Showing posts with label colonialism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label colonialism. Show all posts

Monday, December 04, 2023

Rap of liberation from occupation... “Lowkey” and the mixture of languages and singing arts in “Palestine Will Never Die”

    Monday, December 04, 2023   No comments

British rapper Lowkey and his fellow singer Mai Khalil released a remarkable lyrical work entitled “Palestine Will Never Die,” which combines singing and rap, Arabic and English lyrics, and the arts of speech, poetry, prose, and lyrical performance.

Lowkey said that they were inspired to work by the works of the Lebanese artist, singer and composer Ahmed Kaabour, who is known for his works that carry the hopes and pain of the Palestinian people, the most famous of which are “I Call You” and “O Pulse of the West” (In the West Bank I have seven children) and others.

Lowkey added that the song - which is characterized by multiple rhythms and poetry - is “our humble contribution to this just cause and an attempt to empower young people in the West who have a passion for liberating Palestine,” considering that the words gave them goosebumps and reflect the current reality.

He added, "We hope that the song will give more courage and boldness to those who speak about Palestine, so that they are not afraid to confront the Zionist lobby in their countries," considering that the circumstances that inspired the song are "the feeling of impotence and political paralysis... and it is our right in the West to stand in solidarity with our people."

Lowkey pointed out that they chose to mix Arabic and English in the song, because that mix “reflects the reality in which we live,” stressing that they were inspired by traditional words to benefit new generations and deepen their connection to their past.

Regarding the use of different musical genres in one song, Lowkey said that they wanted to prove that "the Arabs are not in a state of cultural schizophrenia. On the contrary, our exposure to multiple arts leads to enriching our abilities to describe our bitter reality."

He said that he sees rap as "an important part of this process, especially how it makes people interact with others directly."   

  

Monday, September 18, 2023

The neocolonial food economy: How Bill Gates and others threaten Africa's agricultural future?

    Monday, September 18, 2023   No comments

A report on the American “The Nation” website, under the title “The New Colonial Food Economy,” by Alexander Zaitchik, author of the book “Owning the Sun” - A History of the Medical Monopoly, spoke about the consequences of the actions of the global billionaire Bill Gates and other business giants in the areas of food. And agriculture, on small farmers in Africa and the countries of the South.

“Last summer, the global trading system finalized the details of the revolution in African agriculture,” the report stated, explaining that “under the project, the trade bodies sponsoring the African Continental Free Trade Area seek to restrict all 54 African countries to a model “It aims to replace farmers’ traditions and practices, which have persisted on the continent for thousands of years.”

He continued, "The main goal is farmers' human right to seeds and crops, and to share and cultivate them according to personal and societal needs."

"By allowing corporate property rights to replace local seed management, the protocol is the latest front in a global battle over the future of food," he adds.

Based on draft laws written by Western seed companies more than three decades ago in Geneva, the new generation of agricultural reforms seek to impose legal and financial penalties across the African Union on farmers who fail to adopt seeds manufactured abroad and protected by patents, including This includes genetically modified versions of local seeds, according to the report.

The resulting seed economy would turn African agriculture into a bonanza for global agribusiness, foster export-oriented monocultures, and undermine resilience during a period of profound climate disruption.

This new seed economy includes not only major seed and biotechnology companies, but also sponsor governments, in a more complex and controversial effort to re-engineer global agriculture for the benefit of biotechnology and agribusiness, not for the benefit of African farmers or the climate, the report asserts.

The author adds, “Tightening ownership laws on farms across the African Union would represent a major victory for global economic powers, which have spent the past three decades campaigning to undermine farmer-run seed economies and oversee their forced integration into global agribusiness value chains.”

These changes threaten the livelihoods of Africa's small farmers and their collective vital biological heritage, including a number of staple grains, legumes and other crops, which their ancestors developed and protected since the dawn of agriculture.

For farmers who are on the path to a global market drive to standardize and privatize their seeds, the risks are simply preserving their right to economic self-determination.

In a statement to the website, one of the farmers warns: “Companies have changed our food culture... They are now using threats to change our agricultural culture. If we replace traditional seeds with foreign seeds that cannot be replanted, what happens if the new seeds do not arrive? It is an attack on our survival!” .

Tuesday, September 05, 2023

Rights matters: Muslims right to education is superseded by France's commitment to secularism

    Tuesday, September 05, 2023   No comments
As the new academic year starts, Muslims’ right to education in Europe is denied in order to uphold and enforce secularism. This seems to be the logical conclusion of the events taking place in France this week: Muslim men and women who are wearing traditional clothes are denied entry to schools unless they take off such clothes and wear French style clothes; many refused to do so.

Agence French Presse reports the latest display of European religious tolerance in France with the banning of 67 girls from attending school for wearing the abaya on the first day of the school year. 

300 girls defied a ban on the wearing of the religious garment in protest to the recent ruling by the French government that the long robe worn by some Muslims breached rules on secularism in schools. 

French President Macron had earlier sought to link the wearing of religious dress with the murder of school teacher, Samuel Paty three years ago, saying "we cannot act as if the terrorist attack, the murder of Samuel Paty, had not happened". 


67 of the girls refused to change and were banned from attending classes, ensuring the safety of the Republic from modestly dressed observant school children.

  

Girls in a defiant scene wear abayas in schools despite the ban on the abaya in France..and the authorities send them back to their homes..and the French Council for the Islamic Religion considers banning the abaya an “arbitrary” decision


Late Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron defended this measure, stressing that it aims to defend secularism and the principles of the republic. He also mentioned the terrorist attacks that the country witnessed, especially the killing of Professor Samuel Paty, who was beheaded by a jihadist near his school.

In an interview with YouTuber Ugo Decrypt on his channel, Macron said, "We also live in our society with a minority, with people who change the direction of a religion and come to challenge the Republic and secularism." "Sometimes the worst happened," Macron added. We cannot act as if there had been no terrorist attack and there was no Samuel Paty."

On October 16, 2020, Professor of History and Geography Samuel Paty (47 years old) was stabbed to death in front of his school in the Parisian region, by the Chechen jihadist Abdullah Anzorov, who beheaded the teacher before the police shot him dead. This professor was killed days after he showed his students, during a class on freedom of expression, caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. The jihadist said in an audio recording that he had committed his act "in retaliation for the Prophet."

An association representing Muslims has applied to the Council of State, France's highest court for complaints against state authorities, to issue an injunction against the ban on the abaya and chemise, the equivalent dress for men.

The "Action for Muslim Rights" memorandum will be considered later Tuesday.

According to the law of March 15, 2004, which prohibits the wearing of signs or clothes that show religious affiliation, students in violation are allowed to enter the school, not the classroom, provided that a dialogue takes place between the family and the Ministry of Education. This includes Christian crosses, Jewish skullcaps and Islamic headscarves.

However, unlike the veil, the abaya was not clearly defined within this law.

For its part, the official body representing Islam in France considered on Tuesday that the recent ban on the cloak in schools in France is "arbitrary" and creates "high risks of discrimination" against Muslims.

In the name of the principle of secularism, the French government announced at the end of August the ban on wearing the abaya in schools because of its controversial religious nature. In France, it is forbidden to wear religious symbols in schools under a law passed in 2004.

The French Council for the Islamic Religion considered that the absence of "a clear definition of this dress creates, in fact, an ambiguous situation and judicial insecurity."

This body noted in particular that the abaya can sometimes be considered “Islamic” – and thus prohibited – and at other times “un-Islamic” and therefore permitted.

As a result, the council expressed its fear of “arbitrary control,” as the criteria for evaluating girls’ dress are based on “presumed origin, last name, or skin color.”

Therefore, the authority warns that it reserves the right to take legal action “if the concrete application of this prohibition leads to forms of discrimination.” She added that the cloak "was never a garment or a religious guide."

About 300 female students out of 12 million who started the school year wearing the abaya this week attended schools on Monday, and 67 of them were sent home because of their refusal to comply with the government decision, according to figures announced by the Ministry of National Education on Tuesday.

Banning the abaya in schools is controversial in France, where the left asserts that this measure hides more pressing problems in national education, such as a shortage of teachers.


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Monday, September 04, 2023

Media Review: Africa's French-backed governments are falling one after the other, is Senegal Next?

    Monday, September 04, 2023   No comments

Der Spiegel asked the same question: Another pro-French regime is shaking... Will Senegal be next?

The German newspaper "Der Spiegel" indicated that France Afrique's regime had reached the stage of its demise, expecting that Senegal, located in western Africa, and France's last remaining partner in the region, would be the next country to turn against French exploitation of it.

The newspaper said that young people in Senegal "are moving away from France, because they are tired of the clique surrounding President Macky Sall," noting that "he will not run for re-election next year."

The newspaper pointed out that the Senegalese view Sal as a French puppet, and a key element in France's policies in Africa.

And it used to be that the close relations between the candidate and Paris helped in the elections, so that the newspaper indicated that these relations almost guarantee the failure of the ballot boxes in the West African region.

Since last June, the Senegalese opposition has staged mass protests, primarily against the criminal conviction of its leader, Ousmane Sonko, with thousands taking to the streets earlier this month.

The marches have sometimes turned violent, with several people killed since the protests began. Far from simply showing support for Sonko, the demonstrators also targeted French supermarket chains and service stations of French oil giant Total.

And the German newspaper "Der Spiegel" revealed that in European diplomatic circles, there is "a fair amount of ambiguity about the French approach."

In this regard, one of the diplomats said that "Paris does not have mechanisms to deal with the current rejection of everything that is French," stressing that the member states of the European Union have failed to agree on a common position.

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Saturday, September 02, 2023

The statements of a Belgian minister about the occupation's violations against the Palestinians and the killing of children raise a diplomatic crisis with Israel.. and Guinness confirms that she does not regret her statements

    Saturday, September 02, 2023   No comments

The statements of the Belgian Minister of Cooperation and Development, Caroline Guenez, about Israel's violations against the Palestinians, sparked a diplomatic crisis with Tel Aviv, according to Belgian media, while it was welcomed by the Palestinians.

In an interview with the local newspaper "De Morgen", published on Friday, Gennes spoke about the killing of Palestinian children, wiping entire villages off the map, and destroying schools and neighborhoods funded by the European Union.

And according to the website of the Belgian newspaper “HLN”, “Minister Guenez stuck to her words, which caused a diplomatic problem between her country and Israel.”

The newspaper quoted a spokesman for the minister as telling the Belgian media that Guenez "does not regret her statements in the interview."

She added that the minister also referred to "Belgium's support for the two-state solution in the Israeli-Palestinian issue, and if democracy and human rights come under pressure anywhere in the world, we will oppose that," according to the same source.

“Unfortunately, 2023 is the bloodiest year in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for a long time, as 218 Palestinians, including 34 children, and 28 Israelis, were martyred,” Guenez said in her statements, which she re-published in several languages on her account on the X platform.

She added, “We have also witnessed the systematic destruction of infrastructure on the Palestinian side in recent months, and this is pushing entire communities out of their villages, and the costs of this infrastructure have often been jointly financed through international support.”


And the Belgian minister added, “I still condemn this out of respect for the efforts of the international community, and a serious conversation is also scheduled with the Israeli ambassador on this issue on September 7.”

For its part, the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates welcomed, in a statement, the Belgian Minister's statements.

And she considered that these statements are “fully consistent with international law and international legitimacy decisions and support the two-state solution and the principles of human rights, as indicated by the (Belgian Minister).”

The ministry condemned "the heinous and unjustified Israeli attack by the Israeli government against the minister and her statements."

And it considered that the Israeli attack falls “within the framework of misleading propaganda and intimidation of parties that criticize the occupying state and attempts to obscure the reality of the historical injustice that the Palestinian people are subjected to, repression, abuse, persecution and racial discrimination that many credible human rights and humanitarian organizations, including Israeli, American and European ones, have talked about.”

In turn, the Palestinian “Hamas” movement welcomed, on Saturday, the statements of the Belgian Minister of Cooperation and Development about Israel’s “crimes” against the Palestinians, especially children.

The leader of the movement, Bassem Naim, said in a statement: "The Belgian minister's statements are completely consistent with the facts on the ground, which were confirmed by several UN reports, especially in light of the current far-right government."

Naim added, "The occupation's reaction to the statements reflects the entity's fear of exposing its myths that it has promoted for decades, and its keenness to keep its crimes away from public opinion and the international media."

Yesterday, Friday, Tel Aviv summoned Belgium's ambassador to France, Jean-Luc Bodson, to express "strong condemnation" after Belgian Minister Guenez's statement about Israel's violations against the Palestinians, according to the "Times of Israel" newspaper.

The Israeli ambassador to Brussels, Edith Rosenzweig-Abu, also said, through her account on the “X” platform, that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs protested to the Belgian ambassador, and asked for clarifications regarding Minister Guenez’s statements.

 

  

Thursday, August 31, 2023

Media review: Islamic dress front and center in France again... He who wears a cape or a shirt will not enter his classroom on Mondays

    Thursday, August 31, 2023   No comments

On Sunday, French Education Minister Gabriel Atal announced that he would ban the wearing of the "cloak" in French schools, indicating that wearing this Islamic dress is a violation of the strict secular laws applied in the field of education in the country.

"Wearing the abaya in school will no longer be possible," Atal said during an interview with French TV TF1. And he stressed his endeavor to set "clear rules at the national level" to be followed by school principals before the start of the new academic year in all parts of France, starting from September 4 next. 

Clearly, the universal values that Macron instructed his diplomats to promote exclude Muslims' rights to dress. 


Here are some of what the French media outlets have said about these issues and the topics they covered.

The French newspaper Le Figaro revealed that the Minister of Education, Gabriel Atal, confirmed today that students who wear the “abaya” for females and the “shirt” for males will not enter their classrooms with the start of the school season on Monday.

The newspaper pointed out that the minister made it clear - in an interview with Radio France International today - that these students will be allowed to enter only the schools that accept their reception and bear the responsibility of clarifying the goals of this government decision to them.

"Behind the cloak and the shirt, there are young girls and boys and families, people with whom we must dialogue through a clear pedagogical method," the minister said.


The French minister was keen to stress that French secularism is one of the main values for the French school, adding that his delay in announcing the details of the implementation of this decision is due to the fact that he entered into discussions and dialogues with directors of educational institutions who were waiting for a clear detail from the government on how to implement it.


The French newspaper stated that some schools include a number of students concerned with this decision, and therefore school officials were in need to clarify the government's position, to provide them with all guarantees for the implementation of the decision.


Le Figaro added that Minister Gabriel Atal confirmed that his ministry will send explanatory notes and a guide to all schools explaining how to implement the decision, along with messages that are supposed to be sent to families.


According to the French newspaper, the new decision to ban gowns and shirts is a continuation of the implementation of the March 15, 2004 law banning the wearing of clothes or symbols that show religious affiliation in French educational institutions.


Prominent French left-wing politician Jean-Luc Melenchon strongly criticized the decision, and called on officials to avoid provoking conflicts of a religious nature.


Le Figaro also quoted Manuel Bombard, coordinator of the France Fatherland Party - which is led by Melenchon - as saying that he would propose to the party's parliamentary group to reject this decision, which he described as dangerous and harsh, and to put it up for review before the Council of State with the aim of proving that it is a decision contrary to the constitution.


And in July of last year, Le Figaro published an investigation that revealed that despite the application of the 2004 law, there is a significant increase in the abayas worn by girls and shirts worn by males, so that they doubled in secondary schools, especially when Ramadan comes, so that some principals They expressed their dissatisfaction and began to wonder why such clothes were so popular.


An official French book defending French secularism had previously spoken of gowns and shirts, and said that the ban was not only related to “symbols or clothing that by nature show religious affiliation,” such as the veil, the Jewish skullcap, and the large cross, but rather related to all symbols or clothing that “do not indicate religious affiliation.” directly to religion, but wearing it is to clearly show religious affiliation.


And the French newspaper Le Point considered - two days ago - that the decision of the Minister of Education, Gabriel Atal, is not an easy decision from a legal point of view, and wondered on what legal basis this ban would be built and what risks could be taken in the event of an appeal before the administrative court.


The anthropologist of religions, Anne-Laure Zwilling, believed that the cloak is not associated with Muslim worship, but rather with "culture", while university professor Claire Geville denounced President Emmanuel Macron's vision regarding education, and saw that "the measure against the cloak may cause more conflict than it will solve a problem," and he said, " From my point of view, this issue, which comes to the fore and dominates everything else, is more a matter of a political agenda than a real educational issue.


For his part, Abdullah Zakry, Vice President of the French Islamic Council, expressed his surprise at the decision to ban the wearing of the abaya in French schools, and called on the French Ministry of Education to issue a statement explaining the reasons that prompted the decision to ban the abaya in schools, and denied that this dress is a religious symbol.


Abdullah Zakry said that the abaya is a form of "fashion" and not a religious garment, expressing his hope that the French Minister of Education had consulted religious authorities before making a decision to ban it.


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