The greatest Basque shame

Every nation has its shameful realities, not always apparent, and Basques are no exception.

Every year the Bidasoa river towns of Hondarribia and Irun celebrate their fiestas around the main act of a copycat military parade that is representation of battles held long ago, when the local militias played a key role in defending the fortified places. These are known as "alarde", Spanish word that means posse or bravado but that originally meant military review.

They used to be male-only activities with a unique token decorative role for women, as "cantineras" (one per company), sort of fangirl and maid (and who-knows-what) for the military unit. Eventually what had to happen happened and "mixed" companies (with female "soldiers") demanded their place. Unlike in other cases of gender discrimination, where this change has been adopted quite naturally, in the Bidasoan towns the reaction was extreme, up to the point that Xabier Muguruza wrote a song calling them fundamentalists. Most local politicians sided with the reactionary majority even up to the point of challenging their own parties and bordering challenging the law at times. However tribunals forced them to accept that mixed companies had to be allowed in the official parade.

This was confronted by the fundamentalists by boycotting the official parade and making their own. So at the moment the only company taking part in the official parade of each town is the mixed company. Being followed soon after by the unofficial parallel parade.

To make things worse and increase the sociological violence against the mixed companies, the fundamentalists have systematically organized year after year a display of black plastics and black umbrellas with slogans like "we did not came to watch you".

However gradually their numbers have been dwindling. This year the presence of supporters of the mixed company at Hondarribia (Irun is yet to have its fiestas) has been very notable, for the first time maybe competing with the fundamentalist display.


The photo above is a quite clear example: there are still black umbrellas but what is more apparent is the lot of people cheering the brave company Jaizkibel, which is patiently winning this most important battle of today.

Source: Gara.

Ireland to persecute anti-religious expression

Ireland is known as one of the most fundamentalist states in Europe, together with the Vatican and Poland, but this is utterly inquisitorial: blasphemy (or whatever the tribunals consider such) will be punishable with a fine of up 100 euros.

Actually this is possible under the ultra-Catholic Irish constitution that explicitly declares that the publication or utterance of blasphemous, seditious, or indecent material is an offence which shall be punishable in accordance with law. Luckily, so far there was no such law.

But now the Minister of Justice, D. Ahern, wants blasphemy to be included in the new defamation bill in the terms mentioned above. That would surely leave the pious hypocrites and/or idiots very happy but would cause persecuton against everyone who damns God or who questions the sexuality of the prophets, for example. This is obviously unfair as it attacks some ideas with the pretext of defending others: certain ideologies become privileged, while others are attacked.

One even wonders if this is done to merely protect the pedophilic network known as the Catholic Church or what? I guess that accusing a priest of being a pedophile can be considered blasphemy too, right? What next, the canonization of Torquemada?

Watch out: fascism strikes back!

Source: The Register.
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More Islamist abuses in Obama's Empire

Afghanistan would be laughable if it would not be for so much people suffering under the Neotaliban rule supported by the USA-NATO occupation force. The last brutality is the approval of a communalist law allowing Shia (but not Sunni) men to rape their wives once eavery four days (that's the kind of Torah mentality they have: all regulated, even sex - but of course women's opinions do not matter). This is sold as some sort of "multiculturalism" because it would acknowledge differences between Sunni and Shia sharia traditions.

Of course Afghan women do not buy. And have gone out to the streets of Kabul to protest in the weirdest kind of feminist parade I've ever witnessed (all them covering their heads and chanting "Allah u akbar": "God is great").

After the demo they were attacked by stone-throwing super-macho counter-demonstrators (all men) that yelled "Death to the Christians' slaves". Like if Christians had not supported the same kind of patriarchal abuses in the very recent past. I was born under a Christian fundamentalist regime, I know what I am talking about: that same kind of laws allowing rape in marriage were in effect until many years after the death of Ayatollah Franco.

What I don't think that was allowed anymore back then (fascism after all is a "modern" phenomenon, even if reactionary and spiteful) was what still happens in the favorite ally of the USA in the region: the ultra-fascist mafious tyranny known as Saudi Arabia. As you surely know the situation of women's rights in the "Muslim Vatican" (with 27 million subjects and many more foreign de-facto slaves) is worse than imaginable. But you may not know that fathers can arrange marriages for their minor daughters with whomever they want, even if these girls are still as young as 8 years old. This is the case of a young girl from an impoverished family (yes there is poor people in Saudia, indeed - and not all are outcasts with foreign passports) who has been forcibly married by her father to an 80 years old pervert. The mother appealed in court, causing some controversy in the retrograde realm, but the father's decission was upheld.

And this is the kind of abuses we are asked to watch indifferent in a world that knows no real borders anymore. In these cases I always think that a little bit of Stalinism would not be in excess in such areas. It's not bigotry: I am just appalled that human rights are smashed by superstitious ideologies (aka religions). Obviously it must be Arabs who solve Arab problems and Afghans who solve Afghan problems but some internationalist support for those fighting for the rights and dignity of Humankind is never in excess. If instead of supporting the bigots and machos there, we would arm the feminists, then at least we would know we are doing something of use. But we (our governments) arm the nazis and ignore the humanists and that has no pardon.
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Amazon censors homosexual romance

A lot of people seems to be infuriated by the nonsensical decission of Amazon (the online bookstore olygopoly) of "de-rating" (whatever that means) all titles with any reference to LGTB, what means (it seems) they won't appear in most searches.

As I do not really ever buy anything online (and seldom offline, except the basics of course), I have little idea of what all this means in detail but it seems clear that is another attept by the global fundamentalist conspiracy against human intelligence and common sense to censor what people can access through the net. In this case it seems particularly harmful as it directly attacks the civil rights of a minority (but also those of the majority, who wants to read freely).

But as I say, my understanding is limited, so I direct you to more knowledgeable sites:
· Dear Author
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Afghanistan, as fundamentalist now as with the Taliban

It is surely not the only case but it is most outraging: Sayed Parwez Kambakhsh allegely downloaded an article in support of women's rights from the Internet and distributed it. In the morning of October 27th 2007 he was arrested. Then he was tortured and sentenced to death on the grounds of "blasphemy" (what the heck?). After some local and international outrage, and numerous protests in Afghanistan itself, the sentence was commuted to 20 years of prision and ratified by the Afghan supreme court.

Sayed Parwez Kambakhsh in prision

In Rebelión, his brother dennounces the hypocritical Western support for a regime that is full of religious fanatics, corrupt, obscurantist and totalitarian. He dennounces that the "talibanists" (as to make a difference with the armed opposition talibans) control the government in Kabul and the provinces and that all the Western intervention has done virtually nothing in favor of the human rights of the Afghan people.

I wonder if that is the reason why the USA and its NATO vassals are losing the war after all: their inability to deliver consistently with their discourse.
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Fundamentalist arrogance

This is funny to say the least. There's nothing like a fanatic warlord bragging:

We wish to tell Bush and our opponents our real intentions: we will establish Islamic rule from Alaska and Chile to South Africa, Japan, Russia, the Solomon Islands and all the way to Iceland, be warned, we are coming.

While I don't doubt that this bunch of fanatic maddogs of castrating and superstitious rituals are able to cause much harm in Somalia and maybe other places... the only sane reaction is a good laugh. And then a straight jacket and a cold shower.
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Hamas vs. Al Qaeda

Found an excerpted version of this article in Spanish at Rebelión and thought: this is interesting. So I followed the link to the source and the English version.

The source site, the Conflicts Forum, is new to me but appears interesting for those who may want to increase their knowledge of the Islam-West conflicts and the possible alleys through them.

Whatever the case, I found the original English-language document: Hamas and al-Qaida: The Prospects for Radicalization in the Palestinian Occupied Territories, by Khalid Amayreh (direct link to the full PDF document: here).

The 16 pages long analysis is unfit for full inclussion here but I strongly recommend my readers to take a look, after all it deals with some of the most crucial conflicts of our times and the similitudes and differences between two of its main Muslim actors: 'moderate' Hamas and murderous Al Qaida, in the particularly intense scenary of Palestine.

Since 2006 (the document is dated Nov. 2007) the relationship between Hamas and Al Qaida, this one self-proclaimed leader of 'true' Islam, has been bad. Al Qaida has strongly criticised Hamas, both for being nationalist and for being moderate, while Hamas has abstained to enter in a direct argument with the bearded guys of the Hindu Kush, so charismatic in some places, but has shown to strongly dislike their methods, doctrine and patronizing attitude and has engaged their ideologues and their armed gangs.

While the presence of Al Qaeda among Palestinians is generally dismissed becauseof the historical milticulturalism and rather 'western' cultural background, it seems it has made some inroads anyhow if only out of despair. And the kidnapping of BBC journalist Allan Johnston (sympathtic to the Palestinian cause and considered a protected guest by Hamas) was among their first acts of aggression. Other cases have been attcking cybercafes, unsegregated school festivals and even an Orthodox Christian church, all them percieved by Hamas as hostile, anti-Palestinian and criminal.

It seems it is that way: Hamas is moderate Islamism, specially if compared to the brutal jihadism of Al Qaida. The Palestinians accept democracy, are willing to dialogue with all, do not impose veil or gender segregation, respect religious minorities and try to avoid attacking civilians indiscriminately (except maybe in Israel). They do not consider armed jihad as a goal, unlike Al Qaida, but as a mean and are smart enough to acknowledge that among the peoples of the world, even among those whose goverments support Israel, there are people who understand and support the Palestinian cause and that are willing to engage in potentially productive multicultural dialogue.

We may not like Islamism, the same we may not like Christian Fundamentalism... but there are different attitudes and stands and it is important to understand these differences. Certainly not everybody who is Muslim or even Islamist is a supporter of Al Qaeda. And one important reason may be the disrespect that the Hindu Kush gang deals with civilians, inducing hatred not just against Muslims but even among Muslims themselves.

Before reading this I already had an opinion of the two fundamentalist organizations: Al Qaida are clearly murderous sectarian criminals (who, in my opinion, may well be working for US imperialism and Zionism) and Hamas is more or less respectful and serious people, even if they are not secularists.

Anyhow, take a look and make up your mind. It is a really interesting read.

Most senior Saudi judge calls for killing 'immoral broadcasters'

In another surrealistic 'fatwa' epysode, the most senior judge of Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Al-Luhaydan, declared in a radio interview that killing the owners of 'immoral' satellite TVs is legitimate. In response to an audience question he said:

It is legitimate to kill those who call for corruption if their evil cannot be stopped by other penalties.

So far he has not been dismissed nor it seems it will be the case unless some international uproar forces the fat and corrupt Saudi monarch to act.

Fanaticism is a major problem and should be solved somehow. In my opinion only an "Albanian solution" is possible. Enver Hoxa might be whatever you want but made Albania agnostic and secular.

Even if you do not agree with my sympathies for the Maoist solution to fanaticism, you will surely agree that supporting fundamentalism regimes like Saudi Arabia is stupid and suicidal.

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Update: Just read the Al Jazeera version of the same news.

Azzam Tamimi, the director of the Islamic Institute of Political Thought, told Al Jazeera: "You cannot just license the killing of people in this way.

"If I were in his place, I would criticise the people who licensed the channels in the first place and these are the rulers of his own country."

Afghan death sentence for downloading feminist materials

Just another example that the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan was right (and that Osama and the CIA are hateful): a young Afghan man, Sayed Pervez Kambaksh was sentenced to death in a five minute fundamentalist "trial", where he was not allowed to defend himself. This happened some nine months ago, when he downloaded feminist material from the Internet, act that was considered as "blasphemy" (it would be laughable, would not be so serious). Since then, he has been jailed and awaits either presidential pardon or execution.

Sayad Kambaksh, victim of Islamic fascism

Source: BBC News.

The article is titled "Blasphemy case shows Afghan divide" but what it actually says is that there is no such divide: that the government, the tribunals, the religious leaders and all effective social actors are extremely fundamentalist and support this kind of criminal nonsense.

This is the kind of societies that the USA and its allies, Saudi Arabia and Israel, as well as NATO, are promoting in the "Muslim World": fundamentalist regimes that represent no advance, no reform, no progress - but the opposite. Fascist puppet states ruled by fanaticism and idiocy. Typical colonial medievalist protectorates.

When in 1979, the Soviet Union, called by the legitimate government, intervened in Afghanistan against the fundamentalists, there was a mediatic uproar against them. Not just that, the "Western World" (together with Saudia and Pakistan) put all means to make sure that a laicist solution would not be implemented and that the fundamentalist fascists would succeed. This only happened when that short-sighted drunkard oportunist who was Boris Yeltsin removed Russian support for the Socialist Afghan regime.

The Democratic Republic of Afghanistan began in 1978 a process of radical reforms: It moved to suppress religion, replacing religious and traditional laws with secular and Marxist ones. Men were obliged to cut their beards, women couldn't wear a burqa, and mosques were placed off limits. It carried out an ambitious land reform, waiving farmers' debts countrywide and abolishing usury - intended to release the poorer farmers from debt peonage. (...) Free emergency medical care was introduced. A mass literacy campaign was begun, 5000 unemployed university graduates being recruited as teachers. By the end of 1979, 600 new schools had been built, many of them in rural areas, and up to 500,000 adult Afghans were attending basic literacy classes (another 500,000 had enrolled but dropped out). Working hours were reduced, low-paid workers were given higher wages and trade unions were legalised for the first time in Afghanistan's history. The government also made a number of decrees on women’s rights, banning forced marriages, giving state recognition of women’s right to vote, and introducing women to political life (source: Wikipedia). Which is the kind of illustrated reforms that could have placed the backward Central Asian state in the path of modernization and freedom.

But our leaders did not want that: they prefered to finance some Saudian silverspoon known as Osama Ben Laden (or maybe better Bin Ladin, "Bin Laden" in pop culture) and make sure that Afghanistan would remain the most obscurantist country in the World (along with some Arab states). Later they decided to remove him and place another fundamentalist, Hamid Karzai, as puppet leader.

And now what? It's just crazy: we are throwing stones against our own roof, cutting the grass under our feet, feeding fascism just because some ill-measured geostrategical bet! Suicidal!

Women's rights disaster in Iraq

Baathist Iraq was, at least largely, a secularist society. There were certainly the typical gender issues of all Muslim societies but the situation has worsened a lot since the 2003 US invasion of the country.

That is at least what knowledgeable women denounce in this article in Gara (in Spanish). The article begins talking about women suicide bombers but soon turns to the awful situation of Iraqi females in all the country. US citizen Farhana Ali says:

Iraqi women have been marginalized slowly but persistently. They were in the forefront of society with he former Iraqi government and we have deprived them from all opportunities. Those who have not run away have been victims of rape, torture, kidnappings... They are doubly victims.

Shameran Marugi, president of the Iraqi Women Comitee says:

The "right to live" is a slogan we have began promoting because the lifes of women in Iraq are threatened from all sides. Laws are not applied egalitarily and society despises women. Before the invasion a woman could live with normality if she followed - as happens everywhere else - to the laws of the state.

The new Iraqi constitution allows (art. 41) clerics to interpretate what is acceptable or not in the domain of rights and duties of the individual. This has formalized legally the factual harassment of women in all corners of society: at home they are victims of their fathers, husbands and even their own sons, while in the streets they are coerced to wear veil. The so-called "honor crimes", of which women are almost invariably the victims, have become widespread in all the country. A study details that 64% of Iraqi women have suffered mysogynistic agressions, while 74% claim that their daughters cannot go to school at all.

Guess this is the freedom that the invaders have brought. Meanwhile they continue doing business as usual with extremely machista fundamentalist regimes such as Saudi Arabia and many others, while progressive countries like Syria are marginalized. It makes no sense unless the goal is to get all the Middle East (in its widest sense) under the dark cloak of fundamentalist fascism.

Algeria: another fundamentalist NATO ally

You have to dig a bit to find info on Algeria these days. Sure a bomb now and then but little more. And what's happening meanwhile? Emergency rule. And what's happening under emergency rule? Here there is an example:

A journalist of Le Figaro has been arrested an put on trial. Why? For terrorism? For writing too critically of Bouteflika's regime? Nope. For allegedly converting to Christianity. And I say allegedly because the evidence is circumstantial: ownership of two bibles. Journalists at the trial had their booknotes removed.

The case is not about Christianity and Islam as I see it but about civil rights. Do Algerians have civil rights? Or is it actually a fundamentalist state like Saudi Arabia or Egypt? It seems the second. All these regimes, from Morocco to Oman are actively supported with western money, be it from the USA, France, Israel or whoever. The only goal of these regimes seems to create a barrier of fanatic ignorance between Europe and the rest of the world. If a country decides to go laicist, like Iraq, it's quickly invaded and trown to the kind of Al Sadr. Certainly there is no more freedom for women to go unveiled in US-occupied Iraq than under Saddam, whichever his faults.

The Algerian president also made signs of this further fundamentalization of Algeria recently, when he declared before a fundamentalist demonstration that "the koran is the constitution of Algerian society".

Source: The Middle East Media Research Institute (via Marjou at North Africa Forum)

The most brutal Patriarchy... under US protection.

Human Rights Watch has released a report on how the human rights of women (specially) just do not exist in Saudi Arabia. Under the barbaric Saudi laws, Arab women are denied even the most nimious right, always needing the approval of their male guardian (father, husband...) for absolutely everything.

The report emphasizes that Arabian women lack of right to education, right to employement, right to health, equality under the law, freedom of movement, etc.

Of course such a brutal tyranny, probably one of the most backward and despicable of the whole planet (it also ranks highest in executions per capita, for instance), that has financed and promoted Islamic Fundamentalism all around the World, that is ruled autocratically by an aristocratic gang of fat polygamous men, seconded by an SS-like religious police...

... such a fascist regime is supported by the USA in the name of democracy.

I would laugh wouldn't I be about to cry, sincerely.