Violence

This cartoon published in VJ Movement website.

The link: http://www.vjmovement.com/truth/470

سويسرا ولدغة الشيخ فرانكنشتاين

تعقيباً على مقال الأستاذ مصطفى البطل ... مآذن سويسرا ونساء مصر

سويسرا ولدغة الشيخ فرانكنشتاين

طلال الناير

سويسرا, ليست فقط بلد الساعات الدقيقة والأجبان الفاخرة والمأوى الأمين لرأس المال, بل هي أيضاً بلد الدكتور فيكتور فرانكشتاين خالق أشهر المسوخ في التاريخ. كتبت الأديبة الإنجليزية ماري شيرلي واحدة من أشهر الروايات في التاريخ وهي (فرانكنشتاين) لتروي فيها مأساة فيكتور الطبيب السويسري والذي في العام 1797م بدأت حكايته برؤيته لأحبائه يتخطفهم الموت واحداً تلو الآخر بدءً من كلبه برونو وصولاً لوالدته التي ماتت بإحدى الأمراض المستعصية, فيكتور الذي تحدى إرادة الإله وكشف سر الخلق الدفين ولم يستمع لنصيحة أستاذه البروفيسور وودمان الذي قال له: (المعرفة ليست شراً, بل ما يفعله الإنسان).
وبفضوله القاتل خلق فيكتور وحشاً سُميَ مجازاً بفرانكنشتاين. فكيف يا سادتي يكون للمسوخ أسماً؟ قام بتدمير ذاك الوحش بتدمير حياة خالقه وحياة سكان مدينة أنشلغولت الألمانية التي فرَّ إليها فيكتور بغرض الإختباء هارباً من مسقط رأسه في فينيا السويسرية, دمَّر الوحش حياة الجميع لأنه يبحث عن (الانتماء).
في الأيام الماضيات كان (الحياد السويسري) الذي كان مقياساً عالمياً محل جدل لم ينتهِ حتى الآن وذلك بعد نجاح حزب الشعب السويسري اليميني المتطرف في كسب جولة في حربه على الأجانب والأقليات المتواجدة في سويسرا وجدد فوز الأغلبية البسيطة (57%) بحظر بناء المآذن. الجدل حول الوجود الإسلامي في بلاد المهجر وعلاقة المسلمين بالمجتمعات الغربية. كالعادة, إنساق الأغلبية عاطفياً في تيار الإدانة لـ(57%) دون معرفة الأسباب الموضوعية وغير الموضوعية التي دفعتهم لتحمل عقبات وصم سويسرا المحايدة بتهمة معاداة الأجانب ولها في النمسا موعظة حسنة وهي رأت تبعات صعود حزب (التحالف من أجل مستقبل النمسا) بزعامة يورغ هايدر والعزلة التي فرضت على البلاد بسبب ذلك في العام 2005م.
فهم البعض القرار السويسري بمنع بناء المساجد ولكن القرار كان بشأن حظر بناء المآذن, وبداية التصعيد كان من جماعة المسلمين في حي فانغن قرب مدينة أولتنغي الصناعية والتي صدَّق مجلسها لهم ببناء مسجد بدون مئذنة لأن المدينة صناعية وكود البناء بها يمنع إنشاء مباني عالية, وقد شكل إصرار مسلمو حي فانغن استفزازاً لليمين المتطرف والذي قام بإشعال جذوة الجدل حول الحفاظ على هوية سويسرا من المد الإسلامي المتطرف والتحذير من أحداث مماثلة لأحداث 11 مارس في مدريد وتخويف السويسريين من أن تشهد بلادهم انفجارات مماثلة لما حدث في 14 يوليو في لندن والتي قام بها أبناء الجيل الثالث من مسلمي بريطانيا, إنهم شباب عاشوا في ثقافة البوب والانفتاح ولم يأتوا من الخارج كمنفذي هجمات 11 سبتمبر!!!
اشتغلت الأزمة لتخرج من شوارع حي فانغن متعملقة لتشمل العالم أجمع, وهنا وقع البعض تقريعاً في كامل سويسرا دون الإلتفات للـ(43%) الذين رفضوا القرار ودافعوا عن الأربعمائة ألف مسلم المتواجدين في بلاد الساعات الفاخرة وكـ(العادة) تم وصم سويسرا بالكفر والإلحاد المبين. انساق البعض عاطفياً وراء نظرية المؤامرة ولم يمعنوا في الهواجس والمخاوف التي دفعت بأكثر من نصف مواطني سويسرا لاتخاد مثل هكذا قرار.
تجربة حياة المسلمين في دول الغرب جديرة بالدراسة والبحث خصوصاً بعد أحداث 11 سبتمبر أو موقعة نيويورك كما يسميها أيمن الظواهري. قام الإسلام السلفي بتقسيم العالم ببساطة مخلة إلى (دار إسلام ودار كفر), ومع التاريخ الدموي المشترك بين الإسلام والمسيحية والمتمثل في حروب الإبادة التي كان يسميها الإسلام بـ(الفتوحات الجهادية) والتي تقابلها من ناحية الوحشية الحروب الصليبية، خلق جدار عزل بين أكبر ديانتين في الأرض, وزاد من ارتفاع هذا الجدار الاستعمار الأوروبي لدول (دار الإسلام(. الأختراق الأكبر في تلك العلاقة الشائكة تمثل في هجرة المسلمين من بلادهم إلى أوروبا وأمريكا وأوستراليا, فأصبح المسلمين من أهل البلاد وأبنائهم مواطنين يتمتعون بكل الحقوق والتي يفترض نظرياً أن يقوموا بالمقابل بواجباتهم تجاه الدولة التي منحتهم المواطنة, ولكن لم يحصل ذلك للأسف.
احتجز بعض المسلمين أنفسهم في وسواس (التمييز العنصري) لدرجة أن البعض منهم لا يتقن لغة البلد التي يعيش, ويموت بها فيعيش منعزلاً في المجتمع. صنع بعض المسلمين (جيتو إسلامي) في المدن التي يعيشون بها واختاروا طواعية أن ينعزلوا عن مجتمعات يرون أنها مجتمعات الكفر والفسوق والإنحلال ثم من بعد ذلك يصرخون بأنهم يعانون من التمييز على أساس الدين والعرق!!!
مهاجرون مسلمون قرروا تأسيس بلدة إسلامية في شرق الولايات المتحدة الأمريكية واسمها (Islamville) وذلك حتى ينشأ فيها أبناءهم على قيم الإسلام الحق, بعيداً عن المجتمع الأمريكي المتحلل من الأخلاق, يفعلون ذلك في أمريكا نفسها التي قاتلوا وأبائهم من قبلهم للوصول إليها. مسلمو المهجر لا يزال يدورون في حلقة مفرغة وعاجزون عن فك رموز معادلة الموازنة بين القوانين العلمانية للبلاد التي يعيشون فيها وبين متعقداتهم الدينية, وإذا وسعنا (زووم الرؤية) سنجد أس المشكلة هي المسلم وارتباكه بشأن انتمائه المزودج للـ(الإسلام ووطن المهجر). أحد الأئمة في أوستراليا منع أطفال المسلمين من ترديد النشيد الوطني للبلاد لأنه (مخالف للإسلام), إمام آخر في بلاد الأوستورال قال بأن الإسلام يحلل في تعاليمه ضرب المرأة في حال عصيانها لبعلها ومن قال بغير ذلك فهو كافر, وإن كان المجتمع الأوسترالي!!!
نشرت قناة الحياة لسان حال أقباط مصر في المهجر فيديو يظهر فيه إمام مسجد لشبونة (الكبير) غاضباً مشدوداً وقال في سياق هجومه على سيد القمني ما معناه: (جهادنا ضد سيد القمني لهو جزء من جهادنا على الغرب الكافر الملحد (يقول هذا وهو في قلب أروبا والتي لا يرى فيها إلا هدفاً يستحق التدمير وقلعة من قلاع الكفر التي تنتظر سيل المد الإسلامي الجارف ليقتلعها من جذورها. بهذه العقليات الاستئصالية تحول بعض المسلمين إلى وكلاء لحروب الإسلام السلفي والجماعات الجهادية التي تؤمن بكفر المجتمعات الغربية (التي يعيشون على خيراتها), فتسلل بين براحات حرية التعبير والتدين ذوي اللحى الطويلة والنساء المنقبات والأئمة الذين يحملون في أيديهم السيوف لقطع رؤوس الزناة العصاة. هذه الممارسات المتطرفة جعلت حتى المجتمعات التي نشأ فيها الإسلام - السعودية مثالاً - تشن حملة تطهير لمثل هذه الجماعات فما بالك بأروبا التي لا تزال تحاول التعايش مع الوافد الجديد عليها.
في 15 أكتوبر 2009م كتب دانيال بايبس مقالاً يعلق فيه على كتاب (المافيا الإسلامية) وكان المقال بعنوان: )كشف الأعمال الخفية لمجلس العلاقات الأمريكية الإسلامية), وقد كتب فيه عن دور الحرب بالوكالة التي يقوم بها المجلس الإسلامي نيابة عن الجماعات الوهابية السلفية المتطرفة في الخليج. قام بتحرير الكتاب ديفيد كابتز وبول سبيري وكذلك بالاعتماد على جهود كرس كابتز الذي قضى 6 أشهر كباحث مقيم في المركز الرئيسي للمجلس, ناجحاً في الحصول على وثائق تشمل 12000 صفحة و300 ساعة تصوير تلفزيوني.
الكتاب كبير جداً وبه الكثير من المعلومات لذا قام دانيال بايبس بالتركيز في مقاله حول جزئية بعض الإدعاءات الكاذبة للمجلس الإسلامي:
الإدعاء الأول
قام إبراهيم هوبر مدير تصريحات بالمجلس بالإدعاء بأن عدد أعضاء المجلس يقارب الـ(50000) عضواً. الحقيقة الموثقة في مذكرة داخلية مؤرخة بحزيران 2007 أن عدد الأعضاء هو 5133, أي عشر ما ادعاه هوبر.

الأدعاء الثاني
إن التنظيم التحتي للمجلس يعتمد مادياً على أعضائه. الحقيقة أن المجلس استلم 33000 دولار كرسوم اشتراك و1071000 دولار كتبرعات. أي بعبارة أخرى أن دخل المجلس من رسوم الاشتراك لا يتجاوز 3%.

الإدعاء الثالث
إن المجلس لا يستلم أي دعم من فرق أو حكومات أجنبية. الحقيقة كما يكشفها الكتاب أعلاه أن 60% من دخل المجلس يأتي من ما يقارب 24 متبرعاً يعيش معظمهم خارج الولايات المتحدة. حصراً: تبرع حاكم دبي بمبلغ 978000 دولار في عام 2002م مقابل الحصول على فائدة تحكم في مباني المجلس الواقعة في حي نيو جرسي, هدية بمقدار 500000 دولار من الأمير السعودي الوليد بن طلال و112000 دولار من الأمير عبد الله بن مساعد في عام 2007م, ما لا يقل عن 300000 دولار من منظمة المؤتمر الإسلامي التي يوجد مقرها في السعودية, 250000 دولار من بنك التنمية الإسلامي, وما لا يقل عن 17000 دولار من الدائرة الأمريكية لمنظمة الإعانة الإسلامية السعودية التي توجد أيضاً في السعودية.

الإدعاء الرابع

إن المجلس هو جمعية محلية مستقلة لحقوق الإنسان, مشابهة للحركة الوطنية لتقدم المواطنين الملونين. الحقيقة: أن المجلس في محاولاته المستميتة للحصول على دعم مادي عرض خدماته التجارية لشركات أجنبية. تبين ذلك بعد فشل شركة موانئ دبي في شراء 6 موانئ أمريكية لأسباب أمنية. على ضوء ذلك سافر رئيس المجلس إلى دبي عارضاً خدماته مصرحاً لرجال الأعمال:
"لا تفكروا بتبرعاتكم لنا وكأنها صدقة. لكن من جوهر الربح المستقبلي. الـ(50) مليون اليوم سترد لكم ببلايين الدولارات في خمسين سنة".
وبعد كل هذا لا يريد أهل الإسلام من الغرب أن يخاف من تغول الإسلام السلفي على مجتمعاته القائمة على الحرية, فإيطاليا منعت النقاب - وليس الحجاب - لأنه قد استخدم من قبل في تنفيذ عمليات انتحارية داخل إيطاليا, كما أنها في سياق متصل منعت إيطاليا نفسها تعليق الصلبان في المدراس لأسباب تتعلق بحرية التدين ومراعاة شعور الأقليات في المسيحية. فرنسا تمنع الطلاب في المدراس الإبتدائية والثانوية من إبراز الرموز الدينية كالصليب ونجمة داؤود والقلنسوة اليهودية, والأمر يجب أن يفهم أهل الإسلام بأنه ينطبق عليهم بما أنهم يعيشون في تراب الجمهورية الفرنسية وارتضوا بأن يصبحوا مواطنين فرنسيين, ولكن الشيخ الدكتور يوسف الأحمد لم يستوعب ذلك قال في فتوى خاصة نشرها في موقعه الإلكتروني أن موقف ساركوزي من البرقع - الذي هو أصلاً ليس أصلاً في الدين - تهجم على مقام رسول الإسلام وهو لا يقل خطورة عن الرسوم الكاريكاتيرية الدنماركية!!!
مواطنو سويسرا الـ(57%) يخافون من طقوس قطع الرؤوس والأيدي التي تمارس عقب صلاة الجمعة في السعودية, ولا تريد نساء زيورخ أن يجدن أنفسن يوماً في مواجهة الشرطة الدينية المسؤولة عن مواصفات ومقاييس الملابس المحتشمة كما في طهران, ولا يريد أهل أوروبا لبلادهم أن تشهد مراسم الرجم حتى الموت كالتي تقوم بها حركة الشباب الصومالية والتي في أبسط تشريعاتها تحريم الموبايل والسنيما, وكذلك تحريم مشدات الصدر للنساء!!
يطالب بعض مسلمي المهجر بحقوقهم الكاملة ولا يقومون بواجباتهم الكاملة تجاه دولهم, يتمتعون بحرية التعبد وبناء المساجد ويمنع إخوانهم الأقليات الدينية في بلدانهم نفس هذه الحقوق, فيعيش على الهامش مثلاً أقباط مصر والذين أخذت البلادEgypt اسمها منهم وليصبحوا ضيوفاً غير مرغوب فيهم ويصبح بناؤهم للكنائس بمثابة استفزاز للمسلمين وليصبح عرض مسرحية دينية مسيحية في الإسكندرية برميل بارود ألقى على الغضب الإسلامي الذي لا يهدأ أبداً, وهو الغضب الذي يعمي بصيرة بعض أهل الإسلام فيجعلهم يأخذون موقفاً متشدداً بمنع التبشير المسيحي منعاً يصل لمرحلة التحريم, شيزوفرينا تصيب البعض لتجعلهم ينسون الحرية التي يجدونها في الدعوة للإسلام في المهجر ويحرمون منها البعض في بلدان المنشأ.
انتهز اليمين المتطرف سقطات الإسلام السلفي الموغلة في التطرف ليحذر أهل بلاد الأجبان والساعات الفخيمة من تكرار مأساة الدكتور السويسري فيكتور, يحذرون سكان زيورخ وفيينا وبازل واولتنغي من تطرف السلفي (الشيخ فرانكنشتاين) والذي لذغ من جحره أهل نيويورك ولندن ومدريد وهو لا يزال يبحث عن (انتماء) مفقود قد يدمر الجميع قبل أن يصل إليه. لقد جعلت ماري شيللي نهاية تراجيديا روايتها أن يموت خالق المسخ من الحسرة على عالمه الذي تحطم وأن ينتحر الوحش فرانكنشتاين في النيران حزناً على العالم الذي دمره بحثاً عن (الانتماء).

Alex Guma Bondia

Alex Guma Bondia cartoonist from Spain

Gergely Bacsa

Atilla Atala

Atilla Atala caroonist from Turkey.

Muharrem Akten

Muharrem Akten cartoonist from Turkey.

Senad Nadarevic

Senad Nadarevic cartoonist from Bosnia and Herzegovina

Shahid Atiqullah

Cartoonist and manger of Afghancartoon

Under the gun

Leon Trotsky

Leon Trotsky (Russian: Лев Давидович Трóцкий (help·info), Ukrainian: Лев Давидович Троцький (Lev Davidovich Trotsky, also transliterated Leo, Lyev, Trotski, Trotskij, Trockij and Trotzky) November 7, [O.S. October 26] 1879 – August 21, 1940), born Lev Davidovich Bronstein (Russian: Лев Давидович Бронштéйн), was a Bolshevik revolutionary and Marxist theorist. He was one of the leaders of the Russian October Revolution, second only to Vladimir Lenin. During the early days of the Soviet Union, he served first as People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs and later as the founder and commander of the Red Army and People's Commissar of War. He was also among the first members of the Politburo.

After leading a failed struggle of the Left Opposition against the policies and rise of Joseph Stalin in the 1920s and the increasing role of bureaucracy in the Soviet Union, Trotsky was expelled from the Communist Party and deported from the Soviet Union. An early advocate of Red Army intervention against European fascism,[1] Trotsky also opposed Stalin's peace agreements with Adolf Hitler in the 1930s. As the head of the Fourth International, Trotsky continued in exile to oppose the Stalinist bureaucracy in the Soviet Union, and was eventually assassinated in Mexico by Ramón Mercader, a Soviet agent.[2] Trotsky's ideas form the basis of Trotskyism, a term coined as early as 1905 by his opponents in order to separate it from Marxism. Trotsky's ideas remain a major school of Marxist thought that is opposed to the theories of Stalinism. He was one of the few Soviet political figures who was never rehabilitated by the Soviet administration.

Pablo Neruda

Pablo Neruda (July 12, 1904 – September 23, 1973) was the pen name and, later, legal name of the Chilean writer and politician Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto. Neruda assumed his pen name as a teenager, partly because it was in vogue, partly to hide his poetry from his father, a rigid man who wanted his son to have a "practical" occupation. Neruda's pen name was derived from Czech writer and poet Jan Neruda; Pablo is thought to be from Paul Verlaine. With his works translated into many languages, Pablo Neruda is considered one of the greatest and most influential poets of the 20th century.

Neruda was accomplished in a variety of styles ranging from erotically charged love poems like his collection Twenty Poems of Love and a Song of Despair, surrealist poems, historical epics, and overtly political manifestos. In 1971 Neruda won the Nobel Prize for Literature, a controversial award because of his political activism. Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez once called him "the greatest poet of the 20th century in any language."[1]

On July 15, 1945, at Pacaembu Stadium in São Paulo, Brazil, he read to 100,000 people in honor of Communist revolutionary leader Luís Carlos Prestes.[2] When Neruda returned to Chile after his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Salvador Allende invited him to read at the Estadio Nacional before 70,000 people.[3]

During his lifetime, Neruda occupied many diplomatic posts and served a stint as a senator for the Chilean Communist Party. When Conservative Chilean President González Videla outlawed communism in Chile, a warrant was issued for Neruda's arrest. Friends hid him for months in a house basement in the Chilean port of Valparaíso. Later, Neruda escaped into exile through a mountain pass near Maihue Lake into Argentina. Years later, Neruda was a close collaborator to socialist President Salvador Allende.

Neruda was hospitalized with cancer at the time of the Chilean coup d'état led by Augusto Pinochet. Three days after being hospitalized, Neruda died of heart failure. Already a legend in life, Neruda's death reverberated around the world. Pinochet had denied permission to transform Neruda's funeral into a public event. However, thousands of grieving Chileans disobeyed the curfew and crowded the streets. Neruda's funeral became the first public protest against the Chilean military dictatorship.

Green Monday (7th of December)March

Sudan's police forces used violence to disperse our peaceful Green Monday march or The 7th of December March in Omdurman.
Photos by: NAYER
7-12-2009

Self Portrait

Ares

The Great cartoonist Arístides Esteban Hernández Guerrero or ARES.

Born in Havana, September 2, 1963 he studied medicine (graduated at 1987) and psychiatry (graduated at 1993). Self made cartoonist, illustrator and painter.

Ares published his first cartoon in 1984, in Opina magazine. His works has been published all around the world and he also worked as illustrator (mainly children books) and made oil paintings and animations.

He works in Havana as a free lance artist. He has participated in a great number of humor events, where he has obtained more than a hundred awards, and nowadays is the cuban cartoonist with the bigger number of international awards (69). Some of them are:
First Prize, Piaui International Cartoon Contest, Brazil;
First Prize Cartoon, Gabrovo Biennial, Bulgaria;
First Prize, Eurohumor, Italy;
Excellence Prize, Yomiuri Shimbum International Cartoon Contest, Japan;
Grand Prix San Antonio Biennial, Cuba (three times);
Eduardo Abela Grand Prix, National Cartoon Contest, Cuba (five times).

Marian Avramescu (Mav)

The great Romanian cartoonist Marian Avramescu or Mav.
He was born on February 9,1957. He Lately International cartoon contest won prizes as follows: Special prize at Pressclub Awards, Bucharest 2005; First prize of Zikison -caricature- Serbia 2007; Gold Prize of 6th Lm International Cartoon Contest CHINA 2007; Second prize of TEMA-Turky-Apr 2008; Rhinoceros 2008 –Special Diploma; Third Prize of International Cartoon Contest DEBUT Zielona Gora-Poland 2008.

Love and War

Religions

Muhammad Ali Clay is boxing

A secret for two

by Quentin Reynolds


Montreal is a very lage city. Like all Large cities, it has small streets. Streets, for example, LikePrince Edward Street-only four blocks Long. No one knew Prince Edward Street as well as Pierre Dupin. He had delivered milk to the families on the street for thirty years.

For the past fifteen years. a large white horse pulled his milk wagon. In Montreal, especially in the French part of the city, animals and children are often given the names of saints. Pierre's horse had no name when it first came to the milk company. Pierre was told he could use the horse. He moved his hand gently and lovingly across the horse's neck and sides. He looked into the animal's eyes.

"This is a gentle horse," Pierre said. "I can see a beautiful spirit shining out of its eyes. I will name him after Saint Joseph, who also was a gentle and beautiful spirit."

After about a year, the horse, Joseph, got to know every house that received milk, and every house that did not.

Every morning at five, Pterre arrived at the milk company's stables to find his wagon already filled with bottles of milk and Joseph waiting for him, Pierre would call, "Bonjour, my old friend," as he climbed into his seat, while Joseph turned his head toward the driver.

The other drivers would smile. They said that the horse smiled at Pierre.

Then Pierre would softly call to Joseph, "Avance, mon ami." And the two would go proudly down the street. Without any order from Pierre, the wagon would roll down three streets. Then it turned right for two streets, before turning left to Saint Catherine Street. The horse finally stopped at the first house on Prince Edward Street. There, Joseph would wait perhaps thirty seconds for Pierre to get down off his seat and put a bottle of milk at the front door. Then the horse walked past the next two houses and stopped at the third. And without being told,Joseph would turn around and come back along the other side. Ah yes, Joseph was a smart horse.

Pierre would talk about Joseph. "I never touch the reins. He knows just where to stop. Why, a blind man could deliever my milk with Joseph pulling the wagon."

And so it went on for years-always the same. Pierre and Joseph slowly grew old together. Pierre's huge walrus mustache was white now and Joseph didn't lift his knees so high or raise his head quite so much. Jaeques, the bossman of the stables, never noticed that they both were getting old until Pierre appeared one morning carrying a heavy walking stick.

"Hey, Pierre," Jacques laughed. "Maybe you got the gout, hey?"
"Mais oui, Jacques," Pierre said. "One grows old. One's legs get tired."
"Well, you should teach that horse to carry the milk to the front door for you," Jacques told him. "He does everything else."

The horse knew every one of the forty families that got milk on Prince Edward Street. The cooks knew that Pierre could not read or write; so, instead of leaving orders in an empty milk bottle, they simply sang out if they needed an extra bottle. "Bring an extra bottle this morning, Pierre," they often sang when they heard Pierre's wagon rumble over the street.

"So you have visitors for dinner tonight," Pierre would happily answer.
Pierre also had a wonderful memory. When he arrived at the stable he always remembered to tell Jacques, "The Pacquins took an extra bottle this morning; the Lemoines bought a pint of cream..."

Most of the drivers had to make out the weekly bills and collect the money, but Jacques, liking Pierre, never asked him to do this. All Pierre had to do was arrive at five in the morning, walk to his wagon, which always was in the same place, and deliver his milk. He returned about two hours later, got down from his seat, called a cheery "Au voir" to Jacques, then walked slowly down the street.

One day the president of the milk company came to inspect the early morning milk deliveries. Jacques pointed to Pierre and said, "Watch how he talks to that horse. See how the horse listens and how he turns his head toward Pierre? See the look in that horse's eyes? You know, I think those two share a secret. I have often felt it. It's as though they both sometimes laugh at us as they go off Pierre...Pierre is a good man, Monsieur President, but he is getting old. Maybe he ought to be given a rest, and a small pension."

"Oh but of course," the president laughed. 'I know Pierre's work. He has been on this job now for thirty years. All who know him, love him. Tell him it is time he rested. He'll get his pay every week as before."

But Pierre refused to leave his job. He said his life would be nothing if he could not drive Joseph every day. "We are two old men," he said to Jacques. "Let us wear out together. When Joseph is ready to leave, then I too will do so."

There was something about pierre and his horse that made a man smile tenderly. Each seemed to get some hidden strength from the other. As Pierre sat in his seat, with Joseph tied to the wagon, neither seemed old. But when they finished their work-then Pierre walked lamely down the street, seeming very old indeed, and the horse's head dropped and he walked slowly to his stall.

Then one cold morning Jacques had terrible news for Pierre. It was still dark. The air was like ice. Snow had fallen during the night.

Jacques said, "Pierre, your horse, Joseph, didn't wake up. He was very old, Pierre. He was twenty-five and that is like being seventy-five for a man."

"Yes," Pierre said slowly. "Yes. I am seventy-five. And I cannot see Joseph again."
"Oh, of course you can," Jacques said softly. "He is over in his stall, looking very peaceful. Go over and see him."
Pierre took one step foward, then turned. "No... no ... you don't understand, Jacques."

Jacques patted him on he shoulder. "We'll find another horse just as good as Joseph. Why, in a month you'll teach him to know all the homes as well as Joseph did. We'll...." The look in Pierre's eyes stopped him. For years Pierre had worn a large heavy cap that came down low over his eyes. It kept out the bitter cold wind. Now, Jacques looked into Picrre's eyes and he saw something that shocked him. He saw a dead, Lifeless Lookin them.

"Take the day off, Pierre," Jacques said But Pierre was gone limping down the street. Pierre walked to the comer and stepped into the street. There was a warning shout from the driver of a big truck. There was the screech of rubber tires as the truck tried to stop. But Pierre... Pierre heard nothing.

Five minutes later a doctor said, "He's dead... kilted instantly."
"I couldn't help it," the truck driver said, "He walked in front of my truck. He ... he never saw it, I guess. Why, he walked as though he were blind."

The doctor bent down. "Blind? Of course the man was blind. See those growths? This man has been blind for five years." He turned to Jacques, "You say he worked for you? Didn't you know he was blind?"

"No ... no .. ." Jacques said softly. "None of us knew. Only one... only one knew--a friend of his, named Joseph ... It was... it was a secret, I think, just between those two"

from Sudanray.com

Firuz Kutal

The cartoonist Firuz Kutal

Money

Aldous Huxley

Every person who knows how to read has it in their power to magnify themselves, to multiply the ways in which they exist, to make life full, significant, and interesting.

Free Hadi Heidari

Renowned cartoonist Hadi Heidari who contributes to several reformist newspapers and heads the website Persian cartoon (www.haditoons.com) was arrested in the capital Tehran on the evening of 22 October. He was among several people arrested while taking part in a religious ceremony in honour of political prisoners, held at the home of Shehaboldin Tabatabai, one of the prisoners close to the reformist party, Participation. Some of them were released the following day but around a dozen others, including Heidari, were moved to Evin prison.
Heidari was cultural editor of the banned daily Etemad-e Melli. Editor of the newspaper, Mohammad Ghochani, a member of its editorial staff, Fayaz Zahed, and website editor, Mohammad Davari, are all still in prison.

From FECO

Bob meets Karl

Muthaqafateyia

Violence

Torture in Sudan - Facts and testimonies

Author: El Nadim Centre for Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence
Keywords: torture; sudan; refugees; human rights; UNHCR; testimonies; africa; south of sudan; civil war
Publisher: El Nadim Centre for Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence
Year: 2005
Language: English
Book contributor: El Nadim Centre for Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence
Collection: opensource

Description:
Over the last ten years hundreds of Sudanese torture victims have reached out to El-nadim center. This figure represents only the ones that succeeded in escaping from the clutches of those who imprisoned and tortured them, leaving behind others.

No one knows how many victims exist and perhaps no one ever will. Some have become martyrs, some could not get away and a few, are still struggling. Their stories accumulated over the years, bringing some testimonies that vary and others that are relatively alike. But all contain the same viciousness and extreme cruelty.

We could see, quite literally, what we had previously read in both local and international reports asserting that the Sudanese government has reached a level of such brutality that has never occurred before in modern Sudanese history. Torture in Sudan is, today, more widespread than ever before, and not just because it embraces a wider area than previously, but also because of the random infliction of this inhumane torture.

Everybody is at risk. Whether you are a political activist or not, a member of the opposition or an uninvolved civilian, whether you are alone or part of a group is irrelevant.

We document in this book, amongst other things, the testimonies of these victims.

We are working towards the day when the criminals who tortured them are held accountable for their actions, and punished for the suffering they inflicted. Though no punishment will compensate the lives that were lost it will be a triumph for their souls, a triumph for humanity as a whole, in hope of one day living in a better world.

http://www.archive.org/details/TortureInSudan-FactsAndTestimonies

Censorship

Definitions of Censorship

The term "censorship" comes from The Latin, censere "to give as one's opinion, to assess." The Roman censors were magistrates who took the census count and served as assessors and inspectors of morals and conduct.

In contrast to that straightforward definition from Roman times, contemporary usage offers no agreed-upon definition of the term or when to use it. Indeed, even whether the word itself applies to a given controversy in the arts is often vigorously contested.

Here are excerpts of definitions of "censorship" from U.S. organizations and publications with varying views. They are not intended as any composite mega-definition of the term, only as indications of the variety of approaches to this concept.


Censor: One who supervises conduct and morals: as a) an official who examines materials (as publications or films) for objectionable matter; b) an official (as in time of war) who reads communications (as letters) and deletes material considered harmful to the interests of his organization. Censorship: The institution, system or practice of censoring; the actions or practices of censors; esp : censorial control exercised repressively.
--Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary
Censorship: The use of the state and other legal or official means to restrict speech.
--Culture Wars, Documents from the Recent Controversies in the Arts, edited by Richard Boltons

In general, censorship of books is a supervision of the press in order to prevent any abuse of it. In this sense, every lawful authority, whose duty it is to protect its subjects from the ravages of a pernicious press, has the right of exercising censorship of books.
--The Catholic Encyclopedia (a publication of the Catholic Church)

What Is Censorship? Censorship is the suppression of ideas and information that certain persons -- individuals, groups or government officials -- find objectionable or dangerous. It is no more complicated than someone saying, "Don't let anyone read this book, or buy that magazine, or view that film, because I object to it!" Censors try to use the power of the state to impose their view of what is truthful and appropriate, or offensive and objectionable, on everyone else. Censors pressure public institutions, like libraries, to suppress and remove from public access information they judge inappropriate or dangerous, so that no one else has the chance to read or view the material and make up their own minds about it. The censor wants to prejudge materials for everyone.

For the ALA, technically censorship means the "The Removal of material from open access by government authority." The ALA also distinguishes various levels of incidents in respect to materials in a library which may or may not lead to censorship: Inquiry, Expression of Concern, Complaint, Attack, and Censorship.
--The American Library Association

The word "censorship" means "prior restraint" of First Amendment rights by government.
--Morality in Media (Morality in Media is "a national, not-for-profit, interfaith organization established in 1962 to combat obscenity and uphold decency standards in the media.")


Censorship
1. The denial of freedom of speech or freedom of the press.
2. The review of books, movies, etc., to prohibit publication and distribution, usually for reasons of morality or state security.
--Oran's Dictionary of Law

Censorship: official restriction of any expression believed to threaten the political, social, or moral order.
--Encyclopedia.Com

Censorship - the prevention of publication, transmission, or exhibition of material considered undesirable for the general public to possess or be exposed to.
--Fast Times' Political Dictionary (Fast Times is "a nonpartisan publication on contemporary world affairs & media with no political, ideological, or religious affiliation of any kind.")


Censorship: the cyclical suppression, banning, expurgation, or editing by an individual, institution, group or government that enforce or influence its decision against members of the public -- of any written or pictorial materials which that individual, institution, group or government deems obscene and "utterly" without redeeming social value," as determined by "contemporary community standards."
--Chuck Stone, Professor of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of North Carolina

Censorship is a word of many meanings. In its broadest sense it refers to suppression of information, ideas, or artistic expression by anyone, whether government officials, church authorities, private pressure groups, or speakers, writers, and artists themselves. It may take place at any point in time, whether before an utterance occurs, prior to its widespread circulation, or by punishment of communicators after dissemination of their messages, so as to deter others from like expression. In its narrower, more legalistic sense, censorship means only the prevention by official government action of the circulation of messages already produced. Thus writers who "censor" themselves before putting words on paper, for fear of failing to sell their work, are not engaging in censorship in this narrower sense, nor are those who boycott sponsors of disliked television shows.
--Academic American Encyclopedia

Censorship: supervision and control of the information and ideas circulated within a society. In modern times, censorship refers to the examination of media including books, periodicals, plays, motion pictures, and television and radio programs for the purpose of altering or suppressing parts thought to be offensive. The offensive material may be considered immoral or obscene, heretical or blasphemous, seditious or treasonable, or injurious to the national security.
--Encarta Encyclopedia

From BPS

Target

Idea of God

"The idea of God was not a lie but a device of the unconscious which needed to be decoded by psychology. A personal god was nothing more than an exalted father-figure: desire for such a deity sprang from infantile yearnings for a powerful, prote...ctive father, for justice and fairness and for life to go on forever. God is simply a projection of these desires, feared and worshipped by human beings out of an abiding sense of helplessness. Religion belonged to the infancy of the human race; it had been a necessary stage in the transition from childhood to maturity. It had promoted ethical values which were essential to society. Now that humanity had come of age, however, it should be left behind."
Sigmund Freud from A History of God

Racism by Ayn Rand

(An article published in the September, 1963 issue of The Objectivist Newsletter
and included as a chapter in the book, The Virtue of Selfishness )

"A genius is a genius, regardless of the number of morons who belong to the same race -- and a moron is a moron, regardless of the number of geniuses who share his racial origin."

Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism. It is the notion of ascribing moral, social or political significance to a man's genetic lineage -- the notion that a man's intellectual and characterological traits are produced and transmitted by his internal body chemistry. Which means, in practice, that a man is to be judged, not by his own character and actions, but by the characters and actions of a collective of ancestors.

Racism claims that the content of a man's mind (not his cognitive apparatus, but its content) is inherited; that a man's convictions, values and character are determined before he is born, by physical forces beyond his control. This is the caveman's version of the doctrine of innate ideas -- or of inherited knowledge -- which has been thoroughly refuted by philosophy and science. Racism is a doctrine of, by and for brutes. It is a barnyard or stock-farm version of collectivism, appropriate to a mentality that differentiates between various breeds of anmials, but not between animals and men.

Like every form of determinism, racism invalidates the specific attribute which distinguishes man from all other living species: his rational faculty. Racism negates two aspects of man's life: reason and choice, or mind and morality, replacing them with chemical predestination.

The respectable family that supports worthless relatives or covers up their crimes in order to "protect the family name" (as if the moral stature of one man could be damaged by the actions of another) -- the bum who boasts that his great-grandfather was an empire-builder, or the small-town spinster who boasts that her maternal great-uncle was a state senator and her third-cousin gave a concert at Carnegie Hall (as if the achievements of one man could rub off on the mediocrity of another) -- the parents who search genealogical trees in order to evaluate their prospective sons-in-law -- the celebrity who starts his autobiography with a detailed account of his family history -- all these are samples of racism, the atavvistic manifestations of a doctrine whose full expression is the tribal warfare of prehistorical savages, the wholesale slaughter of Nazi Germany, the atrocities of today's so-called "newly-emerging nations."

The theory that holds "good blood" and "bad blood" as a moral-intellectual criterion, can lead to nothing but torrents of blood in practice. Brute force is the only avenue of action open to men who regard themselves as mindless aggregates of chemicals.

Modern racists attempt to prove the superiority or inferiority of a given race by the historical achievements of some of its members. The frequent historical spectacle of a great innovator who, in his lifetime, is jeered, denounced, obstructed, persecuted by his countrymen, and then, a few years after his death, is enshrined in a national monument and hailed as a proof of greatness of the German (or French or Italian or Cambodian) race -- is as revolting a spectacle of collectivist expropriation, perpetrated by racists, as any expropriation of material wealth perpetrated by communists.

Just as there is no such thing as a collective or racial mind, so there is no such thing as a collective or racial achievement. There are only individual minds and individual achievements -- and a culture is not the anonymous product of undifferentiated masses, but the sum of the intellectual achievements of individual men.

Even if it were proved -- which it is not -- that the incidence of men of potentially superior brain power is greater among the members of certain races than among the members of others, it would still tell us nothing about any given individual and it would be irrelevant to one's judgment of him. A genius is a genius, regardless of the number of morons who belong to the same race -- and a moron is a moron, regardless of the number of geniuses who share his racial origin. It is hard to say which is the more outrageous injustice: the claim of Southern racists that a Negro genius should be treated as inferior because his race has "produced" some brutes -- or the claim of a German brute to the status of a superior because his race has "produced" Goethe, Schiller and Brahms.

These are not two different claims, of course, but two applications of the same basic premise. The question of whether one alleges the superiority or the inferiority of any given race is irrelevant; racism has only one psychological root: the racist's sense of his own inferiority.

Like every other form of collectivism, racism is a quest for the unearned. It is a quest for automatic knowlege -- for an automatic evaluation of men's characters that bypasses the responsibility of exercising rational or moral judgment -- and, above all, a quest for an automatic self-esteem (or pseudo-self-esteem).

To ascribe one's virtues to one's racial origin, is to confess that one has no knowledge of the process by which virtues are acquired and, most often, that one has failed to acquire them. The overwhelming majority of racists are men who have earned no sense of personal identity, who can claim no individual achievement or distinction, and who seek the illusion of a "tribal self-esteem" by alleging the inferiority of some other tribe. Observe the hysterical intensity of the Southern racists; observe also that racism is much more prevalent among the poor white trash than among their intellectual betters.

Historically, racism has always risen or fallen with the rise or fall of collectivism. Collectivism holds that the individual has no rights, that his life and work belong to the group (to "society," to the tribe, the state, the nation) and that the group may sacrifice him at its own whim to its own interests. The only way to implement a doctrine of that kind is by means of brute force -- and statism has always been the poltical corollary of collectivism.

The absolute state is merely an institutionalized form of gang rule, regardless of which particular gang seizes power. And -- since there is no rational justification for such rule, since none has ever been or can ever be offered -- the mystique of racism is a crucial elemeent in every variant of the absolute state. The relationship is reciprocal: statism rises out of prehistorical tribal warfare, out of the notion that the men of one tribe are the natural prey for the men of another -- and establishes its own internal sub-categories of racism, a system of castes determined by a man's birth, such as inherited titles of nobility or inherited serfdom.

The racism of Nazi Germany -- where men had to fill questionnaires about their ancestry for generations back, in order to prove their "Aryan" descent -- has its counterpart in Soviet Russia, where men had to fill similar questionnaires to show that their ancestors had owned no property and thus to prove their "proletarian" descent. The Soviet ideology rest on the notion that men can be conditioned to communism genetically -- that is, that a few generations conditionned by dictatorship will transmit communist ideology to their descendants, who will be communists at birth. The persecution of racial minorities in Soviet Russia, according to the racial descent and whim of any given commissar, is a matter of record; anti-semitism is particularly prevalent -- only the official pogroms are now called "political purges."

There is only one antidote to racism: the philosophy of individualism and its politico-economic corollary, laissez-faire capitalism.

Individualism regards man -- every man -- as an independent, sovereign entity who possesses an inalienable right to his own life, a right derived from his nature as a rational being. Individualism holds that a civilized society, or any form of association, cooperation or peaceful co-existence among men, can be achieved only on the basis of the recognition of individual rights -- and that a group, as such, has no rights other than the individual rights of its members. (See my articles "Man's Rights" and "Collectivized 'Rights'" in the April and June, 1963, issues of this NEWSLETTER [or Chapters 12 and 13 of the book].)

It is not a man's ancestors or relatives or genes or body chemistry that count in a free market, but only one human attribute: productive ability. It is by his own individual ability and ambition that capitalism judges a man and rewards him accordingly.

No political system can establish universal rationality by law (or by force). But capitalism is the only system that functions in a way which rewards rationality and penalizes all forms of irrationality, including racism.

A fully free, capitalist system has not yet existed anywhere. But what is enormously significant is the correlation of racism and political controls in the semi-free economies of the 19th century. Racial and/or religious persecutions of minorities stood in inverse ratio to the degree of a country's freedom. Racism was strongest in the more controlled economies, such as Russia and Germany -- and weakest in England, the then freest country of Europe.

It is capitalism that gave mankind its first steps toward freedom and a rational way of life. It is capitalism that broke through national and racial barriers, by means of free trade. It is capitalism that abolished serfdom and slavery in all the civilized countries of the world. It is the capitalist North that destroyed the slavery of the agrarian-feudal South in the United States.

Such was the trend of mankind for the brief span of some hundred and fifty years. The spectacular results and achievements of that trend need no restatement here.

The rise of collectivism reversed that trend.

When men began to be indoctrinated once more with the notion that the individual possesses no rights, that supremacy, moral authority and unlimited power belong to the group, and that a man has no significance outside his group -- the inevitable consequence was that men bbegan to gravitate toward some group or another, in self-protection, in bewilderment and in subconscious terror. The simplest collective to join, the easiest one to identify -- particularly for people of limited intellligence -- the least demanding form of "belonging" and of "togetherness" is: race.

It is thus that the theoreticians of collectivism, the "humanitarian" advocates of a "benevolent" absolute state, have led to the rebirth and the new, virulent growth of racism in the 20th century.

In its great era of capitalism, the United States was the freest country on earth -- and the best refutation of racist theories. Men of all races came here, some from obscure, culturally undistinguished countries, and accomplished feats of productive ability which would have remained stillborn in their control-ridden native lands. Men of racial groups that had been slaughtering one another for centuries, learned to live together in harmony and peaceful cooperation. America had been called "the melting pot," with good reason. But few people realized that America did not melt men into the gray conformity of a collective: she united them by means of protecting their right to individuality.

The major victims of such race prejudice as did exist in America were the Negroes. It was a problem originated and perpetuated by the non-capitalist South, though not confined to its boundaries. The persecution of Negroes in the South was and is truly disgraceful. But in the rest of the country, so long as men were free, even that problem was slowly giving way under the pressure of enlightenment and of the white men's own economic interests.

Today, that problem is growing worse -- and so is every form of racism. America has become race-conscious in a manner reminiscent of the worst days in the most backward countries of 19th century Europe. The cause is the same: the growth of collectivism and statism.

[ ... ]

The existence of such pressure groups and of their political lobbies is openly and cynically acknowledged today. The pretense at any political philosophy, any principles, ideals or long-range goals is fast disappearing from our scene -- and it is all but admitted that this country is now floating without direction, at the mercy of a blind, short-range power-game played by various statist gangs, each intent on getting hold of a legislative gun for any special advantage of the immediate moment.

In the absence of any coherent political philosophy, every economic group has been acting as its own destroyer, selling out its future for some momentary privilege. The policy of the businessmen has, for some time, been the most suicidal one in this respect. But it has been surpassed by the current policy of the Negro leaders.

So long as the Negro leaders were fighting against government-enforced discrimination -- right, justice and morality were on their side. But that is not what they are fighting any longer. The confusions and contradictions surrounding the issue of racism have now reached an incredible climax.

It is time to clarify the principles involved.

The policy of the Southern states toward Negroes was and is a shameful contradiction of this country's basic principles. Racial discrimination, imposed and enforced by law, is so blatantly inexcusable an infringement of individual rights that the racist statutes of the South should have been declared unconstitutional long ago.

The Southern racists' claim of "states' rights" is a contradiction in terms: there can be no such thing as the "right" of some men to violate the rights of others. The constitutional concept of "states' rights" pertains to the division of power between local and national authorities, and serves to protect the states from the Federal government; it does not grant to a state government an unlimited, arbitrary power over its citizens or the privilege of abrogating the citizens' individual rights.

It is true that the Federal government has used the racial issue to enlarge its own power and to set a precedent of encroachment upon the legitimate rights of the states, in an unnecessary and unconstitutional manner. But this merely means that both governments are wrong; it does not excuse the policy of the Southern racists.

One of the worst contradictions, in this context, is the stand of many so-called "conservatives" (not confined exclusively to the South) who claim to be defenders of freedom, of capitalism, of property rights, of the Constitution, yet who advocate racism at the same time. They do not seem to possess enough concern with principles to realize tht they are cutting the ground from under their own feet. Men who deny individual rights cannot claim, defend or uphold any rights whatsoever. It is such alleged champions of capitalism who are helping to discredit and destroy it.

The "liberals" are guilty of the same contradiction, but in a different form. They advocate the sacrifice of all individual rights to unlimited majority rule -- yet posture as defenders of the rights of minorities. But the smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.

This accumulation of contradictions, of short-sighted pragmatism, of cynical contempt for principles, of outrageous irrationality, has now reached its climax in the new demands of the Negro leaders.

Instead of fighting against racial discrimination, they are demanding that racial discrimination be legalized and enforced. Instead of fighting against racism, they are demanding the establishment of racial quotas. Instead of fighting for "color-blindness" in social and economic issues, they are proclaiming that "color-blindness" is evil and that "color" should be made a primary consideration. Instead of fighting for equal rights, they are demanding special race privileges.

[ ... ]

Racial quotas have been one of the worst evils of racist regimes. There were racial quotas in the universities of Czarist Russia, in the population of Russia's major cities, etc. One of the accusations against the racists in this country is that some schools practice a secret system of racial quotas. It was regarded as a victory for justice when employment questionnaires ceased to inquire about an applicant's race or religion.

Today, it is not an oppressor, but an oppressed minority that is demanding the establishment of racial quotas. (!)

[ ... ]

It does not merely demand special privileges on racial grounds -- it demands that white men be penalized for the sins of their ancestors. It demands that a white laborer be refused a job because his grandfather may have practiced racial discrimination. But perhaps his grandfather had not practiced it. Or perhaps his grandfather had not even lived in this country. Since these questions are not to be considered, it means that that white laborer is to be charged with collective racial guilt, the guilt consisting merely of the color of his skin.

But that is the principle of the worst Southern racist who charges all Negroes with collective racial guilt for any crime committed by an individual Negro, and who treats them all as inferiors on the ground that their ancestors were savages.

The only comment one can make about demands of that kind is, "By what right? -- By what code? -- By what standard?"

That absurdly evil policy is destroying the moral base of the Negroes' fight. Their case rested on the principle of individual rights. If they demand the violation of the rights of others, they negate and forfeit their own. Then the same answer applies to them as to the Southern racists: there can be no such thing as a "right" of some men to violate the rights of others.

[ ... ]

No man, neither Negro nor white, has any claim to the property of another man. A man's rights are not violated by a private individual's refusal to deal with him. Racism is an evil, irrational and morally contemptible doctrine -- but doctrines cannot be forbidden or prescribed by law. Just as we have to protect a communist's freedom of speech, even though his doctrines are evil, so we have to protect a racist's right to the use and disposal of his own property. Private racism is not a legal, but a moral issue -- and can be fought only by private means, such as economic boycott or social ostracism.

[ ... ]

It is an ironic demonstration of the philosophical insanity and the consequently suicidal trend of our age, that the men who need the protection of individual rights most urgently -- the Negroes -- are now in the vanguard of the destruction of these rights.

[ ... ]

In conclusion, I shall quote from an astonishing editorial in The N. Y. Times of August 4 [1963] -- astonishing because ideas of this nature are not typical of our age:
"But the question must be not whether a group recognizable in color, features or culture has its rights as a group. No, the question is whether any American individual, regardless of color, features or culture, is deprived of his rights as an American. If the individual has all the rights and privileges due him under the laws and the Constitution, we need not worry about groups and masses -- those do not, in fact, exist, except as figures of speech."


"I'm not generally proud to be British. It strikes me as absurd either to claim some sort of credit for an accident of birth, or to assume that the culture one is brought up in is ipso facto the best available to anyone. Nation is usually alien. I've said it before and I'll say it again: when someone says 'we', I feel like a 'them'."
Guy Herbert

"The crude primitivism of supposedly respectable establishments to engage in 'reverse discrimination' or 'affirmative action' in order to allegedly 'make up for' the sins of people other than those they actually wind up 'punishing' for them, is racism squared, or moral depravity at its worst. It says, in effect, not only that 'two wrongs make a right,' but that racism is okay so long as it's 'our' racism. It is really an acknowledgment that, even if they tried, they wouldn't know how to internalize and institutionalize pure character-consciousness or merit-consciousness, let alone how to demonstrate to the world that it can be done. It is an abject admission of their guilt, real or imagined, and a hope that you, by your silence, share in it, or at least, tacitly condone it."
Rick Gaber

"The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready he is to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race or his holy cause."
Eric Hoffer

["Du bist nichts, dein Volk ist alles" ("You are
nothing, your race is everything.") Adolf Hitler]

"... So here we get the two essentials of Nazism: the rejection of reason and the mind in favor of the worship of brute emotion, and the elevation of the collective over the individual. What, then, distinguishes the ideas of the modern intellectuals from the philosophy of the Nazis? The addition of an altruist twist. The Nazis were certainly pro-self-sacrifice, because they advocated (and enforced) the sacrifice of the individual self to the collective aggrandizement of the race. But the modern intellectuals declare that they are even more altruistic because they want to sacrifice our own race to other races."
Robert Tracinski

"If anyone insists that racism is valid, that the content of one's mind is frozen in place by the circumstances of his birth, then the only appropriate response is to say, 'Speak for yourself, buddy. Unless you're some sort of non-human, you must be speaking for yourself, and since you must regard those thoughts you just uttered as predetermined by your ancestors, you therefore couldn't possibly know or care if they're true or not just like a mindless robot programmed to make noises. Therefore, no one should take what you say any more seriously than robot noises, since your denying the human ability to do independent thinking and discriminate truth from falsehood means only that you have denied it for yourself. So I will take your word for it, and ignore you. As for me, I have found to be untrue many things my parents and ancestors believed, and I had no trouble rejecting those things. So at least I know damn well -- and from first-hand personal experience -- that human beings most certainly are capable of doing that.' "
Rick Gaber

"The core of racism is the notion that the individual is meaningless and that membership in the collective -- the race -- is the source of his identity and value. ... The notion of 'diversity' entails exactly the same premises as racism -- that one's ideas are determined by one's race and that the source of an individual's identity is his ethnic heritage."
Peter Schwartz in "The Racism of 'Diversity

"Frankly, I'd be insulted if I were told the reason I was being hired was because of my ancestry. I would much rather work for someone like T.J. Rodgers, who is known to take time during meetings to tell his staff (which originated from almost every continent in the world) that they're there because they're the best at what they do, not because of whoever their ancestors were."
Rick Gaber

"Money dissolves skin colour on contact. The fact that Silicon Valley, the freest market in the world, has produced the United Colours of Geek proves it."
Dan Gardner

"Racism is a variant of collectivism, the doctrine that the individual is valueless [except] as an appendage of a group. One's 'race' is an evaluation based on nonessential attributes ... such as the dimensions of facial/physical features and the wavelengths of light reflected by pigmentation."
Gregory Gerig (emphasis added)

"The HUMAN 'race' has been in existence in its present form in only an infinitesimal amount of time, evolutionarily speaking. . Nonetheless, if everyone could trace his family tree back 70,000 years, let alone 700,000, he will find that the skin colors of his ancestors changed ten or twenty times, probably including every hue and tint you can imagine over and over again. Likewise for every variation of facial and body type. Therefore, other than the distinction between Cro-Magnon Man and the recently-extinct Neanderthal Man, there is no such thing as race. There are certainly such things as vastly different cultures, most manifesting dramatically distinct lifestyles and opportunities (or lack of such) for growth, advancement, fulfillment and happiness, but race? A thoroughly counter-productive, let alone unrealistic, concept."
Rick Gaber

"People often get racism mixed up with bigotry or prejudice. We need to get our terminology straightened out. We obviously have racial problems that need solving. The first step in solving a problem is to identify it. If we keep mis-identifying bigotry and prejudice as racism we’ll never make any headway" -- Neal Boortz, here
"You CAN NOT judge previous generations by today's standards. Today Mark Twain is called by many, a racist. By the standards of his time, he was a social liberal. Even Teddy Roosevelt was a social liberal at the time, but he accepted as fact that idea that Caucasians were inherently superior to all other races. That makes him a racist in the CORRECT definition of the term."
Neal Boortz

"Racism is a belief in the inherent superiority of one race over another."
Neal Boortz

Bigotry: definitions: # 1: the state of mind of a bigot # 2: acts or beliefs characteristic of a bigot
Bigot: definition # 1: a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices
Prejudice: definition # 2 a (1) here: preconceived judgment or opinion
Prejudice, n. A vagrant opinion without visible means of support. (Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)
Discrimination: definition # 3 here : Treatment or consideration based on class or category rather than individual merit


"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness." -- Mark Twain
“I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
Martin Luther King

"You cannot cure racism with more racism."
Edwin A. Locke

And NOW, a college professor so fed up with the misuse of the term "racism" (as so often slung by certain humorless, self-righteous, perpetually-indignant people who go out of their way to shove their permanent shoulder chips in your face) that he's come up with his own brand-new, tongue-in-cheek definition of Racism .

Racism

Racism is the belief that a particular race is superior or inferior to another, that a person’s social and moral traits are predetermined by his or her inborn biological characteristics. Racial separatism is the belief, most of the time based on racism, that different races should remain segregated and apart from one another.

Racism has existed throughout human history. It may be defined as the hatred of one person by another -- or the belief that another person is less than human -- because of skin color, language, customs, place of birth or any factor that supposedly reveals the basic nature of that person. It has influenced wars, slavery, the formation of nations, and legal codes.

During the past 500-1000 years, racism on the part of Western powers toward non-Westerners has had a far more significant impact on history than any other form of racism (such as racism among Western groups or among Easterners, such as Asians, Africans, and others). The most notorious example of racism by the West has been slavery, particularly the enslavement of Africans in the New World (slavery itself dates back thousands of years). This enslavement was accomplished because of the racist belief that Black Africans were less fully human than white Europeans and their descendants.

This belief was not "automatic": that is, Africans were not originally considered inferior. When Portuguese sailors first explored Africa in the 15th and 16th centuries, they came upon empires and cities as advanced as their own, and they considered Africans to be serious rivals. Over time, though, as African civilizations failed to match the technological advances of Europe, and the major European powers began to plunder the continent and forcibly remove its inhabitants to work as slave laborers in new colonies across the Atlantic, Africans came to be seen as a deficient "species," as "savages." To an important extent, this view was necessary to justify the slave trade at a time when Western culture had begun to promote individual rights and human equality. The willingness of some Africans to sell other Africans to European slave traders also led to claims of savagery, based on the false belief that the "dark people" were all kinsmen, all part of one society - as opposed to many different, sometimes warring nations.

One important feature of racism, especially toward Blacks and immigrant groups, is clear in attitudes regarding slaves and slavery. Jews are usually seen by anti-Semites as subhuman but also superhuman: devilishly cunning, skilled, and powerful. Blacks and others are seen by racists as merely subhuman, more like beasts than men. If the focus of anti-Semitism is evil, the focus of racism is inferiority -- directed toward those who have sometimes been considered to lack even the ability to be evil (though in the 20th century, especially, victims of racism are often considered morally degraded).

In the second half of the 19th century, Darwinism, the decline of Christian belief, and growing immigration were all perceived by many white Westerners as a threat to their cultural control. European and, to a lesser degree, American scientists and philosophers devised a false racial "science" to "prove" the supremacy of non-Jewish whites. While the Nazi annihilation of Jews discredited most of these supposedly scientific efforts to elevate one race over another, small numbers of scientists and social scientists have continued throughout the 20th century to argue the inborn shortcomings of certain races, especially Blacks. At the same time, some public figures in the American Black community have championed the supremacy of their own race and the inferiority of whites - using nearly the identical language of white racists.


All of these arguments are based on a false understanding of race; in fact, contemporary scientists are not agreed on whether race is a valid way to classify people. What may seem to be significant "racial" differences to some people - skin color, hair, facial shape - are not of much scientific significance. In fact, genetic differences within a so-called race may be greater than those between races. One philosopher writes: "There are few genetic characteristics to be found in the population of England that are not found in similar proportions in Zaire or in China….those differences that most deeply affect us in our dealings with each other are not to any significant degree biologically determined."

From Ask.com

Magnetism

Bribery

My cartoon of today

Sudan

My cartoon of today in Ajrass Alhurria newspaper

Democratic Party Change in Sudan

Published in Ajras Alhurriya newspaper, 10-10-2009

Balance

Weapons of dictatorship and democracy

“The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness”
Niels Bohr

the totalitarian state between securing authority and community

Published in Ajras Alhurria daily newspape.
http://www.ajrasalhurriya.net/ar/news_view_5900.html

Military-style democracy

Game

Abern Martin

Martin "Marty" Abern was born December 2, 1898 in Romania, the son of an ethnic Jewish peddler. The family emigrated to the United States in 1902, moving to Minneapolis the following year. The young man was radically inclined from an early age, joining the Socialist Party of America's youth section, the Young People's Socialist League in 1912, the Socialist Party itself in 1915, and the Industrial Workers of the World circa 1916. He seems to have been a member of the Communist Party of America at the time of its establishment in the fall of 1919 or shortly thereafter. He attended the University of Minnesota for two years but was expelled for his radical views in 1920. In November 1920, the US Department of Justice attempted to make Abern a test case for the deportation of alien radicals citing Communist Party membership as sole grounds for action.[1]

Abern was a delegate to the 2nd World Congress of the Young Communist International (YCI), held in Moscow in June 1921. He was on the governing National Executive Committee of the Young Workers League of America (YWL) from May 1922 and was reelected by the convention of that organization held the following year. Abern served as Secretary of the YWL from May 30, 1922 to October 19, 1922, resigning for reasons of health. Abern was a fraternal delegate of the YWL to the ill-fated 1922 Bridgman Convention of the Communist Party in August 1922 and served on a 3 man editorial committee of the YWL from that same fall. Abern also briefly was part of a 3 person Secretariat running the Young Workers League in the summer and fall of 1924 before being replaced as National Secretary on October 15 by John Williamson.

Abern also sat on the governing Central Executive Committee of the adult Communist Party (then known as the Workers Party of America) from 1923 to 1928, supporting the majority faction of Foster-Cannon-Lore during the bitter factional fighting that characterized the decade

Abern was expelled from the Workers (Communist) Party in 1928 for supporting Leon Trotsky and James P. Cannon. He was a founding member of the Communist League of America (CLA) in May 1928 and sat on the governing National Committee of that organization from 1931 to 1934. He was an ally of Max Shachtman against Cannon in the factional fighting of this period. Abern was also a founding member of Workers Party of the United States in 1934, formed when the CLA merged with A.J. Muste's Workers Party. He was a member of the National Committee of that organization from 1934 to 1936. In that year he and other Trotskyists entered the Socialist Party en masse, a brief interlude ending with their expulsion in 1937.

In 1938, Abern helped found the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and he was on the National Committee of that organization from 1938 until 1940. The April 1940 convention of the SWP instructed the National Committee of the party to take disciplinary action against Abern, Shachtman, James Burnham, and their factional supporters if that group failed to abide by the decisions of the convention. In accordance with these instructions, the National Committee suspended Burnham, Shachtman, and Abern at its meeting of April 22, 1940, giving the members of this so-called "petty-bourgeois opposition" an opportunity to recant and return to the party. Burham left the radical movement at this time, while Abern joined Max Shachtman's in establishing a new organization called the Workers Party. The pair were expelled from the SWP by a Plenum Conference held in Chicago from Sept. 27 to 29, 1940.[2]

Abern continued to support Trotsky's unconditional defence of the Soviet Union and broke politically with Shachtman in 1940, but he remained in the Workers Party organization until his death in April 1949 at the age of 49.

Ludwig Feuerbach

“Feuerbach is the only one who has a serious, critical attitude to the Hegelian dialectic and who has made genuine discoveries in this field. He is in fact the true conqueror of the old philosophy”.
Marx, 1844


Ludwig Andreas von Feuerbach (July 28, 1804 – September 13, 1872) was a German philosopher and anthropologist. He was the fourth son of the eminent jurist Paul Johann Anselm Ritter von Feuerbach. His thought was influential in the development of Marxist dialectic.

Feuerbach matriculated in the University of Heidelberg with the intention of pursuing a career in the Church. Through the influence of Prof. Karl Daub he was led to an interest in the then predominant philosophy of Hegel and, in spite of his father's opposition, enrolled in the University of Berlin, in order to study under the master himself. After twenty two years, the Hegelian influence began to slacken. Feuerbach became associated with a group known as the Young Hegelians, alternately known as the Left Hegelians, who synthesized a radical offshoot of Hegelian philosophy, interpreting Hegel’s dialectic march of spirit through history to mean that existing Western culture and institutional forms—and, in particular, Christianity—would be superseded. "Theology," he wrote to a friend, "I can bring myself to study no more. I long to take nature to my heart, that nature before whose depth the faint-hearted theologian shrinks back; and with nature man, man in his entire quality." These words are a key to Feuerbach's development. He completed his education at Erlangen, at the Friedrich-Alexander-University, Erlangen-Nuremberg with the study of natural science.

His first book, published anonymously, Gedanken über Tod und Unsterblichkeit (1830), contains an attack on personal immortality and an advocacy of the Spinozistic immortality of reabsorption in nature. These principles, combined with his embarrassed manner of public speaking, debarred him from academic advancement. After some years of struggling, during which he published his Geschichte der neueren Philosophie (2 vols., 1833-1837, 2nd ed. 1844), and Abelard und Heloise (1834, 3rd ed. 1877), he married in 1837 and lived a rural existence at Bruckberg near Nuremberg, supported by his wife's share in a small porcelain factory.

In two works of this period, Pierre Bayle (1838) and Philosophie und Christentum (1839), which deal largely with theology, he held that he had proven "that Christianity has in fact long vanished not only from the reason but from the life of mankind, that it is nothing more than a fixed idea."

This attack is followed up in his most important work, Das Wesen des Christentums (1841), which was translated by George Eliot into English as The Essence of Christianity. "In the consciousness of the infinite, the conscious subject has for his object the infinity of his own nature."

Feuerbach's theme was a derivation of Hegel's speculative theology in which the Creation remains a part of the Creator, while the Creator remains greater than the Creation. When the student Feuerbach presented his own theory to professor Hegel, Hegel refused to reply positively to it.

In part I of his book Feuerbach developed what he calls the "true or anthropological essence of religion." Treating of God in his various aspects "as a being of the understanding," "as a moral being or law," "as love" and so on. Feuerbach talks of how man is equally a conscious being, more so than God because man has placed upon God the ability of understanding. Man contemplates many things and in doing so he becomes acquainted with himself. Feuerbach shows that in every aspect God corresponds to some feature or need of human nature. "If man is to find contentment in God," he claims, "he must find himself in God."

Thus God is nothing else than man: he is, so to speak, the outward projection of man's inward nature. This projection is dubbed as a chimaera by Feuerbach, that God and the idea of a higher being is dependent upon the aspect of benevolence. Feuerbach states that, “a God who is not benevolent, not just, not wise, is no God,” and continues to say that qualities are not suddenly denoted as divine because of their godly association. The qualities themselves are divine therefore making God divine, indicating that man is capable of understanding and applying meanings of divinity to religion and not that religion makes a man divine.

The force of this attraction to religion though, giving divinity to a figure like God, is explained by Feuerbach as God is a being that acts throughout man in all forms. God, “is the principle of [man's] salvation, of [man's] good dispositions and actions, consequently [man's] own good principle and nature.” It appeals to man to give qualities to the idol of their religion because without these qualities a figure such as God would become merely an object, its importance would become obsolete, there would no longer be a feeling of an existence for God. Therefore, Feuerbach says, when man removes all qualities from God, “God is no longer anything more to him than a negative being.” Additionally, because man is imaginative, God is given traits and there holds the appeal. God is a part of man through the invention of a God. Equally though, man is repulsed by God because, “God alone is the being who acts of himself.”

In part 2 he discusses the "false or theological essence of religion," i.e. the view which regards God as having a separate existence over against man. Hence arise various mistaken beliefs, such as the belief in revelation which he believes not only injures the moral sense, but also "poisons, nay destroys, the divinest feeling in man, the sense of truth," and the belief in sacraments such as the Lord's Supper, which is to him a piece of religious materialism of which "the necessary consequences are superstition and immorality."

Part 2 comes to a crux though by seemingly retracting previous statements. Feuerbach claims that God's only action is, “the moral and eternal salvation of man: thus man has in fact no other aim than himself,” because man's actions are placed upon God. Feuerbach also contradicts himself by claiming that man gives up his personality and places it upon God who in turn is a selfish being. This selfishness turns onto man and projects man to be wicked and corrupt, that they are, “incapable of good,” and it is only God that is good, “the Good Being.” In this way Feuerbach detracts from many of his earlier assertions while showing the alienation that takes place in man by worshipping God. Feuerbach affirms that goodness is, “personified as God,” turning God into an object because if God was anything but an object nothing would need to be personified on him. The aspect of objects having previously been discussed; in that man contemplates objects and that objects themselves give conception of what externalizes man. Therefore if God is good so then should be man because God is merely an externalization of man because God is an object. However religion would show that man is inherently corrupt. Feuerbach tries to lessen his inconsistency by asking if it were possible if, “I could perceive the beauty of a fine picture if my mind were aesthetically an absolute piece of perversion?” Through Feuerbach’s reasoning it would not be possible, but it is possible, and he later states that man is capable of finding beauty.

A caustic criticism of Feuerbach was delivered in 1844 by Max Stirner. In his book Der Einzige und sein Eigentum (The Ego and His Own) he attacked Feuerbach as inconsistent in his atheism. The pertinent portions of the books, Feuerbach's reply, and Stirner's counter-reply form an instructive polemics. (see External Links)

During the troubles of 1848-1849 Feuerbach's attack upon orthodoxy made him something of a hero with the revolutionary party; but he never threw himself into the political movement, and indeed had not the qualities of a popular leader. During the period of the Frankfurt Congress he had given public lectures on religion at Heidelberg. When the diet closed he withdrew to Bruckberg and occupied himself partly with scientific study, partly with the composition of his Theogonie (1857).

In 1860 he was compelled by the failure of the porcelain factory to leave Bruckberg, and he would have suffered the extremity of want but for the assistance of friends supplemented by a public subscription. His last book, Gottheit, Freiheit und Unsterblichkeit, appeared in 1866 (2nd ed., 1890). After a long period of decline, he died on September 13, 1872. He is buried in the same cemetery in Nuremberg (Johannis-Friedhof) as the artist Albrecht Dürer.

Essentially the thought of Feuerbach consisted in a new interpretation of religion's phenomena, giving an anthropological explanation. Following Schleiermacher’s theses, Feuerbach thought religion was principally a matter of feeling in its unrestricted subjectivity. So the feeling breaks through all the limits of understanding and manifests itself in several religious beliefs. But, beyond the feeling, is the fancy, the true maker of projections of "gods" and of the sacred in general.

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were strongly influenced by Feuerbach's atheism, though they criticised him for his inconsistent espousal of materialism.

Salvador Dalí

Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, 1st Marquis of Púbol (May 11, 1904 – January 23, 1989) was a Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres.

Dalí was a skilled draftsman, best known for the striking and bizarre images in his surrealist work. His painterly skills are often attributed to the influence of Renaissance masters. His best-known work, The Persistence of Memory, was completed in 1931. Dalí's expansive artistic repertoire includes film, sculpture, and photography, in collaboration with a range of artists in a variety of media.

Dalí attributed his "love of everything that is gilded and excessive, my passion for luxury and my love of oriental clothes" to a self-styled "Arab lineage," claiming that his ancestors were descended from the Moors.

Dalí was highly imaginative, and also had an affinity for partaking in unusual and grandiose behavior, in order to draw attention to himself. This sometimes irked those who loved his art as much as it annoyed his critics, since his eccentric manner sometimes drew more public attention than his artwork.

Sad Dollar

José Saramago - Death without interruptions

From: poetrydispatch.wordpress.com
NOTES from the UNDERGROUND No. 196 - August 14, 2009


Some people spend their entire lives reading but never get beyond reading the words on the page, they don’t understand that the words are merely stepping stones placed across a fast-flowing river, and the reason they’re there is so that we can reach the farther shore, it’s the other side that matters.—J.S.

Let’s put it this way: There are times you come across a certain writer you want to keep entirely to yourself. He belongs to me. Speaks to me, nobody else. I’ve been keeping Saramago in a dark place on my bookshelves for years now. I’ve thought about presenting his work, discussing it with others, assigning his books in an occasional writing class situation. But never did. I’m certain many others know him. No doubt know his work better than I. But of all the readers and writers in my life, all the conversations and words exchanged through the years (granted I live in a rural outpost, far from hallowed halls of academia, the temple and temperature of New York publishing)—the Portuguese writer, Saramago, has never come up.

I haven’t told anybody else about him because…? Maybe I might dilute the essence of what he means or does for me. Maybe a voice within says: Go find your own Saramago. Which was much the way I felt when I first read Camus, Coetzee, Schulz, Handke, Hrabal… I don’t know whether this makes any sense or not. It’s not jealousy. Nobody else could possibly write like this. And no serious writer should ever want to write like another writer anyway, just learn from them. So that’s not an issue.

I don’t know whether I’m the only one who inhabits this terrain of craziness, possessiveness or not. It’s a mystery to me why I quietly return to the source of certain writers like Saramago…his words, his style, his philosophy, his themes, etc….always looking over my shoulder to be sure no one else is following.

Nor do I understand why suddenly I swing the doors open wide, turn on the lights, invite everyone in to meet my old friend—the one I’ve been hiding in the dark for so long.

Saramago was born in Portugal in 1922. He received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1998. He is sometimes compared to Kafka, Borges, Camus.

But he’s José Saramago. No one else. Here’s the opening to one of his novels,

DEATH WITHOUT INTERRUPTIONS:

THE FOLLOWING DAY, NO ONE DIED. THIS FACT, BEING absolutely contrary to life’s rules, provoked enormous and, in the circumstances, perfectly justifiable anxiety in people’s minds, for we have only to consider that in the entire forty volumes of universal history there is no mention, not even one exemplary case, of such a phenomenon ever having occurred, for a whole day to go by, with its generous allowance of twenty-four hours, diurnal and nocturnal, matutinal and vespertine, without one death from an illness, a fatal fall, or a successful suicide, not one, not a single one. Not even from a car accident, so frequent on festive occasions, when blithe irresponsibility and an excess of alcohol jockey for position on the roads to decide who will reach death first. New year’s eve had failed to leave behind it the usual calamitous trail of fatalities, as if old atropos with her great bared teeth had decided to put aside her shears for a day. There was, however, no shortage of blood. Bewildered, confused, distraught, struggling to control their feelings of nausea, the firemen extracted from the mangled remains wretched human bodies that, according to the mathematical logic of the collisions, should have been well and truly dead, but which, despite the seriousness of the injuries and lesions suffered, remained alive and were carried off to hospital, accompanied by the shrill sound of the ambulance sirens. None of these people would die along the way and all would disprove the most pessimistic of medical prognoses, There’s nothing to be done for the poor man, it’s not even worth operating, a complete waste of time, said the surgeon to the nurse as she was adjusting his mask. And the day before, there would probably have been no salvation for this particular patient, but one thing was clear, today, the victim refused to die. And what was happening here was happening throughout the country. Up until the very dot of midnight on the last day of the year there were people who died in full compliance with the rules, both those relating to the nub of the matter, i.e. the termination of life, and those relating to the many ways in which the aforementioned nub, with varying degrees of pomp and solemnity, chooses to mark the fatal moment…


So, there’s a little of the author in his own words– translated by Margaret Jull Costa. Here’s how the publisher describes the book:

ON THE FIRST DAY OF the new year, no one dies. This, of course, causes consternation among politicians, religious leaders, morticians, and doctors. Among the general public, on the other hand, there is celebration—flags are hung out on balconies, people dance in the streets. They have achieved the great goal of humanity: eternal life. Then reality hits home—families are left to care for the permanently dying, life-insurance policies become meaningless, and funeral parlors are reduced to arranging burials for pet dogs, cats, hamsters, and parrots. Death sits in her chilly apartment, where she lives alone with her scythe and filing cabinets, and contemplates her experiment: What if no one ever died again? What if she, death with a small ‘d’, became human and were to fall in love?

José Saramago

José de Sousa Saramago,born 16 November 1922) is a Nobel-laureate Portuguese novelist, playwright and journalist. His works, some of which can be seen as allegories, commonly present subversive perspectives on historic events, emphasizing the human factor. Saramago was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1998. He founded the National Front for the Defense of Culture (Lisbon, 1992) with Freitas-Magalhães among others. He currently lives on Lanzarote in the Canary Islands, Spain.

Saramago was born into a family of landless peasants in Azinhaga, Portugal, a small village in the province of Ribatejo some hundred kilometers north-east of Lisbon. His parents were José de Sousa and Maria de Piedade. "Saramago," a wild herbaceous plant known in English as the wild radish, was his father's family's nickname, and was accidentally incorporated into his name upon registration of his birth. In 1924, Saramago's family moved to Lisbon, where his father started working as a policeman. A few months after the family moved to the capital, his brother Francisco, older by two years, died. Although Saramago was a good pupil, his parents were unable to afford to keep him in grammar school, and instead moved him to a technical school at age 12. After graduating, he worked as a car mechanic for two years. Later he worked as a translator, then as a journalist. He was assistant editor of the newspaper Diário de Notícias, a position he had to leave after the political events in 1975. After a period of working as a translator he was able to support himself as a writer. Saramago married Ilda Reis in 1944. Their only child, Violante, was born in 1947. Since 1988, Saramago has been married to the Spanish journalist Pilar del Río, who is the official translator of his books into Spanish.

José Saramago was in his mid-fifties before he won international acclaim; his publication of Baltasar and Blimunda brought him to the attention of an international readership. This novel won the Portuguese PEN Club Award. Saramago has been a member of the Portuguese Communist Party since 1969, as well as an atheist[2] and self-described pessimist. His views have aroused considerable controversy in Portugal, especially after the publication of The Gospel According to Jesus Christ. Members of the country's Catholic community were outraged by Saramago's representation of Jesus as a fallible human being. Portugal's conservative government would not allow Saramago's work to compete for the European Literary Prize, arguing that it offended the Catholic community. As a result, Saramago and his wife moved to Lanzarote, an island in the Canaries.

During the 2006 Lebanon War, he signed a statement together with Tariq Ali, John Berger, Noam Chomsky, Eduardo Galeano, Naomi Klein, Harold Pinter, Arundhati Roy and Howard Zinn, condemning what they characterize as "a long-term military, economic and geographic practice whose political aim is nothing less than the liquidation of the Palestinian nation". He stood unsuccessfully as a candidate for the European Parliament in the 2009 election.

Saramago’s novels often deal with fantastic scenarios, such as that in his 1986 novel, The Stone Raft, wherein the Iberian Peninsula breaks off from the rest of Europe and sails about the Atlantic Ocean. In his 1995 novel, Blindness, an entire unnamed country is stricken with a mysterious plague of “white blindness”. In his 1984 novel, The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis (which won the PEN Award and the Independent Foreign Fiction Award), Fernando Pessoa’s heteronym survives for a year after the poet himself dies. Additionally, his novel Death with Interruptions (also translated as Death at Intervals) centers around a country in which nobody dies over the course of seven months beginning on New Year's Day, and how the country reacts to the spiritual and political implications of the event.

Using such imaginative themes, Saramago addresses the most serious of subject matters with empathy for the human condition and for the isolation of contemporary urban life. His characters struggle with their need to connect with one another, form relations and bond as a community; and also with their need for individuality, and to find meaning and dignity outside of political and economic structures. Literary critic Harold Bloom considers Saramago the second greatest living novelist in the world, behind only Philip Roth, but roundly criticized his statements comparing the circumstances in the Palestinian territories to the Auschwitz concentration camp and his devotion to Stalinists.

Saramago's experimental style often features long sentences, at times more than a page long. He uses periods sparingly, choosing instead a loose flow of clauses joined by commas. Many of his paragraphs extend for pages without pausing for dialog, which Saramago chooses not to delimit by quotation marks; when the speaker changes, Saramago capitalizes the first letter of the new speaker's clause. In his novel Blindness, Saramago completely abandons the use of proper nouns instead choosing to refer to characters simply by some unique characteristic, an example of his use of style to enhance the recurring themes of identity and meaning found throughout his work.

Muammar al-Gaddafi

Muammar Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi1; also known simply as Colonel Gaddafi; born 7 June 1942) has been the de facto leader of Libya since a coup in 1969.

Although Gaddafi has held no public office or title since 1979, he is accorded the honorifics "Guide of the First of September Great Revolution of the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya" or "Brotherly Leader and Guide of the Revolution" in government statements and the official press. With the death of Omar Bongo of Gabon on 8 June 2009, he became the third longest serving of all current heads of state. He is also the longest-serving ruler of Libya since Ali Pasha Al Karamanli, who ruled between (1754-1795).

An alleged plot by Britain's secret intelligence service to assassinate Colonel Gaddafi, when rebels attacked Gaddafi's motorcade near the city of Sirte in February 1996, was described as "pure fantasy" by former foreign secretary Robin Cook, although the FCO later admitted: "We have never denied that we knew of plots against Gaddafi."

Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven