Mothers from southern Somalia are seen with their malnourished children at Banadir hospital in Mogadishu, Somalia, on Saturday. (AP)
Published: Jul 30, 2011 23:05 Updated: Jul 30, 2011 23:05
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia has donated SR225 million in aid to Horn of Africa countries that have been hit by a massive drought affecting millions of people.
Other Gulf states have also come forward with donations to help the African countries, where about 500,000 children are in need of urgent help including food and medicine.
"The countries in the Horn of Africa hit by famine — Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, Djibouti and Eritrea — have welcomed the Saudi support," said Mohammed Ali, charge d'affaires at the Ethiopian Embassy in Riyadh, on Saturday.
Ali said the situation was worsening in some countries on the Horn of Africa, an impoverished region inhabited by over 100 million people.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had personally thanked Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah for the donation for food supplies through the UN's World Food Program. The UN has asked for more support from Gulf states to enable UN agencies to rush adequate food supplies to the drought victims.
Appeals for more help for the drought-hit African countries have already been sent to the rulers of Gulf states including Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), said a UN official in Riyadh.
"Ethiopia alone is looking at 4.5 million people in need of food assistance," said Dan Leonard, an Ethiopian official who works for the Mennonite Central Committee in southern Ethiopia, in a press statement obtained by Arab News.
Referring to the situation in the Horn of Africa, a spokesman of the Kenyan Embassy said the crisis was growing ahead of the holy month of Ramadan.
The UAE has dispatched a four-member team for Mogadishu this week to coordinate the distribution of relief supplies of food, drinking water and medical supplies. Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah has already pledged $10 million for relief efforts in Somalia through the Red Crescent Society.
The Jeddah-based Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) is also working in Somalia and other areas to distribute food.
According to UN agencies, Kenya is currently facing its worst drought in six decades, with over 3.5 million Kenyans mainly in the country's north facing imminent starvation and death. The situation has been exacerbated by runaway inflation, a poor maize crop for the current season and a ballooning refugee crisis in unstable Somalia, Kenya's northern neighbor.
On Friday, the World Bank made available $140 million to address the current drought crisis in the region. So far, an estimated $1.1 billion has been committed from non-Arab donor countries, about half of what will be needed for the humanitarian response to the emergency, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
The Makkah Royal Clock Tower will start ticking officially on the first of Ramadan. (AN photo by Ahmad Hashad)
Published: Jul 30, 2011 22:51 Updated: Jul 30, 2011 23:02
MAKKAH: The Makkah Royal Clock Tower, the second tallest tower in the world, will start emitting 16 light beams to a height of 10 kilometers Sunday evening to announce the beginning of Ramadan.
The loud speakers installed at the top of the tower will carry the sound of adhan (call to prayer) from the Grand Mosque to seven kilometers far. The powerful lights in white and green blinking at the time of adhan can be seen from a distance of 30 kilometers. The lights are also helpful for people with hearing difficulties to know prayer times.
The clock face is white and indicators dark during daylight and green and white at night.
A trial run of the clock was held at the beginning of last year's Ramadan.
The gigantic Makkah clock project was constructed on top of tower number five of King Abdul Aziz Endowment project, which consists of seven towers.
"All arrangements to receive Ramadan guests in the residential hotel, on which the clock tower is situated, have been completed. All rooms and suites have an Islamic style of interior décor that add to the spirituality of Ramadan," director of telecommunications and business promotion at the Fairmont Raffles Hotels International in Makkah, Khaled Yamaq, said.
The Makkah Clock Tower Hotel, on which the clock is situated, is 601 meters high with 76 stories and 858 suites. It overlooks the Grand Mosque.
"A large number of pilgrims of different nationalities will be visiting the tower to get a close look at the interior of the clock tower. Therefore, the hotel's main banquet hall has prepared to accommodate 1,000 guests for iftar (fast-breaking meal) and suhur (predawn meal before starting the fast). It comprises menus of 15 countries, including local dishes," he said.
A cannon will fire seven shots to mark the beginning of Ramadan in Makkah, the Saudi Press Agency said on Saturday. Shots will be fired throughout the month to announce the time of breaking the fast, the time for suhur and the end of the suhur.
The cannon will be positioned at the top of the highest hill, away from residential neighborhoods in Makkah, and is provided with sound-producing detonators. There are special security officers to take care of the cannon, which will be sent back to the store of the Tasks and Duties Administration in Makkah after the last shots announcing the arrival of Eid Al-Fitr. A total of 150 shots will be fired in the whole month.
In most Muslim countries, cannons are fired to announce the beginning of Ramadan and fast breaking time.
SOMALIA: Hundreds of drought-displaced seek shelter in Somaliland
LAS-ANOD, 29 July 2011 (IRIN) - Hundreds of families from south-central Somalia who have sought refuge in the self-declared independent Republic of Somaliland lack food, shelter and water, say local officials.
Most of the 276 families (about 1,650 people) are in the town of Las-anod in Sool region, neighbouring south-central Somalia.
"At least 10 families arrive in Las-anod daily; some pass through to other towns in Somaliland but many remain here," Khadra Mohamed, secretary-general of Somaliland's internally displaced persons (IDP) organization, told IRIN. "Some of the new arrivals are [staying] with conflict-displaced Somalis who have been living in the town for the last several years. These people have no food or shelter.
However, Mohamed said, local communities have been providing food aid to the new arrivals.
"These families have little access to health services, some of them lost their children during their long journey to Somaliland," Mohamed added.
Abdillahi Jama, governor of Sool region, told IRIN: "Those arriving are registered by local NGOs who inform us weekly. In the past three days, for example, between 10 and 20 families have arrived in Las-anod. Most end up living with families who have been displaced by past conflict in south-central Somalia, expanding the number of people per IDP family to 10-20.
"We collect some assistance from the local people and encourage them to help, because they are our brothers and sisters displaced by the drought," Jama said. "Our capacity is limited and we can do little to help them."
Zainab H. Mohamoud, head of the Gashan Women's Umbrella Organization, said in Buroa, Togdheer region, several families had fled drought; some went to Hargeisa and others to the town of Buhotle in Buhotle region.
Mohamoud told IRIN that at least 23 families from south-central Somalia reached Buroa, 70 people had reached Buhotle and 12 went to Hargeisa.
UNICEF appeal
Meanwhile, in Nairobi, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) issued a statement on 29 July appealing for immediate life-saving interventions for an estimated one million Somali children, the majority in southern Somalia.
"The children of southern Somalia desperately need our help; too many of them have already died and many others are at great risk unless we act now," said Rozanne Chorlton, the UNICEF Somalia representative. "Families shouldn't have to leave their homes, mothers and their children shouldn't have to endure days of perilous journey in search of food and water and then face a life of uncertainty in a camp. All our energy should be focused on saving lives."
According to UNICEF, an estimated 1.25 million children across southern Somalia, 640,000 of them acutely malnourished, urgently need life-saving interventions.
To reach children as quickly as possible, the agency said, it had, with its partners, mounted a massive scale-up of its operation and was using "all avenues available" to get supplies into the region.
So far, UNICEF has airlifted supplementary feeding supplies for 65,000 children to the drought-affected regions of southern Somalia.
| 'Deaths' in Syria mass protests Rights group say government forces shot dead at least 20 civilians in attacks on protesters across the country. | ||
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The Prophet (peace be upon him) used to highlight the nature of faith and its effects on people, their characters and behavior. He would not, however, group these together and explain them in total so as to give a clear and complete picture of faith and what having faith means in practice. He preferred to give short statements, explaining one point at a time in precise terms. He would only say what fits the occasion. In this way, he impressed on his audience the importance of what he said. In one of these statements, the Prophet is quoted by Abu Hurayrah as saying: "Faith has sixty-odd qualities. Shyness is one of its qualities."
In its original Arabic text, the Prophet's statement suggests that these qualities are like the branches of a tree. Needless to say, tree branches differ in strength and thickness. Likewise, the qualities or branches of faith differ in importance. The most important of these qualities is the belief in God's oneness and in Muhammad (peace be upon him) as God's messenger. Other qualities vary in importance, down to the quality of removing harmful objects from a public path.
The Hadith considers shyness as a quality or branch of faith. In some cultures shyness is seen in a negative light, but in Islamic culture it is given such importance that the Prophet singles it out from among more than sixty qualities. This is due to the fact that shyness restrains a person from doing what is unpleasant, unbecoming or unacceptable from the social or religious point of view.
Thus, shyness becomes an internal restraint, helping us to maintain correct behavior and uphold proper values. It may be suggested that a shy person cannot speak out against improper behavior or outrageous action.
Such inability is not the result of shyness. It indicates weakness of character, which is normally overcome by strong faith. When we speak of restraint motivated by shyness, we only mean restraint from doing what is bad, sinful, evil or socially unacceptable.
The sort of shyness encouraged by Islam is always reflected in a person's actions. In its highest form, a person feels ashamed of using what God has granted him in any way that constitutes disobedience to Him. A rich person may pass by a nightclub where the program includes a show that has been widely acclaimed.
The thought of going in may occur to him. However, on reflection he feels that it is God that has given him his health, wealth and indeed all that he has. Although the price of admission means little to him, he feels that if he goes in he will be participating in an activity that Islam prohibits.
Thus, he will be using what God has granted him in something that constitutes disobedience of God. He realizes that such an action is an affront to God. His faith will make him feel too shy to commit such an affront.
Some scholars tried to make a list of the qualities of faith. Their attempts did not produce a definitive result. This is due to the fact that some of these qualities can either stand on their own or be incorporated with others. Moreover, having such a list does not lead to any better understanding of Islam. The fact is that the Qur'an and the Prophet's statements provide a complete view of what is acceptable or unacceptable from the Islamic point of view.
DADAAB, 26 July 2011 (IRIN) - After walking for days to escape drought and
insecurity, often barefoot and with almost no food or water, Somali refugees
who arrive at Dadaab [ http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=93223 ]
camps in northern Kenya are met with delays and red tape.
Some wait up to two weeks to be registered as refugees, and longer to get
food and shelter.
The sluggish pace of the registration process is because refugees may only
register and receive ration cards at Ifo camp [
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=92740 ], at the centre of the
three Dadaab camps set up to 10km apart.
Abdifatah Ahmed, chairman of the Dagahaley camp, told IRIN: "We request the
[UN Refugee Agency] UNHCR to issue the ration cards in all the three camps
as soon as possible to ease the pressure and immediately facilitate the
distribution of food rations to the new arrivals."
The agency tries to register 1,000 refugees a day, out of the approximately
1,300 new arrivals, but they are limited by the number that Kenya's
Department of Refugee Affairs (DRA) is able to process.
"We are sort of at their mercy," said a UNHCR employee who declined to be
named. The official said the DRA was working to increase its capacity to
process new arrivals.
At the start of registration, refugees are fingerprinted and photographed
at Ifo camp to ensure they have not already been registered.
The UNHCR employee said many refugees tried to register more than once in
an effort to get more food and assistance, but most were tripped up by a
series of questions on family names and relationships.
Even after registering and receiving a ration card, some refugees wait for
weeks to gain access to the food distribution that normally takes place
twice a month as their data is transferred to the UN World Food Programme
(WFP) and CARE, the agencies facilitating the general food distribution.
To speed up the delivery of humanitarian assistance to the new arrivals,
reception centres were established across the three camps on 6 June, where
new arrivals can access dry food rations for two weeks. They also receive
non-food items like kitchen utensils and plastic sheets, and medical
screenings where the malnourished are referred to hospital for feeding and
stabilization.
Refugees who arrived in 1990s, backed by the escalating emergency response
of humanitarian aid workers and other external supporters, are filling some
of the gaps as well [ http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=93152 ].
Community leaders in Dadaab camps have facilitated massive contribution
drives of non-food items, food rations and some money from as far away as
Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, and the coastal town of Mombasa, for the new
arrivals.
But new refugees are hampered by poor access to information, such as where
and when to look for general food distribution. Often, they do not know what
to do if they lose their ration cards, or who to contact to report cases of
sexual and gender-based violence. Many have no idea of the various services
offered by the more than 20 aid agencies operating in the camps.
mh/jb/mw
MOGADISHU, 26 July 2011 (IRIN) - Amid reports of rising child deaths due to
malnourishment, Somalia's opposition Al-Shabab group has granted several aid
organizations access to some of the south-central areas under its control,
including Lower Shabelle, one of two regions the UN recently declared to be
famine-stricken.
Since 24 July, officials of an international NGO, Kuwait Direct Aid, as
well as those from the International Red Cross and the International Red
Crescent, have distributed food in Lower Shabelle.
The UN declared a famine [
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=93280 ] in Bakool and Lower
Shabelle regions on 20 July, saying that across the country, 3.7 million
people - half the population - were in crisis, an estimated 2.8 million of
whom are in the south.
Malnutrition rates are at 30 percent across the south, rising to 50 percent
in parts of Bakool and Lower Shabelle. The highest death rates exceed six
deaths in 10,000 per day, according to UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) data.
In most southern regions, UNICEF says, one in five children is severely
malnourished, with one in three severely malnourished in the worst-affected
regions, such as Bay.
The number of acutely malnourished children has risen from 476,000 in
January (103,000 severely malnourished and 373,000 moderately malnourished)
to 780,000 (340,000 severely malnourished and 440,000 moderately
malnourished), according to UNICEF, with 82 percent of all acutely
malnourished being in the south, representing 640,000 (310,000 SAM and
330,000 GAM).
Feeding centres
Mohamed Bashir Ibrahim, the managing director of Kuwait Direct Aid, told
IRIN the NGO had opened two feeding centres in Lower Shabelle, catering for
24,000 children younger than 15. The agency now has feeding centres in three
regions in the south, he added.
"With the collaboration of several other organizations, we went to Lower
Shabelle in May 2011 to assess the situation in the area; we focused on 15
villages of 4,800 families," Ibrahim said. "We found that 70 percent of the
children under five were acutely malnourished. Later, we contacted the
area's administration and expressed the need to open the feeding centres.
"We were referred to the regional administration of Al-Shabab, who later
allowed us to open two feeding centres in Lower Shabelle. Initially, we
expected to feed at least 500 children daily in each of the feeding centres
located in Kurtunwarey and Bulo-Mareen but the number increased to about
1,800 children of every age, including pregnant women and breast-feeding
mothers. On average, at least 800 people now come to these feeding centres
daily."
On 22 July, Sheikh Ali Dhere, the Al-Shabab spokesman, told a press
conference in Mogadishu that the situation in south-central Somalia was not
as bad as was being reported. He said some aid agencies had agreed to
operate in the areas under the group's control.
"The organizations we have banned from working in the areas we control are
not included [among] the aid organizations we [have] allowed to work because
they are not doing humanitarian [work]; on the contrary, they are doing
political affairs," Dhere said.
On 24 July, officials of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent
distributed food to 24,000 people in Bardhere, Gedo region, in south-central
Somalia.
Assessment
The Civil Society Council said in a statement: "In an assessment we have
been carrying out in the past two months, we have found that at least 10 to
15 people, mostly children, die daily in the south-central drought-affected
areas. About one-third of the drought-affected people have already reached
Mogadishu, another third has crossed the borders into Ethiopia, Kenya and
Yemen, while the majority of the remaining third are dying or are remaining
in their homes too weak to move to other areas."
The group appealed to aid agencies to prioritize help for the latter group.
According to Ibrahim of Kuwait Direct Aid, the situation in Bakool and
Lower Shabelle, both under the control of Al-Shabab, was getting worse.
"We are now planning to open new feeding centers in Sablale, Dacaraha and
Qoryolay and the villages near the river to feed about 12,000 vulnerable
people in these areas," Ibrahim said. "We feed about 150 malnourished
children daily in Dhobley centre which we opened last week."
In Mogadishu [ http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=93287 ], a
local journalist, Mohamed Abdi Hussein, told IRIN that an NGO, Muslim Aid,
last week distributed relief to 5,000 families, comprising cooking oil,
rice, sugar and flour. Most of the families live in Al-Shabab-controlled
parts of the city, mostly in Km50 internally displaced persons camps.
Famine and Drought in East Africa
As we prepare for the blessed month of Ramadaan, where we will actively make the choice to withhold from food, there are those in the world who have no choice, but have to do without it!
Over ten million people are in need of FOOD in East Africa! thousands have been reported to have died due to famine!
How blessed we are indeed that Allaah has allowed us the luxuries of being able to get food delivered to our doors at the touch of a button and indulging in feasts at iftaar time! How easy it is for us to throw our excess food in the bin, when our brothers and sisters in East Africa, would literally walk 100 miles, and more, to eat such scraps, subhaan'Allaah! How many stories are we hearing of how parents are abandoning their children to die in the desert, as their children are too weak, to continue on in a journey at the end of which they do not even know what to expect?
Abu Huraira reported Allaah's Messenger (sallAllaahu alayhi wa sallam) as saying:
"Verily, Allaah, the Exalted and Glorious, would say on the Day of Resurrection: 'O son of Adam, I was sick but you did not visit Me'. He would say: 'O my Lord; how could I visit Thee whereas Thou art the Lord of the worlds?' Thereupon He would say: 'Didn't you know that such and such servant of Mine was sick but you did not visit him and were you not aware of this, that if you had visited him, you would have found Me by him? O son of Adam, I asked food from you but you did not feed Me'. He would say: 'My Lord, how could I feed Thee whereas Thou art the Lord of the worlds?' He said: 'Didn't you know that such and such servant of Mine asked food from you but you did not feed him, and were you not aware that if you had fed him you would have found him by My side?' (The Lord would again say: ) 'O son of Adam, I asked drink from you but you did not provide Me'. He would say: 'My Lord, how could I provide Thee whereas Thou art the Lord of the worlds?' Thereupon He would say: 'Such and such of servant of Mine asked you for a drink but you did not provide him, and had you provided him drink you would have found him near Me'." [Saheeh Muslim]
If you disclose your Sadaqaat (alms-giving), it is well, but if you conceal it, and give it to the poor, that is better for you. (Allaah) will forgive you some of your sins. And Allaah is Well-Acquainted with what you do. (Al-Baqarah 2:271)
It is not Al-Birr (piety, righteousness, and each and every act of obedience to Allaah, etc.) that you turn your faces towards east and (or) west (in prayers); but Al-Birr is (the quality of) the one who believes in Allaah, the Last Day, the Angels, the Book, the Prophets and gives his wealth, in spite of love for it, to the kinsfolk, to the orphans, and to the poor, and to the wayfarer, and to those who ask, and to set slaves free, performs As-Salaat (Iqaamat-as-Saaat), and gives the Zakaat, and who fulfill their covenant when they make it, and who are As-Saabirin (the patient ones, etc.) in extreme poverty and ailment (disease) and at the time of fighting (during the battles). Such are the people of the truth and they are Al-Muttaqoon (pious). (Al-Baqarah 2:177)
We are collecting donations for this cause. You can donate by the following methods & note we have direct contact with trustworthy sources in both somalia and kenya, also your money is not being used for advertising/admin costs, and 100% will go to the people affected.
Cheques (Mark on rear drought appeal)
Please make all cheques payable to "Heathrow muslim community centre" and mail them to the address below;
__,_._,___
--
تَبَارَكَ الَّذِي نَزَّلَ الْفُرْقَانَ عَلَىٰ عَبْدِهِ لِيَكُونَ لِلْعَالَمِينَ نَذِيرًا"
"Blessed be He who sent down the Furqaan (Qur'an) to His slave Muhammad that he may be a Warner to the Mankind".
Website:http://groups.google.co.uk/group/cardiffdawah?hl=en-GB?hl=en-GB
http://www.youtube.com/user/CardiffDawah
 | ||
The Norwegian terrorist who murdered more than ninety innocent civilians - many of whom were teenagers - did not act alone. Or rather, he acted within a cultural and political context that legitimises his fearful and hate-infested worldview. It is now clear that Anders Behring Breivik was exposed to large amounts of right-wing propaganda. This tragedy underlines the urgency with which normal people around the world must combat fundamentalist nationalists and chauvinists wherever they may be. But it also demonstrates the extent to which reactionary bigotry has infected mainstream thought. Shaping both sides of the narrative The war continues Ahmed Moor is a Palestinian-American freelance journalist based in Cairo. He was born in the Gaza Strip, Palestine. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy. |
With at least 92 people dead and several injured, the brutality of Friday's attacks in Norway left the country reeling. But who to blame for the bomb blast that tore through Oslo's government district and the shooting spree that left scores of teenagers dead at a youth summer camp in nearby Utoya? Moments after the explosion that, as of Saturday night, left seven dead, pundits and analysts alike had assigned blame to al-Qaeda or an al-Qaeda-like group (a close approximation will do, one can suppose). There were also reports of a group calling the Helpers of the Global Jihad either claiming responsibility for the attack or lending it support to whoever carried it out. The group retracted its rather vague statement on Saturday. Norwegian police, meanwhile, concluded fairly early on that the attacks weren't the work of a foreign terrorist group. They have 32-year-old Anders Behring Breivik in custody - he is believed to be the gunman who opened fire on the teenagers attending a youth camp organised by the Labour Party. It's also been reported that Breivik bought six tonnes of fertiliser in May from a farm supply firm, which seems to take a page right out of another non-Muslim terrorist's handbook: Timothy McVeigh, who along with Terry Nichols, blew up the Alfred P Murrah Building in Oklahoma City in 1995 with a truckload of fertiliser, killing 168 and injuring 450. Still, despite the initial lack of evidence shortly after the attack - and a growing stack of evidence pointing to the contrary later - some continued to look for a "jihadist" connection in the Norway attacks. Some looked for a link between the attacks and the anger that erupted after a Danish newspaper published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in 2005. Local Muslims: 'Deep sorrow' This hits the Muslim community in Norway in two different ways - first, their sense of security is threatened as much as any other Norwegian. On top of that, they are automatically blamed for arguably the darkest days in Norway's recent history. The local Muslim community was quick to respond. The Islamic Council of Norway immediately issued a statement of condemnation, saying that any attack on Norway was an attack on the homeland of its members, while imams and other Muslim community members visited with various Christian groups and church leaders in an effort to not only offer condolences, but to improve lines of communication. "We are in deep sorrow with the Norwegian community," Muhammed Tayyib, the coordinator of The Islamic Cultural Centre Norway, told Al Jazeera.
Tayyib said that even though most of the Muslim community are immigrants, that they are "part of the democratic system and support the freedom of expression. We are reacting [to the attacks] as Norwegians, not as outsiders". Tayyib said that the mosque at the cultural centre, which is in the heart of Oslo and not far from the bomb blast, remained open to all on Saturday. He said many non-Muslims had come in on Saturday to talk about the attacks or just to get to know the Muslim community better. Rizwan Ahmad, the general secretary at the cultural centre, said that reports of backlash against Muslims in Oslo left the younger members of the cultural centre feeling vulnerable. Two women wearing hijabs, he said, were harassed on the street while a Pakistani man was beaten on a bus. But Ahmad said that the Muslim community remains in solidarity with the greater Norwegian community. "We don't say anything about (the attacker) being Muslim or not Muslim. It's still a tragedy," he said of the attacks. Dleen Dhoski, coordinator of the Muslim Student Association at the University of Oslo in Blindern, said that the concern wasn't about who was to blame. "Our main concern wasn't [whether] it was a specific group that performed this horrible action, but we were shocked and concerned about the wellbeing of those who got affected by the attack," said Dhoski, who said she felt that Norwegian media was fairly neutral in its reporting. "And [we were] even more shocked that something like this could be happening in our safe homeland ... This was an attack on peace and democracy in Norway, so I don't believe it has an effect only on the Muslim communities, but the entire nation," said Dhoski. She said the Muslim community was focused on helping those most affected: "So the main priority right now for us all is showing our support towards the victims, and just try to contribute as much we can to make sure that Norway stays as it always has been." The group continues its public outreach, she said, attending debates and dialogues with non-Muslim groups while keeping an open line with the media. Far-right connection Of course, it wasn't just the pundits and security analysts who were looking no further than the Muslim world to blame for the attacks. The far-right - which has shown itself to be focused on with blaming Muslims for all European ills - was doing the same. Notably, the Nordisk group (a nationalistic, anti-immigration activist group described as having "Nazi-likebeliefs) was busy blaming Muslims for the attacks on its forum. Posters complained that the "uncontrolled immigration from Muslim countries" was to blame and that the attacks were "expected" and that, "terror will not decrease when the desert rats surge across Europe". The group did not respond to an interview request on Saturday. While Nordisk is certainly a somewhat fringe element, Norway, like many other European countires, where anti-immigrant groups have gained significant ground in recent elections, is swinging further to the right. Its Progress Party has been getting stronger, with some elements in the party seeking tougher immigration laws. In 2009, it called for the deportation of parents whose children wear the hijab to school. The posters on the forum seemed unaware that Breivik is reportedly a member of their group. Norway's police confirmed that Breivik identified himself as a "Christian fundamentalist", while local media reported that he had posted anti-Muslim rhetoric online on several occasions. Indeed, Breivik, it has been reported, was also rather taken with at least one member of the far right, Pamela Geller, a noted anti-Islam activist who fought against the construction of an Islamic community centre near the site of the former World Trade Center towers in New York. Geller, who in May blogged that Muslims were responsible for "all rapes in the past five years" in Norwaylinked Friday's attacks to a "jihad". Ali Esbati, an economist at the Manifest Center for Social Analysis, says the negative perception of Muslims in Europe has become a "convergence point" among right-wing groups, who spread the viewpoint of Muslims as an "occupying force and threat to Western society". "The wider problem is that it's not even radical Islam that's seen as a threat - it's the idea that all of Islam or Muslims are a threat," said Esbati. "So these radicals find a wider acceptance in mainstream politics." He's not surprised by the knee-jerk response of Muslims being blamed for the attacks, as he says, discourse is not driven by facts or statistics. Rather, it is driven by perception - and right now, terrorism's face isn't of the radical right or of separatist groups in Europe. This has lead to the proliferation of what Esbati calls fundamentally "racist" ideas towards Muslims. "The tone in public discourse … has become much harsher, it's been a gradual process," said Esbati. "It's the normalisation of ideas that were far more marginalised in the past." The 'madman' angle Still, the question remains: When what was targeted was a government building and a youth camp put on by a political party - one that calls for the recognition of a Palestinian state - why would a Muslim be a more likely suspect than, say, a far-right terrorist? Essentially, the answer simply seems to be this: It's been nearly a decade since the September 11 attacks, which, it seems, have had the effect of making Muslims the terrorist fall-guy in the Western world. "It was obvious that everyone would assume that it was a Muslim," said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations. "All the Islamophobes on the internet jumped all over it." He said that, even as of Saturday night, US media reports in the US were claiming "Islam this and al-Qaeda that." But then, said Hooper, there's the "madman" angle, referring to the Norwegian official who said that the attacks were "not Islamic-terror related" and therefore "a madman's work." "Unless it has been committed by a Muslim, it's not terrorism. If a non-Muslim commits an act of terrorism, they don't call him a terrorist. They say he was 'a madman,'" said Hooper. Even though Breivik has been identified as a Christian, Hooper says he's sure his actions will not be affiliated with his faith - nor should they be. It's important, he says, to realise that an act of terrorism carried out by an individual, no matter what religion or creed, not be associated with the entire population following that faith. This, of course, is not the case for Muslims in the current climate, and so Hooper says the focus should be on outreach. Muslims in Norway must continue to build coalitions and to work to "marginalise extremists of all faiths", he said. "Everything always comes down to education." Follow D. Parvaz on Twitter: @DParvaz |
| Kuwaiti News Agency Tuesday, July 19, 2011 KUWAIT, July 19 (KUNA) -- Two Kuwaiti planes carrying relief, medical aid and tents will head to Somalia on Thursday to assist millions of starving drought victims in the African country. The initiative comes after Kuwait agreed USD 10 million in relief aid for Somalia, whose people are suffering from famine and malnutrition as a result of the most severe drought to have hit the country in ten years. The decision was passed by the Kuwaiti Cabinet according to the instructions of His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, the Kuwait Red Crescent Society's chief spokesperson, Abdulrahman Al-Aoun said in a statement. The UN World Food Programme has estimated that around 10 million people require food aid in the country, due to the extreme wave of drought and heavy armed conflict, he said. Also, according to UNICEF, as close as two million children are affected by malnutrition and are in desperate need of food. Kuwaiti News Agency |
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