The day originally on Diary-X is lost. But from the following weeks is the above.
We’re in a fight for our principles, and our first responsibility is to live by them. No one should be singled out for unfair treatment or unkind words because of their ethnic background or religious beliefs. –George W Bush: to Congress 20 September 2001
That I definitely agree with. Nor for a moment would I not want to see the perpetrators of last week’s terror attacks in the United States brought to account.
But there are a number of worrying things about Bush’s speech. Take one:
Americans are asking “Why do they hate us?”
They hate what they see right here in this chamber: a democratically elected government. Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms: our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.
They want to overthrow existing governments in many Muslim countries such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. They want to drive Israel out of the Middle East. They want to drive Christians and Jews out of vast regions of Asia and Africa.
These terrorists kill not merely to end lives, but to disrupt and end a way of life….
Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.
OK, I agree–up to a point. But there are uncomfortable questions one must ask:
1. Are Christian extreme fundamentalists any more in favour of pluralism (one of the values Bush says we are defending) than their counterparts in other religions? (Admittedly most American fundamentalists are not and are not likely to be terrorists in any crude sense, but what about the likes of those who have said the bombings are God’s judgement on unrighteousness, specifically on tolerating homosexuals? What about those who enforce the teaching of “Creation Science”?)
2. How democratic and free is Saudi Arabia?
3. Why were the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon specifically targeted? Is there a clue there to the origin of the hatred? Is it the American political system that is so hated, or something else?
4. If you know the answer to 3, will terrorism (a crime against humanity) ever lose its attractiveness to some while what those targets represent to many in the Third World remains unreformed?
I only wish all nations in the world, including the United States, took things like the International Declaration on Human Rights very seriously. But they probably won’t. Not if it interferes with business.
It is a sorry world.
Not lost after all — a copy saved to Angelfire!
12 Sep 2001
Dies irae Horrible. What more can I say?
When I was seventeen the following poem (I print here the first and last stanzas only) was one we did; ever since it has recurred to me when the world has displayed yet another atrocity:
SEPTEMBER 1 1939
W. H. Auden
I sit in one of the dives On Fifty-second Street Uncertain and afraid As the clever hopes expire Of a low dishonest decade: Waves of anger and fear Circulate over the bright And darkened lands of the earth, Obsessing our private lives; The unmentionable odour of death Offends the September night.
*
Defenceless under the night Our world in stupor lies; Yet dotted everywhere, Ironic points of light Flash out wherever the Just Exchange their messages: May I, composed like them Of Eros and of dust, Beleagured by the same Negation and despair Show an affirming flame.
13 Sep 2001
Local but global…Australia and asylum seekers
In the background as I write the TV here in Sydney is still devoted to full coverage via CNN etc of the horrendous events of a few days back; rightly so. Perhaps later I will dare to say something.
Meantime the bizarre events surrounding the Australian Government’s treatment of asylum seekers (mostly from Iraq and Afghanistan) continues. Being relatively sane, I do not advocate open borders, but the current saga is odd to say the least. I still smell electoral advantage as a motive: why even Pauline Hanson has complained that the Government has been stealing her policies (and her voters?) The level of public discussion–at least in pubs and on talkback radio–has often been frightening in its ignorance and, indeed, racism.
Asylum seekers are to the current government what “kicking the Communist can” was to Menzies in the 50s and 60s. The Labor Party has been uninspiring to say the least; it is high time they did spell out a few alternatives a tad more clearly….
Last night I made an amazing discovery, an aspect of myself of which I had hitherto been unaware. Or perhaps now I am a septuagenarian it has developed as part of the general unravelling one has to expect. To adapt the words of the Bard of Wisconsin:
THERE are two kinds of people on earth to-day Just two kinds of people, no more, I say.
Not the humble and proud, for in life’s little span, Who puts on vain airs, is not counted a man.
Not the happy and sad, for the swift flying years Bring each man his laughter and each man his tears.
No; the two kinds of people on earth I mean, Are those whose pee stinks, and those whose is clean.
Last night, you see, I had a pasta dish from Woolworths that contained quite a bit of asparagus, a vegetable I rarely eat because as a child I found the following version slimy and repulsive:
I am sure that is a really excellent product, by the way. I speak only of my taste as a child. I didn’t like pumpkin much either, but I do now. And the Woolies pasta dish was not too bad either.
However, on peeing later on – more than once being a septuagenarian – I encountered The Phenomenon. There was more than a whiff of sulphur in the air, reminiscent of but not quite as strong as the hydrogen sulphide or rotten egg gas that we no doubt have all experienced at some time. And it was definitely coming from my pee!
Is this some dreadful disease, I wondered briefly, until thinking ASPARAGUS! And maybe shiraz as well…
We humans have been eating asparagus for thousands of years. Indeed, asparagus is shown on a 5000-year-old Egyptian stone carving.
The ancient Romans and Greeks prized asparagus. And it was easy to find. Some 300 different species grow naturally between Siberia and Southern Africa….
On 24th August 2009 I visited Sydney Boys High
I was struck by the view across Moore Park which I had surveyed so many times over the years.
And how about 2005?
Yes, I was still part of the staff then…
7.30 Report: The Mine and the Islamists
22 Aug
Well, that is quite a story on tonight’s 7.30 Report about The Mine and the weird Islamic fundamentalists. It is worth revisiting my diary for July 28 2005, July 27 2005 and July 26 2005. There were many earliier entries on Diary-X referring to the Islamic Student Forum in 2003, but they sadly have gone. There have been two forums since, but I did not attend them. My friend the Mufti of Watson’s Bay was one of the speakers at the first and second ones, and in fact told the students in no uncertain terms before the second one to make sure no “total crap” was handed out. The bulk of the sessions was reasonable, or where fundie/conservative (not the Mufti, that’s for sure!) it was sadly like Christian and Jewish glazed-eye literalists, the usual “I have a hotline to God” routine, you know: “The Book says, and it’s true because the Book says it’s true and when the Book says it is true it is true because the Book says it’s true because it is a True Book etc — in eternal circularity…” Mister Tariq, the principal fundie at the seminar, seemed to take everything literally and regarded Abraham, for example, as his best mate and as real and as knowable as John Howard. He also had this line where covering your wife (as in hijab) was cool because she was a precious possession, and just as you’d cover your Porsche if you had one… (Mind you, head scarves don’t offend me in the least if that’s what the wearers want to do; they even look rather nice quite often.)
All of which is sad, and the Khilafah mob are crazy as cut snakes in many respects. The argument on The 7.30 Report last night went thus:
JONATHAN HARLEY: The group may be small in Australia, but Hizb ut-Tahrir spans the globe. It’s strongest in Central Asian republics where it’s being fiercely repressed by authoritarian regimes threatened by its radical ideology. The party is banned too in a number of Arab countries. In Russia and Germany it’s listed as a terrorism group and in Denmark a Hizb ut-Tahrir spokesman has been convicted of submitting anti-Semitic propaganda, the substance of which an Australian spokesman has refused to renounce.
LIEUTENANT COLONEL CRISPIN BLACK, TERRORISM INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: A lot of people call it a conveyor belt towards terrorism, others have called it a precursor organisation towards terrorism.
We now know Khilafah and Hizb ut-Tahrir are one and the same, which is very recent knowledge for those of us on the outside of the Muslim community. In 2003 on Diary-X I wrote:
Khilafah: extreme but not necessarily terrorist
In a wholesale rejection of what we in the West might call the postmodern condition, in a yearning for a pure and noble state rooted in the dream of the past, in rejecting the undeniable humiliation of Muslims over the past few centuries and the depradations of the capitalist and imperialist world, very many seem now to be turning to a movement that I can only see as ultimately disastrous. It should definitely be added that not all people who adhere even to these views are terrorists or condone random violence, but there can be no doubt that it is such an ideology that drives those Islamists who are terrorists, just as anarchism and communism inspired terrorism in the past.
Is Khilafah the communism of the 21st century?
We should recall that just as in McCarthyist times thoughtful people who criticised US policy, or who questioned this or that about capitalism, were labelled as “Commies”, “dupes”, or “fellow-travellers”, often without justification, so too today any Muslim or Muslim group who questions the assumptions and policies of the US government is likely to be labelled “a conveyor belt to terrorism”. We do need to be careful. Was David Lange “a conveyor belt to terrorism”?
Let’s hope the HSC English course subverts my young friends thoroughly with its emphasis on what a text is, multiplicity of readings, nature of “representation” and importance of context, and that they proceed not to insulate their Holy Book from the rules of textuality.
I was glad to see, when I dropped into the Islamic Students’ meeting last Thursday, that they were mucking around with a tennis ball when they were meant to be praying…
They are really nice kids in fact; what they do in the school is done under exactly the same rules that apply to the Christian group and the Jewish group.
I don’t want to exaggerate the significance of this, but I have no doubt I was able to help a young man whose circumstances I could hardly imagine. This young man.
I and my father, along with two other passengers, are driving through the streets of Kandahar, a “troubled” province in the South, on our way to Kabul. Suddenly, in its usual and unpredictable manner, pops a convoy of NATO armored personnel carriers (APCs).
A guy sitting on top of the first APC is signaling all cars to move right and clear the way. The two cars in front of us follow his orders. Now it’s our car which the person is signaling to move right. Our driver, who has had a quarrel with another driver some 20 minutes ago, is too deep in thoughts to notice his signals. I see every gesticulation from the NATO soldier and am expecting the driver to turn at any moment.
We get closer and closer to the convoy and the driver doesn’t show any sign of clearing the road. The NATO soldier grows increasingly desperate. His desperation reaches to a point where he fires four “warning” shots in an attempt to get the attention of our driver. I am watching all this; and at this point, everything seems like a Hollywood movie or perhaps a CNN video from a troubled zone. I feel no urgency to act and inform the driver to change course; perhaps because I can’t believe this is happening to me.
Bullets race overhead—shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot—that’s four of them whooshing in quick succession. And now, even after the warning shots, we have still not cleared the road for the APC. The NATO soldier at the top of the APC can’t take it anymore. He thinks that we are perhaps a gang of Al-Qaeda or Taliban suicide car bombers about to strike his vehicle. Instincts take over him and he lowers his gun barrel in a bid to take offense and exterminate the perceived threat. Maybe, in the meantime, he was thinking of the honor to have shot and foiled a terrorist plot in preemption.
So, as he brings his gun barrel down to shoot the driver first, our driver notices it and takes a desperate swerve to the right. The NATO soldier shoots his first bullet. Thanks to the turn we take, the bullet hits the side screen window and somehow misses all of us. Glass scatters everywhere. We’re all sitting there aghast, looking at the unfolding drama in disbelief. A second bullet comes in quick succession to the first one. Again, miraculously, it rips through the thin strip of plastic that holds the rearview mirror onto the car.
Because we have taken a turn and cleared the way, the NATO soldier realizes that we are no suicide car bombers and stops firing. At this point, we all start checking our limbs and bodies to make sure everything is intact. All seems okay. We have been able to escape death in the hands of NATO soldiers.
Moments later, I begin to think: Escaping Al-Qaeda, Taliban and other threats lurking around, we come under threat by the very force which claims to be “protecting” us. Although I acknowledge there’s an idiocy factor involved from our driver, I can’t help but wonder how many people have lost their lives in such incidents that have been labeled “encounters with terrorists.”
From my observations it appears as if such incidents are quite common. In the three trips that I have made to Afghanistan in the last two years, I have had two encounters of this nature with international troops, the first one being a lot less dramatic. It now seems to me that the international peacekeeping forces are quite at ease in opening fire at almost anyone.
After completing his journalism education in the USA — how that happened his blog details — he had in recent times returned to Kabul. He was there just last week…
Here he is on 2 August 2018 from Kabul. Note what he says about the aid Taliban was getting.
And now we have the dégringolade. So utterly sad. The hope expressed above is dead. No doubt Ahmad is again a refugee, hoping at least that he and his family are still alive.
Looking at my own blog — the one of which this present blog is the successor — I see a number of entries come from a search for “Afghan” — here is one. Inspiring people: true Aussies both. The first person discussed is Young Australian of the Year 2013: Akram Azimi.
Then searching for that I found this from Holroyd High School, where the great Dorothy Hoddinott did such sterling service.
Finally, from December 2011: Better than a thousand pundits and all their learned articles.
A Thousand Splendid Suns is a breathtaking story set against the volatile events of Afghanistan’s last thirty years—from the Soviet invasion to the reign of the Taliban to the post-Taliban rebuilding—that puts the violence, fear, hope, and faith of this country in intimate, human terms. It is a tale of two generations of characters brought jarringly together by the tragic sweep of war, where personal lives—the struggle to survive, raise a family, find happiness—are inextricable from the history playing out around them.
In the end it is these glimpses of daily life in Afghanistan — a country known to most Americans only through news accounts of war and terrorism — that make this novel, like “The Kite Runner,” so stirring, and that distract attention from its myriad flaws.
My attention was so distracted that I am convinced the “myriad flaws” exist more in the reviewer’s mind than in Hosseini’s novel, which is not to say the book is perfect but it is pretty bloody good. If it had been published in Australia it would probably be up for the Miles Franklin or something. I think it has suffered from being the SECOND novel after the phenomenon that was, deservedly, The Kite Runner
I worked for so many days and nights to become the person I am today, and this morning when I reached home, the very first thing my sisters and I did was hide our IDs, diplomas and certificates. It was devastating. Why should we hide the things that we should be proud of? In Afghanistan now we are not allowed to be known as the people we are.
As a woman, I feel like I am the victim of this political war that men started. I felt like I can no longer laugh out loud, I can no longer listen to my favourite songs, I can no longer meet my friends in our favourite cafe, I can no longer wear my favourite yellow dress or pink lipstick. And I can no longer go to my job or finish the university degree that I worked for years to achieve.
Update 8am Australian Eastern Daylight Time 17th August 2018
Just opened my Facebook and there is this post from Ahmad Shuja:
Thank you to all friends who inquired about my safety and wellbeing. Also, a special thanks to those who helped me over the last few days. Afghanistan and our compatriots are going through difficult times. There will be opportunities for studying the events of of last few years. I am still processing and contemplating. For now, I can confirm that I am all right and in a safe location, though concerned about friends and compatriots. I am trying to help them with whatever means and resources that I have.
One year ago
The Australian Fulbright Alumni Association hosted an online interview with Fulbright alumnus and national committee member, Ahmad Shuja Jamal, discussing his book, “Decline and Fall of Republican Afghanistan,” co-authored by William Maley. The interview, hosted by AFAA Vice President Angela Heise, delved into Shuja’s personal experience and the historical context surrounding the fall of Kabul. Shuja recounted the chaos and panic he witnessed during his evacuation from Afghanistan, highlighting the broken promises, lack of control, and coordination that led to the collapse of Republican Afghanistan and the swift rise of the Taliban.
Confirming that this is the same man as the one I contacted in 2006
Your book is a damning indictment of U.S. Presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden, particularly the latter, in the collapse of the Republic. Could you elucidate?
Trump’s decision to negotiate with the Taliban to the exclusion of Afghanistan changed the political, social and battlefield dynamics in Afghanistan and weakened the credibility of the Republic. It even changed the calculus of Afghanistan’s neighbors, who started hedging their bets and building equity with the Taliban. The U.S. actively encouraged reluctant neighbors such as India to establish ties with the Taliban, which was seeking to overthrow the Afghan government by violent means despite the U.S. deal. As Afghanistan defended itself against an all-out Taliban assault, Pompeo withheld $1 billion in military aid because the Republic resisted American demands that it acquiesce to all terms and conditions negotiated behind its back in Doha. Afghan soldiers, who had been fighting and dying against the Taliban, saw that the U.S. was abandoning them and negotiating with what they believed was a shared enemy; they felt betrayed.
Biden, who ordered a review of the Doha deal in January 2021, could have changed things. At the very least, he could have demanded the Taliban’s adherence to the terms of the deal, including by severing their links to al-Qaida, engaging in honest peace talks and cutting their terrorism against civilians. Instead, Biden ordered a full U.S. withdrawal without announcing mechanisms to help Afghan forces sustain their combat and aerial capability after the withdrawal. U.S. generals knew that the Afghan air force would largely grind to a halt by September 2021 unless arrangements for maintenance and overhaul of aircraft were made. Those arrangements were not made before Biden’s withdrawal announcement in April 2021 or at any time before the collapse in August of that year. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan’s promise to arrange “over-the-horizon” support for ANDSF and a robust diplomatic initiative for peace did not materialize.
The Trump administration committed, and the Biden administration gave, everything the Taliban needed without getting anything in return….
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