Abusing the Media in Afghanistan

Since the Taliban gained control of Afghanistan, numerous journalists and media professionals have fled the country due to fear of the Taliban's retaliation and repression.

by Sanchita Bhattacharya

Since its ‘comeback’ in August 2021 the Taliban have detained journalists, shut down and controlled media organisations, and imposed harsher restrictions on female reporters. The once vibrant and active independent and free news media, and diverse voices, collapsed overnight. Taliban is doing its worst to stifle various media houses, and silence voice of reason coming out of Afghanistan. Domestic media face severe censorship, and are forced to mainly feature religious hymns and songs, and Taliban propaganda, while refraining from broadcasting content misaligned with the Taliban’s preferences.

An Afghan news reporter stands next to TV screens at Tolo television, owned by Saad Mohseni, the country's biggest media mogul, in Kabul July 6, 2010. [ Photo: REUTERS/Ahmad Masood]

On April 16, 2024, the Taliban suspended the activities of two Kabul-based TV stations, Noor and Barya, alleging that they failed to “consider national and Islamic values.” An official from Taliban’s Information Ministry’s Media Violations Commission, Hafizullah Barakzai, stated that a court would investigate files on the two stations. Noor TV and Barya TV cannot operate until the court gives its verdict. Barya TV reportedly began operations in 2019 and is owned by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the former prime minister and leader of the Hizb-e-Islami party. Noor TV, which began broadcasting in 2007, is backed by Afghanistan’s former foreign affairs minister and leader of Jamiat-e-Islami party, Salahuddin Rabbani.

As reported on April 9, 2024, the Taliban has announced plans to restrict or completely block access to Facebook. Taliban’s acting Minister of Telecommunications and Information Technology, Najibullah Haqqani confirmed these plans.

On February 27, 2024, Mohammad Khalid Hanafi, Taliban Minister of the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, issued a warning to media representatives during a meeting in Kabul, that the leader of the Taliban could completely ban women from working in the media if women do not cover their faces when they appear on television or in video interviews.

On February 24, 2024, the head of the Taliban Police in Khost Province sent a letter to the province’s Directorate of Information and Culture as well as that of Vice and Virtue. The letter expanded the Taliban’s diktats on how women are seen and heard in the media:

In this province, some radio stations are promoting moral corruption; a good example of that is the broadcast of educational programs on radios, in which more girls participate; in these programs, in working and non-working time, the girls contact the officials of the radio stations and engage in illicit relations.

As reported on February 12, 2024, Taliban’s Media License Renewal Commission mandated allocating 50 per cent of total airtime to broadcast Taliban programs and propaganda in favour of the group.

On December 10, 2023, a Taliban court in the Daykundi Province sentenced Sultan-Ali Jawadi, the chief editor of Radio Nasim to one year in prison on charges of collaborating with foreign media, blasphemy, and espionage for foreigners.

According to partial data collated by Institute for Conflict Management, since August 15, 2021, when the Taliban seized power, at least 28 journalists have been arrested in 15 incidents (data till April 17, 2024). On March 11, 2023, Hosein Naderi, a journalist with the Afghan Voice Agency was killed in a bomb attack on a cultural center in Mazar-e-Sharif, the capital of Balkh Province, while reporters had gathered to mark National Journalists Day. It is the lone incident in which a journalist lost his life.

The situation, however, is worse than these numbers alone suggest, since the Taliban’s pall of intimidation is enveloping, and a high measure of compliance has already been enforced. Nevertheless, Nai, a media-supporting organization in Afghanistan, disclosed on November 19, 2023, that 108 cases of violence against journalists had already been recorded in the country in 2023. The head of Nai, Zarif Karimi, added that the cases included arrests, beatings, harassment, insult, humiliation and other unlawful actions against the journalist by security forces.

In its annual report for 2023, released on December 29, 2023, the Afghanistan Journalist Center indicated that it had documented at least 168 instances of violation of journalists’ rights, including one death and 61 arrests. Although the numbers reflected a decrease compared to 2022, when the center recorded 260 such incidents, the center noted that eight media outlets had been banned in 2023, of which five were temporarily barred from operating, while the remaining three were banned outright.

In January, 2024, Reporters Without Borders (RSF), disclosed that, in the years since the Taliban takeover, Afghanistan had lost 40 per cent of its media outlets and 60 per cent of its journalists, including a steeper decline in the number of women journalists.

A February 2024 report also noted that, before the Taliban takeover, 197 television networks, 284 radio stations, hundreds of print magazines and active websites were operating in Afghanistan. Following the Taliban takeover, 70 per cent of media outlets in the country ceased operations.

Since August 15, 2021, the Taliban regime has issued around 17 directives to control the media and journalism in Afghanistan (data till February 24, 2024), including the prohibition of music on all media; a ban on women appearing in television dramas; a prohibition on publishing films and serials; a prohibition of interviews with opponents and critics of the Taliban; imposition of total gender segregation in the media and a prohibition of interviews between men and women; a prohibition on any criticism of the performance of Taliban officials by the media, among others.

Since the Taliban gained control of Afghanistan, numerous journalists and media professionals have fled the country due to fear of the Taliban’s retaliation and repression. According to Taliban directives, spokespersons for the group are forbidden from engaging with exiled media, and they have revoked licenses and blocked the internet domains of some exiled media outlets. As reported in February 2024, Ahmad Qureshi, the Executive Director of the Afghanistan Journalists Center, stated that the Taliban had verbally issued orders prohibiting cooperation with exiled media outlets, further intensifying the restrictions on the access to information.

Women journalists and media officials, have been the primary targets of Taliban bigotry. An August 2023, Reporters Without Borders report, titled Two Years of Journalism under the Taliban Regime, observed that over 80 per cent of Afghanistan’s female journalists had been compelled to cease working since August 15, 2021. The report noted, further, that of the 12,000 journalists, including both males and females, that Afghanistan had in 2021, more than two-thirds had abandoned the profession.

According to the Afghan Independent Journalists Association, more than half of the 547 media outlets existing in 2021 have subsequently vanished, Reporters Without Borders added.

Even while the Taliban regime restricts and suppresses media, it also exploits the surviving media outlets to spread propaganda. The regime has appointed its ‘own people’ at different managerial and executive levels in these media, including national radio and television channels, over 30 provincial radio and TV stations, the Bakhtar News Agency, five government newspapers, and radio and television affiliated with the former House of Representatives. These media primarily function as propaganda machines, spreading the Taliban’s narrative and the state’s political and religious propaganda. Journalists and media organization are forced to publish and propagate messages aligned with the Taliban’s agenda.

A few social media channels and Influencers remain in the Taliban’s good books, and these are granted coveted broadcast licenses. Influencers whose work is seen as benefiting the regime have been allowed to showcase the achievements of various Taliban ministries. One of the top channels, “Our Afghanistan,” with over 350,000 YouTube subscribers, has focused on a widely known backer of the Taliban, ‘General’ Mobeen Khan, often shown distributing donated winter clothing, talking to soldiers or visiting hospital patients. Even such favourites are, however, not outside the spectrum of scrutiny. ‘General’ Khan was arrested, detained for at least 20 days, and then released, in June 2023. He attributed his incarceration to a ‘misunderstanding’.

Some channels, such as Dostdaran Kabul with over 40,000 subscribers, focus almost entirely on purported urban development under the Taliban. Others, for instance, Kabul Lovers, mix scripted entertainment videos with content featuring Taliban officials.

The decline in press freedom has been evident in international rankings, with Afghanistan’s position dropping from 122nd in 2021 to 156th in 2023 (out of 180 countries assessed) on the World Press Freedom Index.

The Taliban, this time around, is far more dangerous than its earlier avatar (1996-2001). Unlike the 1990s, when the Taliban militia used to break TVs, dish antennas and radio sets, Taliban 2.0 is more organized, shrewd and insidious, suppressing media freedoms even while it exploits the media to its own advantage.

Sanchita Bhattacharya is a Research Fellow at Institute for Conflict Management in New Delhi, India

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Chhattisgarh: Bastions Breached

Maoist violence has seen a dramatic decline in Chhattisgarh, predominantly in the 'heartland' areas of the Bastar Division, even as the Maoists have lost impact in their erstwhile areas of dominance across the country.

by Deepak Kumar Nayak

On April 16, 2024, in the second ever most successful operation in terms of Maoist fatalities in Chhattisgarh, at least 29 Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) cadres, including senior leaders, were killed in an encounter between the Maoists and Security Forces (SFs) in deep forests near the Binagunda and Koronar area under Chhotebethiya Police Station limits in Kanker District. Senior Maoist ‘commanders’ Shankar Rao and Lalita were among those killed, and they carried a cash bounty of INR 2.5 million each. Another cadre, Vinod Gawde, who was active in Rajnandgaon and the bordering regions of Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh states, was also killed. Gawde carried an INR 1 million bounty on his head. 

A file photo of Maoists in Chhattisgarh. Photo: AFP

Three security personnel of the Border Security Force (BSF) and District Reserve Guards (DRG) sustained bullet injuries in the encounter. As many as 22 weapons, including one AK-47 rifle, two INSAS (Indian Small Arms System) assault rifles, one Self-Loading Rifle (SLR), one carbine, three .303 rifles, two 315 bore rifles, two 9MM pistols, two country-made launchers, eight muzzle-loading guns and one country-made hand grenade were recovered from the encounter site. Kanker, however, has not seen significant Maoist armed activity for the past several years, and it is likely that the group that was cornered and neutralized in the Binagunda-Koronar area had come to the area from the more troubled Districts, deeper south in the Division.

The most successful operation in the state was recorded on March 14, 2011, when the Police killed 30 CPI-Maoist cadres in an encounter, after an ambush by the Maoists killed three Policemen and injured another nine in the Dantewada District. However, “Police did not collect so far a single dead body of Maoists and it is probable that rebels have carried away the bodies of their colleagues deep inside the jungle,” the then Bastar Inspector General of Police, T. J. Longkumer, had then said.

On April 6, 2024, three CPI-Maoist cadres were killed during an exchange of fire with SFs in the Karriguta Forests of Pujari Kanker in the Bijapur District. SFs recovered one AK47 rifle, one Light Machine Gun (LMG) and explosives from the encounter spot. The identities of the slain Maoists are yet to be ascertained.

On April 2, 2024, 13 CPI-Maoist cadres were killed in an encounter with security personnel in a forest near Lendra village under the Gangaloor Police Station limits in the Bijapur District. The identity of the dead Maoists was yet to be ascertained, but prima facie, it appeared that they belonged to the Maoist’s PLGA (People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army) Company No. 2, a senior Police official disclosed. Police recovered weapons, including an LMG, a .303 rifle, and a 12-bore gun, along with a substantial quantity of barrel grenade launchers, shells, and other arms and ammunition, from the site.

These were the three recent major onslaughts against the CPI-Maoists in the Bastar Division, the area which Maoists still believe is their safe haven. The Bastar Division comprises seven of the 33 Districts of Chhattisgarh – Bastar, Bijapur, Dantewada, Kanker, Kondagaon, Narayanpur, and Sukma.

According to partial data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), at least 81 Naxalites [Left Wing Extremists, LWEs] have been killed by SFs in the Bastar Division in 2024 (data till April 21). During the corresponding period of 2023, SFs had eliminated just two Naxalites. Through 2023, SFs killed 21 Naxalites, in addition to 31 killed in 2022 and 45 in 2021.

On the other hand, the Maoists have killed seven SF personnel in the Division in the current year (till April 21). During the corresponding period of 2023, Maoists had killed seven SF personnel. Through 2023, Maoists killed 23 SF personnel, in addition to 10 SF personnel killed in 2022, and 45 in 2021.

Since March 6, 2000, when SATP started compiling data on Left Wing Extremism, a total 1,376 Maoists and 1,114 SF personnel were killed in the Bastar Division (data till April 21, 2024).

Meanwhile, according to the SATP database, SFs have already arrested 33 Maoists in 2024 (data till April 21) in the Bastar Division, in addition to 125 in 2023. 3,296 Maoists have been arrested in the Division since March 6, 2000. Moreover, at least 24 Maoists have surrendered in 2024, in addition to 187 in 2023. 3,994 Maoists have reportedly surrendered in the Division since March 6, 2000. The total number of arrests in the State is 3,598 since March 6, 2000, while 4,150 have surrendered.

Clearly, the SFs have achieved tremendous success in recent times in the Bastar Division in their fight against the Maoists.

Civilian fatalities, however, have been following a cyclical trend without significant respite. 13 civilians have been killed in the Division in the current year (till April 21). During the corresponding period of 2023, Maoists had killed 12 civilians. Through 2023, Maoists killed 35 civilians, in addition to 28 civilians killed in 2022 and 23 civilians in 2021. As pressure builds on the Maoists, they have been targeting civilians, suspected by them of being ‘informers’ or ‘agents of the Police’.

Fatalities alone do not give an adequate assessment of the Maoist threat to the civilian population. In a recent case in Bijapur District, on April 18, 2024, the Maoists threatened local Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) workers and leaders to stay away from campaigning for the General Elections, declaring that they would be killed if the directive was overlooked. The Maoists reportedly threw several threat letters in the jungle area, issuing a direct warning to the BJP leaders, even as they held the BJP leaders responsible for the killing of 29 Maoists during the encounter with the SFs in Kanker on April 16, 2024. In the warning letter, the Maoists threatened anyone who overlooked the order with the same fate as Katala Tirupati, a BJP leader, who was killed by the extremists in Toynar village in Bijapur District on March 1, 2024. Several pamphlets were thrown at various places in the Cherpal area of Bijapur and nearby areas under the Barsuru Police Station area.

Meanwhile, speaking on the recent successful encounter against the rebels in Kanker, Inspector General of Police (IGP), Bastar Range, Sundarraj P., disclosed,

We made tactical adjustments drawing from our previous experiences that have helped us limit damage in this operation and the other recent ones including the Bijapur incident where 13 Maoists were killed. On each occasion, we effectively cordoned off the areas where Maoists were present. It was around 2 p.m. that the gun battle started and it lasted for two hours. We surrounded them from all four sides and had a backup team which made their escape difficult and only a few who fled at the initial stages managed to escape. The encounter on Tuesday (April 16) has inflicted a heavy blow to the North Bastar division committee. However, there is a lot more left to be done to completely eliminate it and we are heading in the right direction.

It is pertinent to recall here that, soon after coming to power on December 28, 2023, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai adopted a hard line against the rebels, declaring,

As we are in power again and have our government in the Centre also, we will strongly fight the Maoists, and definitive steps will be taken to end Maoism in the state.

In the interim, on April 18, 2024, deputy Chief Minister and state Home Minister Vijay Sharma stated that the Chhattisgarh government was working on a new surrender policy in which CPI-Maoist cadres who give up arms may have their First Information Reports (FIRs) quashed, but the terms would not be lenient for hard-core ‘commanders’. He thus stated, encourage more insurgents to give up violence, join the mainstream and avail benefits of the state’s progress.

On being asked if FIRs against Madvi Hidma, ‘central committee’ member, who is also a ‘commander’ of the Maoists PLGA Battalion 1 and a member of the Dandakaranya Special Zonal Committee (DKSZC) that leads the Maoist operations in Chhattisgarh, or other such top Maoist ‘commanders’, would also be quashed if they give up arms, Sharma added,

It’s Maoist ‘central committee’ members who have fanned the fire of violence and launched this unending conflict in society. We are ready to talk with anyone, be it Hidma or any of the central committee members. They can surrender, but the provisions will not be the same for them. Quashing their FIRs will be difficult because of the harm they have caused. But there’s no ill-feeling towards them, we welcome them to surrender.

Maoist violence has seen a dramatic decline in Chhattisgarh, predominantly in the ‘heartland’ areas of the Bastar Division, even as the Maoists have lost impact in their erstwhile areas of dominance across the country. However, the current onslaught against the Maoists cannot be considered a victory, since the rebels still retain significant operational capacities in the Bastar Division, the location of some of their last bastions, which they will struggle to protect. 

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Soaring numbers of people in acute food insecurity in 2023: FAO

About 282 million people were facing acute food insecurity last year and over 700,000 were on the brink of famine.

The number of people facing acute food insecurity rose to some 282 million in 2023, the United Nations (UN) Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said on Wednesday. This is an increase of 24 million since 2022, the FAO stressed in its latest Global Report on Food Crisis.

People wait to receive food relief in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah, on March 30, 2024. (Photo by Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua)

The number of people on the brink of famine also rose to over 700,000 last year, almost double the number registered in 2022.

The UN agency called for an "urgent response."

"One of the most important findings (in the report) is that ... the percentage of the assessed population in acute food insecurity remained stubbornly high in 2023," FAO Director of Emergencies and Resilience Rein Paulsen warned.

The root causes were wars, extreme climate events, and economic crises combined with "inadequate action." Especially the Israel-Hamas conflict and the war in Sudan were identified as key factors contributing to the escalating global emergency.

"The Gaza Strip has the highest number of people facing catastrophic hunger ever recorded by the Global Report on Food Crises, even as blocked aid trucks line up at the border," UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stressed in the foreword to the report.

Over 281.6 million people -- or 21.5 percent of the population assessed in the report -- faced high levels of acute food insecurity last year across 59 countries and territories.

On the other hand, the situation improved in other 17 countries, which resulted in 7.2 million fewer people suffering acute food insecurity in the same period.

Nevertheless, the report warned that the outlook for 2024 is bleak, with no substantial improvement forecast, and with wars, extreme weather, weak purchasing power in low-income countries, and a decrease in humanitarian funding expected to keep affecting populations already experiencing food insecurity.

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Does The Islamic World Have Any Responsibility Towards the Palestinian People?

It is well known that Benjamin Netanyahu reacted sharply by canceling the visit of an Israeli delegation’s visit to the US incensed by the US abstention of voting in the United Nations which Netanyahu had expected that the US would exercise its veto.

by Kazi Anwarul Masud

 

Did Adolf Hitler Have a Blueprint for the Extermination of Jews in the Potsdam Conference?

Is it because Harry Truman not only recognized Israel as an independent country and as such gave cover to Israeli airspace during the short war with Egypt when Anwar Sadat could have given a death blow to Israel but for the US cover of Israeli airspace? Lawrence Rees, historian, and author, in his newest book published in March 2024 titled The Holocaust, wrote that “The fundamental precondition for the Holocaust happening was Adolf Hitler,” he explained that “Even as far back as 1921, Hitler said that solving the Jewish question was a central question for National Socialism.

People line up to get free food in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah, on March 18, 2024. (Photo by Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua)

Historian Lawrence Rees and His Book Published in 2024

And you can only solve it by using brute force.” Hitler had no blueprint for the Holocaust at that point, says Rees. But he did have a pathological problem with Jews. “Hitler believed that something needed to be done,” Rees explains, “and that evolved and changed according to circumstances and political opportunism.

An intriguing part of Rees’s book is his determination to figure out when the collective set of initiatives we now call the Final Solution became official Nazi policy. It’s a question that doesn’t come with a straightforward answer, Rees maintained. What is clear, though, is that in the summer of 1940, there was still no concrete plan in place for the extermination of Jews. Furthermore, up until that point, Rees argued, the Nazis were still clinging to the belief that in the long term, the way to solve what they called “the Jewish question” was by expulsion and hard labor. At that point, mass murder was still not the preferred option.

By the summer of 1942, however, a sea change had taken place. By that time, the Holocaust was in full swing. Therefore, within the previous two-year period, Rees points out, there were several milestones on the road towards mass extermination. But trying to pinpoint an exact moment where the decision was taken to commit to mass killing is very difficult, says Rees — especially since much of the planning was done in secret without written records.

Hitherto, many historians, filmmakers, and writers have pointed to a single meeting where plans for the Holocaust were finally decided upon in the power structures of Nazi officialdom. This was known as the Wannsee Conference. It was held in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee in January of 1942 and involved several mid-ranking Nazi officials devising a plot to murder Jews over a shorter timescale and in more efficient ways. But even then, Rees says, no final plans were resolved at the infamous conference. He also points out that key figures from the upper tiers of the Nazi hierarchy — Himmler, Goebbels, and Hitler himself — were not present.

“I cannot see how there can have been a decision in 1941,” said Rees. ‘By that stage, you can say a decision to implement what we would now call the Holocaust had been decided upon. The moment of no return for the Holocaust, said the historian, was in the spring and early summer of 1942 when a decision was taken to kill all of the Jews in the General Government in Poland — a German-occupied zone established by Hitler after the joint invasion by the Germans and Soviets in 1939.“By that stage, you can say a decision to implement what we would now call the Holocaust had been made,” said Rees.

Hungary was beautiful to the Nazis, given the number of Jews that resided there. The Jews were transported to Auschwitz between May and July of 1944, where they were murdered. This plan for cold-blooded murder was deviously orchestrated by Adolf Eichmann, who at the time was stationed in Budapest.

Adolf Eichmann and Hannah Arendt

In April 2024 issue wrote on American scholar Hannah Arendt who published a series of articles that became one of the most controversial books of the 20th century: Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. The articles dealt with the trial of Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi SS officer who coordinated the logistics of transporting millions of European Jews to their death during World War II.

Arendt portrayed Eichmann and other Nazi criminals not as hate-filled, anti-Semitic monsters but as petty bureaucrats and spoke openly about the role played by Jewish councils in the deportation and destruction of their own people. Arendt’s central insight into what she called “the banality of evil”—that great crimes can arise from mindless conformity and thoughtlessness about the humanity of others—came paired with sharp criticism of Israeli insensitivity to legitimate Palestinian claims and disregard for the rights of minorities and neighbors.

Arendt suffered ferocious personal attacks that continue today, 37 years after her death. Criticism of her Eichmann book inevitably incorporates some variant of the assertion that she felt herself to be more German than Jewish and was a self-hating, anti-Semitic Jew—a strange charge against a woman who worked on behalf of Jewish organizations most of her life.

The 50-year battle over Arendt’s reputation has pitted her defenders against those who would deflect her criticism of Israel as anti-Jewish, thus turning people away from her ideas about democratic pluralism and regional cooperation without having to discuss them. Soon after the Eichmann pieces began to appear, civil rights activist Henry Schwarzschild warned Arendt that Jewish organizations in New York were furiously planning a campaign against her and that she should expect to be the object of great debate and animosity.

Siegfried Moses, a friend from Arendt’s youth who had immigrated to Israel and risen to the position of state comptroller, sent a note to Arendt on behalf of the Council of Jews from Germany, declaring war on her and her Eichmann book. Moses then flew to Switzerland to meet with Arendt and demanded that she stop the book’s publication. She refused, warning him that the intensity of criticism was “going to make the book into a cause célèbre and thus embarrass the Jewish community far beyond anything that she had said or could possibly do.” Indeed, literary critic Irving Howe would describe the vitriolic public dispute that ensued as “violent,” while novelist Mary McCarthy would liken it to a pogrom. It began on March 11 with a memorandum distributed by the Anti-Defamation League alerting its members to “Arendt’s defamatory conception of Jewish participation in the Nazi Holocaust,” by which they meant her reporting that evidence at the trial showed that leaders of Jewish communities across Europe had negotiated the orderly demise of their communities with Eichmann.

The ADL followed up with a pamphlet, “Arendt Nonsense,” which called the Eichmann articles evil, glib, and trite. On May 19, 1963, The New York Times published a highly critical review of Eichmann in Jerusalem by Michael A. Musmanno, a retired Navy rear admiral who had served as a judge at the U.S. Nuremberg Military Tribunals and was then a sitting justice on Pennsylvania’s supreme court. Musmanno had also appeared as a witness for the prosecution at the Eichmann trial. In her book Arendt had disparaged Musmanno’s testimony that Nazi foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop told him at Nuremberg that Hitler’s madness had come about because he had fallen under Eichmann’s influence. Even the prosecution knew this was a fabrication. Musmanno wrote in the Times that Arendt was motivated by “purely private prejudice. She attacks the State of Israel, its laws and institutions, wholly unrelated to the Eichmann case.”

That summer New York intellectuals weighed in. A review by playwright and critic Lionel Abel in Partisan Review accused Arendt of having portrayed the Nazis as more aesthetically appealing than their victims. Journalist Norman Podhoretz’s review in Commentary concluded that Arendt had exemplified “intellectual perversity [resulting] from the pursuit of brilliance by a mind infatuated with its own agility and bent on generating dazzle.” Zionist activist Marie Syrkin wrote in Dissent that Eichmann was the only character who came out better in the book than he went in and accused Arendt of manipulating the facts with “high-handed assurance.” Arendt had published often in all three journals. More measured criticism came in a letter from Gershom Scholem, a friend from Arendt’s youth and then a professor of Jewish mysticism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He affirmed his “deep respect” for Arendt but characterized the tone of her book as “heartless,” “flippant,” “sneering and malicious,” replacing balanced judgment with a “demagogic will-to-overstatement.”

He could never think of her, he wrote, as anything other than “a daughter of our people” but admonished her for insufficient love of the Jewish people: “In you, dear Hannah, as in so many intellectuals who come from the German Left, I find little trace of this.” Arendt replied that she came not from the German Left but from the tradition of German philosophy and that of course she was a daughter of the Jewish people and had never claimed to be anything else. In the full flush of the attack, Mary McCarthy stepped forward as Arendt’s champion. Writing in the Winter 1964 issue of Partisan Review, she observed that the hostile reviews and personal attacks on Arendt were written almost entirely by Jews. She dismissed Lionel Abel’s assertion that Arendt made Eichmann aesthetically palatable: “Reading her book, he liked Eichmann better than the Jews who died in the crematoriums. Each to his own taste. It was not my impression.” Marie Syrkin accused McCarthy of intellectual irresponsibility and ignorance, and writer and historian Harold Weisberg characterized her defense of Arendt as wholly lacking in charity and logic.

At the height of the scandal, however, Hannah Arendt was assured that she would emerge with her reputation intact: any fair-minded person who read the Eichmann book would see her seriousness of purpose, honesty, fundamental goodness, and passion for justice. “A time will come that you will not live to see, when Jews will erect a monument to you in Israel, as they are doing now for Spinoza,” he wrote. “They will proudly claim you as their own.” Now, as the debate began to subside, Jaspers wrote that though she had suffered greatly, the critical uproar was adding to her prestige. Arendt wrote back that she had been warmly received by the mostly Jewish students who had turned out in substantial numbers for her lectures on politics at Yale, Columbia, Chicago, and other universities. “The funny thing,” she told people that after speaking her mind openly she was once again “flooded with invitations from all the Jewish organizations to speak, to appear at congresses, etc. And some of these invitations are coming from organizations that I singled out to attack and named by name.”

In the next few years she would collect a dozen honorary degrees from American universities and be inducted into both the National Institute of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, which awarded her its Emerson-Thoreau Medal for distinguished achievement in literature. For a long moment, which lasted another quarter-century after her death in 1975, Arendt had beaten back her detractors, with her reputation intact. New Yorker editor William Shawn wrote that Arendt’s death had removed “some counterweight to all the world’s unreason and corruption,” that she had been “a moral and intellectual force that went beyond category,” and that her influence “on intellectuals, artists, and political people around the world was profound.”

The Request Made to the US by King Abdullah of Jordan, Emanuel Macron of France, and Abdullah Sisi of Egypt to the United States

The world cannot and should not ignore the resounding words of King Abdullah of Jordan. Emanuel Macron of France and Abdullah Sisi of Egypt. In plain words these eminent people said, and I quote The U.S. can’t afford to wait to fully embrace the world’s most effective weapon. As we urge all parties to abide by all relevant U.N. Security Council resolutions, we warn against the dangerous consequences of an Israeli offensive on Rafah, where about 1.5 million Palestinian civilians have sought refuge. Such an offensive would only bring more death and suffering, heighten the risks and consequences of mass displacement of the people of Gaza and threaten regional escalation.

We reiterate our equal respect for all lives. We condemn all violations and abuses of international humanitarian law, including all acts of violence, terrorism and indiscriminate attacks on civilians. Protecting civilians is a fundamental legal obligation for all parties and the cornerstone of international humanitarian law. Violating this obligation is absolutely prohibited. Palestinians in Gaza are no longer facing only a risk of famine, but famine is already setting in. There is an urgent need for a massive increase in the provision and distribution of humanitarian assistance. This is a core demand of U.N. Security Council Resolutions 2720 and 2728, which emphasize the urgent need to expand aid supplies. U.N. agencies, including the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, and humanitarian actors play a critical role in relief operations in Gaza. They must be protected and granted full access, including in the northern part of the Gaza Strip. We condemn the killing of humanitarian aid workers, most recently the attack against World Central Kitchen’s aid convoy.

Consistent with international law, Israel is under an obligation to ensure the flow of humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian population, a responsibility it has not fulfilled. We reiterate the Security Council’s demand to lift barriers to humanitarian assistance and for Israel to immediately facilitate humanitarian assistance through all crossing points, including in the North of the Gaza Strip and through a direct land corridor from Jordan, as well as by sea. We, the leaders of Egypt, France, and Jordan, are determined to continue stepping up our efforts to meet the humanitarian, medical and health needs of the civilian population of Gaza, in close coordination with the U.N. system and regional partners. Lastly, we underline the urgency of restoring hope for peace and security for all in the region, primarily the Palestinian and Israeli people.

We emphasize our determination to continue working together to avoid further regional spillover, and we call on all actors to refrain from any escalatory action. We urge an end to all unilateral measures, including settlement activity and land confiscation. We also urge Israel to prevent settler violence. We emphasize the necessity of respecting the historical and legal status quo at Jerusalem’s Muslim and Christian holy sites, and the role of the Jordanian Waqf under the Hashemite custodianship. We stress our determination to step up our joint efforts to effectively bring about the two-state solution.

The establishment of an independent, sovereign Palestinian state on the basis of the two-state solution, in accordance with international law and relevant U.N. Security Council resolutions, to live side by side in peace and security with Israel, is the only way to achieve true peace. The Security Council must play a role in decisively reopening this horizon for peace.

Conclusion

It is well known that Benjamin Netanyahu reacted sharply by canceling the visit of an Israeli delegation’s visit to the US incensed by the US abstention of voting in the United Nations which Netanyahu had expected that the US would exercise its veto. How far it will affect Israel-US relations remains to be seen. One, however has to remind oneself the harsh criticism by the US House majority leader, himself a Jew and the first time a Jew has been elected to the post, that Israel should go for a fresh election to choose a leader, preferably in the place of Netanyahu and his right-wing colleagues who are beating the drum of war in the name of extermination of Hamas regardless of the cost to the US-Israeli relations and also an improbable return of Donald Trump and his demand that the Europeans should pay for the protection being provided by the US ever since the US, tilted so-called “rules based” world, more often broken than honored by the US for fifty years. Indubitably, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had broken international law providing sovereignty of countries to rule their territories according to their rules and regulations. But the question the world may keep on asking, now that Saddam Hussein is long gone, whether the US itself is not guilty of breaking international law.

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Monaem Sarker: The bright face of a leading reclusive politician in Bangladesh

He played a vital role during Bangladesh’s Liberation War of 1971.

by Anwar A. Khan

As an active worker in the progressive political movement of Bangladesh, the contribution of this humble man was undaunted. His diverse experiences, fighting skills, honesty and determination are the only support for his progressive thinking and has dedicated to the welfare of the common people still has an undying love for Bangabandhu, the architect of Bangladesh, the father of the nation, his adage is the last path of life and his firm belief that he will continue to work till the last day of his life to fulfill Bangabandhu’s dream.

Monaem Sarker with his spouse [File Photo]

A giant star cloistered politician, a bang-up researcher, a fecund writer, and a fine-grained gentleman with a pleasing in appearance as he has been, Monaem Sarker is a Cumilla native aged now 79 plus, was born on March 30, 1945. His political life history spans for about 6 decennaries.

With an M.Sc. degree in Applied Physics with credit from Dhaka University in 1967, Monaem Sarker best-loved the life of a whole-souled political worker being pulled in by the left-winger politics. He manifested notable role in the politics of the-then East Pakistan students’ Union, Communist Party, NAP and afterwards Bangladesh Awami League.

He played a vital role during Bangladesh’s Liberation War of 1971. After the brutal assassination of Bangabandhu on 15 August 1975, he worked very hard to form vox populi pointed to rebuilding the values and ideals of independence as pursued by Bangabandhu.

Readers may find a patriotic Monaem Sarker about whom Bangladesh’s famed novelist and short story writer Shawkat Osman wrote on January 17, 1979, “The search for life mingled so homogeneously with patriotism that Monaem Sarker could not stay no more in his own country after the death of Bangabandhu. Here (Kolkata), he as if became the guardian of all political refugees. He kept himself engaged in ways knew no bounds for collecting funds and to keep the political activities remain free flowing. During his life in exile in India, he developed a deep personal relationship with political stalwarts there and different secret leaflets, booklets were published at his initiative to bring back Awami League to power.

He also had a special role in bringing out various weeklies, biweeklies and monthlies. At those times, the Brajrakantho from Kolkata, Banglar Dak, Sonar Bangla, Sun Rise, et al, from London were brought out to establish public opinion at abroad in favour of pro-Bangladesh and pro-liberation forces.

Getting back in the country in 1979, he played a unique role in forming the Bangabandhu Parishad. He joined Bangladesh Awami League in the same year at the inspiration of the political orientation of Bangabandhu. He pioneered in the formation of 10-Party and 15-Party alliances against autocratic military governments of Zia and Ershad in preparing agenda and conducting movements.

In establishing common platform of the three alliances for preparing roadmap of movement, he consecrated himself very profoundly. Keeping himself in solitude, Monaem Sarker has been working as a pivotal power of all democratic and progressive movements of the country. His activities in the fields of economics, social and cultural movements are also long-familiar and popular characteristic characterized by or advocating or based upon the principles of democracy or social equality.

Besides Bangladesh Awami League politics, he also took intensive part in the fields of cultural and literary firmament, being one of the founders of the Udichi. He is a popular columnist and writer. He edited Bangabandhu Biography in two volumes published by Bangla Academy.

He authored 116 books mainly on political and social affairs and got numerous awards from different organizations of which Bangla academy “Honorary fellowship 2013” is remarkable. He is now the Chairman of The Bangladesh Foundation for Development Research (BFDR), a stellar research organization which was established in 1996 to carry out research on Bangla Language, Liberation War, Culture, Formation of the Bangalee nation, state, et al. Under his leadership BFDR produced 10 DVDs and VCDs which are available in the BFDR website.

Monaem Sarker remains an iconic figure of Southeast Asian politics and an historical advocate for the development and sovereignty of the Global Southeast Asia. He is a shining example of what it means to be a versatile talent. Dispersion of talent in debates, recitals, art, other cultural activities and has remained for decennaries one of the most definitive observers on Bengalis, Bangladesh, Bangabandhu and the Bangladesh political world – as well as a historian of the tumultuous events of 1952, 1962, 1969, 1970 and 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War in which he mightily participated.

Calling him a political icon, we must say he has massively participated in enriching intellectual life with his books, articles, political and historical studies. Monaem Sarker has always described himself as a politician, first and foremost. But his unique role as a participant in, and a chronicler of, Bangladesh’s history drew politicians of all stripes — liberals, nationalists, et al.

He has remained the intellectual godfather of a set of ideas and a period in history that many perceive him to be one of progressives, dignified and national prestige figures. Career as an author spanning for more than half a century and his access to regional and international audiences has been greatly enhanced by his regular appearances on the seminars, symposiums, et al.

A well-connected politician, commentator, and master propagandist, Sarker has crafted the message of Bangabandhu and has been defending his legacy long after his death. His books are consistent best read in the Bengali world, and his political analysis is accorded respect. His opinion is being sought in hour-long indoor interviews and behind closed door meetings in the corridors of power. His influence has endured the epochs of long-reigning by PM Sheikh Hasina, her political struggles, and political dead cert.

A giant politician who became a confidant of Sheikh Hasina. He has remained relevant long after Bangabandhu died, respected for his wide network of international contacts and extraordinary analytical skills. He can be described as “the nation’s authentic memory.”

Established a distinctive political school that combined political analysis with a magnificent writing style. He is widely regarded as the books of record in the Bangladesh world. His voice is full of patriotism, his mind like a razor, that of a veteran fighter, writer, sage, perhaps the most important living witness and historian of modern Bangladesh.

He is a man of such eloquence, such energy, with such a vast memory, that men and women who are younger – a quality he much admires, and which he has won because of his humane attributes.

This veteran Bangladesh’s politician is best privately known as Sheikh Hasina’s taciturnly mouthpiece. He grew up as a talented young person liked and admired by all around him. Monaem Sarker, the legendary Bangladesh’s politician, embarked on his political journey since his school days with a unique blend of academic pursuit and passion for social relations.

He carries the image of being a doer, has won praise from both within his party and outside. He continues to be a significant power centre within the ruling establishment who has spearheaded the government’s foreign policy agenda, which has increasingly been getting endorsement by the concerned quarters.

A quintessential backroom player, he will continue to work to ke­e­p the administrative machinery of the government humming. He could take a long-term view of the developmental initiatives that could help Bangladesh in decades ahead, not necessarily thinking in terms of the next election only. In his long political life, it would be impossible to find someone who did not like him as a person, ideological orientations being another matter.

Despite no official position, Sarker is a keen follower of Bangabandhu’s people’s welfare-oriented politics. In person, Sarker comes across as an effective administrator, a proud Bengali nationalist, and a committed Bangladesh. He also is a policy maven—introverted, precise, and even passionate about the most technical of subjects. On almost all of these issues, his Bangladesh is pushing and following, Bangladesh.

As a stripling, he was comprehending the national developments to realise how tough a task it is for the nation to re-establish itself on the global stage, and simultaneously give its people what they needed to lead a dignified life. He understood the pulse of the people and has been blessed with the gift of a flawless research-based oratory that touched the hearts of the listener, through his speeches. He endeared himself to the people, stuck dexterously to his ideological moorings in thick and thin.

No one has ever seen any sense of arrogance in the Monaem Sarker, such friendly and hospitable people are rare in our society. Our society needs many more virtuous and unselfish people like Monaem Sarker, only then Bangladesh will move forward faster.

He cherishes the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons of all religions live together in harmony with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which he hopes to live for, and to see realised. It is an ideal for which he is prepared to die.

Monaem Sarker continues to be held in high regard by all who know him and he will be remembered for his grace, leadership, kindness, contributions towards Bangladesh’s betterment.

He has the gift of tenderness of heart, and this was his art of winning the hearts of people. He is affectionate and empathetic. Adversities could never demoralise him, rather these occasions gave him greater determination to succeed. He accepted challenges. For, party management is an art and not a craft as practised by the new generation of most politicians. His research-oriented books indicate his concern for the nation and the people. Most of his time is spent thinking over politics, but I never found him desolate, or withdrawn.

His strength and beauty, the grace and dignity of his bearing, the dark light of his eyes, his imposing appearance, and from the moment he began to speak, the splendid speech with his rich deep voice enthralled the vast audience. The thought of this warrior prophet of Bangladesh left a deep mark upon Bangladesh. Bangladesh thus have had the blessing of directly hearing a person of the stature of a great politician, radiating purity, compassion, and love.

Clearly, there have been very few politicians who have been able to match the respect and authority that he has been commanding.

He was a well-respected politician who is an out-of-the-box thinker and speaker. He approached topics from a unique point of view which made us to redefine our lives, personally and politically. Address is a cornerstone of Bangladesh history. His speech rallied a nation and set created a foundation of Bengali idealism for future generations.

These speeches lift hearts in dark times, give hope in despair, refine the characters of people, inspired brave feats, give courage to the weary, honour the dead, and change the course of history.

It is a fitting gift to Bangladesh and a reminder that politics can be attuned to be sensible, subtle and constructive, the way Monaem Sarker has been doing it since long.

Big salutes to Monaem Sarker. He is an exemplary leader who believes in what he wants to do, subscribe to what Awami League wants to do, and faithfully following it through. That, in a nutshell, he is a perfect gentleman politician in giving way to Bangladesh-styled leadership replenishing.

Anwar A. Khan is an independent political analyst based in Dhaka, Bangladesh who writes on politics, political and human-centred figures, current and international affairs

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Movements Affirm That Imperialism Is in Decline, but Mass Struggle More Necessary Than Ever

All speakers in the gathering also declared their complete rejection of the Israeli genocide of the Palestinian people and categorized Zionism as a brutal tool of U.S. imperialism.

Five hundred representatives from movements, unions, and parties hailing from countries across the world gathered in Caracas, Venezuela, for the World Gathering for a Social Alternative. The meeting, organized by the Simón Bolívar Institute for Peace and Solidarity and Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America – Peoples’ Trade Treaty (ALBA-TCP), kicked off on April 18 and concluded on April 20.

Simón Bolívar School vessel

During the first two days of debate and discussion, panelists and participants discussed the pressing tasks of the left and progressive movements to organize the masses and confront the climate crisis, the rise of the right, imperialist attacks, and fortify internationalist solidarity. Speakers also emphasized the relationship among progressive governments, political projects, and mass movements, and the need for greater levels of coordination and support.

The meeting held in the Bolivarian Republic comes just three months ahead of the presidential elections in the country, which have already been categorized by the U.S. government as “undemocratic” and have been used as a pretext to intensify its unilateral coercive measures against Venezuela. Speakers throughout the first two days of discussion emphasized the need to stand in solidarity with the Venezuelan people who for the last 10 years have been resisting under a tough U.S.-sanctions regime. Despite overwhelming challenges, they have continued to deepen their revolution.

All speakers in the gathering also declared their complete rejection of the Israeli genocide of the Palestinian people and categorized Zionism as a brutal tool of U.S. imperialism.

from the Peoples Dispatch / Globetrotter News Service

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