We Sweden

Before getting to Great Sweden and Mighty Turkey (3) some stray thoughts about Mo-na’s Sweden & NA-TO

NATO

Sweden and NATO

When the subtile snake or devil says something, then know that it’s the opposite of what’s true.

For example here is his definition of alliance .

As far as that definition is concerned, he’s not talking about Sweden – dear Sweden, he’s only preaching about the gangsters of international politics.

Talking about international politics, as a Europ-e-an ( an undisputed but disputable identity) – again – personally speaking, my two favourite foreign ministers in Europe are

Carl Bildt ( he really does not need an introduction)

and here’s a short portrait of my other favourite

Here he is again:David Miliband

Still talking about foreign ministers, of course after that infamous Kristallnacht – today – almost everybody in Sweden loves Hillary Clinton for choosing Swedish crystal excellence

And now that our Mona

(Sahlin)

is busy actively pinning her brother

the great Fredrik,

& her big Brother Carl B

&

her other brothers

and

sisters

in

the

current

Swedish

Government

down

for

answers let us listen attentively to what they have to say.

For it’s true that some men are more equal than other men ( just as some women are more equal than other men and other women)  just as Mighty Turkey is a great member of NATO

whilst Armenia and Russia are not.

Sweden is not a member of NATO. Many European countries are and some of the European military personnel that are presently fighting and whatnot in Afghansitan are from NATO countries and since these are very important countries in what is fast becoming a joint/collective European Union approach to some Foreign policy issues, it’s natural that Our Mona is not the only one who is confused or unenlightened about our Government’s plans.

Our Mona is now demanding clarity about the relationship between Sweden and NATO, so that we’ll ( We Sweden) will probably get some of that ( clarity) and soon be far removed from any kind of confusion whatsoever – since Carl Bildt is after all a man of “klarspråk “ which in the Queen’s English and even in Swenglish means that he does not mince his words. As Lefifi Tladi would say about such a one, “ He puts it straight”: He’s a straight shooter. He likes and he dislikes. He is for or he is against. He is not mealy-mouthed. He loves and I suppose that he too hates like other men ( and women) or is capable of that. Hatred. Of his enemies. Some say that he hates Mona’s guts, but I can hardly believe that. What guts?Which guts? Not that there’s anything worthy of hating about her. Since from my point of view our good-natured Mona is a little like Bishop Dom Camara with a tinge of Mother Teresa in between . She is no Mary Robinson or Golda Meir or Indira Gandhi or Sirimavo Bandaranaike or that Benazir Bhutto or Angela Merkel or (certainly not) Margareta Thatcher either.  Nor can I see or imagine her setting off on a Swedish fighter Jet ( like Gordon Brown) to visit our lads and lasses in Afghanistan. Or going up front to the troops like Saddam encouraging his men and stirring their cooking pot at the war front; and when I saw him doing  that on CNN it was the only time that I felt like comparing him and his Arabic  balagha  to this piece of  Henry V

Having said the above, I wonder  what the Vodka male chuavinist Vladimir Zhirinovsky thinks about Our Mona, since he once said that he had no respect for a country that could have  a woman as its minister of defence. At the time he made that utterance he was referring to Elisabeth Rehn

Mona Sahlin ( and Ilmar Repaalu) could get much of the Arab vote (on the whole the Arabs don’t like the Turks – nor do the Greeks and there are more Arabs, Assyrian and Armenians etc than Turks in Moder Svea although the Turks were here much earlier than most other immigrants of today. I notice that she’s also courting the Iranian vote. Chirping about democracy and fair play in Iran and that Iranians should be able to make their choices without fear. Most of them ( Iranians here in Sweden  much prefer living in the Wild West  to living under Islamic strictures under the Mullahs. Two million Iranians in California. It’s the heart of the Iranian pop music industry.  Of course, it’s mostly the Iranian opposition  here in Sweden. I notice that she looks really beautiful in that hijab  when she visits their Arab  brethren at the Medborgarplatsen  Sunni mosque ( the Rabita)  – the old electricity power station.

As I was saying, in the referendums it’s usually yes or no. Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists. Either you are with Israel or you are with these guys

When it comes to NATO I’ve heard it said that in this post cold war era WE (Sweden) are either with NATO or we are on our non-aligned & neutral own. I’ve also heard it said that Sweden can go to places where neither the US nor the Russians can go…..

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This morning the mercury has refused to move below minus five degrees – although the sun ( still pale) is smiling. Take note: there are still a few misplaced Negroes who when they come across or hear the word “degrees”, think only of Harvard, M.I.T and Yale. Think pale. Like Matrimonial advertisements in The Hindu Times or the Times of India – Sunday edition :“Green Card Holder, BA. MA. PHD, six figure dollar salary, seeks nice, wheat-coloured Brahmin girl.”

Temperature and weather is usually secondary to the homo ( homo sapient) whose main ambition in life is to be the most learned Negro in his village ( or the global village) or the planet. Some kind of king ( of the castle) the village castle. Small town parochial, post-colonial mentality. What colonialism saddled some people with, since the Wazungu came by boat or alighted from a bird-like machine that flew through the sky. Came as “ wisest man” harbinger of civilisation ( the mission) came with electricity, came with white medicine, and came with a new word offering salvation beyond the skies.

I’ve forgotten what the meteorologist said after the news last night, whether spring had come to Mayor Ilmar Reepalu’s Malmö or was going to come to Stockholmo tomorrow “juste”( “To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow” ) or as usual – hold it – but please hang on to your dreams: worse is yet to come before you can begin to expect that the weather will get  any better.

In yesterday’s Dagens Nyheter ( print edition) Egemen Bagis (in the interview with Ingrid Hedström in Istanbul) would like to encourage the Swedish Parliament to tear up the Genocidal Resolution. The interview with Bagis is quite enlightening, but is unfortunately not available on internet except on PDF format , to DN subscribers like yours truly.)

Here’s part of the interview ( my translation)

“ Ingrid Hedström: What has Turkey done on it’s own , to come to terms with what happened in 1915?”

Egemen Bagis: “ Turkey has opened up all her archives to make it possible to analyze what happened then. But there are also archives in other countries. Turkey’s most important ally at that time was Germany . We ought to have a look at their archives. But the greater part of the documentation of those events are in Boston and owned by the Armenian Revolutionary Founation, who are unwilling to open up their archives  to non-Armenian historians.”

Ingrid Hedström: “ If a common History Commission were to be created and that commission were to conclude that genocide had taken place, would Turkey accept this?”

Egemen Bagis: “ We have already taken a decision in ( our) Parliament, in which we say that we are ready to look at history in the eye , and Prime Minister Erdogan has written a letter to the Armenian president (telling him ) that we are prepared to meet with /confront our history if they are ready to meet with/confront theirs”

At the bottom of this interview, in yesterday’s Dagens Nyheter:
* Our Prime Minister deeply regrets the genocide decision

To some ears the request that the Swedish Parliament should tear up the Resolution that they just passed about Armenian Genocide, could ring hollow. The Turks are not the only ones requesting this kind of reversal of a decision once made ( democratically or not) in the interest of promoting good or better neighbourly relations.

To some other ears , there’s the equally ludicrous request that Bibi Netanyahu rescind Israel’s decision to construct another 1,600  dwellings for his people in Jerusalem. Some say that it’s part of the national logic or even rhetoric as in asking ” Does the Alliance or their Social Demo(n)s ( like Lars Vilks) for that matter,  need permission from Washington or Ramallah to build 5,000 new apartments at Norra Station in Stockholm ( to meet natural population growth requirements?

( to be continued, to a good conclusion)

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This wintry Swedish morning the sun was shining as usual although the temperature had dropped to seven degrees below zero; in Stockholm the temperature has been going up and down like a yoyo and the thermometer has been dilating at just around it’s own winter centre of gravity : zero. Yet this morning I found myself humming this song written by the gentle son of a Swedish mother, now a great Islamic teacher – that I know because I attended some of his lectures about one and half decades ago, in London, not just for fun – although much earlier he had asked in one of the televised programmes, how come that the Almighty who knows everything, in the Torah had asked “Adam, where are you?” And that for Yusuf was evidence that ( heaven forbid) the Holy Scrip had been tampered with. Perhaps he has after all grown out of that kind of lack of insight – at least as clarified in this tract

Now, no one wants to be accused of being a racist, or of being a psychopath or an anti-Semite, or a fascist, an islamophobist or worse still to be accused of hating other people so much that you want to wipe them out: genocide – or of standing aside and looking the other way whilst other people are being wiped out – or worse still, more actively assisting the crime.

It’s  said that some people but not all people, are capable of being proud of being labelled any of the above.

The dust of those battles has long settled since 1915 and the Swedish Parliamentary Resolution taken in the year 2010, proclaiming that Turkey is guilty of having committed unmitigated genocide in 1915, is a fresh one on which tears are still being shed but the ink has hardly dried yet.

Since it’s Sweden that’s the centre of the storm this time , I’ve followed the Swedish pundits’ post mortem judgements on that resolution in the Saturday edition of the following Swedish newspapers: Dagens Nyheter, Svenska Dagbladet, Göteborgs Posten, Uppsala Nya Tidning: they all emphasise Carl Bildt’s position – that he deeply regrets the Swedish Parliament making such a decision ( a motion initiated by the opposition) and that his government intends to continue supporting Turkey’s application for EU membership. The four aforementioned newspapers , in not so many words all ask the same question: since when did it become the function of the Swedish Parliament to determine the status of what happened in Armenia in 1915 – at a time when the term genocide had not yet been clearly defined? And what next?

What next ?

My question is a rather ridiculous one for that matter, considering the mountain of literature that is available in Holocaust Studies – and so the ridiculous question ( one of many that I can imagine) : Will the Swedish Parliament also feel called upon to take upon their shoulders another onerous duty, to ascertain whether or not it was the Holocaust that was committed by the Israeli Defence Forces during their most recent operation in Gaza last year ?

Do I hear Alan Dershowitz a probable defence attorney asking his first question:

“Where are the gas chambers?”

A must read:

Elisabeth Özdalga the director of the Swedish Resaerch Institute in Istanbul has expressed some misgivings about the Swedish Resolution coming  “at a time when the Turkish State, since 2002 is now being led by a government which, more than any other earlier government in Turkey’s modern history, has contributed to a softening up policy both for the country’s own minorities, espcially with regard to the Kurdish question and in its ( Turkey’s) relationship to its neighbouring countries, not least of which is Armenia.”

Elisabeth Özdalga

She also thinks that the resolution will only streghthen the ultra nationalists in Turkey and that does not make  Turkey- Armenia reconciliation any easier

Turkish newspapers

( to be continued)

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This is very serious.

This was Carl Bildt’s position

the News

From an optimist: Orhan Pamuk on Turkish- Armenian relations

Very personally, my first contact with Turkey and well worth it. Followed by many other contacts. So, you can say that I’m biased, pro-people ( all people) and pro-Turkey too about many other matters and in the given circumstances what is understandable must be understood.

The truth:Turkey is a very important country – not just in NATO, not just in history and not just now.

The relationship between Sweden and Turkey goes a long way – beyond Karl XII . Jan Hjärpe with his sociological approach of introducing Islam, usually  started his public lectures by telling his Swedish audience that Sweden used to pay the Jizya tax to Turkey to ensure safe passage on the seas – when Turkey was the headquarters of the Ottoman Empire up to the dissolution of that Empire sometime around 1918….

A very important place in history : CONSTANTINOPLE

Yesterday is/ was not the same as today, certainly not after listening to Cornel West on Faultlines talking about matters that concern us all as concerned 21^st century human beings.

Reading Cornel West or listening to him tell it as it is (the way he sees it) usually impacts on how one sees the world. So, by this morning – the world had surely changed since yesterday – but not that much and neither have we, although today it’s with a slightly different world view – slightly enhanced by West’s even-handed approach and more ready to confront the news about the Swedish Parliament adopting a resolution condemning Turkey for Genocide of the Armenian people about a century ago and this elicits some comment – especially since the reaction from Turkey is both predictable and understandable.

All talk about genocide – inevitably calls up other genocides in history, such as what is incontrovertibly the Holocaust – not that the tragedy of one genocide is being compared with the tragedy of another genocide. Some people have been so callous that they say that some genocides have been “ overdimensionalized” – big word for a mighty evil that they would like to trivialize. People cry – he who feels it knows, whether in Darfur or Rwanda and people cry and mostly have to cry their own cry. The tendency is not that other people are going to cry your own cry for you – as you. The Human family has still not yet arrived at that stage of empathy, and the world continues in the formatted us ( could be We Sweden) and you – and we always hear about Israel and the Palestinians, but not as yin and yang. Some see it in terms of the Lord versus the accursed d-evil…

This Resolution by the Swedish Parliament comes a week after a US Congressional committee vote that recognizes the events of 1915 as genocide of Armenians

An important contributing factor is surely the pressures that have come from here: the Armenian Diaspora not least of all in the United States.

The people of Armenia feel that their suffering has at long last been recognised after 95 years of pursuing just this recognition, that it was genocide.

The most important question now is, what are the repercussions and implications of this resolution? For Turkey it’s a matter of national honour which the Turks believe is certified by historical data – that it was not genocide. No nation wants to be deemed guilty of genocide or war crimes, whatever the circumstances, even if perpetrated by more barbaric ancestors.

Another question is : Must compensation be paid ?

One more question: Will this improve Turkish-Armenian relations?

Turkey is furious about Sweden’s parliamentary Resolution and has recalled their Ambassador. This is serious. There’s bound to be further fallout – because it’s such an IMPORTANT matter and since there is a large and important Turkish prescence in Sweden it’s certainly going to impact on the next general elections of September 19, 2010. It’s easy to see that since it’s the opposition that tabled the motion which was supported by only 4 government votes – it will be payback time for the opposition  on election day and the Turks on the whole ( and friends of Turkey) will probably not vote for opposition parties.

Even I have my own prejudices, mostly based on the little that I know about the matter:

Armenia is a Christian country. This too must have had some impact on the decision -making over the resolution.

As a matter of fact the Armenians are said to have been “the First Christian Nation on Earth.”

As a young Armenian Swedish fourth grader once told me – it was Armenian troops who were first into Berlin and who liberated the inmates from the first German concentration camp ( History books will generallly report that the troops were Russian – and indeed Armenia was under Russia.

Some relevant facts:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participants_in_World_War_II

“Armenia

Main article: Military history of Armenia

During World War II, Armenia was part of the Soviet Union as the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic. Over five hundred thousand Armenians fought for the Soviet army, and half of them fell in battles.[4] Five Armenian infantry divisions were formed. Armenia gave 4 marshals and 60 generals. The Armenian Church and overseas Armenians donated large sums of money. After the war, the Armenian and Georgian Republics laid territorial claims to Turkey. However, the Soviet government was not willing to return the lands

Some captured Armenians, who had lived under the terror of Joseph Stalin and sought to topple the authoritarian structure of the Soviet Union, chose to fight for the Axis. They fought in the following units:

• Armenische Legion (Armenian volunteers)
• 30.Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS (russische Nr. 2) (Armenians, Tatar Volunteers units)
• Freiwilligen-Stamm-Regiment 2 (Armenians & Azerbaijanis)Sweden’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Carl Bildt, says that his government will continue its support for Turkey’s application to join the European Union and that the Swedish Parliament’s decision is deeply regrettable.
• SS-Waffengruppe Armenien (Armenian volunteers)

Sweden’s able minister of Foerihn Affairs Carl Bildt assures Turkey that his government will continue to support their bid to enter the European Union and that he find’s the Swedish Parliamentary resolution  deeply regrettable.

Another outstanding issue that will mitigate against Turkey’s entry into the European Union is surely the absolutely contemporary KURDISH question. Much will depend on how Turkey addresses that problem and as Joe Biden said in Israel the other day, some hard truths can only come from good friends.

( To be continued )

Shabbat Shalom and wishing everyone a peaceful weekend…

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The Swedish sun is on the run ( on holidays) up till today and our magical spring is still far away. Birds chirping and the blasts and skids of motorcyclists roaring off are two sure signs that spring is here, but birds and the bees aside, more serious-ly the electioneering campaign is also yet to begin over here. It has already begun over there in Great Britain and all eyes are riveted – or soon will be on David Cameron and how he is faring. Should he prevail over General Gordon ( Brown) there should be more wind in the sail of Messers Reinfeldt, Björklund, Hägglund and Lady Maud Olofsson. Should he ( Cameron) fail – or fall short of the required number of votes, then there may be similiar dismay over here in Greater Sweden.

With the possible exception of the extreme left, almost everybody of substance that I’ve asked and those of little substance like myself, all seem to be unanimous in their opinion about the minister of finance 

It seems like everybody likes him  – in the same way that the ancestors of today’s mighty alliance liked Kjell-Olof Feldt

There’s the Moderate’s bearded Somalian strong-man in Gothenburg, the forward-looking Abdirizak Waberi who would like to legislate Sharia Law in Sweden – there’s an interesting interview with him and RFSU. Quite revealing.

The Interview

Here are two interesting campaign posters:

In the first one,

Mona smiles

( nothing to do with the highway blues) and so does he,

even more heartily.

Nice picture of Mona Sahlin and the worthy Mahmoud Adebe

” Allah helps and does not need help” is part of the message.

When things really start to heat up this poster will go a long way in securing the Muslim vote

Mona needs more votes whilst Muslims need more mosques ( more jobs) more economic support from the government

In yesterday’s Metro ( Stockholm) I read a piece of peculiar logic written by one Nabila Abdul Fattah. She carefully informs her readers that many Muslims are Semites. She goes on to argue that ” certain sources ” have been saying that His Worship the Mayor of Malmö Ilmar Reepalu has been up to some “trick” whereby to garner the Muslim vote. ” If such  were the case, then it was a lame trick. Muslims don’t vote for an anti-Semite by virtue of that person being an anti-Semite and if that were to be the case (had been the case) then since long ago all the Muslims would have gone and voted for the Sweden Democrats.”

So she wrote in yesterday’s Metro

A normal person knows that the Sweden Democrats are not particularly enamoured of Muslims and that  should be enough reason for Muslims  to not vote for the Sweden Democrats – since unilike Christians, Muslims ( in theory and practice) do not tend to like or love their enemies or to be disposed to turning the other cheek.

Islamophobia is different from anti-Semitism  and shows that her definition of anti-Semitism according to now popular and established usage and as she applies it to Muslims, is seriously flawed. Nor does it mean that Arabs are not Semites.

She had better contact the Nation of Islam for their definition should she want to start a discussion here – or long ago in Nazi Germany with this great anti-Semite

He was up to no good at all…..

Unlike this good Swede

Correction ( an earlier post ) -r:e- Bo Göransson

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Re- even I and I,  We-in-Sweden responding to :

imagining these logical possibilities – beyond race…

“Lying and stealing is the whiteman’s game;
For rights of God nor man he has no shame
(A practice of his throughout the whole world)
At all, great thunderbolts he has hurled;
He has stolen everywhere-land and sea;
A buccaneer and pirate he must be,
Killing all, as he roams from place to place,
Leaving disease, mongrels-moral disgrace”

From the poetry of Marcus Garvey

Well, true:  we all came from Africa and it’s Marcus Garvey  who was provisionally elected the first president of Africa and Diaspora in New York City in 1920 and not Muammar al- Qadhafi (Shmile) who is an early proponent of Black Zionism – and nota bene: in the concept of Jewish Zionism, the idea of race or a Jewish race (of any colour whatsoever) is wholly absent and there are many Berbers and indeed many others who were not there at the foot of Mt. Sinai , who converted to the Jewish faith many centuries later

Here’s an interesting publication in which Lewis Gordon has a chapter:

The colours of Jews

Lewis Gordon – philosophy

Lewis Gordon himself should find your thesis an interesting one with several points of intersection with his own Africana concerns – as should   Richard Hull, the author of “Jews and Judaism in African History” not to mention our own Professor Toyin Falola who is still lovingly stoking our consciousness of a distinctly Yoruba Diaspora with complete retentions and inevitable eclectic/ syncretic elements to our cultures.

There are also ancient African propriety claims about dark skinned Dravidians in both India and  Australia and other parts of Asia, some of whom Runoko Rashidi has been encountering in his travels

O Chambi Chachage writing from Dar-es-Salaam the City of Peace one question please and there’s no tongue in cheek  about it : it’s the question that is at the tip of the tongue of every chauvinist, Afro-centric , black  African of conscience:  Can a White man be an African? Is it possible for this consciousness to bloom into a fully grown, powerful international political movement, more powerful than just so much hot Africana tribal air?

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or as Robert Johnson complains, it’s “Blues falling down like hail, blues falling down like hail!”

The storm seems to have subsided but has not blown away or been blown away entirely and so

it ain’t over yet. It ain’t over till it’s over, baby.

If you’ve got this far,

please read on to the very last:

Don’t know whether

the silent exodus is still going on

Or better still, if it’s

Aliyah

No reason to feel ashamed about what you do not know or are not aware of:

Being black or blue, you represent all blacks of blues in all that you do  – all over the world –and some howl like Howlin’ Wolf  singing the blues every time they‘re  mis-treated…. You know the song  “ The Thrill is gone”

“You know you done me wrong baby
And you’ll be sorry someday”

( BB

King)

The main item here is an update from this site

http://www.jcpa.org/indexph.asp

: “In recent weeks much international publicity has been given to the fact, that in recent years, under the influence of the prevailing anti-Semitism and the apathy of local authorities half the members of the Jewish community of Malmö have left the Swedish town. We would like to remind you that Behind the Humanitarian Mask: The Nordic Countries, Israel and the Jews, edited by Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld is available for free. To read the book click here.

Also, if you are interested in what is presently happening in Sweden and Norway as far as Jews and Israel are concerned, there are two English blogs addressing these issues:

• Sweden, Israel and the Jews – http://swedenisrael.blogspot.com/
• Norway Israel and the Jews – http://www.israelwhat.com/

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Re- Human beings of  Africa and the West

This is my response to the second to last item in that thread. ( Should the dialogue continue beyond  this my response I’ll weave  in Great Sweden, and you may regard this as a mere preamble from me:

It’s heart-rending and I confess to a great disappointment in reading someone like Shola Adenekan whose extensive experience covers “freelancing for publications like BBC News Online, the Guardian and the Christian Science Monitor” and recently interviewing Ngugi Wa Thiong’o the now famous African mind de-colonizer, and after that still falling into/ resorting to  the now ancient and all too familiar trap of stereotypically lumping together so many disparate and well meaning elements such as “NGOs, politicians, soldiers Pentecostals churches and Islamic fundamentalists” and others together under the blanket accusations expressed in  the usual profound / grand generalities about non-existent realities/ categories of Master and slave (there would be no slave if you did not have a master) “the arrogance of the liberal west”,  “the condescending and know-it-all attitude of the left” that annoys Shola Adenekan most – that  and all that is pilloried on Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness”

As if in every modern do-good Westerner/ European Africanist (with mild exceptions in men of empathy and understanding such as Distinguished Professor of English Ken Harrow) lurks the uncanny spirit of a Joyce Cary, neo-colonially hell bent on taking the Mickey out of “Mister Johnson” represented by the various accusers  who see themselves represented in that light.

Lion roar! Tiger pounce and not just like a pussycat.

Reading and re-reading the points made in the exchanges/ dialogue of understanding between Ikhide and Harrow, I myself come to quite a different understanding and insight – quite different from Shola Adenekan’s.  I wish for a moment that someone like the very seasoned Cameron Dodou were to enter into the four piece dialogue/ discussion  with the kind of input I anticipate, having read so many of his articles since the days of the cold war. So it would be  (Harrow-Ikhide – on one wavelength – and Cameron Dodou – Shola Adenekan on another – in which there would be a similar resonance – and perhaps for good measure (extra flavour) we could throw in a wild card – Dr. Ubuntu & the Encyclopaedia Britannica just to add some exotic and unpredictable condiments to the sauce.

At least we would have the good sense to separate the wheat from the chaff and stop forever protesting like boys and take our own destiny into our hands in our own spheres, like men.

“And why should Caesar be a tyrant then?

Poor man! I know he would not be a wolf,

But that he sees the Romans are but sheep:

He were no lion, were not Romans hinds.

Those that with haste will make a mighty fire

Begin it with weak straws: what trash is Rome,

What rubbish and what offal, when it serves

For the base matter to illuminate

So vile a thing as Caesar”

I think the stereotyping of the good-willed and understanding Westerner is being overplayed in this cozy USA –Africa Dialogue Forum where it’s likely to get a lot of sympathy from Mr. Johnson and others like him.  But today Caliban can curse – yes he can – and is not putting up with forever being impaled on the cross – in the name of Jesus. It’s unfortunate that such barbarity is currently taking place in Jos

Today we have excellent well meaning and hardworking people like  Jeffrey Sachs – and there are sufficiently large numbers of his type  that do not fit into the negative categories  - there’s him, there’s people like the late Susanne Wenger and  Ulli Beier etc etc, and  their contributions should be accentuated   with less weeping and more joy…

Some of what I mean:

In some academic quarters there was near universal wrath over Brother Obama “lecturing” Africa during his presidential visit to Ghana. Not that he said anything amiss, or anything that should not be said or have been said, just that some bitter truths are so difficult to take coming from other than a born son of the soil. Of the many relevant examples of such we have the case of a very optimistic Bo Göransson who actually led a moral campaign against corruption in his part of East Africa and this went down well with the victims of corruption but not many of the perpetrators ( perpe-traitors); and in West Africa we have the case of Clare Short and since we are now in the realm of speeches and articles, there’s this particular speechin which she addressed issues that continues to bedevil that unfortunate nation especially issue of  corruption which Gunilla Carlsson’s erstwhile European Development Days guest, Ernest Bai Koroma is most assiduously addressing even as you read this. Here is : More Clare Short

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Who can stop history?

Well, one of the reasons for Cornelius’ happiness today is that he took his better half to dinner (at a Lebanese restaurant) exactly 41 years ago. It was her name’s day, just as it is today and she is part of what Sweden means to me.

The last nine verses of this week’s Torah portion (Exodus 30:11 to Exodus 34:35) reads :

“27. The Lord said to Moses: “Inscribe these words for yourself, for according to these words I have formed a covenant with you and with Israel.”

28. He was there with the Lord for forty days and forty nights; he ate no bread and drank no water, and He inscribed upon the tablets the words of the Covenant, the Ten Commandments.

29. And it came to pass when Moses descended from Mount Sinai, and the two tablets of the testimony were in Moses’ hand when he descended from the mountain and Moses did not know that the skin of his face had become radiant while He had spoken with him

30. that Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses and behold! the skin of his face had become radiant, and they were afraid to come near him.

31. But Moses called to them, and Aaron and all the princes of the community returned to him, and Moses would speak to them.

32. Afterwards all the children of Israel would draw near, and he would command them everything that the Lord had spoken with him on Mount Sinai.

33. When Moses had finished speaking with them, he placed a covering over his face.

34. When Moses would come before the Lord to speak with Him, he would remove the covering until he left; then he would leave and speak to the children of Israel what he would be commanded.

35. Then the children of Israel would see Moses’ face, that the skin of Moses’ face had become radiant, and [then] Moses would replace the covering over his face until he would come [again] to speak with Him.”

One of the gladdening moments towards the end of a synagogue service on the Sabbath, before the prayer for the welfare of the State of Israel, to Our Father  Who is in heaven, Rock of Israel and its Redeemer)  is the prayer for the welfare of  Sweden (and  the Hebrew prayer translates into English):

“He who grants salvation to kings and dominion to rulers,

Whose kingdom is a kingdom spanning all eternities; Who releases David His servant, from the evil sword;

Who places a road in the sea and a path in the mighty waters –

May he bless the Royal Family – and all the constituted officers of government of this country.

The King Who reigns over Kings,

In His mercy may He sustain them and protect them;

from every trouble, woe and injury, may He rescue them;

and put into the hearts of all their counselors (compassion)

to do good with us and with all Israel, our brethren.

In their days and in ours may Judah be saved

And may Israel dwell securely, and may the Redeemer come to Zion.

So may it be His will.

Now let us all respond: Amen”

Thinking of the many refugees  from Iraq currently living in Sweden, inevitably, and of course, it is not only human but also righteous and humane to wish the people of Iraq who are now going to the polls (despite certain flaws and irregularities)  that the 18 polling districts that Iraq has been carved up into, will jointly deliver a government of the people, by the people, and for the people to the long suffering people of Iraq where history is being made as another ongoing  Chimes of freedom flashing even as we live this day in world history.

As the bard sings, God don’t make no promises that He don’t keep and reading the last thirteen verses  of  the haphtarah for this week gives hope of the ever approaching Redemption and hope for peace on earth and goodwill to all men  – to all mankind , in all the world –  and the fulfillment of Bob Marley’s prayer ” Let righteousness cover the earth like  the water covers the sea ” or in the words of the Prophet Amos, “But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”

(Ezekiel 36: 24 – 37):

“24. For I will take you from among the nations and gather you from all the countries, and I will bring you to your land.

25. And I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you will be clean; from all your impurities and from all your abominations will I cleanse you.

26. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit will I put within you, and I will take away the heart of stone out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh.

27. And I will put My spirit within you and bring it about that you will walk in My statutes and you will keep My ordinances and do [them].

28. Then will you dwell in the land that I gave your fathers, and you will be a people to Me, and I will be to you as a God.

29. And I will save you from all your uncleannesses, and I will call to the corn and will multiply it, and I will not decree famine again over you.

30. And I will multiply the fruit of the tree and the produce of the field, so that you shall no more have to accept the shame of famine among the nations.

31. And you shall remember your evil ways and your deeds that were not good, and you will loathe yourselves in your own eyes on account of your sins and on account of your abominations. 32. Not for your sake do I do it, says the Lord God, may it be known to you; be ashamed and confounded for your ways, O house of Israel.

33. So says the Lord God: On the day that I will have cleansed you from all your iniquities, and I will resettle the cities, and the ruins shall be built up.

34. And the desolate land shall be worked, instead of its lying desolate in the sight of all that pass by. 35. And they shall say, ‘This land that was desolate has become like the Garden of Eden, and the cities that were destroyed and desolate and pulled down have become settled as fortified [cities].’ 36. And the nations that are left round about you shall know that I, the Lord, have built up the ruined places and have planted the desolate ones; I, the Lord, have spoken, and I will perform [it].

37. Thus says my Lord HASHEM/ ELOHIM: Furthermore I will make Myself accessible to the House of Israel to act for them. I shall increase them – the men – - like sheep. Like the sheep for Divine service, like the sheep of Jerusalem on her festivals, so shall the destroyed cities be filled by sheep-men – and they shall know that I am HASHEM”

This week’s maftir  ( Numbers  Chapter 19 ) introduces  the quintessential mystery  - about the Red Heifer –  which I heard Rabbi Nissan Dovid Dubov expound  one Thursday evening in the summer of 1999 – at the Chabad House in Wimbledon ( England)   –  and that exposition has still not been surpassed by any other expositions that this ignoramus ever heard or read before or after that  in either Torah, Tanakh or any other type of Literature…

Today in history  – the 6th of March (1957) also witnessed the birth of the Black Star Nation, Ghana.

Of that there is no doubt.

About Israel too,

There are myths and there are facts

May we all draw closer to Him…

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In the middle of it all ( at a time when he did not know )

Mayor Reepalu

not so long ago :

“if Jews from the city want to move to Israel that is not a matter for malmö “

Now exactly what is that  supposed to mean,

didn’t know?

Very finally, in listening to all sides the contents of this tape could contribute to a more nuanced understanding when entering into the dialogue in Malmö – and we do wish the dialogue to be successful….

”This audio by Vlad Tepes was taken recently during an address delivered by Khalid Abu Toameh in Ottawa concerning the situation in Gaza, and the PA administered areas of Judea and Samaria on 03.03.10.”

Quite an interesting guy this Khaled Abu Toameh

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