Category Archives: Racism

Islamophobia, Muslims, Racism, U.S. Congress, U.S. Politics, US Foreign Policy

U.S. Elections: Self-Hating Arabs, Self-Hating Muslims………

   

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I was thinking about the U.S. elections, with all the convention circus going on for the second week.
I wonder if any Muslims will vote Republican this year? And what do we call them? What do we call an Arab or a Muslim who votes for the party that has been vilifying and threatening them for the past few years? The party of Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum, Herman Cain, Peter King, et al, who vilified Muslims and Islam every day for months this past year. And Romney who is threatening to wage a new war in our homelands and virtually to make Israel an actual 51st state. A party that threatens to treat the Arabs, in their own region, like past victims of racism in the old American Southwest, the Apaches and Comanches and others, to be terrorized and displaced as so many wild savage animals.
Benjamin Netanyahu has a name for American Jews and other Jews who oppose his policies: he calls them “self-hating Jews“. Ironically a very Hitler-ite way of vilifying your opponent, an irony he probably misses.
How many self-hating Muslims and Arabs are out there?

(FYI: there is such a thing as the lesser of two………)
Cheers
mhg
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Culture, Europe, Racism

Europe: “a toxic blend of traditional fascism and Western bigotry posing as secular liberalism”……….

   

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“How’s this for the fashion police? In late May, in a suburb of Brussels, a Muslim woman was arrested for wearing a niqab—the garment worn by a tiny proportion of Muslim women that covers all of the face but the eyes. In the subsequent melee, the woman broke an officer’s nose while being frisked. Her arrest sparked clashes between Muslim youth and police in the area. A week later, the hard-right Flemish nationalist Vlaams Belang offered a 250 euro bounty to anyone reporting veiled women to the police. The Belgian law banning the niqab, like measures across Europe ranging from outlawing the wearing of certain face veils in France to the building of more minarets in Switzerland, was ostensibly aimed at integrating Muslim minorities into Western culture. To the extent these laws have integrated Muslims into their place in the new hierarchy of European racism—a toxic blend of traditional fascism and Western bigotry posing as secular liberalism—they’ve been successful. But as a tool for promoting inclusion and equality, these laws have singularly failed. Indeed, this bid to prevent the importation of “radical Islam” has been both laughable and lamentable. The Belgian woman in question was a locally born convert, as were the girls at the heart of the French head scarf law, whose father is Jewish…………”

I do not believe that women should wear a the niqab or burq’a, especially if they don’t want to. I don’t believe that, say, Sarkozy, should wear a fedora or a dunce’s hat, if he doesn’t want to. Yet I believe they both have the right to wear what they want. The same Europeans who were for the ban would raise hell if their government banned them from wearing some item of their own national attire.
Some Arab and Muslim women who never wear the niqab or burq’a hurriedly supported this new European ban on public Islamic dress as ‘liberating’ the women. Maybe it is in some cases where they are forced to. Yet for some this may not be the case: then how can imposing restrictions on anyone ‘liberate’ them? What next? Banning speaking Arabic publicly as a “liberating” measure? Banning halal meet as a ‘liberating’ measure?
Cheers
mhg
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Africa, Israel, Racism

Not Exactly Kristallnacht for Africans in Tel Aviv, but……………

    

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“Amine Zigta is not a timid man. If he was, he would not have risked his life by escaping indefinite enforced army service in Eritrea, or making the hazardous journey through Sudan and the Sinai desert to Israel. Nor would he have kept open his corner bar in south Tel Aviv after 15 local hoodlums shouting “what do you care, you black son of a bitch?” broke off table legs in March after he refused to serve teenagers below the legal drinking age. “But now,” Mr Zigta, 36, says in fluent Hebrew, “I am afraid, all the time. At night I can’t sleep. I am in danger.” Given subsequent events, his fears are understandable. On 23 May, with a demonstration against African refugees planned for the evening, he locked up at around 4pm. Hours later, residents phoned to say demonstrators were breaking in. Mr Zigta went to two police stations for help and was still waiting at a third when he got another call to say a police patrol had finally turned up. When he arrived, he found the plate glass windows smashed by bricks, tables upturned and all his stock stolen by looters….……. The minister has suggested that “most” African migrants are criminals, and that many, including rapists, are HIV positive. Arguing that the refugees threaten the “Zionist dream”, he has claimed that most are Muslims. ………..”
Cheers
mhg
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Iran, Racism, WTF, Xenophobia

Apple Issues: iRacism? iXenophobia? iIranophobia? iStupidity ……

    

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“An American teen was unable to shop at an Apple store simply because she was speaking Farsi with her uncle. What seems to be a clear-cut case of ethnic profiling turns out to be in line with official company policy. Sabah Sabet, a 19-year old US citizen of Iranian extraction, and a student of the University of Georgia, took her uncle to buy an iPhone and an iPad at an Apple store in a mall in Alpharetta, Georgia, local news channel WSBTV reports. But she was in for a shocker, as the store clerk refused to sell them the devices after he found out Sabet and her uncle were speaking Farsi. “When we said ‘Farsi, I’m from Iran,’ he said, ‘I just can’t sell this to you. Our countries have bad relations,’” Sabet recounted. Sabet said the incident, which she describes as “discrimination” and “racial profiling,” …………..”

“However, U.S. sanctions laws do not prohibit the sale of products to Iranian Americans or Iranian visa-holders in the United States. Yet, multiple Apple Stores have refused service to both American citizens and Iranian students legally residing in the United States solely on the basis of their ethnicity. In particular, Apple Stores at North Point Mall in Alpharetta, Georgia and at Perimeter Mall in Atlanta, Georgia have been implicated in this practice .………..”

The United States is the least xenophobic country and society in the world, yet there are pockets of it around.
It is definitely racism (a Russian news agency called it iRacism). These products are made in CHINA, by CHINESE workers, and how stupid can you get for F-sake! I think that is just some parts of Georgia being Georgian. Next time these Iranian-Americans are asked what language they are speaking they ought to say (heaven forgive me for suggesting that someone lie) Hebrew. No problem, piece of cake.
Cheers
mhg
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Islamophobia, Muslims, Racism, U.S. Congress, U.S. Politics

America in Danger of an Arab and Muslim Takeover……….

    

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“Yet Wasserman Schultz decided to abruptly pull out of speaking at EMERGE’s annual dinner last week. “We never agreed to do a fundraiser, nor an event,” claimed Wasserman Schultz spokesman Jonathan Beeton. Yet EMERGE had previously widely advertised Wasserman Schultz’s participation at the fundraising dinner without apparent complaint from the congresswoman’s staff. “We were interfacing with congresswoman Wasserman Schultz’s people for about a year to try to get something together,” said Siddiqui. “So when she agreed to the banquet, we were elated.” There’s a much more likely explanation for her abrupt refusal to attend the event than a simple miscommunication. For months, Islamophobic websites and a far-right congressional candidate waged a smear campaign against EMERGE, pressuring Wasserman Schultz to back out of the event. With her withdrawal, it appears that they won. The smears can be traced back to an article in right-wing McCarthyist David Horowitz’s Front Page Magazine. In a February article, Joe Kaufman – who is vying in a Republican primary to challenge Wasserman Schultz for her seat in Congress – teamed up with Militant Islam Monitor’s Beila Rabinowitz to claim that EMERGE was part of a “nefarious agenda of placing Islamists into positions of American power and influence.”……..”

Speaking of “placing Islamists into positions of American power and influence”. Come on now, I hate to be “ethnic” oriented but, just to show the absurdity of that point: Wasserman Schultz (an excellent person, probably better than most Muslims that I know or possibly even those I don’t know), David Horowitz, Beila Rabinowitz, Joe Kaufman, Joe Lieberman, Edelstone, Abe Foxman, Diane Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, Michael Bloomberg, Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod, Eric Cantor (poor lonely guy)? Most of the elected ones among those listed are excellent public servants (with the exception of Lieberman and Cantor). The bloggers and opinion-ators among them are just the usual racist idiots that come in all shapes, colors, and faiths. Not to mention all the Christian (real or nominal) ones. I haven’t even got to the Vegans yet. And these guys worry about “Arabs or Muslims” in positions of power?
I am tempted to type exactly the sound that I just expressed to the consternation of my best friend: hahahahaha.
Cheers
mhg


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Finance, France, Qatar, Racism

Le Pen and the Emir of Qatar……………

    

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“PARIS – Far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen on Friday lashed out at Qatar for investing in “Muslim” areas of French cities and for taking over Paris Saint-Germain football club. “The massive investments which it has made in suburbs are made because of the very high proportion of Muslims who are in the French suburbs,” she told reporters. “I think this situation could be very dangerous,” she said. “We are letting a foreign country choose its investments with regard to the religion of this or that part of the French population or of French territory.” The tiny but very wealthy Gulf state of Qatar late last year set up a 50-million-euro ($67-million) fund for entrepreneurs from France’s often-deprived suburbs to set up businesses………….”

This extreme right wing lady pretends in public that she is pissed simply because the Qataris are investing in parts of France where French corporations (and government) refuse to invest. She would rather have the French Muslims live permanently under what conditions the right wing deems right for them. It is just election year garbage.

Then she added that in general Qatar was “playing a double game by presenting itself as an “enlightened” country while at the same time supporting Islamist groups in the Middle East and North Africa.” On that last paragraph, I have no comment today: it requires some pondering. Some Gulf potentates do dabble in fundamentalist politics, some of them more than others.
Cheers
mhg


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Afghanistan, Iran, Lebanon, Libya, Racism, Terrorism

White Gods vs. Brown Gods: Greed and Blood Money from Beirut to Lockerbie to Tehran to Afghanistan.. …….

    

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Here are some brief media reports of “terrorist” acts in Beirut, Europe, the Persian Gulf, and Afghanistan. These acts were committed by Arabs, Muslims, and Westerners. That acts were shocking, they always are. Note the aftermath. It is almost as shocking as the acts themselves, in fact more so because the aftermath reflects how humans are valued differently in the West. Now a comparison is in order:

Feb. 2012: “The U.S. paid $50,000 in compensation for each villager killed and $11,000 for each person wounded in a shooting rampage allegedly carried out by a rogue American soldier in southern Afghanistan, Afghan officials said Sunday. The families were told that the money came from President Barack Obama. The unusually large payouts……….”

Feb. 2011: “Paul Wolfowitz has been branded ‘pathetic’ after launching an extraordinary attack on the families of those who lost loved ones in the Lockerbie bombing. The former deputy Secretary of Defense said the U.S. had buckled under pressure from grieving relatives to normalise relations with Libya so they could walk away with $10million each in compensation………….”

Nov. 2008: “The U.S. said Sunday it has begun transferring more than $500 million in Libyan compensation money to the families of American victims of the 1988 Pan Am 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland. More money is on the way to complete the settlement, but $504 million of $536 million to be distributed to the families was moved from the U.S. Treasury to a private account administered by Lockerbie families’ lawyers on Friday, the top American diplomat for the Mideast said. David Welch spoke to reporters aboard U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s plane as she returned to Washington from the Middle East. He said he expected the rest of the Lockerbie payments would be made soon as soon as administrative details were worked out. The cash comes from a $1.5 billion fund for U.S. victims of Libyan-linked terrorism in the 1980s that Libya finished paying into last month………”

Sept. 2007: “WASHINGTON — Iran must pay $2.65 billion to the families of the 241 U.S. service members killed in the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, a federal judge declared Friday in a ruling that left survivors and families shedding tears of joy. U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth described his ruling as the largest-ever such judgment by an American court against another country. “These individuals, whose hearts and souls were forever broken, waited patiently for nearly a quarter century for justice to be done,” he said………………”

“On July 3, 1988, an Iranian aircraft registered on the radar screen of the USS Vincennes. The U.S. Navy officers on the bridge identified the approaching aircraft as an Iranian Air Force F-14 Tomcat. Though they would later claim that they tried to reach the aircraft on military and civilian frequencies, they failed to try air traffic control, which would have probably cleared the air. Instead, as the aircraft drew nearer, the Americans fired two guided missiles at their target: a civilian Airbus A300B2, killing 290 civilians, including 66 children, en route to Dubai…… Reza, who served as a volunteer Basiji from 1987-1988 and teaches chemistry now, admits he doesn’t think about what happened too often. “Still, when I do,” he said, “I remember how nobody cared! These were Iranian civilians who were killed and there was no condemnation.”……..”

The Huffington Post report, the first one I quoted up there, calls the $50k and $10k “unusually large payouts“. What they mean is “unusually large payouts for the life and limb of Afghans, non-Westerners“.
I have commented before on Lockerbie vs. Iran Air 655. Clearly, a white man or woman, a white child, is worth much more than an Afghan or an Iranian or an Arab (man or woman or child). Reading through these reports, I wonder: is it possible that they are? Maybe they are.
Cheers
mhg


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Human Right, Middle East Women, Racism, Saudi Arabia

Holy Airlift! Two Ethiopian Maids in Every Saudi Home…….

 

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“Saudi Arabia plans to import 45,000 Ethiopian nationals into the kingdom every month in order to meet its requirement for domestic workers. Maids from the African nation have been in high demand since the Gulf’s most populous nation placed a ban on recruiting workers from the Philippines and Indonesia after those countries imposed stricter employment conditions, the Saudi Gazette reported. Noor Adeen Masfa, Vice Consul for Economic Affairs in Jeddah, said his department had met with committees from the Ethiopian Ministry of Labour in a bid to facilitate the transfer of Ethiopian workers to the kingdom. However, the lack of sufficient flights between Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa and Saudi hubs has caused delays………..”

This after the Indonesians refused to export their women without adequate pay and better treatment. Indonesian women were the favorite in the kingdom, but some of them have been executed by beheading and there are reportedly some 21 of them waiting on death row in the kingdom. The Philippines also have put some conditions and limits on the abuse of their female citizens. Now it is the turn of Ethiopia. Forty five thousand per month. At this rate they’d need flights straight out of Addis Ababa dedicated for this type of ‘trade’. It would be quite an airlift, a ‘holy airlift’, no doubt general-ed by prince Khaled Bin Sultan, the defeated ‘hero’ of the  Huthi War.
They’d eventually have enough to provide every house with an Ethiopian housemaid. I suspect this must be part of their new Five-Year Plan: to have two foreign housemaids in every home.
I just hope they’ll allow these people to practice their religion freely (openly or secretly). This is, after all the domain of King Abdullah whom Western PR firms advised to sponsor a “dialog of faiths”. A dialog of faiths in Spain, France, Britain, Germany, Luxembourg, the USA, etc, etc, etc. Anywhere but not in Riyadh or Taif or any other place in Saudi Arabia, where there are no churches or synagogues or temples, where private group worship at homes is seriously frowned upon. ‘Seriously’ means public flogging, maybe some prison, then deportation. At least they don’t get beheaded, unlike sorcerers and witches and magicians. In the absolute Wahhabi Kingdom without Magic.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Iraq, Racism, Syria

Kurds of Syria and Iraq: Victims of Baathist Racism and Chauvinism……….

 

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“Syria’s Kurds appear divided and unsure whether to join the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad as they marked the anniversary of bloody clashes between the Kurdish minority and security forces in 2004. Syria’s Kurds live mostly in the north-eastern border region with Iraq and Turkey, and make up 10-15% of the population. For decades the authorities have discriminated against the Kurds for fear that they might seek self-determination. Many were denied citizenship under a controversial law in the early 1960s………”


Both branches of the Baath Party early on showed signs of racism and chauvinism, something borrowed from the European Fascism and Nazism that influenced the early creators of that party (Michel Aflaq and Salah al-Bitar, both Syrian). Syria’s Kurdish community have been a long-time victim of Ba’athist Nazi-like chauvinism and racism. Just as Iraq’s Kurds were long victims of Ba’athist tribal racism and genocide. No wonder the Kurds are insecure and not sure which side to join. The most likely sad fact is that both sides in Syria were likely racist and chauvinistic toward them (not that the other Syrians had anything special to feel superior about; they certainly did not).
The Kurds in Iraq could not be denied citizenship because there are too many of them in their own historic national homeland, and they probably have been there longer than the Arab tribes.
 
The Iraqi Baath regime also deported a couple of hundred thousand Iraqi Shi’as from the South in the early 1980s, sending them across the Iranian border. That was a big mistake: these Iraqis married and multiplied while in Iranian exile and grew to probably close to two million. And they are fluent in both Arabic and Persian, with tight family and cultural links across the border. And they are all back in Iraq now. Big stupid Baathist mistake, but then who said the Ba’ath are any smarter than other despotic Arab regimes?
Cheers
mhg


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France, Islamophobia, Racism

French Elections: Sarkozy Grows a Little Mustache, Halal Meat and Kosher Salt………..

 

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“Much of the press attention here has been focused on Sarkozy’s utterly shameless courtship of France’s xenophobic voters, most of them followers of the far-right National Front. In the debate with Fabius, Sarkozy said that France has too many foreigners, and repeated a proposal he had made to cut the annual number of legal immigrants almost in half. After National Front leader Marine Le Pen made the absurd suggestion that all meat in the Paris region was being slaughtered according to Islamic rules, known as halal, Sarkozy declared, with a straight face, that “the biggest concern of French people is halal meat.”…..…”


Francois Hollande is the Socialist Party candidate for the French presidency. He has been leading Sarkozy (Le Weasel) in most polls until recently. The right-wing are pushing him to make some appropriate anti-immigrant statements.
Nicholas Sarkozy (Le Weasel) has been moving to the right for about two years now. He started early with his own final mini solution for the European gypsies, deporting them en masse. Then he quickly targeted the naturalized French citizens, creating new laws that would punish them in ways different than what other French citizens face. He knows, of course, that most of these would not vote for his right-wing party. Now he is accelerating his shift. His ministers have been making statements about which segment of the population do not represent French ‘culture’, and you don’t have to be Geert Wilders to guess that one.
Now he is rumored by my unreliable source to be planning a printemps surprise on the French electorate: he will show up sporting a new little mustache. A mustache of the kind they haven’t seen in Europe for 67 years.
Cheers
mhg


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