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Old Sizzla interviews – hear what the man say

Yesterday I did write the following :

This evening SIZZLA is billed to do his thing

in Stockholm

- and yes, Jamaica is a pretty homophobic place, which doesn’t mean to say that tourism to Jamaica should be banned. There’s a lot of the hullabaloo about his anti-gay stance – and the viciousness of his anti-gay stance is exaggerated and in the opinion of some people who are well acquainted with the Jamaican scene it’s understood that is just hot air and some macho-talk which is not to be taken literally. Rasta man does not go around executing people because they are gay – any more than Bob Dylan should be taken as literally giving this advice:

“Well, look it here buddy
You want to be like me
Pull out your six-shooter
And rob every bank you can see
Tell the judge I said it was all right
Yes! “

Hopefully, the music will be great – as usual and will not be diminished by any homophobic  message  or advice ( it’s not the centre-piece of his vision which is more of live and let live).  It’s almost certain that  he will not rant or rave – boisterously – about man-to-man & woman-to-woman love, here

As Mookie said

sizzla feat capleton- jah jah city

Sizzla – Be strong

It turns out that the concert was cancelled because of pressure from the powerful gay community and sympathisers who are against any discrimination based on sexual orientation. It sounds like a matter for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of gender relations, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Culture – and when we eventually are that developed, we will bring in the Ministry of Sound…..

The headlines blare ‘Gay-bashing’ reggae star’s gig put off again

The disappointed fans react: Bombaclat !

I haven’t consulted with my Jamaican brothers and sisters yet – there’s one of them in particular, I call him DD ( Doctor of Divinity) and every time he sees me or I pass by, he starts whining incessantly about homosexuality and homosexuals – no matter what time of day it is. Every time we meet, the first thing that he starts complaining about is that there are too many homosexuals in this town. He goes on and on. I finally got round to telling him to save his breath, that I am not one. Which probably doesn’t make him too happy either – because many years ago I had followed the Brethren to Uppsala for a gig and he had had to go back to get the equipment – speakers etc. When he got back to the flat a few hours later everybody was was gone and it was just me and his girl sitting on the floor in half lotus positions, sipping our cups of tea and exchanging pleasantries.

“What are you doing here?” he asked me.

His eyes were red, my pants were on ( they had never been off) so, to avoid any altercation – or even suspicion I just got up and left without trying to explain. I told you the guy’s eyes were red – and I had once seen him break a bottle of beer on some Arab guy’s head – so I left without a word. His woman. Some people are prepared to cut or kill or bruise for their woman. I’ve seen it happen times without number.

But DD is not my enlightener.  I have another Jamaican mentor, Noel. He has enlightened me about many matters, not least of all the political history of Jamaica since 1970. I must add one little thing. In my birth certificate my father is identified as being “ British West Indian.”

We have to understand these things:

1. Jamaica is not Sodom and Gomorrah.
2. Jamaica does not celebrate or glorify homosexuality.
3. In Jamaica you are not going to hear sermons glorifying homosexuality in churches, mosques or synagogues.
4. Homosexuals do not have to report themselves at the nearest police station

Frankly, it’s difficult to understand what all the fuss is about, when we consider that the righteous SIZZLA renounced homophobia some four years ago when he signed the Reggae Compassionate Act , which rejects homophobia and sexism. Not only that, in coming to do a gig in Sweden he and the promoters of his concert are well aware that Sweden does not tolerate any agitation against any of the diverse sexual practices prevalent over here – and not only that certain kinds of discrimination have been criminalized as reported here : anti-gay flyers are not covered by “free speech” and occasional visitors/ tourists are expected to comply with Swedish Law – just as it would be unthinkable that any bunch of students merely drunk or insane would go and hold a slave auction in any part of the Caribbean island of Jamaica, just for fun…..just because they think that they are Tarzan or Iron man – or even gay-man…..or stone-age man.

That being the case, the question is, on what basis has his concert been cancelled? Racism?

The sins of his past?

All said and done, the dominant mood of good reggae is: One Love and the lyric to One Love (Bob Marley) includes these Christian lines :
There is one question I’d really love to ask Is there a place for the hopeless sinner,Who has hurt all mankind just to save his own beliefs?

I think that because Sizzla has renounced having homophobic lyrics he should be allowed to play in Sweden – with the proviso of course that he abide by what he has agreed to and that he does not perform any song that would compromise his standing as a new man.

N.B. It’s not everybody that’s going to ” apologise”  to any bat or “battyman”

- and hopefully, that too is not a criminal offence ina Sweden.

Maybe the prophets would like to apologise ( for what?) but not all of us….

Redemption Song

Sizzla Kalonji denounces Swedish media reports

Sizzla – Interview Onstage tv {MAR 2012}

Last word on tolerance : SIZZLA in ISRAEL

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1. With regard to Iran ever getting their fingers on the nuclear bomb, for Israel the existential question “ to be or not to be “ is translated into more practical terms : To bomb or not to bomb ?

That too could be mere propaganda, since it’s difficult to imagine that Israel could be divided about the most effective means by which she can prevent being wiped out / holocausted by nuclear genocide.

Isn’t it more a matter of WHEN to bomb – if all else fails?

According to Nathan Shachar’s report in yesterday’s Dagens Nyheter the headlines read

Iran nuclear program

“Israeli soldiers are inside Iran”

He mentions the Sunday Times as a source: Israeli spies scour Iran in nuclear hunt

The news is all over the place : Israeli troops in Iran

This only goes to show that for a safer world, the dismantling or destruction of any nuclear sites deemed to be destined for non-peaceful purposes will not be achieved overnight or by Moses merely holding up his staff, but will have to be a process /operation that takes time, just like the peace process.

Even “punitive sanctions” would need time to bring the determined Mullahs to concede defeat and abandon those kind of ambitions, if indeed they are not telling the truth when they say that Iran’s nuclear programme is “for peaceful purposes only”

The difference between the peace process and the disarming of Iran is that the peace process and negotiations can go on forever (as Shamir once said, “ We are prepared to negotiate forever”) whereas the danger posed by Iran’s nuclear potential is a present danger that cannot be put on the back burner – and that danger is becoming more and more immediate, so Israel cannot wait until a time when all the anti-Semites rejoice that it’s too late. Common sense & the self-preservation / survival instinct dictates that the potential for nukes has to be eliminated before they eliminate the tiny state of Israel which is only twice as big as the Gambia, which is the smallest country in Africa…..

2. This was the news that left some thunderstruck today and yesterday, that Sweden secretly shipped plutonium to the US – so ran the headlines and my first thought before going below the headlines was, “ I hope that some of it doesn’t get to Iran !”

Now that was good news (getting rid of nuclear waste) considering that we would like to return to the Edenic age where we lost all innocence when we were expelled from the garden of paradise. In the coming years ,we would all like to restore ourselves to the garden – not only to the Swedish summer & countryside , through applied ecological consciousness, poetry and tikkun olam….

It is therefore good news that we are disposing of three kilograms of radioactive waste to a safe place in the United States and the most reassuring part of the news is that it’s “for final and safe disposal”, especially when when we consider the alternatives to that should it not be the final resting place – alternatives such as the heartless dumping and burying of nuclear waste for a small fee in all kinds of unlikely places, such as places in Africa where mindless & unscrupulous governments are reluctant to say no – and to hell with future generations being exposed to nuclear radiation – if the price for such burials is high enough they think that it’s all right..

Allen Ginsberg read his Ode to Plutonium ( Plutonian Ode) like a waterfall at Kulturhuset on January 23, 1983 and my son and I and the assembled audience & Peter Orlovsky & all listened, enraptured by the cadences of the waterfall and AG’s perfect rendition and later on his harmonium also acquainted us with the perils of the accursed plutonium which is the source of so much good electricity – and can be the source of much tragedy such as Hiroshima and Nagasaki…

Allen Ginsberg : Ode to Plutonium , Kulturhuset, Stockholm , January 1983 – there’s a CD recording available – I borrowed it from the Library a few years back and if I remember rightly it included his reading of BIRDBRAIN

This evening SIZZLA is billed to do his thing

in Stockholm

- and yes, Jamaica is a pretty homophobic place, which doesn’t mean to say that tourism to Jamaica should be banned. There’s a lot of the hullabaloo about his anti-gay stance – and the viciousness of his anti-gay stance is exaggerated and in the opinion of some people who are well acquainted with the Jamaican scene it’s understood that is just hot air and some macho-talk which is not to be taken literally. Rasta man does not go around executing people because they are gay – any more than Bob Dylan should be taken as literally giving this advice:

“Well, look it here buddy
You want to be like me
Pull out your six-shooter
And rob every bank you can see
Tell the judge I said it was all right
Yes! “

Hopefully, the music will be great – as usual and will not be diminished by any homophobic  message  or advice ( it’s not the centre-piece of his vision which is more of live and let live).  It’s almost certain that  he will not rant or rave – boisterously – about man-to-man & woman-to-woman love,  here

As Mookie said

sizzla feat capleton- jah jah city

Sizzla – Be strong

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The alleged Transtromeration – continued.

“little quip” indeed! Like little dique. You would like to politicize everything – and you know it.

No you were not dear Amatoritsero Ede,

in your “A ‘Tranströmeration’ of the Nobel”you were not

addressing “the politicization of the prize“. You assaulted,

assailed, downgraded, savaged and belittled one of our greatest poets

whilst at the same time maintaining your own bones on a higher pedestal

wagging your tail like the enthusiastic puppy and yapping as you yapped

later on in the thread in the service of self glorification:

“I am first and formost a poet. It took me at least 20 years before I could refer to myself as such. So serious do I take the craft. So if I say someone is not a poet, I am not being uncharitable. My first serious poetry publication was in an anthology called “Voices from the Fringe” and published in 1987 (Malthouse, Lagos and London). I have other work, two books, 8 anthologies and many journal appearances. You can go and read my poetry and see wether I do not practice what I preach………I should let you know that my views about poetry is supported by at least 30 years of solid praxis as a poet.”

Breaking News:  he (Amatoritsero Ede)

is a poet

whereas TT is not,

(according to the aforementioned Amatoritsero Ede)

Well, the songster bard Bob Dylan who is also short-listed for the Nobel Prize in poetry also boasts

“Yippee, I’m a poet and I know it, hope I don’t blow it”

One of the differences being that in 1964 when he delivered that song and crooned “ I’ve got a million friends! “ – compared to the number of friends he now has – only here in Sweden, that was a conservative estimation!

But, you don’t even have one hind leg to stand on to argue the alleged demerits of Tomas Tranströmer’s poetry, obviously you are only prepared to argue ad nauseum about the excellencies of your own so called poetry and – when called out right now- you want to escape not just luckily by the skin of your teeth but with your tail intact too and this just won’t do Amatoritsero Ede, even if it’s not good enough for you.

10 reasons to read Tomas Tranströmer

So, let me ask you as you want an escape from poetry: what is the political dimension to awarding Tomas Transtömer the Noble Prize for Literature? Swedish nationalism? From my own still limited reading of Transtromer he has emerged as an environmentalist – such is the extent to which nature plays an almost pantheistic part in his poetry – and nature religion being the dominant summer passion of the Swedish paradise ( in summer) it’s natural that Transtromer resonates so well not only with the Green party people – because that is the natural Swedish religion – if the modern Swede can be said to have religion at all – it is nature : ecological consciousness and responsibility to fellow man and all mankind. Sounds good to you?

Was that the determinant when Wole Soyinka was awarded the Nobel Prize?

Answer the question!

In the history of the Nobel Prize there’s the politicization of the peace prize (obviously) and to some extent the Economics prize too and in Literature because Human Rights is also of the essence – Solzhenitsyn comes to mind and I imagine that if there were a serious critic among Iran’s contemporary poets and men of letters ( the late Ahmad Shamlou is the last one I can think of) – then with a convergence of world concern about e.g. the stoning to death of allegedly adulterous women, such a candidate could be relevant – provided he had outstanding literary merit and I imagine that in announcing the motivation for awarding such a prize the Secretary of the Swedish Academy would say, almost words identical to the Tranströmer award : “because, through his condensed, translucent writing, he gives us fresh access to the human world of Iranian reality.”

One last little thing : Satre who you call “ that doyen of twentieth century French intellectual life” – and he did keep some good company and apart from  the scandal about  his refusing the prize, there have been other scandals too …

One is curiously reminded of Benjamin Zephaniah refusing an  OBE

Last question for AE : Would you accept an  OBE – for e.g. your poetry?

( And now I know that it’s time for you to take more coals to Newcastle – or better still for a good Yoruba man, to Enugu, and I know that you are about to invoke  some post-colonial theory or tell me all about Edward Said – and I warn you AE, I read “ Edward Said : Continuing the Conversation” in 2006…..

P.S 1. There’s been a lot of critique – and the celebration of what you call prose poetry or poetic prose – long before you, and so it will continue.

P:S. 2 There’s a certain cadence that’s intrinsic to  Swedish and  Swedish poetry, which gets lost in translation. I can give you a few examples…..

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For me there’s TS ( Eliot) and there’s also TT ( Tranströmer).

For a serious discussion we could take a closer look at the text – whether it’s the Qur’an in Arabic or the much vaunted quality of Puskin’s prose in the Russian language.

Or the larger question, what is poetry – which according to Wordsworth is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings arising from “emotions recollected in tranquillity” .

But this is about Tomas Tranströmer or rather, Tomas Tranströmer’s poetry:

The Great Enigma: New Collected Poems

The Deleted World: Poems

http://www9.zippyshare.com/view.jsp?locale=tr&key=2077299

20 poems

Flabbergasted – that’s the word that most accurately expresses my reaction to the unfounded arrogance and presumptuousness of the article presumably written by someone, allegedly in his capacity of being a poet of sorts (there are poets and there are poets) – on which grounds he feels qualified to pass the final & derogatory judgement on a by far superior poet in terms of  range, quality and quantity

And one is aware of someone else’s right ( including mine) to – in the name of freedom of speech – pass judgement – as TS said, “ criticism is as inevitable as breathing.”

So I’m feeling some ilska …about all the tittle-tattle about “ prose poetry” etc…

This is a light response to an unfortunate review, feeble, not so sound, not so well informed or knowledgeable and signifying not so much, by one who knows no better. That so called review/editorial was nothing but an exercise in futility – nothing I know or have heard about Tomas Tranströmer so far, could be more misleading.

“You say I am repeating
Something I have said before. I shall say it again.”(T.S. Eliot: Four Quartets )

So, I exclaim Tomas Tranströmer! And I shall repeat the question and without looking up or down with disdain: Are we talking about the same TOMAS TRANSTRÖMER ?

For years, everybody, literally everybody has had their favourite or couple of favourite poets, novelists, playwrights by-passed even by Ladbrokes, for some other/s who has/have bagged the annual Noble Prize awarded for Literature. And quite literally, this “everybody” sometimes includes whole nations and not exactly only in the sense in which Derek Walcott uses the concept of nation in this little piece of self-definition:

“I’m just a red nigger who love the sea
I had a sound colonial education
I have Dutch, nigger and English in me
and either I’m nobody, or I’m a nation.”

(The Schooner Boy)

So, the United States has been waiting hopefully for Philip Roth among others – or even a more unexpected surprise which that nation would equally welcome to win the prize, just as France and those belonging to other language groups such as Germany, Spain, Saudi Arabia, Kenya, the United Kingdom, Canada , India, Australia, Iran, Israel, Portugal and other nations also pray that they will be blessed by the Nobel selection committee in October this year. Unfortunately, the Swedish Academy which decides is not in a position to bless everybody, certainly not at the same time and as Mr. Soyinka told me in 1979, when I broached the subject of the Nobel Prize in Literature, he told me, “I also have my favourite” – at which time I thought maybe he was sincerely and not just poetically referring to himself….

The announcement of the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature has always been greeted with joy in some quarters – sometimes ( not always) there’s an almost universal approval – and when there’s no such universal approval, since the Swedish Academy cannot please everybody – some hopefuls will have to wait till next year, or the year after before immortal internment.

Sweden is really a country of writers, poets, poetry lovers, novelists, playwrights, theatre, – a country which has a high literacy rate and a country nowadays, in which almost every other male or female is an author – or a secret poet. There is no dearth of poets in Sweden or in Swedish which is also a melodic tongue. My first acquaintance with Swedish poetry was in early 1970 in Ghana – when a friend of my Better Half ( actually later on was Derek Walcott’s literary agent in Sweden – and yes did attend the Noble banquet when he won the prize – was also V.S. Naipaul’s literary agent) anyway, she sent me a slim volume of Swedish poetry translated into English now out of print “Seven Swedish Poets” which introduced, Gunnar Ekelof, Hjalmar Gullberg, Par Lagerkvist, Erik Lindegren, Bertil Malmberg, Harry Martinson, and Edith Sodegran – and that’s how I learned my first important Swedish word ångest (anguish) and met my first Swedish poet Per-Eric Söder in the early 70s in Stockholm…..lost track of him…..

So back to all the tittle-tattle on this track and some of the more interesting comments by David Shook, Dami Ajayi, Yemi Soneye and Tade Ipadeola, in response to  AE’s tittle-tattle…

“According to the awards committee, Tranströmer won “because, through his condensed, translucent images, he gives us fresh access to reality.” From my own readings of the poet’s work, I understand ‘translucent’ to be a euphemism for either ‘prosaic’ or ‘light verse.’“

Transluscent – apt description…. TT is a psychologist by profession just as Baruch Spinoza earned his living grinding and polishing lenses…..

First of all, year after year, the past ten years  it has been expected over here  among Swedish poetry fans that Tomas Tranströmer win the Nobel Prize  – he’s that established and popular here  as a Swedish poet and you must know that we in Sweden are are not parochial, we are avid readers of world literature  in many foreign languages and also in translation.

“My instinct was to buy a copy of the collected works. But I demurred. Would I be giving a nod of encouragement to the wise but befuddled Swedish heads in Stockholm?”

Befuddled? How? Some people – poets- are sometimes word-drunk so to speak, but the Swedish academy cannot be described as “ befuddled” – although the story is that when Gunnar Ekelöf was a member of the Swedish Academy he turned up for a meeting only once – and was drunk on that occasion……

“I flipped through the work. Apart from some flashes of brilliance, I did not think this effort was worth the prize it has been burdened with.”

“Flipped through” ( that’s real seriousness ). So how do you judge a poet that you have not read ?

So much blah blah. AE’s bird’s eye view/ myopia or far-sightedness can only be cured if he deigns to read and then judge…

“did not think this effort was worth the prize it has been burdened with.”

What is the basis of this disdain? The Swedish Academy would give a non-poet the Noble Prize for poetry ?

“Perhaps there is a need to give a more detailed example of the poet’s work. Two should suffice.”

“Perhaps”indeed ! A more detailed example?

The conclusion ?

“The above is adequate as poetry but I would not describe it as a great verse but poetic prose arranged in verse.”

And then this poet whose poetry is still a stranger is lauded : ” It must be admitted that Tranströmer’s work has an imagistic charm, a brevity and elegance all its own”

Now what’s going on here?

(Sitting here, I can’t help thinking of this other vantage point: September 1, 1939 )

Isn’t this a premature judgement : “Nevertheless, for me as a reader, there is something missing in diction, scansion, and overall poetic depth and resonance to merit a Nobel Prize”

Really?

“unless translators have not done ‘poetic justice’ to the Swedish originals.”

Then we had better take a closer look at the translations of Robin Fulton – and other translations just as I compared translations of Gunnar Ekelöf’s poetry that I am familiar with in Swedish – and found to my satisfaction that I preferred the W. H. Audens & L. Sjoberg translations to those of Robert Bly and others…..

And having mentioned Bly – whose poetry and translations I’m much more familiar with than with Tranströmer’s – a good introduction to Tranströmer could be through his correspondence with Robert Bly : “Air Mail: The Correspondence of Robert Bly and Tomas Transtromer”

I wonder how you feel and react to this primitive/ evil sentence : “ Commentary, usually of the positive sort, about this particular award invariably intones sympathetic murmurs about the travails of a poet struck speechless by stroke. There is a disconcerting sense that the Nobel Committee is compensating the poet more for his personal circumstances than for overall poetic excellence.”

It should come as no surprise to the author of the senseless lines above that the only fitting reply is that of Adekunle the village schoolteacher in Wole Soyinka’s “The Lion and the Jewel” when Adekunle/ Lakunle asks,

“For that, what is a jewel to pigs?

If now I am misunderstood by you and your race of savages,

I rise above taunts and remain unruffled “

The “critic” continues, “ The pointer to this is the committee’s own infringement of a standard overriding criterion for the award – a large body of work. The Nobel is given to a living writer for a life’s work, that is, an expansive body of work. Tranströmer’s oeuvre is a relatively slim volume compared to previous winners, even if we were to ignore matters of aesthetic quality and consider that questions about value can, after all, be as subjective as the poet’s own reclusive and socially-distanced muse.”

Tranströmer’s oeuvre is a relatively slim volume compared to previous winners?

Should the response to that be, “ Let the fool speak and the wise give no answer”?

And then to add insult to injury he cackles, “The fact of Tranströmer’ Swedishisness adds to the dissenting camp’s bemusement with the 2011 prize. How convenient, they clamour: the Nobel Committee in Stockholm abandons its own chief criterion and favours a native son.”

Well, there’s the whole world and there’s also Sweden, which is part of the literary world.

When in 1974 the Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to Eyvind Johnson and Harry Martinson, it was neither nepotism nor corruption but there was surely an element of national pride in these two Swedes receiving this high literary honour.

Ama anxiously awaiting the follow up to this

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Throwing some more light on our man at the UN, Jan Eliasson who I found myself thinking of as I watched Brother Obama on TV, standing tall in South Korea and peering through military binoculars, apparently looking for any signs of heavy military movements in the North….

I suppose that if CNN would show President Obama looking through some powerful binoculars in the direction of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the hawks would be happy and the Iranians could think it’s an act of provocation and wonder what it is that he’s looking for.

It’s a dangerous (less safe) world – for instance right now the Empire of Mali is no more – and not only that the Tuaregs in the North would like to further truncate it. Dangerous/ more dangerous world.

However, it’s people like Mr. Eliasson that would like to make it a better and a safer place. Some more light on the man:

Transcript : London, United Kingdom, 17 March 2012 : Interview on BBC’s show “Rendezvous” by Zeinab Badawi with George A. Papandreou, Mary Robinson,Jan Eliasson.

Dangerous world.

Searched through the three pages of anti-Semitism that turn up in Memri TV (including this advert that could never be permitted here in Sweden but is apparently legal and OK/Kosher in Turkey :

#3380 – Turkish TV Commercial Uses Hitler to Advertise Shampoo

Now, if that doesn’t take the biscuit then try this for size:

Here’s Iran’s President Ahmadinejad attacking “Zionism” and denying the Holocaust

It’s what fuels hate ( mass hatred) and leads on to war. That being the case, one of the tasks of the UN could be to disarm dangerous ideologies – such ideologies are inadvertently being supported by organs like UNESCO – and if they (UNESCO) do not monitor anti-Semitic indoctrination as part of anyone’s educational system, wherever it is within their power to do so, then they are failing in their humanitarian duties.

In order to dismantle a pernicious ideology it is sometimes necessary to engage and counter it, truth versus falsehood….

As to Holocaust denial Göran Persson for example will forever be remembered for Tell ye your children…

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Terrorism hits Toulouse .

Anti-Semitic terror.

Always a religious dimension to death and dying : Massacre in Toulouse – A Call From the Heart by Mrs. Eva Sandler

All kinds of bitter reactions

Basic racist terror in Florida too…

And in Nigeria Boko Haram is still going strong, continuing their mayhem

911 was New York, followed by Madrid in 2004 and London (7/7/2005) and, not that we were standing in line, being so far from the theatre of war and terror in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and the Gaza strip, you would not normally expect it, but three years and five months later it was Stockholm’s turn followed by the unexpected of unexpecteds : the home-grown variety when the neo-nazi apostle of death Breivik went on his shooting rampage which sent shock waves through Oslo, through sister city Stockholmo and down to Copenhagen…..

If Breivik had been a Muslim?

Ever thought of that?

Or if the man who shot Yitzhak Rabin had been a Palestinian?

Or if the one who slaughtered Anna Lindh had worn a turban – or been seen running into a mosque?

And Olof Palme’s killer?

As a result of what’s now known as the Stockholm Terrorist attack of December 2010 Stockholm was rattled for more than a week all because a lone suicide bomber blew himself up and fortunately, took no one else with him to his earthly grave, for Christmas. Terror had come to our door leaving in its wake, traumatized Christmas shoppers…

The kind of thing that Israelis were and have been living with on a daily basis – David Grossman told us a few years ago (2006) at the International Writers Scene at Kulturhuset, that at the height of the 2^nd Intifada in the Jerusalem neighbourhood in which he lived, families would split their children and send them to school in different buses – so that perchance should one of those lone Palestinian suicide bombers strike, at least all the children are not wiped out in an instant, because they were in the same bus. Frightful times when you saw a lean-looking youth wearing an overcoat a couple of sizes too big for him, the sleeves down to his fingertips or with what looks like a backpack on his back you see him getting onto the bus and instantaneously your sixth angelic sense (of post-Holocaust survival) tells you “ Mr. Death & the 72 virgins has just entered the bus – time to dive out “ – and as you’re sitting by the exit door you dive out – no other way to run for cover before he says “ Salaam alaikum” and detonates his unholy package…payload….by which means he intends to arrive in heaven.

Then in 2008 there was Mumbai.

The acts of terror in Toulouse have returned terror and the consciousness of terror, to Europe

The fallout has been diverse ( coming from many quarters) and intense .

This individual act by a loner with personal motives is termed a barbaric act of Islamist terrorism

continued:

Now doesn’t this make you sick? : Some would call it state-sponsored anti-Semitism:

Tehran forces Iranian Jews to join anti-Israel

Meanwhile back in the Deep South,

His Eminence Herr Ilmar Reepalu the embattled Lord Mayor of Malmö

is once again in the news

for publicly airing his anti-Semitic views.

It’s of great concern – or should be of great concern to the authorities that it doesn’t happen here too, where it is statistically most prone to happen, in Sweden’s new citadel of anti-Semitism, in Malmö citadel of gangster shoot-outs, rape and other wicked crime, Malmö, a fertile breeding ground and hotbed of anti-Semitism and therefore one of their special problems goes under the category, Malmö and Jews – or better still

Reepalu, the Muslims and the Jews in Malmö

Not just what can/ must be done to lessen the likelihood of Toulouse repeating itself in Malmö, but also what further measures can be taken to create a better atmosphere – of tolerance and respect for life and law, in Malmö where differences and hate predominate and what may be happening in far away lands, war zones where there is less of what’s known as law and order, is still present here,

and the root of conflict and violence sometimes continues with the same people grinding their axes and fighting their same wars over here….murder…

The lot of the refugee is not the easiest.

Last month, here in Stockholm, hundreds of sympathisers attended the funeral of Omo Mboge a Gambian immigrant who was shot dead in Malmö a few days before Christmas, last year…

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Sure, we love all people but the sad truth is that some people don’t love us.

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“That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain…”

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RE – Bildt wary of ‘blow up’ in Iranian nuke talks – The Local

This does not sound like OUR Foreign Minister It sounds more like Urban Ahlin putting some negative top spin on Mr. Bildt’s expectations…

Here’s some  reliable information

All that Iran needs is more time. The negotiations are not going to blow up in a hurry – even though Iran does not want to comply with very reasonable demands – in the name of a transparency that would put everyone at ease. So, to buy time Iran would like to dribble “negotiators” for another mile or two – especially since they half believe that Brother Obama is not likely to bomb before 4^th November 2012.

At the moment, this is the incontrovertible and unenviable title :Iran is the Leading State Sponsor of International Terrorism

Iran is not Iraq nor should we conflate issues here. No one is saying that Iran is concealing weapons of mass destruction. We’re talking about their mass deception about their on-going nuclear programmes.

If “the world is a safer place”/ ” less safe” Carl Bildt the statesman has been listening to too much of the pussy-footing Hans Blix or Rolf Ekeus, it’s understandable that he would like to give the Islamic Republic of  Iran more time to do all that’s necessary to produce their first revolutionary Islamic nuclear bomb – like a starter candle – the rest (bombs number 2, 3 & 4 would follow shortly thereafter and then we would all read a joyful report in Tehran Times entitled “YES WE CAN!” telling us that the Supreme Leader Ali Khameini & his Ayatollahs along with ” the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy !”

What’s the world going to say then? All that Iran is then going to say – if they ever admit to having nuclear weapons,  is,  “Since others have and are allowed to have nuclear weapons, then why can’t we?”

The problem is, it doesn’t matter whether Iran says their programme is for peaceful purposes only – what else could they be saying – that helter-skelter, they are hell-bent on being a radical & revolutionary Islamic nuclear power who want to be the big boss and send shivers down the spine of every enemy country in the Middle East?

And if their ultimate intentions are only peaceful then why are they frantically enriching uranium far above the levels necessary for mere peaceful purposes and in a spirit of transparency, why do they not allow unfettered access to their many sites, to confirm the peacefulness of what they are doing?

Mr. Bildt of course belongs to that international school of thought which believes in

How to Make Iran Change Its Mind by peaceful means only

The other school of thought may after all only come into play after peaceful means are exhausted, but not before?

Where does the buck stop?

Temporary (short term – not forever) oil & gas considerations – considering that Iran has promised Kuwait that they will not close the Strait of Hormuz – not much choice about that either, as it would be suicidal to the Iranian economy and furthermore should they attempt to close Hormuz in order to punish their “great and little Satan” -( so say the military experts) they would only be punishing themselves only, because the entirety of the Iranian Navy will find itself at the bottom of the Persian Gulf within the first week of allied bombing…..

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The twenty-first century could well turn out to be what future historians will call “the century of peace” but we’re not quite there yet.

Brother Obama

was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace – ostensibly for lessening inter-ballistic tensions in Europe and perhaps also as a carrot that could encourage, motivate and even inspire him to live up to his peace rhetoric about ending the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and some other places where Uncle Sam has contemplated sending in the marines.

Over here, our Carl Bildt did say after the slaying of Osama Bin Ladin, that the world is now a safer place.That too is not necessarily true. Perhaps Osama could have lived and died in peace and died in oblivion and even been buried quietly in the backyard of his hideout in Pakistan – instead of in an unmarked grave, out at sea, in the middle of nowhere. The immediate aftermath of Bin Ladin being terminated, was some more bloodshed, mostly in Pakistan.

Foreign Minister Carl Bildt welcomed reports that Gaddafi had been captured – but to what extent has that made the world a safer place? Gaddafi’s earthly pilgrimage was followed by some more blood-letting in Libya and of late we have not heard much about his son Saif al-Islam – and it appears that Libya is about to become two countries, East Libya and West Libya…

The slaying of bin Ladin was followed by Wikileaks threatening to go public with hundreds of thousands of US diplomatic cables which according to Mr. Bildt could cause the world to be “less safe”. That too was to be taken with a pinch of salt – since Mr. Bildt did not mean that by making these cables public, Wikileaks would necessarily be precipitating the eruption of a third world war – or even lesser acts of violence. To date the only personal flak that our foreign minister has taken from these leaks, is that the US ambassador used a mild & perhaps affectionate though not very flattering epithet to describe him, but sufficiently non- violent nonetheless, as “a medium sized poodle” which from the Satyagraha or Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King non-violent point of view is better than being compared to a vicious rottweiler or what Ronald Reagan once called the late Colonel Gaddafi, “ a mad dog”

To his credit, Mr. Bildt has been shouting as loudly as anyone that Assad should step down. – but so far, to no avail, as Assad does not appear to be taking any orders from Stockholm,Washington, the Kremlin, Tehran or Beijing, although at this stage Assad will definitely be inclining his ear to his military advisers in Russia and his economic backers in Iran, and of course the third member of Assad’s troika, China which can be said to have more military and economic clout than Assad’s brothers in the Arab League, to whose requests he is still stone deaf.

This morning, I read Johan Norberg’s Metro article with the eye-catching headline “Vi har aldrig varit fredligare“/We have never been more peaceful” before reading which you wonder whether by “us” he means “we in Sweden” in which case “ We have never been more peaceful” makes a lot of sense – or you wonder whether by “us” he means mankind and the world generally – and after reading his article – which begins mildly enough with a reference to Steven Pinker and his The better angels of our nature you are left wondering whether we are living on the same planet as Johan Norberg and if so, whether he is living in the same world as us – and us includes Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Northern Nigeria, Gaza and Southern Israel.

Right now the latest news coming in is Obama: Window for Diplomatic Solution to Iran Nuclear Standoff Is “Shrinking”

Somehow, in spite of the Korea War, Vietnam, the Biafra War, the Iran-Iraq war, the brutal civil war in Sierra Leone and Liberia, – to name just a few wars that have occurred in the last century, those known as the war poets mostly belong to the century of the first and second world war and after that the horrors of war have been mostly expressed through the cinematic media than through any other and has mostly been brought home to us via TV.

These are some of the on-going military conflicts in today’s world – and today the warring parties have better access to more sophisticated weaponry…

Think – the sexual violence and mass rape in Eastern Congo

Today alone I’ve read through these upsetting news items:

This one is simply outrageous

Southern Israel under Siege

This is certainly not the most alarmist of websites and its warning that OPTIMISM IS DANGEROUS, should not be taken with a pinch of salt.

Nigeria attacks: ‘Boko Haram bombed my church’

‎Johan Norberg concludes with a paragraph that says that terrible atrocities are still being committed in this world and that the difference is that today these kinds of atrocities are being condemned in unison – that “ we” refrain from torturing or killing “them” and even accord “them” human rights – and that Steven Pinker teaches us that this is something entirely new in human history….

So is the United Nations…. something new….

Magen David Adom is also new and so are  Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International

This list of countries and their military expenditures cannot be disconnected from the general picture of these not so peaceful times

arms exports

arms trade

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Never a dull moment:

United With Israel

Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs

Daily Alert########

J T A

News and Information

Israelinsider

FrontPage Magazine

Atlas Shrugs

Swedish news

CAMERA : Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting

MEMRI

FLAME Hotline Back Issues – Facts & Logic About the Middle East

World Newspapers

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I write this in a sombre mood, having just read Per Ahlmark’s unexpected savaging of  his Brother, Carl Bildt.

Well, that’s politics for you. From time to time politics tethers on the absurd and is mired in the abominable. For inspiration one has to watch the BBC series on Mahatma Gandhi or check out Jabotinsky and in fact, of late, each time I visit Israpundit I feel that we are inching towards a solution which Israpundit spells out in bold red letters, plenty of land, Iran is Iran no matter what greybeard says and

JORDAN IS PALESTINE

( but that’s another story) here’s this one:

The headlines proclaim the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Iran’s Supreme Leader & Commander-in-Chief Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has offered rare praise to the Great Shaitan/ Satan, the Great United States of America. Sounds like an act of blasphemy doesn’t it ?

My first reaction has been, praise ? What about? And secondly, how does Israel feel about this? Jealous? Is Iran’s Supreme Leader also about to offer thanks and praises to Benjamin Netanyahu the leader of “little Shaitan” Israel? Is it just another false start – one more act of deception or has Imam Mahdi ( alaihi salaam) yet to declare his presence, already returned from occultation and are we about to witness the beginning of a thousand years of peace which will render terrorist affiliates like Hezbollah to soon be out of business, destroy their stockpiles of evil weapons and ammunitions, take a holiday away from terror, away from satanic thoughts of terror & terrorism?

But before that peace, there has to be war, and each war brings the time of the Messiah closer – that is my understanding.

The last good wish that Sheik Hassan expressed to me was that he was fervently praying that I would be in Imam Mahdi (alaihi salaam’s) army…

One good thing I’ve learned is, “Thou shalt not praise the enemy!” – and I learned the lesson the hard way, many years ago : A small party of us mostly African Americans and Caribbeans had been having a pleasant get-together at Reisen, in Stockholm, the piano bar was cooking,  the rum was  flowing  along  and Captain Morgan was  also flowing, and about midnight quite inebriated (all of us)  one of our party by the name of Touchy invited me over to Upplands Väsby to show me the new villa that he had just bought. We went by taxi. I doubt very much that the state he was in he could have even sat upright on a donkey. Once we got there , the master of the new manor showed me the bed rooms, the music room, the kitchen and whilst we were talking I happened to say something which got him to react “Has Mr. X been teaching you all this racist shit?”and I told him “ Mr. X ( can’t say his real name out of respect eh) I asked Touchy indignantly, ” What are you talking about ? Mr. X (an African-American Brother we had been drinking with, happily) has not been teaching me any racist shit – in fact, he’s been doing the opposite of that – he’s got me listening to Charlie Parker (Bird) , Mongolian music, Pygmy vocal music UNESCI ethnographic collection, just last week he turned me on to Carl Orff ( that tedious Carmina Burana – it’s enough to have heard it once) -  but  he’s a great brother etc. etc.”

Touchy then went into “the master bedroom” and I heard him talking on the telephone, the next thing I heard him shouting to me was the message/ information, “The taxi is on its way!”

The taxi?

“Yes, the taxi! You think that I invited you to my house to come and praise my enemy?”

Your enemy?

?

The taxi arrived and he escorted me out of his pride, his recently acquired villa. I got into the cab and he asked the driver how much it would cost to drive me home to Upplandsgatan in Vasastan. It cost a few hundred kronor and he paid the taxi driver the full amount and added a generous tip. I said goodbye, sorrowfully and ruminated on what had happened, all the way back home, the lesson learned: Thou shalt not praise thy brother’s enemy. At worst be neutral if you do not feel inclined to joining him in any vilification or cursing…

And here’s some good news for the racists – if only they could volunteer to go for treatment.

Sorry about that short diversion, so you can imagine how it is between Bibi Netanyahu and Ali Khameini ! Enemies!  Tactically,  Ali K will try to isolate Barack Obama from Bibi , even this election year, but it won’t work since the Israel – USA connection is more solid than a rock. AS Madeline Albright said, “rocksolid”

Wonders never cease, say some

and there’s nothing new under the sun

said Solomon,

the wisest man that was ever burned by the sun…

It’s a theological dilemma and here one is thinking about Job who refused to curse the Almighty for all his misfortunes and even about some of John Milton’s poetry.

Not least of all it could even be a dilemma for the other ( lesser ayatollahs and Grand Ayatollahs) how to interpret the news that the current Supreme Leader of the Iranian theocracy (second to no other in the land and subordinate only to Allah) the Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has offered praise to the Great Shaitan, the United States of America

Some of the Supreme leader’s great critics could already be conspiring to impeach the Supreme Leader for counter- revolutionary activities ( as in sometime China) as they must believe that this praise could be causing some distress to the great leader of the Iranian Revolution Imam Khomeini ( r.a.) causing him to be squirming in his his grave to be hearing such rare praise of the murtad Barack Hussein Obama and the Great Shaitan, considering that one of the chief tenets of al-Islam is “ All praise is due to Allah , and Allah alone!” – a holy principle which is not up for compromise or negotiation.

But it’s a good sign, for the grand Aytollahs if not busy studying, writing or updating their scholarly tomes in the academies in Qom are also alive and kicking in the world of Realpolitik. To demystify the role that may be misinterpreted or made exotic because of the black or the white turban, the ordinary ayatollahs wear white turbans, and black is beautiful so those who are descendants of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad wear black turbans. The Ayatollah is a religious learned man say a post doctoral fellow of the Shia academy ( like a cardinal, Bishop – so by comparison Ali Khameini is the pope and not the Archbishop of Canterbury as far as the structure of Iranian authority goes), and his role is also political according to vilayat-i-faqih -and not merely that of  interpreting and perpetuating the scriptures and making them relevant for these times – through what’s called ijitihad – and here Shia Islam is more advanced than Sunni Islam, since the gates of ijtihad were closed in Sunni Islam, a few centuries ago. This means that Shia Islam is and can be more flexible – about the branches but not the roots (Usool) the foundations.

My friend Askh Dahlen has written a definitive work on this :Islamic law, epistemology and modernity: legal philosophy in contemporary Iran

Strictly speaking the Supreme leader himself is not above the law (Sharia) but his compassionate heart can be forced to make some concessions if he’s thinking about the avoidable suffering, death and decimation of even his own people, in the name of pikuach nefesh — or it could be just one more delaying tactic from his big bag of tricks, political expediency – to give Iran more time to complete enriching uranium for their nuclear bombs – all consistent with kitman & taqiyya – pious deception – ( praise him/ them with your lips, but you know exactly what’s burning in your heart – the unquenchable fires of everlasting hatred for the enemy).

Let’s wait and see what happens next. Perhaps,  like his pals in Hamas he will consider declaring a HUDNA – a suspension of hostilities till they are stronger and more capable of fighting the enemy. Perhaps in addition to suspending heated revolutionary rhetoric, the old tiger will also suspend uranium enrichment and all nuclear activity by holy decree. It’s up to him and what he says goes…

Very much missing is any media prescence or commentary by people like  Jan Hjärpe who was quite active during the Iraq- Iran war years.  His input along with the media presence of another friend ( since long ago)  Mohammad FazlHashemi, that of Abdolkarim Soroush or  Fouad Ajami and not to forget the doyen of Iranian studies Seyyed Hossein Nasr would be very much appreciated these very critical times…

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Sure, we love all people but the sad truth is that some people don’t love us.

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A Shia Muslim who has no taqiyya and kitman, when it is expedient to practice taqiyya and kitman has no religion at all.

Jimmy Carter’s old friend Imam Khomeini ( r.a.) did not conceal his disapproval or mince his words when he said, “America is worse than Britain, Britain is worse than America and the Soviet Union is worse than both of them. Each one is worse than the other, each one is more abominable than the other”

Times have changed but some of the old animosities and hatreds remain the same, have even got a lot worse.

According to taqiyya and kitman’s Republic of Iran’s official demonology, we are to suppose that for “the Great Shaitan “ (the USA) and “the little Shaitan” (Israel) too,  “the first casualty of war is truth” – that they too are not going to tell the exact hour and minute when the heavy bombardment of Iranian nuclear sites will commence ( when all else has failed to make them come clean) that they too refuse to give the enemy any respite from the daily tension and stress of uncertainty. (There was a time when it was rumoured that when Saddam Hussein was on the run in his own country and went into hiding, he did not sleep in the same place for two consecutive nights – not that there’s anybody in Iran of the demonic stature of Saddam and his ilk…

So it makes sense on all / both sides. Although Iran’s taqiyya would be even more covert if instead of insisting that their frantic enrichment of uranium to weapons grade levels “ is for peaceful purposes only” they said just like Da Mayor in Do the Right Thing : “...those that’ll tell don’t know, and those that know won’t tell “ – that would make the truth even more freaking tantalising to both enemy and friend – and among Iranians both inside and outside of Iran there are those who religiously believe the bluff that the Islamic Republic passed the nuclear threshold a long time ago. I believe that the Mullahs are playing for time,dribbling the IAEA, the UN, the USA , the EU, the UK and hoping to beat the deadline by arriving at full nuclear capability and like President Barack Obama, being able to say “yes we can” except that in their case they will be amplifying it from the mosque amplifiers, “ Yes we can! Allahu Akbar” ( “God is Great”) and “la haula wala quwata illa billa hil ali-yil azeem !” ( there is no power or might except Allah the Most High, the Magnificent)….

No matter at what level we take the Iranian threat to “ wipe Israel off the map”, the bottom line is that NEVER AGAIN means that there should not be another Holocaust – considering that the unsympathetic and cold-blooded Iranian leadership denies that there was ever what we all know as THE HOLOCAUST

The threat or possibility of Iran – in NINE MINUTES -  (God forbid) – wiping out Israel and thus completing what Hitler did not complete is too terrible to contemplate and therefore every precautionary measure has to be taken to ensure that it is not even theoretically possible for Iran to carry out such a threat….

The pundits and common sense concern dictates that it’s time for Israel to act – and I should like to add one more consideration to the arguments laid out by Lawrence Solomon – and this is one of several items from Nathan Shachar’s report in the print edition of today’s Dagens Nyheter, that “Hamas regeringen i Gaza har brutit med Iran och deklarerat att man inte tänker attackera Israel om och när Israel attackera Iran. Detta är ett svårt avbräck för Iran vars viktigaste avskräcking mot Israel varit Hamas och libanesiska Hizbollahs raketarsenaler” (The Hamas government in Gaza has broken with Iran and declared that it would not attack Israel if and when Israel attacks Iran. This is a difficult setback for Iran whose main deterrence against Israel has been Hamas and Lebanese Hezbollah’s arsernal of rockets.) Shachar also mentions the terrorist Hamas’ reluctance to antagonise their godfathers, the Muslim Brotherhood who will soon be in control of Egypt – ” that Hamas would not like an Iran-controlled movement from Gaza to challenge Egypt in the Sinai and thus make bad blood between Gaza and Cairo’s new leaders”.

On a first reading of Shachar’s news report, I thought,  “Is there any guarantee that HAMAS will not join their brothers and sisters in Hezbollah, should Iran be foolish enough to declare an all out war by launching any sort of attack on Israel & the United States of America? Surely, the wrath of Allah will not protect them, not even in Qom ?”

Freeman Centre for Strategic Studies

As one war strategist put it, within the first week of allied bombing (Satanic cruise missiles from some wicked submarines)  the whole of the Iranian navy would find itself at the bottom of the Persian Gulf…

There are too many people that I love in  Mashad, Tehran, Shiraz, Qom, Ishfahan, Gunabad and all over Iran , that I wish no harm and would not like to see come to any harm…

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