Just another year?

1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything

Documentary - 8 episodes

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14544732/

1971 could have been merely a non-discrete year, but the creators of this docu-series believed it marked a watershed moment. They considered it the year when the carefree values of the 1960s began to shift. It represented the onset of revolutions. The generation born in the post-war years, once content, has aged, and their offspring now find themselves in a world rife with turmoil and uncertainty. 

In the late 1960s, America witnessed its sons returning in body bags from defending a country that did not wish to be defended. The Americans saw no reason to uphold the free world against a perceived communist threat. 

The hippie movement created a new cocoon for disillusioned youths to escape into weed, and rock and roll. In relation to that, the cult killing by the Manson family took centre stage. 

The hierarchical and patriarchal order of society was shifting. The introduction of oral contraceptive pills provided women, for the first time in their lives, an opportunity to control their fertility and potentially their sexuality as well. This was particularly significant, as they gained more self-confidence after emerging en masse to support the economy when men went off to fight in World War II. 

1971 must have seemed meaningless. With the Beatles breaking up, Lennon and Yoko engaging in their eccentric activities, and the great musicians Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, and Jimi Hendrix having passed away, the youth must have felt that music was dead. A new wave of performers emerged, bringing fresh messages and revolutionary ideas. 

Marvin Gaye belted out protest songs with 'What's Going On?'. Aretha Franklin joined the movement of Black Consciousness, and Tina Turner became an icon of female empowerment following her publicised abusive relationship with Ike. The Rolling Stones attempted to fill the gap left by the Beatles, but were often busy rolling dope in the South of France. David Bowie was making his mark on the scene with his androgynous appearance, dressed in a full gown. 

The Black Power movement was in full swing. Angela Davis, a UCLA professor and an unapologetic, card-carrying member of the US Communist Party, was in the spotlight. The gun she had acquired was used in the courtroom killing of a judge. Numerous musicians rallied behind her. James Brown's soul music empowered Black men and women. 

1971 was also when the world realised that our minds can be fickle and suggestible. The Stanford Experiment taught us an invaluable lesson that remains relevant today—anonymity caused people to behave in a despicable manner. The Charles Manson trials revealed how impressionable, naive young minds can be manipulated into committing outrageous acts. The US Army massacre at My Lai in Vietnam demonstrated that the Americans were no different from the Germans in Auschwitz and the Japanese in Nanking.

It was a time of political awareness, social change, and musical experimentation. It was also the birthplace of many fantastic singer-songwriters, such as Carole King and Joni Mitchell. Music was explored using electronic devices, such as synthesisers, as exemplified by the band The Who.

1971 witnessed the UK's longest obscenity trial, which involved a 1960s counterculture publication, Oz. In one of its editions, schoolchildren were invited to edit the Schoolkids' Issue, which included pasting a cartoon mascot from the Daily Express into a sex strip illustration. The editors received jail sentences. John Lennon and Yoko Ono, who were themselves embroiled in controversy over nude album covers, came to their defence by organising protest marches and dedicating a song to this cause.

Logically, not everything changes in a year. Many of the things mentioned evolve over time.

 

1971 could be merely a random year. Every year contributes slightly to the transformation of our life on Earth. 1971 might serve as just a talking point, much like the story of how the Hardy-Ramanujan number came about. When visiting mathematician Ramanujan in the hospital, Professor Hardy, unsure of how to break the ice, mentioned that he took a taxi with the number 1729, which he considered dull. Ramanujan responded by stating that the number was interesting because it is the smallest number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways. [1729 can be expressed as 1³ + 12³ = 10³ + 9³]

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

A full circle

Capital in the Twenty-First Century (Documentary; 2019) 

 Based on the book written by Thomas Piketty.

We started in the pre-Industrial Revolution with a significant disparity between the haves and have nots. Under the feudal system, there were the extremely wealthy landowners and the dirt poor peasants. The inequality between the two was phenomenal. The poor simply cannot work their way to become rich. It is humanly impossible. One has to be born with a silver spoon to own capital. Alternatively, one has to be married into one, like in the many fairytales and novels of the yesteryears. 1% of the world population owned 70% of the world's wealth.

The divide between the affluent and the impoverished became more apparent. This triggered the exodus of people from Europe to newer lands like Australia and the USA and took them over. The emigrants replicated their master's strategy of wealth acquisition. They used slaves, a form of movable property, as collateral and capital to generate more land and wealth.

When machines rolled in during the Industrial Revolution, people were just replaced, creating the same kind of impoverished people as they had before. Businesses flourished. Mass production of goods by machines needed a market. Fashion designing, haute culture, gift-giving, splurging during festivities was popularised. Businessmen accumulate wealth.

Nationalism reeked in as inequality reared its ugly head. People forgot about their poverty and stood steadfast behind the banner of nationhood. Industries fanned this by churning out weapons and starting military competition amongst nations to start wars. Now the elites are also the one who controls the narrative at the international level. Again, the same schism morphed between the rich and the poor, the 1% owning 70% of the wealth.

The world wars that came about were actually equalisers that jolted the inequality. Capitalism was held accountable for the catastrophe. It seems that on the cusp of death, humanity appeared more critical. Everyone is equal in fear of death. In rolled in heavy State involvement in nation-building. Cradle-to-tomb benefits were handed out to societies. The working class and women demand their place in society. For the first time in human history, an individual could climb up the social ladder through education and hard work.

Anti-capitalist protesters - St Paul's Cathedral, London, 2011. 
Photograph: Oli Scarff/Getty Images Europe

Actually, during the wars, capital was only marginally lost. Some were used to finance the war, whilst some were retrieved later. With the euphoria of peace and the push to spur economies, many manoeuvres were put into place to help big corporations be in the role of what the aristocrats used to fill.
Resentment grew again. Wage did not expand in proportion to the increased cost of living. The increase in union strikes and demand for entitlement did not help either. Labour was no longer an asset but the expense of doing business. The welfare state was just too costly.

We are now in a world where greed is good. The poor are handout loans for which they are not creditworthy. The lust for luxurious, opulent and decadent lifestyles lure the ill-prepared to dream of the impossible to plunge them into more misery than mired in. On the other hand, the wealthy has the four corners of the world to hide their treasures. Using creative accounting and the intelligent use of international off-shore banking, 85% of the world's wealth is just floating around without generating any benefit to the needy.
On the other hand, it generates more income for them. Tax evasion manoeuvres are helped via cash-strapped tax havens in banana republics. The problem with these havens is that their local populace does not benefit from these transactions. They remain poor. They do not have to fear economic downturns as history has shown that bail-outs can be arranged.

Relationship between per capita national income
 and the degree of inequality in income distribution

Capitalism started out unequal, flattened inequality 

for much of the 20th century, but is now headed back

towards Dickensian levels of inequality worldwide.

Only 15% of the world wealth is spent to create a beneficial trickle-down effect to the not-so-wealthy 99%. The 'baby boomers' had it good. With the post-war prosperity and ability to acquire wealth, they can enjoy the fruit of their labour in their twilight years if they had done so. Meanwhile, the Millenials has it bad. With the rung of the social ladder getting wider and having had to finance their own education, they may spend their whole life in debt. They may not afford to own a roof over their head like their predecessors. The gig economy that they find satisfying puts them in a precarious position. They are not provided with a safety net against accidents, sickness and opportunity for holidays.
The author suggests that there should be a comprehensive tax revision. The ultra-rich needed to be taxed progressively the more they earn. Invasion of taxes by clandestine methods needs to be looked into. As inherited wealth will dominate wealth made form a lifetime's labour by an exorbitant margin, he propose an inheritance tax. His argument is that one cannot start the game of life with different terms, the have and have nots. His analogy is a game of monopoly of two players where one player starts the game with more money and has the chance to play with two dices. He will pass 'Go' more times and buy more properties and earlier in the game, hence collecting more rent. Well, one can say this is a Marxist or leftist view of the distribution of wealth.

A friend once told me this. Even if all the world's wealth is equally divided among the world's inhabitants right to the last penny, creating an ideal egalitarian society, we just have to give ten years. After ten years, wealth distribution and inequality will revert to their previous pattern. Some people are just good with money. Others have different priorities. One glaring thing that is not taken into all these systems is the human innard qualities. As quoted by Gandhi, the Earth has everything to fill our needs, but not our greed.

History has shown that everything in life happens cyclically. Man will create an economic model. It will be a good, best thing since forever. Then slowly, one by one, its shortcomings will surface. Then more. Suddenly it will be the worst thing Man ever thought of. Then more calls for reform, a revolution maybe. A new system will be proposed - the best thing since sliced bread. And the cycle will continue.

Whatever said and done, the idea of utopia on Earth is a piped dream. The dream of eternal fairness and equality is as real as seeing a pink unicorn. Even the Universe is not kind to its dwellers. They have to endure thunders, typhoons, volcanic eruptions and asteroid collisions and their devastating effects. The presence of a large middle class is essential to form a buffer between the haves and have nots, to narrow the division in wealth inequality. Transformation and modification will happen, but we will keep on looking for the ideal elusive economic model.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

A false flag disease?

Inventing the AIDS Virus (1996)
Authors: Peter H Duesberg and Bryan J Ellison

With all the controversies surrounding Coronavirus, whether it is a man-made virus or a naturally occurring one, the debate is just proving to be so convoluted. On one side, the Americans are accusing the Chinese of sending a bio-weapon out to the world to screw up everybody's economy. On the other end, the Chinese are alleging the USA sent the genetically altered virus to China, but the virus has come back to bite them. The situation becomes murky as the rest of the world are taking the Chinese government to court as they concur that Chinese underplayed the seriousness of the disease when it hit them.

Throwing a spanner in the work of discovering the origin of the virus is the suggestion that the novel Coronavirus, COVID-19, could be a retrovirus, just the most famous retrovirus of all - HIV. For recollection, a retrovirus is a type of RNA virus that inserts a copy of its genome into the DNA of a host cell that it invades, thus changing the genome of that cell.

This fact brought about the discussion about HIV-AIDS and how this disease is denied by a significant group of activists. They vehemently deny the virus named HIV as the causative agent of a collection of manifestations, or syndrome called AIDS.

The story of microbes causing ailments came about in the 1890s after Robert Koch, the German physician and bacteriologist, laid down his postulates as the groundwork to prove a particular agent in the genesis of disease. The microbes must be identified in the sick, it must be isolated and grown outside the body and induce sickness when introduced to a healthy subject.

The world was excited that they could give an explanation to many of the maladies around them. Unfortunately, in the earlier part of the 19th century, scientists without much scientific basis, lumped many sicknesses to have a microbial origin. It was thought that pellagra, scurvy and beriberi was caused by germs. This was before vitamins were identified.

The scientific community was all relieved when Jonas Salk discovered the polio vaccine. The idea of viruses causing all unknown illness became vogue. With the splurge of finances in the USA after benefitting most from the post WW2 era, many research facilities and funds were made available for virus research. A link between cancer and any other explainable sickness was attempted. Virologists became the new superstars and viruses their nemesis.

In the 1960s, a polio-like paralytic condition named SMON (Subacute Myelo-Optic Neuropathy) was a big menace. It even threatened to cancel the Tokyo Olympics. Scientists went from gut bacteria to mycoplasma to viruses as the causative agent. When they could not pin down their suspect, they started creating new entities like slow-viruses. Finally, it came to light that it was probably related to the consumption of Clioquinol, an anti-amoebal, anti-shigella medication. Hence, toxins were the cause here.

The world, through its many agencies, like the National Health Institute (NIH) and the Centre for Disease Control (CDC), took the virus approach in investigating many afflictions. The 1976 unexplained pneumonia was attributed to a common pathogen named Legionella when it was discovered during a legionnaires' conference. Kuru, a debilitating brain infection, was blamed on a slow-virus which in most cases remain undiscovered. The same story, according to the author, is present in SSPE, multiple sclerosis, hepatitis C, Epstein-Barr virus in Burkitt's lymphoma and even when Coxsackie-B virus was implicated in Type I diabetes. Also though many in the scientific community accepted these findings, the question of reproducibility often arose.

The story of retroviruses started way back when it was suggested in 1975.

Most microbiologist view at Koch's postulate as the holy grail in pinpointing a particular organism in infections. In the case of viruses, it had to be modified as culturing microorganisms was not easy.

When a mysterious collection of symptoms started among a particular segment of a population in the early 1980s - homosexuals, haemophiliacs, heroin users and Haitians, the CDC sprung into action. Pioneers in the filed on HIV include Luc Montagnier of Paris, and Robert Gallo of Cancer Institute in Bethesda are said to have discovered the offending virus. Montagnier published the identity of the virus which turned out to be identical (to the genomic sequence) of Gallo's. A court case ensued which was settled amicably out of court through Jonas Salk who had similar issues with Albert Sabin over polio vaccine. There were rumours of Gallo stealing Montagnier's work!

From the word go, some sceptics were wary of the convenient association of HIV (initially named HTLV) to the collection of symptoms called AIDS. Doubters questioned whether HIV was just a passenger particle. The diagnosis of HIV is made by testing for antibodies which shows that the immune system is intact, but the very disease weakened the immune system. Are we just testing the innocent bystander here?

The possibility of overlooking exposure to toxins was put forward. The failure to identify the virus in organs affected by AIDS was apparent. Even though Kaposi's Sarcoma was unheard before this epidemic has become the sine qua non of AIDS. Unfortunately, there also were HIV-negative patients with Kaposi's Sarcoma. The other manifestations are Pneumocystis Carinii and HIV dementia.

Homosexuals subjects in their epidemiological studies show that their abuse of intoxicants like amyl nitrite as aphrodisiacs and muscle relaxant as well as IV heroin usage. These habits were suggested for their pulmonary affliction, rather than a viral aetiology.

Haemophiliacs who started receiving purified Factor VIII had a lower transmission rate of HIV positivity. The possibility of other viruses like CMV was put forward.

People like the author and those who are labelled 'HIV deniers' (like the Holocaust deniers) are not saying that it is a fictitious disease. It is just that the world could be barking up the wrong tree. These controversies never stopped the unwavering political support for the virus hypothesis.

The spread of any viral infection usually follows a particular pattern, a bell-shaped distribution curve, as described by William Farr in 1840 (for smallpox). In the case of HIV-AIDS, this type of peak never materialised. The threat of epidemic which was predicated in the mid-80s never emerged; the numbers never reached pandemic proportions. Is it because of the preventive measures like condom usage and needle exchange programmes or the use of Zidovudine (AZT) in HIV + patients with deteriorating symptoms?

Coming to AZT, it is said to the classic case of where the treatment is more damaging the disease. AZT, a failed cancer drug, was promoted to be the mainstay of treatment. It is thought that since retroviruses cause sarcomas in chickens, there must be a basis for viruses in human cancers. This is where the role of big pharmaceutical giants like Burroughs-Wellcome come in. Many accused of the drug being fast-tracked to clinical use without proper double-blind studies and deceitful trials. The name of Anthony Fauci, who is the headlines of late, as the director of NIH who is fighting the COVID-19, appears as a facilitator. The role of the media (print and cable news networks) and its practical usage by the powers that be cannot be overstated in creating public anxiety as well as securing public approval cannot be underestimated.

The book quotes many instances where asymptomatic HIV+ individuals becoming gravely ill after commencing AZT. It helps to tip an HIV+ person into becoming a full-blown AIDs patient with its immunosuppression. Hence, is there a place for usage of AZT as prophylaxis?

HIV and AIDS have become a big business that generates income from the third world. Many corrupt governments also benefit from aids that are channelled to their countries to combat AIDS.

40 years into HIV and we are struggling to keep this condition under wraps. Perhaps the people who are entrusted to protect our affair are lured away by other personal interests. Media is a convenient tool towards this end. We should be careful that COVID-19 may follow the same path. One day it is a man-made virus, then the next day, scientists swear that it cannot be man-made but a freak of Nature. Later yet another day, like a science-fiction script, the virus mutates within a single season. It is mind-boggling. There is a push for the creation of a vaccine by the drug companies and philanthropic organisation who tend to benefit most from such an exercise.

The forward of this book was written by the inventor of PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) and Nobel Laurette, Kary Mullis. He believes that climate change and climate change and the HIV/AIDS connection are due to a conspiracy of environmentalists, government agencies, and scientists attempting to preserve their careers and earn money, rather than scientific evidence.

This book was brought to attention via the YouTube videos of Dr Shiva Ayyadorai, who is on a crusade to expose the malicious intents of Big Pharma.

Kary Mullis interviewed.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Bleak future ahead?

Bleak Future Ahead?

The Financial Curse (2018, Nicholas Shaxson)
How and Why Global Finance Makes Us All Poorer

Being rich is a curse. When an impoverished third world nation gets a potential windfall, its leaders will become greedy and would want to usurp all the richness fo themselves, their family members and cronies. When a prosperous nation (read former Imperial power) has access to wealth, nothing is ever enough. After living in comfort with a particular lifestyle for all these while, the national coffers are forever in the want. In both cases, the average citizen is at the receiving end. He is the one who has to tighten his belt to meet the demands of the rich and those in power.

The world is ruled by bankers. Ever since banks started functioning and people developed the insatiable appetite for money and megalomaniac industries, these cherubs with horns have been in action. Through slews of business manoeuvres, the creation of shell companies, accounts in tax havens, the evil empire of bankers, auditors, accountants, and politicians have created a smokescreen to hoodwink the general public. Many ventures are proposed to the leaders of nations, both small and big, to invest monies. With legitimate approval of the people, using rhetorics which naturally hide many detrimental clauses, the self-serving leaders dupe their citizens to sign off the national wealth to finance megaprojects. These projects, failing to live up to its expectations, had to be bailed out. Where does the money come from? From the already impoverished people of the state, of course.

The philosophy behind the banking seems to be, "give the people a longer rope, easier for them to hang themselves", meaning lure than more than they can pay. "Heads we win, tails they lose" is another one of their mantras. 

It is a paradox. Amidst the sea of plenty, poverty is widespread. Smart people who are very capable of bringing ground shattering breakthroughs to the society are by lured by the glitz of the financial market. Science and technology which had brought many positive changes to mankind take a backseat whilst they use their intelligence to re-package debts into yet another money-making scheme that is bound to fail. Of course, this would happen after enriching the wealthy and eventually, the taxpayers would end up paying up for the debacle.  The wealthy, however, would have their cash stashed nicely in the numerous countries whose existence is to be a tax-haven to crooks. 

It is an open secret that these shelters are aplenty - the list goes on and on; Bahamas, Panama, Luxemburg, Cayman Islands, St. Kitts, Lichstentein, Jersey and many more. 

The City of London is controlled by a group of businessman, bankers and accountants who primarily run the city like an independent state. They elect their own mayor, Lord Mayor of the City of London. This is an apolitical appointed post. The Lord Mayor represents the city at the Parliament. This post is not to be confused with the Mayor of London. Interestingly, the people who elected the Lord Mayor's position include businesses from Communist China who heavily parked their spare cash to splash into capitalistic ventures elsewhere. Through the City of London, Britain is building its Second British Empire.

We are living in a material world, that more one where everyone lives and spends money that they do not own. And the bank loan money that they do not have; print money that has no value. The financiers of the world control the media, showbiz and telecommunication. They dictate what truth is and what is fake news. People buy their stories and get fascinated with mundane things like what the Kardashians are up to!

Economics as we know it has evolved over the years. We are still trying to understand how it works. It seems that every model introduced by man fails because it cannot satisfy the greed of man. From one where the economy is controlled by the 'invisible hand' - the market to laissez-faire one to one with government supervision, now we have countries competing with multinational companies to thump their invisible fists.

Expansion of businesses made giant mergers inevitable. Unfortunately, it is also accompanied by undercutting rivals through monopoly. It is alright if mergers mean more employment and return of investment through taxes back to the society. Unfortunately, profits find their way to off-shore accounts. Smaller retailers go bust. It is affluence on the outside by poverty of majority.

The state of the economy is pathetic at best. Outsourcing was supposed to cut costs, but it does not. The only beneficiaries seem to be lawyers, bankers and consultants who still get their fat cheque no matter what. Instances of megacompanies going bust with preceding years of a clean bill of financial health endorsed by the infamous big accountancy firms are aplenty.

All these things are nothing new to the average Malaysian. Recent events before the 14th Malaysian General Elections peeled open our eyes of ignorance on the scandalous nature of the union of politicians and businessmen. It is akin to asking Big Bad Wolf to take care of the sheep and Little Red Riding Hood.


https://asok22.wixsite.com/real-lesson 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/riflerangeboy/!

Towards Communism? One World Order?

Credit: biography.com

Louis XVI’s policy of not raising taxes and taking
out international loans, including to fund the 
American Revolution, increased France’s debt, 
setting in motion the French Revolution. By the 
mid-1780s the country was near bankruptcy, 
which forced the king to support radical fiscal

reforms not favourable with the nobles or 
the people. [Smells like 1MDB]

As in many of our meaningless banters, this one too had no simplistic answers.

One of my friends proudly announced how he managed to identify a nagging problem on his car dashboard that none of the mechanics in town could correctly identify. An indicator kept on flashing implying that there could be a minor issue with the mixture of fuel and oxygen. With the help of his ever-inquisitive mind and resourcefulness, he got it fixed. With his self-taught knowledge of automobiles and the aid of Youtube, he diagnosed the fault. To source the sensor that needed to change, there was the net to search and Lazada to ensure that the merchandise arrived at your doorstep in no time. 

Only because he did not possess the tools to fix the part, he had to get the assistance of a local mechanic. That too, an apprentice came to his rescue. And voila, problem solved.

The friend was naturally jubilant on his achievement and of course had all rights to brag. 

Just to play devil advocate, I told him that he had just become an accomplice to the great evil capitalist empire whose intention is to gobble up the small time little men's livelihood. Like in the film 'You've got m@il', since the 90s, these big concerns have been trying, successfully, usurping SMEs. The biggest losers seem to be the common man. With the advent of DIY and ease of transborder mail order, their roles (the average man) seem superfluous. Try searching for anything online. There is a conspiracy to highlight specific predetermined options. Big tech companies own so many companies these days that almost every search engine and the companies that sell many products belong to these conglomerates. Payment portals and logistics companies too only profit the already super-rich multinational companies. At the end of the day, the small shops around town can just wind down. 

Just like the vegetable sellers in wet markets who have lost out to hypermarkets in selling greens, every entrepreneur in town will eventually just become salaryman to these MNCs. The already cash-strapped mammoth cartels whose assets already supercede that of a third world country will rule the world. That will lead to a New World Order where the divide between the haves and have-nots will be so vast, reminiscing of a time not so long in the distant past; when the peasants were wailing in hunger while the nobility could not understand why they could not be content with the leftover cakes! By then we would have made a full 360° turn and back to where we started. The French and Russian Revolutions that attempted to correct the disparity between the 1% rich and 99% poor would have been proved futile. 

 https://asok22.wixsite.com/real-lesson 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Parallels we have seen before!

The symbolic crossing of the 38th parallel

The leaders of the Koreas cajoling each other

to cross the coveted line. ©FG

The world is pleased with the symbolic crossing of two brothers, brothers-in-arms, who, for the good 60 over years were hawkishly looking after each other with scorn over the 38th parallel. The arbitrary line set up in a wishy-washy way in 1955 after a feud which was heading nowhere. Instigated by cheering and doomsday prophets from the world over, the siblings spotted tangential growths of gargantuan proportions, so we are made to believe.

Bear in mind, the world should not be too complacent that everything would be hunky dory from now on. Remember, the euphoria after the fall of Berlin Wall did not last enough for the world to forget the dark years of the Cold War.

Lest not we forget the generally great vibes that Neville Chamberlain got after his meeting with the soon to Führer of the Reich. And the faux pas that followed as Germany invaded Poland before the ink dried above the dotted lines.

After the Second World War, in their infant post-liberation, two metamorphosed giants of Asia, India with its struggling democracy and China with its bumbling communist dictatorship decided to prosper together in a collaboration which came to be mocked as "Hindi Chini Bhai Bhai" (India and China are brothers). Unfortunately, both nations had different notions of prosperity; India via mutual cooperation and industrialisation whilst the Middle Kingdom thought that their revolution was the answer to the world's problems.

But see what happened? Lowering their shields, Bharat soon realised that their newfound kinsmen had run over to take over part of their territory. The tension of this 1962 event lingers to date.

North Korea had always been by the world as an appendage of Red China. Is the visit to the Southern counterpart just a front for them to tone down the defence to aid the nefarious activities of their Big Brother?

Is it the lull before the storm? The settling of a storm in a teacup? Should we be worried? Well, history tells us to be.

 https://asok22.wixsite.com/real-lesson 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

A taboo subject...

The Jew is not my Enemy

(Unveiling the Myths that Fuel Muslim Anti-Semitism)

Tarek Fatah (2010)

Warning: Only for Mature Readers

It is often said it is good to forgive and forget. People also say that to err is human and to excuse is divine. We have seen nations fight in one generation, only to be allies in the next. But somehow, the Muslim-Jewish animosity seems to have last centuries.

The earliest record of Jewish betrayal happened during the Battle of Badr (Trench War) when Meccan pagans ambushed Prophet Mohamed's army in Medina. A group of Jews who were chased from Medina for breaking certain treaties joined forces with the Meccans. As the going was tough, and the mighty Meccan army could not infiltrate the Medinians, the renegade Jews tried to coax the Medinaian Jews to double cross. Here, the story turns cloudy. After the win, Mohamed is supposed to have personally killed about 900 Jews to be buried in trenches. The authenticity of such an event has been argued for ages now. On the one hand, opposers to this narration claim such an event is not even mentioned in the Quran. It is also not in keeping with His previous teachings of not punishing others for the crime of someone else and the Islamic law on the treatment of women and children.

There was also a time when Jews and Muslims had apparently lived in harmony, in Andalusia, for example. Under Islamic rule, many Jewish thinkers including Maimonides prospered.

The problem of justification of Jew bashing had started with the writing of Ibn Ishaq, in the 14th century, of the biography of Prophet Mohamad. In his writings, he described the killing of Jews by the Prophet. Somehow, this made its way to the Hadiths and newer prints of the Holy Book. Extremists groups, with leaders like Banna, Qutb and Maududi, were more than happy to continue the Prophet's unfinished work.

In the modern era, every malady faced by humankind is often pinpointed at the Jews and their secret agenda. Let there an earthquake, a flu epidemic, the communist insurgency, tsunami or even Sunni-Shia divide; the Jews are almost always blamed. What started as a secret meeting in 1895 to decide the fate of the displaced Jews culminate to Balfour declaration and eventually the creation of the state of Israel. This formation invoked the ire of the jihadists for losing part of their land, as the second most sacred mosque where the Prophet is said to have ascended to heaven is situated. What the jihadists fail to realise is that the Ottoman Empire and the Grand Mufti were supporting the losing side of the World Wars, Germany and Hitler respectively.

Paradoxically, the Quran does not condemn the non-believers. If at all, it is the Hadith that does. In one verse, it is said that Judgement Day would only come after the last Jew is slain!

The author goes on to condemn the Muslims themselves for fighting amongst themselves and practising race politics where Arabs perch on the highest branch. Many Muslims societies, long ago, used to live in harmony with other communities. Now, with the new brand of militant Islam practised by believers gives the impression the religion is a hostile one. Many non-Islamic countries who obtained Independence around their Islamic counterparts have reached great heights in term of economic, scientific, social and living standards. Sadly, the Muslim countries still struggle to get their act together. They dream of turning back the clock to Golden Era of Islamic Civilisation.

In the concluding chapter, Fatah takes a swipe at Holocaust deniers. He reiterates that many Muslim fighters too died fighting against the cruel Nazi regime. This includes the Turkestan Army, the many Muslim soldiers buried in Majdanek, Poland, just outskirts of Auschwitz, the Muslim soldiers of the British Empire and Princess Nor Inayat Khan @ Nora Baker who was a British secret agent who died in a concentration camp. Interestingly, the Princess is the great-granddaughter of Tipu Sultan of India who fought to defend his land against the British. She gave her life protecting for the course of the British, fighting tyranny.

Author with Holocaust survivor Max Eisen
Auschwitz, March 2010