July 2009
Vol 9, No.7
THE CLASH OF ISLAM AND DEMOCRACY IN IRAN By Dilip Hiro
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y marshalling the regime’s coercive instruments, Iran’s 70year-old supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamanei, has, for now, succeeded in curbing the popular, peaceful challenge to the authenticity of Iran’s fateful June 12th presidential election. But he has paid a heavy political price. Before his June 19th hard-line speech at a Friday prayer congregation, Khamanei had the mystique of a just arbiter of authority, perched on a lofty platform far above the contentiousness of day-to-day politics. In his sermon, he asserted the validity of the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad while the Guardian Council, the constitutional body charged with validating any national election, was still dealing with 646 complaints about possible election misbehavior and fraud. As a result, he damaged his status as a just ruler, a matter of grave importance since justice is a vital element in Islamic values. Furthermore, by boycotting the
June 19th congregation, former presidents Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Muhammad Khatami, as well as Mahdi Karrubi, former Speaker of the Iranian Parliament — all of them respected mullahs — exposed a deep rift in the ruling religious establishment. That bodes ill for the future of the Islamic Republic. Khamanei has won the immediate battle, but the conflict between hard-liners and reformists is far from over. Taking a long-term view, Khamanei and his hard line cohorts face a superhuman task of countering an inexorably rising trend. Quite simply, the demographic make-up of Iran favors their reformist adversaries. A glance at the republic’s history bears this out. Two Decades of Revolution Between 1979, the year of the Islamic revolution, and 1999, Iran’s population doubled to 65 million, twothirds of them under 25 years of age. Those young Iranians had no direct
experience or memory of the pre-Islamic regime of the Shah — its inequities and injustices, and its subservient relationship with Washington. Therefore, their commitment to the Islamic regime was less than total. Moreover, the postrevolutionary educational system had proven inadequate when it came to socializing them the way the republic’s religious leaders wanted. During those two decades, Iran’s student body increased almost threefold, to 19 million. The overall literacy rate jumped from 58% to 82%, with the figure for females — 28% in 1979 — tripling. Turn to next page
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IRAN: A QUESTION OF ACCOUNTABILITY .... While
CHANGING THE DISCOURSE
acknowledging that the total number of votes cast in some 50 districts had exceeded the total number of voters in those districts, the Iranian Council of Guardians ............................P.4
By Phyllis Bennis......................................... page 5
RE-FOUNDING SRI LANKA: REFORM AND RENOVATION By Dayan Jayatilleka .................................. page 7
IRAN: RESPECT DISSENT; STOP THE VIOLENCE .........The International Movement
A SMALL HOUSE CAN FIT A HUNDRED FRIENDS
for a Just World (JUST) condemns the violence that has accompanied the Iranian government’s crackdown .......................................................P.5
By Daniela Kantorova ................................. page 9
SOLIDARITY WITH AUNG SAN SUU KYI .................................................................P.5
NUCLEAR ENERGY–A REALISTIC APPRAISAL By Ronald McCoy ................................... page 10
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continued from page 1 There was a remarkable upsurge in the enrollment of women in universities. Nationally, their share of university student bodies shot up to 60%. At the prestigious Tehran University, they were a majority in all faculties, including science and law. The total of university graduates, which stood at 430,000 in 1979, grew ninefold in those years. As elsewhere in the world, university students and graduates would become a vital engine for change. Much to the disappointment of the mullahs, a study of university students in the late 1990s showed that whereas 83% of them watched television, only 5% watched religious programs. Of the 58% who read extracurricular books, barely 6% showed interest in religious literature. In his book, A Study of Student Political Behavior in Today’s Iran, Professor Majid Muhammadi divided university students into three categories: those born into largely Islamic working or traditional middle-class households (traders and craftsmen); those born to secular, or nominally Islamic, modern middle class parents (teachers and doctors); and those raised in an environment that mixed traditional Islam and secularism. While the first category was loyal to the regime, and the second kept a low profile, shunning politics, it was the students in the last, and largest, category who felt deeply conflicted. While linked to Islam through tradition, they were attracted to modern, Westernized culture politically and socially. In attempting to resolve the conflict, most of them became politically active, and were transformed into a force for social and political change. By and large, university students were interested in watching foreign television programs, finding the national channels unimaginative and propagandistic. A poorly enforced ban on satellite dishes meant they could easily get access to the BBC, CNN, and the Voice of America. In the post-1999 decade, the arrival of the Internet, e-mail, blogging, YouTube, Facebook, and most recently
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Twitter, opened up opportunities previously not available to their older peers. Irrespective of their social backgrounds, what indisputably impinges on the daily lives of university students and other young Iranians are the restrictions the regime tries to impose on their social and personal freedoms, including going to mixed-sex parties, holding hands with someone other than a marriage partner, drinking alcoholic beverages, listening to modern Western music, watching foreign television channels via satellite, and having extramarital sex. While reformists recognize that restricting such activities is having the singular effect of alienating the young from the Islamic Republic, their conservative opponents consider these restrictions essential to uphold Islamic morality and culture. Not surprisingly, politically conscious university students have been striving to enlarge the arena of personal freedoms as a means of countering social repression and administrative corruption, and making the Islamic system more transparent and accountable. Politics in Command It was against this background that, in 1997, a presidential election was conducted. Muhammad Khatami, a reformist outsider, unblemished by corruption, proceeded to trounce his rival, Ali Akbar Nateq Nouri — the erstwhile Speaker of parliament favored by the religious establishment and perceived to be corrupt — by a margin of almost three to one. In the next election, Khatami trumped his nearest rival by a five-to-one margin. Notwithstanding periodic setbacks due to a dispersion of power among the office of president, the parliament, and the judiciary, Khatami created an environment in which the area of social, cultural, and political freedoms expanded. Initially, for instance, the authorities were very strict about enforcing the wearing of the hijab (a headcovering scarf) and banning the use of
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make-up for women, nor did they allow young men and women to sit in the same classrooms in colleges and universities. By the time of Khatami’s re-election in 2005, however, the authorities were tolerating young women who flouted the strict Islamic dress code of covering themselves fully, except for face and hands. They even allowed an occasional rock concert and they were giving more leeway to non-governmental organizations. During the first year of Khatami’s presidency, the country experienced an explosion of new publications. Following a landslide victory by the reformists in the first round of parliamentary elections in February 2000, a newly bullish proreform press even began publishing stories of corruption in the pre-Khatami period. These proved immensely popular. Khatami’s supporters viewed this as a sign of the growing maturity of the Islamic system and the evolution of democratic governance. Before the second round of the elections could take place in May, however, a conservativeminded parliament reacted speedily. Encouraged by Khamanei, it stiffened the Press Law in April, leading to the closure of dozens of publications by the judiciary. In the 2005 presidential contest, leading reformists were barred from the race by the Guardian Council. Deprived of real choice, most reformist voters boycotted the election. This enabled the hard-line mayor of Tehran, Ahmadinejad — a Khamanei favorite — to trounce Rafsanjani, an affluent, pragmatic conservative blemished by a reputation for corruption. During Ahmadinejad’s presidency, university classes were resegregated by gender. The law banning satellite dishes was enforced vigorously. The morality police resorted to patrolling the streets to ensure that women wore proper Islamic dress and unmarried couples refrained from holding hands. This was but a part of Ahmadinejad’s drive to return society to the early years of the Islamic revolution. Little wonder then that, in the runcontinued next page
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continued from page 2 up to the 2009 presidential election, young voters rallied behind Mir Hussein Mousavi, whose academic wife, the artist Zahra Rahnavard, spoke of the hijab becoming optional for women. Mousavi promised to disband the morality police and appoint women to important government jobs. The Nature of the Iranian Revolution In trying to recreate the environment of the early days of the Iranian revolution in the absence of the conditions that brought about the collapse of the old order of the Shah, the country’s hard line leaders are defying both human nature and history. They are ignoring the fact that most people tend to strive only to the extent that is necessary to survive, procreate, and lead a comfortable life. More important, human beings simply cannot continue functioning at a heightened level for decades on end. Revolutions are born out of periods of acute crisis and extraordinary fervor combined with high idealism. With time, red hot zeal cools, and so does a revolution. Idealism gives way to pragmatism — and, of course, corruption. No less than the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, bowed to inescapable reality when he accepted a United Nationsbrokered ceasefire with Iraq in 1988, after endlessly exhorting Iranians to fight on for 20 years — until victory. Such softening is common to all revolutions. Yet in the regional context, what happened in Iran in the late 1970s had been unique. Every previous post-World War II dramatic regime change in the Middle East had come about thanks to overnight military coups. The overthrow of the seemingly unassailable Shah of Iran in February 1979, on the other hand, was the culmination of a relentless twoyear-long revolutionary movement. Globally, too, the Iranian revolution stood apart. All the revolutions of the last century, starting with the Mexican revolution of 1910, were
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secular and focused on changing property and class relations. Not the one in Iran. Its leader, Khomeini, made adroit use of Shiite history and Iranian nationalism to attract ever-increasing support. He managed to unite the disparate anti-Shah forces, both religious and secular — including Marxists of various shades — by his most radical demand: the deposition of Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlavi. Although his revolutionary movement included secularists, only the religious segment was capable, via the mosque, of providing a national organizational network down to the village level. Both as an institution and a place of congregation, the mosque proved critical. Since the state could not suppress the mosque in a country that was 98% Muslim, it offered a sanctuary to the revolutionary movement. That was why Khomeini instructed the clergy to base the Revolutionary Komitehs (Committees) coordinating the anti-Shah movement in those mosques. It was in this way that the unprecedented upheaval, claiming an estimated 10,000 to 40,000 lives (largely unarmed Iranians killed by military gunfire), turned into the successful “Islamic revolution.” It became a preamble to the founding of the Islamic Republic of Iran. That term “republic” — not “state” or “emirate” (as in the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan under the Taliban) — in the official title was, and remains, highly significant. Thirty years on, the partisans of Mousavi are now arguing that the recent electoral fraud undermines the founding principle of the post-Shah regime: that power lies with the public. Overthrowing an established order is a hard, bloody affair, but making a revolution stick is even more demanding. In the case of Iran, the revolutionary regime became a target of aggression when Iraq’s Saddam Hussein launched his invasion in September 1980. The subsequent eight-year war helped merge Iranian nationalism into the postShah regime, and stabilized it. Following Khomeini’s death in
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1989, the transition to his successor Khamanei as the Supreme Leader, assisted by the popularly elected president Rafsanjani, was smooth. Initially, Khamanei took his cues from Rafsanjani, a wily politician. As he consolidated his hold over the military, the Revolutionary Guard Corps, and its auxiliary, the Basij militia, however, he began operating independently and drifted away from Rafsanjani. Now, both hard-liners and reformists are competing to show their loyalty to Shiite Islam. Its founder, Imam Hussein, the Great Martyr, leading a band of 72 retainers, died in 680 AD while battling a force of 4,000 to stake his rightful claim to the caliphate usurped by his rival. The moral of this episode, which lies at the heart of Shiite Islam, is that the true believer must not shirk from challenging the established order if it has become unjust and oppressive. Competing Loyalties to Shiite Islam In today’s Shiite Iran, the partisans of Mousavi have adopted green, the color of Islam, as their brand. They shout “Allah-u Akbar” (God is Great) and “We want [Imam] Hussein” in the streets and from the rooftops, while their leader invokes the Quran to demand justice. They are not demanding regime change, only an overdue change in the regime. For his part, Supreme Leader Khamanei sees the hand of God in the overwhelming victory of Ahmadinejad. The riot police and Basij militia regard him as their spiritual guide and consider any challenge to his word or deed as a challenge to Islam. Ignoring massive evidence to the contrary, Khamanei has ruled out an electoral fraud on the grounds that such a possibility is inconceivable in Iran’s Islamic system. While locked in a struggle, both sides claim to be pursuing the ideal of a just Islamic state. Each remains aware of the value of martyrdom. The Iranian security forces’ beatings, baton charges, and tear gassing of unarmed, peaceful protestors, as well continued next page
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continued from page 3 as mass arrests, are deplorable. It is worth noting that most of the firing of live ammunition by the security personnel seems to have been in the air. That explains why the fatalities in the massive and repeated street protests in Tehran have remained relatively low, totaling 15, according to official sources, which also claim that eight Basij militiamen have been killed. Media reports generally have cited 17 deaths of protestors so far, though rumors of higher death tolls abound. What matters most to the government, as well as its opponents, is the number of people killed, or “martyred.” The speed with which the authorities have tried to hijack the killing
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of 26-year-old Neda Aghan Soltan in Tehran by a bullet almost certainly fired by a uniformed member of the security forces is illustrative. They have declared her to be a Basiji martyr, allegedly killed by pro-Mousavi protestors, who, in response, rushed to circulate worldwide the shocking image of her dying in the street. Given its Shiite underpinning, the government remains conscious that resorting to excessive violence could turn opponents into that most dangerous of symbols: martyrs. Until the June 12th election — despite evidence of modest tinkering with the first round of the 2005 presidential vote — post-Shah Iran seemed to indicate that Islam and democracy could work in harmony. The upheaval since then has
L E A D A R T I C L E demonstrated that when strains between the two concepts develop, it is democracy that gets short shrift. That is bad news for Muslims — and non-Muslims — worldwide. 29 June 2009 Dilip Hiro is the author of five books on Iran, the latest being The Iranian Labyrinth: Journeys Through Theocratic Iran and its Furies (Nation Books), as well as most recently Blood of the Earth: The Battle for the World’s Vanishing Oil Resources. His upcoming book After Empire: The Rise of a Multipolar World will be published by Nation Books later this year. Source: www.tomdispatch.com/post/ 175089/dilip_hiro_the_weeks_of_ living_ dangerously
STATEMENTS IRAN: A QUESTION While acknowledging that the total number of votes cast in some 50 districts had exceeded the total number of voters in those districts, the Iranian Council of Guardians maintains that the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was legitimate. A lot of fair-minded people inside and outside Iran will not be convinced. The 646 electoral irregularities cited by Ahmadinejad’s opponents — from ballot box stuffing to the sealing of ballot boxes before voting commenced to the expulsion of their polling agents from polling stations — are so serious that they warrant a full and free investigation into the conduct of the entire election. Every ballot should have been recounted, the ballots should have been counter-checked against the electoral rolls and the names and identities of the voters should have been verified in the presence of not only the agents of all the four presidential candidates but also representatives of some non-Western electoral democracies. Such an open, transparent and comprehensive re-count would have eliminated the doubts and suspicions that persist in the minds of so many people about the outcome of the presidential election of 12 June 2009.
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Instead of demonstrating its commitment to accountability in the truest sense of the term, the Guardian Council chose to scrutinize only a small number of allegations of electoral malpractices and examined only 10 percent of the votes cast. The impression one gets is that the Council is determined to ensure that the election result that gave a huge victory to incumbent Ahmadinejad is maintained at all costs. Its stance is similar to that of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who showered accolades upon Ahmadinejad’s triumph the day after the election even though there were numerous protests over the outcome from respected figures such as former president Muhammad Khatami. Indeed, Khamenei went further six days later in his Khutbah Jumaah (Friday Sermon) and harshly denounced protests against alleged electoral fraud. By coming out so strongly against Ahmadinejad’s opponents, the Supreme Leader compromised the integrity of his high office and sullied his own public image. Khamenei’s biased attitude and Ahmadinejad’s tarnished victory have in fact widened the rift within the ruling class
itself. There are perhaps more clerics and senior political personalities opposed to the Khamenei-Ahmadinejad rule today than before the election. This cleavage within the ruling religious-cum-political establishment may well turn out to be the single most significant consequence of the flawed Ahmadinejad electoral triumph. Even if it does not lead to immediate changes, the ruling clique, it is obvious has lost a great deal of moral authority. Its brutal suppression of the mainly young voices of protest has alienated the clique from a significant segment of the populace. Its apparent lack of honesty and accountability vis-a-vis the recent election has undermined its credibility with its own people and with the world at large. How long can such a clique lord over its people when it has sacrificed principle for power? Dr. Chandra Muzaffar, President, International Movement for a Just World (JUST). Malaysia. 24 June 2009
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IRAN: RESPECT DISSENT; STOP The International Movement for a Just World (JUST) condemns the violence that has accompanied the Iranian government’s crackdown on dissent in the last ten days following the disputed presidential election of 12 June 2009. According to state media, seventeen people have been killed so far. Hundreds have been injured. The alternative media in Iran has highlighted the killing of a twenty-six year-old girl who had participated in demonstrations in Teheran on Saturday 20 June 2009.
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From various sources inside and outside Iran, the general picture that emerges is of people protesting peacefully against alleged electoral fraud. Harsh retaliation on the part of the security forces and the Basej, the militia that is totally loyal to the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is totally unwarranted. The Iranian government should recognise and respect the legitimacy of peaceful dissent expressed through rallies, assemblies and the alternative media. It is a right enshrined in the Iranian
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W ITH AUNG SAN SUU KYI Dear Aung San Suu Kyi, Peace! Your patience, perseverance and indomitable courage in the face of adversity are an inspiration to human beings everywhere. You have shown the world the true meaning of non-violent resistance to oppression. You have defeated your oppressors even before your release. You will be free, sooner than many of us dare to hope for! For truth always triumphs in the end, however great the odds. In solidarity, Dr. Chandra Muzaffar, President, International Movement for a Just World (JUST). (Prisoner of Conscience 1987) Malaysia. 5 June 2009. The above statement was made in response to a request from Amnesty International sent around the world to mark the 64th birthday of detained political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi with a show of global solidarity. Amnesty International asked its ‘prisoners of conscience’ from various parts of the world to express their solidarity with Aung San Suu Kyi in 64 words. — Editor
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Constitution itself. It is consonant with both the letter and the spirit of the Noble Qur’an and the life of the Prophet Muhammad (may peace be upon him). Suppressing legitimate dissent through force will only undermine the moral authority of the government. It is such suppression that often leads to instability, ‘ bloodshed and chaos.’ Chandra Muzaffar, 23 June 2009.
ARTICLES CHANGING
THE DISCOURSE By Phyllis Bennis
Obama’s approach toward the Muslim world may be diplomatic but there needs to be more action. President Barack Obama’s much-anticipated Cairo speech reflected a significant shift away from the ideological framework of militarism and unilateralism that shaped the Bush administration’s war-based policy towards the Arab and Muslim worlds. His “not Bush” focus was perhaps most sharply evident in his public denunciation of the Iraq War as a “war of choice.” Obama’s call for a “new beginning” based on “the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition” was followed by a move to shift the official U.S. discourse towards something closer to internationalism - particularly by pointing to parallels between historical (and some contemporary) grievances and treating them as equivalent. This included his reference to the U.S. “role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government” along with Iran’s “role in acts of hostage-taking and violence against U.S. troops and civilians.” Certainly, the equivalences were limited. Equating Palestinians and Israelis as “two peoples with legitimate aspirations, each with a painful history” doesn’t reflect the reality that Israel is an occupying power with specific obligations under the Geneva Convention, while Palestinians living under occupation are a protected population under international law. But in the context of decades of U.S. privileging of Israelis as the only ones who have suffered, equating the two was a major step forward. As expected, Obama focused first on the historic contributions of Arabs and Muslims to global civilization and to U.S. culture and history. His articulation of U.S. policy - and particularly U.S. active obligations - on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were addressed only in broad strokes, although there was more detail regarding Iran. The shift in discourse, away from justifying reckless imperial continued next page
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continued from page 5 hubris, unilateralism and militarism and towards a more cooperative and potentially even internationalist approach was potent. The actual policy shifts were much smaller. It remains the work of mobilized people across the U.S. - starting with the millions who mobilized to build a movement capable of electing Barack Hussein Obama as President - to turn that new language into new policies - reversing the escalation and moving towards ending Obama’s war in Afghanistan and Pakistan, ending the occupation of Iraq immediately rather than years from now, ending U.S. military aid to Israel and creating a policy based on an end to occupation and equality for all, launching new negotiations with Iran not based on military threats, implementing U.S. nuclear disarmament obligations, and more. That’s the next step. The Wars Obama began by framing Washington’s regional wars in the context of “violent extremism.” He pointed to Iraq as a reminder of the need to “use diplomacy and build international consensus to resolve our problems,” though he undercut that claim with the added “whenever possible.” He did reiterate the claim that the “we pursue no bases, and no claim on their territory or resources” in Iraq, and that the U.S. will honor the agreement with Iraq “to remove combat troops from Iraqi cities by July, and to remove all of our troops from Iraq by 2012.” But on Afghanistan, Obama’s own war, he continued to claim that “Afghanistan demonstrates America’s goals,” and that the U.S. invaded Afghanistan “because of necessity.” He claimed “we do not want to keep our troops in Afghanistan” and “we seek no military bases there.” But he went on that the U.S. troops are there because there are “violent extremists in Afghanistan and now Pakistan determined to kill as many Americans as they possibly can.” This was a clear statement of intention to remain occupying or militarily engaged in those countries for a long time to come. As an after-thought, Obama added that “military power alone is not going to solve the problems” and bragged of a plan to invest $1.5 billion a year in
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Pakistan for schools and hospitals and refugee assistance, and that the U.S. is “providing more than $2.8 billion to help Afghans develop their economy.” That claim might have had legitimacy if it reflected more than a tiny pittance of the current $97 billion of war-funding the Obama administration has requested for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars just through September. Israel-Palestine Obama began with a reassertion of the “unbreakable” bond between the U.S. and Israel. He traced the history of Jewish persecution “around the world,” but despite his focus here on the Islamic world, made no mention of the history of Jews finding refuge and welcome in Muslim lands during some of the worst periods of anti-Semitism. (He did refer to Islam’s “proud tradition of tolerance in the history of Andalusia and Cordoba during the Inquisition” but did not mention Islam’s protection of Jews.) And on settlements, he said that the U.S. “does not accept” the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop.” Although he did not specifically refer to ending so-called “natural growth” in the settlements, the reference to “earlier agreements” was clearly designed to remind the audience of Israel’s 2003 agreement to freeze all settlement expansion including “natural growth.”
only as statements - “Israel must also live up to its obligations” “Israel must acknowledge,” etc. He did not, in the crucial weakness of the speech, make any U.S. commitment to insuring that compliance - such as conditioning all or even part of the $3 billion annual U.S. military aid to Israel on a complete settlement freeze or other adherence to other aspects of U.S. or international law. Similarly, regarding the Arab peace initiative, Obama ignored the reality that the initiative’s starting point - a complete Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders has never been implemented. Instead he demanded that the Arab states “must recognize that the Arab Peace Initiative was an important beginning, but not the end of their responsibilities.” He called on them to “help the Palestinian people develop the institutions that will sustain their state, to recognize Israel’s legitimacy, and to choose progress over a selfdefeating focus on the past,” as if it were a Palestinian choice, rather than the consequence of continuing Israeli occupation and apartheid, that make creation of a Palestinian state impossible.
Obama’s overall language was stronger than that of any earlier U.S. president: Israel “must acknowledge that just as Israel’s right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine’s.” His description of Palestinian suffering went beyond earlier U.S. accounts, including references to 60 years of “the pain of dislocation” and “the displacement brought about by Israel’s founding.” And he described the Palestinians’ situation as “intolerable.” His definition of the “legitimate Palestinian aspiration,” however, was limited to “dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own,” and despite the reference to Palestinian refugees and 60 years of dislocation, he did not mention the right of return.
Obama did move the discourse significantly by his linking the Palestinian struggle to that of the U.S. civil rights movement and those in South Africa. While Obama referred only to the nonviolent nature of those struggles, and didn’t explicitly describe the Palestinian struggle for human rights as a civil rights or anti-apartheid struggle, those parallels are now part of the U.S. framework for understanding the fight for Palestinian rights. This gives new legitimacy to the anti-apartheid and “BDS” (boycott, divestment, and sanctions) movements that shape the global civil society mobilizations in support of Palestinian equality.
Obama mentioned Israel’s obligations
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continued from page 6 Iran The Iran discussion was perhaps the most significant in actual policy terms. Obama again turned to his pattern of equivalence, describing the U.S. “role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government” and Iran’s role in “acts of hostage-taking and violence against U.S. troops and civilians.” While that’s hardly an equal comparison, for a U.S. president to take full responsibility for the overthrow of a government and link it to Iran’s later actions, is a huge step forward. And on the prospects for diplomacy, Obama used language that parallels almost word-for-word the way Iran’s intellectuals, diplomats and government officials describe what Iran is looking for in future negotiations: “we are willing to move forward without preconditions on the basis of mutual respect.” That commitment to respect, and the lack of a preliminary demand for what Iran must acquiesce to, could be the hallmark of a potential new diplomatic process. He didn’t, unfortunately, call for a regional peace conference, involving all countries in the region including Iran, to replace his current call for Arab governments to join the U.S. and Israel in a regional antiIran alliance. Importantly, Obama did restate the U.S. commitment “to seek a world in which no nations hold nuclear weapons.” And he stated officially that “any nation including Iran - should have the right to access peaceful nuclear power if it complies with its responsibilities under
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the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.” Unfortunately, Obama simultaneously indicated an old-style unilateralist superpower approach to U.S. and international obligations to that treaty (NPT). He described the “core of the treaty” as the commitments of those nations wanting access to peaceful nuclear power not to seek nuclear weapons - Article IV of the NPT. But he made no mention of the reciprocal and at least equally (if not more) important Article VI - which requires the recognized nuclear weapons states - including the United States - to move towards comprehensive nuclear disarmament. So Obama’s own commitment to “seeking” nuclear abolition is not linked to recognition of an actual treaty obligation to end Washington’s own nuclear arsenal. He also didn’t call for a Middle East-wide nuclear weapons-free and weapons of mass destruction-free zone, as called for in the U.S.-backed Article 14 of Security Council resolution 687 that ended the 1991 Gulf War. Such a call would have included the need to disarm Israel’s dangerous 100-300 high-density nuclear weapons, and at least tacitly recognized the destabilizing impact of that nuclear arsenal in fomenting a Middle East nuclear arms race. Democracy Obama took an important step in acknowledging that the war in Iraq, and specifically the Bush administration’s claim that it was a war “for democracy” had undermined the U.S. claim of supporting democracy. He said “no system of government can or should be
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imposed by one nation by any other.” He went on to say that the U.S. “would not presume to pick the outcome of a peaceful election” and that “we will welcome all elected, peaceful governments - provided they govern with respect for all their people.” Good positions - but ones that ignore the reality of continuing U.S. positions in the Arab world in particular. Certainly the January 2006 Palestinian election - deemed “free and fair” by U.S. and European monitors - that brought Hamas to majority power in the elected parliament was not “welcomed” by the United States. And just in recent days, Vice-President Joe Biden told Lebanon directly that future U.S. support would depend on the outcome of their forthcoming election an unmistakable reference to U.S. intentions of cutting aid if Hezbollah, already the second-largest party in Lebanon’s parliament, achieves greater elected power. (In this, the Obama administration is channeling President George H.W. Bush’s position in 1990 regarding Nicaragua - telling the population that if they voted for the Sandinistas they would face years of continuing war, while a victory for the U.S.-backed opposition would lead to new economic assistance. The popular Sandinistas were roundly defeated.) 4 June 2009 Phyllis Bennis is a Fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies. Her most recent book is Ending the Iraq War: A Primer. Source: http://www.ips-dc.org/articles/ obama_in_egypt_changing_the_discourse
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By Dayan Jayatilleka We have a once –in-generations chance to re-found Sri Lanka, to build Sri Lanka anew. To do so, we must be both hard and soft; and vigilant as hawks and as conciliatory as doves. We must be hard enough to obliterate what is left of the LTTE as an organization and surgically pre-empt any attempts at re-emergence, be they local or Diaspora-based and originated. We must be soft and malleable enough to arrive at a consensus with the non-Tiger Tamils as to the shape of the Sri Lanka we wish to build and live in.
is modest and realistic reform, namely the implementation of the 13th amendment to the Sri Lankan constitution, because it represents the broadest available consensus between the Sri Lankan state and a section on non-Tiger Tamils as well as the Sri Lankan and Indian states. It represents the triangular intersection of the antiTiger elements of the “Tamil armed resistance” (as Kethesh Loganathan used to call it), and the Colombo and New Delhi governments.
Where do we start? With renovation, I suggest. The only available starting point
The day after our Thirty Years War ended this year, a top level Indian delegation
paid a call on the President and the joint press statement that ensued ( May 21st) not only contained a commitment by the Government of Sri Lanka to implement the 13th amendment but to explore possibilities of a further movement through dialogue. The why of it is that 70 million Tamils will not go away from the demographic makeup of India; a significant percentage of them will always be concerned about the fate of their ethnic kin in Sri Lanka, constituting a political factor that no government at the centre will ignore. continued next page
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continued from page 7 Furthermore, no government at the Centre will risk a significant degree of alienation of Tamil Nadu, on the basis that the latter does not care about the fate of Sri Lanka’s Tamils. We Sri Lankan Sinhalese could very well argue that it is none of their or anybody else’s business but our own, but that is just not the way the world works. As Mervyn de Silva wrote “in the age of identity, ethnicity walks on water”. Look at the intervention or counter-intervention of Russia on behalf of the South Ossetians in the face of a Georgian military offensive. (The Indian conduct of 1987 was a perfect precursor of this). The 13th amendment is the concrete expression of the Indian concern balanced off with Sri Lanka’s sovereignty. Several scholarly texts, from different viewpoints, shed light on this nexus and its evolution. I refer to those by KM de Silva, Shelton Kodikara, John Gooneratne and Urmila Phadnis. Sovereignty not only has to be asserted, it has to be defended and be defensible. Sri Lanka cannot defend its sovereignty against all comers from all points of the compass, North and South, West and East. It can defend its sovereignty only by power balancing in a multi-polar world. Starkly put, if we lose India, we even lose the Non-aligned Movement, and (as we saw in 1987) we are left naked. Any attempt at erasure of the 13th amendment will only open the door to greater not lesser concessions because we shall be dealing with a globalized world and the Obama factor as well. Between 1987 and today falls the breakup of the USSR and Yugoslavia, the dawn of the new century and the information age, the emergence of Obama etc. In short, it is better not to re-open the issue of the 13th amendment because we could find that the point of equilibrium stops above and beyond it. There are minority grievances and there are minority aspirations. The latter are neither imaginary nor unwarranted. That which Virginia Woolf asserted on behalf of women writers is true of human beings in general: A Room with a View. It is part of the human condition that every individual requires an irreducible minimum of space in which to assert one’s distinctive identity and grow, without domination or interference from others. Every civic group needs political and
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cultural space. That is the bedrock argument for some measure of self rule or autonomy. It is rather different in the United States or France, where the Constitution does not privilege the culture or religion of any community, and there cannot be said to be – nor are there
claims to being – a dominant ethnic, or ethno-religious community. The US is a melting pot, a classic case of cultural fusion and change, while the French Republic is sternly secular, with neither veils nor crosses allowed in schools. Some states and societies are a hybrid, such as India, which has a secular Constitution, a pluralist society (the Prime Minister is a Sikh, the most powerful politician is of Italian origin, the most powerful political family is mixed race) but also provides sufficient space for its constituent communities in the form of a quasi federal system and linguistic states. Tamil grievances remain from 1951, (if not from DS Senanayakae’s Pan Sinhala Cabinet) when Senator Nadesan voiced his dissent over the National Flag. We are far from a situation in which society is integrated, discrimination is aggressively tackled and the state is neutral between communities. In such a context, where one individual is not the equal of the other and one community has more privileges than the other, it is the case the world over, that collectivities with their distinctive identities and inhabiting recognizable geographic areas over long periods, tend to seek some political space and measure of self rule/ self governance. I cannot think of any state in the world, and I work among 193, that does not hold that Sri Lanka’s Tamils deserve and require equal rights in practice, as well as some autonomous political space, be it devolution of power to autonomous regions or provinces (as in Britain or
A R T I C L E S China) or something more. I repeat, the 13th amendment is the most modest and economical of these arrangements as far as the majority goes. The 13th amendment may not solve grievances, but certainly addresses them. Does the Parliamentary or Presidential system solve the grievances of the Sinhalese or the majority of ordinary people or the poor? Obviously not, but this does not lead to the conclusion that these institutions and practices should be dumped in the trash-can because they simply devolve power to politicians and Ministers. They must be retained because, as Churchill said of democracy, they are the worst, save all others. Political accommodation and reconciliation are not possible on the basis of majoritarian unilateralism. It requires a consensus, a common denominator between the communities. It would be difficult for the Sinhalese to find any of their fellow Tamil (and Muslim?) citizens who could be accommodated short of the implementation of the 13th amendment at the very least. If someone could name a single Tamil political party or leading personality who is willing to settle for anything short of the 13th amendment, I would be pleasantly surprised. What he or she will discover is that even purely domestic political accommodation between the communities/ethnic collectivities is impossible other than on the basis of the 13th amendment at the minimum. There is a major distinction between Sri Lankans being at the centre of sorting out Sri Lankan problems, and Sri Lankan problems being capable of sorting out exclusively by Sri Lankans. That is the kind of isolationist position I have never held. My unit of analysis has always been the world system taken as single whole, a complex unevenly structured totality, and this is all the more relevant now that we are faced with the threat of a global protracted struggle with Tamil secessionism. If the battlefield is global, our analysis cannot be purely local. Sri Lanka’s sovereignty must be defended mainly by our efforts, but cannot be defended solely or exclusively by them, and must be defended by a broad united front or concentric circles of alliances. Full if graduated implementation of the continued next page
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continued from page 8 13th Amendment, i.e. the fullest possible devolution of powers within our Constitution, is an essential part of the minimum political programme on which such a global united front can be built and sustained. Narrow nationalism is an inadequate basis for the defense of the national interest, which is why the greatest of nationalists or more correctly, patriots, were also the greatest of internationalists. An example would be Fidel Castro who never tires of quoting Cuba’s 19th century national hero, Jose Marti as saying “Homeland is humanity”. And Ho Chi Minh, (the
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Vietnamese nation’s beloved “Uncle Ho”) who reminded us that “Nothing is More Precious than Independence and Freedom” but also recalled (as a founder of the French Communist Party and the Communist International) the correctness of Frederick Engels’ dictum that “Freedom is the recognition of necessity”. I commend the full implementation of the 13th amendment at least as a tough-minded Engelsian recognition of necessity as both prerequisite and corollary of freedom. Prof Senaka Bandaranaike discerns a pattern in ancient Sri Lankan history of being ahead of the rest of the
A R T I C L E S subcontinent on occasions, but never being able to achieve a decisive breakthrough and sustain it. This happened at least three times, he once said in a lecture I attended. We now have another chance. It is as if we have obtained a second Independence, when we were ahead of the game in the rest of Asia but we then blew it. Let’s not blow it yet again. 30 June 2009 Dr Dayan Jayatilleka is a political analyst and commentator, and a former underground revolutionary activist. He is Senior Lecturer at the Department of Politics and Public Policy at the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka. Source: http://www.dailymirror.lk
A SMALL HOUSE CAN FIT A HUNDRED FRIENDS By Daniela Kantorova I was very fortunate to attend a talk by Doctor Izzeldin Abuelaish, a man nominated for the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. The talk was held at a Kehilla Community Synagogue in Oakland, California, which organised this talk along with Americans for Peace Now and Brit Tzedek V’Shalom. I learned of the event from my local interfaith network and thought that I should not miss such a special opportunity to learn from this man. I am only beginning to learn about Gaza and the conflict, so I did not know much about Dr. Abuelaish. However, somehow I knew deep in my heart that I had to attend this talk. He spent years working to foster understanding between Israelis and Palestinians, and I wanted to learn about his point of view, as a Palestinian witnessing the tragedy of the conflict on a daily basis. What’s more, an immense personal tragedy, the loss of his three daughters this January in an Israeli attack, did not stop him from continuing his work for peace. I volunteer in a griefsupport non-profit organisation, and was also interested how this extraordinary man deals with his grief. Dr. Abuelaish began his talk by showing us a few slides of his daughters, Bisan (20), Mayar (15) and Aya (13)—three beautiful girls and excellent students. He then showed pictures of his destroyed house, of the blood on the ceiling, of the body bags. Some people had tears in their eyes. He showed dreamlike photos from a couple of days before the girls’deaths when he took them to the beach. They
had written their names in the sand, which the waves then erased..... but, he said, it was not the waves that killed his three girls. It was the craziness of the persisting conflict. Dr. Abuelaish works as an obstetrician, specializing in the treatment of infertility. He lost his wife last September, and now, his three daughters. What was his response? He decided to start a foundation to provide health care and education to disadvantaged girls. About his decision, he said (I am paraphrasing the quotes here): It’s time for women to become decision-makers. Educated women will lead. They will not bring about war and conflict. He spoke of his hope that his loss would be transformed into something useful, and that no other woman would have to die to influence the men. He kept returning to the topic of the importance of women. Maybe women are less selfish than men, he said. Many times during his talk the audience erupted in applause. He talked about his personal hardship, having grown up in the refugee camps of Gaza. But he managed to graduate from medical school, proving that great things are possible with work and determination. About the power of action to effect change, he said: willing is not enough; we must act. Whatever action, however small, makes a difference. Evil survives in this world because good people do nothing... It’s time for people
to lead the leaders, he said. Someone in the audience asked what American Jews should do. To this, Dr. Abuelaish responded: Before American Jews, they are human beings and when they defend other human beings, they are defending themselves. There was a question about how Dr. Abuelaish was coping with his grief. He placed great emphasis on his work and identity as a physician who needs to focus on the living, on the people who survived (his 17 year old daughter Shadar was seriously injured in the attack), and on his work for change. He said: you must stand up and do things in memory of people you have lost. He also said his faith was sustaining him. Another question was about Palestinians’right to return to former homes in Israel. Dr. Abuelaish said that now the situation is severe—people are dying; Gazans need to be rescued before other questions can be considered. He also said that it’s not constructive to be “pro”or “anti”: by choosing a stance, one automatically alienates the other side. We must strive towards a solution that works for both sides, because all are human beings who deserve to live in peace and dignity. Someone asked how he manages to commute from Gaza to Israel. Dr. Abuelaish seemed amused by the query and said the continued next page
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continued from page 9 questioner could come with him and try it out (I wish I were the one who asked!). His description was of a surreal process of jumping through hoops. Dr. Abuelaish needs to renew his work permit every three months and needs to report each entry to Israel three to four days in advance. To cross the border, he drives to the first checkpoint, where Israelis verify his papers. Then he has to walk one kilometre on a sandy road to an electronic gate with a camera (and no human being in sight). The door opens automatically. Then there are more gates; in total about 20 gates must be passed to enter Israel. Sometimes the soldiers get rude. He described an incident in which
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a solider asked him not only to take off his jacket, but also his shirt. The doctor refused, and the soldier refused to let him pass. The doctor asked to see an officer, who managed to settle the dispute. Can you imagine the hassle? It sounds like something from a post-apocalyptic movie that you don’t want to continue watching because it’s too depressing. Only it’s happening for real, now. He spoke a lot of human dignity: we don’t want to be controlled by remote control, he said, referring to that sci-fi gate in the desert. With all this hassle, humiliation, pain, loss and tragedy, I am deeply touched by this
A R T I C L E S man’s determination and humanity. I could not agree with him more when he said towards the end of the evening, “A small house can fit 100 friends, but not 2 enemies.”We need big hearts and minds, he said. That, and a lot of work. 27 April 2009
Daniela Kantorova is a software architect in California, about to start graduate studies in clinical psychology. The article is distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) with permission from Mideast Youth. Source: Mideast Youth, http://www. mideastyouth.com
NUCLEAR ENERGY – A REALISTIC APPRAISAL By Ronald McCoy In September 2008, the International Atomic Energy Agency made the embarrassing announcement that the nuclear power industry was in a state of decline. But growing concerns about climate change and global warming have given a moribund nuclear industry a new lease of life. Some energy analysts, policy makers and industrialists are touting the expansion of the nuclear energy sector as the answer to climate change. They argue that the use of nuclear energy to boil water to produce steam to generate electricity would be cheaper and cleaner than burning fossil fuels, the primary source of carbon dioxide emissions. But it would be the wrong response to climate change, in the face of several unresolved problems associated with nuclear energy, which is not cheap, not clean, and not safe. The astronomical cost of building, insuring and decommissioning nuclear reactors, the inability to safely dispose of long-lived radioactive waste, and the risks of nuclear accidents, nuclear terrorism, and nuclear weapons proliferation are among the problems. In Malaysia, we are informed that Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) is planning to commission the first nuclear power plant in the country by 2025, should the government decide to implement such an energy policy, in response to volatile fossil fuel prices and the expected decline in gas resources by 2019. TNB and the
would have to be built to offset 10 percent of global carbon emissions by 2050. That is, more than one plant per week in the next few decades. – a completely unattainable goal.
government cannot assume that it is a done deal. Before risking a large capital investment in such a potentially perilous and ruinous venture, both TNB and the government have a duty and responsibility to the people of Malaysia to have an open and honest national debate. Since the nuclear reactor accidents in Three Mile Island (United States) and Chernobyl (Ukraine), the construction of new reactors has largely stagnated, especially in industrialized countries. Today, 438 reactors generate about 14 percent of the world’s electricity, although another 44 reactors are under construction in China, Russia, India and South Korea. In order to contribute significantly to the reduction of greenhouse gases, we would have to build a large number of nuclear reactors at a phenomenal rate. No less than 2,200 new nuclear power plants
Costs of nuclear energy The full economic costs of nuclear energy are difficult to determine. The nuclear industry’s methods of accounting are not transparent. Costs, such as accident insurance, radioactive waste disposal and decommissioning, are often buried in generous government subsidies or conjured into debt legacies for future generations. Of course, high costs need not become a key issue, if nuclear energy were the only option for mitigating climate change. But it is not the only option. In the United States, the government subsidises the cost of uranium enrichment as well as 98 percent of the industry’s insurance liability of US$726 billion. The cost of decommissioning all existing US reactors is estimated to be US$33 billion. In addition, the ultimate cost of storing long-lived radioactive waste for 250,000 years has yet to be calculated. As recent as 29 May 2009, two financial reports in the Business Section of the New York Times emblazoned the incredible economics of nuclear power by highlighting the fiasco of the construction of a new reactor in Olkiluoto, Finland, by the French continued next page
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continued from page 10 company, Areva, and the virtual collapse of the once touted global flagship, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited. Both companies were overtaken by cost overruns amounting to billions of dollars and long delays in completion schedules extending into decades.
be sufficient to make a nuclear weapon or a dirty conventional bomb. A major expansion in nuclear energy would make it increasingly difficult to track and secure the movement of such small quantities of nuclear material.
would require a new repository the size of the Yucca Mountain site in the United States every two years into the foreseeable future. In fact, after 20 years and $9 billion of investment, the Obama administration has declared Yucca Mountain “not an option.” If medieval man had ventured into nuclear energy, we today would still be managing his waste.
This bodes ill for an industry, whether in France, Canada or South Korea, that after 50 years cannot get private funding or liability insurance, cannot deal with its radioactive wastes, and now cannot demonstrate the ability to build new reactors anywhere near on time or budget. It would be far sounder and more justifiable to commit our limited resources to research and development of renewable sources of energy, conservation of energy and energy efficiency. In the transition to an environmentally sustainable world, we must move to an ecologically sustainable economy and preserve scarce, finite resources. The push for nuclear energy focuses on only one dimension – the mitigation of carbon emissions – while marginalizing the other daunting and unresolved risks of nuclear power.
Such a waste burden would be reduced if technology shifted from conventional once-through light water reactors to advanced closed fuel cycle plants, where spent fuel is reprocessed and re-used. But reprocessing nuclear waste would generate massive quantities of weapons-grade plutonium, which would increase the risk of diversion of weapons-grade material to the production of nuclear weapons. Any nuclear energy programme could lead to the production of weaponsgrade uranium and plutonium, and therefore cannot be separated from nuclear weapons proliferation. For use as reactor fuel, naturally occurring uranium has to undergo enrichment to increase the concentration of fissionable U-235 isotope. The risk is that this enrichment can be continued to the point of producing weaponsgrade uranium. It follows that any expansion of nuclear power would inevitably increase the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation.
Disposal of radioactive waste Nuclear reactor waste remains radioactive for tens of thousands of years. Plutonium has a half-life of 24,000 years or 240 centuries or 24 millennia. The inability of the nuclear industry to dispose safely of long-lived radioactive waste is the most dangerous and unacceptable aspect of nuclear energy. No country has yet been able to build a functioning longterm radioactive waste repository. It defies belief that much of the world’s growing accumulation of waste continues to pile up in casks located at dispersed nuclear power plant sites in 44 countries. Finding satisfactory geologic repositories has proved to be an intractable problem. For instance, disposing of waste from 2,000 reactors ○
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The path to sustainability In responding to the challenge of climate change, we must acknowledge the irrefutable burdens and risks of nuclear energy and stop promoting it as the solution. The energy path to a sustainable future lies elsewhere. First, we must harness the massive potential of solar, wind and other renewable sources by investing and advancing research and development. Second, we must develop technology in energy efficiency by reducing energy use in buildings, increasing automobile efficiencies, expanding mass public transport, designing compact communities, and creating practices of industrial ecology that recycle materials and energy. Third, we must redefine development in terms of human wellbeing, not consumption and economic growth, which would reduce energy needs in richer countries and help poorer countries to join the modern world. The promotion of nuclear energy will deflect attention and resources from such a goal. Nuclear energy will confer on future generations a lethal, radioactive legacy that will last for thousands of years. This is tantamount to human genocide on a grand scale in slow motion. Malaysia must not take such a path. We must not allow ourselves to be taken in by the half-truths, propaganda and sales talk of an industry struggling to survive. It would be immoral and unethical to inflict such a deadly, never-ending burden on future generations. 16 June 2009
Another pathway from nuclear energy to nuclear weapons flows from the recovery of plutonium from the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel. As little as 6-kilograms of plutonium would ○
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Dr Ronald McCoy was a former president of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and a former VicePresident of JUST. ○
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