September 2013
Vol 13, No.09
GLOBAL PEACE MARCH TO DAMASCUS PLANNED By Marinella Corriegga, Vanessa Beeley, Feroze Mithiborwala & Roohulla Rezvi
Say No to US War on Syria!! “Syria you are not alone, we shall not let you down” The world yet again waits with bated breath, as the clouds of war threaten to drown the voices of peace. The US is once again threatening a sovereign country, under a false pretext & fabricated lies. After Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya where millions of innocent civilians died, now it is the turn of Syria. Once again US is going to use its lethal weapons and ‘save’ the people, by bombing them under the dubious pretext of ‘humanitarian intervention’. The American unilateralism poses a threat &
a challenge to the overwhelming majority of nations that oppose the war. Yet again the US is complicit in destroying & undermining the international political structures & legal framework, even as it tries to speak in the name of the international community. But even though the US stands in splendid isolation, but yet persists with the war. Thus once again innocent children & entire populations are going to be subjected to the role of helpless guinea pigs, whilst the latest weaponry is yet again tested. Once again residential areas, hospitals, schools, bridges, water supply systems, electric plants, will be targeted by the Cruise missiles, even as
the entire civilian & social infrastructure of an entire nation is degraded & destroyed. Once again apache helicopters are going to display their accuracy on civilians, their graves to be marked as collateral damage. The impending Imperialist-Zionist war on Syria is a threat to the entire region & will soon envelop the entire world into a fratricidal world war, where hundreds of millions of innocents will lose their lives. The very survival of humanity is at stake & thus this is a clarion call for peace. Enough is enough!! The overwhelming majority of the people Turn to next page
STATEMENTS
BY CHANDRA MUZAFFAR.................................P4
.BEYOND THE SURAU INCIDENT
ARTICLES
.SYRIA: A 12 POINT CASE AGAINST MILITARY INTERVENTION
BY CHANDRA MUZAFFAR......................................P 2 .A NATION BLEEDS
BY CHANDRA MUZAFFAR......................................P 5 .THE SHIA ISSUE IN PERSPECTIVE
BY CHANDRA MUZAFFAR......................................P 6
.SRI LANKA: THE FORGOTTEN LESSON IN GOOD GOVERNANCE
BY SALMA YUSUF.................................................P 8 .GLOBALISATION ISN’T JUST ABOUT PROFIT. IT’S ABOUT TAXES TOO BY JOSEPH STIGLITZ.................................................P 9 .COMMERCIAL COLONISATION OF AFRICA: THE NEW WILD WEST (PART II) BY GRAHAM PEEBLES..........................................P 10
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continued from page 1 are opposed to the war & are protesting across every nation across the world. The true international community, the comity of nations has spoken out against the attack, but the US imperialist pays no heed due to sheer arrogance & the brute force that it commands. But this time we are not going to demonstrate & protest in our cities only. We are not going to follow the news of destruction, death & war through the satellite channels any more. We are not ready to sit by & watch a new Iraq and Afghanistan, even as the occupation & destruction of Palestine carries on. This time, we are going to be there with the people of Syria. This time, for the sake of global peace and justice, we are going to March to Damascus from across the nations of the world, to bring the message of peace & stand in solidarity with the
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Syrian nation, which is one of the most ancient human civilizations.
Join us in the “Global Peace March to Damascus”!
Our objective is to resist, to defy & stop the US led war on Syria.
In solidarity Marinella Corriegga, Vanessa Beeley, Feroze Mithiborwala & Roohulla Rezvi (For the International Coordination Committee - GPMD)
Our objective is to stand witness to the destruction that will be wrecked on this nation & let the world know about the true reality of the genocidal war. Our objective is to act as a deterrent & protect the civilian & social infrastructure. Our objective is to stand in solidarity with the Syrian people. The very fate of humanity is at stake, where the choice is between peace & a global war, a war which will spell certain doom for all of humanity. Join us from across the world in our collective endeavor for peace!
Contact us on Facebook: Contact us via message to this page if you wish to take part and we can help you to organise your participation. Contact us via https:// www.facebook.com/pages/Global-PeaceM a r c h - t o - D a m a s c u s / 597025893693258?fref=ts if you wish to participate. Thank you 10 September, 2013 Source: Countercurrents.org
SYRIA: A 12 POINT CASE AGAINST MILITARY INTERVENTION By Chandra Muzaffar
The House of Representatives and the Senate of the United States of America should reject any form of US military intervention in Syria. Rejection would be a clear statement against war. It would be a lucid message on behalf of peace. There are at least 12 reasons why the US Congress, and the people of the world, should adopt such a stand. One, if the two houses represent the voice of the American people, it is significant that 50% of the people are against military intervention in Syria according to a NBC poll conducted on the 28-29 of August 2013. Only 42% support military action. It is also important to bear in mind that the people in countries
regarded as the US’s ‘comrades-in-arms’ are also opposed to military force. In France it is 64% of the citizenry. In Britain, the House of Commons, reflecting popular sentiment, has voted against military intervention in Syria. Two, since the United Nations’ investigation team has just begun its analysis of the alleged chemical attack near Damascus on 21 August, the US Congress should insist that President Obama wait until its findings are made public, before any multilateral — not unilateral—decision under the aegis of the UN is taken on Syria. Though the UN report will not tell us directly who was responsible for the attack, there may be enough circumstantial evidence in it to indicate the likely culprit. Obama’s disdainful attitude towards the UN’s
investigation is an affront to the world’s most important international institution. Former US president George Bush junior was also guilty of such disdain when he ignored the UN Security Council (UNSC) in his arrogant march to war in Iraq in 2003. Three, an attack on Syria would also be a violation of international law since Syria has not attacked the US. Like Bush, Obama has decided to bypass the UNSC. In fact, on a number of occasions in the last three decades, the US has, without going through the UNSC, invaded other sovereign states. Four, the US Congress should in all fairness accord due consideration to the facts and arguments advanced by those continued next page
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continued from page 2 who insist that Syrian President Bashar alAssad could not have been responsible for the chemical weapons attack. Why would he want to use such a weapon in the presence of the UN investigation team that he himself had invited to ascertain the truth about earlier chemical gas attacks? More importantly, what does Bashar gain from a chemical attack when he has already scored a series of victories on the battle-ground in recent months? Five, in contrast to Bashar, the armed opposition in Syria appears to have compelling motives for launching a chemical weapons assault. It would serve to draw the US and its allies into a direct military involvement in Syria especially since Obama had declared repeatedly that the use of chemical weapons by Bashar would be the red line that would provoke a US response. There have been other occasions in the course of the 30 month conflict when the armed rebels have manipulated incidents and events to elicit some reaction or other from Western powers or the UN. Often, incidents linked to heinous mass killings committed by the rebels are blamed upon the Bashar government via a biased global media. The 21 August chemical gas incident has all the markings of a meticulously planned and executed false flag operation. Six, indeed the US is guilty of fabricating various false flag operations since it emerged as a colonial power at the end of the nineteenth century. From the battleship Maine incident in Havana in 1898 to the Gulf of Tonkin episode in 1964 to the Kuwait incubator event in 1990 to the Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) myth in Iraq in 2003, US intelligence and security outfits have become adept at creating situations and circumstances which are then manipulated to undermine ‘the enemy.’ Seven, the hypocrisy of US political and security elites is not confined to false flag operations. Even when it comes to the
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use of chemical weapons, it is obvious that what the elites preach often contradicts their actual behaviour. Today, US leaders condemn the use of chemical weapons as morally reprehensible. We ask, who used agent orange in Vietnam which led to the death of thousands? Who supplied through oblique channels mustard gas to Saddam Hussein in his aggression against Iran — gas which he employed in Halabjah in March 1988 killing 5000 defenceless people? And what about the depleted uranium widely used in Iraq in the wake of the AngloAmerican invasion of that land in 2003? To this day, hundreds of babies continue to be born deformed as a result of the impact of DU. US leaders have no moral authority to pontificate about the obscenity of chemical weapons. Eight, that the moral fig-leaf is a cover for motives which are related to power and politics is borne out by yet another dimension of the chemical weapons issue. If Obama has chosen to be bellicose on the issue, it is partly because his Administration sees it as an assertion of power against Russia in light of a number of recent developments in which the latter has stood up to the US. Through the Syrian conflict, the US elite aims to show President Vladimir Putin that the US is still the world’s sole military superpower and not to be trifled with. Nine, the conflict raises yet another question of morality and power. The US and its Western allies, like its regional partners such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and Israel, are funding, arming, providing intelligence and offering logistical assistance to groups totally committed to violence and terror as a method of achieving their goal of ousting the Bashar government. The Jahbat alNusra, linked to Al-Qaeda — arguably the strongest of the armed groups ¯ is a case in point. On the hand, the US and the others proclaim that they are all opposed to violence and terrorism and
L E A D A R T I C L E yet on the other hand they unscrupulously use terror outfits in pursuit of their power. Ten, the Syrian conflict has also reinforced longstanding sectarian and tribal divisions in West Asia and North Africa (WANA). Actors within and without WANA are exploiting the SunniShia dichotomy in particular as a way of playing the majority sect in Islam against the minority with the aim of weakening Muslim solidarity. Sectarian violence is now rearing its ugly head not just in Syria but also ¯ and for a much longer while ¯ in Lebanon, Bahrain and Iraq. Eleven, needless to say, sectarian clashes in WANA benefit Israel which views turmoil and upheaval in its neighbourhood as a boon to its goal of remaining the dominant force in the region. For the Israeli elite, the ability of their nation to perpetuate its dominance is sine qua non for the security of the state which is their primary obsession. It is significant that Israel and Zionism have been able to ensure that US and Western policy as a whole in WANA is dovetailed to meet the core interests of the Israeli state. Taking military action against Syria with the objective of overthrowing Bashar is what Israel wants because Bashar is an important link in the axis of resistance to Israeli dominance which includes Iran and Hezbollah. Israel has conducted three air strikes within Syria in the last six months and its commandos have been training segments of the armed opposition. It is believed that the socalled ‘independent’ intelligence on the 21 August chemical weapons incident that is being hawked around by the US and Britain is actually from Israel. In this regard, it is worth reiterating that Israel is the hidden hand in much of the politics of other states in WANA such as Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Sudan. Twelve, by taking military action against WANA states ¯ partly at the urging of continued next page
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continued from page 3 Israel ¯ the US has brought nothing but misery and suffering to the people. The classic example is of course Iraq. 10 years after its conquest by the US and Britain, Iraq is a totally devastated nation, wrecked by perpetual sectarian violence, first ignited by the invasion itself in 2003. Outside WANA there is the other tragic case of Afghanistan which 12 years after the US-NATO occupation is still mired in the agony of chaos. Why should Syria be any different? Some advocates of military intervention in Syria are of the opinion that since the military action that Obama is planning is limited in scope and duration, Syria will not end up like Iraq or Afghanistan. There is no guarantee. Once it commences, the military operation could assume a life of its own. The response from the Syrian military command, and the reaction of Iran and Russia could be decisive. Besides, there are individuals and groups in Obama’s trench who are determined to oust Bashar, to achieve
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regime change. That could lead to a prolonged campaign. Instead of travelling further down the military route, the US House of Representatives and the Senate should urge Obama to lend his weight to the proposed US-Russia meeting on Syria to be attended by all the other regional and international actors connected to the Syrian conflict. Securing an immediate ceasefire would be the meeting’s principal goal. The US and its allies should cease providing military, monetary and all other forms of assistance to the armed opposition on the ground. As the opposition’s benefactors turn off the tap, so should Bashar’s Russian and Iranian backers. The ceasefire should be supervised by the UN and would set the stage for the establishment of an interim national unity government comprising representatives from Bashar’s Baath Party, the legitimate Syrian opposition
L E A D A R T I C L E and independent individuals. The unity government will draft a new constitution which will provide for a parliamentary election to be followed immediately by a presidential election. Both elections, and the referendum on the constitution, should be conducted and monitored by the UN. These are ideas which have been on the table before but they have not materialised. Both Bashar and his opponents and their respective supporters should prove, through deeds, that this time they will make a determined effort to achieve results. They should realise that the alternative to a peaceful resolution of the conflict through negotiations is a continuous, brutal, bloody civil-cum-proxy war without winners. 2 September, 2013 Dr. Chandra Muzaffar is the President of International Movement for a Just World (JUST)
STATEMENT BEYOND THE SURAU INCIDENT - THE VALUES THAT BIND US By Chandra Muzaffar
Muslims and Buddhists in Malaysia should not allow the Surau incident to have a negative impact upon relations between the two communities. There are at least two reasons why they should be vigilant about protecting what has been generally a harmonious relationship. One, given the deterioration in Malaynon-Malay ties in recent times, the Surau incident may be perceived in some quarters as further proof of a worsening communal milieu. Two, since the incident
has come in the midst of a series of negative episodes involving Buddhists and Muslims in Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia ¯ apart from Thailand ¯ there may be a tendency to view what happened at the Tanjung Sutera Resort in Johor on 10 August 2013 as part of an emerging pattern of tension and friction between the two communities in Asia. Muslims and Buddhists in Malaysia are by and large aware of inter-religious sensitivities. The very fact that the Chief Buddhist High Priest of Malaysia, Datuk K. Sri Dhammaratana apologised immediately to “our Muslim brothers and sisters” for the actions of a group of Buddhists from Singapore who had used the Surau for Buddhist meditation and chanting testifies to this. The Adviser to the Johor State Religious Council
expressed his appreciation of the Buddhist apology and described it as a “praiseworthy measure.” The Surau incident reminds us that performing the religious ritual of a particular community within the sacred space of another community is not acceptable in Malaysia. True, it has been done, on rare occasions, in other parts of the world but the norm everywhere is to preserve and protect what is perceived as the sanctity of one’s own sacred space for those within the fold. This in itself is not a barrier to inter-religious understanding and empathy. It is when the notion of the sanctity and purity of one’s place of worship is carried to extremes that it becomes a challenge. continued next page
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continued from page 4 In that context, demolishing the Surau simply because it had been misused on a single occasion would be a radical move, at variance with the past practices of a religion which had allowed people of other faiths into its sacred space. Besides, demolishing the Surau because it had been “defiled” sends a wrong message to our multi-religious society. Rather than taking punitive measures of this sort, religious authorities should be
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embarking upon programmes to educate Muslims and Buddhists about the values and principles that they share in common. For the last seventeen years, the International Movement for a Just World (JUST) has been engaged in dialogues with Buddhist groups such as the International Network of Engaged Buddhists (INEB), Soka Gakkai and the Museum of World Religions on how shared universal spiritual and moral values and principles can help to shape a just and peaceful world. In the process,
S T A T E M E N T we have discovered how even on issues that appear to pit Buddhists against Muslims such as the conflict in Southern Thailand or the clashes between Buddhists and Rohingyas in Myanmar, Muslim and Buddhist advocates of dialogue are able to adopt common positions based upon justice and inspired by compassion ¯ values that are at the heart of both religions.
15 August, 2013
ARTICLES A NATION BLEEDS By Chandra Muzaffar
Why is Egypt bleeding? Because its security forces are re-asserting their power and authority and the Ikhwan-al- Muslimin( Muslim Brotherhood) is resisting. Since the police with the backing of the powerful military began a brutal crackdown on the Ikhwan and its supporters on 14 August 2013, at least 800 people have been killed. This includes a small number of police personnel allegedly executed by the Ikhwan. The on-going tussle for power between the military and the Ikhwan has a long history behind it. For a brief moment in 1952 they joined hands in the overthrow of King Farouk but soon they parted company and for decades there has been bitter antagonism and animosity between these two actors who have dominated Egyptian politics for so long. The Ikhwan was in fact banned by Gamal Abdul Nasser, then Deputy Prime Minister, in 1954, following an attempt by members of the movement to assassinate him. Nasser became President in 1956. The Ikhwan remained outlawed under his successors, Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak, who like Nasser, were military officers. During this period there were frequent crackdowns against Ikhwan members and
leaders. Imprisonment, arbitrary detention and torture characterised the lives of these Ikhwan activists. Nonetheless, they managed to sustain their support base and organisational structure. The social services that they provided and their welfare work endeared them to the people especially the poor and disadvantaged who constitute such a huge portion of Egyptian society.
After Mubarak was ousted by a popular uprising in February 2011, Ikhwan was legalised. It entered the political process through a party called the Freedom and Justice Party. It was this party that won the largest number of seats in the Parliamentary Election held at the end of 2011 and the beginning of 2012. In the June 2012 Presidential Election — the first free and fair presidential election in Egypt’s history — it was the candidate from the Freedom and Justice Party, Dr.
Mohamed Morsi, who secured 52% of the popular vote. As a democratically elected President, Morsi initiated a referendum on a new national constitution. 64% of those who voted endorsed the Constitution. Morsi’s and the Ikhwan’s proven democratic credentials frightened the military. The military elite saw Ikhwan’s popularity as a direct challenge to its power. This is why it used Egypt’s High Constitutional Court made up of judges inclined towards the military to order the dissolution of the democratically elected parliament on 14 June 2012. The judiciary was also manipulated to curb the powers of the President in matters pertaining to security, defence, foreign policy and the national budget. A number of policy decisions that Morsi made also angered the military top brass. The military with its strong grip over the economy also sought to undermine efforts by the Morsi government to address various economic issues facing the people. It explains to some extent why the long queues of people waiting to purchase certain essentials that marked Morsi’s tenure disappeared shortly after he was ousted! Of course, Morsi himself failed to formulate effective solutions to critical problems such as unemployment continued next page
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continued from page 5 and inflation. His administration was by and large inept. Because some of Ikhwan’s most prominent leaders such as its spiritual guide, Mohammed Badie, and Khairat el-Shater were the ones who actually wielded influence in Morsi’s administration, some of its policies veered towards exclusiveness alienating a significant segment of the non-Ikhwan populace. All this provided ammunition to the military and other groups when they began to mobilise the masses against Morsi for the 3rd July coup. But Morsi’s shortcomings do not in any way justify the coup against a democratically elected leadership. If Morsi had to be removed, there was only one avenue available to the people: through a free and fair election. That is a fundamental principle in a democracy. Street demonstrations, however massive, do not legitimise coups. Besides, we now know that the “15 to 20 millions” who were supposed to have taken to the streets — as the veteran journalist Robert Fisk has pointed out — is a gross exaggeration which defies logic. That US and some European leaders can use such outrageous claims to rationalise their reluctance to condemn a blatant military coup against a democratically elected leader is testimony to their hypocrisy as defenders of democracy. What explains their reluctance? It stems largely from their fear that Ikhwan, given its policy position on Israel, will not be as
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accommodative as the Egyptian military elite has been since the eighties on issues pertaining to their intimate ally’s “security concerns.” It is not surprising therefore that a number of US Senators and members of the Congress have emphasised over and over again that their most trustworthy partner in Egypt remains the military. They have also reminded President Obama that in the wake of the Egyptian turmoil, Israel must remain the US’s primary commitment. The Israeli regime itself had made it explicitly clear the moment Ikhwan resurfaced as a political force to reckon with in the post-Mubarak era that it was suspicious of the movement. Seen within this context, one should not attach any significance to criticisms from Washington, London and other Western capitals about the military’s “excessive force” and its killing of civilians. They are meant to mollify human rights groups at home and to project their international image as opponents of merciless killings. The litmus test is whether the US government will demand that Morsi be restored to his legitimate position as President of Egypt. What this means is that it is unlikely that there will be strong pressure from the US upon the 3 rd July coup makers to relinquish their power. At the most, the principal architect of the coup, General Abdul- Fattah al-Sisi, will exercise some restraint in his operations against Ikhwan. The fighting and the killing will
A R T I C L E S go on. Ikhwan will not give up. If anything, the Ikhwan leadership and its rank-and-file may become even more determined to achieve justice for Morsi if the military decides to ban the Ikhwan — a proposal which may well exacerbate the situation. If that happens, and the conflict between the military and Ikhwan continues, bloodshed and mayhem may plague Egypt for many years to come. The nation will sink into a morass. Such a prospect will be a disaster for the people. On the other hand, if in the midst of the conflict, Egypt makes some economic progress and resolves at least a portion of its economic woes, the situation may eventually stabilise. However, the long-term consequences of suppressing Ikhwan will continue to challenge the nation and Muslims everywhere. Islamic groups and even states will conclude that democracy does not offer any hope. If their aspirations cannot be achieved through the democratic process, it would be better for them to resort to other means, including violent methods to realise their goals. This is why it is so important for a democratic experiment in a major ArabMuslim state like Egypt to succeed. For now, that experiment has suffered a colossal setback. 19 August, 2013
THE SHIA ISSUE IN PERSPECTIVE By Chandra Muzaffar
For more than three weeks now, the Bahasa Malaysia media has raised the spectre of a Shia threat to Islam and Muslims in the country. Day in and day out articles speak of Shia proselytization among Sunni Muslims; of widespread conversions which allegedly have increased the Shia population in Malaysia to almost 250,000.
Though empirical evidence of Shia proselytization is scant, it is true that any organised attempt to propagate Shia teachings in largely Sunni societies, and vice versa, will have repercussions. Malaysia, like the rest of the Malay world, has been Sunni for centuries. When an individual or family converts to a minority sect that has no deep roots
in the region, uneasiness develops within the larger community and tensions rise. Proselytization should be discouraged in an intelligent and mature manner. Sunni religious functionaries and scholars should engage with Shias allegedly involved in proselytization. The adverse continued next page
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continued from page 6 consequences of their activity should be conveyed to them and their followers. At the same time, one should respect the beliefs of those few families in our midst who have been Shia for generations. The overwhelmingly Sunni majority should also be educated on some of those Shia beliefs and practices that do not conform to their tradition. That the SunniShia schism is essentially a product of politics and power revolving around the status of Ali, the Prophet Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law, is a point that should be emphasised clearly. The Shias have a different record of Hadiths and certain prayer rituals set them apart from the Sunnis. It is also true that the majority within the sect recognises the practice of Muta’ah (temporary marriage). Acknowledging Shia-Sunni differences in an objective fashion is not the same as misinforming the public and distorting the truth in flagrant violation of ethics which is what some of the media have been doing in recent weeks. There is no need to regurgitate those distortions. Suffice to reiterate that all Shias subscribe to the same Quran as the Sunnis. (Incidentally, the translator of the most widely read rendition of the Quran in the English language, the late Abdullah Yusuf Ali, was a Shia scholar). They are as loyal to the memory of the Prophet as the Sunnis are. They face the same Kiblah. They perform the Hajj. They observe the fast. And they pay the zakat — apart from recognising the centrality of prayer in their lives. Instead of balancing SunniShia differences with these similarities, a huge segment of the Bahasa media has gone on a rampage, stigmatising and demonising Shias. Demonization of this sort not only spawns distrust and suspicion. It also breeds hatred and antagonism. If left unchecked, it may even lead to tensions and the very violence we want to avoid.
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Equally serious, when tension and hatred heighten within the Muslim Ummah, it would be so easy for those who want to control the community to exploit its internal antagonism in order to conquer and rule the community. This is what happened in Iraq in 2003. The US and British invaders exploited Shia sentiments in their bid to oust Saddam Hussein’s minority Sunni government. After Saddam was overthrown and the majority Shias came to power through the ballot-box, the US and Britain realised that the new government in Baghdad was more inclined towards the Shia government in Tehran. This was inimical to their interests and the agenda of their most intimate ally in the region, namely, Israel. They then began to manipulate the Sunnis against the Shia leadership in Baghdad. It is partly because of this manipulation and the concomitant power struggles that there is continuing sectarian violence in Iraq today. Syria is another tragic example of a bloody conflict which the global media controlled by the centres of power in the West, and Western allies and client states in West Asia are trying hard to camouflage as a Sunni-Shia struggle when in reality it is a stark attempt by Western powers and Israel to crush resistance to their hegemonic control of the region. Turkey, on the one hand, and Saudi Arabia, on the other, have additional reasons for plugging this line. For Sunni Turkey, the rise of Iran and Shia influence in the region is a challenge to its ambition and power. For Saudi Arabia, its ideological attachment to Wahabism makes it an implacable foe of the Shia belief system. The case of Iran also exposes the underlying political motive behind what is presented by the Saudi elite and other like-minded groups in West Asia as “the Shia threat to Islam.” Before the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Sunni elites in Riyadh and other Gulf capitals had a warm and cosy relationship with Iran under Shah
A R T I C L E S Pahlavi in spite of its Shia orientation. The Shah, needless to say, was a staunch ally of the US and Britain. When the Revolution brought to the fore a leadership opposed to US helmed hegemony, Saudi attitude towards Iran also changed. Iran and Shia teachings became a problem. That hegemonic politics is strongly intertwined with animosity towards Shia states and movements is borne out by yet another example. Though the masses in West Asia shower accolades upon Hezbollah for its heroic role in protecting Lebanon’s territorial integrity in the face of Israeli aggression, some pro Washington Sunni elites continue to disparage the movement. They have now been joined by some well-known Sunni ulama who are incensed that the Hezbollah came to the aid of Bashar Al- Assad’s soldiers in freeing a Syrian-Lebanese border town from the control of Western sponsored, Saudi and Qatari financed rebels. It explains the massive, persistent attacks upon Hezbollah and its Shia character by the ulama in the Arab media. It is the pronouncements of these ulama which are largely responsible for the upsurge of Shia bashing in Malaysia in the last few weeks. These ulama — especially someone like Sheikh Yusuf AlQaradawi ¯ have a huge following in the country and are highly revered by the Muslim populace. There is almost uncritical adulation of these ulama. Instead of blind worship, Malaysian Muslims should try to understand the political dimension of the Shia issue and cease to demonise this minority sect within the Ummah. In fact, they should be looking for meeting-points between the Sunni majority and Shia minority. Apart from those fundamental aspects of faith that we have alluded to, there are other important links continued next page
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continued from page 7 between the two groups that are worth highlighting. At the theological level, it is sometimes forgotten that Imam Abu Hanifah (died 768), the founder of the Hanafi mazhab, the largest doctrinal school within the Sunni community, was a student of Imam Jafar al-Sadiq (died 757), the sixth Imam of the Shias and the founder of the largest group within the Shia community, known as Ithna ashariyyah, or Twelve –Imam Shi’ism. Indeed, the links were so pervasive at various periods in history that the Sunni-Shia dichotomy was often blurred.
It is also important to recall that some of the most enlightened Muslim personalities in the contemporary epoch, both Sunni and Shia, like Shah Wali Allah, Sayyid Jamaluddin Al-Afghani, Muhammed Abduh, and Mahmud Shaltut had sought to reconcile Sunni and Shia teachings. So did Imam Khomeini, contrary to what some Bahasa newspapers have suggested. It was Khomeini who prohibited Shias from denigrating some of the wives of the Prophet and the first three Caliphs. He also inaugurated Al-Quds Day as a way of
A R T I C L E S building solidarity between Sunnis and Shias on behalf of the Palestinian struggle. There was a time when even Qaradawi committed himself to amity between Sunnis and Shias. In a joint statement with the Iranian Shia leader, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani in 2007, he “stressed the impermissibility of the fighting between the Sunnis and Shias” and the need to “be aware of the conspiracies of the forces of hegemony and Zionism which aim to weaken Islam and tear it apart in Iraq.” 10 August, 2013
SRI LANKA: THE FORGOTTEN LESSON IN GOOD GOVERNANCE By Salma Yusuf
In post-war Sri Lanka, a reprioritising of the national agenda, a change in attitude to state structures and innovating new approaches to embrace forgotten stakeholders remain critical for social change Though social justice and the advancement of peace has not yet evolved to occupying centre-stage in the corporate agenda, a significant development in the international arena is that businesses are no longer averse to the idea. Moreover, there has been acknowledgement within the international business sector that the credibility of its operations can be strengthened by subscribing to altruistic ideological pursuits and embracing its latent social role. In Sri Lanka too, there has begun a national momentum to raise awareness on the need to develop the social conscience of the private sector, following the conclusion of the three-decade war that ravaged the country. In this context, what is required is a more radical reprioritising of the national agenda in the post-war situation to socio-economic and political aims to facilitate such a progressive movement. What must be recommended is the
adoption of investment in four areas as critical to a strategy for contributing to reconciliation and peace-building: First, livelihood and income generation activities; second, training and empowerment through capacity building in soft-skills including those that increase innovation, entrepreneurship and employability; third, a need to engage directly with individuals and communities in war-affected regions of the country and finally, to ensure that all endeavours undertaken embrace the vision of preventing economic stagnation which has been at the root of most political conflicts. The attractiveness of investing in the north of the country must not be forgotten in this endeavour. The availability of rich natural resources in the region such as limestone, land, groundwater, sea salt, fisheries and agriculture could be tapped into in order to create industries, income generation and livelihood opportunities. Additionally, the market demand for produce and jobs is increasing with the return of formerly displaced persons to their original habitats. Further, there exists potential for development of tourismrelated infrastructure as Jaffna is gaining increasing currency as a tourist
destination, both by locals and foreigners. It was recorded that with the removal of travel restrictions to the north of the country, a total of 31,000 persons had travelled to the north in 2012 alone. This in itself is a testament to the promise for both local and foreign tourism in the north of the country which would benefit immensely from private sector investment. The conflict between the north and south of Sri Lanka has been largely due to the lack of economic opportunities. Waiting for perfect conditions to invest can be counter-productive to social progress. Reflecting on the Sri Lankan political history, both insurrections in the south, and the north, were largely resource, class and caste related. Leaving behind a segment of the community whether in the north or the south will result in the seeds of dissent taking root. Allowing marginalisation of a segment of the community will result in ethnic entrepreneurs exploiting it for personal and political advantage. To this end, certain considerations need to be made when decisions to invest in the north and the east are taken, namely, that youth and adult populations in the north have been deprived of basic continued next page
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continued from page 8 education during the conflict. Capacity building is a sine qua non for generating employability and creating opportunities for income generation.
The challenge therefore lies in finding new means to make such engagement attractive by establishing appropriate economic and non-economic incentives for investment.
The business community is well placed for developing capacity of potential entrepreneurs by playing a major role in skill building. Hence, recognition of such a role for the private sector and business community must be taken seriously. Although engagement of the business community has been acknowledged as essential for peace-building by both the World Bank and the United Nations, a system of rewards to lure early private sector entry has yet to be devised, at the international and national levels.
Possible incentives would be, first, to demonstrate to businesses how early – entry into the war – torn regions are a test of the resilience of the sector’s ability to navigate adverse conditions and establish suitable conditions for economic proclivity.
Further, it is recommended that involving the private sector in the larger work of formulating the post-war recovery strategy in Sri Lanka will help generate ownership of the process, and in turn sustainability of outcomes. This would require innovative thinking by both the public and private sectors.
Second, it can play a crucial self-serving role in shaping of the market for decades to come by securing preferential rights for early entrants and contributing to developing the legal and regulatory framework in which they will have to operate. Such need to be highlighted to the private sector in Sri Lanka who are still weary of potential fallouts associated with investing in the war-affected regions of the country; and are only now being sensitised to the critical role that they can play in re-building the nation and fostering durable peace.
A R T I C L E S Closely related to this is the need to cultivate a positive attitude towards state structures, administrative structures, public service and international institutions. Hence, these two considerations ought to be integral to Sri Lanka’s foreign policy strategy, which would necessarily involve both direct bilateral and multilateral engagement with relevant foreign powers and world bodies. In Sri Lanka, the need for economic prosperity or at least movement away from abject poverty and economic hopelessness is pivotal to moving towards reconciliation and peace building if the spirit of peace is to not falter and be extinguished. It is the private sector that can provide in the long-term economic growth opportunities, jobs and wealth creation. 20 April, 2013 Salma Yusuf is a human rights lawyer based in Sri Lanka and a visiting lecturer at the University of Colombo. She is also a member of JUST.
GLOBALISATION ISN’T JUST ABOUT PROFITS. IT’S ABOUT TAXES TOO By Joseph Stiglitz
Big corporates are gaming one nation’s taxpayers against another’s: we need a global deal to make them pay their way The world looked on agog as Tim Cook, the head of Apple, said his company had paid all the taxes owed - seeming to say that it paid all the taxes it should have paid. There is, of course, a big difference between the two. It’s no surprise that a company with the resources and ingenuity of Apple would do what it could to avoid paying as much tax as it could within the law. While the supreme court, in its Citizens United case seems to have said that corporations are people, with all the rights attendant thereto, this legal fiction didn’t endow corporations with a sense of moral responsibility; and they have the Plastic Man capacity to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time
- to be everywhere when it comes to selling their products, and nowhere when it comes to reporting the profits derived from those sales. Apple, like Google, has benefited enormously from what the US and other western governments provide: highly educated workers trained in universities that are supported both directly by government and indirectly (through generous charitable deductions). The basic research on which their products rest was paid for by taxpayer-supported developments - the internet, without which they couldn’t exist. Their prosperity depends in part on our legal system - including strong enforcement of intellectual property rights; they asked (and got) government to force countries around the world to adopt our standards,
in some cases, at great costs to the lives and development of those in emerging markets and developing countries. Yes, they brought genius and organisational skills, for which they justly receive kudos. But while Newton was at least modest enough to note that he stood on the shoulders of giants, these titans of industry have no compunction about being free riders, taking generously from the benefits afforded by our system, but not willing to contribute commensurately. Without public support, the wellspring from which future innovation and growth will come will dry up - not to say what will happen to our increasingly divided society. It is not even true that higher corporate tax rates would necessarily significantly decrease investment. As Apple has shown, continued next page
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continued from page 9 it can finance anything it wants to with debt - including paying dividends, another ploy to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. But interest payments are tax deductible which means that to the extent that investment is debt-financed, the cost of capital and returns are both changed commensurately, with no adverse effect on investment. And with the low rate of taxation on capital gains, returns on equity are treated even more favorably. Still more benefits accrue from other details of the tax code, such as accelerated depreciation and the tax treatment of research and development expenditures. It is time the international community faced the reality: we have an unmanageable, unfair, distortionary global tax regime. It is a tax system that is pivotal in creating the increasing inequality that marks most advanced countries today - with America standing out in the forefront and the UK not far behind. It is the starving of the public sector which has been pivotal in America no longer being the land of opportunity with a child’s life prospects more dependent on the income and education of its parents than in other advanced countries. Globalisation has made us increasingly interdependent. These international corporations are the big beneficiaries of globalisation - it is not, for instance, the average American worker and those in many other countries, who, partly under the pressure from globalisation, has seen his income fully adjusted for inflation, including the lowering of prices that globalisation has brought about, fall year after year, to the point where a fulltime male worker in the US has an income lower than four decades ago. Our multinationals have learned how to exploit globalisation in every sense of the term - including exploiting the tax loopholes that allow them to evade their global social responsibilities. The US could not have a functioning corporate income tax system if we had
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elected to have a transfer price system (where firms “make up” the prices of goods and services that one part buys from another, allowing profits to be booked to one state or another). As it is, Apple is evidently able to move profits around to avoid Californian state taxes. The US has developed a formulaic system, where global profits are allocated on the basis of employment, sales and capital goods. But there is plenty of room to further fine-tune the system in response to the easier ability to shift profits around when a major source of the real “value-added” is intellectual property. Some have suggested that while the sources of production (value added) are difficult to identify, the destination is less so (though with reshipping, this may not be so clear); they suggest a destinationbased system. But such a system would not necessarily be fair - providing no revenues to the countries that have borne the costs of production. But a destination system would clearly be better than the current one. Even if the US were not rewarded for its global publicly supported scientific contributions and the intellectual property built on them, at least the country would be rewarded for its unbridled consumerism, which provides incentives for such innovation. It would be good if there could be an international agreement on the taxation of corporate profits. In the absence of such an agreement, any country that threatened to impose fair corporate taxes would be punished - production (and jobs) would be taken elsewhere. In some cases, countries can call their bluff. Others may feel the risk is too high. But what cannot be escaped are customers. The US by itself could go a long way to moving reform along: any firm selling goods there could be obliged to pay a tax on its global profits, at say a rate of 30%, based on a consolidated balance sheet, but with
A R T I C L E S a deduction for corporate profits taxes paid in other jurisdictions (up to some limit). In other words, the US would set itself up as enforcing a global minimum tax regime. Some might opt out of selling in the US, but I doubt that many would. The problem of multinational corporate tax avoidance is deeper, and requires more profound reform, including dealing with tax havens that shelter money for tax-evaders and facilitate moneylaundering. Google and Apple hire the most talented lawyers, who know how to avoid taxes staying within the law. But there should be no room in our system for countries that are complicitous in tax avoidance. Why should taxpayers in Germany help bail out citizens in a country whose business model was based on tax avoidance and a race to the bottom - and why should citizens in any country allow their companies to take advantage of these predatory countries? To say that Apple or Google simply took advantage of the current system is to let them off the hook too easily: the system didn’t just come into being on its own. It was shaped from the start by lobbyists from large multinationals. Companies like General Electric lobbied for, and got, provisions that enabled them to avoid even more taxes. They lobbied for, and got, amnesty provisions that allowed them to bring their money back to the US at a special low rate, on the promise that the money would be invested in the country; and then they figured out how to comply with the letter of the law, while avoiding the spirit and intention. If Apple and Google stand for the opportunities afforded by globalisation, their attitudes towards tax avoidance have made them emblematic of what can, and is, going wrong with that system. 28 May, 2013 Joseph Stiglitz is a Nobel Laureate is economics. Source: Readersupportednews.org
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COMMERCIAL COLONISATION OF AFRICA: THE NEW WILD WEST (PART II) By Graham Peebles
The Alliance offers a combination of public and private money to African countries willing to take the G8 plunge into international political-economic duplicity, with, ACB and “the large multinational seed, fertiliser and agrochemical companies setting the agenda … and philanthropic institutions (like AGRA and others) establishing the institutional and infrastructural mechanisms to realise this agenda”. Britain has pledged £395 million of foreign aid whilst, according to the UN “over 45 local and multinational companies have expressed their intent to invest over $3 billion across the agricultural value chain in Grow Africa countries [a Programme of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) established by the African Union in 2003.].” In order to get their hands on some of the corporations, billions however, African nations are required to “change their seed laws, trade laws and land ownership in order to prioritise corporate profits over local food needs”, Mozambique for example is contracted, the Guardian tells us to “systematically cease distribution of free and unimproved seeds”, and is drawing up new laws granting intellectual property rights (IPR) of seeds, that will “promote private sector investment”. In other words, laws are being written that allow foreign companies – ‘investors’ (a word used to mislead and bestow legitimacy) to grab the land of their African ‘partners’, patent their seeds and monopolise their food markets. In Ghana, Tanzania and Ivory Coast, similar regulations sit on the table waiting to be rubber-stamped. The re-writing of seed laws, along with the fact that these unbalanced deals allow “big multinational seed, fertiliser and agrochemical companies such as Yara, Monsanto, Syngenta and Cargill to set the agenda”, is a major concern expressed by environmental NGO’s and campaigners, Reuters (20/06/2013) report. These are concerns that the initiating G8 governments, were they at all troubled by
the impact of their meddling, should share. The wide ownership, by a small number of huge agro-chemical companies of the rights to seeds and fertilisers, is creating, the UN in its report on the Right to Food, state: “monopoly privileges to plant breeders and patent-holders through the tools of intellectual property”. This growing trend, facilitated through the support of the G8 governments is placing more and more control of the worldwide food supply in their hands, and is causing, “the poorest farmers [to] become increasingly dependent on expensive inputs, creating the risk of indebtedness in the face of unstable incomes.” India is a case in question where farmers strangled by debt are committing suicide at a rate of two per hour. Investment Support Sharing African farmers, and civil society along with 25 British campaign groups including War on Want (WoW), Friends of the Earth (FoE), The Gaia Foundation and the World Development Movement, have declared their objections to the New Alliance and asked that the government withhold the £395 million so generously pledged by Prime Minister David Cameron. African civil societies are in no doubt that “opening markets and creating space for multinationals to secure profits lie at the heart of the G8 intervention”, they “recognise the New Alliance is a poisoned chalice, and they are right to reject it”, asserts Kirtana Chandrasekaran of Friends of the Earth (FoE). Having made a continental mess of their own countries’ economies, not to mention the environmental mayhem caused by their neo-liberal economic policies, it is with unabashed colonial arrogance that the G8 governments deem to tell African countries what to do with their land and how best to do it. Not only do they have no genuine interest in Africa, save what can be gained from it, but they have “no legitimacy to intervene
in matters of food, hunger and land tenure in Africa or any other part of the world”, as WoW make clear. The New Alliance, according to David Cameron, is “a great combination of promoting good governance and helping Africa to feed its people”. He and the rest of the G8 are as FoE states, “pretending to be tackling hunger and land grabbing in Africa while backing a scheme that will ruin the lives of hundreds of thousands of small farmers”. This new deal is “a procorporate assault on African nations”, providing ‘investment and support‘ opportunities for greedy investors, looking to further expand their corporate assets with the support of participating governments obliged to provide a selection box of state incentives. The ending of hunger in sub-Saharan Africa, India and elsewhere, will not be brought about by allowing large tracts of land to be bought up by corporations whose only interest is in maximizing return on investment. Far from providing investment and support for the people of Africa, The Alliance is a mask for exploitation and profiteering. True investment in Africa is, investment in the people of Africa; the smallholder farmers, the women and children, the communities across the continent. It involves working collectively, consulting, encouraging participation and crucially sharing. Sharing of knowledge, experience and technology, sharing the natural resources – the land, food and water, the minerals and other resources equitably amongst the people of Africa and indeed the wider world. Such radical, commonsense ideas would go a long way to creating not only food security but harmony, trust and social justice which just might bring about peace. 27 June, 2013 Part I of this article appeared in the August 2013 JUST Commentary. Graham Peebles is Director of The Create Trust, www.thecreatetrust.org. Source: Countercurrents.org
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