Giorno: 25 dicembre 2014

Ma l’impresa eccezzionale, dammi retta, è essere normale! Solidarietà selettiva…

Ma l’impresa eccezzionale, dammi retta, è essere normale!

Solidarietà selettiva, benzina sul fuoco del settarismo. Il fatto che il mondo si mobiliti per la persecuzioni di piccoli gruppi come gli yazidi o per le decapitazioni di occidentali o le minacce alle minoranze cristiane, ignorando tragedie numericamente enormemente più consistenti che riguardano il “siriano comune”, quello “normale” non fà che aumentare la frustrazione della gente. Assad ha ucciso 250.000 persone ed il mondo ha espresso tutt’alpiù “ferme condanne” verbali, più spesso “deep concern” delle organizzazioni internazionali. I barbari hanno decapitato James Foley ed in pochi giorni 60 paesi concordano un intervento militare congiunto… che effetto pensate che possa avere? Considerate poi che l’unica comunità locale seriamente coinvolta è ancora una volta una minoranza, quella curda, che ha ricevuto le armi ed a sua volta ha scelto a chi distribuirle. Una comunità che ha ricevuto l’investitura a giustiziere e supereroe senza macchia dell’area.

Intanto il nostro parlamento forma comitati dedicati alle minoranze e non in sostegno ai civili in genere. Autorizza ad armare i curdi, accodandosi al trend. In Siria nulla è peggio che nascere mussulmano sunnita e non fanatico religioso: in tal caso tutti i criminali di guerra ce l’avranno con te e nessuno ti verrà in aiuto perchè sei troppo normale.


MO, comitato per minoranze perseguitate | l’Occidentale
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I rifugiati cristiani in Giordania: “Per Natale? Un futuro migliore”

Di Alice Su. Al-Jazeera (25/12/2014). Traduzione e sintesi di Lorenzo P. Salvati In Giordania, il Natale è per le minoranze e i privilegiati. La classe media riempie i centri commerciali e si riversa nei viali nella capitale di Amman, mentre i cristiani, circa il 3% della popolazione, approfittano del loro giorno di riposo. Le chiese […]

L’articolo I rifugiati cristiani in Giordania: “Per Natale? Un futuro migliore” sembra essere il primo su Arabpress.

Buon Natale dal Medio Oriente

Di Andrew Write. The Huffington Post (16/12/2014). Traduzione e sintesi di Chiara Cartia. È il periodo più bello dell’anno. Un momento in cui si concentrano luci, cibo, feste, divertimento e regali. Non dobbiamo dimenticare quanto sia importante per i bambini. L’altro giorno ero a Toronto. C’erano bambini ovunque intorno a me. C’era neve per terra e un […]

L’articolo Buon Natale dal Medio Oriente sembra essere il primo su Arabpress.

Meet the America-Hating, Assad-Loving Journalist Who Just Came Back From the Isl…

Meet the America-Hating, Assad-Loving Journalist Who Just Came Back From the Islamic State

When Jurgen Todenhofer crossed out of Islamic State-controlled territory on Dec. 16, he accomplished something that no Western journalist had done before him – he had visited the self-declared caliphate, and survived. The jihadist group, he warned upon his return, is “much stronger and much more dangerous” than the West realizes.

But this wasn’t Todenhofer’s first journalistic coup in Syria. In July 2012, he secured an interview with the ruler that the Islamic State is trying to topple – Bashar al-Assad. At the time, he was seen as sympathetic to the regime: He had recently published an article suggesting that Syrian rebels had been responsible for the mass killing of civilians in the village of Houla, and referred derisively to the rebels’ claims that Assad’s men perpetrated the attack as “massacre marketing.”

Todenhofer, a former judge and German parliamentarian, has seen his share of war zones. He traveled to Algiers during the Algerian civil war, to Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation, to Iraq during the U.S. occupation, and to Libya during the revolt that toppled Muammar al-Qaddafi. He does not pretend to be a neutral observer of events: The New York Times referred to him as an “outspoken antiwar advocate” and a critic of Western coverage of Syria, which he viewed as unfairly hostile to Assad.

Todenhofer’s critics charge that he is little more than an apologist for dictators. He “is a strange political bird, but his business model is quite successful,” wrote Die Zeit editor-at-large Josef Joffe in an email. His recent books have sold well, and he is a regular on German television shows, “where he is cast as a pacifist bien pensant who likes to cavort with the world’s worst despots, notably Saddam [Hussein] and Assad, while flacking for the Iranian regime.”

Joffe also accuses him of “reliable anti-Americanism and anti-Israelism.” There’s no doubt that the perfidy of U.S. policy in the Middle East is a recurring theme in Todenhofer’s work: He penned an open letter to President Barack Obama in 2012, listing 10 points that he argued should cause the United States to reassess its relationship with the Muslim world. “The West is a lot more violent than the Muslim world,” he wrote, saying that millions of Arabs had been killed since the start of the colonial era. The problem, he said, was the West’s anti-terror programs, which “are a terror-breeding program.”

In 2007, Todenhofer crossed the Syrian border to interview anti-government fighters in Iraq’s restive Anbar province. He detailed his trip in a book titled “Why Do You Kill, Zaid?” – a harrowing account of his journey, and a profile of a young man whose two brothers were killed in the war, and who later joined the anti-American insurgency and set off an improvised explosive device that destroyed two U.S. Humvees. The book even includes an interview with an al Qaeda fighter. “[George W.] Bush is responsible for the deaths of many more people than all the dictators and terrorists in the world put together,” Todenhofer writes, to preempt criticism of him speaking with al Qaeda. “Nonetheless, every Western politician is proud to have a meeting with Bush.”

Statements like this, which seem to equate Western politicians with jihadist leaders, have at times provoked a backlash against Todenhofer in Germany. This summer, he photoshopped the face of German President Joachim Gauck onto the body of al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, to protest what he viewed as Gauck’s enthusiasm for war. “Dear friends, what have we done to get such a jihadist as president?” he wrote.

His views aside, there’s no doubting Todenhofer’s grim portrayal of Islamic State-controlled Syria and Iraq. In his latest trip, he does not appear to have avoided asking the jihadists tough questions: He engaged in a tense discussion with one fighter about the Islamic State’s enslavement of Yazidis, and wrote on Facebook that the group was planning a massive “religious cleansing” of non-believers.

He also came away from the trip impressed by the Islamic State’s military and strategic abilities, and sure that in the long run they planned to attack Europe and the United States. “You can say, these are fantasies, this is ridiculous,” he told CNN. “But if someone had said that at the end of this year, 2014, IS would run a country bigger than Great Britain, everybody would’ve said, ‘you’re crazy.’”

By David Kenner

David Kenner is the Middle East editor for Foreign Policy.


Meet the America-Hating, Assad-Loving Journalist Who Just Came Back From the Islamic State
foreignpolicy.com
When Jurgen Todenhofer crossed out of Islamic State-controlled territory on Dec. 16, he accomplished something that no Western journalist had done before him – he… Continua a leggere