The Daily Telegraph let slip a most revealing fact:
“the BBC insisted that the play not be uncritical”,
The BBC was not insisting that the play be not uncriticial of a New Labour government which agreed to use intelligence from terrible torture in Uzbekistan, and cooperated with torture worldwide in the extraordinary rendition programme.
The BBC was in fact concerned that those facts were not given too much prominence compared to diversionary criticism of me for not being a teetotal monogamist, which is of course much worse than being a warmongering torturing murderous bastard.
Nadira was wondering when the media would stop calling her a lap dancer, when they would start using her married name, or mentioning her acting achievements (including the fact that she plays multiple characters in David Hare’s adaptation of Murder in Samarkand for Radio 4, in four different languages).
The answer I fear is never, not even in the Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2010/feb/02/david-tennant-samarkand-radio-4
nor in the EDP
I will say however that I think David Hare had done a tremendous job and produced an excellent play which is both entertaining and profound. As I gather is usual for David, he did a tremendous amount of research, even travelling to Tashkent to interview eye witnesses as well as holding a meeting with the FCO to get their side of the story. I am actually quite relieved that the production does not simply rely on my word for the key events.
Please do publicise the broadcast by whatever means are at your disposal.
thanks ingo, I always thought it was great that om and amen shared the same resonance. Will have to find out the Hebrew and Arabic equivalents; anyone know?
Larry,
I did not lie about nobody mentioning the Protocols of Zion. Some nutter had mentioned it – and I deleted it when I found it. What I objected to is your continual attempts to reintroduce the subject on new threads – just as you are doing now. Which is why your comment is deleted.
I do remove racist comments when I see them. But I don’t read all comments.
Thanks, ingo. Now that you’ve explained I think I remember something about that.
Technicolour,
Amen is Amen in Arabic too. Pronounced ‘Ameyn’ and it’s said at the end of every prayer. Muslim equivalents of ‘Om-Padme-Om’ might be ‘Allah-Hu’ or ‘Ya Ali’.
Vronsky,
Ah right, thanks, of course, the bag is the reservoir. That’s magical. Of course, some Christian monks do a lot of Gregorian chanting, so breathing is part of that and of prayer and contemplation and recorder-playing, as you say, is a great staple of Early Music consorts.
Re. beer: Was the monk at Buckfast Abbey, by any chance…(!)
Thanks Suhayl; am looking forward v much to your book, by the way. Just looked on wiki and amen is the same in hebrew too, and comes from the hebrew verb ‘aman’, apparently.
“America’s Secret Afghan Prisons”: Investigation Unearths New US Torture Site, Abuse Allegations in Afghanistan
“A new investigation by journalist Anand Gopal reveals harrowing details about US secret prisons in Afghanistan, under both the Bush and Obama administrations. Gopal interviewed Afghans who were detained and abused at several disclosed and undisclosed sites at US and Afghan military bases across the country. He also reveals the existence of another secret prison on Bagram Air Base that even the Red Cross does not have access to. It is dubbed the Black Jail and is reportedly run by US Special Forces.”
http://tinyurl.com/yktm2n8
bastards
Dreoilin, yes, that’s scary. Interesting, and makes one very angry, doesn’t it. Good on Mr Gopal.
Btw, another journalist, Lila Rajiva, who in fact is a right-wing libertarian (a genuine one), wrote a book on ‘Black Sites/ Rendition’ (shamefully, as I reviewed it for the ‘Asians in the Media’ website, the title has slipped my mind right now, but it’s on the web) several years ago and found herself almost completely shut-out – re. even reviews, etc. – by the MSM in the USA and UK. It was an explosive and detailed account and it was written and published before the official ‘acceptance’ (such as it was) that stuff like this had gone one and before most of the other (excellent) books on the subject. British journalists, Andy Something wrote one, and Stephen Grey. My mind is fading, clearly, I can’t seem to recall names, even of stuff I’ve reviewed. Argh!
Technicolour, I do hope you enjoy the book. If it’s ‘Joseph’s Box’ you’re meaning, it’s densely-textured and in some respects is playful (with the reader) and, if I may suggest, may go well with some almonds Turkish coffee. But I have no doubt that it also would go with the right kind of fish, suitably-prepared…
dreoilin
http://tinyurl.com/ybgtbhk
Well done. It is quite something to be the subject of BBC 4 radio play, and your story and example of personal integrity and courage will reach more people.
Tech
I’m going to have to disagree with you because I hate seen nothing but hate in Larry’s posts.
Both Larry and Angry seem to see Antisemitism everywhere they look. And both of them seem to introduce it in to everythread.
They have turned the veil of antisemitism which Israel, America and all other forces of evil use to end all discussion against them in to a filthy rag by over use.
So I call them Haters of Jews, because they are calling on right thinking people to hate Jews by mixing Hatrid of Zionism with hatrid of Jews.
It isn’t so strange. Hating Jews and Loving Zionism has always gone hand in hand. The racist nations supported the creation of Israel to get rid of their Jewish citizens, because they hated Jews. Now Nick Griffen leader of the Nazi BNP visits Israel to collect funding, because he wants all Jews out of the UK, While the Zionists want them all in Israel. So Both the Nazi and the Zionists want the same thing.
The evengelicals Zionist Christians in America want all Jews in Israel because they hate Jews! Ask them what will happen if all Jews go to Israel and they will tell you there will be a war, and all Jews will convert to Christianity or will be killed.
So Zionist Christians want no more Jews, because they hate Jews.
Sorry first senence is meant to read “I haven’t seen nothing but hate from larry and angry”
Arsalan, thanks for the reply. But (before I go):
“Both Larry and Angry seem to see Antisemitism everywhere they look”.
When Craig went away you didn’t have to look very far – jaded/steelback/apostate – for the most virulent self-congratulatory race hate it’s been my misfortune to read. You still don’t have to look far. They are still at it on the 9/11 thread.
I take your point about the curious permutations of anti-semitism. I still think you are missing the point that anti-Zionism is for many people simply a cover for anti-semitism, and a convenient way of attacking Jewish people with no comeback. I say this because a) most people who use the word have no idea of what ‘Zionism’ means b) most people who use it now do so in the conspiracy context of ‘the Jews are ruling the world’; and c) most people who use the phrase offer no positive solutions or proposals or an awareness of the fact that Israel is a legal state, even though its government, like many governments, is now behaving, and has frequently behaved, with murderous illegality.
I’ve decided, as most people have here, to put such posts in the ‘ignore’ category. Given the vicious and vile language which ensues when these people are confronted, I think that’s the sensible option. But I think it’s a shame.
I sympathise with Craig. These posters are on other blogs as well, like Oliver Kamm’s, using exactly the same language there, but pretending, successfully, to be of the left.
I firmly believe that somewhere in their brains and hearts must be a modicum of reason and decency, which is why I admire Clark’s attempts to engage with them. But.
By the way, I had to leave an earlier thread where I think you said something like “no-one can live in Israel and be decent”, though I think you did make an exception for children. Did you mean that? And would it be fair to say the same about the UK now, I wonder? Or Burma? Or Russia, since Chechnya?
I like you from your posts Arsalan: you are far more engaged and interesting than either Larry or angrysoba (sadly, since I had hopes of the latter). However, I still sympathise with their cries of outrage at statements like “As an elite, the Jews have wielded power vastly disproportionate to their numbers so that anti-Jewish attitudes and behaviour are odds-on phenomena when Jewish power conflicts with the interests of the vast majority” because – guess what – it sounds just like Nazi ‘philosophy’.
And of course you could argue the same about any minority group, including Muslims, and blame the resulting crimes of violence and hatred on the victims, if you were a nasty piece of work, and they do.
Tech, can you please tell me the tread and time of that post because I don’t remember saying that. That isn’t the way I write. I don’t even know what odds-on Phenomena means, so I will be very surprised if you used that word.
I wasn’t referring to the word Anti-Zionism. I was referring to its meaning.
So when people attack Israel, or attack the idea that people can go to a country, kick out the population and claim the country as there own they are not attacking Jews, they are attacking Racism.
Because that is what Zionism is, it is racism.
I repeat what I said about Israel and people who have chosen to settle their. They are thieves, racists and criminals.
Because they are accepting stolen goods. The brown people who owned the houses and lands which they are moving in to, still have the deeds and the keys to the doors. The Brown people who own the property have not been paid for it, so when it is taken it is stolen.
So they can claim to be good if they want, but I call them racist thieving bastards.
You can not compare attacks on settlers in with attacks on British or others.
With Israel we are not talking about citizens of a nation that does evil, we are talking about invaders, who have slaughtered people to take their land and property.
I own the house where I live because my dad worked hard to pay for it. They own the houses where they live because they killed the people who lived their first.
Do you understand the difference?
They choose to be part of the genocide and ethnic cleansing by moving there.
And tech I repeat, I blame Angry, Larry and Zionists like them for people using Anti Zionism as a cover for antisemitism. These AngryLarry and their likes have removed any negative connotations to the word Antisemitism by over use. They seem to scream it every time someone says something they disagree with.
Because Zionist shout anti Semitism every time they disagree with someone. people seem to think Antisemitism means disagreeing with a Zionist.
Tech sorry.
I reread your post and it is clear now that you were refering to what someone else wrote.
You were not accusing me of writing that.
Sorry, I need more sleep and les sinternet.
Arsalan; again I appreciate your reply. But you know and I know that history depends on how far back you want to go. For example, according to the wiki history of Israel:
“In 628/9, the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius conducted a massacre and expulsion of the Jews, at which point the Jewish population probably reached its lowest point”.
People have been killed over and on that region for centuries. Where does that leave us?
I assume you are talking about the settlers on illegal territories when you say they are all racist criminals now. Because if I were Jewish and moved to Tel Aviv, I would not be killing anyone. I might, in your eyes, have no right to be there, but in the eyes of international law, I would. If I had family and ancestors there, and the climate of fear in the UK (which, as you say, is promoted by the far right) continued, I might well want to move there. It would be a human desire for safety, not a political decision.
But I don’t at all disregard what you say. Friends of mine have just got back from the convoy to Gaza. I just don’t see your solution. The majority of Israelis do not support their government, by the way.
If you haven’t noticed that jaded/apostate/steelback/various other aliases are, as angrysoba pointed out, ‘raving anti-semites’ then I’m pleased for you. Reading their posts is no fun. The quote I posted was not from you, of course, it was one of apostate’s more thoughtful contributions. I used it to show that the word ‘Zionism’ easily slips into the word’ Jew’; since it is being used by those people as an attack on Jewish people, as it does here.
NB Actually, I can’t see these minority bully boys ever generating such a fear here that Jewish people would emigrate as a result. It’s easy to forget in the heat of this blog what a tiny number of people they represent. I can see people wanting to leave England full stop, mind you; the weather, my dear! And the prices!
Possibly time for Bush, Cheney et al. to throw away their passports:
http://www.redress.cc/global/redress20100206
Btw, people, I’m doing a free event in London next Wednesday evening, 10th Feb., along with Ziauddin Sardar – if anyone’s interested in coming, please feel free to e-mail me through my website: http://www.suhaylsaadi.com
The contact e-mail address, which is at the bottom of the Home page, is: [email protected]
On another note, as you may have noticed, I think it prudent to deal with the outright nutters (as opposed to the mildly insane like me) who post here – or anywhere – in the appropriate semiotic manner. The time? 5050. The realm? Absurdistan!
PS. That’s… semiotic, not ‘Semitic’ (!)
Being a “tunes” person myself, I can’t let the pipes sub-thread go without saying “Gordon Duncan – the Circular Breath”, wherein he does mindboggling things with a chanter. Great fun, and some fantastic tunes.
“You married a lap dancer,” so what! I was engaged to one many years ago. I met her in a club in Sembawang village, a Naval port near Singapore.
She was fluent in Mandarin, Cantonese and English. She was loyal and without fail fetched me passion fruits every day. She had a huge breadth of understanding of the human condition and her talents ensured her survival. Like Nadira she was beautiful and captivating.
My ship sailed and we lost contact. Several months later I received back the ring I gave her and she thanked me for such a wonderful and enlightening time.
what a tune. I can feel the fresh wind blowing from the isles.
Tech
“you know and I know that history depends on how”
When I said criminals and thieves I wasn’t talking about history. I was talking about the present.
I am talking about now, and when referring to criminals I was referring to the people who committed the crimes. Not people who are the descendants of criminals and not people who may share the same race or religion as a criminal.
Israel was established within this present life time. The people who did the crimes are still alive and are still treated as heroes. So everything I said is about the present and nothing I said is about history.
It is the Zionists who use history to justify or belittle their present crimes. And the Antisemites do the something. So the Zionists might use the example of what Heraculus did to justify what they do to the brown people who live on land they want. Even though the Brown people who have been expelled and massacred from the lands that the Zionists stole are the true descendant’s of the Children of Israel while the white Zionists are Europeans who converted to Judaism(I will tell you why I use these words at the end). At the same time Antisemites might use the Jewish massacre of Christians there that took place just after the Persians conquered it and just before Heraculus reconquered it.
“People have been killed over and on that region for centuries. Where does that leave us? ”
People have always killed people. But crimes are still crimes and criminals are still criminals. Zionism is colonialism. It is what happened in America when the natives were killed so Europeans can steal the land, it is what happened in Australia and NEw Zealand. The difference with what is happening in Palestine is, the owners are still alive and so are the thieves. And the thieves scream antisemitism every time any one criticizes what they do, or refuse to recognise their so called historic justification, which is total bollocks anyway.
Just think about it, think about your house. What do you think would happen if a druid came to the UK from Australia and kicked you out of your house without paying for it, with the excuse that druids have lived in the UK before Christians? And when you complained they accused you of being anti druid?
Can you see why the Historic justification of Zionism is complete bollocks?
Just think about it, yesterday the mayor of Jerusalem marked 200 more Palestinian homes in Jerusalem for demolition so Jews from all over the world can move in to them.
Even though the demolition hasn’t taken place yet, is it already history? Doe it become history as they are destroyed or the day after destruction? Or when New houses for Jews are built on them?
” assume you are talking about the settlers on illegal territories”
No, I call each and every piece of it illegal territory. There was a time when Tel Aviv was called Jafa. The people who owned the house that you would move in to still have the deeds to the land and the Keys to the door.
If it would be ok for you to take their house with some kind of historic justification, please give me your UK address so I can pass it on to someone who has recently become a druid so he can take the house that you live in now with the same justification.
“I would not be killing anyone.”
You will be killing people, or you will be rotting in prison. Israel has full military conscription for all Jews, both male and female.
Everyone who moves there knows this, so they move their accepting that they will kill children just as they move their knowing that they will live in a stolen house whose rightful owner still has the keys and the deeds.
International laws are just a few words written by colonialist nations. These laws are ignored by the very nations who writ them when ever it suits their purpose. You might say pre 67 is recognised by the UN, but so is the right of the brown people who were kicked out to return. Do you see a contradiction there? Every City, town and village in Israel is built on an Arab city town and village that was destroyed. The people who are kicked out number more than the Jews who live their now. So if international law is the criterion, Israel still stop existing.
I rely find it hard to understand why you can’t see the racism inherant within Zionism. To go back to your example. If you converted to Judaism and moved there you will be given a house(They call it the right of return, even though you have never ever been their to return). But the Arab family who were kicked out of that same house have no right to return there.
The same thing apply to your family ancesters issue. The people being kicked out are the ones with the family and ancestry there, not someone from the UK, whose entire family and ancestry are from the UK.
Now getting back to what I said about Brown and White people.
Why did I use those words instead of Jews and Arabs like everyone else?
Because the real issue why Israel was created was the belief that Whites, including Jewish whites are superior to browns including Christian Arabs.
That was Why the writers of international laws as you might call them, or racist imperialists as I prefer to call them created Israel on a land which already had a population.
Winston Churchil:
I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place.
To the Palestine Royal Commission (1937)
Notice it wasn’t about historical rights(if anything it was negating historical rights), it wasn’t about safety and security(If anything it was saying browns have no right to safety and security).
It was all about one thing, and that is whites are Superior to non-whites. And that is why Israel was made. And that is what Zionism means. Does it really matter that the Zionists have replaced white with Jew, and Brown with Arab?
Does that really make a difference?
In regards to Jadad . I’ll take any support where it is given. And the Zionists have no right to complain because they have have now allied themselves with Nazis like the BNP. Israel has even forgot about its holocaust denial laws by inviting BNP leader and famous holocaust denier Nick Griffin to go there and raise funds.
The worst of what Jaded has said has not come close to what the Zionists have said. If you don’t believe me, take Larry and angrys posts where they mention Muslims and Arab, replace the words with Jew and then compare them to what Jaded has said.
Let us not forget ever the atrocities at Chatilla and Sabra. Fisk described the carnage as, “women lying in houses with their skirts torn torn up to their waists and their legs wide apart, children with their throats cut, rows of young men shot in the back after being lined up at an execution wall. There were babies – blackened babies babies because they had been slaughtered more than 24-hours earlier and their small bodies were already in a state of decomposition – tossed into rubbish heaps alongside discarded US army ration tins, Israeli army equipment and empty bottles of whiskey.
“On the other side of the main road, up a track through the debris, we found the bodies of five women and several children. The women were middle-aged and their corpses lay draped over a pile of rubble. One lay on her back, her dress torn open and the head of a little girl emerging from behind her. The girl had short dark curly hair, her eyes were staring at us and there was a frown on her face. She was dead.
Another child lay on the roadway like a discarded doll, her white dress stained with mud and dust. She could have been no more than three years old. The back of her head had been blown away by a bullet fired into her brain. One of the women also held a tiny baby to her body. The bullet that had passed into her breast had killed the baby too. Someone had slit open the woman’s stomach, cutting sideways and then upwards, perhaps trying to kill her unborn child. Her eyes were wide open, her dark face frozen in horror.”
The Zionists Haganah had not only taken part in the killings, they had certainly sent militia into the camp. They had trained them, given them uniforms, handed them US army rations and Israeli medical equipment. Then they had watched the murderers in the camps, they had given them military assistance – the Israeli airforce had dropped flares to help the men who were murdering the inhabitants of Sabra and Chatila – and they had established military liason with the murderers in the camps.
“take Larry and angrys posts where they mention Muslims and Arab, replace the words with Jew and then compare them to what Jaded has said”
Indeed, and with inadvertent and grotesque irony they display the very “anti-semitism” of which they are so quick to accuse others, for a much higher proportion of Muslims are semites than are Jews.
Mark Golding
It is very important for us to remember, that what you listed isn’t history. The people who did it are in Israel.
They are not hunted as terrorists, instead they live like Heroes.
Those Palestinians who went to lebanon thought they were safe by allowing the Zionists to keep the homes and farms they had stolen.
But they were wrong.
The Zionists came for them in Israel as the Zionists have come for the Palestinians who escaped to Iraq.
Chatilla and Sabra has repeated itself in Iraq, but the Zionists learnt from what happened before so have hidden the Iraq repeat from the media.
There is only one way to stop this from happening again. And that is if Muslim nations reunite in to a single state with a single army. That is the only way there would be piece because that is the only way we can defend ourselves.
The kings of the gulf should kiss the feet of the Palestinians instead of using them to clean the shit from their toilets. Because if the Palestinians ever stop fighting, the Zionists will invade their oil fields next with the same excuse they used to invade pre 67.
“They are not hunted as terrorists”
I recall that Sharon was once the subject of war crimes charges in Sweden for these incidents. Key witnesses were murdered before the trial and the case collapsed.
Thank you Mark for reminding us of theses atrocities. This is the the most dangerous nation on earth. This is the country that has nuclear missiles trained on the UK. That the major political parties all have “Friends of Israel” groups is beyond belief.
And then after that the Zionist killers cried a few crocodile tears for the people they murdered and raped. They elected the man who they themselves said was responsible as their priminister.
As I said, all Zionists are killers, murderers and warcriminals.
There is no such thing as a nice Zionist because their is no such thing as a nice racist.
There is no way of changing Israel in to a peaceful non-racist country.
It has to be reintergrated in what it was divided from. The carve up that toop place after ww1 has to be reversed and the Khilafah has to be reformed.
“This is the country that has nuclear missiles trained on the UK.”
http://tinyurl.com/yjasffh
Be Afraid, Very Afraid.