The dawn must come.

The dawn must come.

Thursday 25 June 2015

God Wish It!?!

By: Ahmed M. ElNahhas – Firenze, June 20th 2015.
When building a wall – of any type: cultural, social, racial or even physical made of bricks, barbed wire or steel – around yourself thinking it’ll protect you from the ‘Other’, in fact it isolates you from all and from everything; and you’ll end up discovering how vulnerable and defenceless you’ve become.
A.N.
Last week Right Wing Hungarian authorities have informed the EU commission and parliament of its immediate suspension of the Political Asylum treaty, and of its intention to erect a 180km long and 5m high of double folds barbed wire closing its southern borders with Serbian territory!
Moreover, France has forced tens of desperate African refugees to remain on the rocky shores of Ventimiglia refusing to host them on French soil. The official claim is: “awaiting the new EU regulations in merit”!
Austria, Denmark, Germany and the UK are timidly watching and silently preparing similar procedures; while in Italy and since several years , official police records show frequent cases of aggression on “extra-community subjects” by activists belonging to extreme right movements; headed and driven by the xenophobe political party “Lega Nord”* – The North League –  which calls for the elimination of “Parasites that are infecting the society and the race”, and uplifting its tones declaring that “kicking them out is no longer a solution, the time has come to engage bulldozers to eradicate them and their camps from our cities”.
Lega Nord - same as European Skin-Heads, Neo Nazis, and Neo Fascists - has been dangerously embracing the very same tactics practiced in the US by Nationalist Groups of Supremacists and Secessionists, who follow the “Anglo-Celtic” ideology and preach independence and dominion over other ethnic a/o religious minorities.
Preaching ‘Hate’, to support an ideology of racial supremacy, would consequently imply ‘Violence’.. Which always commence first ‘Moral’ (verbal aggression, racial segregation, offensive critics, insults, songs…), then, and for socio-political motives more than cultural, the violence will rapidly shift from moral towards the ‘Material’ (cloths, cars, houses, shops, camps, churches, synagogues…Etc.).. However, it does not stop here; unfortunately it accelerates into ‘Physical’ attacks on the person with the intention of causing maximum harm, having death as a target.
The Charlestone Church massacre by Dylann Roof proves my point, that preaching hate implies consequently all sorts of violence; that are above all unpredictable as well as uncontrollable.. Roof was raised in an environment where the Confederate flag decorates many residential facades and is proudly waved on the top post of the City Hall; and where the notes of Dixie is the region’s official anthem.. In fact, for many southerners, both the flag and Dixie are the symbols of the Confederate Republic of the South.


What’s to be considered carefully here is that, on both sides of the Northern Atlantic, racial supremacy and its sisters nationalism and secessionism are Constitutionally protected: in the US by their worshiped  sacred ‘Totem’ known as the “2nd Amendment”; while in Europe the “Freedom of Expression” articles are the shield.
Also, despite the obvious similarity of the methodologies that are meticulously practiced here and there,  to mobilise the masses and ensure their loyalty, through: manifesting, creating of proper identification symbols (flags, logos, anthems, books, slogans, mottos, oaths, cloths, colours, hair-styles, songs…etc.), rallying, preaching, recruiting, training, educating, misinforming and assaulting; no one sees or admits the identical characteristics that join together all types of extreme ideological, political, racial or religious  Fanatic Behaviour!!
It’s clear that nothing is new under the sun..  Yet it is clearer that history repeats itself regularly in cycles of approximate precision.. So, I can safely conclude that it is much too much clear the ‘Imbecility’ exhibited by many of us.. Those who absolutely refuse to learn the lessons of History.. Or even worse: to categorically deny History itself.
Pass On The Word.

PS:
        I.            Allow me to suggest the vision of two films considered as part of Hollywood’s Cult features:
1)       “American History X” with Edward Norton, and
2)       “Mississippi Burning” with Gene Hackman and William Dafoe.
    II.            La storia:
a)       Offer us the possibility to examine all the choices of the past in relation to their economic, political and cultural pretexts of their times;
b)       allow us as well to analyse the consequences revealed from such choices, so that, if wit enough, we would learn how to face the challenges of the present without having to sort out for uncertain improvisations or be limited to only react or just follow the initiatives of others;

c)       give us for last the certainty of being able to reduce into its possible minimum any unseen risk, and to best organize efficient plans optimizing the future

Dio Lo Vuole!!??!!

Quando si costruisce un muro - di qualsiasi tipo: culturale, sociale, raziale e anche fisico che sia di mattone, di filo spinato o d’acciaio - in torno a se pensando di proteggersi dall’atro, di fatto si isola da tutto e da tutti, e infine si scopre vulnerabile e indifendibile.
A.N.
Dalla scopa di Maroni siamo arrivati alla ruspa di Salvini! E dopo?? La Bomba Atomica??? La Lega Nord sta pericolosamente seguendo gli schemi adottati da tanti gruppi nazionalisti Americani; e anche quelli degli Skinheads,  Neo-Nazzisti e Neo-Fascisti Europei. Gruppi di suprematisti secessionisti e nazionalisti che si rifanno ad un ideologia “Anglo-Celtica” e predicano l’indipendenza e la dominazione su altre minoranze etniche e/o religiose.
Predicare l’odio, in sostegno dell’ideologia suprematista raziale, comporta di conseguenza la violenza. Che comincia sempre prima ‘Morale’ (aggressione verbale: segregazione razziale, critiche, insulti, canzoni…) e poi, per motivi politico-sociali più che culturali, si precipita velocemente verso il ‘Materiale’ (abiti, macchine, case, negozi, campi, chiese, sinagoghe o moschee…ecc.). Però non si ferma qui, purtroppo finisce con l’aggredire fisicamente le persone con l’intenzione di fare più danni possibili; con la morte come traguardo.
L’ennesimo esempio di Dylann Roof ne è la prova: primo, che la Lega di Salvini sta seguendo le soliti schemi suprematisti; secondo, prova che predicare l’odio genera ogni tipo di violenze, che perlopiù sono incontrollabile e imprevedibile. Roof è cresciuto, come spiega Giampiero Gramaglia sul Fatto Quotidiano, in un ambiente che “sventola la bandiera Confederata che evoca la Guerra di Secessione, quella di abolizionisti contro schiavisti, del Nord contro il Sud, la guerra di Lincoln contro Lee”. Dove la bandiera come simbolo è sempre “abbinata con le note di Dixie, l’inno non ufficiale della Confederazione Sudista”.
Tutto tutelato costituzionalmente: in America con il loro ormai sacro adorato ‘Totem’ cioè il “Second Amendment”; mentre l’Europa si nasconde dietro l’elastica stoffa della “Libertà d’Espressione”!
Malgrado l’assoluta similitudine delle loro metodologie meticolosamente praticate nel: manifestare, creare i propri simboli (bandiere, inni, libri, logo, motto, giuramenti, colori, abiti, conciature… ecc.) predicare, reclutare, formare, educare, disinformare ed aggredire; nessuno vede, o ammette, l’identicità accomunando tutti i tipi di fanatismo: ideologico, politico, raziale o religioso.
Chiaro che niente è nuovo sotto il sole.. Ed è più chiaro che la storia si ripeta manifestandosi in cicli quasi precisi.. Di conseguenza, posso concludere che sia molto, ma molto chiara l’imbecillità esibita da gran parte di noi.. Quelli(e) che rifiutano di imparare dalla storia.. O peggio ancora: di negarla.
Ahmed M. ElNahhas – Montopoli, 20 Giugno 2015.

PS..
        I.            Permettete mi di proporvi la visione di due film ormai cult del cinema Hollywoodiano:
1)       “American History X” di Edward Norton, e
2)       “Mississippi Burning” di Gene Hackman.
    II.            La storia:
a)       ci offre la possibilità di esaminare tutte le scelte passate in relazione con i pretesti economico-politico-culturali dei loro tempi;
b)       ci permette peraltro di analizzare le conseguenze che si sono rivelate da tale scelte; e, se siamo abbastanza svegli, impareremo ad affrontare le sfide del presente, senza dover ricorrere ad incerte improvvisazioni o limitarci al solo reagire o a seguire le iniziative degli altri;
c)       ci da infine la certezza di poter ridurre al minimo i rischi imprevisti, e organizzare al meglio i piani più efficaci ad ottimizzare il futuro.


Thursday 18 June 2015

Between a Charta and a Letter.

By: Ahmed M. El Nahhas – Montopoli, June 16th 2015.
- A -
June 15th 1215, in the locality known as Runnymede along the river Thames and in the presence of the kingdom’s Nobles and Landlords; John ‘No-Land’ the English Sovereign finally conceded and laid his signature on the right bottom of a document since then and till now known as the “Magna Charta”.
Eight centuries have passed since that moment, yet the feverish debate over its significance kept its heat continuing to reverberate by the walls and halls of every Palace, Professorship, Parliament, Throne, Presidency, and Jurisprudence Assembly.. Its supporters fanatically affirm and sustain that “The Magna Charta is the first known document establishing the foundations and principles of Modern Democracy”; furthermore they confirm that the document has forged the idea of Human and Civil Rights, basing their claim on its article 39 which textually reads: “We shall not lay our hands over you”. !!
Instead, the opposing side debate that the document is nothing but an instrument by which the Monarch have restrained his powers and shrunk his authority, thus submitting to the will of his Élite Noble class and Feudal landlords, as not to order any their contribution through taxations without consulting with them first. (We shouldn’t forget the date; we’re in the climax of the economic disasters caused by the Crusades and the consequent campaigns to conquer and govern the Levant).
The symbolist influence of the document is undeniable, I admit that; if we consider the Cromwell republican reforms regulating the Parliamentary practices. Yet, the Magna Charta cannot be the only acknowledgeable foundation of what most scholars call “Modern Democracy”.. Because I believe that the modernising factors of the Classic Greek Democracy have risen clear from the sources of the French Revolution and the Universal Declaration Of the Rights of the Man and the Citizen; according to both the power belongs to the people.. All the people.
Antic Penal Code Historian, Adriano Prosperi, explains that “…the document gave life to our present Parliamentary ideas through giving birth to the first Barons’ Assemblies, and where lies the decisive matter of Protecting the rights of the person.. The problem however is another: it is how we have already forgotten the principles that the Charta inspired in the first place.. In the name of terrorism as a unique and absolute enemy, the principle of Efficiency has prevailed, by now we are living a permanent status of Exceptions that is corroding every right”.
I agree with the last part of this statement.
- B –
200 pages including many citations and notes; with its introduction, six chapters and two final prayers; are all the contents of the Pope Francis 1st “Encyclical Letter”.. Francis 1st, originally Francesco Primo, dedicated his work to Man and Nature.. We can deduct his passion out of the text of this prayer:
“ A prayer for our Earth..
O Lord in thy heights, who is present in all the Universe and in the smallest of your creatures, You who hold with your tenderness all and every existence; pour in us the force of your love so as we take care of life and of beauty.
Inundate us with peace to live as brothers and sisters without harming no one”.

Throughout the Encyclical text, the Pope urged man as not to harm the environment, nature or earth:
Ø  “The destruction of Human Environment is a very serious matter”..
Ø  “…a crime against Nature is a crime against our own selves and a sin against God”..
Ø  “The urgent challenge of protecting our common home includes the unification of the entire Human Family in the search for a sustainable and integral development, as to know that things could change”.
This Pope is a man committed to the change as much as he is coherent with the idea.
Pass On The Word.

Redistribute Wealth not Slaves.

By: Ahmed M. ElNahhas – Pisa, June 15th 2014.
Commenting on the Brussels meetings where the European Union members are discussing the Emigration Energency phenomena, Prof. Marek Halter said:
“Coming out of a church, how many persons would stop to offer alms (charity) to the poor? Very few, though all religions have prescribed it.. In the same way governments retire from their moral responsibilities.. In 1938 the Evian Conference was held to figure out which nation would receive and accommodate the Jews; only the Dominican Republic came forward offering its welcome.. Now, the same is happening again, and Europe is refusing to host and shelter frightened and horrified refugees desperately escaping from ethnic cleansing and civil wars.. Human beings looking for safety and serenity through a dignifying working life.. The urgent need today is being able to figure out a global solution for Africa.. We have for long allowed misery to devastate that continent, and now we have to face the consequences and pay the price”.
What Prof. Halter have just said, drove me to think.. What is the the core of the problem? How and where to look for its original cause? The one before Colonialism, Racism, Corruption or Apartheid.. The true one causing all of them.. And,  like an Archeologist digging out history from underneath the ground and clearing it from dirt; I think I may have found it.. Buried under heavy layers of human lies and intentional distortion of facts.
So, bear with me for a moment.. Allow me to explain:
Sociological, Anthropological, Ethological and Psychoanalytical scientific vernaculars have all clearly drawn the line separating “Aggressiveness from “Violence”.. Yet, the modern use of the two terms is so confused; and even mixes them up to the point of rendering them synonyms.
While Aggressiveness means the instinct to identify and defend our own physical, psychic or social territory in its many diverse forms, in short our identity; Violence instead is the thriving instinct to entre others territories and to violate them, by words or facts, in personal or collective lives.
In poor words: if I’m hungry and succeed to procure myself a chunk of bread, then my aggressive instinct would drive me to eat it all and alone.. Only the intervention of a cultural code could induce me towards a mediation as to share it with another person equally famished. But violence become verifiable when I rip off the chunk of bread from someone else’s hands to keep it to myself and eat all and alone.
Similarly, if searching for energy resources would drive a population into the initiative of looking for new lands that are well provisioned by such resources, then we are talking about Aggressive Instinct; that would quickly mutate into Aggression/Violence if those lands were inhabited by antique populations whom are opposed and/or in disagreement to such initiative.
Since humanity, for long unmemorable time, used to mediate instinct by Moral Conscience; then the use of aggressiveness or the sorting to violence have always depended upon: a) the quality of the subject, b) its conscience, c) its sub-conscience and d) the social status in which it lives.
So, why then to mix up such two different terms?
Because today Human Aggressiveness is very much ill and clumsily swings between two poles completely opposed and as much destructive:
1)      either we feel unable to identify and defend our own territory; or
2)      we are incapable of identifying and respecting the territory(ies) of the others.
As a result, and for various reasons, we have come to simplify the complexity of the two instincts, to the point of ignoring – or even denying - the difference between Violence and Self-Defence.
The consequences, whether on personal or collective levels, are a juicy matter of daily chronicle on newspapers and TV talk shows.
Pass On The Word.
Ref:
·         Le Idee of Anais Ginori.
·         Inégalité: Notre création by Marek Halter.

·         TamTam of Marina Valcarenghi.

Hunting for a Capital.

By: Ahmed M. ElNahhas – Montopoli, June 14th 2015.
It seem more than ever plausible the theory that the US strategy - elaborated by the Pentagon, the CIA and approved at the Oval Office - to confront the growing ISIL threat; is much similar to the one implemented at the eighties of last century through the bloody 8 year Iraq/Iran war. In this case to allow ISIL carry out the mission to eliminate Assad and drain Syria’s official army strength.. Because, same as Iraq, without a strong army the country will fall into chaos and disintegrate into sectarian fragments coq fighting each other for decades to come. (same scenario applied in Somalia, Afghanistan, Sudan, Libya and later in Yemen).
“The Independent”  published lately a report signed by its envoy Robert Fisk, in which he described his 2000 miles trip across Syria to document his personal views and observations on both sides of the ongoing bloody conflict.. Reading the article and what’s between its lines, the idea I have synthesised here on top will got clearer. Here is the essence of what Robert Fisk reported.
Actual physical evidence on battle fields (in Syria as in Iraq) show that ISIL warriors and Al Nusra Front combatants are using sophisticated high tech weaponry and equipment, most of which are US made:
a)The insurgents possess hundreds of “Anti-Tank Remote Controlled Missiles” and medium range anti-tank Rocket Propelled Grenades, enabling them to engage a Syrian army tank and launch simultaneously 3 or 4 shells disabling its anti-fire circuits; thus causing the explosion of the ammunition and burning the soldiers transported inside the vehicle; b) the militias have in their disposition “Tactical Uniforms” of the last generation; c) they often use “Thermal Missiles”; d) thousands of Quran books in Russian language (for the Chechen fighters) are available and in circulation; and e) tens of thousands of Chocolate Energy Bars demonstrate how ISIL care for the fitness of its warriors!
From another perspective: while Washington’s think tanks “Experts” believe that Syrian army is performing a “Tactical Retreat” towards the high grounds habitat of Assad’s Alawi sect’s, to keep open the way between Damascus and the Mediterranean passing by Homs; Syrian “Experts” affirm that what Assad must do is to defend at all costs the principal cities along the way from Aleppo driving south through Hama, Homs and Damascus; in order to remove away from Al Nusra or ISIL any possibility to control a potential Syrian Capital. Their control over Raqqa , a small village in the desert or even holding Palmira is of no strategic value. But getting hold of Aleppo, Syria’s second largest city, means that ISIL do have an authentic Capital for their presumed state.
Iranian, Afghan Shia, Hezb’Allah are fighting in support of Assad because the official army have already lost 50000 men. And the moment the armed forces should suffer a defeat, there will not be a power to maintain the National Unity.
Now, let us hear what Dr. Faisal Mekdad – the Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister – had to say interviewed by Robert Fisk the War Reporter for the Independent:
“Several months ago – before the intervention of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey to sustain Al Nusra and ISIL, we were about to mark a historical advance. The occupation of a city like Edlib would have never took place without a substantial Turkish intervention.. Attacking Edlib and Jisr Al Shugour were Turkish and Checen fighters.. By now it is clear that without reorganizing and reinforcing the army allowing it to activate the command’s decisions; reaching the prefixed objectives will not be possible”.
Commenting of that statement, Robert Fisk said: “Dr. Mekdad is talking about new armaments that must substitute the obsolete Warsaw Pact tanks; obviously it is more about words and promises rather than contracts already signed and paid for.. However, Aleppo keep buzzing into the conversation like a mosquito; if every city is important, the fall of Aleppo will be a disaster.. It will trigger a chain reaction driving smaller cities to follow”.
Having summarised the article, I can safely conclude: the American scenario has been improved and refined to meet new American and Western strategic exigencies in the area.. Don’t forget that Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey all possess and have access to US made weaponry.. Just consult the Purchase Orders made and deliveries received by each of them in the past couple of years.

Pass On The Word.

Maximum Authority.

By: Ahmed M. ElNahhas – Montopoli, June 8th 2015.
The Sant’Egidio Community, organiser and coordinator of the International Convention on “East & West – A Civilisations’ Dialogue”; invited Al Azhar Grand Imam Sheikh Ahmad A’Tayyeb to participate. According to the founder of the Community, Andrea Riccardi, “A’Tayyeb, being the Maximum Religious Authority over the Muslim Sunni World; is the only credible authority to take part in the event and with whom a confrontation would be fruitful”.
Despite the tight schedules on the convention’s agenda, having involved, in a short lap of time, various seminars, presentations, workshops and round tables; A’Tayyeb conceded 10 minutes to European Media reporters.. Here is the outcome.
Q. Today, Islam is being shaken by an extremely hard Intestinal War. There is a group, that by its own name – Islamic State – sustains its interpreting the truest essence of your religion. How would you respond?
A. I don’t approve the definition of Islamic State; those are a group outcast from Islam.. They represent a challenge to all the Islamic Thought. We are a Scientific Institution aiming to arm the young ones not with guns but with the correct reading of Islam.
Q. In the Muslim World, the overlapping between Religion and Politics is a factor of major contribution in this confusion. Do you think it would be possible separating them?
A. They are already two different methodologies. In politics, often interests condition the decisions; whereby for the Religion Ethic is inalienable. If we’d refer to High Politics, the one that establish Justice and Protect the Weak; then YES, religion invades the Politics’ arena to intervene in support of such Supreme Values.
Q. Turkey is a case of superimposition, or overlapping, combining Religion and State Politics; what do you think of the latest election’s outcome?
A. I don’t make politics, then I can’t give an answer. But certainly what is seen today must be observed in its overall situation by which appears a kind of ‘Tense Encounter’ between Eastern and Western Civilisations.
Q. How are the relations with Pope Francis’ Church?
A. Pope Francis is a person whose heart cherishes respect for other Faiths and the problems of the poor. There is a convergence toeing the objectives of Al Azhar and those of the Church’s new course.
I don’t know what you’d make of that or how would you describe A’Tayyeb’s statements; but I believe that he roamed around the most important issue aroused by the first question.. The issue that discomfort major part of the Western Public Opinion, as well as the entire Western Intellectual Community; concerning whether or not the self-proclaimed Islamic State do interpret the true essence of Islam! He simply discarded the matter by the cliché “a group outcast from Islam”.
Even though he affirmed that “they represent a challenge to all the Islamic Thought”; I hoped that he would’ve elaborated more.. Like saying that Al Azhar is, or will, invite Muslim scholars and intellectuals, from every Islamic Sect to an International Islamic Reconciliation Council, to be held in Cairo; aiming to review that challenge. And that all united would work together to refine, or update, the Islamic Thoughts; clearing them from the sharp edges of rust glued on them, over centuries of uncontrolled interpretations and infiltrations.
Obviously his professional formation and conservative culture forced him to remain vague.. Or maybe he refrained from deepening the subject, leaving that to the closed doors debates of the conference.
On another occasion, knowing that he always claimed that Al Azhar is an Independent Institution, he wasn’t convincing at all in trying to address the Religion Politics Overlapping issue. Naturally, he couldn’t admit the complete dependency of Al Azhar on the State; being a waged subordinate to its Executive Authority.
Pass On The Word.