Dialogue with the Islamic World

Interview with art historian W. J. T. Mitchell
#Images as weapons of war
▻http://en.qantara.de/content/interview-with-art-historian-w-j-t-mitchell-images-as-weapons-of-war

You said that the most important weapon that was turned against the American Pro-War narrative was actually material produced by agents of the state. On the other hand, photographers from the US and the West were embedded with the US Army from the beginning of the operation and brought back the pictures that were planned by the image operation. Is this not a huge journalistic failure?

Mitchell: I agree. Even though not all journalists failed, I think the overall coverage of the Iraq War as such was a big failure. The antecedent of that occurred during the first Gulf War. The coverage was all framed in the discourse of the defence department and it was an effort to portray the war as a very surgical strike, employing by the way medical and military image operations.

Only Peter Arnett, who was a journalist in Bagdad at that time evaded being embedded inside the military discourse. When a building was bombed in Bagdad, he reported from the site. There were bodies lying on the ground; it was a marvellous example of a journalist doing his job, trying to tell the truth and to report from the battlefield. But when it was run on American television, they ran subtitles under it saying “This video has been cleared by Iraqi censors”. The message was that we shouldn’t believe what we were seeing.

“Egypt’s Media Are Propaganda Machines”
▻http://en.qantara.de/content/interview-with-hani-shukrallah-egypts-media-are-propaganda-machines

Hani Shukrallah: I have not slept properly for a month. I am standing in front of my life’s work and thinking that it was all in vain. Since the overthrow of Morsi, there has been no respectable media outlet in this country. It’s all pure propaganda. It’s a disaster.

@groupe_orient
A suivre de près : le procès de l’activiste des « Revolutionnary socialists » Haytan Mohamadein, à qui on reprocherait ses activités. Les charges semblent hallucinantes. Vives réactions dans ma TL, notamment de la part de sa camarade de lutte @Gsquare86.

Lu aujourd’hui : "L’Egypte inclut les activistes dans sa « lutte contre le terrorisme ». Il n’en ont pas fini avec les Frères mais s’attaquent déjà aux autres terroristes". (@JacoStoop
Egypt is including activists in its « war on terror ». They haven’t finished the MB part yet, but already going after the other terrorists.)
Par ailleurs, le journaliste Ahmed Abu Deraa est lui aussi détenu.

Several hundreds protest Haitham Mohamedein’s detention
▻http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/81015.aspx

AP : ▻http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_307124/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=gBLM6EsS

“The military are not only targeting the Islamists. They will be after any revolutionary front, that includes the Revolutionary Socialists,” said Shalabi.

#justice #armée #socialisme #activisme #Egypte

Has the Arab Spring Arrived in Iraq?
▻http://en.qantara.de/wcsite.php?wc_c=20521&wc_id=22532

Iraq’s government is falling apart. While the president of the country is being treated for a serious illness in Germany, both the national parliament and the government back home are dysfunctional and in disarray. Birgit Svensson reports from Baghdad

For Wolfgang Benz, the stigmatisation of Jews through anti-Semitism is most certainly comparable with the exclusion of Muslims as a manifestation of hostility towards and hatred of Islam. In his new book, the historian takes stock and highlights new dangers for western societies in their behaviour towards minorities. By Claudia Mende
.
Opinion polls repeatedly draw the conclusion that up to 20 percent of Germans hold latently anti-Semitic views. There is evidence of anti-Jewish sentiment in everyday life, as well as attacks on Jews, synagogues and Jewish cemeteries. From 1990 to 2011, Wolfgang Benz had had a huge influence on the work of the Berlin Centre for Research on Anti-Semitism and the processing of Germany’s Nazi past. He received the emeritus status in 2010. He is among those German historians whose work also reaches a broader public beyond the confines of his special focus area.

His most recent book, “Antisemitismus und ’Islamkritik’” (Anti-Semitism and Criticism of Islam), is the result of over 30 years work on this issue. The book captivates with its precise, careful language and the occasional flash of refined irony. Despite the cumbersome nature of its subject matter, it is highly readable.

Benz examines the facets of anti-Semitic prejudice, charts its historic development with the help of documentary evidence, and finds parallels with and differences to prejudices against other minorities. He describes the failed attempts of liberal circles to effectively combat anti-Semitism in the 19th century and the Weimar Republic. He outlines the debates in research into anti-Semitism and genocide.

►http://en.qantara.de/wcsite.php?wc_c=18496&wc_id=19254

Treacherous Sympathy with Muslim Women | Leila Ahmed (Qantara.de)
►http://en.qantara.de/wcsite.php?wc_c=16963&wc_id=17398

Ever since the attacks of 9/11, feminists in the West have increasingly used the theme of the oppression of women in Islam as justification for war and domination. This strategy of using this rhetoric of “saving the women” in the name of “civilization” is an old ploy used many times in the past by Western imperialists, writes Leila Ahmed