplement l’Etat tunisien, qui est composé d’hommes et de femmes ordinaires qui ont baigné dans ce système pendant 23 ans et dont le changement de mentalité prendra du temps, ne changera pas du jour au lendemain. Il faut admettre que beaucoup de ses défauts perdureront dans le temps. Et agir en maintenant une pression exagérée constante risque d’être contre productif et  au final contre révolutionnaire. Exagérer en ne laissant pas les institutions prendre le temps de changer parce qu’on pense que le rapport de force est à l’avantage de la rue risque de braquer et rigidifier encore plus le système et de faire aller la Tunisie dans le mur. Ce système qui, pour se protéger, se recroquevillera sur lui même face à ce qu’il vit comme une agression.

Soyons réaliste. La Tunisie a t’elle les moyens aujourd’hui d’arrêter et de juger tous les juges, policiers, hommes d’affaires, journalistes, les indics (c’est à dire beaucoup de tunisiens) qui ont entretenu le système Ben Ali ? Et d’ailleurs, est-ce le moment ? Prenons l’exemple de l’appareil sécuritaire. Est-ce le moment de le déstabiliser alors qu’il fait face à des vraies menaces à nos frontières (circulation des armes lybiennes en raison de leur grand nombre, tension lybio/algérienne, ect…).

Et quand nos révolutionnaires jusqu’au boutistes verront qu’on a cassé un système policier certes perfectible mais qui jouait plus ou moins son rôle, assumera t’il cela quand le désordre regnera ? Quel solution proposeront t’ils ? vont t’il mettre en place, à la place de la police, des milices de quartier qui maintiendront l’ordre ? Pourquoi pas ? cela s’est déjà vu ailleurs. Mais qu’est ce qui nous garantie contre une résurgence du tribalisme et de la fin de notre unité nationale, chaque ville, quartier, tribu ayant sa façon particulière de fonctionner ? On a d’ailleurs vu le cas pratique il y a peu. Quand  l’Etat au travers de son armée ou police n’était pas là, nous retombions dans nos démons du tribalisme.

Attention, qu’on ne se trompe pas sur mes propos. Il faut bien sûr continuer à maintenir une pression pour évoluer. Il faut que justice passe quant aux martyrs, aux torturés, ect…. mais cela doit se faire dans l’ordre et la sérénité et de manière organisée.

CES REVOLUTIONNAIRES QUI ASSASSINENT LA LIBERTE D’EXPRESSION

Sous l’ancien régime, on ne pouvait parler ou écrire que pour louer Sidi Ben Ali. Toute plume ou parole libre était interdite sous peine de grands risques. L’un des plus grands bénéfices de l’ère post 14 janvier est sans doute le droit à l’information et à la liberté d’expression. Mais voilà que, o grand paradoxe, sous prétexte que la vox populi ou la rumeur révolutionnaire, a condamné un homme d’affaire, un homme politique, ect…..sans preuves, il devient interdit de l’interviewer.  Pire, certains qui ne faisaient que fumer la chicha toute la journée au café avant le 14 janvier se permettent maintenant d’accuser  des personnes, qui luttaient avant le 14 janvier contre Ben Ali, d’avoir retourné la veste juste parce qu’elles mènent une enquête sur une personnalité politique tunisienne honni !

Ou va t’on ? Au nom de quoi, ne peut on être informé librement ? Si un blogueur ou journaliste fait un article sur un personnage que l’on estime corrompu ou je ne sais quoi, libre ensuite au lecteur de faire son jugement, de considérer que le journaliste ou blogueur est un mercenaire de la plume qui fait plus de la propagande qu’un simple article. Libre au lecteur, s’il a des preuves contre le personnage de les avancer afin d’informer les lecteurs de  la supercherie. Un blog, ça se fait en cinq minutes et c’est gratuit ! Il peut même saisir la justice et déposer plainte contre le dit personnage. Par contre, s’il n’y a pas de preuves contre le personnage, alors jouons le jeu de ne pas tomber dans le délit d’intentions. Quelqu’un connaît il les intentions intérieures des gens, peut-il lire dans la pensée des autres ? Il ne s’agit pas ici d’être naif mais simplement de batir un système ou seuls les faits comptent. Nous sommes sortis d’un temps où le délit d’intention était la norme. Est-ce pour y revenir au nom de la Révolution ? Staline avait fait la même chose au nom des principes révolutionnaires léninistes pour au final donner lieu à une période pire que celle que les russes connaissaient sous le Tsar.

Ce qui est le plus injuste, ce sont ces soi-disants révolutionnaires qui profitent de l’anonymat d’internet. Ils  confondent champs de bataille médiatique et débat d’idées. Ainsi, sans parler des insultes, invectives et diffamations, voilà que de graves et fausses informations  circulent sur des personnalités voire même des inconnus. Je dis grave car cela peut déraper à tout moment. Ces fausses informations étant par les temps qui courent, où beaucoup de tunisiens ont la haine de l’ancien régime, des véritables pousse au crime.

Ainsi, dernièrement, en surfant sur internet, je suis tombé sur un article ou l’on montrait la photo, le nom et le prénom d’un internaute tunisien en indiquant que c’était un ancien du rcd et qu’il militait dans tel parti politique  et qu’il fallait donc s’opposer à lui à tout prix. Quand on recherche sur internet, on ne trouve rien sur l’heureux gagnant de cette mauvaise blague. Je prends cet exemple anecdotique car l’individu concerné est un gars du peuple sans aucune importance. Qui nous dit alors que tout cela n’est pas plus qu’un règlement de compte entre voisins. Le voisin accusateur profitant de l’époque pour se venger  en accusant l’individu montré d’être un ancien du rcd et lui causer des ennuis? Est ce pour cela que la révolution a été faite, accuser, comme sous l’ancien régime, des innocents ?

Dès qu’une personne a été accusée sur internet, vu la rapidité de circulation de l’information, il est très difficile de réparer une erreur si l’information est fausse. Ceux qui se sont sacrifiés durant cette révolution nous ont donné un cadeau précieux, un puissant pouvoir. La possibilité de dire aux autres nos pensées, de nous exprimer. Va t’on se servir de ce trésor pour débiter qu’insultes, faux témoignages et rumeurs calomnieuses !

Passé le quart d’heure de défoulement dû à 23 ans de mutisme forcé, le mitraillage médiatique qui part dans tous les sens n’a plus lieu d’être. Attention aux dérapages, cela pourrait d’ailleurs servir de prétexte aux vraix anti-révolutionnaire pour revérouiller le système de l’information au prétexte qu’il y a trop de débordements, diffamations, menaces, ect.

CES REVOLUTIONNAIRES QUI FONT AUGMENTER LE CHOMAGE

J’ai assisté médusé mais aussi amusé aux premières heures de révolution aux haies d’honneurs avec gifles faites par certains salariés à leur patrons. Les salariés étaient remontés et ont fait payé à leur dictateur/chef d’entreprise tous ce qu’ils avaient subi.

Mais aujourd’hui, où en sommes-nous ? Les choses se sont elles calmées ? le climat dans les entreprises est-il plus serein et le climat pour les entreprises est-il bon ? Et bien non et la situation est parfois ubuesque comme ce qu’ont vécu les tunisiens avec la Transtu à l’occasion du combat de coqs syndicalistes. Non seulement, les usagers tunisiens, déjà en galère dans ces bus bondés quand tout va bien, ont été pris en otage pour une affaire difficilement compréhensible, mais, en plus, la dite affaire aggrave par ailleurs davantage la situation financière de l’entreprise.

Et s’il n’y avait que cela. Selon certains révolutionnaires inconscients, tous les chefs d’entreprise tunisiens sont mis dans le même sac quant à leur connivence supposée avec l’ancien régime. Il suffit d’être riche pour susciter la jalousie et être considéré comme un corrompu en puissance, un parasite du système. Pour eux, un chef d’entreprise honnête, ça n’existe pas ! En plus d’être fausses – seuls ceux qui ont une entreprise peuvent appréhender le stress et la charge de travail que cela représente -, ces idées risquent de conduire notre économie dans le mur rapidement. Comment, en effet, les entreprises vont elle supporter tous ces sit-in qui, pour une grande partie, sont injustifiés, ces demandes irréalistes d’augmentation de salaire, ce climat qui les empêche d’investir et d’avoir confiance en l’avenir ? Comment veut-on que le chômage soit combattu quand des entreprises étrangères désireuses d’investir diffèrent leur projet en attendant de voir comment les choses évoluent ?

Au début, je me disais que le maintien de l’économie à flot ne doit pas être un prétexte pour stopper la révolution. Mais, à un moment donné, il faut savoir faire preuve de discernement, prendre une pause dans les revendications, et ne pas se suicider économiquement. Est-ce que ce sont ces révolutionnaires aux revendications utopiques qui vont  créer des emplois a la place de ces entreprises étrangères et tunisiennes ?. La révolution reposait en partie  sur le ras le bol social face au chômage. Les révolutionnaires qui font peur aux entreprises vont-ils dans le sens de cette revendication ?

Casser le tissu économique, faire des déclarations médiatiques musclés contre l’entreprise ou des chefs d’entreprise n’est ni plus ni moins que du populisme. Lorsque le climat deviendra invivable pour les entreprises tunisiennes, elles fermeront. Leurs patrons, parce qu’ils en ont les moyens, n’auront aucun mal à partir à l’étranger le temps que les choses se calment. Seuls resteront, encore une fois, les pauvres ouvriers qui seront rétrogradées du statut de travailleur pauvre vers le statut de chômeur. Quant aux entreprises étrangères, elles délocaliseront en Europe de l’est ou en chine. Ce n’est pas plus compliqué que cela. A ce moment on tirera le trait de l’addition et l’addition sera salée en terme d’augmentation du chomage. Les révolutionnaires jusqu’au boutiste en assumeront ils les conséquences ?

LE REALISME DANS L’ACTION ET L’ACTION SUR LA DUREE

De la même façon qu’un mensonge répété mille fois ne devient pas une vérité, l’exagération révolutionnaire, fut elle impressionnante,  ne fait pas loi. La révolution est une opération chirurgicale consistant en l’ablation d’une tumeur cancéreuse dans le corps tunisien. Il faut  supprimer totalement cette tumeur car n’en laisser ne serait-ce qu’une partie et le mal repartira rapidement. Mais il faut aussi agir sans trop forcer et en prenant garde de ne pas léser les organes limitrophes sains à défaut de quoi l’opération ne guérira pas le malade mais aggravera son état de santé. Si la révolution devient l’anarchie, elle aura perdu tout son sens et sa légitimité. Ne tuons pas la révolution tunisienne en laissant certains exagérer.

Beaucoup trouveront mon texte contre révolutionnaire. Il ne l’est pas. Mais de la même façon que  je demande la libération de Samir Feriani, je dis que trop de révolution tue la révolution et les premiers perdants seront les tunisiens eux mêmes. Après la révolution, il faut viser l’évolution. Après la destruction des symboles du passé, il faut construire notre Tunisie nouvelle. Si nous restons prisonniers de notre passé sans regarder l’avenir nous serons condamnés à faire du sur place.

Au moment où c’est à la mode d’être un révolutionnaire jusqu’au boutiste et qu’on tire médiatiquement sur tous ceux qui ne vont pas dans ce sens, il faut avoir le courage de dire, vu le contexte économique du monde et le contexte géopolitique à nos frontières, qu’il faut ne pas exagérer dans notre révolution. Il faut réclamer la justice pour toutes les familles des martyrs, pour tous les abus passés, négocier salarialement, demander le respect de la police, mais nous devons le faire dans un climat serein, apaisé et dans l’unité nationale.

Ne nous dévalorisons pas. Nous avons une véritable intelligence et savoir vivre reconnus et cela mérite que nous ayons un meilleur cadre de vie. Mais n’exagérons pas. Notre pays est un petit pays. En étant unis, et en nous mobilisant totalement, ce n’est pas dit que notre pays s’en sortira rapidement. Alors que dire si nous nous noyons dans la division et les surenchères révolutionnaires stériles. La révolution passée, cherchons l’évolution dans l’intelligence, la douceur et le pragmatisme.  Les temps l’exigent pour notre bien à tous et surtout pour celui de notre pays.

JDEMPLOI

http://lecercle.lesechos.fr/economie-societe/international/afrique/221137290/revolutionnaires-tuent-revolution-tunisienne

This Labor Day—Stand up and stop the rapes at Wal-Mart, Hanes and Sears supplier in Jordan - Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights

Dear Friends,

In honor of Labor Day, we are launching a second petition drive,  asking Queen Rania of Jordan—herself a leading women’s rights advocate—to intervene to stop the sexual abuse and gross violations against the 5,000 young Sri Lankan, Bangladeshi and Indian women workers at the Classic sweatshop.
Queen Rania launched the “Stop Violence Against Women” campaign in Jordan in 2004.

“At least one out of every three women in the world has been beaten or abused. It is a worldwide shame. And no country has won that battle yet.”

                                                                                    - Queen Rania

Also, if you have not done so already, please sign the petition to Wal-Mart, Hanes, Sears, Target, Macy’s and Kohl’s to stop the rapes at the Classic sweatshop in Jordan—and please spread the word to your family and friends.   The good news is that to date 138,932 people have signed the petition on Change.org!

 

Student Power:  Chicago High School Students Leaflet Sears!

Nine high school students joined by a faculty member handed out over 650 flyers outside Sears’ flagship store on State Street in Chicago on Sunday, August 28. Over 100 shoppers approached the students asking for more information about Sears’ sweatshop production across the developing world. They plan to do this weekly until the abuse is ended. The students also found Lands’ End fleece garments that were made at the brutal Classic factory in Jordan. Two hundred and fifty students at Dundee Crown High School have joined the Youth Labor Committee to support the rights of young people—often their same age—across the developing world, who are locked in sweatshops, paid pennies an hour to produce the goods we buy. The Youth Labor Committee is now spreading to other high schools in the Chicago area.

 

More Rapists Emerge at Classic Sweatshop in Jordan
Anil Santha--Classic’s general manager, who is also a serial rapist--has left Jordan, scurrying back to Sri Lanka. Anil is not stupid.  He knows exactly how many young women he has brutally raped. If the repression at Classic is ever lifted allowing the rape victims come forward, Anil knows he will rot in prison for the rest of his life.
With Anil gone, Classic’s corrupt owner, Sanal Kumar, has put a Bangladeshi production manager, Mr. Faruk Miah, in charge of threatening and coaching the young Bangladeshi and Sri Lankan women, instructing them to lie that factory conditions are good and the women are treated with respect.
The only problem is that Mr. Faruk Miah is himself a rapist! He violently raped a young Bangladeshi woman in her dorm. After the victim threatened to denounce him, Faruk Miah locked her in the dorm for three weeks before forcibly deporting her back to Bangladesh under false charges. (Within a matter of days, a video tape interview with the rape victim will be available.)

 

More Trouble and Abuse in Jordan

Four hundred Bangladeshi garment workers have struck the Chinese-owned IBGM factory over miserable and harsh sweatshop conditions. Management responded by invading the women’s dorm, beating the women and dragging them back to the factory. Two male workers were burned when managers forcibly held their hands to hot press machines. Twelve workers suspected of being strike leaders have been fired and are to be forcibly deported.

What sense does it make for Chinese-owned factories in Jordan to hire exploited guest workers from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and India, strip them of their rights, abuse them, and then export these sweatshop garments duty-free to the U.S.?

Is this how the U.S.-Jordan Free Trade Agreement was meant to function? Of course not. But we must now demand that the Jordanian Ministry of Labor finally implement the worker rights provision in the Free Trade Agreement.
Surely the IBGM managers who have brutally beaten and deliberately inflicted serious burns on their employees must face criminal prosecution. The Ministry of Labor cannot remain so passive. If factory managers violently and illegally abuse workers, they must be held accountable. If they sat in jail a few months, it would likely have a very positive impact on their behavior.
Note: The Jordanian Ministry of Labor has inexplicably rewarded the Chinese-owned IBGM sweatshop by putting it on the Ministry’s “Golden List” of better factories in Jordan. What is going on? Can the Ministry of Labor possibly explain this?

STUDENT POWER! This year, students and their parents will spend $68.8 billion on back to school goods! There are 76 million elementary, high school and college students in the United States. - 16 million high school students will spend an average of $604 each on back to school purchases. - On average, 20.6 million college students will spend $809 each. Collectively, college students will spend $46.03 billion on back to school shopping. - Did you know that for the big retailers, back to school spending is second only to the winter holidays? - Corporations want to “brand” students while they are young—so they will be loyal consumers for the rest of their lives. They are desperately afraid that young people will stand up, begin asking serious questions, and join the campaign to hold corporations accountable to respect human and workers rights!

Where are the Police when the Workers are Beaten?  Mr. Sadi, a Jordanian manager at the Chinese-owned IBGM sweatshop, acted deliberately and forcibly to inflict paid by burning the hands of two foreign guest workers in retaliation for their seeking their legal rights. However, when the injured workers when to the Jordanian police to file a complaint, they were summarily dismissed. Mr. Sadi and several other abusive IBGM managers should be fired for routinely punching and slapping the workers, forcing them to work excessive overtime hours without pay. The abusive supervisors are: Sohel, Alamgir, Babul, Arif, Zia andHakim.

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Please ask Queen Rania and Princess Basma to intervene to stop the sexual abuse and gross violations against the 5,000 young Sri Lankan, Bangladeshi and Indian women workers at the Classic sweatshop.

Go to the Classic-Jordan Campaign page for a full list of reports, action alerts, news articles, testimony videos and transcripts related to this case.

Read the new report, “Another Crisis in Jordan: Workers Strike the IBGM Factory over Illegal Sweatshop Conditions, Strikers Beaten and Threatened with Forcible Deportation”

25 Years Later, How ‘Top Gun’ Made America Love War - David Sirota

Americans are souring on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The military budget is under siege as Congress looks for spending to cut. And the Army is reporting record suicide rates among soldiers. So who does the Pentagon enlist for help in such painful circumstances?

Hollywood.

In June, the Army negotiated a first-of-its-kind sponsorship deal with the producers of “X-Men: First Class,” backing it up with ads telling potential recruits that they could live out superhero fantasies on real-life battlefields. Then, in recent days, word leaked that the White House has been working with Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow on an election-year film chronicling the operation that killed Osama bin Laden.

A country questioning its overall military posture, and a military establishment engaging in a counter-campaign for hearts and minds — if this feels like deja vu, that’s because it’s taking place on the 25th anniversary of the release of “Top Gun.”

That Jerry Bruckheimer blockbuster, made in collaboration with the Pentagon, came out in the mid-1980s, when polls showed many Americans expressing doubts about the post-Vietnam military and about the constant saber rattling from the White House. But the movie’s celebration of sweat-shined martial machismo generated $344 million at the box office and proved to be a major force in resuscitating the military’s image.

Not only did enlistment spike when “Top Gun” was released, and not only did the Navy set up recruitment tables at theaters playing the movie, but polls soon showed rising confidence in the military. With Ronald Reagan wrapping military adventurism in the flag, with the armed forces scoring low-risk but high-profile victories in Libya and Grenada, America fell in love with Maverick, Iceman and other high-fivin’ silver-screen super-pilots as they traveled Mach 2 while screaming about “the need for speed.”

Today, “Top Gun” lives on in cable reruns, in the American psyche and, most important, in how it turned the Hollywood-Pentagon relationship into a full-on Mav-Goose bromance that ideologically slants films from their inception.

The 1986 movie, starring Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis, was the template for a new Military-Entertainment Complex. During production, the Pentagon worked hand-in-hand with the filmmakers, reportedly charging Paramount Pictures just $1.8 million for the use of its warplanes and aircraft carriers. But that taxpayer-subsidized discount came at a price — the filmmakers were required to submit their script to Pentagon brass for meticulous line edits aimed at casting the military in the most positive light. (One example: Time magazine reported that Goose’s death was changed from a midair collision to an ejection scene, because “the Navy complained that too many pilots were crashing.”)

Although “Top Gun” was not the first movie to exchange creative input for Pentagon assistance and resources, its success set that bargain as a standard for other filmmakers, who began deluging the Pentagon with requests for collaboration. By the time the 1991 Persian Gulf War began, Phil Strub, the Pentagon’s liaison to the movie industry, told the Hollywood Reporter that he’d seen a 70 percent increase in the number of requests from filmmakers for assistance — effectively changing the way Hollywood works.

As Mace Neufeld, the producer of the 1990 film “The Hunt for Red October,” later recounted to Variety, studios in the post-“Top Gun” era instituted an unstated rule telling screenwriters and directors to get military cooperation “or forget about making the picture.” Economics drives that directive, Time magazine reported in 1986. “Without such billion-dollar props, producers [have to] spend an inordinate amount of time and money searching for substitutes” and therefore might not be able to make the movie at all, the magazine noted.

Emboldened by Hollywood’s obsequiousness, military officials became increasingly blunt about how they deploy the carrot of subsidized hardware and the stick of denied access to get what they want. Strub described the approval process to Variety in 1994: “The main criteria we use is . . . how could the proposed production benefit the military . . . could it help in recruiting [and] is it in sync with present policy?

Robert Anderson, the Navy’s Hollywood point person, put it even more clearly to PBS in 2006: “If you want full cooperation from the Navy, we have a considerable amount of power, because it’s our ships, it’s our cooperation, and until the script is in a form that we can approve, then the production doesn’t go forward.”

The result is an entertainment culture rigged to produce relatively few antiwar movies and dozens of blockbusters that glorify the military. For every “Hurt Locker” — a successful and critical war film made without Pentagon assistance — American moviegoers get a flood of pro-war agitprop, from “Armageddon,” to “Pearl Harbor,” to “Battle Los Angeles” to “X-Men.” And save for filmmakers’ obligatory thank you to the Pentagon in the credits, audiences are rarely aware that they may be watching government-subsidized propaganda.


Until this year, this Top Gun Effect seemed set in stone. But a quarter-century after that hagiographic tribute to the military’s “best of the best,” an odd alignment of partisan interests has prompted some in Congress to question the arrangement.

Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.), who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, recently sent letters to the CIA and the Defense Department demanding an investigation of the upcoming Bin Laden movie. He criticized the practice of granting ideologically compliant filmmakers access to government property and information that he says should be available to all. The “alleged collaboration belies a desire of transparency in favor of a cinematographic view of history,” he argued.

Considering King’s previous silence on such issues, it’s not clear whether he’s standing on principle; more likely, he is trying to prevent a particular piece of propaganda from aiding a political opponent. Yet, even if inadvertent, King’s efforts make possible a broader look at how the U.S. government uses taxpayer resources to suffuse popular culture with militarism.

If and when King holds hearings on the matter, we could finally get to the important questions: Why does the Pentagon treat public hardware as private property? Why does the government grant and deny access to that hardware based on a filmmaker’s willingness to let the Pentagon influence the script? And doesn’t such a practice violate the First Amendment’s prohibition against government abridging freedom of speech?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/25-years-later-remembering-how-top-gun-changed-americas-feelings-about-war/2011/08/15/gIQAU6qJgJ_story.html

David Sirota is is a syndicated columnist, radio host and the author of “Back to Our Future: How the 1980s Explain the World We Live in Now.”

A Collected Zakat - Shaykh Dr. Abdalqadir as-Sufi - 27/08/2011

Allah the Exalted says (2:208):

You who believe! enter Islam totally.
Do not follow in the footsteps of Shaytan.
He is an outright enemy to you.

Tawus and Mujahid said that it means, “Enter under the authority of the Deen.”

The entry of a new generation of Muslims obeying this ayat will mean a revival of Islam and the end of “Islamism”, that is the Deen reduced to a political doctrine like communism or liberalism.

The Deen is transactional – Mu’amala.

Islam has always been understood, until the modernist politicised sects, as being set up on rulings concerning Salat, fasting, Zakat, Hajj and all the specific and general rulings on trade and contracts with specific indications to assure avoidance of usury. In this last Imam Malik used a method specially to assure application of the Shari’at in this matter which he defined as Sadd adh-Dhara-i’, that is “cutting off the means to wrong”.

‘Umar ibn al-Khattab said: “No one should trade in our market except someone with Fiqh. Otherwise usury will be practised.” The Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, “A time will come upon people when there will not be anyone left who does not consume usury, and even one who does not consume it will be touched by its dust.”

Allah the Exalted says (2:275):

Those who practise usury will not rise from the grave
except as someone driven mad by Shaytan’s touch.

Our great mufassir, Ibn ‘Atiyya, said on this: “The words of the ayat contain a simile for the state of someone who engages in trade in this world with avarice and greed, comparing him to a madman because greed and desire affect him to the extent that his limbs become disordered. This is like when you say, ‘He’s mad!’ about someone walking quickly whose movements are agitated, either by anxiety or something else.”

This confirms my position that capitalism is not in fact a system but a psychosis.

Political democracy which pretends to permit elected representatives to make laws on your behalf has altered its writ of governance in order to take on debt on your behalf which now you are liable for – to the usurious institutions. That contract itself is criminal for us. Doubly so. Since the debt incurred on you as citizen is then sold on to other national banking entities.

Allah the Exalted says (5:1):

Fulfil your contracts.

Mass or group, indeed national endebtment is simply inconceivable within the deep sanity of Islamic Law.

Do not be misled by people who imply that our opposition to usury/capitalism implies some disdain of or recommendation to avoid wealth. What is at issue is practice by which wealth is acquired.

Rasul, Allah’s blessings and peace on him, said: “Nothing helped me like the property of Abu Bakr.”

And he told Sa’d: “It is better to leave rich heirs than to leave them poor, begging from other people.”

Talha left three hundred thousand measures and every measure weighed three hundred-weight.

Az-Zubayr left two hundred and fifty thousand.

Ibn Mas’ud left seventy thousand. Sufyan left two hundred Dinars. He used to say, “Wealth in this time is an armour.”

The civic responsibility of Muslims today is to make Jama’at and appoint an Amir. The Fuqaha are advisers and not necessarily leaders. He in turn must appoint the Zakat Collectors. It must be understood that there is no Zakat on paper money and this has no debate since the matter was definitively clarified by our Mauritanian scholars.

There is one further matter which will have to be confronted especially by our poor lost Arab brothers plunged in the crisis of the paper-money capitalism which they have mistaken for a political matter of dictatorship when it is clearly a fiduciary collapse – why else did they wait forty or so years to cry “freedom”?

There is Zakat on oil. It clearly comes under the heading of Zakat on mines and minerals, rather than that of treasure. If it is defined under the rulings concerning treasure the Khums is payable, but since oil is effectively mined, using labour, the normal Zakat on the extracted mineral will be the same amount as taken on gold and silver mines.

The only path to a return to Islam for the Arab peoples is to restore the Zakat on oil. The only path to a return to Islam for our Muslim ‘Umma is to restore a collected Zakat overseen by an Amir at the level of the local Jama’at.

Remember the fast purifies the body. Zakat purifies wealth and property. Without Zakat – Tasawwuf simply cannot exist.

We ask Allah’s tremendous Bounty and Sakinah, and Fatihah on all the followers of the Best of Mankind, Allah bless him and grant him peace.

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“ The only path to a return to Islam for the Arab peoples is to restore the Zakat on oil. ”